As was foretold, we've added advertisements to the forums! If you have questions, or if you encounter any bugs, please visit this thread: https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/240191/forum-advertisement-faq-and-reports-thread/

Evolutionary Psychology

1457910

Posts

  • MorninglordMorninglord I'm tired of being Batman, so today I'll be Owl.Registered User regular
    edited May 2010
    Julius wrote: »
    Julius wrote: »
    While a reasonable amount of claims made are falsifiable, the field as a whole has problems with unfalsifiability.

    That is; the field as a whole has the habit of trying to explain everything as evolutionary Psychology.

    When you refer to "the field as a whole" having some habit or another, what entity are you referring to?

    I mean that evolutionary psychology is a social/soft science and that the people who are involved in it look at everything through the lens of their particular discipline.



    It is basically that the idea behind it means that everything can be explained through it. Any behaviour can theoretically be attributed to evolutionary stuff.


    (I said "the field" because I recognise that there are different viewpoints everywhere. But it's like economics: everything has to be explained through economics and the people who do that (not even having to be a majority) get picked up by the media. Look at Freakonomics for example. Almost everything, from the way people dress to the way they eat their icecream has some economic significance.)

    I guess I don't see the problem? Is there a problem with applying economic principles to everyday life, seeing things through a lens of economics?

    This is the third installment of Loren Doesn't Get It.

    If everything can be explained through it there isn't any way to falsify it. It's an irrefutable hypothesis. No matter what you do, there's a way to twist the theory into a seemingly logical explanation and there isn't a direct way of disproving the theory so you can't tell if it's bullshit or not.

    This might be fine for everyday philosophy but psychology wants to be able to predict human behavior, not just explain it. A purely evolutionary explanation for a behavior cannot predict what a person will do because evolution occurs at a macro level, not an individual level.
    For example, less than 50% of a persons personality can be explained through genetics. If you take a purely evolutionary stance on explaining and predicting personality, more than 50% of a persons personality makeup is unknowable. Good luck predicting what that guy is gonna do!

    There's nothing wrong with evolutionary theory if you use it as an extra level of explanation, or as a way of explaining the genetic influences on a persons behavior. You just can't use it alone and you can't try to claim it can explain everything or you run headlong into the practical problem of actually predicting an individuals behavior and the conceptual problem of unfalsifiability.

    Morninglord on
    (PSN: Morninglord) (Steam: Morninglord) (WiiU: Morninglord22) I like to record and toss up a lot of random gaming videos here.
  • Loren MichaelLoren Michael Registered User regular
    edited May 2010
    Except while it is absolutely true that all organisms evolved and that all past events fall under the label 'history,' it is fucking retarded to claim that all behavior is driven by Evolutionary Psychology. Of course all behavior is influenced by EP, but the idiots who make threads like this necessary are the ones who take something like gender politics in America and try to explain it through an EvoPsych lens, and that is staggeringly dumb.

    I don't get it. Why is it unconscionable to take something like gender politics in America and seek to explain it through an EP lens? If all behavior is influenced by EP, isn't that a valid alternative to looking at gender politics through the lens of society and culture?

    Here, I pointed out the problem for you.

    So examining an issue through the lens of society and culture is a valid alternative to the lens of evolutionary psychology, but examining an issue through the lens of evolutionary psychology isn't a valid alternative to the lens of society and culture?

    That does strike me as a problem.

    Loren Michael on
    a7iea7nzewtq.jpg
  • nescientistnescientist Registered User regular
    edited May 2010
    Except while it is absolutely true that all organisms evolved and that all past events fall under the label 'history,' it is fucking retarded to claim that all behavior is driven by Evolutionary Psychology. Of course all behavior is influenced by EP, but the idiots who make threads like this necessary are the ones who take something like gender politics in America and try to explain it through an EvoPsych lens, and that is staggeringly dumb.

    I don't get it. Why is it unconscionable to take something like gender politics in America and seek to explain it through an EP lens? If all behavior is influenced by EP, isn't that a valid alternative to looking at gender politics through the lens of society and culture?

    Here, I pointed out the problem for you.

    So examining an issue through the lens of society and culture is a valid alternative to the lens of evolutionary psychology, but examining an issue through the lens of evolutionary psychology isn't a valid alternative to the lens of society and culture?

    That does strike me as a problem.

    Not at all, when such an evolution-less explanation might provide a roughly accurate picture, while - in the case of gender politics for instance - a society-less explanation would be hilarious.

    nescientist on
  • Mr. PokeylopeMr. Pokeylope Registered User regular
    edited May 2010
    The Cat wrote: »
    The Cat wrote: »
    Polygamy's terrible for men. Creates an underclass of unwanted young males who are commonly driven out of a group, or at best condemned to a life alone. Their death rate is markedly elevated, IIRC, and probably the most accessible contemporary examples are the more backwards pseudo-mormon cults.

    It's terrible for men in the aggregate, and for individuals who aren't at the top of the pack, but uh, so what? As a strategy employed by an individual, as a potentially valid opportunity to be taken, genetically it seems pretty great for the polygamist to me.

    Evolution works on populations, not individuals.

    I don't see how this serves as a rebuttal. Could you please elaborate?

