There is valid science in the Evo Psych field. Like a while back i read about a study where they shoed people computer generated images of women with exagerrated feminine traits. People were asked to judge which was most attractive in an attempt to weed out universal traits that men find attractive in women. Not a particularly fruitful study IIRC but still one approached as a real inquiry.
Forgive my complete idiocy in the subject, but surely that would only net you culturally relevent results.
Unless they were using only feral adult humans for the experiment, yes, that is correct.
Um, or they had hundreds of subjects from many, many different cultures.
Including cultures that have never heard of Coca Cola?
If it's a good study, of course. Pygmies, Ebo, what have you. Are you deliberately trying to be dense, here? That's what would make a good study, by definition. Maybe your opinion of Evo Psych is such that they wouldn't dream of being so scientific, in your mind, but rest assured. Some are, your misconceptions about the field notwithstanding.
Actually I'm more driving at the fact that it's not actually possible to completely isolate or negate culture as a variable without finding a culture that has had no contact with any other cultures.
Most everyone having heard of Coca Cola doesn't mean that there aren't radically different cultures all over the world. If you're going to sit here and tell me Pygmy culture is so similar to ours as to not be a sufficient control because they may have heard about Coca Cola, I'm afraid I don't know what to say.
If you find traits that are universal among all humans, it's a pretty safe bet that they evolved. Find a study big enough, and you can get a good idea of the former. The latter follows logically. We're not a single "monoculture" yet, American dominance notwithstanding. There is an incredible amount of diversity in the world, and an incredible amount of variety and ancient cultures.
Not American dominance so much as Western dominance. I don't think you can find a sufficient number of pygmies who are able to participate in the study and have also never encountered white-people to form anything resembling an acceptable sample-size.
If you find traits that are universal among all humans, it's a pretty safe bet that they evolved.
Why?
It's the best guess we can make with the available data. For instance, we know several things:
1. In the mammalian world, evolution favors powerful instincts, especially related to child-rearing and survival, that manifest themselves in predictable behaviors. This is an uncontroversial statement among evolutionary biologists.
3. Studies among other mammals involve certain reactions to being shown their young.
2. Humans are mammals.
3. If a study, then, involves a sample size of such depth and complexity so as to remove as many cultural variables as possible, and finds that all humans, no matter where or from what cultural or historical background, all exhibit similar reactions when presented with a baby's face, it's a safe bet to combine all three prongs of knowledge into an evolutionary explanation.
To not do so, in fact, is to exhibit the same haughty armchair superiority complex that people used for hundreds of years to claim that humans are somehow fundamentally different from the rest of the animal kingdom.
To not do so, in fact, is to exhibit the same haughty armchair superiority complex that people used for hundreds of years to claim that humans are somehow fundamentally different from the rest of the animal kingdom.
I mostly agree, except that human culture is precisely the kind of phenomenon that's powerful enough to influence human biology in a way not seen elsewhere in the animal kingdom. (As far as we can currently identify.)
...I guess I'm just coming at this issue from the other side of the pendulum.
To not do so, in fact, is to exhibit the same haughty armchair superiority complex that people used for hundreds of years to claim that humans are somehow fundamentally different from the rest of the animal kingdom.
I mostly agree, except that human culture is precisely the kind of phenomenon that's powerful enough to influence human biology in a way not seen elsewhere in the animal kingdom. (As far as we can currently identify.)
...I guess I'm just coming at this issue from the other side of the pendulum.
I agree that human culture is powerful. I'm saying that when combined with evidence from other species, and recent DNA and neuroscientific findings, it's just good science to explain certain behaviors as having evolved.
Occam's razer. What makes more sense, that child-protective behavior evolved in the entire mammalian world, then for some reason disappeared from the most successful mammal, only to come back solely due to culture? Or that it's the same goddamned trait?
To not do so, in fact, is to exhibit the same haughty armchair superiority complex that people used for hundreds of years to claim that humans are somehow fundamentally different from the rest of the animal kingdom.
I mostly agree, except that human culture is precisely the kind of phenomenon that's powerful enough to influence human biology in a way not seen elsewhere in the animal kingdom. (As far as we can currently identify.)
...I guess I'm just coming at this issue from the other side of the pendulum.
Yeah, a cultural belief could be enough to change breeding patterns for generations. Monkeys and rats don't randomly decide that an eclipse is a sign from a higher power signaling that they should all get busy.
But I remember reading how certain biological functions (production of sperm and sex drive) can increase when a person and their loved one have been away from each other.
