chaosmosis comments on The noncentral fallacy - the worst argument in the world? - Less Wrong

157 Post author: Yvain 27 August 2012 03:36AM

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Comment author: chaosmosis 12 September 2012 12:48:43PM 3 points [-]

I think there's a difference between saying that evolutionary psychology is sexist and saying that it's misused by a patriarchal society to justify itself. Evolutionary psychology itself isn't sexist, in the sense that it's conclusions aren't justified only through bias.

You might argue that we need to define the words in relation to consequentialism, but that's confusing because when most people make the claim that X is sexist they aren't saying that X has sexist effects but that sexism is a property of X.

I think that it would be better to attack patriarchal society itself rather than everything that patriarchal society can use to justify itself. The people who think that naturalness is a normative force are the real problem here, or perhaps the media which spins everything into a narrative, but not the scientists interested in actually figuring out what's going on. It makes me uncomfortable when feminism argues against science.