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Happy 200th Birthday, Charles Darwin!
Dalboz
Resident Puppy EaterRight behind you...Registered User regular
Resident Puppy EaterRight behind you...Registered User regular
Break out the noise makers, get the cake, and open the champagne. Today is Charles Darwin's 200th Birthday. The man who developed the incredibly elegant solution to the evolution of species, including man, and creating 150 years of controversy in his wake. From his great proponents like Richard Dawkins and P.Z. Myers, to his detractors like Ben Stein and members of the Discovery Institute.
Have questions about evolution? Ask away. Discuss the theory and the man, ask your questions if there is a part of the theory you don't quite understand and we can help iron out the wrinkles for you. Or discuss the man at length, as this is indeed his. Heck, we could even roast the man! But have at it, and start celebrating.
:whistle:
Happy Birthday to you,
You live in a zoo,
We descended from monkeys,
Now let's all fling poo.
:whistle:
Have questions about evolution? Ask away. Discuss the theory and the man, ask your questions if there is a part of the theory you don't quite understand and we can help iron out the wrinkles for you. Or discuss the man at length, as this is indeed his. Heck, we could even roast the man! But have at it, and start celebrating.
:whistle:
Happy Birthday to you,
You live in a zoo,
We descended from monkeys,
Now let's all fling poo.
:whistle:
Dalboz on
0
Posts
K'rrt. *twitch*
I'm not doubting you, I would just like a list for the purpose of this thread.
BOO
*snarl* *foam*
The reason they call it "modern evolutionary synthesis" (please note that "evolutionary" is still in there) is because further research "...showed that Mendelian genetics was consistent with natural selection and gradual evolution." (I admit, I stole that right from the Wikipedia article, so I could be completely wrong) They call it "synthesis" because current evolutionary theory has incorporated other theories which were developed elsewhere, such as the theories of genetics, which weren't developed at the time..
In short, the current theory is a synthesis, also known as a combination, of evolution by natural selection with other theories (primarily genetics) into one big consistent theory. It isn't just "darwinian" because the current theory embodies many other people's work. It would be unfair to Mendel, who contributed a lot as well.
you are such a terrible person
Shouldn't that be:
Now let's all fling some poo?
Completely breaks the rhythm without it.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
You did however present a moderately strongly worded opinion which you admitted had no basis. I thus handed you opposing information so that you might absorb it and judge whether your statement was warranted.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
So the man believed the dead could be contacted, big deal. He was a brilliant biogeographer.
In its ideal form, there is nothing wrong with evolutionary psychology. The premise that behaviors might provide a selective advantage, either today or at some point in the distant past, is not inherently problematical. The problem with evolutionary psychology is in its practice - the typical method by people who refer to themselves by that label is to first establish that a behavior is common, then assume that the commonality is evidence of selective advantage, and finally present a narrative that explains why said behavior might provide a selective advantage.
The core problem here is that behaviors are not phenotypes. There may be genetic roots, but out of all the characteristics of a human that we can measure, behavior is the most subject to environment. The challenge of the psychologist looking for evolutionary causes for behavior is to establish that a common behavior does have some relationship to a genotype. You can do this by looking for hereditary patterns in identical twin studies, or linking it to gene markers, or by finding abnormalities in brain structure that are not easily explained away by trauma or development. There are people doing this, but they don't necessarily call themselves "evolutionary psychologists," they may simply call themselves "psychologists." We also need to remember that not all traits - even clearly phenotypical, inherited traits - were ever selective. Some may be random byproducts, carried down due to social or geographical isolation, or merely selectively neutral - not bad enough to go away but not particularly useful either, like a sixth finger, or a pair of cervical ribs.
By starting with the assumption that a common behavior is adaptive, and then making up a narrative to explain that adaptation, the evolutionary psychologist is not engaging in science in the Popperian sense. He's not proposing a falsifiable hypothesis. What counterevidence would convince an evolutionary psychologist that a common behavior is not adaptive? The evo psych folks are generally mum on this topic - they don't propose any possibility of such dissent.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
It depends on where you place the emphasis.
On "let's," then no. On "all," then yes.
Happy Birthday Darwin!
What the hell?
Uh, right. Nice strawman.
First two paragraphs of the book:
This is the kind of reaction I got from colleagues when I explained my plans for the book. At first glance the reaction is not unreasonable. Maybe nature versus nurture is a dead issue.
That's pretty much what Pinker does in the book. There's quite a bit about twin studies, for example. You have read it, right?
It's just museumical evolution.
My girlfriend has to take a class on evolutionary psychology and it's driving her nuts because all of the research being presented is absolutely atrocious.
Like, we're talking articles claiming that the difference between male and female sexuality is biologically that men like fuckin' and women like "romance," and this is supported by the "fact" that women buy more "romance novels" and men prefer pornography.
Of course, they don't define either of those terms, they don't establish how novels and porn play analogous roles in someone's sexual experiences, they don't actually offer any sales statistics divided by gender, and they don't account for the fact that marketing creates new needs as much as it addresses existing ones.
This is a published article. It's pathetic.
Also apparently Dawkins is an evolutionary psychologist and that's a shame.
Because he obviously has no idea what he's talking about?
Eh, so did Einstein.
QEDMF xbl: PantsB G+
Because being an evolutionary biologist does not mean being a neurobiologist, and because I have seen very few studies coming from evo psych that have any worth. And I have seen many that are absolutely atrocious and are basically a new form of eugenics and an attempt to justify any 'ism you can name.
I don't mean to paint all of evo psych with the same brush, because there are two schools and one of them is entirely useful, but the stupid school is the more common one because it's appealing to believe that a behaviour is a phenotype; it just "makes sense" that "everyone" is afraid of spiders because they were an ancestral threat or whatever. However, almost every attempt to use evolution to explain behaviour seems to deliberately ignore neuroplasticity and it drives me nuts.
Hmm thats THREE great men who share the same birthday.
Richard Owen and the Natural History Museum, and it is pretty fucking harsh considering that without Owen there wouldn't have been a museum there and Owen's earlier work and assistance contributed an enormous amount to help Darwin's theories, and he praised the Origin of Species when it was published. Sure he became a tremendous creationist dick later on in life, but don't belittle his accomplishments - say put a much bigger statue of Darwin in front of his, but don't remove it!
I thought his proper academic contributions were in Zoology and evolutionary biology? Ah right, quick googling shows he's written in support of Evolutionary Psychology. I guess its not surprising - he is pretty all about genetic reductionism after all.
Weird.
The SE++ thread I just started for this debate
QEDMF xbl: PantsB G+