I agree that human culture is powerful. I'm saying that when combined with evidence from other species, and recent DNA and neuroscientific findings, it's just good science to explain certain behaviors as having evolved.
Occam's razer. What makes more sense, that child-protective behavior evolved in the entire mammalian world, then for some reason disappeared from the most successful mammal, only to come back solely due to culture? Or that it's the same goddamned trait?
That's a good point, but what constitutes "child-protective behavior"? That's kind of a silly question, but when it comes to other behaviors evo-psych has to be careful to not conflate too much to biology.
...What I mean is that evolutionary psychologists have a particular burden of needing to be extremely conscious of why they phrase things the way they do, because there's so much room for cultural attitudes to influence the way they look at the data they gather.
I agree that human culture is powerful. I'm saying that when combined with evidence from other species, and recent DNA and neuroscientific findings, it's just good science to explain certain behaviors as having evolved.
Occam's razer. What makes more sense, that child-protective behavior evolved in the entire mammalian world, then for some reason disappeared from the most successful mammal, only to come back solely due to culture? Or that it's the same goddamned trait?
That's a good point, but what constitutes "child-protective behavior"? That's kind of a silly question, but when it comes to other behaviors evo-psych has to be careful to not conflate too much to biology.
Maternal instinct, or what have you. The desire, probably inherent in most of us, to be protective of babies.
Edit irt yours: Yes, I agree wholeheartedly. One needs to be incredibly cautious when approaching these things before making claims. But people in this thread seem content to dismiss the entire enterprise just because it's hard to do good science, and a bunch of high-profile cases have been crackpots.
Don't like? No, idiot, its because they're wrong. I dislike incorrect things. I'm sorry if that makes you sad.
Science in general is often incorrect.
SHOW ME WHERE SCIENCTIFIC STUDY IS INVOLVED HERE AT ALL
It's not bad science it's simply non-science. Science isn't some smart guy in a lab coat telling us stuff. It's a system of study that utilzes repeatable tests and conclusions drawn from them.
This is why I hate socialology in general getting treated like a a real science.
Are you saying that evolutionary psychology as a field has never utilized the scientific method?
Because if there is even one case where it has, that means you cannot dismiss it as non-science.
I mean, you people are doing what you are accusing me of doing: you are generalizing. Sure, the claim in the OP is stupid pseudo-science, and so are many others, but the fact stands that evolutionary psychology as a field is far from bunk like many of you are suggesting.
I'm being very specific to this case and the article in the OP. Also I'm referencing other exmaples given here like the woemn carrying purses argument.
I agree that human culture is powerful. I'm saying that when combined with evidence from other species, and recent DNA and neuroscientific findings, it's just good science to explain certain behaviors as having evolved.
Occam's razer. What makes more sense, that child-protective behavior evolved in the entire mammalian world, then for some reason disappeared from the most successful mammal, only to come back solely due to culture? Or that it's the same goddamned trait?
That's a good point, but what constitutes "child-protective behavior"? That's kind of a silly question, but when it comes to other behaviors evo-psych has to be careful to not conflate too much to biology.
Maternal instinct, or what have you. The desire, probably inherent in most of us, to be protective of babies.
Edit irt yours: Yes, I agree wholeheartedly. One needs to be incredibly cautious when approaching these things before making claims. But people in this thread seem content to dismiss the entire enterprise just because it's hard to do good science, and a bunch of high-profile cases have been crackpots.
I've even heard claims that that's why we may become attached to cute animals so easily because they remind us of babies.
Trouble is most of this stuff is going to be so complexly tied to culture and social norms it's near imposible to seperate something out as say "this is an evolutionary trait" especially since behavioral genetics is far from exact and we can rarely pinpoint a behavior and tie it directly to piece of DNA.
I agree that human culture is powerful. I'm saying that when combined with evidence from other species, and recent DNA and neuroscientific findings, it's just good science to explain certain behaviors as having evolved.
Occam's razer. What makes more sense, that child-protective behavior evolved in the entire mammalian world, then for some reason disappeared from the most successful mammal, only to come back solely due to culture? Or that it's the same goddamned trait?
That's a good point, but what constitutes "child-protective behavior"? That's kind of a silly question, but when it comes to other behaviors evo-psych has to be careful to not conflate too much to biology.
Maternal instinct, or what have you. The desire, probably inherent in most of us, to be protective of babies.
