# Why does evolutionary psychology get such a bum rap? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 11, 2010, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-evolutionary-psychology-get-such-a-bum-rap/524521 "2010-01-11T16:44:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2010, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-evolutionary-psychology-get-such-a-bum-rap/524521/101 "2010-02-19T15:01:43Z")
[Mod Note] > [@orcenio](#): > > Enough hot air for a sauna. Yeah, you’d fit in well with philosophy majors. > [@orcenio](#): > > Yep, yours is a simple case of red-faced bluster. Bluster away, pal. I’m aware these posts were made before my warning. But to clarify, **orcenio** , you should also dial it back. [/Mod Note] ---
**Author:** ![orcenio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/orcenio/32/1036_2.png) [@orcenio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/orcenio)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2010, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-evolutionary-psychology-get-such-a-bum-rap/524521/102 "2010-02-19T15:20:55Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > [Mod Note] > > I’m aware these posts were made before my warning. But to clarify, **orcenio** , you should also dial it back. > > [/Mod Note] Note taken, but I do not understand how I can contribute to this thread if I can’t call a post like that bluster. It was merely a long and empty flame. I’m trying to clean up my act here in GD and I’m not sure how else I should have responded? ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2010, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-evolutionary-psychology-get-such-a-bum-rap/524521/103 "2010-02-19T15:32:09Z")
> [@orcenio](#): > > Note taken, but I do not understand how I can contribute to this thread if I can’t call a post like that bluster. It was merely a long and empty flame. I’m trying to clean up my act here in GD and I’m not sure how else I should have responded? It’s a heads-up and not a warning. But I’ll put it this way: you can call someone’s post bluster without suggesting they’re pompous and overheated. There was plenty of flaming in that post but there was some non-flame content also. ---
**Author:** ![ambushed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3bc359/32.png) [@ambushed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ambushed)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2010, 12:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-evolutionary-psychology-get-such-a-bum-rap/524521/104 "2010-02-22T12:48:49Z")
Look, **orcenio** , I unjustly broke the rules out of frustration at the extremely childish and immature and babyishly wrong and wrong-headed view of science you were trying to push down our throats by improperly writing that **you** were childish instead of following the rules and writing instead that your _ **views** _ of science are extremely childish and immature and babyishly wrong-headed. I genuinely apologize for personalizing my remarks in reply to your posts in this thread. I will not make the rule-violating mistake of criticizing you personally here again. What you will see here is not criticism of you, but of your views. (Though I remain quite puzzled and taken aback by the fact that I received a mod warning for doing in **one** post the exact same thing that you did in **several** posts now that only earned you a “heads up”. But that puzzlement will pass…) The babyish _ **view** _ of science you are trying to sell is ridiculously immature and flat-out **false**. The low level of understanding of science that your words represent is **spectacularly** immature and **spectacularly** _wrong_. It is beneath any possibility of respect. The view of science and what science _is_ and what scientists _do_ you keep espousing is, in a word, **infantile**. **You** , on the other hand, are not infantile. Nothing I’ve written has been “bluster”, **orcenio**. It is accurate information that you desperately _ **need** _ to try to understand and learn. It is an attempt at educating you out of those extremely childish views. It is advice. It is an effort to enlighten you out of the childish 5’th grade view of science as “THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD”. The truth is, **orcenio** , science is **far, FAR** more sophisticated and complex and nuanced and refined and intricate and elaborate and abstract and enlightened than the babyish, 5’th grade textbook blither about THE EE-ZEE “SCIENTIFIC METHOD” Cookbook of “hypothesis - experiment - conclusion” baby food you’ve been espousing. You imagine that _you’re_ the one who knows more about science than posters like **Spiff** , **Der Trihs** , **Darwin’s Finch** , myself and others, but the truth is that your understanding of science is actually quite immature and simplistic. I tried to explain that to you, but the words of your two posts