# Is evolutionary psychology a pseudoscience? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 2, 2011, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-evolutionary-psychology-a-pseudoscience/604873 "2011-12-02T19:13:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 12
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2011, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-evolutionary-psychology-a-pseudoscience/604873/221 "2011-12-19T19:52:19Z")
> [@even\_sven](#): > > Ah, the “sexy period” ones are my favorite, since they clearly illustrate the authors have never actually bothered to speak to a living woman. Ha! Ha! Man dumb, woman smart! But wait. [Martie Haselton](http://www.psych.ucla.edu/faculty/faculty_page?id=151&area=7), author of one them studies, woman. Woman smart? [Kristina Durante](http://durante.socialpsychology.org/) another author. Another woman. Woman smart? Aha! [Norman Li](http://www.mysmu.edu/faculty/normanli/papers.htm) another author. Norman man! Men dumb! Ha ha, stupid study by dumb man! (Protip, **even sven**. However much you may want to believe you’re right, this sort of sexist humor, in which you assume those you disagree with must be men who have never talked with women, is exceptionally stupid and offensive.) ---
**Author:** ![Inbred\_Mm\_domesticus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/aca169/32.png) [@Inbred\_Mm\_domesticus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inbred_Mm_domesticus)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2011, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-evolutionary-psychology-a-pseudoscience/604873/222 "2011-12-19T20:48:10Z")
> [@you\_with\_the\_face](#): > > I never claimed belief in Freud theories. Just suggested an alternative hypothesis that strikes me as a lot more plausible than blue-eyed preference being rooted in biology. Familial bias doesn’t require much of stretching of the imagination to believe. Blue-eye males having an inheritable preference towards blue-eyed women does. They tested that as was pointed out to you. They also collected data that did not support their hypothesis. Don’t bring up Freudian (not sure if he ever proposed an Elektra complex or if it was a contemporary) theories if you don’t know them or believe them then. Don’t you think that just muddies the waters and prevents discussion? > [@you\_with\_the\_face](#): > > No, I never said this. I haven’t claimed that “rape is a reproductive strategy” is false. Since it involves sex and therefore carries the potential of causing impregnation (in some cases), it is not incorrect to point out what amounts to be a trivially obvious thing. Anything that can lead to procreation counts as a “reproductive strategy”. > > But it’s a statement that is of little utility in helping us actually understand why people rape, which is the mistake EP enthusiaists routinely engage in (see who I was responding to). Also it fails to account for why the nature and prevalence of rape varies so widely across cultures, time periods, and societal conditions. If we assume that men are raping out of a desire for power then we might misunderstand why men rape as well. Personally, I think understanding motivations makes for reasonable realistic preventative measures. It also improves investigation of the crime. I think the power hypothesis did the latter but now it gets in the way of research because people refuse to examine the sexual motivation. At the very least it re-opened the topic for screaming and misunderstanding each other so that new work can be accomplished. I think your last sentence contains a bunch of variables that don’t matter at all for understanding rape in modern America. > [@you\_with\_the\_face](#): > > I’m not bothering to reply to the rest of what you wrote because some of it was misattributed to me and also was just too whiny to read. I don’t care honestly, I was just trying to find where you talked about EP and you pretty much never did. I do like the “EP enthusiasts” angle. That saves you from discussing the field and addressing whether you can honestly say that it is pseudoscience. Which you can’t. > [@you\_with\_the\_face](#): > > And no offense… You meant offense. Don’t worry about it, I screwed up. > [@you\_with\_the\_face](#): > > …but your objections about mode and mean are so silly, unsound, and desperate that I understand now why EP seems so persuasive to you. You’ve basically unmasked yourself as a scientific rookie. Kind of like when you talk about long discredited ideas in psychology, fail to show any understanding of how gene frequencies might change in a sexually selected trait, and then come up with the typical layman-style theories that never quite address all the data. I am glad there are scientists who do these things well so that I may read their work and learn from it. Also, thank-you for providing such contrast. > [@you\_with\_the\_face](#): > > (The mean _and_ median in that study were 11. Which means that there was no “skewing” to speak of. Big whoop if the mode was 16! For all you know the second most common age was 5. The mode tells you very little about what a distribution looks like, especially when your sample size is large. ) I missed the median for whatever reason but I stand corrected. So what that means is that 50% of the sample was first victimized between the ages of 11 and 18. Got it. I guess the term “child rape” doesn’t really have the connotation you meant for it. Disproportionately fertile. Anyway, it’s a trivial observation. It doesn’t take away from EP as a science or rape as topic that can be discussed in its context. Here’s a link to the protective association of MAOA gene promoter polymorphisms with consequences of child abuse. It’s not the first (Caspi et al.)but man is this finding ever replicated. Here’s the abstract: [MAOA and the “Cycle of Violence:” Childhood Abuse and Neglect, MAOA Genotype, and Risk for Violent and Antisocial Behavior](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0006322306004732) ---