    Straight from the Moral Animal: A polygamist society is less stable than a monogamous society because the lower tier men don't have a stake in the society. That means they are less likely to fight and die for the society and more likely to join up with those that are willing to redistribute the wealth so to speak.

    Imagine a contest between 2 equally matched societies with the only difference being one's monogamous and the other's polygamist. The monogamous is better able to utilize more of it's population. Probably even drawing over the lower tier males from the polygamist society. The monogamous society will out compete the Polygamist society and it's gene's will dominate.

    Mr. Pokeylope on
  • Fuzzy Cumulonimbus CloudFuzzy Cumulonimbus Cloud Registered User regular
    edited May 2010
    Melkster wrote: »
    Wow, it surprises me that evolutionary psychology is so controversial on these forums.

    Now, here's a question... Have you ever heard of the trolly dilemma?

    I'm sure most of you have, so here it is in a spoiler:
    A trolley is running out of control down a track. In its path are 5 people who have been tied to the track by a mad philosopher. Fortunately, you can flip a switch, which will lead the trolley down a different track to safety. Unfortunately, there is a single person tied to that track. Should you flip the switch?

    According to lots and lots of studies, MOST PEOPLE SAY YES - that the switch should be flipped.

    Now, here's the second version of this trolly question:

    As before, a trolley is hurtling down a track towards five people. You are on a bridge under which it will pass, and you can stop it by dropping a heavy weight in front of it. As it happens, there is a very fat man next to you - your only way to stop the trolley is to push him over the bridge and onto the track, killing him to save five. Should you proceed?

    Overwhelmingly, people say NO - that you SHOULD NOT push the fat man over the bridge.

    Now, that's all well and good. There are lots of potential explanations for why people seem to operate by in a purely utilitarian fashion in the first case, but not so in the second case.

    But there's one explanation that makes alot of sense. Maybe people have a hard-wired emotional response against pushing other human beings off cliffs. Maybe it's genetic, and therefore the result of evolution. And it makes sense that we wouldn't have the same hard-wired response to flipping a switch that causes someone's death - there weren't switches in the stone age, after all.

    They controlled studies for cultures, age, gender - and the results are always the same. People are OK with flipping the switch, and not okay with pushing the fat man.

    Now, the cool thing is that they hooked people up to fMRI machines and gave the two dilemmas to them. When people considered flipping the switch, areas associated with rational, higher thought lit up - but when they considered pushing the man off the bridge, other areas associated with base emotions lit up.

    If that's not a clear indicator for the validity of evolutionary psychology, I'm not sure what would be.

    Don't know if this was already addressed, but there are great empathy losses when someone can outsource an action, to distance it from themselves and the person it affects. That is a psychological explanation with no evolutionary justifications.

    Fuzzy Cumulonimbus Cloud on
  • Fuzzy Cumulonimbus CloudFuzzy Cumulonimbus Cloud Registered User regular
    edited May 2010
    Oh and if you're going to call evo-psych sociobiology and make genetic homology arguments you should all know that gene homology only tells us certain things. You use mRNA expression and protein expression now-a-days in most accepted phylogenies. So good luck explaining how protein 567-lys-substituted transazyme affects behavior on a social level.

    The biggest problem with evopsyc is its desire to reduce complex social and cultural (which are not easily separated) issues using a very, very broad brush.

    Fuzzy Cumulonimbus Cloud on
  • surrealitychecksurrealitycheck lonely, but not unloved dreaming of faulty keys and latchesRegistered User regular
    edited May 2010
    This might be fine for everyday philosophy but psychology wants to be able to predict human behavior, not just explain it. A purely evolutionary explanation for a behavior cannot predict what a person will do because evolution occurs at a macro level, not an individual level.

    I don't understand what you mean by this. Why are people talking about group selection as though it is the norm?

    EDIT: There is just some mad strawmanning going up in this "hizzle".

    I'm just going to say:

    a) Most of the time, behavioural genetics (which is what a lot of you are actually arguing against, btw) deals in tendencies. So the fact you're explaining "only" roughly 50% of behaviour is irrelevant
    b) The statement "ceteris paribus men are more likely to enjoy violence than woman" is not a determinist statement, and it predicts behaviour... among groups. But it's not the evolutionary psychology part, it's the behavioural genetics part. The evolutionary psychology bit is...
    c) This is the kind of behaviour that would emerge under x y z conditions. And you would normally test this by modelling.

    And even then, the meaning of the 50% statistic is extremely moot. If you throw epigenetics into the picture and the fact that even in separate twins you have very similar environments (because of the ubiquity of high-carbohydrate food and certain food additives etcetc) it becomes very hard to put a genetic spin on that.... but even then, it's not like anybody is going to find the "male rape reflex". You might find, say, an increased level of connectivity between two brain structures which in general causes a tendency to do a b c.

    surrealitycheck on
    obF2Wuw.png
  • The CatThe Cat Registered User, ClubPA regular
    edited May 2010
    The Cat wrote: »
    The Cat wrote: »
    Polygamy's terrible for men. Creates an underclass of unwanted young males who are commonly driven out of a group, or at best condemned to a life alone. Their death rate is markedly elevated, IIRC, and probably the most accessible contemporary examples are the more backwards pseudo-mormon cults.

