# 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:** 6
**Author:** ![Darwins\_Finch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darwins_finch/32/20304_2.png) [@Darwins\_Finch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darwins_Finch)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2011, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-evolutionary-psychology-a-pseudoscience/604873/101 "2011-12-12T22:06:31Z")
That study does confirm that there may be something to blue-eyed males preferring blue-eyed females; it does absolutely nothing to confirm or even support the alleged reason for that preference. In short, there was nothing in the experiment that tested whether or not the preference was adaptive, nor that the adaptive reason given was the most likely explanation. So sure, it’s science - just not very good science. ---
**Author:** ![colonial](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/34f0e0/32.png) [@colonial](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/colonial)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2011, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-evolutionary-psychology-a-pseudoscience/604873/102 "2011-12-12T22:22:15Z")
> [@Inbred Mm domesticus](#): > > Of course you were making a biological comparison. What treatment for any disease does not interface with our biology? Let me try something else. Baseball and soccer are both sports. Baseball is not as effective a conditioner as soccer. By saying so I am not “comparing” the fact that they both sports, I am comparing their effects on the desired outcome of good health. That is a meaningful comparison to anyone who wants to employ team sport to get in shape. Similarly while psychotherapy and chemotherapy both interface with biology one is not as effective at restoring good health as the other. By saying so I am not “comparing” the fact that they both interface with biology. > [@Inbred Mm domesticus](#): > > You of course can say measles treatment is much more effective than treatment for Alzheimer’s. You can also say that the biological basis for treating measles is pathetically simplistic relative to Alzheimer’s. Both statements would be accurate. You could then say that comparing effectiveness of treatment for wholly unrelated diseases is a pointless exercise that lends no greater understanding to the argument. That would also be a true statement. Such a comparison is about as useless as your breast cancer statistics. Comparison is a definitive aspect of any ranking exercise. The relative complexity of psychological disorder is a legitimate excuse for the relative lack of progress made in combating it. However, the brute fact remains that psychotherapy ranks at or near the bottom in terms of effectiveness of all forms of medical intervention. Chemotherapy is a useful comparison because although its target is another family of complex diseases it is so often effective if employed early. > [@Inbred Mm domesticus](#): > > So in one sentence (the first part of the quote) you question the “utility” of doing psychological research - this includes basic research and clinical research. Then you go right back to clinical practices. If you think the basic research that I am talking about is a waste of time then I don’t know what to say to you. If you find no utility in establishing the basic parameters of human functioning, which includes behavior, then I am truly at a loss. /// I have already expressed approval of the use of neuroscience in psychological research, so therefore I obviously support research per se. However, psychological research has been ongoing for well over a century now, and it should by now have added value to human health and material progress over and above knowledge for its own sake. Introducing jargon like “basic parameters of human functioning” does not support a value-added thesis. > [@Inbred Mm domesticus](#): > > I can say that we know a hell of a lot more about the parameters of human learning thanks to cognitive psychology but you will turn around and say it has not been applied. What I actually asked was has this knowledge been applied in countries which greatly outperform the US, such as Finland and numerous Asians. Well, has it? > [@Inbred Mm domesticus](#): > > I see value in being able to predict human behavior given a set of variables. I don’t know how it is applied because I don’t work in that end of psychology. Please give me some examples of behavior predicted and the variables predicting it and let me take a shot at how it might be applied. > [@Inbred Mm domesticus](#): > > I could talk about the application of basic research in behavioral neuroscience to Schizophrenia or something Is this a field you do work in? If so go ahead and us tell more about these applications and any contribution they are making to schizophrenia treatment. > [@Inbred Mm domesticus](#): > > but you will not budge on your completely unsupported notion that neuroscience is not a part of psychology. I would be surprised if you ever found a school that did not include neuroscience as a part of psychology, because it is. It’s the neural basis of our behavior. Psychology is of course interested in these questions. Repeat from my last reply: “Psychology is of course entitled to make use of neuroscience it its endeavors, and I earnestly hope those endeavors bear fruit some day.” > [@Inbred Mm domesticus](#): > > I get every indication that you have no interest in taking it seriously, but if you are honestly interested then go look it up yourself. I have no expertise in the field. So you