**Author:** ![Inbred\_Mm\_domesticus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/aca169/32.png) [@Inbred\_Mm\_domesticus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inbred_Mm_domesticus)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2011, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-evolutionary-psychology-a-pseudoscience/604873/223 "2011-12-19T20:57:01Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > (Protip, **even sven**. However much you may want to believe you’re right, this sort of sexist humor, in which you assume those you disagree with must be men who have never talked with women, is exceptionally stupid and offensive.) That didn’t even bother me in the context of how she doesn’t understand the difference between periods and ovulation. Just a few days. I thought she was a guy for a minute. ---
**Author:** ![you\_with\_the\_face](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/ecccb3/32.png) [@you\_with\_the\_face](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/you_with_the_face)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2011, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-evolutionary-psychology-a-pseudoscience/604873/224 "2011-12-19T21:24:13Z")
> [@Inbred\_Mm\_domesticus](#): > > If we assume that men are raping out of a desire for power then we might misunderstand why men rape as well. Personally, I think understanding motivations makes for reasonable realistic preventative measures. How does EP help us understand these motivations? Believe it or not, there are people who have spent a lot of time interviewing rapists and examining their backgrounds, looking for patterns that might account for their behaviors. By studying these criminals, many psychologists have concluded that an obsessive need for control and issues with relating normally to women are important drivers behind rape. What makes EP so superior that we should distrust what these psychologists have concluded in favor of their answers? > [@](#): > > I think the power hypothesis did the latter but now it gets in the way of research because people refuse to examine the sexual motivation. Why do you think that? Do you think scientists have stopped studying rape? ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2011, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-evolutionary-psychology-a-pseudoscience/604873/225 "2011-12-19T21:30:06Z")
> [@you\_with\_the\_face](#): > > How does EP help us understand these motivations? > > Believe it or not, there are people who have spent a lot of time interviewing rapists and examining their backgrounds, looking for patterns that might account for their behaviors. By studying these criminals, many psychologists have concluded that an obsessive need for control and issues with relating normally to women are important drivers behind rape. As I recall, the people who conducted the original research started with a hypothesis in mind, and the rapists they interviewed were pretty easily able to suss out what the hypothesis was, and they did everything they could to cooperate with the researchers because that’s what criminals often do: they want to work the system. The original research has been pretty heavily criticized. It’s been years since I read articles about it, though, so I’m not particularly interested in digging up cites for these claims unless you dig up cites for yours (and by cites, I don’t mean fourth-hand claims, I mean strong original research). ---
**Author:** ![you\_with\_the\_face](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/ecccb3/32.png) [@you\_with\_the\_face](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/you_with_the_face)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2011, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-evolutionary-psychology-a-pseudoscience/604873/226 "2011-12-19T21:58:41Z")
> [@Inbred\_Mm\_domesticus](#): > > I missed the median for whatever reason but I stand corrected. So what that means is that 50% of the sample was first victimized between the ages of 11 and 18. Got it. I guess the term “child rape” doesn’t really have the connotation you meant for it. Disproportionately fertile. Last time I checked 11 years olds are children. Any person less than 13 years old is a child. For someone who is so certain that child rape is a meaningless counterpoint in this debate, I’m surprised you’re trying so hard to spin the stats in a way that supports your view. While you scoff at the notion that 11 to 18 years olds are considered children in this study, you know what chills me? That girls 11 years old and younger (including toddlers and babies, mind you) are raped as equally often as all those fertile, pubescent teens. ---
**Author:** ![Inbred\_Mm\_domesticus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/aca169/32.png) [@Inbred\_Mm\_domesticus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inbred_Mm_domesticus)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2011, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-evolutionary-psychology-a-pseudoscience/604873/227 "2011-12-19T21:59:09Z")
> [@you\_with\_the\_face](#): > > How does EP help us understand these motivations? Like any other aspect of psychology or sociology it attempts to understand the variables and mechanisms involved in a pattern of behavior. I don’t know what it has produced functionally. At minimum the information provided by EPesque studies of rape either counter or further develop the dominant theory of the 70s. > [@you\_with\_the\_face](#): > > Believe it or not, there are people who have spent a lot of time interviewing rapists and examining their backgrounds, looking for patterns that might account for their behaviors. By