Edit irt yours: Yes, I agree wholeheartedly. One needs to be incredibly cautious when approaching these things before making claims. But people in this thread seem content to dismiss the entire enterprise just because it's hard to do good science, and a bunch of high-profile cases have been crackpots.
I've even heard claims that that's why we may become attached to cute animals so easily because they remind us of babies.
Trouble is most of this stuff is going to be so complexly tied to culture and social norms it's near imposible to seperate something out as say "this is an evolutionary trait" especially since behavioral genetics is far from exact and we can rarely pinpoint a behavior and tie it directly to piece of DNA.
We do similar things all the time in the animal kingdom. We don't pinpoint behaviors to DNA, of course, but we can clearly see the evolution of behaviors by cross-referencing various animals. Which is why I said, given vast cross-cultural studies, to claim we must throw up our hands because we're just that different from every other creature on earth that we can't possibly make any claims of this nature is silly.
Exactly but that quite hard by scientific study standards. Hence why they resort to culturally biased half-assed social studies instead.
So would you agree that something like marriage proabably has an evolutionary element since ever culture has it in one form or another? One could argue that the social advantages of marriage are so obvious and neccessary that every society would socially develop it on it's own. Still tough to pin down as a evolutionary trait with certainty.
Exactly but that quite hard by scientific study standards. Hence why they resort to culturally biased half-assed social studies instead.
Right, I'm not disputing that evo psych has a bad name due to all the idiots running around.
So would you agree that something like marriage probably has an evolutionary element since ever culture has it in one form or another? One could argue that the social advantages of marriage are so obvious and neccessary that every society would socially develop it on it's own. Still tough to pin down as a evolutionary trait with certainty.
I would not argue that, because there are enough cultures that we know about that have eschewed marriage to make that a dubious proposition. Plus I'm not an evolutionary scientist.
Although I do remember an interesting thing I learned in Anth back in college. If you look at the relative difference in body size between the males and females of every great ape species, humans are somewhere between Gorillas, where males are incredibly huge and females slight, and Bonobos, where males and females are roughly the same size. If we then compare various mammals' size ratios to their relative monogamy, we find that the closer in size males and females are, the more likely the species is to mate for life. Obviously not enough to go by, because of the cultural complexity of humanity, but it's interesting to note that were we to be encountered by an alien species, or a completely ignorant and objective scientist, he would be able to guess at our monogamy relative to other species due to the male-female ratio of humans. And he would guess that we would be mostly monogamous, but not entirely.
Edit for clarity: I didn't mean to imply by that that Bonobos mate for life. It was just an illustration of size difference. In the greater animal kingdom, Bonobos (with their size ratio) are the exception.
Exactly but that quite hard by scientific study standards. Hence why they resort to culturally biased half-assed social studies instead.
So would you agree that something like marriage proabably has an evolutionary element since ever culture has it in one form or another? One could argue that the social advantages of marriage are so obvious and neccessary that every society would socially develop it on it's own. Still tough to pin down as a evolutionary trait with certainty.
Or at all. If our closest living relatives were gibbons, perhaps, but since we share over 98% of our dna with the notoriously polyamorous bonobo chimps, I doubt that marriage has anything to do with biology.
According to these articles, many deaths attributed to obesity were really caused by other health problems that may not even have anything to do with obesity. Also, overweight people have no extra risk of premature death, and obese individuals only have a very slight increase in the mortality rate.
Fuck, doublepost! Oh well, might as well not let it go to waste.
I'd also like to point out that those articles also claim that overweight and obese individuals who DO try to lose weight are more likely to die than those who keep at a constant weight.
If anything, weight loss diets seem more deadly than obesity.
My point is that obesity is nowhere near the unstoppable, crippling, killing machine that it is made out to be. Most fat people are at no higher risk of health problems than thin people, but the extremely obese are. They are also the ones whose weight hinders them the most.
It too states that the panic surrounding obesity is worse than obesity itself, but it reports an obesity-related disaster. Overweight individuals may not have to be as wary of healthy problems as people say, but they better make sure they don't exceed the elevator's weight limit...
Like any piece of science that says you have to do a thing, there are plenty of available sources saying "Naaaah, keep it up, champ!"
It doesn't take that much experimenting to tell that being absolutely gigantic is pretty not good. Maybe not "panic" level, but still. You don't want The Gout, you don't want to be confined to your easy chair, you want to be able to play with your kids, and you want to be able to see your genitals.
