I see a lot of economists making arguments of this form: 1. There is this social norm I observe. ("Which makes it ironic that we consider pedophilia a bad thin

I see a lot of economists making arguments of this form: 1. There is this social norm I observe. ("Which makes it ironic that we consider pedophilia a bad thing.") 2. The social norm is justified by some sort of moral/psychological factor. ("So why are we so offended? Perhaps the key is our extending kid dependency further via more years of school....") 3. However, science tells us that the social norm is bad for some reason. ("Pedophilia is a sign that a species or a culture has longer term sexual relationships.") 4. Thus, we are silly and irrational people for believing the social norm in the face of science. ("Count this as another way we have not fully adapted to industry era novelties.") Now where does this argument fall apart? A. The step of 1 to 2 is unjustified. There are plenty of other reasons behind a particular social norm besides the one proposed, often more attractive than that one proposed. For example, most people probably consider sexual relationships between an older man and a teenage woman unacceptable because of unequal dominance factors, because it curtails the teenager's formative development years, etc. B. The step of 3 is unjustified. The mere fact that science leads to one conclusion does not mean that it leads to other conclusions. There are, perhaps, scientific reasons why pedophilia is good, if the author's views are taken as true. But the author ignores the fact that there may well be scientific evidence in the other direction. C. The step of 3 to 4 is unjustified. The mere fact that science leads to one conclusion does not mean that it trumps all. Indeed, the triumph of humanity is often that it can overcome factors that might otherwise be considered "innate" or "natural." For example, it is in the nature of some people to go around killing others; we do not say that this is permissible because it is simply in those people's natures.