= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
Constant comments on Your Evolved Intuitions - Less Wrong
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (104)
That makes it sound as if the evopsych controversy is evolutionists versus creationists. My impression was that it's mainly naturists versus nurturists.
You may be right, but if so, that paints a pretty dismal picture of the current state of psychology and anthropology. If you want to determine whether some human trait (a propensity toward alcoholism, say) is a result of nature or nurture, inventing competing just-so stories about the origin of that trait is a pretty poor way to decide between the hypotheses. And if you already know that a trait is innate, a disputed evopsych explanation brings nothing extra to the party.
What it does do is tell you what to bring to the next party and perhaps a hint as to what to do about the hangover the next day.
Improving our model of how the traits that know about evolved allows us to form better hypothesis about what other traits may be present and worth investigating. It could also suggest avenues for research in the area of physiology. Knowing why something exists can give some clues about how to go about fixing it when it is broken.
Plus... I like to know stuff! Causes intrigue me. Raw lists of correlations are dull.
Ok, but I don't see how that is responsive to my point. Which was that you really ought to determine whether something is innate or learned before you begin generating hypotheses as to just how it became innate. That is, determine the proximate cause first, then go to work on other kinds of causation.
ETA: Btw, it is "group selection", not "group evolution".
ETA#2: Ah, if you didn't realize that the 'party' in question is the nature/nurture debate, then you would think that you were being responsive. Kindly ignore the snarkiness.
I had assumed that I made a slip of the fingers but looking back I don't seem to have used that phrase at all. Was that me or someone else you were referring to?
It was you and then Matt_Simpson and then you again. But it seems to have died out now.
Ahh, I see.
in the first context it was 'group selection' that the researches intended to facilitate but not what actually occurred. The resulting outcome was instead individual selection being the dominant factor in how the groups evolved. This is to say that 'group' and 'evolution' are used correctly as independent terms, not as a phrase referring to a single construct.
The latter two should be 'group selection' so I corrected my follow up there, and the Matt quote with suitable edit-brackets to maintain the consistency in reply.