LHoD, are you willing to acknowledge that the premise as stated here is pretty grandiose and imaginative, especially when there’s no attempt at explaining how such a preference would be confered?
It’s like saying: In sum, if males exhibit a peak in sex-seeking behavior during December due to Sagittarian influences, then a disproportionately high number of persons should be born in August.
Now it so happens that August is the most common birthmonth in the U.S. But without an compelling explanation for how “Sagittarian influences” supposedly makes people horny during December, why should we put any stock in this notion?
Even if your “acknowledge” word choice wasn’t getting up my butt with its assumption that of course you’re right and that it’s only a question of whether I admit your correctness, no, I’m not willing to agree that the premise is grandiose. I already stated what I was willing to agree–namely, that the research is preliminary, and, lacking an explanation of a mechanism (which would be highly difficult to establish in these early days of gene mapping), will remain preliminary. And it’s certainly nothing like your shitty analogy about Sagittarius.
I can say that the folks who’ve been arguing against the anti EP crowd have helped me learn a lot about this subject. I considered EP to be pseudoscience before reading this thread, but the inept attack mounted by the anti-crowd coupled with the defense provided by the folks who actually understand how science works has made me re-evaluate that.
Study 2
(4) Males showed preferences for partners with similar eye and hair color in the wild. This rigorously showed that the experimental findings did not readily generalize to the field.
(5) Unsurprisingly, females also showed assortative mating with men of similar eye and hair color.
Study 1 and 2
(6) They found only weak evidence of any kind of parental imprinting effect where participants showed preferences based on parental eye color traits. It was not present at all in the experimental research and only weakly present in the field.
In their general discussion they addressed their results against:
(1) Paternity assurances - however mild in Scandinavian populations
(2) Conscious awareness of blue-eye transmittance patterns - not necessary for their results but they do note that young children have a sense of how heredity works.
(3) Simple Xenophobia/Racism - long part of the discussion, the pattern of their results doesn’t quite fit what would expected given this hypothesis.
(4) Their biggest real concern seemed to be the benefit of this trait in an environment where upwards of 55% of the population has blue eyes.
(5) They provided the results of computer modeling which defined parameters that would allow this selectivity to be advantageous - I guess defining parameters fro future work.
In the end, they suggested a hypothesis, they addressed at least one counter hypothesis (parent imprinting), and found support for their data primarily in the laboratory and less readily in the field (blue-eyed assortative mating was the strongest of the associations). Their discussion addressed other relevant hypotheses and described how their data did not support these hypotheses. Among the available hypotheses, theirs seemed to be best supported by the data overall.
But did they ever get around to explaining the mechanism by which such a preference would be genetically confered? That’s another component of rigor that yall keep sidestepping.
The only major problem I see with evolutionary psychology – and this goes for almost all generalized human psychology – is that studies really need to be multicultural. When a study says “a study of 250 college students at Cublacata University” it instantly shows problems, you’re not proving anything about evolution, you’re showing something about the statistically significant makeup of college students. Even if it’s just “Americans” you’re showing something that could be influenced by American media and upbringing. To really show any sort of true generalized psychological phenomenon, meaning saying something you want to claim is human nature and independent of culture, you need to test people from cultures that differ in significant ways in what you’re testing.
Meaning if you’re testing age disparity in sexual attraction you really need to take people from cultures where the concepts of beauty and the social construct of a relationship is different (i.e. cultures where overweight people are glorified, cultures where enlarged earlobes are generally considered attractive etc), and test your claim in opposition to these already known differences in culture and see if it holds through all possible cultural influences.
A large number of studies I’ve seen referenced in the news and such don’t do this. At the very least, smaller studies are allowable, but only if there exist studies of other cultures that can be compiled to a metastudy. Otherwise I’m hesitant to call anything “human nature” (genetic or not) and leave it at “culturally influenced psychology.”
It may have been rigorously performed, but, as I noted previously, the conclusion they jumped to (“These findings … 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 … as well as a defense against cuckoldry …”) was in no way supported by the experimental outcomes.
Also, I’d like to point out that preferences, in and of themselves, mean precisely squat in evolutionary terms. The authors did test “in the wild”, but ultimately, the photo portion of their experiment was meaningless. The only thing that matters in evolutionary terms with regard to these “who mates with whom” studies is who one actually hooks up with, not who one would prefer to hook up with. Again, if evolutionary psychologists want to live up to their name, then they need to treat the “evolutionary” part of their name a bit more seriously (and rigorously, for that matter).
