Eugine_Nier comments on [SEQ RERUN] Rational vs Scientific Ev-Psych - Less Wrong

5 Post author: MinibearRex 13 December 2011 01:02AM

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Comment author: Eugine_Nier 15 December 2011 03:25:05AM 1 point [-]

I think the main epistemic problem is that the explanatory power of the null hypothesis (men and women are natively psychologically almost identical, but people know that women get pregnant and men don't and social structures take this into account) is pretty high and, even worse, often gives reasoning that's isomorphic to ev psychic explanations.

So your null hypothesis is that genetic evolution failed to produce any traits in humans that accommodate this fact, so all behavioral differences are the result of memetic evolution and explicit reasoning. This hypothesis strikes me as extremely unlikely.