Is evolutionary psychology a pseudoscience?

Great Debates
141

We should be thinking about genetics any time we discuss evolution; the two are inextricably entwined.

Consider this: there are typically three criteria for determining if a trait represents an adaptation:[ul]
[li]Is it heritable?[/li][li]Is it functional?[/li][li]Does it increase fitness?[/li][/ul]

So, even without knowing the exact genetic roots of this blue-eyed mate choice, we should be able to examine it from the basis of how well, if at all, it meets those criteria.

So: is it heritable?
Per the paper:

Yeah…right off the bat, that’s not looking good. There was no significant enhanced bias for blue-eyed sons of blue-eyed fathers, which strongly indicates that the choice of mates is not influenced by heredity. They do hand-wave away (in my opinion) this issue with the Oedipal possibility that you with the face mentioned, but to me, this is a major component of adaptation, and I am not so eager to dismiss the results. Based on the findings of their study, this criterion is not met.

Is it Functional?
As near as I can tell, the study did not examine this aspect. There was no mention of how many pairings of blue-eyed males with non-blue-eyed females resulted in cuckoldry, vs the relative occurrence in blue-eyed/blue-eyed pairings. At best, then, I’d consider this one inconclusive.

Does it increase fitness?
Again, there is no indication that this was examined in the present study. Human mating practices being the convoluted processes that they are, it’s probably not even possible to extract a single cause and effect for what makes one individual more successful than another when it comes to procuring a mate, especially when it comes to something as “shallow” as eye color. So, again, it’d give it an inconclusive, at best; “eye color is irrelevant in the grand scheme of things” at worst.

So, all things considered, the results of the study really don’t meet any of the given criteria for determining when a trait represents an adaptation. This is really a good example of what was mentioned in the Adaptationism article I linked to: “Adaptationists too agree with these rules, but their opponents maintain adaptationists are sometimes too eager to take an imaginative leap where the evidence is spotty or ambiguous.” It is this unwarranted eagerness that I take objection to when it comes to many EP studies and conclusions. Perhaps one could do an EP study on why evolutionary psychologists feel it necessary to behave in this manner…

142

Because rape is regarded as special, so when some EP type dares bring up the subject people go berserk. It’s political canon that “rape is about power” and we aren’t supposed to admit it’s ever about anything else.

And yes, there are “EP attempts” to explain things like child abuse and genocide. They just don’t get the publicity that happens when someone dares bring up rape.

Only if you buy the silly idea that natural = good, or the idea that evolution is moral. Which just results in people twisting or denying the facts to portray nature as nicer than it is.

Rape does appear to be a reproductive strategy; as does genocide for that matter; the two tend to go hand-in-hand in fact. That doesn’t make them good, it just makes them effective at spreading genes and destroying competing genes.

143

Of course we should. But we’ve been thinking about genetics for a long time without having the capacity to identify specific genes; that’s all I’m saying.

This bit, however, is pretty persuasive. I think I’m coming around to your point of view on this study.

144

The problem with this is that “rape is an reproductive strategy” doesn’t counter the “rape is about power” theory. So it’s preposterous that EP advocates press this point as if they are really saying something profound.

Consider that consensual sex is also a reproductive strategy (one that is infinitely more efficient and effective than rape, by the way), but just pointing this out doesn’t demonstrate what motivates most people to have sex. The vast majority of people don’t have sex with the intent to reproduce; they have sex because the activity is pleasurable to them. It scratches a physical itch, just like eating does. Likewise, rapists don’t have sex to reproduce; they rape because the act pleases them in some way. Why it pleases them can due to anything (including the thrill of domination).

EP is inadequate to explaining why, but its proponents seem to gloss over that in favor of repeatedly stating the slack-jawed obvious. “Animals rape!” “You can get pregnant from rape!” “Rape is a reproductive strategy!”

Nah, I don’t buy that. Pinker is one of the most commonly cited EPs on this board, for instance, and rape is one of his favorite topics. I don’t think that is a coincidence. His ideas would not seem so persuasive to people if he were talking about mundane things like murder, because sex is not involved in murder. So I think it’s fair to question EP afficiandos on why they seem so drawn to rape theories.

145

I don’t claim to be an expert, just a distant observer, so perhaps my ideas won’t say anything.

