Wahoo! My first downvoted-to-negative-territory post.
(Here I’m attempting to convince my S1 that this is actually good à la “if you don’t make mistakes, you’re not trying difficult-enough things.” S2 is already on board.)
The problem, I think, with making pop evo-psych assertions without a solid foundation of comprehensive and well-explained research does not go away even when the assertions are not outlandish: we don’t have a mechanism to judge these ideas other than common sense (or, in the worst case [not shown here], a misleadingly narrow selection of research).
This means that, while evo-psych may provide an interesting framework, it may also reinforce our existing preconceptions and give us false confidence in our conclusions. The outside view says that unsupported evo-psych assertions are likely to be wrong; I think that in many cases in which they are not wrong, they are not wrong for reasons independent of the inclusion of evo-psych itself. Whatever mechanism you used to judge that these particular theories were reasonable was probably sufficient without bringing in evo-psych. I think this post is a useful way of calling attention to certain human tendencies without it.
In general, however, I’ve really enjoyed your mini sequence and encourage you to keep up the good work.
Thanks. I don’t object to the people who still didn’t want to see it on their front page, but I did shoot for truth in advertising, and I appreciate the fact that it was recognized.
I’ve no idea whether any of the evo-psych “explanations” in here are correct, and suspect you haven’t really either, but it was fun to read. And (handwave handwave) even a wrong theory can be useful if its consequences resemble those of the nearest correct theory, so even if pop-evo-psych is badly wrong it may be “right enough” to be useful as a hypothesis generator, a mnemonic aid, and an intuition pump (“images of hooting apes”) -- provided you bear in mind that for all you know it might in fact be quite wrong.
Wahoo! My first downvoted-to-negative-territory post.
(Here I’m attempting to convince my S1 that this is actually good à la “if you don’t make mistakes, you’re not trying difficult-enough things.” S2 is already on board.)
Downvoted for bad epistemic quality mixed with high emotional charge.
The problem, I think, with making pop evo-psych assertions without a solid foundation of comprehensive and well-explained research does not go away even when the assertions are not outlandish: we don’t have a mechanism to judge these ideas other than common sense (or, in the worst case [not shown here], a misleadingly narrow selection of research).
This means that, while evo-psych may provide an interesting framework, it may also reinforce our existing preconceptions and give us false confidence in our conclusions. The outside view says that unsupported evo-psych assertions are likely to be wrong; I think that in many cases in which they are not wrong, they are not wrong for reasons independent of the inclusion of evo-psych itself. Whatever mechanism you used to judge that these particular theories were reasonable was probably sufficient without bringing in evo-psych. I think this post is a useful way of calling attention to certain human tendencies without it.
In general, however, I’ve really enjoyed your mini sequence and encourage you to keep up the good work.
General agreement with everything you say here. Thanks for the comment. =)
I clicked +1 because it acknowledged what it is, which is pop evo-psych. It did not claim to be anything more than this.
Thanks. I don’t object to the people who still didn’t want to see it on their front page, but I did shoot for truth in advertising, and I appreciate the fact that it was recognized.
I’ve no idea whether any of the evo-psych “explanations” in here are correct, and suspect you haven’t really either, but it was fun to read. And (handwave handwave) even a wrong theory can be useful if its consequences resemble those of the nearest correct theory, so even if pop-evo-psych is badly wrong it may be “right enough” to be useful as a hypothesis generator, a mnemonic aid, and an intuition pump (“images of hooting apes”) -- provided you bear in mind that for all you know it might in fact be quite wrong.