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Evolutionary psychology is bullsh*t because it pretends to know how an incalculable array of factors interacted to cause certain people to successfully reproduc
by narrator 14y ago
Evolutionary psychology is bullsh*t because it pretends to know how an incalculable array of factors interacted to cause certain people to successfully reproduce over generations. The thing is, the complexity of reality is far far more awesome than that and making simplistic sounding plausible evolutionary arguments for certain behaviours is just hubris. Yes, evolution is happening but we're really overestimating ourselves if we think we know just how it's happening in the absence of archaeological fossil evidence.
- bermanoid 14y agoEvolution works by exploiting regularities in all of those complex and intertwined factors. In instances where we see obvious regularities, and we see that they've been exploited, then we should at least bump that probability that it's a valid explanation for the behavior. Are we sure? Of course not. But we've got some information, and often a pretty significant amount. That's not to say there isn't a lot of bad evolutionary psychology out there, especially in the popsci section at the bookstore. But the idea that we shouldn't even consider evolution when we're trying to explain behavior is too far in the other direction.
- rcthompson 14y agoHow is this in any way a response to this comment thread? When did anyone say anything about evolutionary psychology? I only said that biologists sometimes get sloppy and say things about evolution they don't actually mean, and that this confuses other people who take them at their word.