EP may or may not be bunk in specific instances. It’s also far too easy. We can always come up with answers, and unfortunately do so far too easily. But Evolutionary Psychology can’t test these adquately in almost all cases, which leads to a “science” which exists almost entirely in the minds of theorists. In the end, the entire subject may simply be too undefined and too difficult to research for any positive value.

Second, human intellience is such a recent phenomenon, and displays so many maladaptive traits along with the just-plain-irrelevant and the seemingly-irrelevant, that the very concept of evolution may not work very well when applied to it. It may be that we need a new concept, which studies the mind in and of itself, and its relationship with the body and human society second. I suppose we wouldn’t call it Evolutionary Psychology, so we might jsut drop that first part.

146

But are they truly so drawn to rape studies? How much work in the EP field is concerned with rape vs. every other subject? I would submit that the saliency of rape makes it seem more prominent than it actually is.

I took courses in college covering decision making, heuristics, and cognitive biases. There is a tremendous amount of research done in that field within an EP framework. You don’t hear about it because, well, pareidoliais probably pretty boring to most people.

147

According to this paper, the EP field has shown an increase focus on sex and sex-related issues over the last decade. Which isn’t all that surprising if we look at the audience EPs are appealing to. If they want to make a living, they are going to publish on topics that will make their books and articles popular. Sex sells.

148

I certainly agree that it’s not a coincidence. It’s ignorance. I’ve read four or five books by Pinker, and I can remember one chapter in all of them on rape (actually, I think it was part of a chapter, not the full chapter).

A list of his favorite topics might include:
-Irregular verbs.
-Child language development.
-Similarities among various languages.
-The rational underpinnings of moral universals (including the rational underpinnings for an abhorrence of rape, incidentally).
-Linguistic conceptualizations of physics.

It may well be true that rape is your favorite thing to read about by Pinker, but that’s far different from your rather nasty claim about Pinker himself.

149

This, charitably speaking, represents a misunderstanding both of the field and of the question. Your initial claim was that “EP afficiandos . . . seem so drawn to rape theories.” When Trom challenged you on that, you offered up a study showing that the EP field is NOT drawn to rape theories at all: indeed, the word “rape” appears exactly once in that paper, in the title of another paper it references.

Furthermore, the mentioned study is from 1983, a time period the study characterizes as concerned with such concepts as “evolutionary,” “human,” “behavior,” “reproductive,” “evolution,” “selection,” and “altruism."

So either you offer some evidence that doesn’t contradict your claim, or you admit that you learned something.

150

EPs are increasingly interested in sex. This is what my cite demonstrates and I never said it proved anything about rape.

But it is does suggest why rape would get more scrutiny in the field as opposed to non-sexual behaviors. Rape is in keeping with all the other sexual behaviors that are being analyzed by EPs today. I’m surprised out of all things, this didn’t leap out at you.

Please note also that the list of top articles cited doesn’t include any works past 2001. Which just might explain why Pinker ain’t mentioned once, when he’s one of the most well-known names in the field today.

At any rate, I’m not talking about EPs themselves. I’m talking about EP followers. In other words, lay people who have read a few articles written by EPs and start parroting “rape is a reproductive strategy” without really thinking about how empty that statement is.

You are grasping at straws with this one.

151

Right, you didn’t, which is why it was a total non sequitur and irrelevant to your original claim.

For fuck’s sake. We’re done here.

152

Yes it does, since the “rape is about power” theory explicitly denies that rape is ever about reproduction, or anything else but power.

Only if you succeed in convincing the other person to consent. As for effective, rapists in some war of conquest or genocide can spread their seed much moire efficiently than the average man.

153

If “rape is about power” is wrong because the theory denies the possibility that rape is ever used for procreation, then “rape is a reproductive strategy” is wrong based on the same rationale.

When a man rapes a child, a post-menopausal woman, or another man, what is the “strategy” behind that? Clearly it’s not reproduction. When the victim is a fertile woman, there’s no reason we should suddenly make rape out to be anything different than rape between homosexuals.

What good is spreading all of these seeds if their offspring are more likely to be killed or neglected by their traumatized mothers, and are less likely to have a father’s support (especially if the woman’s mate is killed)?

Of course, all of this ignores the big gaping hole that motivation can’t be infered from any of this anyway. Sex may lead to reproduction but that is not why we like having sex. Ask anyone who uses birth control.

