There this field of study out there dubbed "evolutionary psychology". It is unfortunately what I would call "soft science" in that there are no real experiments. So they have to do what the modern physicists do which is essentially to make up hypotheses and then go looking for real world support for these hypotheses via direct observation. This isn't much better than what sociologists do so I'd say the veracity of either group's conclusions are about equally untrustworthy. In many cases, both groups start from the same set of observations, but propose wildly different root causes for the observed behavior. In most cases, I think both explanations are true, but most of the time I would have to go with the evolutionary psychologist's conclusions as "feeling" more at the root of things.
Here's a great evolutionary psychology article detailing "Ten politically incorrect truths about human nature". Spike and Jackie, this is for you.
9 comments:
AGH!!!!!!!!!!!!
why did you do that to me!!!!
not one of her 'facts' about what is 'natural' would stand up to critique. She is basically saying, well, in western culture things have been like this for centuries so obviously it is natural. what a fucking idiot she and all evolutionary biologists who take social conditioning for natural fact are!!!!
just one little comment and then i will attempt to wipe from my mind the crap that that article spewed.
i agree with you casey that both sociologist (and cultural theorists) and evoloutionary biologists are correct. One of the many problems with our culture's inability to move beyond an either/or conceptualization of reality is that it leads to articles such as the one you linked to. Yes we have certain traits that are 'evolutionary' however, biology does not absolutely determine destiny and there is implicit in evoloutionary theory the ability to change, actually i would say, the MANDATE to change. We are more than our past and can be agents of change in our present and future.
I think there's a fundamental causation/correlation problem happening here, like there often is in work like this.
But I'm not going to take the bait and start raving incoherently. Clearly, my husband has that covered :). I'll just say that I'm sure you could find equally specious claims for almost every other cluster of random coincidences in that list. Although I do like the "fact" that having two daughters guarantees that Spike and I are very attractive people ("fact" number 6)!
OK whoever is posting anonymously needs to stop it.
Now, a big thanks to Spike and Jackie for eating the worm on my hook. =)
To reply to Spike specifically, I wouldn't say that the authors are trying to make an argument that humanity shouldn't strive to be more civilized. I think that they are only trying to make explanations for common observations about humanity. I think that the authors would think it a mistake to use their hypotheses as a justification for bad behavior(s). In fact I would suggest that a consideration of these alternate explanations for various aspects of human behavior (alternate to the explanations offered by sociologists and cultural theorists) could be a vitally important resource for determining the best ways to make humanity better.
I am not saying that the methods of either field are better (in fact I think they are equally bad), but at the very least, the evolutionary psychologists have explanations that just sound much more plausible to me and that alone I think makes them important to consider.
Again though, as Jackie pointed out, the methods are bad and in no way should anyone consider these hypotheses to be quite as "factual" as the authors seem to think they are.
So, I am left wondering why I found this article so appealing on an emotional (but not intellectual) level? To Spike's point, I think on some level I do feel like it absolves me of a certain degree of culturally inflicted guilt over my various thought crimes. If I can blame it on my genes, then my free-willed self can't be to blame when I fantasize about having sex with the Dallas Cheer-leading squad right? On another note, is this the sort of thing I should be feeling any guilt about anyway? Since I'm not an alpha male (or if I ever was, I certainly am not anymore) the evolutionary psychologist would say that there would be something wrong with me if I didn't have these kinds of desires. Yet, the sociologist would probably give me three different answers depending on their own moral values - I should feel guilty because this activity would objectify women, I shouldn't feel guilty because women are free to make their won choices, or I should feel guilty because polygamy is immoral.
I guess these evolutionary psychologist arguments have the appearance of objectivity to them (despite their total lack of real evidence for their claims), while the cultural theorist arguments just seem utterly subjective. At least the latter don't claim to be expressing anything more than personal opinions as far as I've seen.
cultural theory is not nor does it attempt to pass itself off as a hard science though casey and as such it is not attempting to use scientific methods to objectively describe the world. In fact, a critical aspect of cultural theory is exposing how oftentimes the ideology of objectivity is a delusion of humanity based on our very limited minds. Things may exist outside of humans, but our 'use' of those things vary based on history and culturally-specific ideologies and as such are not an unassailable determinate.
This does not mean that there are no objective facts or little 't' truths about the world. I wouldnt argue against a geologist that explains to me the chemical make-up of a rock formation. what i would argue with is if the geologist then attempts to use those findings to explain with absolute certainty some aspect of humanity without taking culture, history and society into account of why things are the way they are.
