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On the other hand some practices should have explicit rationale. For example I’ve learned that tests should contain some associated rationale for what the case
by jschwartzi 7y ago
On the other hand some practices should have explicit rationale. For example I’ve learned that tests should contain some associated rationale for what the case is covering. Otherwise the next person to update the test risks eliminating coverage somewhere.
- thaumasiotes 7y agoMost practices do have explicit rationale. For example, the practice of touching or knocking on wood after mentioning a hypothetical bad thing is explicitly justified by reference to the practice's power to prevent the mentioned misfortune from becoming true. This is the norm; mostly behaviors have explicit rationales whether or not those rationales justify the behaviors. But as the example shows, a practice's rationale is generally not related to the function served by the practice. Even if a practice is adopted for straightforward reasons and more or less fulfills its intended purpose with few side effects, over time other practices will come to depend on that one in unclear ways. Where should that be written down?
- jschwartzi 7y agoYou're right about superstitions but I think it's disingenuous to take a statement about engineering practices and expand it to include all statements ever made about how to do anything.
- lliamander 7y agoIt's interesting to think of evo-psych as essentially the discipline of trying to explain the underlying rationale for the "chesterton fences" within our own subconscious/preconscious behaviors.
- brazzy 7y agoIn my experience, evo-psych is essentially the discipline of trying to turn your favourite cultural practice into a "fact of nature".
- lliamander 7y agoI don't know that it's any worse off than anthropology, or any of the other social sciences. There is certainly the temptation to engage in the naturalistic fallacy (i.e. "just because something is natural that it is therefore necessarily moral"). At the base of it, evo-psych rests on the premise that for a behavior to persist, it must have a purpose. Asking what that purpose is, without ascribing a value judgement, seems like a reasonable avenue of inquiry.
- thaumasiotes 7y ago> At the base of it, evo-psych rests on the premise that for a behavior to persist, it must have a purpose. Asking what that purpose is, without ascribing a value judgement, seems like a reasonable avenue of inquiry. This conflicts with the broader understanding of evolution in general, which treats "selection" (changes that have a purpose) and "genetic drift" (changes that have no purpose) separately.
- brazzy 7y ago"Purpose" is also the wrong word, isn't it? A more correct way would be the changes that improve the chances of survival and procreation, and changes that don't but persist because they at least don't decrease those chances.
- brazzy 7y ago> There is certainly the temptation to engage in the naturalistic fallacy (i.e. "just because something is natural that it is therefore necessarily moral"). My point was more that with evo psych, you can additionally declare almost any behaviour to be "natural" by coming up with some convoluted reasoning why it confers an evolutionary advantage.