8 ms·

How evolutionary psychology went viral

52 points by samclemens 12y ago

davidgerard 12y ago
WELL I NEVER, See I Told You, Morning Commuter Time (NNN) — British scientists have uncovered why little girls like pink toys. “Women are hardwired to like pink,” says Professor Gene Hunt of the University of Metro, “because their cavewoman foremothers spent their days gathering red leaves and berries amongst the trees.” Later, women needed to notice red-faced babies and blushing boyfriends. Men are attracted to blue because of the colour of the sky as seen when hunting. Women are also predisposed to backstab one another in the workplace and cry in the boardroom, just like the social structures in the cave population as extrapolated from these two bone needles. Being too successful will increase women’s testosterone, giving them hairy nipples and male-pattern baldness. Females joining the hunt may also explain the end of the Neanderthals. IQ test studies show that women have lower IQs on average than men, undoubtedly from lesser need for environmental variation while taking care of the cave. Tests on little boys prove that testosterone correlates with a sense of humour, which is why women just can’t take a joke. Housework has been shown to cut the risk of several fatal diseases, and dressing up nicely around the house is psychologically healthy as it uses the Homo erectus clan maintenance abilities of the female of the tribe. Men are naturally predisposed to sleep with as many women as possible, as proven by lions, whereas women are naturally predisposed to stay loyal to their man and their spawn. Women who sleep around are at increased risk of parasites and death, as proven by cheetahs, who are a pack of catty sluts. In a final crowning achievement, the team has shown that daily fellatio greatly reduces the incidence of breast cancer. Furthermore, regular sexual intercourse is essential to feminine health, but may be injurious if prolonged for more than two minutes or conducted while the man is sober. “In conclusion,” says Professor Hunt, “all of this is top-notch science that you can absolutely rely on. Now get your knickers back on and make me a cuppa.” from http://newstechnica.com/2008/10/23/science-reveals-evolutionary-origins-of-gender-stereotypes/ http://newstechnica.com/2008/10/23/science-reveals-evolution...
api 12y ago
Most evo-psych is pretty weak stuff, basically a lot of dubious and untestable just-so rationalizations for various prejudices and apparent human tendencies. A good chunk of it is full-on woo-woo nonsense. Sometimes I get the (rather cynical) sense that there's an inverse relationship between the merit of an idea and its virality.
- jbhatab 12y ago
  I'm going to have to disagree here. I think that the tests necessary to prove psych are incredible difficult, but I can still use limited sets of data to verify things. Evolutionary psych is the philosophy that matches up the best with what I have seen in this world. This isn't scientific, but if I don't have another philosophy to go off of then I will at least reference that model for ideas on how people will behave.
  - ksk 12y ago
    >but I can still use limited sets of data to verify things. Such as? >This isn't scientific, but if I don't have another philosophy to go off of then I will at least reference that model for ideas on how people will behave. I don't understand your point. If you say it's not scientific, what exactly are you "verifying" ?
    - larksimian 12y ago
      He's verifying his ability to use the terminology of science to justify and legitimate his personal biases about other human beings and the way the world works. Limited sets of data aka personal anecdotes. The plural of anecdote and all that. Unfortunately, as science becomes the hegemonic source of authority in our world, pseudo-science becomes the preferred language for demagoguery and bullshit. The greatest crime of the modern scientific community(in some disciplines at least) is to viciously betray the skeptical roots of scientific thought by ignoring the value of understanding and admitting what we DO NOT know. My personal bias is that a shitty model with 0 statistical validity should not be treated as gospel because 'It's the best we've got.' I believe that it is better to accept ignorance and act with according caution in some areas of life. But then again I have no scientific justification for that, anymore than people do for the reverse.
      - api 12y ago
        > Unfortunately, as science becomes the hegemonic source of authority in our world, pseudo-science becomes the preferred language for demagoguery and bullshit. Very well put.
boyaka 12y ago
This is where I first stumbled upon evolutionary psychology: http://www.lloydianaspects.co.uk/evolve/evolmenu.html http://www.lloydianaspects.co.uk/evolve/evolmenu.html I was trying to make sense of some feminist arguments and this provided answers for me as well as lots of other fascinating ideas. He also made a series on YouTube about the stone age man in a modern world.
PavleMiha 12y ago