    It's terrible for men in the aggregate, and for individuals who aren't at the top of the pack, but uh, so what? As a strategy employed by an individual, as a potentially valid opportunity to be taken, genetically it seems pretty great for the polygamist to me.

    Evolution works on populations, not individuals.

    I don't see how this serves as a rebuttal. Could you please elaborate?

    Straight from the Moral Animal: A polygamist society is less stable than a monogamous society because the lower tier men don't have a stake in the society. That means they are less likely to fight and die for the society and more likely to join up with those that are willing to redistribute the wealth so to speak.

    Imagine a contest between 2 equally matched societies with the only difference being one's monogamous and the other's polygamist. The monogamous is better able to utilize more of it's population. Probably even drawing over the lower tier males from the polygamist society. The monogamous society will out compete the Polygamist society and it's gene's will dominate.

    I was more pointing out that it doesn't really matter how much you fuck around and how many kids you spawn, if ebola comes to town or the local volcano explodes your genes'll be going nowhere fast. There's some pretty strong evidence about that events like that (beyond our control) have had at least as big an effect on what we're like as a species as anything else.

    It especially doesn't matter how much you're fucking around if you're one of the only people doing it when the lava lands on you. And incidentally, can someone please point me to the 'fucking around' gene/gene complex? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

    The Cat on
    tmsig.jpg
  • surrealitychecksurrealitycheck lonely, but not unloved dreaming of faulty keys and latchesRegistered User regular
    edited May 2010
    I was more pointing out that it doesn't really matter how much you fuck around and how many kids you spawn, if ebola comes to town or the local volcano explodes your genes'll be going nowhere fast. There's some pretty strong evidence about that events like that (beyond our control) have had at least as big an effect on what we're like as a species as anything else.

    This merely indicates that there will be points where a very high percentage or all of a species will die for a (relatively) arbitrary reason. But what effect will this have on any given gene's ka/ks?

    It is a single selective act, and consequently relatively irrelevant from the point of view of the species that survive (unless there was a genetic reason for your survival, of course, or the disaster caused long term environmental change).

    EDIT: Also ebola is a very strong form of natural selection, as it directly interacts with the immune system.

    surrealitycheck on
    obF2Wuw.png
  • The CatThe Cat Registered User, ClubPA regular
    edited May 2010
    It doesn't have an effect on an individual gene, but it does affect how much regard we should have to the effects of natural selection. It also rather neatly hamstrings the poorly-hidden "its our biological imperative to act like x even if x is terrible" argument.

    The Cat on
    tmsig.jpg
  • surrealitychecksurrealitycheck lonely, but not unloved dreaming of faulty keys and latchesRegistered User regular
    edited May 2010
    It doesn't have an effect on an individual gene, but it does affect how much regard we should have to the effects of natural selection.

    What do you mean by this? A catastrophic event is an example of "natural selection", albeit one that is frequently nigh-on impossible to be prepared for in advance (hence phase variation in bacteria etc).
    It also rather neatly hamstrings the poorly-hidden "its our biological imperative to act like x even if x is terrible" argument.

    That argument is bad, but I don't see why it's bad for the reasons you're giving. It's an is-ought fallacy - but are you arguing that it is wrong because of what you perceive to be natural selection's irrelevance?

    Also, out of interest - have you read a lot of Gould? >.>

    surrealitycheck on
    obF2Wuw.png
  • The CatThe Cat Registered User, ClubPA regular
    edited May 2010
    What do you mean by this? A catastrophic event is an example of "natural selection", albeit one that is frequently nigh-on impossible to be prepared for in advance (hence phase variation in bacteria etc).

    Not really, unless you want to stretch the definition of natural selection way past common use. The term's generally restricted to talking about the specific odds of you having kids external of chance accidents. Like, I see what you mean, but that's not how its usually talked about.
    That argument is bad, but I don't see why it's bad for the reasons you're giving. It's an is-ought fallacy - but are you arguing that it is wrong because of what you perceive to be natural selection's irrelevance?

    Also, out of interest - have you read a lot of Gould? >.>

    I'm not sure I can explain any clearer than I have. People kind of worship natural selection and often use it to justify their pet prejudices. Pointing out that NS isn't all that can help combat that tendency, and I think its at least as effective as pointing out the actual logical fallacy (and the lack of, you know, evidence) underlying the biological-imperative argument.

    I've read some Gould, but I'm not sure exactly what you're referring to by mentioning him.

    The Cat on
    tmsig.jpg
  • surrealitychecksurrealitycheck lonely, but not unloved dreaming of faulty keys and latchesRegistered User regular
    edited May 2010
    Not really, unless you want to stretch the definition of natural selection way past common use. The term's generally restricted to talking about the specific odds of you having kids external of chance accidents. Like, I see what you mean, but that's not how its usually talked about.

    I do a lot of bacterial phylogenetics, and that's how we use it. Natural selection is anything that interacts with your organisms in a non-independent way to their genetics - ie almost everything. Selection is what happens to your organisms. This:
    The term's generally restricted to talking about the specific odds of you having kids external of chance accidents

    Is fitness, more or less.