offered the link not for insight you had obtained and wanted to share, but as a mere rhetorical device. > [@Inbred Mm domesticus](#): > > But I think the absurdity of expectation revealed in this quote gets at the “little gem” I left before. Here, again, is your little gem strawman (emphasis added): “It (psychology) didn’t answer every question to **everything** I can think up, therefore it’s a failure!” The crux of my argument is not that I am asking for too much, for all things, or for everything from psychology. It is that I am asking it for a little, for a few things, and for something and finding almost nothing. Applied to East Asian economic achievement I am asking if industrial/organizational psychology has made any contribution. Applied to Finnish and Asian educational achievement I am asking if cognitive psychology has made any contribution. Your only reply is to mischaracterize these reasonable questions as over-expectation. So much the worse for you. > [@Inbred Mm domesticus](#): > > I can tell you that I successfully applied some findings from cognitive psychology to my classroom and, perhaps more importantly, did not apply some teaching myths to my classroom - myths illuminated by psychological research, but anecdotes aren’t evidence. What a teacher conveys about professional technique is expert testimony rather than anecdote. At least I hope it is. That being the case you are entitled to share your expertise with any audience. Please do so. ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2011, 4:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-evolutionary-psychology-a-pseudoscience/604873/103 "2011-12-13T04:56:24Z")
Please tell me you all know that the famous “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes” paper was a hoax. You know this right? And you are just pretending to take it seriously out of dry humor, right? The guy who wrote it wrote the dumbest thing he could think of, based on utterly baseless speculation, to make fun of evolutionary psychology. He then decided he was pretty proud of his creation, submitted it to journals, and got it published. It’s a joke, guys. > [@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). The test showed blue-eyed and brown-eyed men and women photographs whose eyes were digitally manipulated to be either blue or brown. Women showed no preference for eye color as a group, and brown-eyed men showed no preference; but blue-eyed men showed a marked preference for blue-eyed women. > > Isn’t that a pretty clear example of how science should work? You take your background knowledge, you form a hypothesis, and you design an experiment to falsify the hypothesis. If the hypothesis isn’t falsified, you’ve got a possible explanation for your facts, an explanation that survives until either a later experiment falsifies it or a later unfalsified hypothesis explains facts more elegantly/broadly/whatever. Do you honestly not see where the science ends and the WAGs begin? Okay so we see blue eyed men prefer blue eyed women. We have evidence of that. Now, let’s ask “why?” If a man made it to adulthood, he must have had a good mother. Maybe he is looking for remnants of those genes. Perhaps blue eyed people are more likely to live in families that look down on racial intermixing, and they’ve been subtly raised with those patterns. Maybe blue eyed people needed their blue eyes as winter camouflage in the icy northlands, and are attracted to other people with the same survival trait- or less absurdly, they are attracted to the Vitamin D production capacity that give low melanin people an advantage in cold climates. Maybe blue eyed people have some crazy gene we haven’t discovered yet that works best when they get together. “But, but, but…” I hear you saying, “It’s not _true_!” Well, buck-o, we have exactly as much evidence from the above “pulled out of my ass” theories that I just made up five seconds ago. The only advantage that your story has is that it is a bit cuter, and science isn’t about figuring out which of ideas with equal evidence behind makes for the cleverest story. In any case, this particular idea is pretty dumb. If visible recessive genes are so awesome, why is that redheads are so undesirable that even sperm banks won’t accept them (true!)? Not that I’m not sure that you all can’t come up with another round of cute just-so-stories to explain that, as well… ---
**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 13, 2011, 5:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-evolutionary-psychology-a-pseudoscience/604873/104 "2011-12-13T05:35:23Z")
> [@even\_sven](#): > > Please tell me you all know that the famous “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes” paper was a hoax. You know this right? And you are just pretending to take it seriously out of dry humor, right? The guy who wrote it wrote the dumbest thing he could think of, based on utterly baseless speculation, to make fun of evolutionary psychology. He then decided he was pretty proud of his creation, submitted it to journals, and got it published. It’s a joke, guys. I had never heard of that, but then again I don’t give a shit. I thought you mentioned it because it’s an example of silly evo.psych. So I guess it is. Now I can be one of the cool nurture kids with a superiority complex: “Hey guys,” I’ll say, “I just put one over on them because I made up bullshit and they published it”. And then I can say “Why aren’t you guys in the know, huh?”