The author makes some really good points about the quackery in EP. But at no point are the merits of some of these theories even mentioned. Take for example the proposition that women are attracted to older men. If it was found that all current human cultures and other mammals exhibited this behavior you could begin to think that this behaviour is grounded in biology. > Evolutionary psychology does draw on empirical data and laboratory studies, and those data are falsifiable. But the adaptationist explanations that evolutionary psychologists offer are not. If an explanation fit all current observations and predicted future experiments why is it not correct? I'm having trouble expressing what I want to say, and some cursory googling for sources was met with paywalls but I wasn't a fan of some of the author's arguments. Even if EP somehow explained that some very nasty behaviours were actually evolutionary adaptations that would not make the behaviours correct, and it would not make the explanation incorrect. Human behaviour is complex and influenced by factors both societal and biological. While current pop sci has swung the needle way too far into the "biological" side of the argument I feel like the author has swung a bit too far into the "societal" side.
- api 12y ago
  > If an explanation fit all current observations and predicted future experiments why is it not correct? http://www.tylervigen.com http://www.tylervigen.com
  - PavleMiha 12y ago
    I don't think correlation/causation confusions apply here. It's a question of whether these evolutionary explanations for actual observed behaviours are falsifiable. What is correlated but not causated (is that even a word?) in this situation?
- kijin 12y ago
  > If an explanation fit all current observations and predicted future experiments why is it not correct? In order for anything to count as a "future experiment" with respect to something that takes as long as evolution does, the predicted phenomena would have to occur at least thousands of years from now, and you would have to control for all the socio-economic-cultural-political differences between now and then. Which would begin to sound like an impossible task, even you embarked on a millennia-long research project, because humanity is quickly approaching (and may already have gone beyond) the point where technology overtakes evolution. Evolution of the regular type at least has billions of years' worth of fossil records to compensate for its lack of predictions for the future. The only thing EP has going for it, on the other hand, is a bunch of surveys, small-N experiments, and beloved-by-Cosmopolitan stereotypes about the contemporary courting behavior of affluent, predominantly white college students. That's like analyzing a tub of ice cream and then making bold claims about the fate of the Antarctic ice cap.
mudil 12y ago
Psychological differences between men and women are real because they were shaped by "eons" of evolution. And as it relates to ever present discussions on HN about women in tech, the reason women are not in tech is because they are not interested in tech as much as men. For whatever reason they simply are not. (Yes, not all women, but when it comes to evolution it is percentages and chances that are discussed. So, for all practical purposes, women are not interested in tech.) Can we increase percentage of women in tech? Probably. Should we do it? Sure. But at the end of the day, women, mostly, are not going to be into tech. (And, please, don't think that we can change evolution in 10 or 20 years. Or even 1000. Or even 10,000. We are talking millions of years for changes to occur.)
- tejon 12y ago
  > And as it relates to ever present discussions on HN about women in tech, the reason women are not in tech is because they are not interested in tech as much as men. For whatever reason they simply are not. Jumping from this to "therefore evolution" is exactly as specious as jumping to "therefore culture." Actually moreso, because it's cultural by definition; the question is what sparked the culture. The culture may, indeed, be rooted in biological predisposition toward the topics involved. It could also be rooted in biological predisposition toward shoving others out of a social club, and/or allowing oneself to be shoved out -- metaphorically or through literal physical force. Or it could be rooted in a long history of self-serving decisions which have nothing to do with biology whatsoever, only people in power working to concentrate and maintain that power. Disqualifying half the race is quite a coup. Yes, we have significant gender dimorphism in our hormones and neurotransmitters. It's very likely that at some level, that's relevant. But claiming it as the root cause is arbitrary non-sequitur. Causation has to be demonstrated, it can't simply be inferred.
  - mudil 12y ago
    Your logic is just a wishful thinking. According to you, men must have been excluded from nursing, public relations, or hospitality services because they are not members of "the club." And this is not only in US, but in societies across the world, from Sweden to Sri Lanka, despite massive efforts in many corners of the world to make sure that men and women are the same.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
daveloyall 12y ago
NB I haven't read the article; I try to keep it tech related at work. NB I'm male, white, 31 years old, born poor, raised isolated, computers brought me out of poverty, and people--specifically women--brought me out of isolation. Geeks are my original people, my first clan. I believed that The (dial up, text based) Internet was the great equalizer--that it was a medium which made it impossible to see race or sex or creed or weight or shape, that each entity could only be judge by its character, choice of moniker, and actions. The people you'd fall in love with were the ones that would create amazing things and share them... Remember? Ok, I've set the stage, now I've gotta ask... I gotta ask the people who say that women are different from men: are you trolling? Was there some great internet convention that I missed at which it was agreed by consensus to all act like idiots for a few years for some greater good? Seriously, what am I missing? You do know that women are people, right? Like, half the people, 3.5 billion women. [Update: Thus far the responses have indicated that I probably haven't asked the right question. In my country, the question as to whether or not a given entity "is a person" is an important, well known, well discussed question and the answer always carries a great number of implications. Pardon me, I'll try to improve the question, but it's unlikely that I'll make any progress on the timescale of days. These things are hard.] [Update: I should not have said "the people who say that men and women are different" when I meant to say "the people who use 'men and women are different' as a euphemism for something more insidious".]