The point is, if I have a hypothesis that can make surprising and validated predictions, then we can have confidence in that hypothesis. If more research needs to be done to fill in more blanks, then, well, that just puts it in the same boat as all science.
You seem to be beginning with the assertion that for EP to be a science its descriptions must go down to the genetic level. For a start this would imply that pretty much all of psychology in general is not science / rigorous. Heck, much of neuroscience.
But more than that it assumes reductionism. It precludes the possibility that there are mental phenomena that could never be practically or usefully reduced to a genetic description.
Yes, shocking I know that you’ve been debating against someone who has repeatedly been subject to the peer-review process and therefore knows what the hell she’s talking about. WTF are your credentials?
You underlined this with all the cockiness of layperson who knows diddlysquat about publishing science. Oh brother.
Of course they have to explain a potential mechanism! You can’t prove a hypothesis simply by ruling out alternative ones. You must demonstrate biological plausibility. If you can’t do that, all you have is conjecture. Conjecture can’t even buy you a stick of bubble gum at the Circle K.
Do me a favor and read up on Bradford-Hillcriteria. Biological plausibility is one the most important criterion used in assessing scientific rigor.
If this is a valid statement, then scientists would be able to dream up any explanation to account for an observation. What causes malaria? I hypothesize it’s “bad air” that causes the disease. If we rule out diet, sexual transmission, and contaminated food, then that supports the idea that it’s “bad air” that causes malaria. You’ll notice too that persons who have contracted malaria tend to spend more times outdoors than those who people without malaria. This demonstrates “bad air” is the culprit. Apparently, it is unnecessary for me to propose a mechanism by which “bad air” mediates disease. All I have to do is rule out other explanations and then attempt to loosely connect two different observations together. Awsome!
Of course there has to be genetic basis. Evolution is manifested through genetic expression. This whole conversation is premised on the idea that innate preferences and dispositions have a biological basis shaped by evolutionary pressures. How do you suppose this occurs without genes?
Mijin, I’m still waiting for you to explain how women of childbearing age are overrepresented as rape victims if 25% of victims in the U.S. are kids 11 years old and younger. I know it’s a tough assignment, but you seem to be the man to pull it off.
Psychology and Neuroscience generally say things like “If you do X, Y happens.” Then they go about showing that if you do X, Y happens. For example, if you are a blue eyed male, you prefer a blue eyed mate.
Evolutionary psychology, on the other hand, adds the twist “If you do X, Y happens, because of evolutionary cause Z.” For example, “If you are a blue eyed male, you prefer a blue eyed mate, because it shows paternity.”
Sorry, but you actually do have to give some evidence for Z, besides the popular “It just really seems like a really likely story, and I thought really hard and couldn’t think of anything that seemed better so it must be this, doncha think?” And that is literally all they have on the “crude paternity test” theory. They have no actual evidence for it.
It is, indeed, a pretty tough thing to conclusively resolve, and it’d be hard to think of much evidence beyond a genetic link that could solidly support this Z.
Frankly it is shocking for me, some of your arguments upthread have shown a profound misunderstanding of the scientific method.
Thank you for preceding your question by swearing. Real mature.
But, FTR, IANA scientist (nor have I implied that I am), but I have a postgrad degree in Neuroscience, and a published paper on tractography.
Where did you get this from? I never claimed science works by ruling out alternatives.
In fact, I’ve said several times before on the dope that finding truth by elimination almost never works – whatever sherlock holmes might think. It basically only works in constrained, formal settings such as mathematics.
A prediction needs to be specific, surprising and testable.
None of the examples you are giving here meet these requirements. If they did, it would be obvious that such a prediction has utility and helps us improve our understanding of the phenomenon.
I’m obviously not arguing against genes being the root of behaviour (+ their interaction with the environment obviously) the point was whether it is practical or useful to describe all mental phenomena in terms of genes.
But let me ask you this: is neuroscience a science? Because, held to the same standards that you’re asking of EP, it is not.
