"Doug Anderson" <ethelthelog@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:qk7tb.146292$mZ5.1000059@attbi_s54... "Jayne Kulikauskas" <momkulio@yahoo.ca> writes: "Doug Anderson" <ethelthelog@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:tf4qx9ja88.fsf@noether.uoregon.edu...

[] Very well put. I like that: the "Jerry Springer of the psychology field!" Although to be completely fair to the psychologists, they aren't _all_ pseudo-scientists. I've just read _The Blank Slate_ by Steven Pinker which has a lot of information about evolutionary psychology in it. People in this
discussion seem to be mocking a caricature of it rather than what it actually says. You know, I'm not mocking that book, and I haven't read it. But I've skimmed it. I think it is philosophy, not science.

I would describe Pinker's book as concerning philosophy of science. He
claims that most of the criticism of evolutionary psychology is on
ideological rather than scientific terms. He seems to support theses claims
well. Much of the "Jerry Springer"ness people perceive in this field may be
due to the way it is misrepresented by its opponents.
He does a good job saying what is wrong with the argument that there is no such thing as human nature. What he does a bad job with is saying what human nature is. "Evolutionary psychology" can give you any answer you want for that, depending on what and to whom you decide to pay attention. So, oh well. No ability to test theories. Hence pseudo-science.

Did you notice the appendix listing cultural universals based on
cross-cultural studies? Such universals do provide a test for the
predictive power of theories in evolutionary psychhology.

People have been claiming in this thread that evolutionary psychology is
simplistic. As described in _The Blank Slate_ or Dawkin's _The Selfish
Gene, this is not true. These authors (and those they quote) make modest
claims for the predictive and explanatory power of evolutionary psychology
and acknowledge the major influence of other factors.

Jayne

"Jayne Kulikauskas" <momkulio@yahoo.ca> writes:
"Doug Anderson" <ethelthelog@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:qk7tb.146292$mZ5.1000059@attbi_s54... "Jayne Kulikauskas" <momkulio@yahoo.ca> writes: "Doug Anderson" <ethelthelog@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:tf4qx9ja88.fsf@noether.uoregon.edu... [] > Very well put. I like that: the "Jerry Springer of the psychology > field!" Although to be completely fair to the psychologists, they > aren't _all_ pseudo-scientists. I've just read _The Blank Slate_ by Steven Pinker which has a lot of information about evolutionary psychology in it. People in this discussion seem to be mocking a caricature of it rather than what it actually says. You know, I'm not mocking that book, and I haven't read it. But I've skimmed it. I think it is philosophy, not science. I would describe Pinker's book as concerning philosophy of science. He claims that most of the criticism of evolutionary psychology is on ideological rather than scientific terms.

That may be true. And it is a shame since there is just so _much_ to
criticize on scientific terms!

I can't speak for the reasons that others think evolutionary
psychology is pseudo-science. It may be that most people who don't
believe in have political motivations. It may also be that Pinker
finds it helpful to set himself up a few straw men to fight (after all,
this isn't a tactic invented on usenet).

The fact remains that many of us are waiting to see if evolutionary
psychologists can move beyond "just-so" stories. Politically I have
no quarrel with evolutionary psychology as an idea. But
scientifically I find the proponents are usually making claims with no
evidence (another practice not limited to usenet).
well. Much of the "Jerry Springer"ness people perceive in this field may be due to the way it is misrepresented by its opponents.

In my case it has to do with the way it is represented by its
practitioners.
Did you notice the appendix listing cultural universals based on cross-cultural studies? Such universals do provide a test for the predictive power of theories in evolutionary psychhology.

I don't think they do. People have not done an effective job
teasing apart what is cultural (as varied as human culture is, there
are many elements of cross cultural commonality) and what is
psychological. (And of course it is hard to do so.)

And unlike in actual evolution, they've done a very poor job finding
the equivalent of a "fossil record" of intermediate states. No one
would believe in natural selection without that, so I think it is
naive to expect evolutionary psychology to be accepted without some
equivalent of the fossil record.
People have been claiming in this thread that evolutionary psychology is simplistic. As described in _The Blank Slate_ or Dawkin's _The Selfish Gene, this is not true. These authors (and those they quote) make modest claims for the predictive and explanatory power of evolutionary psychology and acknowledge the major influence of other factors.

I think it usually _is_ simplistic. But that isn't my biggest
grievance with the field. Too much of it is reasoning of the sort "we
are like this. Here is a reason it is useful for us to be like this.
Therefore that reason must be why we evolved to be like this." This
is little better than "fingers must have evolved for typing on
keyboards."

Doug Anderson <ethelthelog@yahoo.com> wrote: I don't think they do. People have not done an effective job teasing apart what is cultural (as varied as human culture is, there are many elements of cross cultural commonality) and what is psychological. (And of course it is hard to do so.)

Quibble: "innate" or "genetic." _Everything_ is psychological, whether it's
innate, cultural, or purely an individual quirk...

For that matter, even if something was common across every culture, it would
be very hard to know for sure to what degree it was innate, or to what
degree it was just something culturally that had developed/spread. In fact,
some things are clearly /both/ genetic and cultural -- take the capacity for
vocal language, for example.

trajan@sfchat.org (Marcus Ulpius Traianus) writes:
Doug Anderson <ethelthelog@yahoo.com> wrote: I don't think they do. People have not done an effective job teasing apart what is cultural (as varied as human culture is, there are many elements of cross cultural commonality) and what is psychological. (And of course it is hard to do so.) Quibble: "innate" or "genetic." _Everything_ is psychological, whether it's innate, cultural, or purely an individual quirk...

Yeah, OK.
For that matter, even if something was common across every culture, it would be very hard to know for sure to what degree it was innate, or to what degree it was just something culturally that had developed/spread. In fact, some things are clearly /both/ genetic and cultural -- take the capacity for vocal language, for example.

Right.

Marcus Ulpius Traianus wrote: Doug Anderson <ethelthelog@yahoo.com> wrote: I don't think they do. People have not done an effective job teasing apart what is cultural (as varied as human culture is, there are many elements of cross cultural commonality) and what is psychological. (And of course it is hard to do so.) Quibble: "innate" or "genetic." _Everything_ is psychological, whether it's innate, cultural, or purely an individual quirk...

Everything is psychological?? Well, I'm not so sure of that. What about the
part that is purely physiological? Aren't there some parts that are purely
physiological?

Bill in Co. <ornery1@earthlink.net> wrote: Marcus Ulpius Traianus wrote: Doug Anderson <ethelthelog@yahoo.com> wrote: I don't think they do. People have not done an effective job teasing apart what is cultural (as varied as human culture is, there are many elements of cross cultural commonality) and what is psychological. (And of course it is hard to do so.) Quibble: "innate" or "genetic." _Everything_ is psychological, whether it's innate, cultural, or purely an individual quirk... Everything is psychological?? Well, I'm not so sure of that. What about the part that is purely physiological? Aren't there some parts that are purely physiological?

My understanding of psychology is that it's the "the study of mind and
behavior." Very few things people actually _do_ are pure physiology
-- even reflex actions involve some pretty complex neural pathways...

For that matter, how do you draw the line between "neural" and non-neural
responses? The mind has an effect on the endocrine system and vice-versa --
physiology clearly has a great deal to do with psychology, and similarly
neurobiology and certain aspects of psychology seem rather intimately
linked.

I guess I just don't see the two as a black and white.