replying to me clearly demonstrate that you _still_ think you know more about science than posters like **Spiff** , **Der Trihs** , **Darwin’s Finch** , myself and others. Be assured that this is not the case. **orcenio** , I’ve worked with and provided working contributions to professional scientists, most recently with a highly esteemed Stanford University professor who was one of the authors of one of the American Chemical Society’s “Most Cited Paper of 2006” and an all-around brilliant scientist and wise, warm human being. But your view of what science is and how it is done represents an extreme insult to him, his work, and his colleagues! You don’t appear to be _aware_ that you are viciously insulting scientists, but that’s what you’ve been doing nonetheless. Science is tremendously more sophisticated and nuanced than the 5’th grade view of it you keep pushing here. You need to _ **drastically** _ increase your knowledge of science! Science is most emphatically **not** what you keep insisting it is, **orcenio**! It’s _not_ the 5’th grade lousy science textbook pap of “hypothesis - experiment - conclusion” vapidity that you keep very unwisely insisting it is. Do you know the name Richard Feynman, **orcenio**? Winner of the 1965 Nobel Prize in Physics? Brilliant, witty raconteur and devilish troublemaker? Here’s what he had to say about your 5’th grade lousy science textbook childishness: > [@Richard Feynman](#): > > That’s the way all the books were: They said things that were useless, mixed-up, ambiguous, confusing, and partially incorrect. How anybody can learn science from these books, I don’t know, because it’s not science. William Beaty, Alistair Fraser, and very many others are in full agreement with Feynman in mocking this infantile view of science that you keep arguing for, **orcenio**. As Beaty and others correctly point out, people who share that ignorantly infantile view of science represent a serious menace to both our society and to science, science literacy, and just about every intellectual effort to understand the universe. Science is a far grander and far more subtle intellectual endeavor than that! Let’s start with your references to “direct observation” and “proof/prove/proving”. Your assertion that if investigation and experiments are not based on “direct observation”, it is not science, is quite ridiculous. That ontological view is known as “naïve realism”, for the obvious reason that it is **hopelessly naïve**. That view asserts that things are precisely as they appear to be from direct observation. Thus, in that view, when a partially submerged pencil is viewed at an angle, since it _appears_ to be broken, it really _is_ broken! To “fix” it, all you have to do is remove it from the water! That’s infantile, but that’s precisely what your view entails. “Direct observation”, **orcenio** , means “observation without instruments”. It means naked eyeball observation. Thus, if an experiment requires the use of a scanning tunneling microscope or even just an ordinary optical microscope, your view asserts that that _cannot_ be a “scientific” experiment because the observation is not “direct”! But even though I’ve explained that already, you personally insulted me for doing so! The concept of “proof/prove/proving” – words and concepts that you use quite foolishly in this context – has nothing whatsoever to do with science. Science or a scientific experiment cannot “prove” _ **anything!** _ The concept of “proof/prove/proving” only has validity in the domain of formal systems: _a priori_ non-empirical constructs that are neither contingent upon empirical observation / experiment nor are open to revising as a result of empirical observation / experiment. Formal systems include mathematics, logic, algorithmic analysis (a type of logic) and the like. Science often _employs_ formal systems – especially mathematics – but mathematics itself is NOT scientific! It is not scientific because mathematics is not empirical and it is not synthetic. It is _a priori_ and purely _analytic_. There is no empirical experiment possible that can “prove” that 1 + 2 = 3, **orcenio**! The statement “1 + 2 = 3” is an _a priori_ axiomatic assertion of the formal system known as basic number theory that **can** be proved because the concept of “proof” **ONLY applies to formal systems** , but it **cannot** be demonstrated scientifically. There is **NO SUCH THING AS PROOF IN SCIENCE!