    Late edit: When you say natural selection, are you using it as shorthand for "(evolution by) natural selection"?
    I'm not sure I can explain any clearer than I have. People kind of worship natural selection and often use it to justify their pet prejudices. Pointing out that NS isn't all that can help combat that tendency, and I think its at least as effective as pointing out the actual logical fallacy (and the lack of, you know, evidence) underlying the biological-imperative argument.

    I've read some Gould, but I'm not sure exactly what you're referring to by mentioning him.

    OK, so it's a rejoinder to people who have a fallacious premise but I would personally disagree with the general thrust.

    Basically, Gould is (or was) the big "anti-selectionist" spokesman for a long time; he loved the idea of evolution being full of mistakes etc. There was a decided ideological bent to his argument (he felt, possibly correctly, that in many cases people were using evolutionary ideas to justify things - ie the "inevitable" upwards progress of species meant that we were clearly "the best"), but the actual ideas he threw out have been... pretty much useless. After his death, there's been a quiet abandoning of pretty much every idea he had by everybody in the evolutionary community, because it was either wrong or unusable. His conclusions about the Burgess Shale would be one such example, if you've read his book "Wonderful Life".

    I remember talking to Dennett about this, who was actually quite friendly with him in person, who noted that Gould would teach off a slide that he knew was full of incorrect information (and if pressed he would admit it was wrong), but still taught off it every year anyway!

    But that's by-the-by.

    I'll expand on the place of selectionism in biology later, busy packing up clothes into bags atm!

    surrealitycheck on
    obF2Wuw.png
  • ArchArch Neat-o, mosquito! Registered User regular
    edited May 2010
    Surreality I am confused a bit here- given what you have said, where does evolution by sexual selection fall?

    Is it a sub-header underneath (evolution by) natural selection?

    Basically this statement
    Natural selection is anything that interacts with your organisms in a non-independent way to their genetics - ie almost everything.

    Rubs me the wrong way a bit- as again it is painting things with much too broad of a brush.

    Arch on
  • ArchArch Neat-o, mosquito! Registered User regular
    edited May 2010
    Melkster wrote: »
    Wow, it surprises me that evolutionary psychology is so controversial on these forums.

    Now, here's a question... Have you ever heard of the trolly dilemma?

    I'm sure most of you have, so here it is in a spoiler:
    A trolley is running out of control down a track. In its path are 5 people who have been tied to the track by a mad philosopher. Fortunately, you can flip a switch, which will lead the trolley down a different track to safety. Unfortunately, there is a single person tied to that track. Should you flip the switch?

    According to lots and lots of studies, MOST PEOPLE SAY YES - that the switch should be flipped.

    Now, here's the second version of this trolly question:

    As before, a trolley is hurtling down a track towards five people. You are on a bridge under which it will pass, and you can stop it by dropping a heavy weight in front of it. As it happens, there is a very fat man next to you - your only way to stop the trolley is to push him over the bridge and onto the track, killing him to save five. Should you proceed?

    Overwhelmingly, people say NO - that you SHOULD NOT push the fat man over the bridge.

    Now, that's all well and good. There are lots of potential explanations for why people seem to operate by in a purely utilitarian fashion in the first case, but not so in the second case.

    But there's one explanation that makes alot of sense. Maybe people have a hard-wired emotional response against pushing other human beings off cliffs. Maybe it's genetic, and therefore the result of evolution. And it makes sense that we wouldn't have the same hard-wired response to flipping a switch that causes someone's death - there weren't switches in the stone age, after all.

    They controlled studies for cultures, age, gender - and the results are always the same. People are OK with flipping the switch, and not okay with pushing the fat man.

    Now, the cool thing is that they hooked people up to fMRI machines and gave the two dilemmas to them. When people considered flipping the switch, areas associated with rational, higher thought lit up - but when they considered pushing the man off the bridge, other areas associated with base emotions lit up.

    If that's not a clear indicator for the validity of evolutionary psychology, I'm not sure what would be
    .

    Don't know if this was already addressed, but there are great empathy losses when someone can outsource an action, to distance it from themselves and the person it affects. That is a psychological explanation with no evolutionary justifications.

    Melk- the bolded is what I have been trying to say. I can't say it any clearer than how fuzzy put it.

    Arch on
  • PantsBPantsB Fake Thomas Jefferson Registered User regular
    edited May 2010
    The Cat wrote: »
    The Cat wrote: »
    Polygamy's terrible for men. Creates an underclass of unwanted young males who are commonly driven out of a group, or at best condemned to a life alone. Their death rate is markedly elevated, IIRC, and probably the most accessible contemporary examples are the more backwards pseudo-mormon cults.

    It's terrible for men in the aggregate, and for individuals who aren't at the top of the pack, but uh, so what? As a strategy employed by an individual, as a potentially valid opportunity to be taken, genetically it seems pretty great for the polygamist to me.

    Evolution works on populations, not individuals. Which leads me to the other thing I hate; people fetishising natural selection over other, likely more powerful, evolutionary mechanisms.

    That's the opposite of true. Its incredibly wrong because genetic mutations occur on individuals. If those mutations are sufficiently beneficial they will lead to a greater likelihood of the individual surviving and procreating (or more accurately that's how we define "beneficial" in this context). Populations don't mutate, individual genes mutate and the offspring of those genes may make up a disparate amount of future generations.

