This criticism is valid if we think that the trait we vary is irrelevant to the effect we are considering.
But we have already established that intelligence is likely to affect our ability to self-deceive.
For example, we could fairly easily establish that inhaling large quantities of soot is likely to affect our lungs in some way, then apply this argument to get the conclusion that pollution is probably slightly harmful (with some small degree of certainty).
Essentially this argument says: if you perform a random intervention J that you have reason to believe will affect evolved system S, it will probably reduce the functioning of S, unless J was specifically designed to improve the functioning of S.
Stated like this I don’t find this style of argument unsound; smoking, pollution, obesity, etc are all cases in point.
This criticism is valid if we think that the trait we vary is irrelevant to the effect we are considering.
No, the criticism is valid if we have no reason to think that the traits will be causally linked. You’re making another logical fallacy—confusing two statements whose logical structure renders them non-equivalent.
(thinking trait is ~relevant) != ~(thinking trait is relevant)
This criticism is valid if we think that the trait we vary is irrelevant to the effect we are considering.
But we have already established that intelligence is likely to affect our ability to self-deceive.
For example, we could fairly easily establish that inhaling large quantities of soot is likely to affect our lungs in some way, then apply this argument to get the conclusion that pollution is probably slightly harmful (with some small degree of certainty).
Essentially this argument says: if you perform a random intervention J that you have reason to believe will affect evolved system S, it will probably reduce the functioning of S, unless J was specifically designed to improve the functioning of S.
Stated like this I don’t find this style of argument unsound; smoking, pollution, obesity, etc are all cases in point.
No, the criticism is valid if we have no reason to think that the traits will be causally linked. You’re making another logical fallacy—confusing two statements whose logical structure renders them non-equivalent.
(thinking trait is ~relevant) != ~(thinking trait is relevant)
see edited comment above