studying these criminals, many psychologists have concluded that an obsessive need for control and issues with relating normally to women are important drivers behind rape. Ok, and [Malamuth’s Confluence Model of Sexual Aggression](http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/comm/malamuth/pdf/96JOR23.pdf) has been highly influential on me. It’s not an EP point-of-view at all and its based on the same kind of data you describe here. P.13 “The Interaction of the Two Paths” gets at how I understand the modeling they do. > [@you\_with\_the\_face](#): > > What makes EP so superior that we should distrust what these psychologists have concluded in favor of their answers? What makes you think I need to replace one with the other. I assume all scientific data, regardless of the field, are observations made by objective people. Therefore all of it is worthwhile until I am convinced it’s not. This article is awesome and doesn’t even deal with EP or biopsych type stuff. Just interviews and statistical classification: [Typology of Batterers](http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinfo/1995-09809-001). > [@you\_with\_the\_face](#): > > Why do you think that? Do you think scientists have stopped studying rape? I think that scientists like Randy Thornhill can tell you what happens when you go against the grain. I think because of cautionary tales like Randy Thornhill’s, researchers are less likely to address sexual motivation in rape. I think the power hypothesis originally addressed a serious problem of perception in criminal justice but when honest researchers like Thornhill/Palmer get clusterfucked for discussing the [Natural History of Rape](http://www.amazon.com/Natural-History-Rape-Biological-Coercion/dp/0262201259), it indicates a problem. ---
**Author:** ![you\_with\_the\_face](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/ecccb3/32.png) [@you\_with\_the\_face](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/you_with_the_face)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2011, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-evolutionary-psychology-a-pseudoscience/604873/228 "2011-12-19T22:11:16Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > . It’s been years since I read articles about it, though, so I’m not particularly interested in digging up cites for these claims unless you dig up cites for yours (and by cites, I don’t mean fourth-hand claims, I mean strong original research). If you think EP is superior to others methods of inquiry, why not take some time to show us why you believe this? That’s going to mean digging for cites to support your position. Surely if conventional rape theorists have been debunked or discredited, it shouldn’t take that much effort to find some solid evidence of that. ---
**Author:** ![Inbred\_Mm\_domesticus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/aca169/32.png) [@Inbred\_Mm\_domesticus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inbred_Mm_domesticus)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2011, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-evolutionary-psychology-a-pseudoscience/604873/229 "2011-12-19T22:11:27Z")
> [@you\_with\_the\_face](#): > > For someone who is so certain that child rape is a meaningless counterpoint in this debate, I’m surprised you’re trying so hard to spin the stats in a way that supports your view. I’ve noticed your pattern of either ignoring or typing “trivial” when you don’t care about or don’t understand the relevance of information. I’m just not like that, and since this old woman/child rape is continuing to not die as a poor criticism of the sexual motivation component to rape, I feel it necessary to point out how it is such a poor criticism. Others in this thread feel the same way apparently. > [@you\_with\_the\_face](#): > > While you scoff at the notion that 11 to 18 years olds are considered children in this study, you know what chills me? That girls 11 years old and younger (including toddlers and babies, mind you) are raped as equally often as all those fertile, pubescent teens. In a proportionately rare class of rape victim, maybe 40% (no variability so I don’t know for sure) are actually people that are capable of reproducing. You posted this to counter the fertile angle on what somebody else said. Sorry if your percentage isn’t as big as you originally intended. As to the rest, this isn’t “my political feelings” time. This is taking a commonly used criticism and showing just how bad it is. Could you please post the original article so that I may see all the relevant statistics? Or maybe a standard deviation? ---
**Author:** ![you\_with\_the\_face](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/ecccb3/32.png) [@you\_with\_the\_face](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/you_with_the_face)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2011, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-evolutionary-psychology-a-pseudoscience/604873/230 "2011-12-19T22:33:11Z")
> [@Inbred\_Mm\_domesticus](#): > > Like any other aspect of psychology or sociology it attempts to understand the variables and mechanisms involved in a pattern of behavior. What kind of “variables” and “mechanisms”, and how do these give us insight into motivation? > [@](#): > > I think the power hypothesis originally addressed a serious problem of perception in criminal justice but when honest researchers like Thornhill/Palmer get clusterfucked for discussing the [Natural History of Rape](http://www.amazon.com/Natural-History-Rape-Biological-Coercion/dp/0262201259), it indicates a problem. There’s politics and there’s truth. Just because a new theory comes out that contradicts prevailing theory and its met with controversy, it doesn’t mean the prevailing theory is wrong. It just means it’s a politically touchy subject. You need science to show that its wrong, and I’m not convinced that the science that EP brings is all that competitive. ---