** (I suspect that all that and everything I’ve ever written in this thread will likely continue to whoosh right by, but since you are so unwisely certain that _you_ possess superior knowledge on these matters and do not recognize your own severe _lack_ of knowledge and understanding of these issues, I’m not sure that anything can be done about that). Since it is so unlikely that these latest words of my own are getting through to you, I will cite and quote from the words of others regarding the incredibly naïve view of science you are espousing… First, **orcenio** , please rush to your local library to borrow or otherwise buy Chemistry professor Henry Bauer’s [_Scientific Literacy and the Myth of the Scientific Method_](http://www.amazon.com/Scientific-Literacy-Myth-Method/dp/0252064364/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1266826394&sr=1-1) and read it a few dozen times front to back, particularly chapter 2: “The So-Called Scientific Method”; chapter 3: “How Science Really Works”; and chapter 4: “Other Fables about Science” (including the infantile myths surrounding the alleged absolute necessity of making predictions and the limits of the very _concept_ of testing predictions). Allow me to quote a portion of Bauer’s introduction: > [@Henry Bauer](#): > > Ignorance and misconception can have regrettable consequences. Nowadays, science and technology are so inextricably a part of our lives that ignorance and misconception about them may have **particularly regrettable consequences**. He’s talking about the infantile view of THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD exactly like yours, **orcenio** , and why that’s such a dangerous and severely destructive view. Bauer goes on: > [@Henry Bauer](#): > > Perhaps the central fallacy is that there exists an entity called “science” about which sweeping generalizations can validly be made; for example, that science is characterized and defined by **the scientific method** (which, it can be supposed, can be defined rigorously and unambiguously) [such as in **orcenio** ’s infantile view of science as expressed in his posts in this thread.] > > … > > Recognizing **the mythical character of the scientific method** has been a considerable relief to the philosophy of science… One can comprehend science only by taking into account its history and its institutions, its social aspects as well as its cognitive ones; and the metaphors of puzzle and filter result from the determination to merge sociological with philosophical viewpoints. (I’d refer you to Popper’s classic work: [The Logic of Scientific Discovery](http://www.amazon.com/Logic-Scientific-Discovery-Routledge-Classics/dp/0415278449/ref=pd_sim_b_5), but it will likely be quite a few years until your understanding of science and the philosophy of science has advanced far enough to allow you to be able to properly grasp what Popper is saying.) I will now quote small portions of: [Ten Myths of Science](http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&ct=res&cd=1&ved=0CAYQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.newyorkscienceteacher.com%2Fsci%2Ffiles%2Fuser-submitted%2FMisconception1.pdf&ei=jEmCS7LtNoiinQf-k4HRBw&usg=AFQjCNFTlNUKpYcBUgSTF0HA6P9lbUDYbg) (pdf), by William McComas of the School of Education, University of Southern California: > [@William McComas](#): > > This article addresses and attempts to refute several of the most widespread and enduring misconceptions held by students regarding the enterprise of science. The ten myths discussed include the common notions that theories become laws, that hypotheses are best characterized as educated guesses, **and that there is a commonly-applied scientific method** … > **Myth 3: A General and Universal Scientific Method Exists** > > The notion that a common series of steps is followed by all research scientists must be among the most pervasive **myths** of science given the appearance of such a list in the introductory chapters of many precollege science texts. This myth has been part of the folklore of school science ever since its proposal by statistician Karl Pearson (1937). The steps listed for the scientific method vary from text to text but usually include, a) define the problem, b) gather background information, c) form a hypothesis, d) make observations, e) test the hypothesis, and f) draw conclusions. > > … > > Philosophers of science who have studied scientists at work have shown that no research method is applied universally (Carey, 1994; Gibbs & Lawson, 1992; Chalmers, 1990; Gjertsen, 1989). The notion of a single scientific method is so pervasive it seems certain that many students must be disappointed when they discover that scientists do not have a framed copy of the steps of the scientific method posted high above each laboratory workbench. > > Close inspection will reveal that scientists approach and solve problems with imagination, creativity, prior knowledge and perseverance. **These, of course, are the same methods used by all problem-solvers. The lesson to be learned is that science is no different from other human endeavors when puzzles are investigated.** Are you starting to get it, **orcenio**? What I’ve written in all of my posts in this thread is **not** “bluster”, but far more correct and nuanced information and knowledge than what you apparently grasp. Information and knowledge that you do _not_ possess yet desperately **need** to acquire and come to grips with. **Why is all this relevant to this discussion of the scientific merits of evolutionary psychology?