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Social Psychology Abuse

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Over at Reclusive Leftist, the Ghost of Violet* has a post about an invited address at the American Psychological Association annual meeting. She correctly nails the evopsych motivation of the dren**. Further investigation reveals that the speaker is full of mens'-rights-type resentment.

If my social psychology brethren don't drop the pathetic "evolution justifies the status quo" nonsense that seems all the rage these days, I'm going to have to start kicking some ass. Brothers: evolution is a biological theory; it is not a metaphor***. So stop dreaming up some lame just-so stories to explain gender differences. If you want to make a scientific evolutionary psychology, start by reading a biology textbook. When you are finished with that, pick up an anthropology or sociology textbook to see what the prevailing cultural explanations are. If your proposed explanation stinks in comparison, that is probably because you are talking bullshit.

Don't make me come over there.

Notes
* I don't believe in ghosts, so I don't think Dr Socks is really dead.
** That's Farscape-ese for horse shit.
*** It can, of course, be a metaphor, but then it isn't science, and such an evolutionary psychology would not have any more relevance than, say, life-force psychology or some other New Age crap. A proper evolutionary psychology would ask how evolution by natural selection (a biological process, not a metaphor) has shaped the human mind and behavior. Given how incomplete our understanding of the genetic determination of neuroanatomy and physiology, and how little we actually know about the Pleistocene social environment, that is going to be a sketchy proposition for now. But what does seem clear is that the effects of selection will have shaped the human brain much more than the male or female brain. Because, despite all the blather about modularity, selection for mental flexibility is far more efficient than a module for every imagined group difference or trait. Further, once we developed brains that permitted substantial sociability, then the primary selection pressures would have shifted from the natural environment to culture. If we can say anything with confidence at this point, it is that humans evolved as social beings.

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  • By Zoran (not verified) at Mar 29 2009 - 11:41pm
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