    Thus evolution is a process that occurs to populations yes, but only through individual variations that propagate through the population either through selection at the individual of sub-population level (if the trait was not strongly disadvantageous and the environment changes to make it become advantageous).

    Furthermore that's irrelevant to Loren's point. Whether its good for evolution or not, polygamy is a good technique for maximizing how many of your descendants make it. There's a reason its widely used among primates and other animals.
    The Cat wrote: »
    It doesn't have an effect on an individual gene, but it does affect how much regard we should have to the effects of natural selection. It also rather neatly hamstrings the poorly-hidden "its our biological imperative to act like x even if x is terrible" argument.

    No it doesn't. Natural selection is not about guaranteeing beneficial adaptations will lead to survival. A really super nimble squirrel may have a 55% change of surviving long enough to procreate instead of 53%. And a forest fire might kill a big chunk of squirrels regardless of their attributes. That's completely irrelevant. Evolution works over thousands of years and by the law of large numbers. Disasters that kill of chunks of the population are statistical noise.

    PantsB on
    11793-1.png
    day9gosu.png
    QEDMF xbl: PantsB G+
  • QinguQingu Registered User regular
    edited May 2010
    Qingu on
  • MorninglordMorninglord I'm tired of being Batman, so today I'll be Owl.Registered User regular
    edited May 2010
    This might be fine for everyday philosophy but psychology wants to be able to predict human behavior, not just explain it. A purely evolutionary explanation for a behavior cannot predict what a person will do because evolution occurs at a macro level, not an individual level.

    I don't understand what you mean by this. Why are people talking about group selection as though it is the norm?

    EDIT: There is just some mad strawmanning going up in this "hizzle".

    I'm just going to say:

    a) Most of the time, behavioural genetics (which is what a lot of you are actually arguing against, btw) deals in tendencies. So the fact you're explaining "only" roughly 50% of behaviour is irrelevant
    b) The statement "ceteris paribus men are more likely to enjoy violence than woman" is not a determinist statement, and it predicts behaviour... among groups. But it's not the evolutionary psychology part, it's the behavioural genetics part. The evolutionary psychology bit is...
    c) This is the kind of behaviour that would emerge under x y z conditions. And you would normally test this by modelling.

    And even then, the meaning of the 50% statistic is extremely moot. If you throw epigenetics into the picture and the fact that even in separate twins you have very similar environments (because of the ubiquity of high-carbohydrate food and certain food additives etcetc) it becomes very hard to put a genetic spin on that.... but even then, it's not like anybody is going to find the "male rape reflex". You might find, say, an increased level of connectivity between two brain structures which in general causes a tendency to do a b c.

    I'm directing my argument to Loren Michael not evolutionary psychology. I got no beef with well put together arguments of the kind you are mentioning.

    My criticisms of evolutionary psychology as a discipline are roughly in line with Ferals where I'm using roughly so as to not appear too much of a fanboy when in fact I agree with all of it.

    Most people espousing terrible arguments in this thread are not making evolutionary psychology arguments....they're just using evolution theory to give their terrible arguments some "validity".

    Morninglord on
    (PSN: Morninglord) (Steam: Morninglord) (WiiU: Morninglord22) I like to record and toss up a lot of random gaming videos here.
  • Loren MichaelLoren Michael Registered User regular
    edited May 2010
    The Cat wrote: »
    The Cat wrote: »
    Polygamy's terrible for men. Creates an underclass of unwanted young males who are commonly driven out of a group, or at best condemned to a life alone. Their death rate is markedly elevated, IIRC, and probably the most accessible contemporary examples are the more backwards pseudo-mormon cults.

    It's terrible for men in the aggregate, and for individuals who aren't at the top of the pack, but uh, so what? As a strategy employed by an individual, as a potentially valid opportunity to be taken, genetically it seems pretty great for the polygamist to me.

    Evolution works on populations, not individuals.

    I don't see how this serves as a rebuttal. Could you please elaborate?

    Straight from the Moral Animal: A polygamist society is less stable than a monogamous society because the lower tier men don't have a stake in the society. That means they are less likely to fight and die for the society and more likely to join up with those that are willing to redistribute the wealth so to speak.

    Imagine a contest between 2 equally matched societies with the only difference being one's monogamous and the other's polygamist. The monogamous is better able to utilize more of it's population. Probably even drawing over the lower tier males from the polygamist society. The monogamous society will out compete the Polygamist society and it's gene's will dominate.

    I guess I'm still not seeing the point here. Yes, when societies are competing with one another, ones that have more dedicated, etc individuals have an advantage over societies that don't.

    How does this adversely affect the likelihood of individuals taking the opportunity to be a polygamist when presented with said opportunity? Say, when elevated to a high position as a result of action or fortune? So long as the practice doesn't become widespread, and so long as we aren't talking about a group of like ten people, it doesn't seem like a big problem.

    Loren Michael on
    a7iea7nzewtq.jpg
  • Loren MichaelLoren Michael Registered User regular
    edited May 2010
    The Cat wrote: »
    I was more pointing out that it doesn't really matter how much you fuck around and how many kids you spawn, if ebola comes to town or the local volcano explodes your genes'll be going nowhere fast. There's some pretty strong evidence about that events like that (beyond our control) have had at least as big an effect on what we're like as a species as anything else.