** Because the highly naïve criticisms of EP from posters like **DanBlather** , **Nametag** , **foolsguinea** , **Chum** , and – worst of all – **orcenio** , are far too scientifically and philosophically shallow to have any genuine merit. All of these criticisms are based on a deeply flawed view of what science actually _ **is** _. There are many sciences that include large portions that simply do not permit experiments, such as observational astronomy, paleontology, and evolutionary biology, yet the same arguments **orcenio** et al. employ to attack evolutionary psychology would just as surely attack and reject large swathes of astronomy, paleontology, and evolutionary biology as legitimate sciences, too! All of those criticisms are simply invalid. The extremely young science of evolutionary psychology _has_ experienced real epistemological difficulties as it struggles to grow out of its infancy, but it is hardly alone in that and it absolutely does **not** follow that EP is therefore not scientific! The criticisms of **Malthus** and **Darwin’s Finch** and a few others are far more sophisticated and therefore have far more validity, even if I take issue with their arguments and views. But **orcenio**? The views he promotes in this thread are simply infantile and represent a very real threat to our culture, as Beaty, Fraser, Feynman, Bauer, and McComas also point out. I will continue to challenge such a harmful, infantile, and naïve view of one of the most important cornerstones of our civilization. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2010, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-evolutionary-psychology-get-such-a-bum-rap/524521/105 "2010-02-22T14:25:28Z")
**ambushed** , I realize that you spent a lot of time carefully making sure that all your disparaging adjectives were directed at ideas and not the poster, but your toes are well across the line. Referring to another poster’s line of argument as “infantile” and then explaining what you meant by that remark works. Spending an enormous number of text bytes referring to every aspect of another poster’s ideas, (real or imagined), as infantile and immature and childish is pretty clearly an attack on the poster. I am going to let this slide–once. If it happens again, you will get the Warning you have worked so hard to tiptoe around. If you are that desperate to vent, take it to the BBQ Pit. [/Moderating] ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2010, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-evolutionary-psychology-get-such-a-bum-rap/524521/106 "2010-02-22T14:52:52Z")
Ironically, I just told him in the **orcenio** pit thread to go start a proper GD thread about the scientific method stuff. Heh. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2010, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-evolutionary-psychology-get-such-a-bum-rap/524521/107 "2010-02-22T14:54:52Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > Ironically, I just told him in the **orcenio** pit thread to go start a proper GD thread about the scientific method stuff. Heh. A discussion of the Scientific Method is fine. Disparaging other posters is not appropriate, here. ---
**Author:** ![kimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/f0a364/32.png) [@kimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kimera)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2010, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-evolutionary-psychology-get-such-a-bum-rap/524521/108 "2010-02-23T22:57:15Z")
> [@ambushed](#): > > There are many sciences that include large portions that simply do not permit experiments, such as observational astronomy, paleontology, and evolutionary biology, yet the same arguments **orcenio** et al. employ to attack evolutionary psychology would just as surely attack and reject large swathes of astronomy, paleontology, and evolutionary biology as legitimate sciences, too! > > All of those criticisms are simply invalid. The extremely young science of evolutionary psychology _has_ experienced real epistemological difficulties as it struggles to grow out of its infancy, but it is hardly alone in that and it absolutely does **not** follow that EP is therefore not scientific! I’m a scientist. I currently do evolutionary research. I studied Evolutionary Anthropology (with some classes on evolutionary biology in general) at one of the best universities in the United States for the subject (UC Davis) and I currently work on a project surrounded by some of the best scientists who study human and primate evolution. Because of these qualifications, I believe I can state what is and what isn’t considered scientific by several well-known evolutionary scientists. Astronomy, paleontology