the pseudoscience of evolutionary psychology?
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Re: the pseudoscience of evolutionary psychology?
 
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Glen > No, I don't agree. I had intended to reply to Dave's (twice repeated) question about the speed of evolution with this response. But I'll do it, here, anyway. Remember that I'm not a biologist. So, corrections of what I say are more than welcome. It seems to me that natural selection is multi-grained. Even if we reject the general concept of group selection, I think it's safe to say that something like our "dopaminergic system" can be selected for or against just as well as some behavior like fight or flight. At the very least, we can talk about the speed of evolution in bacteria and the idea that we are covered in, and filled with bacteria (which affects our survivability in the face of what we eat and breathe). But you're right that I would NOT argue that the map from mechanism to phenomenon is simple. Selection is phenomenal. However, the structure of the systems being operated on are not merely 2-layer gen-phen systems. They're a complex convolution of 2-layer systems, some fast, some slow, some tiny, some large, etc., all inter-embedded with each other. The phenomenal "function" of one 2-layer part might well be considered the generative mechanism of another 2-layer part. > > So, no, natural selection doesn't simply select function. Even if *technically* true, that's an over-simplification. I DO agree with this last point. However, my argument should be more correctly that *IF* we are going to make a drastic oversimplification of natural selection,reducing it to *selecting for form* to the exclusion of *selecting for function* is not warranted, except perhaps to make the point that the vice-versa is also bogus? I responded (reacted) to your seeming to prefer the form over the function and suggested that bias might be because it was more easily measured/quantified? I agree that natural selection is multiscale and that one must consider selection of the "ecosystem of self" which would include the human microbiome, which based on generational scale alone would be presumed to evolve much more quickly than humans whose characteristic reproductive time scale is on the order of decades rather than days or even hours. I can't tell if we are converging or if we are refolding in the subthreads that Dave and Nick (and others) intended. Threads here seem to easily/naturally diverge (fray?). > > > On 02/21/2018 11:59 AM, Steven A Smith wrote: >> But don't you agree that *physiology* is NOT what is being directly >> selected for, but rather what is more directly *expressed* from what is >> *encoded* (genome) (therefore easier to identify/detect/measure). Is it >> not *function* rather than *form* which is being selected? Isn't that >> the point of *exaptation*, that one phenotypic element originally >> selected for around *one* context/utility function trips into another >> context with an entirely different utility? ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove |
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OK. But I believe I merely asked the question: Why talk about these vague behaviors like "dress for sex", when we can talk about reasonably well-defined things like hormones and neurotransmitters? What explanatory power does evopsych have that, say, evolutionary neuroscience would not have?
One possible answer is that evopsych allows us to tap into folktales like Jungian archetypes, even if only so we can trick people into believing our rhetoric. That trickery is power of a kind, explanatory or not. Science popularizers walk that thin line all the time. But is there something *more*? Re: thread pollution -- I don't think it's a big deal. The forum is asynchronous. Anyone can read or not read, reply or not reply, to any post at any time. It was easier, I'll admit, when the archives worked. On 02/21/2018 12:37 PM, Steven A Smith wrote: > my argument should be more > correctly that *IF* we are going to make a drastic oversimplification of > natural selection,reducing it to *selecting for form* to the exclusion > of *selecting for function* is not warranted, except perhaps to make the > point that the vice-versa is also bogus? I responded (reacted) to your > seeming to prefer the form over the function and suggested that bias > might be because it was more easily measured/quantified? > > I agree that natural selection is multiscale and that one must consider > selection of the "ecosystem of self" which would include the human > microbiome, which based on generational scale alone would be presumed to > evolve much more quickly than humans whose characteristic reproductive > time scale is on the order of decades rather than days or even hours. > > I can't tell if we are converging or if we are refolding in the > subthreads that Dave and Nick (and others) intended. Threads here seem > to easily/naturally diverge (fray?). -- ☣ uǝlƃ ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
uǝʃƃ ⊥ glen
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Re: the pseudoscience of evolutionary psychology?