    It especially doesn't matter how much you're fucking around if you're one of the only people doing it when the lava lands on you. And incidentally, can someone please point me to the 'fucking around' gene/gene complex? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

    I don't see how that's even remotely relevant to what it was originally responding to. Yes, catastrophes have a lot of influence over evolution... So how are you tying that to polygamy and fucking around? By saying it makes polygamy and fucking around irrelevant?

    Loren Michael on
    a7iea7nzewtq.jpg
  • Loren MichaelLoren Michael Registered User regular
    edited May 2010
    For example, less than 50% of a persons personality can be explained through genetics. If you take a purely evolutionary stance on explaining and predicting personality, more than 50% of a persons personality makeup is unknowable. Good luck predicting what that guy is gonna do!

    There's nothing wrong with evolutionary theory if you use it as an extra level of explanation, or as a way of explaining the genetic influences on a persons behavior. You just can't use it alone and you can't try to claim it can explain everything or you run headlong into the practical problem of actually predicting an individuals behavior and the conceptual problem of unfalsifiability.

    I think we are in agreement and that there has been some miscommunication. I submit surrealitycheck's response to the 50% bit.

    Loren Michael on
    a7iea7nzewtq.jpg
  • surrealitychecksurrealitycheck lonely, but not unloved dreaming of faulty keys and latchesRegistered User regular
    edited May 2010
    Surreality I am confused a bit here- given what you have said, where does evolution by sexual selection fall?

    Is it a sub-header underneath (evolution by) natural selection?

    Basically this statement

    It's under the header of natural selection (as by definition it is a phenomenon of nature), but normally deals with oddities and consequently gets its own fun section.

    I think the Cat is quite fairly saying that natural selection is quite often not the picture of "inevitable movement towards superior optima" that one conventionally sees depicted in potted versions of evolution, and consequently this robs anybody using evolution as their arbiter of what is good of the force of their argument.

    EDIT: By the way, Phase variation.

    Phase variation is a phenomenon in bacteria where genes will get toggled on and off/modified (frequently only one from a selection of similarly-functioning genes will be active at a time) at unusually high rates. This allows a population to have a variation in phenotype without any real variation in genotype (often it'll be things like big SSRs sitting in the promoter region causing frameshifts, which have a very high chance to expand or contract due to slipped-strand mispairing). If a random environmental change comes that only one phase of the bacterium could survive, it will eventually spawn the previously existing variants as well - effectively a way to vary gene expression for things which cannot be reasonably sensed in advance. It is the use of blindness as an advantage; halfway between random mutation and modulated gene expression.

    I had a point here but it got lost when I had to fix a television. Hmm.

    surrealitycheck on
    obF2Wuw.png
  • ArchArch Neat-o, mosquito! Registered User regular
    edited May 2010
    surreality, I was always under the assumption that natural selection was really the...I don't know...strictly environmentally-led phenomenon, while sexual selection was separate.

    Does this make sense?

    Let me try again- I guess selection by "nature" as opposed to by "mate choice"

    That is- giraffes versus peacocks (to give a terrible example)

    I guess if you wanted to be a stickler you could claim that "mate choice" falls underneath "selection by nature" but I really think this entire argument is just a semantics game.

    Arch on
  • surrealitychecksurrealitycheck lonely, but not unloved dreaming of faulty keys and latchesRegistered User regular
    edited May 2010
    I know guys who would classify it separately. It's not a huge deal. In general you'd mention them separately as forms of selection because they have such different implications, so there's no loss of meaning in treating them separately. As you say, it's just semantics.

    surrealitycheck on
    obF2Wuw.png
  • ArchArch Neat-o, mosquito! Registered User regular
    edited May 2010
    I guess the argument you are making is more of "natural selection is the mechanism of evolution, and there are two kinds: sexual and environmental selection"

    And I use natural selection to mean both the mechanism AND environmental selection

    Arch on
  • EgoEgo Registered User regular
    edited May 2010
    this robs anybody using evolution as their arbiter of what is good of the force of their argument.

    Who is even making this argument? I'm seeing people get up in arms repeatedly about the idea that someone is, to paraphrase, justifying bad behaviour with the excuse of evolution. But no one in the thread seems to be doing that, that I've noticed. Finding a possible explanation for a behaviour, whether the explanation is from evolutionary psychology or any other branch, is not the same thing as saying that particular behaviour is right.

    Arch, I just got around to the thread again, and: thanks for that bingo graph bullshit. I mean, I really appreciate how I brought up some things that are truly interesting and verifiable, and you shoehorned that into the idea that I believe 'all human behaviour is hardwired' or 'it can all be traced back to our savannah ancestors' or '1950s gender dynamics are the same as those of our savannah ancestors' Classy.

    I guess pointing out that all humans everywhere display a preference for savannah landscapes when choosing where they'd live, regardless of their culture, the ecosystem in which they've lived, or exposure to other ecosystems is 'pretty cool' means all those things to you.