and evolutionary biology are ALL testable. We make predictions, search for evidence based upon our predictions, and conduct experiments. You’ve obviously never studied the first thing about evolutionary biology if you seriously think that we don’t make observations and conduct experiments to test our hypotheses in the field and the lab. My professors all tended to be very highly critical of evolutionary psychology and the frequent charge against it was that it is ‘unscientific’. One of my professors called them ‘Evolutionary Just-so’ stories because they generally can’t be testified or verified (with a few good exceptions). I’ve discussed evolutionary psychology with more than a few professors and colleagues and, while there are some evolutionary psychologists who’ve come up with scientifically sound stuff, a lot of it is improper science. I’ve looked at a couple of studies myself, a lot of them over-reach and have no empirical evidence behind it, **especially** the sexuality stuff. Among other problems I have with evolutionary psychology (in addition to it generally being not testifiable or falsifiable): **No proof for the EEA.** The EEA is the Environment of Evolutionary Adaptiveness where humans supposedly received most of their shaping and development. The problem with this is that there is currently _no evidence it actually existed_. It also supposes that evolution has stopped (something debated) and that we can predict what the EEA was like based on current behavior (also not supported by the evidence). It ignores the fact that we also, throughout our evolutionary history, have lived in such vast, differing environments, I find the idea of one, highly impritable environment highly suspicious. Even small changes in ecology can have VAST influences on behavior. **Little evidence known about the EEA (if it even exists).** In evolutionary psychology papers, individuals often say that Pleistocene individuals did X things, but there is often no little to no evidence to support what individuals in the Pleistocene actually lived like. We are currently gathering as much information that we can, but there is a lot we don’t know about it, including primary diet composition, group size, etc. We don’t know much about the behavior of our past ancestors because only so much shows up in the fossil record. Looking at hunter-gatherers and our primate relatives can only show us so much because all of those individuals have been evolving themselves since that time. Too much of Evolutionary Psychology is based on modern day hunter-gatherers who often are not the descendants of long chain hunter-gatherers. They also exist in environments which don’t always replicate what we know about the environments our ancestors lived in. You can learn some from studying non-human primates (which I do), but you have to be very careful about what you explain in terms of human behavior through primate studies. Anyone who looks at chimps or bonobos to blindly explain human behavior neglects to note that we’ve been under different evolutionary pressures from them from a very long time. Most evolutionary psychologists don’t tend to do this as they are fixated on the EEA, but I’ve noticed it in a few studies I’ve read. **Equating current human behavior with passed environmental conditions without factoring possible other causes.** An example of this is the oft-totted statement that males are more upset about sexual infidelity because they are more concerned about paternity certainty while females are more upset about emotional infidelity because they are more concerned about resource infidelity. It neglects to consider other factors, such as societal beliefs that approve of male sexual infidelity more than female, and the belief that men can have sex without forming emotions (and therefore, male infidelity is less likely to lead to a break up of a relationship). When examining gay men, it was found that gay men were more concerned about emotional infidelity in their partners, which isn’t explained at all by the Evolutionary Psychology hypothesis. **You can find competing theories to explain almost everything.** This was one of my professor’s biggest complaints. As [Noam Chompsky](http://www.stevens.edu/csw/cgi-bin/blogs/horganism/?p=11) said, > [@](#): > > “You find that people cooperate, you say, ‘Yeah, that contributes to their genes’ perpetuating.’ You find that they fight, you say, ‘Sure, that’s obvious, because it means that their genes perpetuate and not somebody else’s. In fact, just about anything you find, you can make up some story for it.” **It ignores the effects of culture.** With a primate focus, I’ve studied more biological evolution, but cultures evolve and change as well and have huge impacts on physiological evolution and development of a species. Tangling apart the effects of biology versus culture is something that still hasn’t been done and I feel that most evolutionary psychologists ignore culture when they talk about why women prefer pink, why men cheat, etc. ---
