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MichaelVassar comments on Against the standard narrative of human sexual evolution - Less Wrong
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Comments (153)
My post on unknown knowns isn't really related to this sequence (and that's why I identified this post as the sequence's beginning), but that's just a nitpick. I'm trying hard to avoid making any prescriptive conclusions in my discussion of Sex at Dawn, and instead to stick to unraveling the evidence about the conditions under which human beings evolved.
Before I read the book, I thought that "polyamory as popularly defined is basically a kick in the teeth to evolution." Sex at Dawn makes a convincing case that the opposite is true, which may mean that polyamory is a better idea in the modern setting than I had thought. But I'm still very uncertain on that count, because the modern setting and the evolutionary setting are so different that what is adaptive in one is often totally crazy in the other.
When I picked up the book, I was expecting that the case it made would be bad and that I might be tempted to agree with it anyway because I am generally a fan of polyamory. I can't say definitively one way or the other whether I succumbed to that temptation: the book's case seems like a very good one to me, which could either be true or the product of a motivated evaluation. I think that it's the former, but that is itself evidence that supports both hypotheses.
The axe I'm grinding is, I suppose, that I don't think monogamy is built into the universal nature of human beings. This hardly seems like an axe to me, but a number of vehement objections seem to indicate otherwise.
I think it's pretty obvious that monogamy isn't built into human nature, but I object to the post pretty vehemently. Do you have any examples of vehement objections by people who insist that polyamory is 'bad' as opposed to by people who think that bad reasoning is 'bad'?
I even said I planned to read the book some day, as it sounded interesting but badly reasoned. However, a short summary of an interesting but badly reasoned book, when the summary itself doesn't comment on the bad reasoning but instead endorses said reasoning, on a rationality blog, seems to indicate to me that the author of the summary needs more practice before they can talk rationally about the subject.
Not specifically, no, nor did I expect to see objections on those grounds. LW generally frowns on unjustified moral absolutes, so far as I can tell. What I did expect to see (and do see) is motivated arguing that ignores my repeated protestations that this is the introductory first post in a sequence.
It is certainly true that I erred in mentioning the proposed hypothesis before showing the evidence that had gone into locating it. Yes, my bad. But the intended purpose of the post was not so obtuse that no one could comprehend it.
Why are you so convinced that Sex at Dawn (and my belief in its conclusion) is badly reasoned? You haven't seen the reasoning yet! Would it be an unendurable annoyance if I were to ask you to hold off on forming a conclusion for another 12 hours, while I finish the second post? It won't contain all the evidence I'm planning to present, but there's a chance it'll convince you that there was at least some amount of reasoning involved in this whole process.
What claims are do you think are being made and how do you identify them as motivated arguments?
So you haven't read the book, but you know it's badly reasoned, and anyone who endorses it must not be good at rationality?
I'm also surprised and confused by Michael Vassar's reaction to this post.
Strong disagreements with Pinker are strong evidence for poor reasoning, but much weaker evidence for being wrong.
The blog post itself and its comments are pretty compelling evidence for poor rationality skills under stress, most notably the Malthus bit, as people other than myself have mentioned.
I endorse lots of books with fairly bad reasoning.