How could one establish it in any other way besides going out and testing its testable predictions?
Of course one should be cautious, and be wary of trying anything that may be dangerous, but in this case his/her testable suggestion seems rather unlikely to do anything much more hazardous than just not working and wasting a few seconds of effort here and there.
How could one establish it in any other way besides going out and testing its testable predictions?
Using a notion as the basis for strategy is a different thing than testing the notion, even if you end up performing the same externally visible actions—in the latter case, you’re paying a lot more effort in keeping track of just what you’re doing differently and how it’s working, and ideally arranging for replication and coordination with other people following the strategy. Moreover, testing can be done in constructed environments with carefully selected cohorts rather than in semi-random environments with self-selected cohorts, which is what you get if people begin applying it as strategy. The latter case is a lot harder to work with, statistically speaking.
Was it? I guess I just have a habit of reading anything on evpsych as speculation, no matter how it’s worded. I can’t really tell whether s/he thought s/he was presenting fact, or just suggesting an interesting line of inquiry.
the speculating [...] goes wildly against intuition
In what way? As far as I can tell, s/he didn’t suggest that was the only evolutionary function of depression, but merely that it may be one of them.
[citation needed] for just about everything.
I’d rephrase that as, ‘Pretty theory. Go establish it firmly before using it as the basis for strategy.’ Does that work?
How could one establish it in any other way besides going out and testing its testable predictions?
Of course one should be cautious, and be wary of trying anything that may be dangerous, but in this case his/her testable suggestion seems rather unlikely to do anything much more hazardous than just not working and wasting a few seconds of effort here and there.
Using a notion as the basis for strategy is a different thing than testing the notion, even if you end up performing the same externally visible actions—in the latter case, you’re paying a lot more effort in keeping track of just what you’re doing differently and how it’s working, and ideally arranging for replication and coordination with other people following the strategy. Moreover, testing can be done in constructed environments with carefully selected cohorts rather than in semi-random environments with self-selected cohorts, which is what you get if people begin applying it as strategy. The latter case is a lot harder to work with, statistically speaking.
Since when did speculating on evpsych start requiring a bunch of citations?
Since the speculating was presented as fact and goes wildly against intuition.
Was it? I guess I just have a habit of reading anything on evpsych as speculation, no matter how it’s worded. I can’t really tell whether s/he thought s/he was presenting fact, or just suggesting an interesting line of inquiry.
In what way? As far as I can tell, s/he didn’t suggest that was the only evolutionary function of depression, but merely that it may be one of them.
I read it as so, and that’s about all I can say.
It doesn’t make much sense that it would be adaptive to have a condition that commonly leads to suicide.