[FRIAM] the pseudoscience of evolutionary psychology?

[Prof David West]

High heels and platform shoes were originally a male fashion statement. Louis XIV fancied himself a dancer and made skin tight, body revealing clothing de rigueur  for everyone at court just so he could show of his beautiful legs. There are numerous cultures — some, who were able to avoid the pollution of missionaries, are still extant — where it is the males who wear beads and feathers and oil their exposed skin to attract females. Ever hear of penis sheaths? how about cod pieces?

With all due respect to Nick — whom I love like a father (well brother as we are not that different in age) — and all the other serious evopsych researchers; I just cannot buy a biological explanation, even a biological-root explanation for phenomena that change in time frames orders of magnitude shorter than those required by biological evolution.

An example of the kind of question that I think evopsych could be profitably employed would be: why is it that, in all the hunter-gatherer societies studied by anthropologists, it is the case that women gather and men hunt?

A class of questions that could (IMHO) very well be informed by evopsych research: why does welfare beget more welfare? why does sexual suppression beget violence expression (a corollary to the last one would be why does imminent peril increase sexual arousal); why are humans so xenophobic; why do all cultures, including prehistoric, incorporate some kind of belief in the "supernatural?" An answer to the last one might provide some insight into why humans cannot evolve past the need for "God" and "religion."

davew


On Tue, Feb 20, 2018, at 2:15 PM, uǝlƃ ☣ wrote:
> 
> On 02/20/2018 12:26 PM, Steven A Smith wrote:
> > I doubt that Nick nor I believe that *every* thought is traceable back
> > to some prehistoric evolutionary trait".
> 
> 8^)  I know.  I'm just trolling you.  But the bait I'm trying to use is 
> important.
> 
> > Female "display" is the one I identified here.   And it *definitely*
> > doesn't rule out precisely what you say in the next paragraph being at
> > work as well.  I don't think the two are mutually exclusive.
> 
> Right, which is why this is in the sub-thread started by Frank.  
> Artificial discretization seems rampant.  Why would we talk about things 
> like "female display" or "alpha male" when there are MUCH more obvious 
> things to talk about like oxytocin and dopamine?  As Dave points out, 
> why would we talk about evopsych when we can talk about biology?
> 
> Feelings of belonging, love, and satisfaction can come from playing 
> blackjack *or* coddling one's baby.  Women might show their arms because 
> all the designers make clothing that bares arms *or* because they want 
> to be provocative or both or for other reasons.  Why do we feel the need 
> to trace one motivation to biology (and a phylogenetic tree) but not the 
> other?
> 
> -- 
> ☣ uǝlƃ
> 
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