**Author:** ![Inbred\_Mm\_domesticus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/aca169/32.png) [@Inbred\_Mm\_domesticus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inbred_Mm_domesticus)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2011, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-evolutionary-psychology-a-pseudoscience/604873/231 "2011-12-19T23:16:19Z")
> [@you\_with\_the\_face](#): > > There’s politics and there’s truth. Just because a new theory comes out that contradicts prevailing theory and its met with controversy, it doesn’t mean the prevailing theory is wrong. It just means it’s a politically touchy subject… Everything you have said about the EP of sexual aggression (I’m tired of using rape because its an inexact legal term) is pretty much a word for word regurgitation of the political debate that arose when the book came out. You’re not convinced because you do nothing but continue to politicize the argument. I gave you two links a post back that does a better job to explain specific types of criminals than either EP or rape is about power theories. But of the two, EP is far closer to describing most of these categories. > [@you\_with\_the\_face](#): > > …science that EP brings is all that competitive. So you admit that EP is science, and now you want to do a shift and argue its utility. Fine go argue that. I’ve been posting articles to the biology of various behaviors that either directly or indirectly supports the basis of EP. I might get around to posting articles about sexually aggressive dolphins, chimpanzees, elephant seals, ducks, insects, deer, horses, lions, mice, and all the other species for which undeniable sexually aggressive behavior has been observed. ---
**Author:** ![you\_with\_the\_face](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/ecccb3/32.png) [@you\_with\_the\_face](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/you_with_the_face)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2011, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-evolutionary-psychology-a-pseudoscience/604873/232 "2011-12-19T23:29:59Z")
> [@Inbred\_Mm\_domesticus](#): > > In a proportionately rare class of rape victim, maybe 40% (no variability so I don’t know for sure) are actually people that are capable of reproducing. You posted this to counter the fertile angle on what somebody else said. Sorry if your percentage isn’t as big as you originally intended. According to the stats I’ve provided, _25%_ of all women who have raped, were raped when they were less than the age of 11. Are you really going to persist in calling this a “rare class of rape”? Seriously, _25%_? Most girls at this age and below are incapable of getting pregnant and carrying a healthy infant to term. In other words, they are not ideal candidates for carrying out any kind of reproductive strategy. Let me ask you this: do you think children 11 year-olds or less make up 25% of the total population? If so, [you’d be wrong](http://mchb.hrsa.gov/chusa11/popchar/pages/101pc.html); they make up less than 18%. So how in the hell do you suppose female children comprise 25% of all rape victims if it’s women of childbearing age who are preferentially selected for rape? ---
**Author:** ![you\_with\_the\_face](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/ecccb3/32.png) [@you\_with\_the\_face](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/you_with_the_face)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2011, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-evolutionary-psychology-a-pseudoscience/604873/233 "2011-12-19T23:33:24Z")
> [@Inbred\_Mm\_domesticus](#): > > So you admit that EP is science, and now you want to do a shift and argue its utility. Fine go argue that. I don’t admit it’s a science, actually. But that’s neither here nor there. If it’s science, it doesn’t appear to be rigorous. And I’ve been pretty consistent in my stance that it’s usefulness is limited, mostly because its not rigorous. ---
**Author:** ![Comicenbe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/59ef9b/32.png) [@Comicenbe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Comicenbe)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2011, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-evolutionary-psychology-a-pseudoscience/604873/234 "2011-12-19T23:50:49Z")
Over simplifying and over complicating can both be detrimental to a healthy mind. ---
**Author:** ![Inbred\_Mm\_domesticus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/aca169/32.png) [@Inbred\_Mm\_domesticus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inbred_Mm_domesticus)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2011, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-evolutionary-psychology-a-pseudoscience/604873/235 "2011-12-20T00:09:03Z")
> [@you\_with\_the\_face](#): > > I don’t admit it’s a science, actually. But that’s neither here nor there. If it’s science, it doesn’t appear to be rigorous. And I’ve been pretty consistent in my stance that it’s usefulness is limited, mostly because its not rigorous. It’s not science because it’s not useful, it’s not useful because it’s not rigorous, it’s not rigorous because it’s not useful, circle, circle, circle. Post a link to anything that supports any of your statements. It must be so easy to demonstrate, you must know what you are looking for because you’ve circled around it forever. Post a link that demonstrates “lack of scientific rigor” in EP research to a degree more than any other social science. Here’s a short abstract on sexual coercion and male reproductive success in chimpanzees. Being a promiscuous female seems costly! [Male coercion and the costs of promiscuous mating for female chimpanzees](http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/274/1612/1009.short) ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2011, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-evolutionary-psychology-a-pseudoscience/604873/236 "2011-12-20T00:29:48Z")
