Hasn’t evolutionary psychology been heavily debunked at this point?
I think it’s much easier to say that dudes have it hammered into their heads that girls are bad at games, so when they underperform and a girl is on their team, they feel emasculated. This isn’t too far off from when dudes end up losing their ‘bread winner’ status in their relationship. They were told they had explicit traits to exhibit and they failed to do so, so it hits them in their self esteem. Classic fragile masculinity.
Patriarchal conditioning makes way more sense than “caveman brain HATE competing with woman!”.
I tend to think the social angle is more credible Because the behavior of being a dick to female-sounding voices in games is not a universal behavior. Those who aren’t misogynists don’t act that way. How strange.
The entire field of evolutionary psychology debunked? Do you mean the idea that our brains are subject to evolutionary forces like every other part of our anatomy? No, not debunked.
This is conflating specific methodological problems with theoretical claims. Yes, many have criticized the game theoretical methodology typical of evolutionary psychology. There are a lot of highly speculative junk claims out there. It’s also true that some (not all or even most!) cognitive scientists think that we cannot take the perspective that psychology evolved at all. But it is certainly untrue that there is some consensus that evolutionary psychology has been “debunked”.
This criticism is also a bit ironic given the highly speculative nature of the claims you put forward. Your guess sounds plausible I suppose, but I see no reason to think it’s any more methodologically rigorous.
That’s not how science works. I understand that you’re trying to criticize the field, but lack of predictions, even reliable ones, is not itself a problem it has. For one thing, even false theories can make reliable predictions, like Levoisier’s defunct theory of caloric in the 18th century which has now been replaced by modern thermodynamics. The caloric theory can be used to make mathematically accurate predictions, but the underlying theory is still wrong.
Similarly, evo psych can make a lot of reliable predictions without saying anything true. On the contrary, one criticism of the field is that it’s unfalsifiable because an evolutionary theory can always (allegedly) be proposed to fit the data. Which is to say, you’re barking up the wrong tree.
One example: it is proposed that the fusiform face area of the brain is a domain specific module evolved for face detection. It’s present in other animals that recognize conspecifics by their face. In humans, damage to the area leads to face specific agnosia. The theory makes accurate predictions, but is it true? It’s still being debated.
Without predictions and without tangible models you don’t have falsifiability. You unintentionally acknowledged my point without understanding it. The field isn’t a science, just philosophy trying to explain the results from actual sciences, but didn’t itself have any kind of proof of validity.
Your example is much more closely related to neurology and neuropsychology.
From the fact that language of our complexity would be very hard to learn if humans didn’t have specialised circuits for learning it, and the fact that evolving better language on a biological level would improve fitness.
Making predictions and conducting manipulation experiments isn’t possible / practical in all fields of science. Medicine, astronomy, archaeology, evolution and climate studies are other examples.
Astronomy at least collects a lot of data from those one-time observations and try to model the physics, hoping to be able to see something similar again to calibrate the models. For medicine it varies, for rare disease and injuries that are unethical to replicate its a valid issue but they still have scientific models of the affected organs, etc, and similarly to above they try to model it and predict what treatments would work. And all your examples have historical data to some extent.
Evopsych have essentially zero usable historical data and adds no new understanding over regular psychology, and I’ve never heard anybody talk about how they expect behaviors to actually have formed over generations (nor does it meaningfully cover learned and taught behavior)
Yes. It is unethical to give someone a disease so you can study it. Best we have are case studies of people who got the disease and are being treated for it.
In climate studies, it is not practical to increase temperature or humidity by x% and see the effects. Again, you have case studies - either from the past or from parts of the world that are warming much faster than the rest. Or you can do mesocosm experiments where you warm, say, a square metre of grassland, and see the effects. But then there is a lot of uncertainity in scaling up the findings of such small-scale studies.
Hasn’t evolutionary psychology been heavily debunked at this point?
No. On the most basic level it shouldn’t really be terribly contentious that evolution has an impact on psychology, on a more detailed level, well, they have their hits and misses just as every other field.