No you didn’t, but you implied that scientists don’t have to demonstrate how their ideas are biologically plausible. According to your view, all they have to do is create a hypothesis and see if observations line up behind that hypothesis in a predicatable fashion. Maybe they can do that and still get published (in a journal with low standards), but that is not rigorous science.
Did you not type this?
This is wrong. Any idiot can take two events that are correlated with one another and draw linkages to one another as if to suggest that one causes the other. To provide support of causality, one must go a lot further than simply prediction. Biological plausibility needs to be there.
Why do you say that? I can’t imagine that neuroscience journals ignore Bradford-Hill criteria when vetting papers. I’m also fairly certain that the hypotheses posited by neuroscientists are granular enough that they can be easily tested without making the kind of imaginative leaps that that blue-eyed study made. If you can provide some evidence to the contrary, I’d be interested in seeing it.
And how many cites have you brought to bear to prove anything I’ve said in this thread is wrong? I’ve counted a grand total of zero, but maybe I overlooked something.
Perhaps if you spent more time speaking in a professional manner, and less time trying to psychoanalyze your opponents and nitpicking totally irrelevant points, people would find your real-life career less shocking and would take your posts seriously. If, however, you’re happy with your reception here, then by all means carry on.
Well, first, they really don’t have to describe the specific genetic/developmental mechanism. If that is your requirement then you’ve just invalidated almost all of science. The study would be better once they get that information, but there are these really cool fields called behavior genetics and developmental psychology that tends to ask those types of questions.
More importantly, they do address mechanistic questions in at least 3 ways (from my post above):
(6) They found only weak evidence of any kind of parental imprinting effect where participants showed preferences based on parental eye color traits. It was not present at all in the experimental research and only weakly present in the field;
(5) They provided the results of computer modeling which defined parameters that would allow this selectivity to be advantageous - I guess defining parameters fro future work.
(2) Conscious awareness of blue-eye transmittance patterns - not necessary for their results but they do note that young children have a sense of how heredity works.
You may also refer back to my post #212. That short, wouldn’t take up as much time as I have spent arguing your analysis, points out how couples tend to selectively assort on highly heritable structural and psychological traits. This means we tend to pair up with those who will produce offspring that look and act like ourselves. Do you get it yet? There is most definitely a mechanism. It’s there, time to accept it.
The significance of the study is that it adds a new level to this widely-observed assortative mating. This level deals more with problems male parents may deal with ecologically. It was less obvious of an effect in the field. The results were rigorously analyzed and found to best support this interpretation.
(Rigorous, woohoo! Never used the term much in all my years as a scientist but now I’ve used it a whole bunch of time in just a few days! I’ve been so f-ing rigorous and had no idea there was a term for it! whoopee!!)
Have you read the article yet? Or have I warped back in time to a grad student seminar where nobody reads anything and its just another bullshit meeting.
Hence the word ‘suggest’ I guess? Of the explanations available for this data, their data best supported paternity assurance concept. In my reading I did not get that they believed it to be an open-and-shut case, or that they were not open to alternative explanations.
I am gaining more respect for the paper as time goes on. This is particularly true because they addressed their data against other explanations that were independently brought up in this thread. All of them. Not bad.
The only objections left are yours, which are good and reasonable and I am sure any EP researcher would die for the data but its not really necessary, and I will explain why beyond your next quoted section. There are also you with the face’s which are in the same style as your but weaker.
I really don’t think research should be required to address every level of analysis. Certainly the most dramatic examples of great science does do such a job, but it’s not the day-to-day task of scientific inquiry.
They actually specified how their study was limited by all the concerns you list here. I think you misunderstand EP in the same way that others do throughout this thread. They aren’t out there finding evidence that behaviors are evolved or are evolving. They are using the research and theories of this discipline to address questions about patterns of human behavior. It’s emphasizing psychology with the tools of evolutionary biology/behavioral ecology/ethology. They’re doing it because they wish to understand behavior. People get wrapped up in some of the novel aspects of their theorizing, but in the lab it boils down to applying an approach that is mostly ignored by psychologists. You can see that quite readily in the arguments of the social sciences end of the spectrum in this thread. It’s a quite logical approach that is often met with disparagement, at best, from these disciplines.
For what its worth you strike me as a scientist and are one of the few people bothering to post links supporting their ideas in this thread, but you’re not a psychologist, right?