I agree with that. I don't want people to think that they can be healthy no matter how underweight or obese they are, but I feel obligated to point out that being a little overweight isn't a death sentence. Like I said before, people should concentrate on living a healthy lifestyle, not on weight loss. If a healthy lifestyle leads to weight loss, then continuing to live a healthy lifestyle should bring you to your body's ideal weight. If it doesn't, then your body is either already at its healthy weight, or you are one of the few who have some sort of weight disorder.
With that said, I'm going for a swim. Have fun arguing, everybody!
According to these articles, many deaths attributed to obesity were really caused by other health problems that may not even have anything to do with obesity. Also, overweight people have no extra risk of premature death, and obese individuals only have a very slight increase in the mortality rate.
I apologise if I didn't get the subtle humour of your post, but really. A website that claims the debate on global warming isn't over? That links the majority of it's articles to fox news?
The first complains that BMI isn't a rigorous scientific method (which everyone knows, it's just a good guideline. Chances are if your BMI is 30, you're fat, rather than a weightlifter)
Third article complains that “Obesity itself may not be the only contributing factor to this statistical excess, but rather a marker for other factors such as sedentary behavior or adverse body fat distribution.†Yeah, that's right, people don't die because they're obese, they die because they're lazy and fat.
The fourth article draws on a study carried out between 1960 and 1972 (I may suggest the average diet has changed a little since then). Which goes on to point out that people who have a BMI of 27+ are only between 25 and 50% more likely to die, where as those that are above 32 are only twice as likely to die. (For the record, ~65% of americans are overweight, with ~30% of those being obese 30+ BMI).
Windbit: On the contrary, obesity is far deadlier than people give it credit for. Source.
Obesity is the catalyst of several medical conditions: Sydrome "X" (diabetes mellitus type 2, high blood pressure, high blood cholesterol, and triglyceride levels) which leads to congestive heart failure, enlarged heart and its associated arrhythmias and dizziness, cor pulmonale, varicose veins, pulmonary embolism, polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS), menstrual disorders, infertility, gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), fatty liver disease, cholelithiasis (gallstones), hernia, colorectal cancer, urinary incontinence, glomerulopathy, hypogonadism (male), breast cancer (female), uterine cancer (female), stillbirth, increased insulin resistance, dyspnea, obstructive sleep apnea, hypo-ventilation syndrome, Pickwickian syndrome, asthma, hyperuricemia (which predisposes to gout), immobility, osteoarthritis, low back pain, stroke, meralgia paresthetica, headache, carpal tunnel syndrome, dementia, kidney failure, stretch marks, acanthosis nigricans, lymphedema, cellulitis, carbuncles, inter-trig and joint damage.
* Destruction of the body's "hormonal harmony": Obesity causes insulin resistance which means that your insulin doesn't work the way it's supposed to. Your pancreas tries to compensate by secreting more insulin, but after a while it gets exhausted and you develop diabetes. Aromatisation of testosterone to estrogen in fat tissue is a undesirable side effect. Fat filtration will also cause the endocrine (hormone producing- insulin, glucagon, and somatostatin) part of the pancreas to respond poorly to hormones, and your natural production suffers as a result.
* Fat tissue produces different forms of identified and unidentified "toxic" substances that have a terrible effect on different regulatory systems in the body, which results in poor regulation of blood pressure (increase) and cholesterol (increase). This predisposes for filled arteries in the heart and brain (heart attack, stroke), by accumulation of oxidised LDL-cholesterol in the artery walls that when absorbing chalk swells up and breaks.
* Fat tissue inhibits different parts of the immune system, both directly and indirectly, due to inhibition of the signalling roads between immune cells. Since your immune system fights cancer cells, the risk for cancer and inflammatory diseases (rheumatoid arthritis, chronic obtrustive pulmonary disease, osteoarthritis) increase drastically.
* Fat is not limited to the subcutaneous fat you see in the mirror. If your obesity reaches a certain threshold the fat itself will 'float' out into your internal organs and start storing itself in your liver, heart, intestines and even muscles. This leads to reduced organ function.
* The obese carry a significant amount of weight, while the knuckles, joints, muscles and tendons often are severely undertrained and can't handle it. This leads to premature wearing and damages the skeletal and connective tissue.
TL;DR: Obesity will wind you, crush your joints, make you unfuckable and infertile and will eventually slowly and painfully lead to diseases that will kill you.
TL;DR: Obesity will wind you, crush your joints, make you unfuckable and infertile and will eventually slowly and painfully lead to diseases that will kill you.