154

No it isn’t. Again; EP doesn’t deny that there are other factors than instinct that affect human behavior; it’s the other side that is absolutist.

Except that fertile age women are far more likely to be raped.

They are still infinitely more likely to reproduce than a man who never sires any children at all, which for most of human history was a category that included most men. Polygamy, with one or a few men siring most children in the tribe was the historical norm.

155

EP doesn’t make an argument for motive, though. It just doesn’t.

Which still proves nothing. Fertile age women are more likely to run in the same circles as rapists, so their high rate of victimization make sense.

You’re gonna need cites for that. Polygamy is impractical for many reasons, one big obvious one being the inherent instability such arrangments cause on society. It’s unlikely as well that in early civilizations, men as individuals were capable enough of amassing enough resources to feed a whole bunch of women and kids.

156

Yes, absolutely. Considering women the property of their husband’s family makes sense in agricultural societies where there are major indivisible inheritances. In non-agricultural societies, it doesn’t make as much sense and you find greater variety.

Oh sure, you say, I’m talking about some obscure tribe that doesn’t matter? No. Look around you. I’m talking about our own culture. The practice of women being defined by their closest male relative died out basically the moment we got off the farm, and even the few trappings that are left (father giving away the bride, women taking their husband’s last name) are quickly losing popularity.

157

True. That’s a general pattern of human behavior that seems to be losing some ground due to a changing environment/culture. This general pattern of behavior has no explanatory power for the male blue eye preference, but concern over paternity does.

Regardless, an extremely important observation in the article has gone completely ignored. They showed that outside the laboratory, like colored-eye couple predominated. The male blue eye preference for blue-eyed females was present, a male brown eye preference for brown-eyed females was present, and weaker effects were observed for other relationships.

158

I think it’s important to go back to this because this highlights a misconception that many on both sides of the debate have.

For an instinct to exist, it does not require some kind of subconscious rationale.

Randy men who preferentially went for young women left more descendants than guys who behaved otherwise (actually much of this goes back much further than Homo sapiens). At no point is there, or needs to be, some inner knowledge of “I am doing this because…”.

Going to very extreme behaviour like rare forms of rape is not a good place to start in studying human sexuality.
If you want to talk about why a typical person might still find a woman sexually attractive post-menopause, it is not difficult. Our instincts aren’t driven by knowledge, so if a woman is in good enough shape that she looks as though she could be fertile, then that’s enough.

Again EP is, or at least should be, about instincts. It should never be about mapping specific aspects of society.
It would be ridiculous to look around Saudi Arabia and say “OK, clearly men don’t want to look at women…”
When you look under the surface, men in SA are attracted to women same as anywhere else but for various social and religious reasons, think it is wrong to do so.

EP should be about explaining the instinct, like the attraction to women. It should not (and would not be able to) explain what a given society is doing.

159

[QUOTE=Mijin]

Again EP is, or at least should be, about instincts. It should never be about mapping specific aspects of society.
It would be ridiculous to look around Saudi Arabia and say “OK, clearly men don’t want to look at women…”
When you look under the surface, men in SA are attracted to women same as anywhere else but for various social and religious reasons, think it is wrong to do so.

EP should be about explaining the instinct, like the attraction to women. It should not (and would not be able to) explain what a given society is doing.
[/QUOTE]

Please refer to the quote I was replying to. If EP is not about tying instincts to specific social patterns in modern society, then a lot of people didn’t get the memo.

160

Do you really think child rape is rare? Historically, it’s probably been as common if not more common than the rape of women. Even today, the odds of you coming across a victim of child molestation is scarily high. And boys and girls are victimized. Babies too. As disgusting as that is, calling it rare is naive. It ain’t even rare in this country, in the year 2011, let alone during antiquity.

I’m not talking attraction. I’m talking about how meaningless it is to declare rape a reproductive strategy just because pregnancy may occur incidentally to the act. When all types of people are raped, not just fertile women, clearly something other than reproduction is afoot. We shouldn’t disregard other rapes just so we can create an alluring narrative about one type (e.g. potentially procreative rape). When other scientists engage in similiar behavior, we accuse them of biasing their results by cherrypicking examples to support a pet hypothesis. No reason EPs should be immune from the same standards.

So what’s your explanation for how little girls and boys come to be raped? Is the rapist simply confusing them for a fertile woman too?