. I’ll be so fucking proud of myself! > [@even\_sven](#): > > Do you honestly not see where the science ends and the WAGs begin? > > Okay so we see blue eyed men prefer blue eyed women. We have evidence of that. > > Now, let’s ask “why?” If a man made it to adulthood, he must have had a good mother. Maybe he is looking for remnants of those genes. Perhaps blue eyed people are more likely to live in families that look down on racial intermixing, and they’ve been subtly raised with those patterns. Maybe blue eyed people needed their blue eyes as winter camouflage in the icy northlands, and are attracted to other people with the same survival trait- or less absurdly, they are attracted to the Vitamin D production capacity that give low melanin people an advantage in cold climates. Maybe blue eyed people have some crazy gene we haven’t discovered yet that works best when they get together. > > “But, but, but…” I hear you saying, “It’s not _true_!” Well, buck-o, we have exactly as much evidence from the above “pulled out of my ass” theories that I just made up five seconds ago. The only advantage that your story has is that it is a bit cuter, and science isn’t about figuring out which of ideas with equal evidence behind makes for the cleverest story. > > In any case, this particular idea is pretty dumb. If visible recessive genes are so awesome, why is that redheads are so undesirable that even sperm banks won’t accept them (true!)? Not that I’m not sure that you all can’t come up with another round of cute just-so-stories to explain that, as well… See, you were so busy being cool and in-the-know you missed some simple information gleaned from the article’s summary… Taking your awful, ignore-all-the-evidence theories in reverse: 1. It’s males selecting females in the study. Why would males be looking for suitable mates at the sperm bank? Is there some benefit to my reproduction if I guzzle some frozen cum? 2. Light skin is probably a better indicator of melanin production than blue eyes, so it’d be a wash. That’s the kind of silly gibberish I see when I read criticisms of the field. People without a clue making up things on the fly. 3. Blue eyes as winter camouflage. You take that as an equally important or at least a good satirical view of something as important reproductively as assured paternity. One is demonstrably important to the evolution of social systems in mammals, the other is just complete bullshit. 4. So why are females immune to the racism? 5. Is there something unique about the genetics of females with blue eyes that they do not share the preference that blue-eyed males have? Do females with blue eyes have mothers and fathers they feel nothing about so have no preference? Guess why females are assured maternity in mammals. So one observation, found in the article, is embedded in a sound theoretical basis that although is lacking in showing a reproductive advantage (pointed out by **Darwin’s Finch** ) is performed in such a way that it is reproducible and further, better tests can readily be devised. All of your “theories” are all the common version of the word: shit pulled from the ass. Give them a little bit of credit and let them sit at your lunch table. ---
**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 13, 2011, 6:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-evolutionary-psychology-a-pseudoscience/604873/105 "2011-12-13T06:07:10Z")
> [@colonial](#): > > …I have already expressed approval of the use of neuroscience in psychological research, so therefore I obviously support research per se… That’s all I was trying to discuss. I have no expertise in the the application of psychological research and what little I do know about it I am not even sure if it is widely used. So we are in agreement over the value of research. I was not able to determine that from your earlier posts. If I misunderstood something then I apologize. > [@colonial](#): > > Is this a field you do work in? If so go ahead and us tell more about these applications and any contribution they are making to schizophrenia treatment. The last I saw of the application of the work I was doing, was in helping schizophrenics to control their smoking, which is higher than most other mental illness categories and control populations. The work I was doing did not even directly feed into that application. Anyways I quit awhile ago so my awareness of the state-of-the-art is out of date. > [@colonial](#): > > So you offered the link not for insight you had obtained and wanted to share, but as a mere rhetorical device. No, it was offered as an example of what I thought you were unaware of or completely ignoring: neuroscience as a part of experimental psychology and the broad divisions of psychology. Your criticism is primarily applicable to clinical, but you seem aware of this so I will let it go. > [@colonial](#): > > What a teacher conveys about professional technique is expert testimony rather than anecdote. At least I hope it is. That being the case you are entitled to share your expertise with any audience. Please do so. To give you an example, there is a teaching myth out there that people are left-brained and right-brained and that people rely differently on their senses to learn. So some people are primarily visual or some people are primarily auditory, and even others are primarily kinesthetic. Both theories are pseudoscientific at best and are based in broad speculations coming from a tiny smidgen of data. This, ironically, is exactly what is criticized most in evolutionary psychology. Anyway, I saw some convincing talks showing how the data does not support these theories and so happily avoid them. ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2011, 6:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-evolutionary-psychology-a-pseudoscience/604873/106 "2011-12-13T06:09:50Z")