And what, exactly, is your point? It's not like being fat is valorized in Western popular culture, and neither is obesity a death sentence.
TL;DR: Obesity will wind you, crush your joints, make you unfuckable and infertile and will eventually slowly and painfully lead to diseases that will kill you.
And what, exactly, is your point? It's not like being fat is valorized in Western popular culture, and neither is obesity a death sentence.
TL;DR: Obesity will wind you, crush your joints, make you unfuckable and infertile and will eventually slowly and painfully lead to diseases that will kill you.
And what, exactly, is your point? It's not like being fat is valorized in Western popular culture, and neither is obesity a death sentence.
If you noticed, I was replying to Windbit.
And I think the way that you're stating obesity's correlation with health problems in absolute terms is rather silly, especially considering how pretty much nobody wants to be fat, but lots of people want to engage in risky or unhealthful behaviors that lead to serious diseases and ailments.
Cognitive Disconnect
According to the research of Dr.Keys, the inventor of K-rations, dieting does harm to the body: blood cholesterol levels actually rise after a diet! Could it be possible that dieting, not body weight, causes many people to develop heart disease? He lived 100 years, so he must have been on to something.
On Obesity, What the Researchers Didn't Find
This article cites research that claims that obese children do not consume more junk food than thin children. Not only that, but children who are put on weight-loss diets are more likely to gain weight than children who never diet.
Loopy Links
This article emphasizes that correlation doesn't equal causation. It also says that physical activity is much more important than watching what you eat.
I agree that obesity should be avoided, but to what extent do these medical conditions occur in people who are overweight, but not obese?
There is no definite answer for that because the effects of carrying unhealthy amounts of fat differ from person to person. It has a lot to do with one's genes.
Also, how do we know that all those conditions are caused by obesity (such as cancer)?
For most of them, we are almost 100% certain that obesity increases the risk of you developing those conditions. Sometimes this is a direct effect, such as joint problems, and sometimes indirect, such as in coronary heart disease.
This is not to say that those conditions are caused only by obesity, of course.
Cognitive Disconnect
According to the research of Dr.Keys, the inventor of K-rations, dieting does harm to the body: blood cholesterol levels actually rise after a diet! Could it be possible that dieting, not body weight, causes many people to develop heart disease? He lived 100 years, so he must have been on to something.
First, just because he lived 100 years doesn't mean we should listen to him. There are a lot of people in the world who live past their 100, and most of them would know jack about healthy eating.
Second, yes, extreme forms of dieting are harmful. That should be a no-brainer to anyone with the simplest clue about how the body works and how it utilizes different kinds of nutrients. Alas, extreme diets have become very popular in the last two decades because of people's tendency to look for easy ways out of their problems.
Third, your "could it be possible that dieting, not body weight, causes many people to develop heart disease" question is troubling. The link between body fat ratio and risk of coronary heart disease is almost undeniable. Does this mean there are no other possible causes? Of course not. It might be just that both extreme forms of dieting and being overweight/obese increases the risk. It doesn't have to be one or the other, like your question suggests.
On Obesity, What the Researchers Didn't Find
This article cites research that claims that obese children do not consume more junk food than thin children. Not only that, but children who are put on weight-loss diets are more likely to gain weight than children who never diet.
I would be very hesitant to put any child on any sort of "diet" because it has the risk of stunting their growth.
As far as junk consumption goes, not sure what it is you're trying to get at.
Loopy Links
This article emphasizes that correlation doesn't equal causation. It also says that physical activity is much more important than watching what you eat.
It's not a matter of just physical activity or what you eat.
In the end, it comes down to this: if you eat more calories than you burn, you'll gain weight. If you burn more calories than you eat, you'll lose weight. This means that you don't necessarily have to exercise to lose weight (a friend of mine lost 40 pounds in a year just by switching to diet mountain dew), and you don't necessarily have to eat healthy either.
But of course the best results are seen when exercise and healthy eating are practiced together.
Second, yes, extreme forms of dieting are harmful. That should be a no-brainer to anyone with the simplest clue about how the body works and how it utilizes different kinds of nutrients. Alas, extreme diets have become very popular in the last two decades because of people's tendency to look for easy ways out of their problems.
Would it be wrong to posit that since we may have (here's the ev psych again) evolved in an environment where you didn't know when your next meal or tiger attack would come from, we might be nicely adapted to periods of feast and famine and periods of intense life and death struggle and complete lazyness. Chronic fasting is bad (hello starvation). Chronic feasting is bad (hello all those things you pointed out about fat). Chronic lazy is bad (hello tiger food). Chronic non-lazy is bad (hello stress and all stress related pathologies).
