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Evolutionary psychology reminds me of religious sermons. The axiomatic assumption is that everything happens for a purpose and the cause is always evolution (or

by pron 9y ago

Evolutionary psychology reminds me of religious sermons. The axiomatic assumption is that everything happens for a purpose and the cause is always evolution (or God) [1], and so, if something happens it must have a purpose. All that's needed is to interpret reality to uncover it. If something good happens it's because the purpose is to reward us, and if bad something happens, it's because the purpose is to teach us. Or something. Religion, of course, is far superior, because it doesn't pretend to be science. [1]: Nothing we know about biology in general and evolution in particular entails that assumption (except in specific circumstances where the mechanism is understood, but if the mechanism is understood the interpretation is unnecessary), hence it's axiomatic.

nothrabannosir 9y ago
Isn’t it predicated on the notion of heredity and influence on sexual fitness? The assumption here being, somehow, there’s a genetic markup which positively or negatively influences propensity for depression, and that that has a positive / negative effect on procreation (either directly or through survival)? If the original effect of the genetic trait was different (as someone else mentioned) and it had a positive effect on fitness (survival), then that’s still a valid order of cause and effect analysis , and not assumption of intelligent design.
posterboy 9y ago
The idea is to ask where a consistent pattern has its beginning, to estimate where it will lead to, etc. Its primary focus is not necessarily focused on genetics, but something that exists has to come from somewhere. > Nothing we know about biology in general and evolution in particular entails that assumption That's a bigger statement than you could probably validate So it doesn't falsify this could-be story.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
DoreenMichele 9y ago
No, you don't actually need any such assumption. We often use that language, but that isn't really what evolution is about. Evolution is about surviving the winnowing. Strategies that create high survival rates tend to propagate. Proposing a "purpose" for the strategy is just a means to try to understand the mechanism that causes them to foster higher survival rates and thereby propogate.
- pron 9y ago
  That is not at all what I meant. What I meant was that there is no reason whatsoever to presuppose that every existing phenotypical quality is adaptive.
  - DoreenMichele 9y ago
    The article is simply asking, essentially, "Since depression is so common, what if it is adaptive? What if there are circumstances under which depression actually improves your odds of survival, even though that seems counter-intuitive?"
    - pron 9y ago
      I understand that, just as I understand that there is value in religion, but that doesn't make it science. Yet evolutionary psychology poses as science. All of evolutionary psychology is "can we come up with an interesting interpretation to present quality X as adaptive?" Interesting, maybe, but not science.
      - DoreenMichele 9y ago
        Ah. Okay. I agree that most psychosocial stuff is on not very solid ground. To put it nicely, it is more art than science. Where I basically disagree is that this makes it not worthwhile to pursue and inherently inferior to religion.
      - rwnspace 9y ago
        >not science. That's a brave position. I think it's not exactly Freudian dream theory. Though the 'just-so stories' characterisation can be fair... Saying that, behavioural biology is without question a scientific endeavour, with obvious connections to both evolution and human psychology - is that well-grounded evo psych or is evo psych poorly-grounded behavioural biology?
        pron 9y ago
laretluval 9y ago
The language about "purposes" in evolution is metaphorical, and I'd argue no more metaphorical than in any other setting. Good luck defining the notion of a purpose in terms of particle physics, and yet it's clearly a useful notion in a theory of human behavior.

by pron 9y ago

nothrabannosir 9y ago

Isn’t it predicated on the notion of heredity and influence on sexual fitness? The assumption here being, somehow, there’s a genetic markup which positively or negatively influences propensity for depression, and that that has a positive / negative effect on procreation (either directly or through survival)? If the original effect of the genetic trait was different (as someone else mentioned) and it had a positive effect on fitness (survival), then that’s still a valid order of cause and effect analysis , and not assumption of intelligent design.

posterboy 9y ago

The idea is to ask where a consistent pattern has its beginning, to estimate where it will lead to, etc. Its primary focus is not necessarily focused on genetics, but something that exists has to come from somewhere. > Nothing we know about biology in general and evolution in particular entails that assumption That's a bigger statement than you could probably validate So it doesn't falsify this could-be story.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

DoreenMichele 9y ago

No, you don't actually need any such assumption. We often use that language, but that isn't really what evolution is about. Evolution is about surviving the winnowing. Strategies that create high survival rates tend to propagate. Proposing a "purpose" for the strategy is just a means to try to understand the mechanism that causes them to foster higher survival rates and thereby propogate.

pron 9y ago
That is not at all what I meant. What I meant was that there is no reason whatsoever to presuppose that every existing phenotypical quality is adaptive.
- DoreenMichele 9y ago
  The article is simply asking, essentially, "Since depression is so common, what if it is adaptive? What if there are circumstances under which depression actually improves your odds of survival, even though that seems counter-intuitive?"
  - pron 9y ago
    I understand that, just as I understand that there is value in religion, but that doesn't make it science. Yet evolutionary psychology poses as science. All of evolutionary psychology is "can we come up with an interesting interpretation to present quality X as adaptive?" Interesting, maybe, but not science.
    - DoreenMichele 9y ago
      Ah. Okay. I agree that most psychosocial stuff is on not very solid ground. To put it nicely, it is more art than science. Where I basically disagree is that this makes it not worthwhile to pursue and inherently inferior to religion.
    - rwnspace 9y ago
      >not science. That's a brave position. I think it's not exactly Freudian dream theory. Though the 'just-so stories' characterisation can be fair... Saying that, behavioural biology is without question a scientific endeavour, with obvious connections to both evolution and human psychology - is that well-grounded evo psych or is evo psych poorly-grounded behavioural biology?
      - pron 9y ago

laretluval 9y ago

The language about "purposes" in evolution is metaphorical, and I'd argue no more metaphorical than in any other setting. Good luck defining the notion of a purpose in terms of particle physics, and yet it's clearly a useful notion in a theory of human behavior.