One key factor is that Evolutionary Psychology and Sociobiology are two subtly different fields that have become understandably – but nevertheless mistakenly – merged together in most people’s minds, including those of either of the two group’s detractors as well as even some of their advocates. It is understandable because the term sociobiology has pretty much been abandoned in a regrettably unwise protective reaction against the mob mentality of most of its critics, largely from the obsolete and scientifically / philosophically discredited schools of social theory, social constructivism, and the wholly irrational postmodernist movement in general.
I’ll state my opinion right up front before elaborating: Sociobiology is largely sound, while Evolutionary Psychology – as it is being practiced and argued – includes a lot of pseudo-science and flawed reasoning and so I feel it deserves much knowledgeable criticism. But it should be informed and thoughtful scientific and philosophical criticism in its nature, yet many critics – even from the scientific community – fail miserably on that score. Sometimes I think I’ll scream if I read yet another smug and self-important “scientist” trotting out that hoary old “Just So story” cliché as if it amounts to thoughtful criticism!
I think njtt’s exemplary post here has a great deal to commend it, particularly for bringing out by far the most severe and overwhelming problem with EP as it exists today, and that is the philosophically and scientifically absurd premise that our brains evolved in such a way as to produce something big-name EPer’s like Pinker, Tooby, and Cosmides call “massive modularity”. The premise of which is that evolutionary processes formed large numbers of heritable and highly specific “modules” in our brains as a result of various environmental pressures and changes in genetic distribution and frequency over time.
If you are tempted to laugh at such an absurd idea, you’re certainly not alone and you’re certainly not the first! But that, of course, is no rational rebuttal.
But this, I contend, is precisely that: The “computational model with massive modularity” of Pinker, et al. and the results of accepting this errant thesis by mainstream evolutionary psychology has been shown to be irreparably flawed by none other than a dissident evolutionary psychologist and analytic philosopher, Jerry Fodor, in his extremely tightly reasoned and compelling philosophical tour de forceThe Mind Doesn’t Work That Way, Fodor’s rebuttal to his colleague Pinker’s rather too arrogant and presumptuous book, “How the Mind Works”. But not just Pinker fails the test of logic, so does the whole massively modular computational model that rules evolutionary psychology still, years after Fodor laid waste to its fundamental premises.
His argument – laid out very capably and very rigorously (if also rather densely, so every word counts) – in his very short book is utterly devastating to the field.
Fodor’s argument reveals the absence or very likely the complete impossibility of abduction in the context of the context of massively modular computational theory, and thus shows that Pinker and his peer’s theory is simply insupportable. This is no minor matter! Fodor’s reasoning makes plain that MM cannot survive even as a preliminary theory without throwing the science baby out with the bathwater. And even though Fodor agrees that the computational theory is the best cognitive theory we have yet developed (and I well realize that’s never been meant to be taken as that the mind is literally computerlike), he nevertheless demonstrates logically that it’s profoundly flawed and must be replaced if EP is to be taken seriously by other scientists, let alone advance. It might be the best cognitive model and theory so far developed, but that doesn’t make it a good one.
(Note that Fodor wrote an earlier book defending that model, but he doesn’t spare himself from precisely the same criticisms of his more recent analysis).
Would be nice to have at least a summary of Fodor’s arguments onhand in order to evaluate your comments, Ambushed. In fact, I did read that book a long time ago, but I don’t really remember what it said. I do remember being unimpressed–but in retrospect I don’t really trust any opinions had by myself at that early stage…
Seriously, foolsguinea, I don’t wish to be unduly rough on you, so I’ve dropped the arch reply I had initially prepared. No one expects or demands that posters be cognizant of the often highly complex scientific backgrounds of debates on a message board, but may I suggest asking more questions first in the future?
You talk about “really shaky ideas of causality” in this context. What, exactly, do you consider to be so “shaky”, and why do you so consider it? I must say that your post strikes me as far more shaky in its causality premises than anything ever dreamed of in EP!
