My Sociology and English courses were barrages of political correctness where evolution was not tolerated. If you thought that sexual desire was a reproductive adaption, or that certain immoral behaviors might have been been advantageous in prehistoric times, or that sexual selection is instinctual and systematic, then you were oppressing the professor.
My Women’s Studies course was good though. And I met some pretty cool professors at the feminist events I went to. It was only the English and Sociology departments that turned social justice into a caricature.
Sure, but if you believe that “X is not an evolutionary adaptation” for too many X’s, you don’t believe in evolution. My Sociology and English professors in something they called “evolution”, but a scientist would not call the thing that they believed in “evolution.” And the thing that scientists call “evolution” my professors didn’t believe in.
Hmm … it seems likely to me that many non-biologists’ “belief in evolution” amounts to signaling membership in one social group and opposition to another. (But then, the same occurs to me regarding Eliezer’s recent remarks about “postmodernism” …)
If you don’t use evolutionary theory, then what does it profit you to have accurate beliefs about it? And further, many folks’ “belief in evolution” comes with a heaping spoonful of naturalistic fallacy — if my sexual behavior evolved that way, then I can’t be faulted for it. (I notice you touch on this in passing above in the remark about “certain immoral behaviors”.)
if you believe that “X is not an evolutionary adaptation” for too many X’s, you don’t believe in evolution
I don’t think that follows. First, the last few hundred thousand years are a tiny part of the evolutionary history of life, and second, you might believe that humans were selected for plasticity (e.g. by rapid climate changes) and so their behaviours nowadays are more due to nurture than to nature.
(But denying that “sexual desire was a reproductive adaption” does sound quite bad to me.)
Taught evolution denialism? (Rather than taught about evolution denialism?) o.O
My Sociology and English courses were barrages of political correctness where evolution was not tolerated. If you thought that sexual desire was a reproductive adaption, or that certain immoral behaviors might have been been advantageous in prehistoric times, or that sexual selection is instinctual and systematic, then you were oppressing the professor.
My Women’s Studies course was good though. And I met some pretty cool professors at the feminist events I went to. It was only the English and Sociology departments that turned social justice into a caricature.
Can you distinguish between the claims “X is not an evolutionary adaptation” and “Evolution does not happen”?
Sure, but if you believe that “X is not an evolutionary adaptation” for too many X’s, you don’t believe in evolution. My Sociology and English professors in something they called “evolution”, but a scientist would not call the thing that they believed in “evolution.” And the thing that scientists call “evolution” my professors didn’t believe in.
Hmm … it seems likely to me that many non-biologists’ “belief in evolution” amounts to signaling membership in one social group and opposition to another. (But then, the same occurs to me regarding Eliezer’s recent remarks about “postmodernism” …)
If you don’t use evolutionary theory, then what does it profit you to have accurate beliefs about it? And further, many folks’ “belief in evolution” comes with a heaping spoonful of naturalistic fallacy — if my sexual behavior evolved that way, then I can’t be faulted for it. (I notice you touch on this in passing above in the remark about “certain immoral behaviors”.)
I don’t think that follows. First, the last few hundred thousand years are a tiny part of the evolutionary history of life, and second, you might believe that humans were selected for plasticity (e.g. by rapid climate changes) and so their behaviours nowadays are more due to nurture than to nature.
(But denying that “sexual desire was a reproductive adaption” does sound quite bad to me.)
Oh, definitely. You can make a scientifically respectable case for social justice -isms. But my professors in English and Sociology chose not to.