Evolutionary Psychology Debate

CopperFox3c · 2017-01-20T16:13:53+00:00

The notion that evolution has affected every part of the human body and physiological functioning, except for our brain, is pretty silly.

It is also one of the most un-scientific positions of Progressives on the "Left", gender studies folks, and blue pillers alike. Discussing how human behavior and the brain has been shaped by evolution with those folks often feels like talking with creationists about evolution. It just goes to show you: everyone is all for science, until it interferes with their narrative ...

cxj · 2017-01-20T16:45:07+00:00

[deleted]

Archwinger · 2017-01-20T18:46:52+00:00

Evolutionary psychology isn't science because psychology isn't science.

Science is a thing where you can propose a hypothesis, test it under controlled experimental settings where you modify only a single variable, multiple times, then record results that either prove or disprove your hypothesis.

Unless we're going to lock thousands of infants in a dome and start running tests on them in isolated environments for the next few decades, shit like this can't be science.

So you get a bunch of people looking back through time at data -- kind of like archaeology, just for social trends and statistics -- and trying to extrapolate bullshit from that. And everyone knows that if you have a hypothesis and start looking at a pool of data, you'll be able to support that hypothesis if you really want to. But like archaeology, digging around through historical data has drawbacks. You don't know every variable that existed long ago, and as you discover new variables, old things you dug through and things you thought about what you dug up don't apply any more.

Which is why good old fashioned observation is better than trying to ground your thoughts in non-science. I've noticed X. Everybody I compare notes with has noticed X. When I do X, Y happens most of the time, so I'm going to start doing X more often. The end. The story should stop there. A bunch of armchair internet intellectuals trying to tell me why X leads to Y most of the time because of some non-science is just silly.

sublimemongrel · 2017-01-20T16:55:23+00:00

I think evo psych is fascinating, but like most social sciences, is best to not take as absolute hardcore proof of much. It is interesting to view things through an evolutionary lens but not get too caught up in believing we have no choice and everything we do is biologically ingrained.

OGHuggles · 2017-01-20T16:14:34+00:00

Personally, I think most of it is pseudoscience due to irreplicable nature of the study.

Have you at least read some proper evolutionary psychology or are you just dismissing it because you don't like it?

But even if it were true, why should what is natural be considered "right?"

Evolutionary Psychology and more generally science never says that.

I mean, you could argue it's human nature to separate into tribal groups and relentlessly wage war against outsiders whose views and lifestyle conflict with your own...but is it right?

"Is it right?" is not a question for evolutionary psychology to answer.

This is all part of a misunderstanding about a basic philosophical problem. What world are we talking about?

There's a "subjective view" of the world, where people's feelings are primary realities, they obviously have free will and everything is interpreted morally. Everything has normative character. It is about how you feel and how you act and about what is right.

And there's also an "objective view" of the world. This is the position most of science works from. One is concerned with causal relations. "Why is it that X?" is the general question. People do things because of other things and one can explain this in various theories. Here, it's very hard to argue for free will. And evolutionary principles account for a lot of human behaviour directly. But this doesn't say anything about what's right. That's not the job of science.

Which of those views is the "primary" one is of course an interesting discussion. But at least everyone should be aware of the divide. A lot of people always argue from one of those viewpoints and never even considered that the other one exists. (I would also argue that personality is a major factor in which of those views you take by default, but that's for another topic.)

Evolutionary psychology is a tool to understand human behaviour, nothing more, nothing less.

alreadyredschool · 2017-01-20T16:45:55+00:00

Right? It's not about what's right it's about nature affecting our behavior.

figthief · 2017-01-20T17:41:22+00:00

I think there is merit in evolutionary psychology as a study, even when it is not testable like a true science.

I just think that the RP interpretation seems to be, as a previous poster put it "fit facts to their perspective, instead of fitting their perspective to the facts."

TheGreasyPole · 2017-01-20T21:51:35+00:00

Personally, I think most of it is pseudoscience due to irreplicable nature of the study.

Only in the same way you'd have to consider paleontology "pseudoscience" because they haven't got any living dinosaurs to "replicate" their theories with.

Studying events in the past pose particular problems, but that doesn't make them pseudoscience.

The effects are there, they can be measured. The attribution of them to evolutionary forces is necessarily talking of long past events... But it's the effects today that are important in any case.

But even if it were true, why should what is natural be considered "right?"