For example, you write: “The psyche is formed by one’s own experiences more than by the experiences of one’s ancient ancestors.” Shakiness abounds in this statement, most objectionably in the implicit assertion that EP and/or sociobiology postulates that “experiences” – whether ancient or modern – are somehow the basis of the human brain’s functioning and of human nature in general.
Here’s the key premise of sociobiology, from which EP sort of “evolved”: It is an empirically observed and undeniable fact that “human nature” exists and is an extraordinary powerful force in human life. Just as in “giraffe nature” and “ant nature”, it is utterly impossible for us to transcend our innate and biologically evolved human nature (at least in this world, to bypass religious debates) any more than a giraffe can fly and an ant can write sonnets. Although, unlike ants and giraffes, we have enormous and astonishing abilities to push our innate human natures to the bleeding edge of the envelope, so to speak, beyond that we simply cannot reach. We will live and we will die as human beings and nothing else. Emphatically, though, that’s no reason to mourn, but instead to celebrate! Humans are the most wondrous and astonishing gift evolution has ever brought to this planet, matter that can strive to actually understand matter. Who’s heart is so cold and cynical that they cannot appreciate that fact and marvel in awe?
But, you might argue, that’s just rank biological determinism! Can’t we learn and grow and adapt and change our behavior based on our experiences and increasing knowledge and wisdom?
Of course we can! But that is also our evolved human nature at work! We could not do any of those things if it weren’t for our vast but still constrained human natures. And here is the key principle you must recognize if you are to understand sociobiology and EP at all: Experience and learning and wisdom and knowledge are akin to the paint on your house: You can paint it with vast creativity in any colors and patterns you like, but that doesn’t change the shape or construction of the house one bit!
Evolution shaped that house and constructed it. No amount of culture or experience or learning or wisdom can possibly change that.
For example, there is no end to the diversity of human art and music and dancing, but the fact that all human societies will create art and music and dancing is a direct and undeniable consequence of our evolved human natures. The list of such facets of universal (i.e, culturally non-specific) human nature is very long indeed, and reach deep and powerfully into our behaviors and concepts of humanity and self. That is the fundamental premise of sociobiology, and it is utterly incontestable if reason and empirical evidence has any value at all.
In closing, I would ask you to carefully elucidate exactly what you meant by"pattern-grown organism" and “spontaneous evolution”. Is that compared to non-spontaneous evolution? Whatever might they be?
Well, I mentioned the main flaw that Fodor uncovered in the post to which you are replying when I wrote: “Fodor’s argument reveals the absence or very likely the complete impossibility of abduction in the context of the context of massively modular computational theory…”
But that was admittedly a little terse, so I’ll try to expand briefly in the very limited time I have left to do so (today, at least). What Fodor revealed in hard logic directly addressed an exasperating but basically intuitive flaw I thought I saw with Tooby’s and Cosmides’, and later Pinker’s, bedrock MM computational premises: namely, that their theories were inextricably conditioned upon very large numbers of virtually independent “modules” that directed behavior without passing control or “information” up to the “main program” (in a computational analogy). In other words, they hold that the brain is all turtles (er, subroutines) all the way down.
As a software designer and engineer, I can’t tell you how much this gnawed at me. Even employing OO algorithms, you simply cannot reliably solve any useful computational problem without a “main program” to synchronize and direct – even if only periodically – the actions and inputs and outputs of objects or subroutines. Yet Fodor proved unequivocally with truly inescapable logic that the MM computational theory was not only utterly illogical and deeply, deeply rationally flawed, it was almost certainly physically impossible as well.
That’s where his abduction arguments (the term abduction relates to logical reasoning and inference, though the reader should consult Fodor’s book for his specific definition) is so devastating. The bedrock principles of the MM computational theory of mind makes abduction simply impossible. And if abduction is impossible, human cognition is impossible. Seriously: Q fuckin’ E.D. That’s all she wrote. EP needs desperately to abandon or totally rework that entire model if it is to advance, but they have made no real effort to do so.
This is the problem I have with evolutionary psychology. While the topics it addresses are interesting, it seems to be all philosophy and very very little science.