**Author:** ![kimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/f0a364/32.png) [@kimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kimera)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2010, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-evolutionary-psychology-get-such-a-bum-rap/524521/109 "2010-02-24T14:56:44Z")
I wrote that post when I was incredibly tired after a long day at work so please pretend I didn’t write testifiable. 🙂 I also said verify when I meant falsify. In regards to the spider study: > [@](#): > > McNally questions, for example, whether mammals really have evolutionary cause to be afraid of spiders. Only 0.1 percent of the 35,000 different kinds of spiders in the world are poisonous, he noted. from [here](http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2001/10/1004_snakefears_2.html) Just to bring up an example: Spiders and snakes are two things that are often claimed to have a biological base in aversion. Most human cultures regard snakes with a mix of fear and disdain. Is the aversion to snakes inborn or culturally taught? [Evolutionary Psychologists](http://www.anth.ucsb.edu/projects/human/epfaq/ep.html) state that they are inborn and that there is an innate aversion to snakes. [Here](http://instruct.uwo.ca/psychology/371g/Ohman2001.pdf) is a Evolutionary Psychology paper on fear (with snakes included). They discuss an ‘evolved module’ that activates automatically to strike fear within the hearts of humans at the sight of snakes. This is a better Evolutionary Psychology paper than many I’ve seen. The authors discuss the skepitism and note: > [@](#): > > Partly, the skepticism is nourished by popular misuse of evolutionary arguments, in which virtually any psychological phenomenon can be declared post hoc to represent evolutionarily shaped adaptations. But if hedged by some reasonable caveats, we think that evolutionarily based theorizing provides a fruitful avenue for analyzing psychological phenomena. > > …A putative evolutionary explanation must, just as any scientific explanation, be open to empirical tests; to be more precise, it must be integrated into a conceptual network with testable consequences. Problems I have with this study: 1. No strong evidence for the module theory it (and almost all of evolutionary psychology) is based upon. 2. They state: > [@](#): > > Even in the absence of a significant fear of snakes, spiders, or angry faces, participants may have generally negative associations to such stimuli that could be potentiated when they are encountered as stimuli in a fear-conditioning experiment but then the studies they cite don’t do enough to bolster their argument that fear of snakes is different than other stimuli. The other authors compare snakes with electrical outlets and snakes with guns. Yet, most people come across electrical outlets in their daily life, so of course one would expect fear extinction to drop dramatically in electrical outlets! Guns are a bit better, but still problematic because guns, by themselves, don’t DO anything. It would’ve been much better to compare snakes with something else that can be inherently deadly by itself. 3. If such a factor was biologically innate, then one would expect laboratory animals to react with fear when exposed to snakes. As the authors note, studies done on rhesus macaques at the Wisconsin Primate Lab didn’t find this reaction. (As a side note, the most terrifying thing to lab-raised cotton-top tamarins is a bright pink feather duster.) The authors of one of the study conclude: > [@](#): > > Moreover, Mineka and colleagues (1984) and M. Cook and colleagues (1985) reasoned that the requisite learning experience was likely to have been vicarious, because few wild-reared monkeys would have survived direct snake attacks, given the prevalence of poisonous snakes (including deadly cobras) in India. which neglects the fact that rhesus macaques live in large groups and, even if the individual themselves died, the group should react to the death of the individual by snake. They go on to note that rhesus macaques could be trained to be afraid of snakes, but neglect to mention the cotton-top tamarins, who never could be trained. Before one suggests that perhaps New World Monkeys have less developed aversion to snakes, the authors themselves note: > [@](#): > > There is also evidence that a fear of snakes in squirrel monkeys (New World monkeys) is probably somewhat more hardwired than is a fear of snakes in Old World monkeys such as rhesus monkeys (cf. Levine, Atha, & Wiener, 1993). 