[FRIAM] the pseudoscience of evolutionary psychology?

glen gepropella at gmail.com
Fri Feb 23 09:27:56 EST 2018


OK. So if you're not sure how to make a case *like* the one Peterson makes, and I'm allowed to call you an evolutionary psychologist, then I can say, at least, Peterson's argument is unjustified. ... or at least not well enough justified, even in the domain in which he works.

 Combined with finer grained arguments like those presented by Dave, it leaves Peterson's case pretty weak, albeit not as weak as I thought.


On February 22, 2018 8:56:38 PM PST, Nick Thompson <nickthompson at earthlink.net> wrote:
>Some consequences of this formulation are: 
>
> 
>
>1.       Simultaneous events (such as amygdala excitation and anger)
>canNOT be causes of one another. 
>
>2.       The notion of cause and effect as we deploy it in ordinary
>language is a category error.  No single event can ever said to be
>either a cause or an effect of another single event.  
>
>3.       The very notion of causality as applied to ANY historical
>science – history, evolution, history of the universe, etc., is placed
>in question.   I don’t know where that argument comes out.  I would
>like to be able to say things like , “The physical and behavioral
>dimorphisms observed in the human species are to some degree the result
>of differential selection upon the two sexes,” but I am not sure how I
>can. 
-- 
glen



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