- api 12y ago
  Totally crazy tangent but: I don't understand misogynistic guys who say awful things about how dumb / shallow / whatever women are and then in the next breath talk about their sexual interest in them. I mean... if I thought all those demeaning things about women, I'd have a tough time being sexually interested in one. I'd have to go asexual or gay.
  - tomp 12y ago
    I say that women are dumb/shallow/whatever all the time. I'm sexually attracted to those that are not. (I also say that men are dumb/shallow/whatever all the time, so I'm not sexist, just an asshole, and exaggerating a bit). :)
briandh 12y ago
> Spencer and his followers read Darwin’s On the Origin of Species as a justification for unregulated market competition and colonization. Please. I don't know about Spencer's unnamed "followers", but he was not quite what you would call a fan of the colonialism of his day: > That a government cannot undertake to administer the affairs of a colony, and to support for it a judicial staff, a constabulary, a garrison, and so forth, without trespassing against the parent society, scarcely needs pointing out. > Moreover, colonial government, properly so called, cannot be carried on without transgressing the rights of the colonists. For if, as generally happens, the colonists are dictated to by authorities sent out from the mother country, then the law of equal freedom is broken in their persons, as much as by any other kind of autocratic rule. From Social Statics, Chapter 27, Section 1 (available at http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/spencer-social-statics-1851 http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/spencer-social-statics-185... ).
- GFK_of_xmaspast 12y ago
  Those quotes make it sound like he's perfectly fine with colonialism, just not particular kinds of colonialism.
  - briandh 12y ago
    The article is referring to a brand of colonialism mentioned, also next to Spencer's name, earlier on: > The philosopher Herbert Spencer famously argued that competition among men for survival was not only inevitable but good. [...] In retrospect, it is easy to recognize his theory of nature as an unacknowledged description of nineteenth-century England... It was only natural that colonial regimes brutally extracted resources from Asians and Africans unable to resist their guns. Those who survived at the expense of others were simply proving their own fitness, and their enemies’ weakness. Or, as I specified in my original comment, "the colonialism of his day".
detcader 12y ago
Cordelia Fine's _Delusions of Gender_, evopsych is largely for bullying [1], etc etc. [1] http://francoistremblay.wordpress.com/2014/08/29/evolutionary-psychology-the-confront-of-the-bully/ http://francoistremblay.wordpress.com/2014/08/29/evolutionar...
azakai 12y ago
> But EP has not gotten us any closer to understanding “human nature.” Instead, its provocations about gender have distracted us from what is truly interesting—and radical—about Darwin. Several EP scholars argue that human nature was fixed in the Pleistocene Era, that modern culture is merely a flimsy cover for our cave-dweller minds. But a great deal of evidence suggests that evolution occurs at a much faster rate than evolutionary psychologists think. On the one hand, this says that EP is wrong, and on the other, that there is a more radical and more interesting approach, more true to Darwin's thinking. First, to say "EP has not gotten us any closer to understanding “human nature”" is a joke. At worst, it has at least eliminated some options. But the worst is very unlikely. Even if much of EP is wrong, many of the results appear to be solid. To so discount an entire field of science, done by very smart men and women, is completely unfair. Second, the hint at a more "true-to-Darwin" approach of faster evolution, seems odd - just an attempt to say "EP is wrong, and boring - check this out!" First, if evolution is faster than we expected, then EP will adjust to that. It already has - we now know that things like lactose tolerance arose quite recently, and mental traits would not be surprising as well. Faster evolution will only make what these critics don't like about EP stronger, not weaker. But more importantly, while the "frozen at the Pleistocene" approach is false - and already known to be false, no serious scientist believes that literally nothing changed since - it is also true to large extent. The Pleistocene is a huge amount of time, and in the short amount of time following it humanity diverged quite a bit - yet, we find humans extremely similar, mentally. From aboriginal Australians to Africans to Europeans to native Americans, mentally humanity is extremely close. That is very strong support that while clearly evolution continued after the Pleistocene, major things were already set by then.
- tim333 12y ago