Freud based a fair few ideas off of Darwin’s theory of animal and human emotion (instinct, ‘fight or flight’ and human emotions being vestigial from our evolutionary past - sneering at enemy/baring teeth in threat, for a few examples), especially the innate drives. And of course Darwin is also going to have influenced evolutionary psychology.
Aside from the problems in evolutionary theory, it will probably also get a lot of flack because people like to think they’re making their own decisions, its not just a process of how they have evolved.
A lot of people don’t like thinking about how evolutionary psychology suggests that our version of society isn’t the ‘best’ way of doing things (monogamy, for example), and just how close to animals it suggests we are. People want to be more than bald monkeys in clothes!
Der Trihs actually first addressed this quite concisely by writing: “3: It’s a historical science, and those tend to get looked down upon because such classic scientific techniques as experiments often can’t be performed.”
Critics of sociobiology and EP trot out the complaints above all the time, and that’s quite regrettable. It’s rather unreflective and ultimately unscientific and highly counterproductive. As Der Trihs correctly indicates, historical sciences (i.e., science to research past events) are such that it is difficult to design what most people think of as “scientific” experiments, such as are done in physics and chemistry and often even many psychological experiments.
But if that was a justified criticism, why not throw paleontology, archaeology, and hell, forensics and all the other historical sciences out with the same bathwater too? Do the critics imagine paleontologists and other historical scientists perform double-blind laboratory experiments to determine what took place in the past? (Rhetorical question; I realize that probably no one here does think any such a thing).
But barring time machines, what are the alternatives? Paleontologists at least have a fair number of very helpful fossils and bones and such to speculate from, but fossil minds and consciousnesses are rather hard to come by. Yet a fully representative sample of pre-Cambrian fossils are hard to come by too, because so many body types did not include structures that could leave fossil remains. Thus it would tend to follow, if the criticism is valid, that pre-Cambrian paleontologists likewise employ “very little science” as well, if that is the standard all sciences must adhere to or be laughed out of court.
This is the bottom line: A new science cannot grow and mature if no one is willing to take the risk of appearing foolish to physicists and the general public! There’s no good reason at all that sociobiology and EP be held to a higher standard than other historical sciences.
Do I really need to drag Alfred Wegener out again? I well recognize that a tiny few hypotheses and speculative research initiatives are going to pan out, but the thing about Wegener specifically is that his work was based almost entirely on putting together several very obvious pieces to produce a rational, though speculative, hypothesis and theory that earned him a lifetime of derision from the same sorts of people who are mocking EP now. Sure, it very easily might have ended in the dustbin, but there is a very great deal to be said for putting rationally cogent speculative hypotheses out there for others in the scientific community to challenge, and by doing so, advance the field by discarding failed hypotheses and refining others.
Isn’t that what science is supposed to be fundamentally about?
We either try to apply evolutionary theory to help us understand human nature (sociobiology) or human behavior (EP), or we pretend (like Finch, it seems?) that our knowledge of adaptation and evolution has no useful bearing on the whole question.
Sitting back and laughing with derisive mockery – as many critics have done and continue to do – is both highly cynical and wildly counterproductive.
You know, I’ve heard of it but I’ve never put more then a glancing thought into EP; of what I read of it, it just doesn’t seem like an interesting field. Anyway, I would just like to declare something that might/might not be relevant to this thread.
Scientific fields use the Scientific Method while all other fields (philosophy, art, music, economics, etc) use any/every other “tool” at their disposal (pure reason, logic, “mood,” etc).
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.
:smack: I forgot to give a basic run down of the scientific method.
The Basic Requirements
You need to directly experience or "observe" something (an act or phenomena or whatever).
You need to form a hypothesis (an explanation) of that direct thing/event.
You need to use that hypothesis to make a prediction.
You need to test that prediction through a falsifiable experiment (an experiment whose results can prove your prediction wrong, but never prove it correct).
You need to directly experience or "observe" the results of the experiment.
now ask yourself “Did the results prove your prediction wrong?”
a) Yes. Customize your hypothesis accordingly (slightly change it or maybe even throw it out and start anew).
b) No. Jump for joy with glee; make more predictions based on the results; then do more experiments.