1. They never fully factor out the social learning possibilities. My criticism of all this doesn’t mean that I don’t believe that there could be a innate tendency towards fear of snakes, just that a lot of the ways that it is approached by Evolutionary Psychologists doesn’t lend strong support to the argument. To compare this with how another individual might do the research, Dr Isbell (Anthopology/Animal Behavior) studies the snake-primate interaction and argues that we (and most other primates), have a natural aversion to snakes because of how snakes have shaped our evolution, including as acting as the primary force behind our development of color vision. She wrote an [excellent book](http://www.amazon.com/Fruit-Tree-Serpent-Why-Well/dp/0674033019) on the topic, which draws support from [anthropology, neuroscience, palaeontology, and psychology](http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/the_tls/article6864376.ece). Most of her arguments are testable and falsifiable and when she proposes arguments that aren’t, she’s careful to state that. There’s also [Whitney Meno](http://biosci3.ucdavis.edu/GradGroups/ANB/People/StudentProfile.aspx?StudentNbr=627) who studies how capuchin babies learn about snakes and, moreover, to distinguish between dangerous and non-dangerous snakes. She’s found that, rather than displaying an innate fear of snakes, baby capuchins display an innate fear of anything novel/unusual in their environment. They learn about which snakes are to be feared and which can be left alone from social cues. If baby capuchins (who have been evolving with snakes and are killed by them far more than human babies are) don’t have an innate, biological reaction to snakes, then why haven’t they evolved one? Why only humans? ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2010, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-evolutionary-psychology-get-such-a-bum-rap/524521/110 "2010-02-24T16:12:35Z")
To compare this with how another individual might do the research, Dr Isbell (Anthopology/Animal Behavior) studies the snake-primate interaction and argues that we (and most other primates), have a natural aversion to snakes because of how snakes have shaped our evolution, including as acting as the primary force behind our development of color vision. [/QUOTE] Isn’t that an Evolutionary Psychological claim? ---
**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:** [February 24, 2010, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-evolutionary-psychology-get-such-a-bum-rap/524521/111 "2010-02-24T18:03:49Z")
> [@kimera](#): > > To compare this with how another individual might do the research, Dr Isbell (Anthopology/Animal Behavior) studies the snake-primate interaction and argues that we (and most other primates), have a natural aversion to snakes because of how snakes have shaped our evolution, including as acting as the primary force behind our development of color vision. She wrote an [excellent book](http://www.amazon.com/Fruit-Tree-Serpent-Why-Well/dp/0674033019) on the topic, which draws support from [anthropology, neuroscience, palaeontology, and psychology](http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/the_tls/article6864376.ece). Most of her arguments are testable and falsifiable and when she proposes arguments that aren’t, she’s careful to state that. That still smacks mightily of a “just so” story. Sure, our distant, tree-dwelling primate ancestors might have had to do battle with snakes, and thus needed to “fear” them, but humans and proto-humans haven’t had much to do with snakes since we left the trees. It’s quite a bit of a stretch to claim that some folks today have a fear of snakes because some our primeval ancestors might have fallen prey to them. Granted, I haven’t read the book, so perhaps this is addressed within. ---
**Author:** ![ambushed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3bc359/32.png) [@ambushed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ambushed)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2010, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-evolutionary-psychology-get-such-a-bum-rap/524521/112 "2010-03-04T04:22:59Z")
**kimera** , the main thing I wanted to accomplish with my posts to **orcenio** is that the views he expressed, such as: > [@orcenio](#): > > I can’t stress this enough. Science is the _ **Scientific Method** _ and the _ **Scientific Method** _ is science. The _ **Scientific Method** _ is the only tool, that all scientific fields need or use; without it, it’s not science. Period. … are extremely uninformed and totally wrong. If we can agree on that much, we can move on to a more nuanced discussion of whether evolutionary psychology is scientific or not. Let me know. ---
**Author:** ![orcenio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/orcenio/32/1036_2.png) [@orcenio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/orcenio)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2010, 4:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-evolutionary-psychology-get-such-a-bum-rap/524521/113 "2010-03-04T04:37:46Z")
> [@ambushed](#): > > **kimera** , the main thing I wanted to accomplish with my posts to **orcenio** is that the views he expressed, such as: > … are extremely uninformed and totally wrong. If we can agree on that much, we can move on to a more nuanced discussion of whether evolutionary psychology is scientific or not. > > Let me know. You “wanted to accomplish” [that my views] “are extremely uninformed and totally wrong”…? ---
