Making the statement “feminism is wrong about relationships, so it must be wrong about evolutionary psychology” (with the value of “feminism” in your post, which is probably accurate for most people who aren’t liberal feminists in this thread) is a common fallacy that the Sequences take some time to elucidate.
I would, instead, phrase the statement as follows:
1). eridu’s premises lead to incorrect conclusions about relationships. 2). eridu’s reasoning is valid. 3). Therefore, eridu’s premises must be unsound. 4). eridu applied valid reasoning to his premises to reach conclusions about evolutionary psychology. 5). Since his premises are unsound, we cannot say whether his conclusions about evolutionary psychology are correct, based on his reasoning alone.
This is a nice way to see it, but the question “Are heterosexual relationships *(sexist)” and the question “Is evolutionary psychology *(sexist)” can have different factual answers.
As such, getting me to field questions on unrelated aspects of feminism is little more than a way to apply the Worst Argument in the World to “feminism,” or a way to attempt to be anti-reductionist by asserting that “feminism” is a property of predictions, and all predictions that have that property are false.
I would, instead, phrase the statement as follows:
1). eridu’s premises lead to incorrect conclusions about relationships.
2). eridu’s reasoning is valid.
3). Therefore, eridu’s premises must be unsound.
4). eridu applied valid reasoning to his premises to reach conclusions about evolutionary psychology.
5). Since his premises are unsound, we cannot say whether his conclusions about evolutionary psychology are correct, based on his reasoning alone.
This is a nice way to see it, but the question “Are heterosexual relationships *(sexist)” and the question “Is evolutionary psychology *(sexist)” can have different factual answers.
As such, getting me to field questions on unrelated aspects of feminism is little more than a way to apply the Worst Argument in the World to “feminism,” or a way to attempt to be anti-reductionist by asserting that “feminism” is a property of predictions, and all predictions that have that property are false.
The question of whether X is “sexist” seems like a Worst Argument In The World waiting to happen. Taboo “sexist”: is X bad? Why?
(really. Sexist has been used so many different ways by so many different people that it doesn’t mean anything to me anymore.)
That was the intent of my “dereferencing” of the word sexist above, but I guess that was too idiosyncratic.