The Chronic is the shit though
themightypuck on
“Reject your sense of injury and the injury itself disappears.”
― Marcus Aurelius
It's strange that there are so many contradictory results... According to these articles, obese patients are less likely to die from heart disease. It doesn't specify if obese patients are both more likely to develop heart disease and survive it, but it would be interesting if true.
Holy fuck I derailed this thread. What happened to hating fat people?
I personally think that prejudice against fat people is more nurture than nature. Fat people are often chastised for being lazy and eating too much. I'm trying to find out if this is just a stereotype, or if it is more often than not true.
Though a blog called "Junkfood Science" is probably biased, I thought I'd post this, too. You have an equal chance of premature death if you are underweight as an extremely obese person who's BMI exceeds 35.
"For an average 5'4" woman, that means weighing 145 to 205 pounds is the least risky; for someone 5'11", the lowest risks are at 172 to 247 pounds."
It goes on to say that the majority of studies in the last 50 years have concluded that body weight is practically irrelevant to health, with the exception of extreme obesity (BMI>35), which represents only a little over 8% of the population.
""We were surprised by the higher rate of progression of calcification in obese people in the lower risk group," says Peyser, professor of epidemiology at the School of Public Health. "We found that obesity increases the risk of coronary disease for people who have lower traditional risk factors."
OK...but how can we tell if obesity caused the calcification? Isn't it just as possible that poor diet and lack of exercise caused calcification and weight gain? That is, obesity is a symptom, but not a cause?
Posts
Not American dominance so much as Western dominance. I don't think you can find a sufficient number of pygmies who are able to participate in the study and have also never encountered white-people to form anything resembling an acceptable sample-size.
Right, but societal norms, trends, and practicality can (and do) determine on occasion which traits are inherited.
It's the best guess we can make with the available data. For instance, we know several things:
1. In the mammalian world, evolution favors powerful instincts, especially related to child-rearing and survival, that manifest themselves in predictable behaviors. This is an uncontroversial statement among evolutionary biologists.
3. Studies among other mammals involve certain reactions to being shown their young.
2. Humans are mammals.
3. If a study, then, involves a sample size of such depth and complexity so as to remove as many cultural variables as possible, and finds that all humans, no matter where or from what cultural or historical background, all exhibit similar reactions when presented with a baby's face, it's a safe bet to combine all three prongs of knowledge into an evolutionary explanation.
To not do so, in fact, is to exhibit the same haughty armchair superiority complex that people used for hundreds of years to claim that humans are somehow fundamentally different from the rest of the animal kingdom.
I mostly agree, except that human culture is precisely the kind of phenomenon that's powerful enough to influence human biology in a way not seen elsewhere in the animal kingdom. (As far as we can currently identify.)
...I guess I'm just coming at this issue from the other side of the pendulum.
I agree that human culture is powerful. I'm saying that when combined with evidence from other species, and recent DNA and neuroscientific findings, it's just good science to explain certain behaviors as having evolved.
Occam's razer. What makes more sense, that child-protective behavior evolved in the entire mammalian world, then for some reason disappeared from the most successful mammal, only to come back solely due to culture? Or that it's the same goddamned trait?
Yeah, a cultural belief could be enough to change breeding patterns for generations. Monkeys and rats don't randomly decide that an eclipse is a sign from a higher power signaling that they should all get busy.
But I remember reading how certain biological functions (production of sperm and sex drive) can increase when a person and their loved one have been away from each other.
That's a good point, but what constitutes "child-protective behavior"? That's kind of a silly question, but when it comes to other behaviors evo-psych has to be careful to not conflate too much to biology.
...What I mean is that evolutionary psychologists have a particular burden of needing to be extremely conscious of why they phrase things the way they do, because there's so much room for cultural attitudes to influence the way they look at the data they gather.
Maternal instinct, or what have you. The desire, probably inherent in most of us, to be protective of babies.
Edit irt yours: Yes, I agree wholeheartedly. One needs to be incredibly cautious when approaching these things before making claims. But people in this thread seem content to dismiss the entire enterprise just because it's hard to do good science, and a bunch of high-profile cases have been crackpots.
I'm being very specific to this case and the article in the OP. Also I'm referencing other exmaples given here like the woemn carrying purses argument.
I've even heard claims that that's why we may become attached to cute animals so easily because they remind us of babies.