**Author:** ![ambushed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3bc359/32.png) [@ambushed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ambushed)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2010, 4:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-evolutionary-psychology-get-such-a-bum-rap/524521/114 "2010-03-04T04:40:04Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > **ambushed** , I realize that you spent a lot of time carefully making sure that all your disparaging adjectives were directed at ideas and not the poster, but your toes are well across the line. Referring to another poster’s line of argument as “infantile” and then explaining what you meant by that remark works. Spending an enormous number of text bytes referring to every aspect of another poster’s ideas, (real or imagined), as infantile and immature and childish is pretty clearly an attack on the poster. I am going to let this slide–once. If it happens again, you will get the Warning you have worked so hard to tiptoe around. > > If you are that desperate to vent, take it to the BBQ Pit. > > [/Moderating] By that reasoning, your judgment is that criticizing a poster’s racist views as infantile, immature, and childish is equivalent to calling the poster a racist! I didn’t merely “toe the line”, _let alone_ cross over it – in fact, I explicitly asserted that **orcenio** was **NOT** “infantile”! And I apologized for my earlier behavior! If you can’t even correctly and accurately and fairly and with perfect justification characterize someone’s _views_ as infantile, immature, and childish – while taking pains to openly note that the poster him- or her-self is **not** infantile, immature, and childish – what other draconian restrictions on intellectual honesty are secretly in your rulebook? ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2010, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-evolutionary-psychology-get-such-a-bum-rap/524521/115 "2010-03-04T04:43:15Z")
If you have questions or comments about moderating, **ambushed** , please take them to ATMB. ---
**Author:** ![ambushed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3bc359/32.png) [@ambushed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ambushed)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2010, 5:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-evolutionary-psychology-get-such-a-bum-rap/524521/116 "2010-03-04T05:14:56Z")
> [@kimera](#): > > … Astronomy, paleontology and evolutionary biology are ALL testable. We make predictions, search for evidence based upon our predictions, and conduct experiments. You’ve obviously never studied the first thing about evolutionary biology if you seriously think that we don’t make observations and conduct experiments to test our hypotheses in the field and the lab. … That’s a response to a misrepresentation of what I wrote. It’s a strawman. Here’s what I actually wrote, with added emphasis: > [@ambushed](#): > > … There are many sciences **that include large portions** that simply do not permit experiments, such as observational astronomy, paleontology, and evolutionary biology, yet the same arguments **orcenio** et al. employ to attack evolutionary psychology would just as surely attack and reject **large swathes** of astronomy, paleontology, and evolutionary biology as legitimate sciences, too! So I never denied that there are many aspects of evolutionary biology that can be tested experimentally. I only said – quite correctly – that there are portions of all of those legitimate sciences where predictions and experiments are impossible. For example, can you point to experimentally-testable predictions about what specific genetic changes and specific evolutionary pressures led to the evolution of the species _Homo floresiensis_ as opposed to other potential outcomes? Can you point to experimentally-testable predictions about what specific chemical and other processes led to the development of life on this planet? My point and that of Bauer, Beaty, McComas, Popper, and many others is that the inability to make experimentally-testable predictions must **not** be used as a criterion to distinguish science from non-science, since there are sciences and sub-domains of sciences in which experimentally-testable predictions cannot be made either, such as “ **large swathes** of astronomy, paleontology, and evolutionary biology.” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-evolutionary-psychology-get-such-a-bum-rap/524521.md?page=5)