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"Obvious evolutionary explanations" by laymen tend to be just-so stories.
by Semiapies 8y ago
"Obvious evolutionary explanations" by laymen tend to be just-so stories.
- wallace_f 8y agoIf I'm not mistaken, just-so stories were Lamarckian explanations, while OP's seems like a Darwinian one.
- stcredzero 8y agoIt's very easy to craft evolutionary just-so stories. That's why you need to look out for it.
- wallace_f 8y agoBut this is actually not a just-so story. It's a Darwinian hypothesis. OP needs to gather evidence if they want to prove their theory. Said another way: A single Lamarckian example of evolution has yet to be proven, so they can perhaps be dismissed with a degree of confidence. OP's hypothesis is not Lamarckian.
- stcredzero 8y agoA Darwinian just-so story may well be worse than a Lamarckian one. The latter might be immediately falsifiable while the former might be "not even wrong." (Ugh. I just did a search for "Just So stories," only to discover that the anti-evolutionists have latched onto that term!)
- wallace_f 8y ago>I just did a search for "Just So stories," only to discover that the anti-evolutionists have latched onto that term! Well, that is my point. They are not evolutionary theories. Despite this being ultra downvoted, my pointing out the use of the term "just-so stories" is incorrect here seems to clearly be something you are even realizing while in the same breath disagreeing.
- stcredzero 8y agoYou seem painfully unaware that separating "just so stories" from worthy, testable hypotheses is actually a significant part of the process of coming up with a theory in evolutionary biology.
- wallace_f 8y agoMy argument is not even about the process of teasing out a testable hypothesis. What I said is that the phrase, "just-so stories" is misused here. You even discovered that yourself when you did a Google search on this phrase, as is evident from your last post. And your subsequently combative, insulting attitude in response to this development reflects poorly on your character.
- stcredzero 8y agoWhat I said is that the phrase, "just-so stories" is misused here. You even discovered that yourself when you did a Google search on this phrase, as is evident from your last post. My Google discovery has almost no bearing on the point I and everyone else trying to clue you in on this thread was making. So your response is actually a datapoint against you here.
- wallace_f 8y agoYour responses come across not as explanatory or cooperative, but as having a combative and unproductive attitude Anyways, whether you like to admit it or not, your Google discovery was 100% literally what my argument here is. I have no ability to get you to change your tone or reevaluate this thread, even after you typed out the discovery yourself, showing that neither did you read my argument, let alone try to understand it. What I said was exactly what your Google discovery was. There's not really anything else to say here. My argument was plain and simple. Just-so stories are Lamarckian theories that are not substantiated by evolutionary biology. Since I'm already repeating myself, I'm going to stop responding now. But I'm glad at least you learned something: exactly the point I was trying to make in the first place.
- inimino 8y agoA Darwinian just-so story is still a just-so story.
- wallace_f 8y agoWhat I was trying to say is that just-so stories are not consistent with modern evolutionary biology. They are in fact Lamarckian. They are by definition, not Darwinian. The phrase here is not being used correctly in this thread.
- stcredzero 8y agoWhat I was trying to say is that just-so stories are not consistent with modern evolutionary biology. They are in fact Lamarckian. Now you're dissecting exactly what your position is, which is to your credit. However, you're also exposing the exact nature of your misconception quite starkly as well. "Just-so stories," as used by the evolutionary biology community, can indeed be written entirely in an Darwinian evolutionary framework. All you have to do is to craft an evolutionary theory which is not currently falsifiable. Here's one. An explanation for why human babies have an unconscious proclivity for sticking things in their mouths. Infant mortality in non-technological human societies is rather high. This gives them an optimal emergent function as unwitting food tasters for their family and society. Infants represent a good cost/benefit as food tasters, since they contain almost no cultural investment in learning and knowledge, and represent a relatively small group investment in food and other resources given to them in their short lives, so if they should die, there are far fewer resources lost. This theory is entirely Darwinian. It's a behavioral trait which can plausibly be passed down to descendants, and the mechanism for the increase of this trait is through the reproductive advantage which accrues to individuals living in groups which can discover edible foods and poisons for the least cost. (Now, I can only imagine that you're going to try and spin what I've just said by imputing intention to entities in the theory, or some misunderstanding of evolutionary mechanisms of altruism. The persistence with which you don't understand that which is told to you resembles that of anti-evolutionists.)
- Semiapies 8y agoOP's hypothesis isn't even falsifiable. It's just an idea.
- astazangasta 8y agoSo do the "obvious evolutionary explanations" by so-called experts, by the way. A useful exercise is to consider how you could possibly have an evolutionary explanation that is NOT a just-so story. It seems impossible to me; there is really nothing in our epistemology to justify our stories about evolution besides inductive inference, a.k.a a just-so story.
- jm__87 8y agoI would think if the story holds across all cultures over time, it is pretty good evidence it is not just a just-so story.
- astazangasta 8y agoMaybe, or maybe you just insufficiently observed the variability across cultures or time, or ignored it, or pretended the outliers don't contradict your cherished thesis, or pretended your sample set is more representative than it is, etc., etc. Anyway "pretty good" evidence seems about the right standard for something to be labeled a just-so story.
- jm__87 8y agoConsensus is the best you can ask for with evolutionary stories. There is no equivalent of a mathematical proof in that field. Do you think we shouldn't bother with this field of study at all since we cannot definitively prove something?
- astazangasta 8y agoIn a world where the worst sort of racist dogmas proceed from exactly this sort of reasoning, and where natural selection is often made to stand in the place of God ("the fittest survive"), maybe we should.
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- ethanwillis 8y agoThis comment adds nothing to the discussion. Instead please explain why you think it's not a potentially valid explanation instead of just attacking the OP for being a laymen(something you didn't verify).
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- Semiapies 8y agoI invite you to apply critical thinking as to why someone's declaration of the OMG obvious evolutionary explanation for a still dimly-understood psychological phenomenon is fundamentally dubious. Tossed-off evo-psych ideas like that are the playground of laymen geeks when it comes to biology. They contribute nothing except a false sense of understanding.