    Ego on
    Erik
  • Fuzzy Cumulonimbus CloudFuzzy Cumulonimbus Cloud Registered User regular
    edited May 2010
    I want you to read the methods used to determine Savannah preference from pages 5 and on.

    http://www.ideal.forestry.ubc.ca/frst524/04_BallingFalk.pdf

    458 people studied, disproportionately white
    small children and random white folk of different ages
    vague attempt to explain normalization of slide variation between biomes
    all from Maryland
    page 10 and on (22 of text) the dude goes and claims that his dataset shows PREFERENCE FOR SAVANNA SELECTION THEORY, when his data shows that preference for deciduous forest environments is an incredibly close second

    and the best part? he acknowledges that his study is flawed because of his monocultural subject pool

    yet you went and took that information and blabbed it about like it was gospel.

    Fuzzy Cumulonimbus Cloud on
  • EgoEgo Registered User regular
    edited May 2010
    Sorry, I got my info out of Dragons of Eden by Carl Sagan.

    Also 'is pretty cool' is not blabbing about something like it's gospel. Great hyperbole, though.

    Ego on
    Erik
  • ShivahnShivahn Unaware of her barrel shifter privilege Western coastal temptressRegistered User, Moderator mod
    edited May 2010
    yet you went and took that information and blabbed it about like it was gospel.

    That sounds suspiciously similar to what happens with every vague evolutionary just-so story that some idiot makes up.

    Man, I hate random hypotheses that are never tested yet accepted.

    Shivahn on
  • Fuzzy Cumulonimbus CloudFuzzy Cumulonimbus Cloud Registered User regular
    edited May 2010
    Ego wrote: »
    Sorry, I got my info out of Dragons of Eden by Carl Sagan.

    Also 'is pretty cool' is not blabbing about something like it's gospel. Great hyperbole, though.
    I mean, I really appreciate how I brought up some things that are truly interesting and verifiable, and you shoehorned that into the idea that I believe 'all human behaviour is hardwired' or 'it can all be traced back to our savannah ancestors' or '1950s gender dynamics are the same as those of our savannah ancestors' Classy.

    Fuzzy Cumulonimbus Cloud on
  • EgoEgo Registered User regular
    edited May 2010
    Ego wrote: »
    Sorry, I got my info out of Dragons of Eden by Carl Sagan.

    Also 'is pretty cool' is not blabbing about something like it's gospel. Great hyperbole, though.
    I mean, I really appreciate how I brought up some things that are truly interesting and verifiable, and you shoehorned that into the idea that I believe 'all human behaviour is hardwired' or 'it can all be traced back to our savannah ancestors' or '1950s gender dynamics are the same as those of our savannah ancestors' Classy.

    Yes, one word is the same in those sentences. Where did I say anything about social dynamics of our savannah ancestors (which can't possibly be verified?) Where did I say 'it can all be traced back to our savannah ancestors? I said 'people like pictures of savannahs when picking where they'd want to live'.

    You might as well bold the words 'the' that are common in each statement, for all that they likewise tie the statements together.

    I joined the thread to point out that it's odd for a group of people who think evolution is the most sensible way for humans to have come about to think that zero human behaviour could be attributed to evolution, which is basically cartesian dualism (which Arch already backed off of when someone pointed out that's what he was arguing.)

    And to point out that Loren is right in his math.

    edit: by the way, the Balling / Falk study isn't the only one. I'll dig out my copy of dragons of eden and see if he was referencing that or Orians / Heerwagen.

    Ego on
    Erik
  • Fuzzy Cumulonimbus CloudFuzzy Cumulonimbus Cloud Registered User regular
    edited May 2010
    Ego wrote: »
    The idea that evolution isn't responsible for certain human behaviour / that evolution wouldn't influence the development of culture strikes me as a really odd one to hear in this forum. Not liking it because it's hard or impossible to test? Well, I understand that for sure. Doesn't mean it's not fun to think about.

    Like: 'shhh' means 'be quiet'. To all humans.
    Or: infant sounds for mother are phonetically extremely similar to the sound babies make while nosing around looking for a teat.
    Or: if you take humans from anywhere and give them a bunch of pictures of ecosystems to choose from (mountains, forests, savannas, deserts,) and ask them 'where would you like to live?', there will be a strong predisposition towards savannas.

    That's some cool stuff.
    If it's impossible to test it's not science. If it's intellectually lazy it's not science.

    Fuzzy Cumulonimbus Cloud on
  • EgoEgo Registered User regular
    edited May 2010
    And?

    As pointed out by others, there are many things in psychology we can't test because it would be immoral to do so.
    Not liking it because it's hard or impossible to test? Well, I understand that for sure. Doesn't mean it's not fun to think about.

    How'd you manage to quote it without realizing it addresses your issue?

    Ego on
    Erik
  • SkyGheNeSkyGheNe Registered User regular
    edited May 2010
    Ego wrote: »
    And?

    As pointed out by others, there are many things in psychology we can't test because it would be immoral to do so.
    Not liking it because it's hard or impossible to test? Well, I understand that for sure. Doesn't mean it's not fun to think about.

    How'd you manage to quote it without realizing it addresses your issue?

    It's fun to imagine.

    It's not fun when people go from imagining to arguing a point which happens at such an alarming frequency.

    SkyGheNe on
  • EgoEgo Registered User regular
    edited May 2010
    SkyGheNe wrote: »
    Ego wrote: »
    And?