Where a evolutionary psychologist would say blondes are naturally more attractive to all men based on evolutionary traits, a cultural theorist would counter that that very statement is based on an observation of western/northern euopean biological traits that are not shared by the majority of humanity and as such what that statement truly revelas is a blind and blatant cultural/sociological racism that espouses a white supremacist ideology that taints all non-white peoples of the world as less than. Any competent anthropoligist would be able to point numerous human societies of the present and the past where western standards of beauty do not exists and where a dallas cheerleader would actually be considered rather unattractive. Again, this is not an objective fact but a subjective standard of our culture and as such it is not either 'natural,' 'universal' or 'eternal.' A simple search through the art and writings of western culture would easily dismiss the idea that kate moss' beauty would be accepted as such by all men throughout western history, let alone by all people ever.
cultural theorists attempt to show that many of our cultural suppositions of 'naturalness' have a history and are not in anyway whatsoever universal. Also, and i will make this my last point, cultural theory has been and always be a political project and as such will always reflect the 'opinions' of the theorists. Again, there is no such thing as objectivity because humans are incapabale (in my opinion) of objective thought, we are self-interested and limited in our mental scope. We (cultural theorists) strive to be good, in whatever way we as a group/culture/society define that 'good.' In order to be true to our political goals we continually critique even our own findings/beliefs/ideologies/culture because we understand that the culture/society we live in has shaped our very self (we are subjects always/already) even before we were.
[paraphrased] "an aspect of cultural theory is exposing how the ideology of objectivity is a delusion. Things may exist outside of humans, but our 'use' of those things vary based on history and culturally-specific ideologies and as such are not an unassailable determinate."
I agree that decisions about the "right" use of our objective knowledge is subjective. However I disagree with your implication that there is no such thing that truly objective knowledge. By definition, objectivity is not ideological, but I will agree than many ideologues pretend to be "objective" as a means to further their ideologies. But let's be clear, this is a perversion and abuse of the word and the concept. Don't buy into ideological tricks by going along with re-definitions of the term objectivity.
"This does not mean that there are no objective facts or little 't' truths about the world."
Exactly.
"what i would argue with is if the geologist then attempts to use those findings to explain with absolute certainty some aspect of humanity without taking culture, history and society into account of why things are the way they are."
Why not? What if there truly are some aspects of humanity which require no input from culture, history or society to understand? For instance, the genetic causes of cancer, or of the common cold, or of schizophrenia? Why is that that when we make the jump from the liver the brain that suddenly biology alone is no longer enough to explain a phenomenon? Why, when discussing aspects of our brain's behavior (as opposed to the behavior of our liver or our lungs), must we also discuss culture? It is because it is simply unattractive to believe in a determined universe? What if the universe is such? Is it because the mind is so special and organ as to be beyond nature, in fact somehow super-natural? Is it because we must believe in our souls? Why does culture have to be involved in the discussion at all costs. Is it possible that in at least some broadly applicable cases, explanations that depend on culture are unnecessary? I would certainly agree to the inverse, that being, there might be some cases where biology plays an unnecessary role in explaining things.
You have already agreed with me in previous conversations that culture must be an emergent property of biology because of the simple fact that our brains are made of cells and molecules, and our brains are what make culture. So, given that, doesn't it make sense that on the highest levels of analysis biology plays a stronger role in human behavior than culture, and that culture is best used for more micro, rather than macro aspects of human behavior?
[paraphrased] "Where a evolutionary psychologist would say blondes are naturally more attractive to all men based on evolutionary traits, a cultural theorist would counter that that statement is based on an observation of western/northern euopean biological traits that are not shared by the majority of humanity and as such what that statement truly reveals is a cultural/sociological racism that espouses a white supremacist ideology that taints all non-white peoples of the world as less than."
No it doesn't. What if some alien actually did an experiment in the year 3000 BC where they took photos of blonde european women and black-haired chinese women and showed them to a huge statistically significant population of Aztec men, who were naive to both europeans and asians in every way. What if the aliens then found that the Aztec men vastly rated the blondes as more attractive. Then let's say you repeated the experiment around the world, showing photos of women of various ethnicities to groups of men naive to those ethnicities and asked them to rate desireability. After al of this let's say the aliens truly did find out that blondes were preferred worldwide. Would you then accuse the aliens of propogating a racist agenda? You implied that traits which are not shared by all of humanity can't be found attractive by all of humanity. But this doesn't make any logical sense. In fact I would argue just the opposite, that it is the very rare traits which are not shared by all of humanity which are the most attractive. So why can't it be true that blondes might be universally attractive? Why must that necessarily imply racism?
What if we really have another one of Jackie's causation/correlation errors here? What if cultural racism is actually caused by blondes truly being more biologically and universally attractive rather than true racism causing a cultural perception of blondes as being more attractive?
"Any anthropoligist would be able to point numerous human societies of the present and the past where western standards of beauty do not exists and where a dallas cheerleader would actually be considered rather unattractive."
But you have no more evidence for that bit of conjecture than my alien evolutionary psychologists do for theirs. Again, I'm just trying to disentangle fact from opinion here.
"Again, this is not an objective fact but a subjective standard of our culture and as such it is not either 'natural,' 'universal' or 'eternal.'"
But it could be. You don't know either way anymore than anybody really does. Right?
"A simple search through the art and writings of western culture would easily dismiss the idea that kate moss' beauty would be accepted as such by all men throughout western history, let alone by all people ever."