It isn't thats the blue pill/left fantasy... That natural is right.

You wouldn't get any real evo-psych scientist saying that. It's perfectly "natural" for 1/3rd of humans to die before age 5. It's perfectly "natural" that even minor cuts and scratches can cause life ending infections.

Whether humans consider it right to let that happen when we have modern medicine and antibiotics is another question, one evo-psych can't answer.

Just pointing out how we think, and the way that this came about is not a statement that this is right. Just that it is.

It seems that everyone who claims something is human nature does so to justify that action, which seems a bit ridiculous.

Again I think this is a chimera of the left (fair disclosure, I am left wing myself). Thats not what RP uses it for. They use it because it's effective.

If you know that, say, for good evolutionary psychology reasons human females are attracted to, say, muscled men ... it doesn't matter if you think thats right or not.... Building up muscles is effective if your goal is to be more attractive to human females.

It's not necessarily right, it's just what is... So, if you want to be effective, learn what is and put aside for a moment your thoughts of moral right or wrong.

Once you've worked out what's correct... You can apply your morals to the truth how you please... But work out whats true FIRST.

I mean, you could argue it's human nature to separate into tribal groups and relentlessly wage war against outsiders whose views and lifestyle conflict with your own...but is it right?

Yes it's natural.

Whether it's right depends on your moral code. I'd say it's wrong to "relentlessly wage war on outsiders" morally, under my moral code. I think you'd agree. I think enough westerners agree that we generally ban that in our societies with laws.

But I'm sure Genghis Khan, under his moral code, would utterly disagree.

And if enough of our societies members were like Ghengis, it'd be morally correct, and they'd be laws against preventing war.

Morals are only what humans make them in the aggregate. When human minds change, morals change.

What are your perspectives towards evolutionary psychology and what would they be even if evolutionary psychology had merit?

I think it does have merit as a good explanation of the behaviour of humans. In particular, it is very good at explaining the unconscious brain activities and instincts that ultimately guide a huge chunk of our behaviour.

I think that wheras it's useful in this way across the whole range of human behaviour, I also think it is particularly pertinent to human sexual activity... Because in this arena the evolutionary forces are highest... And human instincts consequently extremely frequently override the conscious brain.

Maybe if you're operting on instinct 70% of the time, and on conscious thoughts 30% of the time in most noraml behaviours.... When sexual attraction is involved that quickly becomes more like 95%-5%.

So, I think you're wrong to say it doesn't have merit.

I'd be interested to know your alternative explanation.

We are evolved beings. Our brains evolved. Of course, as evolved organs, they were shaped entirely by that evolutionary process. Just as your hands and feet were. There is no other process that has gone into the building of human brains other than evolutionary processes. We have had no conscious control over their development, nor have we modified them genetically or mechanically yet.

Are you a creationist who doesn't believe that was the case ?

Or do you somehow believe that this hapenned... But the way that brain operates (it's psychology) was NOT molded by those evolutionary forces that built it root and branch? It would seem to me that an organ built entirely by evolution, would be built in the way that the evolutionary process formed it. It would have an evolved, an evolutionary, psychology.

As far as I can see the operations of your brain are as clearly evolutionary as the operations of your nose and your arms and your feet.

Thats, pretty much, the starting position of evolutionary psychology.

Yet everyone always seems to think the human brain is sui generis... As though god reached down and ping a new thing was created from nothing.

I don't agree with Atlas on a lot of things, but here she is right.... the habit of denying the brains evolutionary origins, and evolutionary operation, is a carryover on the left from old christianity. It's the human soul of the secularist left.

The blank slate is just a secular version of god creating adam from dust.

The sooner the left moves away from this, the better for us. Find out whats true first, and use that to do whats right.

Knowing thats its natural for 1/3rd of us to die before age 5 is an important truth to know... You shouldn't prevent yourself knowing that just becuase you make a logical mistake of thinking this must be right as it's natural, and that being immoral.

Your moral choices are your own.

Knowing it's natural for us to die from infectious diseases is as much an argument FOR using antibiotics as it is against it.

Knowing it's natural for humans to war is as much an argument FOR mechanisms of peaceful resolution as it is for war.

You have to know what is... then work out what is right.

Evo-Psych is just telling you what is.

No need to reject it becuase you don't think what is is right... Evo-Psych never said it was.

drok007 · 2017-01-20T16:20:43+00:00

Personally, I think most of it is pseudoscience due to irreplicable nature of the study.