  >to say "EP has not gotten us any closer to understanding “human nature”" is a joke. Indeed. I've seldom come across a model that has given me more understanding of human nature. There are a lot of other dubious bits in the article and its a bit of a job to wade through 4200 words of it. I think part of the issue is that on a quick googling the authors fields appear to be Film Studies, the History of Art and Comparative Literature. Evolutionary psychology is a fundamentally a science subject and I'm not sure they really get it.
epx 12y ago
People are quick to dump evolution when it does not sing along with PC. I agree that EP has a low SNR ratio but I don't buy that every difference is socially constructed.
arandr 12y ago
Is there any reason most evolutionary psychology articles talk about gender? Is there not any other element of human society that has both a biological and a behavioral component to study? Aside from their hyperfocus on a specific part of what they claim to be their subject of interest, my main problem with evolutionary psychologists is that they keep the "evolutionary" part of their argument (too often) to a vaguely-plausible story that has exactly no biological substance whatsoever. I would be more interested if they even went so far as to use comparisons with other species or actual ethnographic research rather than elaborating about their idea of prehistoric human societies. I also find strange that it's accepted in psychology to derive conclusions on human nature from a study of a single class of Western freshman psych students that have probably been recruited via spam email. I think even focus groups are more scientific.
- kijin 12y ago
  The greatest factors that determine the course of evolution are (1) how likely you are to get laid and (2) how likely your offspring are to get laid. Since it's already difficult enough to produce falsifiable conjectures about an aspect of human psychology (sex/gender) that is directly related to those factors, it's not surprising that most EP researchers haven't even bothered to branch out into less closely related things.
  - arandr 12y ago
    I think there's a debate to be had as to the relative importance of sexual selection (how likely you are to get laid) versus plain old selection (how likely you are to not die) or competition (how likely you are to have to share your food), especially over the timeframes being considered. I agree that current EP research seems unlikely to ever manage to produce falsifiable conjectures (let alone actual hypotheses and experiments) on e.g. suicidality, social competition, or other subjects related to selection, but those questions are also interesting (even more interesting, I would say, that the question of whether women evolved to wear high heels). I would like to see an "evolutionary psychology" article linking studies of depression with, for example, studies of the effect of loneliness on the behavior of non-human social animals, or theorizing as to how depression continues to exist despite being on the face of it a negative trait for the purposes of reproduction and survival. As an added help there have been studies on genetic and metabolic associations to depression, whereas near as I can tell exactly zero molecular biologists are interested in the high heel connection.
pervycreeper 12y ago
The article, ironically, posits a"just so story" about the popularity of EP being related to economic conditions. I couldn't discern any good arguments against the discipline, she just seems upset that its findings contradict her personally held dogmas.
tokenadult 12y ago
I recall that we have discussed the Ray Baumeister speech, "Is There Anything Good about Men?"[1] as a direct submission to Hacker News before. Baumeister is one of several psychologists who sometimes hypothesizes from an evolutionary psychology perspective. The "Evolutionary Psychology Primer" by Leda Cosmides and John Tooby[2] is often taken to be the definitive discussion of what evolutionary psychology is as an intellectual movement. An article from American Psychologist in 2010, "Evolutionary Psychology: Controversies, Questions, Prospects, and Limitations"[3] by young women (perhaps that's significant here) who had recently finished graduate study in evolutionary psychology argues that evolutionary psychology has important contributions to make to psychology research in general. Every psychologist I know is sure that human beings originated from a process of biological evolution, but I don't meet a lot of working psychologists who describe themselves as evolutionary psychologists. The Wikipedia articles on evolutionary psychology seem to be beset by edit wars between supporters and critics of that perspective, rather than combining both points of view in one balanced article with lots of good references. A psychologist with a contrasting point of view is Janet Hyde,[4] a psychologist well trained in human behavior genetics. She has published papers suggesting that most supposed innate gender differences between men and women are shaped mostly by culture rather than by biological inheritance. See what you think after reading some of the key documents. I'm still making up my mind. [1] http://denisdutton.com/baumeister.htm http://denisdutton.com/baumeister.htm [2] http://www.cep.ucsb.edu/primer.html http://www.cep.ucsb.edu/primer.html [3] http://www.dianafleischman.com/epap.pdf http://www.dianafleischman.com/epap.pdf [4] http://psych.wisc.edu/faculty-hyde.htm http://psych.wisc.edu/faculty-hyde.htm http://www.apa.org/research/action/difference.aspx http://www.apa.org/research/action/difference.aspx