Patriarchal conditioning makes way more sense than
…case in point “everything is socially constructed” is just as bonkers a position as “everything is biologically predetermined”. Why do people have to universalise their specialised area of investigation and “caveman brain HATE competing with woman!” is a rather cartoonish take on evolutionary psychology. If anything it’d be “young male annoyed he can’t hunt for shit while female age-peer can because he wouldn’t be able to provide for her while heavily pregnant”. Note that not being annoyed in that case doesn’t require better hunting skills, only sufficient ones, and “annoyed” can lead to “will work harder on his skills” or “is going to lash out” or “becomes depressive and walks into the desert” or “is going to look around, see all those capable hunters, and focus on hut building instead”. There’s a fuckton of behavioural flexibility left there.
Bad social conditioning then comes into that and shapes tendencies into caricatures of themselves, or good social conditioning comes in and, well, does good things. It’s not an either/or thing, pretty much everything is both nature and nurture.
I was about to point this out - evopsych is an essentialist pseudoscience. Human interactions are governed by culture at least as much as they are by biology.
Idk man. I am shoving respect into my son’s head at all times, I show respect and love to my wife/his mom all the time, and he is misogynistic AF. I don’t get it. I am trying so hard to raise him to be respectful towards women and he just doesn’t accept it.
He’s 7, ADHD, Autistic, etc. But I really don’t know if that even has anything to do with it because I am, too.
I wouldn’t say it’s been debunked. Probably improbable, but in no way debunked
Hasn’t evolutionary psychology been heavily debunked at this point?
I think it’s much easier to say that dudes have it hammered into their heads that girls are bad at games, so when they underperform and a girl is on their team, they feel emasculated. This isn’t too far off from when dudes end up losing their ‘bread winner’ status in their relationship. They were told they had explicit traits to exhibit and they failed to do so, so it hits them in their self esteem. Classic fragile masculinity.
Patriarchal conditioning makes way more sense than “caveman brain HATE competing with woman!”.
It’s not without a good heap of criticism, that’s for damn sure.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_evolutionary_psychology
I tend to think the social angle is more credible Because the behavior of being a dick to female-sounding voices in games is not a universal behavior. Those who aren’t misogynists don’t act that way. How strange.
Yeah, the problem is it slips too easily into essentialism. “Oh we evolved this way, nothing we can do about it I guess ¯\_(ツ)_/¯”
Especially for questions like this, which could pretty easily be explained by cultural influences, no need to bring evolution into it.
The entire field of evolutionary psychology debunked? Do you mean the idea that our brains are subject to evolutionary forces like every other part of our anatomy? No, not debunked.
This is conflating specific methodological problems with theoretical claims. Yes, many have criticized the game theoretical methodology typical of evolutionary psychology. There are a lot of highly speculative junk claims out there. It’s also true that some (not all or even most!) cognitive scientists think that we cannot take the perspective that psychology evolved at all. But it is certainly untrue that there is some consensus that evolutionary psychology has been “debunked”.
This criticism is also a bit ironic given the highly speculative nature of the claims you put forward. Your guess sounds plausible I suppose, but I see no reason to think it’s any more methodologically rigorous.
Show me a prediction it makes
That’s not how science works. I understand that you’re trying to criticize the field, but lack of predictions, even reliable ones, is not itself a problem it has. For one thing, even false theories can make reliable predictions, like Levoisier’s defunct theory of caloric in the 18th century which has now been replaced by modern thermodynamics. The caloric theory can be used to make mathematically accurate predictions, but the underlying theory is still wrong.
Similarly, evo psych can make a lot of reliable predictions without saying anything true. On the contrary, one criticism of the field is that it’s unfalsifiable because an evolutionary theory can always (allegedly) be proposed to fit the data. Which is to say, you’re barking up the wrong tree.
One example: it is proposed that the fusiform face area of the brain is a domain specific module evolved for face detection. It’s present in other animals that recognize conspecifics by their face. In humans, damage to the area leads to face specific agnosia. The theory makes accurate predictions, but is it true? It’s still being debated.