Again, your all of these objectives boil down to “your story isn’t as cute and clever as mine.” I’m sure I could throw out another round of WAGs trying to counter your objections, and you could throw out another round of WAG objections to counter mine. The point is that _nowhere in this dialogue is a testable hypothesis- all there is is speculation._ If it’s not testable, it doesn’t really matter if the speculation is plausible or not. Plenty of completely wrong stuff is plausible, and plenty of testibly correct stuff is rather far-fetched. We used to think malaria was caused by swamp fumes because people near swamps got sick, and when we drained the swamps the malaria went away. It passed every “face validity” test you could come up with. But then, one day, we got the scientific method and figured out that we weren’t right at all, even if our theory made perfect sense in narrative form. ---
**Author:** ![Lantern](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/d26b3c/32.png) [@Lantern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lantern)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2011, 6:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-evolutionary-psychology-a-pseudoscience/604873/107 "2011-12-13T06:32:29Z")
> [@even\_sven](#): > > Again, your all of these objectives boil down to “your story isn’t as cute and clever as mine.” > > I’m sure I could throw out another round of WAGs trying to counter your objections, and you could throw out another round of WAG objections to counter mine. The point is that _nowhere in this dialogue is a testable hypothesis- all there is is speculation._ ``` I am not sure what you mean by a "testable hypothesis" because that is exactly what that article does. It forms a testable hypothesis based on EvPsych and then goes ahead and tests it. Perhaps you believe that there is some alternative hypothesis based on social conditioning or whatever that would also be consistent with the data. Fine, go ahead and test it or find a paper that does so but you can't just blithely dismiss the paper. ``` ---
**Author:** ![Darwins\_Finch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darwins_finch/32/20304_2.png) [@Darwins\_Finch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darwins_Finch)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2011, 6:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-evolutionary-psychology-a-pseudoscience/604873/108 "2011-12-13T06:37:23Z")
> [@Inbred\_Mm\_domesticus](#): > > Guess why females are assured maternity in mammals. So one observation, found in the article, is embedded in a sound theoretical basis that although is lacking in showing a reproductive advantage (pointed out by **Darwin’s Finch** ) is performed in such a way that it is reproducible and further, better tests can readily be devised. There are more problems than just the reproductive advantage angle. The authors state: > [@](#): > > These findings 1) indicate that blue-eyed men do prefer women with the same eye color and 2) specifically suggest the presence of a male adaptation for the detection of extra-pair paternity based on eye color, as a phenotypically based assurance of paternity (i.e., when the father’s and offspring’s phenotypes match) as well as a defense against cuckoldry (i.e., when the phenotypes do not match). 1. I don’t have a problem with, since that’s just an observation. 2. has a number of problems, however. First, if it’s a “male adaptation”, then it must be genetic. That means the genetic roots must be found on the Y chromosome. Well, the Y chromosome only contains 86 genes, so it ought to be child’s play to find the gene or genes that are directly or indirectly responsible for this adaptation, right? Except, this “adaptation” only exists in blue-eyed males - the brown eyed males did not show any preference for eye color. But, the Y chromosome is not linked to the genes which influence eye color, so how, exactly does this alleged adaptation manifest itself only in blue-eyed males? There are further problems: blue eye color is rather rare, being present in only about 2% of the current human population, and then, seems limited to those of European descent. Further, [it appears to be the case](http://www.northlandprep.org/proctor/The%20Origin%20of%20Blue%20Eyes.pdf) that blue eyes are the result of a mutation in a single individual, between 6,000 and 10,000 years ago (meaning all blue-eyed individuals are descended from this single ancestor). So, there hasn’t been a great deal of time for this alleged behavioral adaptation to arise. So, at the very least, the authors might have (somewhat) reasonably claimed that it was an behavioral adaptation limited to blue-eyed males (except for the lack of any link between sex and eye color…). It certainly can’t be considered a “male adaptation” by any stretch. And that seems to be a recurring problem with many EP conclusions: supposed behavioral adaptations are treated only abstractly - that is, there is no link established (or even investigated) between the behavior and its genetic roots. If one is going to argue that a behavior is specifically an adaptive trait, one ought to be able to link it to the genome (or, at least, make predictions about how to verify such a link); otherwise, the claim is speculation, at best. ---