> [@you\_with\_the\_face](#): > > I don’t admit it’s a science, actually. But that’s neither here nor there. If it’s science, it doesn’t appear to be rigorous. And I’ve been pretty consistent in my stance that it’s usefulness is limited, mostly because its not rigorous. Rigor is not something you can say about subject areas. It’s like saying quantum mechanics sucks because all of the papers I’ve seen contained typos. > [@](#): > > Let me ask you this: do you think children 11 year-olds or less make up 25% of the total population? If so, you’d be wrong; they make up less than 18%. So how in the hell do you suppose female children comprise 25% of all rape victims if it’s women of childbearing age who are preferentially selected for rape? I want to answer the question, but the answer should be obvious if you’ve been paying attention to anything said in this thread. Clearly that is not the case; you’ve just been skimming posts trying to find things to support your agenda. ---
**Author:** ![you\_with\_the\_face](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/ecccb3/32.png) [@you\_with\_the\_face](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/you_with_the_face)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2011, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-evolutionary-psychology-a-pseudoscience/604873/237 "2011-12-20T01:09:07Z")
> [@Mijin](#): > > I want to answer the question, but the answer should be obvious if you’ve been paying attention to anything said in this thread. Take a shot at it please. Enlighten me. ---
**Author:** ![you\_with\_the\_face](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/ecccb3/32.png) [@you\_with\_the\_face](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/you_with_the_face)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2011, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-evolutionary-psychology-a-pseudoscience/604873/238 "2011-12-20T01:13:57Z")
> [@Inbred\_Mm\_domesticus](#): > > It’s not science because it’s not useful, it’s not useful because it’s not rigorous, it’s not rigorous because it’s not useful, circle, circle, circle. I could have swore I just said whether EP is science is neither here nor there. ---
**Author:** ![you\_with\_the\_face](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/ecccb3/32.png) [@you\_with\_the\_face](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/you_with_the_face)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2011, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-evolutionary-psychology-a-pseudoscience/604873/239 "2011-12-20T01:58:55Z")
> [@Mijin](#): > > Rigor is not something you can say about subject areas. You can say based on study designs and how testable a hypothesis is. A scientifically rigorous hypothesis: Blue-eyed men will show a preference to blue-eyed women. A hypothesis that lacks rigor: Blue-eyed men will prefer blue-eyed women as mates because the color of their offspring’s eyes provides a crude paternity test. If EP scientists employ a lot of the latter, then it’s fair to say that the field, as a discipline, lacks rigor. Doesn’t mean that is pseudoscience. Just means they publish stuff that you can’t take to the bank. It’s not very useful in other words. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2011, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-evolutionary-psychology-a-pseudoscience/604873/240 "2011-12-20T02:20:01Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > [Here’s an interesting article that shows how evolutionary psychology is testable](http://www.springerlink.com/content/766n130226m12n24/). The hypothesis is that blue-eyed men would prefer blue-eyed women as mates, because the color of their offspring’s eyes would provide a crude paternity test (since blue eyes are due to recessive genes). > [@you\_with\_the\_face](#): > > A scientifically rigorous hypothesis: Blue-eyed men will show a preference to blue-eyed women. > > A hypothesis that lacks rigor: Blue-eyed men will prefer blue-eyed women as mates because the color of their offspring’s eyes provides a crude paternity test. I should probably cop to an error in my paraphrasing of the article; it appears to have misled people who didn’t read the original. The comma in my paraphrase was insufficient to separate the clauses. What it should have said about their hypothesis was something like, “Because the color of the offspring’s eyes would provide a crude paternity test, the hypothesis is that blue-eyed men would prefer blue-eyed women as mates.” Here’s what the article actually said on the subject: > [@](#): > > In sum, if men choose women with characteristics that promote the assurance of paternity, then blue-eyed men should prefer and feel more attracted towards women with blue eyes. The “if” part of the sentence is generally true and as a tendency undisputed. The “then” part of the sentence is what was being tested. The study doesn’t establish a clear causal link between the two, it’s true; it’s simple correlation. As I’ve said all along, it provides interesting preliminary results. A similar if-then statement might read: “In sum, if people generally like to eat foods with a higher fat content during the winter, then the full-fat yogurt ought to sell better than the non-fat yogurt in December.” While the first and second parts of the sentences might both be true, they may not be causally related. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-evolutionary-psychology-a-pseudoscience/604873.md?page=11) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-evolutionary-psychology-a-pseudoscience/604873.md?page=13)