52 points by samclemens 12y ago

WELL I NEVER, See I Told You, Morning Commuter Time (NNN) — British scientists have uncovered why little girls like pink toys. “Women are hardwired to like pink,” says Professor Gene Hunt of the University of Metro, “because their cavewoman foremothers spent their days gathering red leaves and berries amongst the trees.” Later, women needed to notice red-faced babies and blushing boyfriends. Men are attracted to blue because of the colour of the sky as seen when hunting. Women are also predisposed to backstab one another in the workplace and cry in the boardroom, just like the social structures in the cave population as extrapolated from these two bone needles. Being too successful will increase women’s testosterone, giving them hairy nipples and male-pattern baldness. Females joining the hunt may also explain the end of the Neanderthals. IQ test studies show that women have lower IQs on average than men, undoubtedly from lesser need for environmental variation while taking care of the cave. Tests on little boys prove that testosterone correlates with a sense of humour, which is why women just can’t take a joke. Housework has been shown to cut the risk of several fatal diseases, and dressing up nicely around the house is psychologically healthy as it uses the Homo erectus clan maintenance abilities of the female of the tribe. Men are naturally predisposed to sleep with as many women as possible, as proven by lions, whereas women are naturally predisposed to stay loyal to their man and their spawn. Women who sleep around are at increased risk of parasites and death, as proven by cheetahs, who are a pack of catty sluts. In a final crowning achievement, the team has shown that daily fellatio greatly reduces the incidence of breast cancer. Furthermore, regular sexual intercourse is essential to feminine health, but may be injurious if prolonged for more than two minutes or conducted while the man is sober. “In conclusion,” says Professor Hunt, “all of this is top-notch science that you can absolutely rely on. Now get your knickers back on and make me a cuppa.” from http://newstechnica.com/2008/10/23/science-reveals-evolutionary-origins-of-gender-stereotypes/ http://newstechnica.com/2008/10/23/science-reveals-evolution...

api 12y ago

Most evo-psych is pretty weak stuff, basically a lot of dubious and untestable just-so rationalizations for various prejudices and apparent human tendencies. A good chunk of it is full-on woo-woo nonsense. Sometimes I get the (rather cynical) sense that there's an inverse relationship between the merit of an idea and its virality.

jbhatab 12y ago
I'm going to have to disagree here. I think that the tests necessary to prove psych are incredible difficult, but I can still use limited sets of data to verify things. Evolutionary psych is the philosophy that matches up the best with what I have seen in this world. This isn't scientific, but if I don't have another philosophy to go off of then I will at least reference that model for ideas on how people will behave.
- ksk 12y ago
  >but I can still use limited sets of data to verify things. Such as? >This isn't scientific, but if I don't have another philosophy to go off of then I will at least reference that model for ideas on how people will behave. I don't understand your point. If you say it's not scientific, what exactly are you "verifying" ?
  - larksimian 12y ago
    He's verifying his ability to use the terminology of science to justify and legitimate his personal biases about other human beings and the way the world works. Limited sets of data aka personal anecdotes. The plural of anecdote and all that. Unfortunately, as science becomes the hegemonic source of authority in our world, pseudo-science becomes the preferred language for demagoguery and bullshit. The greatest crime of the modern scientific community(in some disciplines at least) is to viciously betray the skeptical roots of scientific thought by ignoring the value of understanding and admitting what we DO NOT know. My personal bias is that a shitty model with 0 statistical validity should not be treated as gospel because 'It's the best we've got.' I believe that it is better to accept ignorance and act with according caution in some areas of life. But then again I have no scientific justification for that, anymore than people do for the reverse.
    - api 12y ago
      > Unfortunately, as science becomes the hegemonic source of authority in our world, pseudo-science becomes the preferred language for demagoguery and bullshit. Very well put.

boyaka 12y ago

This is where I first stumbled upon evolutionary psychology: http://www.lloydianaspects.co.uk/evolve/evolmenu.html http://www.lloydianaspects.co.uk/evolve/evolmenu.html I was trying to make sense of some feminist arguments and this provided answers for me as well as lots of other fascinating ideas. He also made a series on YouTube about the stone age man in a modern world.