    As pointed out by others, there are many things in psychology we can't test because it would be immoral to do so.
    Not liking it because it's hard or impossible to test? Well, I understand that for sure. Doesn't mean it's not fun to think about.

    How'd you manage to quote it without realizing it addresses your issue?

    It's fun to imagine.

    It's not fun when people go from imagining to arguing a point which happens at such an alarming frequency.

    And... again, who is doing this? I mean, this thread must be in response to others judging from the OP, but not from any that I've been reading in this thread. I mean, I posted what amounted to: 'people like savannahs, "mamma," "shhh!", isn't that neat?' and got some bingo chart implying I'm sexless? Not exactly standard D&D argumentative fare. Not from the smarter folks, at least.

    edit: perhaps we're here for different reasons, but I think arguing is kind of the point of D&D.

    edit2: frankly I think people are pissed off that anyone says 'misogyny is OK because evolution would encourage it' or 'cheating on your spouse is ok because evolution would make that beneficial' or 'racism is OK because evolution would encourage it' but I don't see that here at all. If people were saying it, I'd be angry at them too. But most of the thread is directed against Loren, who made a valid argument for why promiscuity in specific circumstances would encourage genetic replication, yet who himself plans to adopt.

    Really, I don't get it. Did someone piss off a lot of people in some other thread but not migrate to this one? Did Loren do that, but I just missed all those posts?

    Ego on
    Erik
  • ArchArch Neat-o, mosquito! Registered User regular
    edited May 2010
    Ego wrote: »
    Sorry, I got my info out of Dragons of Eden by Carl Sagan.

    Also 'is pretty cool' is not blabbing about something like it's gospel. Great hyperbole, though.

    And the fact that this book babbles on about the Triune brain for the entire first third didn't clue you in that maybe this work is a bit dated?

    Seems to me like someone REALLY didn't do their research.

    Arch on
  • MorninglordMorninglord I'm tired of being Batman, so today I'll be Owl.Registered User regular
    edited May 2010
    For example, less than 50% of a persons personality can be explained through genetics. If you take a purely evolutionary stance on explaining and predicting personality, more than 50% of a persons personality makeup is unknowable. Good luck predicting what that guy is gonna do!

    There's nothing wrong with evolutionary theory if you use it as an extra level of explanation, or as a way of explaining the genetic influences on a persons behavior. You just can't use it alone and you can't try to claim it can explain everything or you run headlong into the practical problem of actually predicting an individuals behavior and the conceptual problem of unfalsifiability.

    I think we are in agreement and that there has been some miscommunication. I submit surrealitycheck's response to the 50% bit.

    Man I had to go way back to the start of the thread to see that you had actually indicated you agree with this stance. Not your fault.
    I think the problem is that you've been under attack for every page since then and the nature of the arguments you were responding to made it difficult to tell. Combined with your "third installment of loren doesn't get it" remark a page ago I mistook your meaning.

    In which case I retract what I said anyway.

    Morninglord on
    (PSN: Morninglord) (Steam: Morninglord) (WiiU: Morninglord22) I like to record and toss up a lot of random gaming videos here.
  • Loren MichaelLoren Michael Registered User regular
    edited May 2010
    Ego, I agree with your observation. There is clearly political interest in warped visions of EP, not just in the neo-sexual-social-Darwinist sense, but... I'm not sure, what is it that motivates the people who cut into EP strawmen at the slightest provocation?

    There is some weirdly nasty political shit going down regarding this topic. I wonder what the basis is?

    Loren Michael on
    a7iea7nzewtq.jpg
  • MorninglordMorninglord I'm tired of being Batman, so today I'll be Owl.Registered User regular
    edited May 2010
    The most likely suspect is the ol free will vs causal determinism agenda. The more behavior you can explain deterministically through genetic influences the more difficult is the justification of a free autonomous agent.

    Unlike say, cognitive psychology where you can easily just "allow" the theory of schema or mental representations into a world view where an individual is still able to freely and autonomously choose, a biological influence seems more difficult to integrate.

    So it's threatening.

    I hugely doubt most people really understand or voice the objection in such a regimented manner though. They probably just feel threatened.

    My objection to bad evolutionary arguments (note not evo psych arguments necessarily, unless those arguments happen to have some conceptual limitations) isn't along these lines, it's along the lines of "There's waaaaay too many confounding factors to be assuming a single cause". I don't have anything against a biological or genetic argument that is put forth as one of a range of influencing factors.

    Morninglord on
    (PSN: Morninglord) (Steam: Morninglord) (WiiU: Morninglord22) I like to record and toss up a lot of random gaming videos here.
  • Loren MichaelLoren Michael Registered User regular
    edited May 2010
    But it's all determinism, in the lack-of-free-agency sense. You're either influenced by your environment or your genetics, and the only impetus you have to change either (to the extent that you even can) stems ultimately from those same two factors.

    ...I understand the rest of what you say though. It just irritates me when people I typically perceive as being intelligent and respectable act in ways I perceive to be unintelligent and disrespectful when certain key words and phrases are uttered.

    Loren Michael on
    a7iea7nzewtq.jpg
Sign In or Register to comment.