Now, I’ll repeat this. An experiment MUST BE DESIGNED TO CREATE A RESULT THAT PROVES YOUR PREDICTION WRONG; however, no experiment can ever prove it correct. People will come to trust it as correct when/if it survives the onslaught of would-be-famous scientists who want to change/destroy your theory.
Oh, and others (following only your instructions) must be able to observe the exact same results. Just in case you didn’t fuck-up the experiment somehow and “proved” that gravity doesn’t really exist.
The problem is that there is no particular reason to believe that specific behavious have any evolutionary basis, other than that it sounds interesting, and it makes some intuitive sense that present-day behaviours have an evolutionary basis because we have, after all, evolved.
You are correct when you say one cannot examine the minds of the past but you are incorrect when you say that there are no alternative methods of putting these theories to the test. After all, we have the minds that exist now. We can examine the facts of present-day behaviours and see if they match what one would predict from evolutionary biology. Does the theory have convincing predictive power?
Problem is that any actual analysis of behaviours based on the facts very quickly exposes problems with any over-arching theory of human behaviour, whether based on evolutionary theory or not: namely, that human behaviours are so varied across cultures that generalities are hard to establish except on the most basic of levels. Any attempt to pin a particular behaviour down as having a specific evolutionary (or any other) origin quickly runs up against the problem that “some folks do it differently” and the notion that these folks have a seperate biological evolutionary history is unconvincing and usually easily disprovable; moreover, move a person from one culture to another and generally speaking their behaviour changes to accomodate the culture, which would not be the case were their psychology established by biological evolution or any other single mechanism.
Therefore, any theory of evolutionary psychology must be “true” only on the level of generalities - on those behaviours that are common cross-culturally to humanity as a whole. It may be true on the level of drives and urges, but it unlikely be true on the level of specific expressions of those urges in the form of actual, observable human behaviour.
Thus, to the extent it is true (and I think no-one doubts that the basic urges that motivate people - to eat, to mate, to flee or fight danger, etc. - are to an extent the product of evolution) it is going to have little predictive power over actual behaviour, since the issue of importance is not the fact that folks have these urges - that we already know - it is how these urges will play out in actual behaviour. For that, observation tells us, is going to be more easily predicted by a knowledge of their culture, than a knowledge of their biological, evolutionary history.
So it is not the case that evolutionary biology is “untrue” so much as it is useless - while undoubtedly there is an evolutionary component to behaviour, in the form of establishing common human urges and drives, a knowledge of how this came to be has little predictive power; one could not, by observing our hunter-gather forebearers, accurately predict the behaviour of a Taliban mullah, a Borneo headhunter, and a Wall Street stockbroker. What, specifically, does evolutionary psychology add to the armamentarium of understanding humanity?
I have some major critical rejoinders in response to orcenio’s and Malthus’ posts, not to mention several earlier ones, but I simply cannot prepare them now due to time constraints. I just wanted to note that I will return as soon as I find enough time to dedicate to them.
For now, I just need to point out that the claim that there is any kind of documented or central or widespread “thing” known as the “scientific method” outside of high-school textbooks can only come from someone whose knowledge of science – especially working science – has not progressed very far from those same high school textbooks. As Bertrand Russell satirically but wisely observed: “Heaven is a place where everything works like it does in the textbooks.”
But, there is a continuum of “generalities”. It could be that the only thing applicable is so far to the general side of the continuum that it’s not very useful. But it’s also possible that there are tendencies of behavior that are on the other end of the scale and truly interesting and useful.
So, you somehow imagine that’s a valuable contribution, do you, orcenio? That and all the rest of your delightfully simplistic and endearingly naive, sophomoric, far too full-of-yourself for a backwoods community-college student pseudo-pedantry?
How proud the hill folk must be! Why, you probably still have all your own teeth and everything!
[color highlighting my own; the rest is as in the original]
[Oh, yes, orcenio; that it does. Sadly, it very much does indeed.]
That’s tellin’ em’, boyo! You sure showed that 5’th grade scarecrow! Why, it will take, like, maybe a whole 3 minutes to put all that straw back in 'im! Woo hoo! You must have a Bachelor’s Degree… IN SCIENCE!!