PavleMiha 12y ago

The author makes some really good points about the quackery in EP. But at no point are the merits of some of these theories even mentioned. Take for example the proposition that women are attracted to older men. If it was found that all current human cultures and other mammals exhibited this behavior you could begin to think that this behaviour is grounded in biology. > Evolutionary psychology does draw on empirical data and laboratory studies, and those data are falsifiable. But the adaptationist explanations that evolutionary psychologists offer are not. If an explanation fit all current observations and predicted future experiments why is it not correct? I'm having trouble expressing what I want to say, and some cursory googling for sources was met with paywalls but I wasn't a fan of some of the author's arguments. Even if EP somehow explained that some very nasty behaviours were actually evolutionary adaptations that would not make the behaviours correct, and it would not make the explanation incorrect. Human behaviour is complex and influenced by factors both societal and biological. While current pop sci has swung the needle way too far into the "biological" side of the argument I feel like the author has swung a bit too far into the "societal" side.

api 12y ago
> If an explanation fit all current observations and predicted future experiments why is it not correct? http://www.tylervigen.com http://www.tylervigen.com
- PavleMiha 12y ago
  I don't think correlation/causation confusions apply here. It's a question of whether these evolutionary explanations for actual observed behaviours are falsifiable. What is correlated but not causated (is that even a word?) in this situation?
kijin 12y ago
> If an explanation fit all current observations and predicted future experiments why is it not correct? In order for anything to count as a "future experiment" with respect to something that takes as long as evolution does, the predicted phenomena would have to occur at least thousands of years from now, and you would have to control for all the socio-economic-cultural-political differences between now and then. Which would begin to sound like an impossible task, even you embarked on a millennia-long research project, because humanity is quickly approaching (and may already have gone beyond) the point where technology overtakes evolution. Evolution of the regular type at least has billions of years' worth of fossil records to compensate for its lack of predictions for the future. The only thing EP has going for it, on the other hand, is a bunch of surveys, small-N experiments, and beloved-by-Cosmopolitan stereotypes about the contemporary courting behavior of affluent, predominantly white college students. That's like analyzing a tub of ice cream and then making bold claims about the fate of the Antarctic ice cap.

mudil 12y ago

Psychological differences between men and women are real because they were shaped by "eons" of evolution. And as it relates to ever present discussions on HN about women in tech, the reason women are not in tech is because they are not interested in tech as much as men. For whatever reason they simply are not. (Yes, not all women, but when it comes to evolution it is percentages and chances that are discussed. So, for all practical purposes, women are not interested in tech.) Can we increase percentage of women in tech? Probably. Should we do it? Sure. But at the end of the day, women, mostly, are not going to be into tech. (And, please, don't think that we can change evolution in 10 or 20 years. Or even 1000. Or even 10,000. We are talking millions of years for changes to occur.)

tejon 12y ago
> And as it relates to ever present discussions on HN about women in tech, the reason women are not in tech is because they are not interested in tech as much as men. For whatever reason they simply are not. Jumping from this to "therefore evolution" is exactly as specious as jumping to "therefore culture." Actually moreso, because it's cultural by definition; the question is what sparked the culture. The culture may, indeed, be rooted in biological predisposition toward the topics involved. It could also be rooted in biological predisposition toward shoving others out of a social club, and/or allowing oneself to be shoved out -- metaphorically or through literal physical force. Or it could be rooted in a long history of self-serving decisions which have nothing to do with biology whatsoever, only people in power working to concentrate and maintain that power. Disqualifying half the race is quite a coup. Yes, we have significant gender dimorphism in our hormones and neurotransmitters. It's very likely that at some level, that's relevant. But claiming it as the root cause is arbitrary non-sequitur. Causation has to be demonstrated, it can't simply be inferred.
- mudil 12y ago
  Your logic is just a wishful thinking. According to you, men must have been excluded from nursing, public relations, or hospitality services because they are not members of "the club." And this is not only in US, but in societies across the world, from Sweden to Sri Lanka, despite massive efforts in many corners of the world to make sure that men and women are the same.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

daveloyall 12y ago

NB I haven't read the article; I try to keep it tech related at work. NB I'm male, white, 31 years old, born poor, raised isolated, computers brought me out of poverty, and people--specifically women--brought me out of isolation. Geeks are my original people, my first clan. I believed that The (dial up, text based) Internet was the great equalizer--that it was a medium which made it impossible to see race or sex or creed or weight or shape, that each entity could only be judge by its character, choice of moniker, and actions. The people you'd fall in love with were the ones that would create amazing things and share them... Remember? Ok, I've set the stage, now I've gotta ask... I gotta ask the people who say that women are different from men: are you trolling? Was there some great internet convention that I missed at which it was agreed by consensus to all act like idiots for a few years for some greater good? Seriously, what am I missing? You do know that women are people, right? Like, half the people, 3.5 billion women. [Update: Thus far the responses have indicated that I probably haven't asked the right question. In my country, the question as to whether or not a given entity "is a person" is an important, well known, well discussed question and the answer always carries a great number of implications. Pardon me, I'll try to improve the question, but it's unlikely that I'll make any progress on the timescale of days. These things are hard.] [Update: I should not have said "the people who say that men and women are different" when I meant to say "the people who use 'men and women are different' as a euphemism for something more insidious".]