Trouble is most of this stuff is going to be so complexly tied to culture and social norms it's near imposible to seperate something out as say "this is an evolutionary trait" especially since behavioral genetics is far from exact and we can rarely pinpoint a behavior and tie it directly to piece of DNA.
We do similar things all the time in the animal kingdom. We don't pinpoint behaviors to DNA, of course, but we can clearly see the evolution of behaviors by cross-referencing various animals. Which is why I said, given vast cross-cultural studies, to claim we must throw up our hands because we're just that different from every other creature on earth that we can't possibly make any claims of this nature is silly.
So would you agree that something like marriage proabably has an evolutionary element since ever culture has it in one form or another? One could argue that the social advantages of marriage are so obvious and neccessary that every society would socially develop it on it's own. Still tough to pin down as a evolutionary trait with certainty.
Right, I'm not disputing that evo psych has a bad name due to all the idiots running around.
I would not argue that, because there are enough cultures that we know about that have eschewed marriage to make that a dubious proposition. Plus I'm not an evolutionary scientist.
Although I do remember an interesting thing I learned in Anth back in college. If you look at the relative difference in body size between the males and females of every great ape species, humans are somewhere between Gorillas, where males are incredibly huge and females slight, and Bonobos, where males and females are roughly the same size. If we then compare various mammals' size ratios to their relative monogamy, we find that the closer in size males and females are, the more likely the species is to mate for life. Obviously not enough to go by, because of the cultural complexity of humanity, but it's interesting to note that were we to be encountered by an alien species, or a completely ignorant and objective scientist, he would be able to guess at our monogamy relative to other species due to the male-female ratio of humans. And he would guess that we would be mostly monogamous, but not entirely.
Edit for clarity: I didn't mean to imply by that that Bonobos mate for life. It was just an illustration of size difference. In the greater animal kingdom, Bonobos (with their size ratio) are the exception.
Or at all. If our closest living relatives were gibbons, perhaps, but since we share over 98% of our dna with the notoriously polyamorous bonobo chimps, I doubt that marriage has anything to do with biology.
I've found these four articles from Junkscience.com that claim that obesity is being made out to be much worse than it is.
Federal Fatheads
Dire Warnings About Obesity Rely on Slippery Statistics
Obesity Turkey
Obesity's Link to Early Death Found Less Than Expected
According to these articles, many deaths attributed to obesity were really caused by other health problems that may not even have anything to do with obesity. Also, overweight people have no extra risk of premature death, and obese individuals only have a very slight increase in the mortality rate.
I'd also like to point out that those articles also claim that overweight and obese individuals who DO try to lose weight are more likely to die than those who keep at a constant weight.
If anything, weight loss diets seem more deadly than obesity.
Improved health care. Oh and last year or the year before was the first time a generation had a lower life expectancy then their parents.
It too states that the panic surrounding obesity is worse than obesity itself, but it reports an obesity-related disaster. Overweight individuals may not have to be as wary of healthy problems as people say, but they better make sure they don't exceed the elevator's weight limit...
It doesn't take that much experimenting to tell that being absolutely gigantic is pretty not good. Maybe not "panic" level, but still. You don't want The Gout, you don't want to be confined to your easy chair, you want to be able to play with your kids, and you want to be able to see your genitals.
With that said, I'm going for a swim. Have fun arguing, everybody!
I apologise if I didn't get the subtle humour of your post, but really. A website that claims the debate on global warming isn't over? That links the majority of it's articles to fox news?
The first complains that BMI isn't a rigorous scientific method (which everyone knows, it's just a good guideline. Chances are if your BMI is 30, you're fat, rather than a weightlifter)
Third article complains that “Obesity itself may not be the only contributing factor to this statistical excess, but rather a marker for other factors such as sedentary behavior or adverse body fat distribution.†Yeah, that's right, people don't die because they're obese, they die because they're lazy and fat.
The fourth article draws on a study carried out between 1960 and 1972 (I may suggest the average diet has changed a little since then). Which goes on to point out that people who have a BMI of 27+ are only between 25 and 50% more likely to die, where as those that are above 32 are only twice as likely to die. (For the record, ~65% of americans are overweight, with ~30% of those being obese 30+ BMI).
Ah, true. The major reason I've taken up exercise is the spectre of Diabetes in my family. That, plus minor history of heart disease.
Also, seriously, one of our family friends got The Gout. Being 7'0" 450 pounds, and having dainty dancers ankles does not mix.