Without predictions and without tangible models you don’t have falsifiability. You unintentionally acknowledged my point without understanding it. The field isn’t a science, just philosophy trying to explain the results from actual sciences, but didn’t itself have any kind of proof of validity.
Your example is much more closely related to neurology and neuropsychology.
If you raise a group of human children without ever exposing them to language, they’ll invent their own.
That’s a prediction
Derived from what? From observation of the exact same thing already happening, or from a model of behavior?
From the fact that language of our complexity would be very hard to learn if humans didn’t have specialised circuits for learning it, and the fact that evolving better language on a biological level would improve fitness.
That’s untested, even if it appears likely, it’s a hypothesis which doesn’t predict how it would be formed or learned or how it would be used, etc
Making predictions and conducting manipulation experiments isn’t possible / practical in all fields of science. Medicine, astronomy, archaeology, evolution and climate studies are other examples.
Astronomy at least collects a lot of data from those one-time observations and try to model the physics, hoping to be able to see something similar again to calibrate the models. For medicine it varies, for rare disease and injuries that are unethical to replicate its a valid issue but they still have scientific models of the affected organs, etc, and similarly to above they try to model it and predict what treatments would work. And all your examples have historical data to some extent.
Evopsych have essentially zero usable historical data and adds no new understanding over regular psychology, and I’ve never heard anybody talk about how they expect behaviors to actually have formed over generations (nor does it meaningfully cover learned and taught behavior)
Astronomy is mostly history sprinkled with physics.
It is impossible to make prediction or cobduct manipulation experiment in medicine and in climate studies? Do you read what you post?
Yes. It is unethical to give someone a disease so you can study it. Best we have are case studies of people who got the disease and are being treated for it.
In climate studies, it is not practical to increase temperature or humidity by x% and see the effects. Again, you have case studies - either from the past or from parts of the world that are warming much faster than the rest. Or you can do mesocosm experiments where you warm, say, a square metre of grassland, and see the effects. But then there is a lot of uncertainity in scaling up the findings of such small-scale studies.
You don’t need to give anyone a disease to study medicine. Moreover, medicine is not limited to diseases. And it has both predictions and experimets.
You still can observe, describe, analyze and model(predict). The goal of every science is to create prediction function.
No. On the most basic level it shouldn’t really be terribly contentious that evolution has an impact on psychology, on a more detailed level, well, they have their hits and misses just as every other field.
…case in point “everything is socially constructed” is just as bonkers a position as “everything is biologically predetermined”. Why do people have to universalise their specialised area of investigation and “caveman brain HATE competing with woman!” is a rather cartoonish take on evolutionary psychology. If anything it’d be “young male annoyed he can’t hunt for shit while female age-peer can because he wouldn’t be able to provide for her while heavily pregnant”. Note that not being annoyed in that case doesn’t require better hunting skills, only sufficient ones, and “annoyed” can lead to “will work harder on his skills” or “is going to lash out” or “becomes depressive and walks into the desert” or “is going to look around, see all those capable hunters, and focus on hut building instead”. There’s a fuckton of behavioural flexibility left there.
Bad social conditioning then comes into that and shapes tendencies into caricatures of themselves, or good social conditioning comes in and, well, does good things. It’s not an either/or thing, pretty much everything is both nature and nurture.
I was about to point this out - evopsych is an essentialist pseudoscience. Human interactions are governed by culture at least as much as they are by biology.
And evolutionary psychology is not claiming that it isn’t. Your strawman is essentialist pseudoscience, agreed.
Idk man. I am shoving respect into my son’s head at all times, I show respect and love to my wife/his mom all the time, and he is misogynistic AF. I don’t get it. I am trying so hard to raise him to be respectful towards women and he just doesn’t accept it.
He’s 7, ADHD, Autistic, etc. But I really don’t know if that even has anything to do with it because I am, too.
I wouldn’t say it’s been debunked. Probably improbable, but in no way debunked