Same way I feel about most psychology and social sciences. None of this is science, even what BP believes, it's just more ideology.

But even if it were true, why should what is natural be considered "right?" It seems that everyone who claims something is human nature does so to justify that action, which seems a bit ridiculous. I mean, you could argue it's human nature to separate into tribal groups and relentlessly wage war against outsiders whose views and lifestyle conflict with your own...but is it right?

Who is to say what anything is right besides god if he exists?

quicklogaccount · 2017-01-20T17:03:42+00:00

Personally, I think most of it is pseudoscience due to irreplicable nature of the study.

Please, don't go around labeling everything that doesn't look for truth and understanding by employing "Observation, modeling and replication" as "pseudoscience". You ought to have a bad time with social scientists, psychologists, and many others.
Anyway. "Observation, modeling and replication" isn't the same as "Observation, modeling and experimentation". You can validate your models when they successfully explain observed and abundant phenomenon. Geology does this a lot, some fields of physics too.
Anyway, evolutionary psychology, unlike psychology, does this. An since it does this, it's conclusions can be used as axioms or postulates for new conclusions. IF these new conclusions are proven false (and the logic was done right), you prove that an axiom is wrong.

why should what is natural be considered "right?"

We have been discussing Ethics for THOUSANDS of years. Protagoras is the first one I recall, but I'm no expert.
This understanding of "what is natural is right" was never mainstream, and it is remarkably dangerous.

Parallel to discussing ethics, which most certainly don't stem from biology, there is the understanding of your nature and of your environment. It doesn't matter what is your opinion on its rightness or wrongness. Or from where does it stem from.

Apexk9 · 2017-01-20T16:21:55+00:00

We are tribes [countries] and we wage war all time yay

EchoZeroEleven · 2017-01-20T16:25:51+00:00

I think it's interesting to hear their perspective.

My only gripe is that people seem to pull evopsych out of thin air to justify arguments.

I'm not against it, I just need sources.

formal_death · 2017-01-20T16:59:00+00:00

There's always at least one shiny gem in a barrel of shit. But that shiny gem doesn't nullify the existence of shit.

I'll stop speaking in tongues now.

So, evo-psych has some things right, but there's a lot of speculation (which is the case with psychology in general, but it's more present in evo-psych, I'd say). Our minds have indeed evolved, but not to a great degree. They're still "acting" as though we're living amongst predators, hence why women seek safety, even if they're living in cozy cities with no reason to worry about such things. Some of our instincts could be deemed as irrational, from a modern perspective.

On a similar note, human nature should not, and in fact, cannot be suppressed. Not completely, anyway. We are animals, you see. First and foremost. Ideally, our nature should be practiced in a safe, and a healthy manner.

You must understand that in order for the society to function as "perfectly," for the lack of better word, as possible, there should be a good balance between morals, laws, social norms & human nature.

If the rules (regardless of what kind) are ridiculously strict, humans become unhappy and then chaos ensues.

On the other hand, if human nature is left unchecked completely, hell breaks loose.

I have a question for you, by the way, what aspect of human nature that's being manifested in our everyday lives do you consider "wrong?"

anitapk · 2017-01-20T17:20:25+00:00

It makes sense to want to keep resources for yourself and your people, and to want to have more than others, doesn't it to you?

Rollo-Tomassi · 2017-01-20T17:22:58+00:00

You have a very limited understanding of Evo-Psych

https://therationalmale.com/2015/06/09/in-defense-of-evo-psych/

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HigHog · 2017-01-20T16:19:28+00:00

Personally, I think most of it is pseudoscience due to irreplicable nature of the study.

Can you expand on what you mean by that? Do you mean that all studies in Evolutionary Psychology cannot be replicated due to their design, or that scientists have tried and failed to reproduce the results of prominent studies?

[deleted] · 2017-01-20T18:43:40+00:00

its not a field we know a lot about so people just find crap to justify their bias.

nomdplume · 2017-01-20T22:07:08+00:00

why should what is natural be considered "right?" It seems that everyone who claims something is human nature does so to justify that action, which seems a bit ridiculous.

It shouldn't and their justifications are weak. That's called making a naturalistic fallacy.

despisedlove2 · 2017-01-20T22:55:48+00:00

Let me give you an analogy. In most engineering systems driven by an external force, you have two things:

The natural response of the system.
The forced response of the system.