Ya but historically people weren't exposed to other peoples at all so they painted the things that reflected their immediate surroundings. Your example is broken by sample bias. Again, I refer to the impossible experiment of my aliens.
"Again, there is no such thing as objectivity because humans are incapabale (in my opinion) of objective thought, we are self-interested and limited in our mental scope."
An interesting opinion. Surely you can't mean it. Ignoring the objective abstractions of mathematics, there are still the objective facts of existence. Gravity is not subjective, nor is light or heat or water or anything else of the physical world of which we are merely a part, right?
Again I will agree that the ways in which we deploy our objective knowledge of the physical world can be highly subjective, but this does not mean "there is no such thing as objective thought". Back up a second there.
"We (cultural theorists) strive to be good, in whatever way we as a group/culture/society define that 'good.' "
And then it comes to the real crux of what I'm driving at. What do you do when "good" collides with "true"? From what you've been saying, it sounds like you simply do not acknowledge the existence of "truth" and believe only in subjective "good", making the conflict and easy one to solve indeed.
I want to make it clear though that I'm not advocating for any one opinion above over another. I'm only interested in discussing what's possible, no matter how unattractive or attractive it might be to my own personal ideals of multiculturalism and human equality. While I may be able to believe that, given superior evidence, all women are not created equal, I would never advocate that we as humans should treat each other unequally. The situation is analogous to where I fall in the free-will vs determinism chat. That is, while I feel the universe is in fact determined, I do not think it will ever be possible to resolve every action in the universe well enough to be able to predict destiny, thus, we humans must conduct our lives as if we did live in a non-determined universe, that is, as if we did have free will.
So I guess that's a model for how I reconcile "truth" vs "good". Just because something may be truth, does not automatically mean it justifies violations of the golden rule as many simpletons have tried to argue throughout the whole of human history. Truth is just a tool, and as I've said in previous threads, what really matters is how you deploy it, right? You can use your hammers to build houses or kill people. The objective truth of hammers being good for impacting has no bearing or relationship to what the hammer is subjectively used to impact. No matter how emotionally invested you might be in building houses (or bashing heads) the truth of hammers doesn't change.
I am so pleased with myself right now. The pleasure I derive from these conversations feels almost sinfully indulgent. I feel like it might be bad for me, like fatty foods.
I should also say that on first mention they referred to low waist/hip ratio as being universal, but when referring to blondes, they talked about 15th century europeans. I did not gather that the article was trying to say that blondes are universally attractive. I think that was a misinterpretation on your part, but I still chose to roll with it as I think my points about fact and opinion still hold.
i have been quite busy so havent had a chance to properly gather my thoughts to continue our conversation and then jackie sent me a link that linked these posts and this blogger does a much better job than i ever could taking apart the article and 'evolutionary psychology' in general. The most interesting bit about this is the complete disregard for scientific inegrity that the psych today author has shown throughout his career.
Why Beautiful People Have More Daughters. part1
Why Beautiful People Have More Daughters. part2
Why Beautiful People Have More Daughters. part3
Why Beautiful People Have More Daughters. part4
Yep, all excellent criticisms except for I think the last one of part four. In that case, I'm not sure the reasons why women might not agree to have random casual sex as frequently as men matters to the question I think was being asked. If the "other factors could be equalized" I think the results would basically be an artifact (again if the intention is to determine whether something occurs as opposed to why something occurs).
But ya, as I had said, evolutionary psychology is mostly a "soft-science" (at most), and I don't like the way these folks try to use real science as cover. Alot of what I hear from sociologist (or "cultural theorists" as you put it Spike) drives me crazy too though as it is too often presented with undeserved confidence, but at least without pretending to be science. I suppose evolutionary psychology to me is a decent contrary perspective, that highlights the often baseless assertions proposed by sociologists, primarily by presenting more baseless assertions. Show me the data and I'll believe.
I don't think we'll ever know how culture came to be what it is today, but maybe there are testable ways to tease apart what percentage of our behavior is biologically influenced and what parts are cultural? How does one measure culture influence? Can one measure cultural influence? If not, then how can we blame the sorry state of our society on video games, or white male dominance, or sugary foods, or anything at all?
As a last point, the "Echidne of the snakes" author is quite right that evolution can happen quite quickly (the biologist's word for this is "punctuated equilibrium") and it is currently a very controversial topic in evolutionary biology. However, I happen to be in the camp that subscribes to it, and I actually wonder if humanity is undergoing some serious punctuated equilibrium right now. Remember that the two main parts of evolution are diversity of a population and selection of parts of that population for propagation of the species. Well, humanity already has the diversity, so what is the selection? How about birth control? I've spoken about this before and it has alot to do with why I thought the movie Idiocracy was funny, but all joking aside, if there are traits found in common among babies of mothers under 18, the world is actively destroying them. I couldn't say what those traits might be (or if there really are any), but I occasionally wonder about it.
I need to hurry up and breed.
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