api 12y ago
Totally crazy tangent but: I don't understand misogynistic guys who say awful things about how dumb / shallow / whatever women are and then in the next breath talk about their sexual interest in them. I mean... if I thought all those demeaning things about women, I'd have a tough time being sexually interested in one. I'd have to go asexual or gay.
- tomp 12y ago
  I say that women are dumb/shallow/whatever all the time. I'm sexually attracted to those that are not. (I also say that men are dumb/shallow/whatever all the time, so I'm not sexist, just an asshole, and exaggerating a bit). :)

briandh 12y ago

> Spencer and his followers read Darwin’s On the Origin of Species as a justification for unregulated market competition and colonization. Please. I don't know about Spencer's unnamed "followers", but he was not quite what you would call a fan of the colonialism of his day: > That a government cannot undertake to administer the affairs of a colony, and to support for it a judicial staff, a constabulary, a garrison, and so forth, without trespassing against the parent society, scarcely needs pointing out. > Moreover, colonial government, properly so called, cannot be carried on without transgressing the rights of the colonists. For if, as generally happens, the colonists are dictated to by authorities sent out from the mother country, then the law of equal freedom is broken in their persons, as much as by any other kind of autocratic rule. From Social Statics, Chapter 27, Section 1 (available at http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/spencer-social-statics-1851 http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/spencer-social-statics-185... ).

GFK_of_xmaspast 12y ago
Those quotes make it sound like he's perfectly fine with colonialism, just not particular kinds of colonialism.
- briandh 12y ago
  The article is referring to a brand of colonialism mentioned, also next to Spencer's name, earlier on: > The philosopher Herbert Spencer famously argued that competition among men for survival was not only inevitable but good. [...] In retrospect, it is easy to recognize his theory of nature as an unacknowledged description of nineteenth-century England... It was only natural that colonial regimes brutally extracted resources from Asians and Africans unable to resist their guns. Those who survived at the expense of others were simply proving their own fitness, and their enemies’ weakness. Or, as I specified in my original comment, "the colonialism of his day".

detcader 12y ago

Cordelia Fine's _Delusions of Gender_, evopsych is largely for bullying [1], etc etc. [1] http://francoistremblay.wordpress.com/2014/08/29/evolutionary-psychology-the-confront-of-the-bully/ http://francoistremblay.wordpress.com/2014/08/29/evolutionar...

azakai 12y ago

> But EP has not gotten us any closer to understanding “human nature.” Instead, its provocations about gender have distracted us from what is truly interesting—and radical—about Darwin. Several EP scholars argue that human nature was fixed in the Pleistocene Era, that modern culture is merely a flimsy cover for our cave-dweller minds. But a great deal of evidence suggests that evolution occurs at a much faster rate than evolutionary psychologists think. On the one hand, this says that EP is wrong, and on the other, that there is a more radical and more interesting approach, more true to Darwin's thinking. First, to say "EP has not gotten us any closer to understanding “human nature”" is a joke. At worst, it has at least eliminated some options. But the worst is very unlikely. Even if much of EP is wrong, many of the results appear to be solid. To so discount an entire field of science, done by very smart men and women, is completely unfair. Second, the hint at a more "true-to-Darwin" approach of faster evolution, seems odd - just an attempt to say "EP is wrong, and boring - check this out!" First, if evolution is faster than we expected, then EP will adjust to that. It already has - we now know that things like lactose tolerance arose quite recently, and mental traits would not be surprising as well. Faster evolution will only make what these critics don't like about EP stronger, not weaker. But more importantly, while the "frozen at the Pleistocene" approach is false - and already known to be false, no serious scientist believes that literally nothing changed since - it is also true to large extent. The Pleistocene is a huge amount of time, and in the short amount of time following it humanity diverged quite a bit - yet, we find humans extremely similar, mentally. From aboriginal Australians to Africans to Europeans to native Americans, mentally humanity is extremely close. That is very strong support that while clearly evolution continued after the Pleistocene, major things were already set by then.