Your snide and abusive comments and arrogance did not much endear yourself to me, as you might have guessed by now. But you’ve got me pegged all wrong, junior. I’m no po-mo relativist or social constructivist nutjob, nor am I the naive little pseudoscience infant you’ve so ludicrously made me out to be. You might want to try to be a little more discerning and judicious in who you decide to attack in the future. Or not, as is your choice to make.
But climb up on daddy’s knee and I’ll try to explain, in little words if possible, why your knavish rant is so utterly juvenile and off-base…
The so-called “scientific method” is very nearly entirely mythical. To paraphrase the title of evolutionary psychologist and philosopher Jerry Fodor’s book refuting evolutionary psychologists’ “massive modularity” thesis (such as that held by Pinker and Tooby, et al.): “Science doesn’t work that way”.
The “scientific method” is something we learn about in elementary and high school that presents a fabricated facade of a formal “method” of hypotheses and experimentation and so on that has little or no meaningful equivalent in the real world of science. It’s mere rote, liturgical nonsense. Working scientists laugh derisively at the kind of grandstanding spittle you’ve chosen to drown us all in with your arrogant posts in this thread. But I like your spunk, kid (he writes, figuratively patting orcenio on the head…)
There are a few popular writers (at least on the Web) who have made something of a career of debunking the bullshit we are so cluelessly taught in science and other primary and secondary school classes and textbooks (and some early college textbooks as well), such as Alistair B. Fraser’s Bad Science and William J. Beaty (I can’t reach the web addresses I have for his site at this time – perhaps the provider’s down for maintenance – or I’d include a link).
But since I can’t provide a link, I’ll make every effort to avoid breaking the fair-use provisions and quote his words on this specific issue reasonably sparingly [all bold emphasis is my own]:
Here’s a quotation from the great scientist Peter Medawar:
Here’s Beaty again:
You were saying, orcenio and DanBlather and Chum and Nametag and (sheesh) BigT – but mostly orcenio?
Rejecting or even dismissing something on the grounds that it’s justifiably pseudo-scientific is one thing, but inventing your own arbitrary, smug, grammar school textbook-based hard-edged binary criteria for assertion that thisis science but thatisn’t is just plain puerile, supercilious twaddle. To call it “unsophisticated” is far too kind.
To the orcenio’s of the world, a “science” pretty much springs full-born around the 18’th or even 19’th century, as if from the head of Zeus. One of the things you hear from such people is that before the common era, or at least before about the time of the Italian Renaissance or so, there was no astronomy / chemistry – it was all astrology / alchemy. In this infantile “model” of the history of science, since the ancient Egyptians weren’t following THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD, what they did couldn’t possibly be doing science, by definition. After all, they hadn’t attended 5’th grade science class in the United States in the mid 20’th century to learn from orcenio that:
The orcenio’s of the world would taunt them all thusly: “Where are your “hypotheses”? Where are your “falsifiable experiments”? Na na - na na - na na! There!! We’ve run rings around you logically!”
According to such a sophomoric view, Eratosthenes was just an astrologer.
So, you may wish to ask me, how do you define “science”? Like this, as I’ve done for decades (it’s my own definition):
Science is any set of empirical, epistemological heuristic methods that can be successfully employed to limit self-deception in reducing the error in our knowledge of the world (or whatever it is that gives rise to our sensory percepts)
(The parenthetical portion is a hedge against orcenio-hated ontological philosophers, of course).
A genuine new science can begin with a single thought “experiment”, even without “direct observation” or “hypotheses” or “falsifiable experiments”. I know it’s a tough word to say, little fella, but let’s try it anyway, okay? “S Y N T H E S I S”, pronounced “Sin, th’ Sis!” (something I suspect your might have encountered back in the hills). That’s the funny little word to describe “informed messing around” by cogitating on existing scientific theories and systems and observations and playfully engaging in thought experiments with the eventual plan of branching off a new science from existing ones. Kinda like “Your Evolutionary Biology and Natural Selection got in my Behavioral Neuroscience! Let’s sell candy!”
orcenio and other smug scoffers, that delicious Reeses-like combination of Evolutionary biology and Behavioral Neuroscience and a few other scientific sub-fields is called “Evolutionary Psychology”. Papa is a science and Mama is a science and little baby is a science, too.
