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Benito comments on The noncentral fallacy - the worst argument in the world? - Less Wrong
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Comments (1742)
No problem here. Not even non-central.
Indeed. Many evolutionary biologists are highly dismissive of evopsych. In evolutionary biology you have to start with a variation in a trait, in an environment where - overall, over all interactions - one side of the variation gets a strong enough advantage... then there's genetic studies, and so on. One has to deal with the bother of doing a whole lot of actual science.
If you look at evolutionary psychology - Tooby and Cosmides, or Pinker, that's folks literally making up caveman stories with no well defined physical traits and mechanisms to start with, no demonstration that a trait is a net benefit, no genetics... and, usually, not even any evolution, in the sense that there's no identification of the original proto-trait and it's gradual path of evolution.
You misunderstand me. Dspeyer used it above as an example of a non-central fallacy, implying that Ev Psych is not very much like what science is. I meant to disagree. To the extent of my awareness, Ev Psych makes predictions and tests them, and goes on to build up theories, making it a typical example of a science.
I'm not so sure when you say it doesn't specifically use evolutionary theory in the same way Biologists normally do, and thus it's not a science. Even if that were true, that's like saying Meteorology isn't a science because they don't always use meteors in their work. I think that if you want to say something isn't a science, you need to show that it doesn't make falsifiable predictions, doesn't describe the world, and hasn't made any advances in our knowledge. Furthermore, you should really have a good explanation as to why Ev Psych people get scientific funding and have papers published in specific Ev Psych journals. And finally, if you're going to dismiss a field, you should be very knowledgeable about said field (or have other very strong evidence, like the studies showing Psychoanalysis is useless). You can't really make that decision that a field is bad, without that sort of evidence, even if it just seems that way to you.
I don't see where in your link EvPsy first makes a falsifiable prediction and then tests it. The experiment described looks like data mining for correlations to me. The expression "was almost exactly what a Darwinian would predict" is yet another post-factum story.
Well perhaps it's not a good example, although that this single example doesn't work doesn't remove the burden of evidence required to dismiss a field.
And then again, maybe it is a good example.
Are there any good examples?
You seem to have some strong privileging of a hypothesis going on here.
What prior would you assign to the scientific competence of a field purporting to be a science, that has journals and textbooks and experts, that's based on an extension of good theory (evolution)? I'm aware that you have more evidence than this, from (I imagine) online discussions and you've read some of the experts, but I've not had this experience, and I think that I am more likely to misunderstand an area of science than to have understood it better than its proponents.
Just like astrology, then? :-) It's based on "an extension of good theory", too...
Whether something is a science is not decided by how many sciency-looking accoutrements and trappings it has.
How, precisely, is astrology an "extension of a good theory"?
There is a cute answer -- that movements of celestial bodies (e.g. the Sun and the Moon) certainly affect people's lives and fates.
And there is a historical answer -- that for centuries astronomy and astrology were, basically, inseparable.
Well, certainly not, but having sciency-looking accoutrements and trappings is nevertheless bayesian evidence that something is a science. The question is just how good that evidence is. You're saying, I take it, that your prior probability that a given set of claims will come along with trappings equivalent to evo psych (or whatever) is substantially higher than your prior probability that evo psych is a science. But in any case, the trappings should probably produce a skyward update (even if it's small).
No, not at all. The question isn't how good that evidence is, the question is what other evidence is there. And in this particular case we have, for example, the lack of theories which can be falsified.
I would have no problems with calling evopsy, say, a field of study. But saying it's a science implies rigor and tests against reality which are, um, absent.