zslastman comments on Babies and Bunnies: A Caution About Evo-Psych - Less Wrong

52 Post author: Alicorn 22 February 2010 01:53AM

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Comment author: zslastman 22 October 2012 05:27:15PM 1 point [-]

Why are we all assuming that finding animals cute represents an evolved trait and isn't, for instance, a freak consequence of all the books and cartoons we're exposed to which anthropomorphize animals? (No points for guessing the other candidate for that etiology).

Comment author: TimS 22 October 2012 05:58:13PM 0 points [-]

One argument for "evolved trait" is cross-cultural consistency. Thus, if just about every culture (past or present) finds rabbits cute, that's some evidence that there's something in our inherent neurological processes that applies the label / emotional reaction "cute" to things that look like rabbits.

Comment author: zslastman 23 October 2012 10:22:35AM -1 points [-]

And do we have evidence of cross cultural consistency? I mean you can take the modern world as pretty much a single culture. Has anyone asked isolated pygmy tribes if they find animals cute?