A nice discussion of the problems of Evolutionary Psychology 24 Dec 2008 Here at monkey’s uncle, the blog of James Holland Jones, a Stanford anthropologist. Well worth the read. Basically he attacks the presumption that there was some kind of Environment of Evolutionary Adaptedness needed to make the rest of the EP argument. Merry Christmas. Or should I say Happy Holidays, being that there’s a war on Christmas? Evolution Social evolution
Evolution Evolution quotes 12 Jun 2010 Evolution and phylogeny.—Evolution is the process and phylogeny the record of descent. Phylogeny is thus the measure of relationship, and is to be expressed in terms of community of ancestry; hence, if relationship is to express evolution adequately, it must take account of each change, from the branch to the… Read More
Education Tired debates 17 Apr 2010 There’s a whole bunch of arguments that are becoming very tiring, and in which I think we have made no apparent progress for far too long, such as the fooraw between Massimo Pigliucci and PZ Merkel, the German chancellor. I propose, therefore, to say nothing about them after this post… Read More
Evolution Do bacteria think? 10 Dec 2007 Let’s suppose there is a game, say, baseball. This game is named and described for the ways that adult humans with bats, balls, and fields, behave normatively, as written up in an authoritative manual. Everybody knows what baseball is, or can point to an example of it. Along comes someone,… Read More
Thanks for pointing us in that direction. I thought Buller’s arguments have some merit, and especially Buss’s grand claims so far failed to convince me. (Best line in his interview with Richard Dawkins: Sooner or later all psychology/sociology departments will have to accept that they’re just subsets of EP). But the first load of comments in the SciAm article’s comment section was so hypervitriolic, including comparing EP critics to creationists, that I didn’t know what to make of it. ^_^J.
Well, psychology in general has a tradition of the theory being way out in front of the empirical data, so why should EP be any different? I would expect that many or maybe even all of the conclusions of EP are wrong as far as the details are concerned, but I think that the overall program is unavoidable. What’s that oft-repeated quote about the role of evolution in biology? “Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution.” The problem is simply that psychology is currently still too far removed from the biology, but that is changing rapidly as neuroscientists map out the functioning of the brain. Eventually we will be able to map specific sets of genes to brain structures and behaviors, and to make some estimates as to when those genes became a part of the human genome. This will provide a firmer empirical basis for EP to work with.
Well, psychology in general has a tradition of the theory being way out in front of the empirical data, so why should EP be any different? I would expect that many or maybe even all of the conclusions of EP are wrong as far as the details are concerned, but I think that the overall program is unavoidable. What’s that oft-repeated quote about the role of evolution in biology? “Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution.” The problem is simply that psychology is currently still too far removed from the biology, but that is changing rapidly as neuroscientists map out the functioning of the brain. Eventually we will be able to map specific sets of genes to brain structures and behaviors, and to make some estimates as to when those genes became a part of the human genome. This will provide a firmer empirical basis for EP to work with.
Merry Christmas. Or should I say Happy Holidays, being that there’s a war on Christmas? Yes, Virginia, there is a War on Christmas. It is being masterminded by the Department of Neverneverland Security, headed by Ebenezer “Heckuva job, Scroogie” Scrooge, BA Humbug, who is on the verge of declaring “Mistletoe accomplished!” Merry Antipodean Christmas anyway!
Eventually we will be able to map specific sets of genes to brain structures and behaviors, and to make some estimates as to when those genes became a part of the human genome. This will provide a firmer an empirical basis for EP to work with. Fixed it for you.
In my opinion the largest threat for California are cataclysms and ecological catastrophes. Not important is how many money we have because one tragedy can us take all.