And what, exactly, is your point? It's not like being fat is valorized in Western popular culture, and neither is obesity a death sentence.
If you noticed, I was replying to Windbit.
And I think the way that you're stating obesity's correlation with health problems in absolute terms is rather silly, especially considering how pretty much nobody wants to be fat, but lots of people want to engage in risky or unhealthful behaviors that lead to serious diseases and ailments.
According to the research of Dr.Keys, the inventor of K-rations, dieting does harm to the body: blood cholesterol levels actually rise after a diet! Could it be possible that dieting, not body weight, causes many people to develop heart disease? He lived 100 years, so he must have been on to something.
On Obesity, What the Researchers Didn't Find
This article cites research that claims that obese children do not consume more junk food than thin children. Not only that, but children who are put on weight-loss diets are more likely to gain weight than children who never diet.
Loopy Links
This article emphasizes that correlation doesn't equal causation. It also says that physical activity is much more important than watching what you eat.
There is no definite answer for that because the effects of carrying unhealthy amounts of fat differ from person to person. It has a lot to do with one's genes.
For most of them, we are almost 100% certain that obesity increases the risk of you developing those conditions. Sometimes this is a direct effect, such as joint problems, and sometimes indirect, such as in coronary heart disease.
This is not to say that those conditions are caused only by obesity, of course.
First, just because he lived 100 years doesn't mean we should listen to him. There are a lot of people in the world who live past their 100, and most of them would know jack about healthy eating.
Second, yes, extreme forms of dieting are harmful. That should be a no-brainer to anyone with the simplest clue about how the body works and how it utilizes different kinds of nutrients. Alas, extreme diets have become very popular in the last two decades because of people's tendency to look for easy ways out of their problems.
Third, your "could it be possible that dieting, not body weight, causes many people to develop heart disease" question is troubling. The link between body fat ratio and risk of coronary heart disease is almost undeniable. Does this mean there are no other possible causes? Of course not. It might be just that both extreme forms of dieting and being overweight/obese increases the risk. It doesn't have to be one or the other, like your question suggests.
I would be very hesitant to put any child on any sort of "diet" because it has the risk of stunting their growth.
As far as junk consumption goes, not sure what it is you're trying to get at.
It's not a matter of just physical activity or what you eat.
In the end, it comes down to this: if you eat more calories than you burn, you'll gain weight. If you burn more calories than you eat, you'll lose weight. This means that you don't necessarily have to exercise to lose weight (a friend of mine lost 40 pounds in a year just by switching to diet mountain dew), and you don't necessarily have to eat healthy either.
But of course the best results are seen when exercise and healthy eating are practiced together.
― Marcus Aurelius
Path of Exile: themightypuck
Would it be wrong to posit that since we may have (here's the ev psych again) evolved in an environment where you didn't know when your next meal or tiger attack would come from, we might be nicely adapted to periods of feast and famine and periods of intense life and death struggle and complete lazyness. Chronic fasting is bad (hello starvation). Chronic feasting is bad (hello all those things you pointed out about fat). Chronic lazy is bad (hello tiger food). Chronic non-lazy is bad (hello stress and all stress related pathologies).
― Marcus Aurelius
Path of Exile: themightypuck
Obesity Paradox #1
Obesity Linked to Lower Risk of Cardiac Death in CAD
It's strange that there are so many contradictory results... According to these articles, obese patients are less likely to die from heart disease. It doesn't specify if obese patients are both more likely to develop heart disease and survive it, but it would be interesting if true.
I personally think that prejudice against fat people is more nurture than nature. Fat people are often chastised for being lazy and eating too much. I'm trying to find out if this is just a stereotype, or if it is more often than not true.
Say it Isn't So
Though a blog called "Junkfood Science" is probably biased, I thought I'd post this, too. You have an equal chance of premature death if you are underweight as an extremely obese person who's BMI exceeds 35.
Bon Appetit!
This article claims that overweight individuals actually live longer than those who are at a normal weight! It goes on to say that the majority of studies in the last 50 years have concluded that body weight is practically irrelevant to health, with the exception of extreme obesity (BMI>35), which represents only a little over 8% of the population.
Obesity : Impact on Cardiovascular Disease -- Krauss et al. 98 (14): 1472
Also, check the citations at the end.
Obesity In Middle Age Raises Heart Disease, Diabetes Risk In Older Age
Obesity can cause problems, even if heart disease risk is low
This is like saying "one final point: if the bends are as dangerous as claimed, why are we breathing nitrogen right now??!!"