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It's very difficult to avoid sampling bias and confirmation bias when you're looking for historical and contemporary events that seem to fit your curve. What ab
by kijin 12y ago
It's very difficult to avoid sampling bias and confirmation bias when you're looking for historical and contemporary events that seem to fit your curve. What about all the men throughout history who didn't massacre their neighbors? How do you control for massive confounding factors such as religious brainwashing, economic circumstances, poor education, and individual idiosyncrasies?
- dragonwriter 12y ago> It's very difficult to avoid sampling bias and confirmation bias when you're looking for historical and contemporary events that seem to fit your curve. "Looking for historical and contemporary events that seem to fit your curve" seems to be the definition of deliberate confirmation bias.
- tim333 12y agoTrue. Difficult but even if there's some bias you can still get useful data I think. There are things that do not fit well with the basic evolutionary psychology model such as homosexuality. You'd think, using the EP model, that genes corresponding to that would die out however there are a few gay guys out there which suggests you might look for other explanations. Just to say it's not the case that you can find experimental evidence for all EP type hypotheses. Some fit, some don't.