**Author:** ![Darwins\_Finch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darwins_finch/32/20304_2.png) [@Darwins\_Finch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darwins_Finch)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2011, 6:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-evolutionary-psychology-a-pseudoscience/604873/109 "2011-12-13T06:40:59Z")
> [@Lantern](#): > > I am not sure what you mean by a “testable hypothesis” because that is exactly what that article does. It forms a testable hypothesis based on EvPsych and then goes ahead and tests it. Well, it does test whether or not blue-eyed males prefer blue-eyed females. It does not, in any way, test the conclusion that such a preference is an adaptive response to reduce cuckoldry. ---
**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 13, 2011, 7:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-evolutionary-psychology-a-pseudoscience/604873/110 "2011-12-13T07:51:51Z")
> [@even\_sven](#): > > Again, your all of these objectives boil down to “your story isn’t as cute and clever as mine.” > > I’m sure I could throw out another round of WAGs trying to counter your objections, and you could throw out another round of WAG objections to counter mine. The point is that _nowhere in this dialogue is a testable hypothesis- all there is is speculation._ > > If it’s not testable, it doesn’t really matter if the speculation is plausible or not. Plenty of completely wrong stuff is plausible, and plenty of testibly correct stuff is rather far-fetched. We used to think malaria was caused by swamp fumes because people near swamps got sick, and when we drained the swamps the malaria went away. It passed every “face validity” test you could come up with. But then, one day, we got the scientific method and figured out that we weren’t right at all, even if our theory made perfect sense in narrative form. Assuming that not all blue-eyed males are mating with blue-eyed females, I guess you can look at differential rates of cuckoldry between blue-eyed male/female pairs and blue eyed male/brown-eyed girl pairs. You could look at male confidence in paternity in such pairs. You could look at whether males show a preference for females that allow the expression of traits that help clarify paternity in their offspring. You could look at fitness in groups of males that act on such preferences, but I forgot how to measure that. I think it has something to do with having grandkids. The same hypothesis, highlighted by the authors, can allow for many further tests because the hypothesis suggests these tests. That’s what can make for good science. > [@Darwins\_Finch](#): > > There are more problems than just the reproductive advantage angle. > > The authors state: > > 1. I don’t have a problem with, since that’s just an observation. > 2. has a number of problems, however. First, if it’s a “male adaptation”, then it must be genetic. That means the genetic roots must be found on the Y chromosome. Well, the Y chromosome only contains 86 genes, so it ought to be child’s play to find the gene or genes that are directly or indirectly responsible for this adaptation, right? Except, this “adaptation” only exists in blue-eyed males - the brown eyed males did not show any preference for eye color. But, the Y chromosome is not linked to the genes which influence eye color, so how, exactly does this alleged adaptation manifest itself only in blue-eyed males? Well, there is the all-important SRY which is the origin of all sex differences in the brain. Most of this is through its influence on gonadal development but there is evidence of androgen-independent effects of the gene and/or nonrecombining part of the Y chromosome. In addition, although it is highly interactive with environmental factors, the nonrecombining part of the Y chromosome has been shown to influence male variation in behavior - at least in mice (not mate selection in any meaningful fashion though, but I doubt it’s been tested). None of that even begins to address all the other points you make concerning the hypothesis the authors state. If it were to be the case that their hypothesis was true, it would have to be something more general about how males develop preferences for physical traits. > [@Darwins\_Finch](#): > > So, at the very least, the authors might have (somewhat) reasonably claimed that it was an behavioral adaptation limited to blue-eyed males (except for the lack of any link between sex and eye color…). It certainly can’t be considered a “male adaptation” by any stretch. And that seems to be a recurring problem with many EP conclusions: supposed behavioral adaptations are treated only abstractly - that is, there is no link established (or even investigated) between the behavior and its genetic roots. If one is going to argue that a behavior is specifically an adaptive trait, one ought to be able to link it to the genome (or, at least, make predictions about how to verify such a link); otherwise, the claim is speculation, at best. Well, that’s what behavior genetics is for, but my evo.psych. friend said they just don’t care about the genetic architecture of traits, and I guess they have to work with the resources available. I think it would be best if they did worry about it a bit. ---
**Author:** ![Lantern](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/d26b3c/32.png) [@Lantern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lantern)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2011, 7:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-evolutionary-psychology-a-pseudoscience/604873/111 "2011-12-13T07:54:23Z")
> [@Darwins\_Finch](#): > > Well, it does test whether or not blue-eyed males prefer blue-eyed females. It does not, in any way, test the conclusion that such a preference is an adaptive response to reduce cuckoldry. They also find that females and brown-eyed males don’t show any preference for eye-color. That would seem to provide at least some evidence for the paternity confidence hypothesis. ---