tim333 12y ago
>to say "EP has not gotten us any closer to understanding “human nature”" is a joke. Indeed. I've seldom come across a model that has given me more understanding of human nature. There are a lot of other dubious bits in the article and its a bit of a job to wade through 4200 words of it. I think part of the issue is that on a quick googling the authors fields appear to be Film Studies, the History of Art and Comparative Literature. Evolutionary psychology is a fundamentally a science subject and I'm not sure they really get it.

epx 12y ago

People are quick to dump evolution when it does not sing along with PC. I agree that EP has a low SNR ratio but I don't buy that every difference is socially constructed.

arandr 12y ago

Is there any reason most evolutionary psychology articles talk about gender? Is there not any other element of human society that has both a biological and a behavioral component to study? Aside from their hyperfocus on a specific part of what they claim to be their subject of interest, my main problem with evolutionary psychologists is that they keep the "evolutionary" part of their argument (too often) to a vaguely-plausible story that has exactly no biological substance whatsoever. I would be more interested if they even went so far as to use comparisons with other species or actual ethnographic research rather than elaborating about their idea of prehistoric human societies. I also find strange that it's accepted in psychology to derive conclusions on human nature from a study of a single class of Western freshman psych students that have probably been recruited via spam email. I think even focus groups are more scientific.

kijin 12y ago
The greatest factors that determine the course of evolution are (1) how likely you are to get laid and (2) how likely your offspring are to get laid. Since it's already difficult enough to produce falsifiable conjectures about an aspect of human psychology (sex/gender) that is directly related to those factors, it's not surprising that most EP researchers haven't even bothered to branch out into less closely related things.
- arandr 12y ago
  I think there's a debate to be had as to the relative importance of sexual selection (how likely you are to get laid) versus plain old selection (how likely you are to not die) or competition (how likely you are to have to share your food), especially over the timeframes being considered. I agree that current EP research seems unlikely to ever manage to produce falsifiable conjectures (let alone actual hypotheses and experiments) on e.g. suicidality, social competition, or other subjects related to selection, but those questions are also interesting (even more interesting, I would say, that the question of whether women evolved to wear high heels). I would like to see an "evolutionary psychology" article linking studies of depression with, for example, studies of the effect of loneliness on the behavior of non-human social animals, or theorizing as to how depression continues to exist despite being on the face of it a negative trait for the purposes of reproduction and survival. As an added help there have been studies on genetic and metabolic associations to depression, whereas near as I can tell exactly zero molecular biologists are interested in the high heel connection.

pervycreeper 12y ago

The article, ironically, posits a"just so story" about the popularity of EP being related to economic conditions. I couldn't discern any good arguments against the discipline, she just seems upset that its findings contradict her personally held dogmas.

tokenadult 12y ago

I recall that we have discussed the Ray Baumeister speech, "Is There Anything Good about Men?"[1] as a direct submission to Hacker News before. Baumeister is one of several psychologists who sometimes hypothesizes from an evolutionary psychology perspective. The "Evolutionary Psychology Primer" by Leda Cosmides and John Tooby[2] is often taken to be the definitive discussion of what evolutionary psychology is as an intellectual movement. An article from American Psychologist in 2010, "Evolutionary Psychology: Controversies, Questions, Prospects, and Limitations"[3] by young women (perhaps that's significant here) who had recently finished graduate study in evolutionary psychology argues that evolutionary psychology has important contributions to make to psychology research in general. Every psychologist I know is sure that human beings originated from a process of biological evolution, but I don't meet a lot of working psychologists who describe themselves as evolutionary psychologists. The Wikipedia articles on evolutionary psychology seem to be beset by edit wars between supporters and critics of that perspective, rather than combining both points of view in one balanced article with lots of good references. A psychologist with a contrasting point of view is Janet Hyde,[4] a psychologist well trained in human behavior genetics. She has published papers suggesting that most supposed innate gender differences between men and women are shaped mostly by culture rather than by biological inheritance. See what you think after reading some of the key documents. I'm still making up my mind. [1] http://denisdutton.com/baumeister.htm http://denisdutton.com/baumeister.htm [2] http://www.cep.ucsb.edu/primer.html http://www.cep.ucsb.edu/primer.html [3] http://www.dianafleischman.com/epap.pdf http://www.dianafleischman.com/epap.pdf [4] http://psych.wisc.edu/faculty-hyde.htm http://psych.wisc.edu/faculty-hyde.htm http://www.apa.org/research/action/difference.aspx http://www.apa.org/research/action/difference.aspx