But no science is ever born full-grown and perfectly respectable! Lots of work and growth and internal debate and strife is going to occur before full adulthood is reached. You EP-scoffers are like someone looking at a 3 year old and saying: “Can’t cook, can’t clean, can’t even bring home minimum wage! What the fuck good is it!” It’s akin to saying that since Jabir ibn Hayyan didn’t create the Periodic Table or develop the Roothaan equations, he was just coming up with amusing, but unscientific, “Just So” fables of no account whatsoever.
Sheesh!
Well, orcenio, you prolly got to get back to all them possum hides, so I won’t bother instructing you on all the sophomoric silliness I highlighted in blue when I quoted your posts above, but let me just say two things so I can get on with far more important things for now:
(1): You kept going on about “direct” observations, which is pretty damn funny. Yep, if’n ya’ cant seeum witch yer’ own bare eyeballs, 'dem Pie Messons 'n shit arnt’t scientific, donsha 'no".
(2): There is no such thing as “proof” or “disproof” in science. The concept of proof is only valid outside of science entirely, such as in formal systems like mathematics and logic and algorithms.
But you new 'dat, didnsha.
[I know, **Tom** or other mod, I know. I know. But it just isn’t fair that others can dish it out without hindrance but I can’t reply in kind. But a warning is unnecessary, really it is. I’ll straighten up and fly right next time. But **Malthus** is the last poster I’ll try to respond to in this thread, and he/she deserves – and will receive – my humble respect.]
I am in perfect agreement. There is no science in psychology or psychiatry. They are opinion based. They don’t even have a test for mental illness. So how can anything be trusted that comes from such a source.
Yep, yours is a simple case of red-faced bluster. Bluster away, pal.
Lol, you’re suppose to mix argumentative points and logic within your flaming; otherwise people will only see your hot air.
I’m glad it did clear a few things up for you, I’m always willing to be helpful.
Scarecrow? 3 minutes? You’re being unintelligible; my confidence is shrinking…
Hey pal, you haven’t seen my snide, abusive, arrogant side. I have it; and it hasn’t been brought out yet. I made/make no assumptions about you because I never cared.
I’m all ears…
Look pal, I’ll just stop you right here. If you’re going to wage a war against the “scientific method” (the method of inquiry for which all sciences, in all fields are based upon) you are hopelessly out gunned.
:dubious:
Your links do not support any of your assertions.
So, you have quotes of people that praise “messing around” how does this negate or marginalize the scientific method? In fact I would also add “be creative” to “mess around” as scientific truths tend to be queerer than we can suppose.
I invented nothing; what I am writing is neither new, nor surprising.
:rolleyes: Just because we now have a unified name/concept of scientific inquiry doesn’t make it a new thing. No one wrote that. Your interpretations are now taking on a surreal flare.
These are not taunts, but rational questions.
“epistemological heuristic?” perhaps you can supply a less ostentatious definition? (I love me ten dollar words too)
“informed messing around” sounds fucking wonderful, but eventually you’ll still get the same nagging questions in the end. What are your observations? What are your hypothesizes? Where is your proof. What were you methods? Mess around as much as you want, but at the end of the day you need to bring proof too.
:rolleyes: Your rantings are barely comprehensible. Naysayers tend to want proof, the more solid the better.
lol, you have nothing else to say, but “hillbilly jokes!”
Your entire post is pure bunk…
…
…
…And where did this “you are a hillbilly” thing come from?
I was thinking more “Intelligent Design”, in that it often comes across as an attempt to suggest that certain current states of being or behaviors were somehow evolutionarily inevitable.
But perhaps my exposure to EP has been to the “less rigorous” assertions that occasionally make headlines…
[And just a comment on the bad example in the OP: isn’t the association of the color pink with femininity a very recent (within the 20th century) thing?]
Your entire post is pure bunk…