Depending on what the system is, you either design the system to operate far away from 1 (damped), or close to 1 (resonance).

However, only an idiot designer would ignore 1.

I hope that makes it clear. Men's natural tendencies (especially beta men), contrary to feminist TV tropes, lead to familial stability. Women's natural tendencies, contrary to BP fantasies, destroy relationships.

Neither is good or bad in itself. A society has to decide whether it values stability (family being the most economically sustainable unit) or freedom of its individuals to do whatever they want. The choice made determines the future of the society.

Historically, almost all declining civilizations have seen a severe contraction in the birth rates. That can occur due to disease, famine, etc. But in the present day Western civilization, it is occurring due to the moral and physical hollowing out of the family structure.

Present day feminism is thus Western societal suicide, which I as a well wishing outsider (my sole surviving personal link to the West after my divorce is my citizenship, which is becoming inconvenient as an expat), can clearly see.

ThirdEyeSqueegeed · 2017-01-20T23:05:58+00:00

The whole Darwinism evolutionary theory is a pile of shit anyway. It's clear to anyone who has done any form of research that we are less advanced than some of the ancient cultures, not more. If you look at the ancient monolithic structures and actually believe they were built by primitive people you're a deluded moron.

brewmastermonk · 2017-01-20T23:41:25+00:00

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbzAynn80SU

Dr. Jordan Peterson on the psychological trait differences between genders. This dude is awesome.

TurtlesAllTheW4yDown · 2017-01-21T02:45:22+00:00

Firstly- yeah, psychology in general is going through a bit of a crisis at the moment, and should be taken with a grain of salt.

Second yeah I agree, there is no place for notions of right and wrong in an ideal version of evolutionary psychology- that's what I like about it. It is just a description of how most people behave, and seeks to give explanations as to why we evolved to behave that way. There is no judgement.

There are broad trends in the way that humans, and men, and woman, behave. I don't think it makes sense to condone these natural actions, but we do have to acknowledge them if we are to work with/around them efficiently.

gopher_glitz · 2017-01-21T03:09:20+00:00

It may not be justification but just explanation. Like when a rival male tiger/lion etc kills all the offspring of the former rival tiger/lion etc. It's not pretty and it may not be seen as 'right' but it's done so the new male tigers genes go on without competing with the former male tiger genes.

People are animals too.

ForeskinLamp · 2017-01-21T04:02:14+00:00

But even if it were true, why should what is natural be considered "right?"

This is an is-ought fallacy. Pointing something out doesn't mean you believe it's "right" in a moral sense. Morality and veracity are two different things, and need to be treated as such in a debate. When TRP looks to evolutionary psych, it's usually as a justification for their own observations; e.g. women tend to go for guys that are wealthy, good looking, muscular, have status, etc. whereas men don't display the same behavior towards women (rich 70 year old women aren't getting laid by 20 year olds with anywhere near the frequency of rich 70 year old men). You can acknowledge that women have this drive without making a moral judgement regarding women as a whole.

[deleted] · 2017-01-21T17:11:49+00:00

Evolutionary Psychology is often used to rationalize bad female behavior.

That's dangerous. Naturally speaking, I'm not the only man who in certain attacks of horniness would be tempted to snatch a woman off the street and have our way with her.

I don't do it because I'm cognizant that such an act is morally wrong, even if that's what nature demands (that men reproduce by any means necessary). Imagine if I had some EvPsy Jew trying to encourage me to do it even if it's wrong, because that's exactly what they do when it comes to female hypergamy and infidelity.

Wolfsouls · 2017-01-21T18:10:34+00:00

I think it's important to separate the idea of what's "right" with what is useful for the survival of a species. Occasionally those two things will overlap, but not always.

ChadZackary · 2017-01-20T15:59:41+00:00

Personally, I think most of it is pseudoscience due to irreplicable nature of the study.

That's interesting. Which studies are you referring to? Which scientists? Which theories?

Title	Evolutionary Psychology Debate
Author	OGHuggles
Upvotes	16
Comments	225
Date	January 20, 2017 3:50 PM UTC (9 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/PurplePillDebate
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/PurplePillDebate/comments/5p4mjp/evolutionary_psychology_debate/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/PurplePillDebate/evolutionary-psychology-debate.270519 https://theredarchive.com/post/270519

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