**Author:** ![Darwins\_Finch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darwins_finch/32/20304_2.png) [@Darwins\_Finch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darwins_Finch)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2011, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-evolutionary-psychology-a-pseudoscience/604873/112 "2011-12-13T15:04:46Z")
> [@Lantern](#): > > They also find that females and brown-eyed males don’t show any preference for eye-color. That would seem to provide at least some evidence for the paternity confidence hypothesis. How? There is no “connect the dots” logic involved in their experimental setup. They started with a hypothesis for the reason why such a behavior exists, demonstrated that the behavior probably exists, then went straight to confirming the reason the behavior exists. They never demonstrated that their initial premise was in any way valid. ---
**Author:** ![Lantern](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/d26b3c/32.png) [@Lantern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lantern)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2011, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-evolutionary-psychology-a-pseudoscience/604873/113 "2011-12-13T16:41:04Z")
The paternity confidence hypothesis isn’t something they pulled out of their hats; it’s a pretty established concept in EvPsych. They apply this concept to the mating preference of blue-eyed men, test the hypothesis and find what they predicted. It’s hardly conclusive but it seems a pretty solid piece of evidence. ---
**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 13, 2011, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-evolutionary-psychology-a-pseudoscience/604873/114 "2011-12-13T16:59:30Z")
> [@Darwins\_Finch](#): > > How? There is no “connect the dots” logic involved in their experimental setup. They started with a hypothesis for the reason why such a behavior exists, demonstrated that the behavior probably exists, then went straight to confirming the reason the behavior exists. They never demonstrated that their initial premise was in any way valid. The biggest problem I have with your description is the word “demonstrated.” Before they demonstrated that the behavior exists, they **predicted** that the behavior exists. And that’s why I think it’s good preliminary science: it made a prediction based on things we know about mammals, tested, and found the prediction to be true. There may be a better explanation of **why** the prediction turned out to be true, but at this point, the best explanation ( **even sven’s** absurd misunderstandings of the article aside) seems to be the paternity explanation. If there is a **better** explanation–one that accounts for the occurrence of this phenomenon only in blue-eyed males, and not in blue-eyed females or brown-eyed people of either sex–then let’s hear it. ---
**Author:** ![New\_Deal\_Democrat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/9d8465/32.png) [@New\_Deal\_Democrat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/New_Deal_Democrat)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2011, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-evolutionary-psychology-a-pseudoscience/604873/115 "2011-12-13T17:07:15Z")
Sociobiology explains what exists, and provides a plausible explanation for similarities between cultures that lacked communication between themselves. When the Spanish came to the New World the Aztec and Incan civilizations were similar to Egyptian and Mesopotamian civilizations three thousand years earlier. I am not sure how one would test the assumptions of sociobiology by experiments, however. ---
**Author:** ![Darwins\_Finch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darwins_finch/32/20304_2.png) [@Darwins\_Finch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darwins_Finch)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2011, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-evolutionary-psychology-a-pseudoscience/604873/116 "2011-12-13T17:17:16Z")
> [@Left Hand of Dorkness](#): > > If there is a better explanation–one that accounts for the occurrence of this phenomenon only in blue-eyed males, and not in blue-eyed females or brown-eyed people of either sex–then let’s hear it. It’s not up to me to provide the explanation - I didn’t write the paper. The authors who _did_ write the paper provided no basis for their initial premise that eye color preference among blue-eyed males is an adaptive behavior. They simply stated it, then demonstrated that the preference exists. Modus ponens may be a valid logical construction, but it says nothing about the validity of each individual premise. The point is not that their conclusion is necessarily wrong; the point is that their experimental setup does nothing at all to demonstrate that their conclusion is valid. Demonstrating _that_ a behavior exists does not, in any way, validate any individual thesis for _why_ that behavior exists. This paper may be an example of science, but it is not an example of good science. ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2011, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-evolutionary-psychology-a-pseudoscience/604873/117 "2011-12-14T02:42:51Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > The biggest problem I have with your description is the word “demonstrated.” Before they demonstrated that the behavior exists, they **predicted** that the behavior exists. And that’s why I think it’s good preliminary science: it made a prediction based on things we know about mammals, tested, and found the prediction to be true. There may be a better explanation of **why** the prediction turned out to be true, but at this point, the best explanation ( **even sven’s** absurd misunderstandings of the article aside) seems to be the paternity explanation. > > If there is a **better** explanation–one that accounts for the occurrence of this phenomenon only in blue-eyed males, and not in blue-eyed females or brown-eyed people of either sex–then let’s hear it. Again, what is the difference between my bullshit explanations and the one given in the paper? ---
**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 14, 2011, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-evolutionary-psychology-a-pseudoscience/604873/118 "2011-12-14T02:53:13Z")
> [@even\_sven](#): > > Again, what is the difference between my bullshit explanations and the one given in the paper? Take your pick: 1. The paper’s explanation has predictive power. Yours apparently do not. 2. The paper’s explanation is based on observable behavior in other species. Yours apparently is not. 3. The paper’s explanation accounts for the weird gendered basis of the blue-eye preference. Your bullshit explanations do not. **Darwin’s Finch** , I think I see what you’re saying. At the same time, when you say, “It’s not up to me to provide the explanation,” I think that’s a cop-out. Clearly there IS some explanation for this weird gendered eye color preference. The paper’s writers predicted the preference based on what they knew about male mammal paternity preference. If you think that there’s an alternate explanation for the data, what’s your alternate explanation? If you think more testing is required, what more testing would you suggest? If you think that the explanation for the data is fundamentally unknowable, why? ---
**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 14, 2011, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-evolutionary-psychology-a-pseudoscience/604873/119 "2011-12-14T02:57:35Z")
> [@even\_sven](#): > > Again, what is the difference between my bullshit explanations and the one given in the paper? I explained why yours are different from theirs. Yours are all based on just-so hypotheses that are mainly just so silly. Their hypothesis is at least grounded in theory about the evolution of social behavior in mammals, although they are probably going too far. ---
**Author:** ![Darwins\_Finch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darwins_finch/32/20304_2.png) [@Darwins\_Finch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darwins_Finch)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2011, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-evolutionary-psychology-a-pseudoscience/604873/120 "2011-12-14T03:16:29Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > **Darwin’s Finch** , I think I see what you’re saying. At the same time, when you say, “It’s not up to me to provide the explanation,” I think that’s a cop-out. Clearly there IS some explanation for this weird gendered eye color preference. The paper’s writers predicted the preference based on what they knew about male mammal paternity preference. If you think that there’s an alternate explanation for the data, what’s your alternate explanation? If you think more testing is required, what more testing would you suggest? If you think that the explanation for the data is fundamentally unknowable, why? My point is not that there isn’t a good explanation, or even an evolutionary explanation. My point is that whatever the explanation is, the authors of that paper, via the experimental setup they used, have failed to provide it. What they’ve done, in my opinion, is similar to the following line of reasoning: [ul] [li]If the Noachian flood actually happened, then we should expect to see fossils of sea creatures on the tops of mountains.[/li][li]We see fossils of sea creatures on the tops of mountains.[/li][li]Therefore, the Noachian flood happened as described in the Bible.[/li][/ul] Sure, they made a prediction regarding the cause of blue-eyed male mate preferences, but that prediction could have literally been anything and still been equally valid using the same logical framework they used; all the experiment they performed showed was that the consequent was probably true. The problem, of course, is that the logic is not necessarily _sound_. As for an alternate explanation, it could be as simple as desiring a mate who is “like you”. As I noted above, it is thought that all blue-eyed individuals are descended from a single individual who first had the blue-eyed mutation. That would, essentially, make them all family (for a sufficiently large definition of “family”). So, just as royal bloodlines were heavily inbred in order to maintain purity, perhaps blue-eyed males think similarly, and prefer blue-eyed females in order to preserve whatever it is they think they are preserving (sorry, I’m not feeling very eloquent right now 😛 ). So, it would essentially follow the same pattern as pretty much any intra-tribal mating strategies. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-evolutionary-psychology-a-pseudoscience/604873.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-evolutionary-psychology-a-pseudoscience/604873.md?page=7)