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Glen -
> OK. But I believe I merely asked the question: Why talk about these vague behaviors like "dress for sex", when we can talk about reasonably well-defined things like hormones and neurotransmitters? What explanatory power does evopsych have that, say, evolutionary neuroscience would not have? A question, yes, but "mere" I don't think so? > > One possible answer is that evopsych allows us to tap into folktales like Jungian archetypes, even if only so we can trick people into believing our rhetoric. while "rhetoric" is defined to be "persuasive", the goal might be to persuade others to consider a hypothesis long enough to investigate it further. On one end of the spectrum, your speculation is probably accurate, sometimes some people simply want to be "right" or "believed" (or may not care or know the difference?) but on the other, they may simply want to engage other's in a little broader speculation as part of expanding a search space? > That trickery is power of a kind, explanatory or not. Science popularizers walk that thin line all the time. But is there something *more*? Science Popularizers are a good (positive I think) example, but again, on the opposite end of the spectrum I think "guided speculation" has a value when combined/juxtaposed with more rigorous/formal methods for *validating* insights found during the wider ranging speculations? Where does intuition come from? It would seem to find a good launching pad on the foundation of good formalized, quantifiable work, but it also would seem to be fed well by more qualitative and perhaps even verging on "whimsical" considerations? > > Re: thread pollution -- > I don't think it's a big deal. The forum is asynchronous. Anyone can read or not read, reply or not reply, to any post at any time. It was easier, I'll admit, when the archives worked. I wasn't necessarily thinking of this as pollution (or any kind of problem)... but rather speciation... more on the exploration theme? It was a conjunction with my nod to Nick's original (early) appeal to those of us with higher bandwidths to somehow keep him in the loop as (even if?) we might explore (more) widely than he was seeking. ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove |
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In reply to this post by Steve Smith
I expect that I've posted this before. But still, my favorite contribution to this topic is here:
https://web.archive.org/web/20070609085706/http://www.sm.luth.se/~torkel/eget/net.html On 02/21/2018 11:26 AM, Steven A Smith wrote: > In my last contribution to the EvoPsych thread I referenced the following paper: > > https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-the-american-philosophical-association/article/aristotle-on-trolling/540BB557C82186C33BFFB61E35A0B5B6/core-reader > > and accused him of "Socratic Trolling". I of course, meant that in the kindest of ways. > > From the Excerpt: [...] > > > I have long been aware that what we often call "trolls" can be beneficial to a group, and appreciate the description provided above. I have seen very little *if any* real (destructive?) trolling on this list which I believe remains > 600 strong despite the vocal subset only being roughly a few dozen. > > I also wonder at the relation between a "Troll" and a "Trickster <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trickster>"... where the Trickster is credited with having both secret knowledge and even sometimes powers. The Trickster is more ambiguous in his/her good/evil role, but the above description of the possibilities within a Troll suggests that a Troll might well have an aspect of Trickster built in. The most obvious shared feature is the ambiguity of in-group/out-group status... which is one of the things that defines a Shaman. In all cases, one must be "insider" enough to understand the in-group well enough to be relevant but "outsider" enough to be capable of having enough perspective and motivation to operate outside of the group norms. -- ☣ uǝlƃ ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
uǝʃƃ ⊥ glen
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Re: the pseudoscience of evolutionary psychology?
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In reply to this post by Steve Smith
Glen and Steve,
The reason that I am not answering is not that good points aren't being made, but that I am in the midst of a writing project and it's not going well, which means that I am carrying blocks of ill organized text around in my head like so many 747's just after the air traffic control system went down. If I stop to think about anything else, I am afraid they will all crash. I am inclined to share Steve's view that behavior is where the rubber meets the road, and so to agree that talk of the evolution of behavior makes sense. Let me risk one thought. Let's imagine that (as I believe) that testosterone is an aggression hormone. It's effect on the nervous system is, other things being equal, to make a person a tad more assertive in all domains of action. Let it be the case that a little more assertiveness in all domains leads to reproductive success. The nature will be selecting not for the individual behaviors but for the "style" of behaving. Now, I call a style of behaving, a behavior, or a behavior pattern, or a meta-behavior, or a behavioral design. What have you. So talk of selecting for behavior doesn't bother me. I am not quite sure what "selecting for testosterone" would mean. When it comes to evolution, behavior functions, physiology mediates. Nick Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology Clark University http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ -----Original Message----- From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Steven A Smith Sent: Wednesday, February 21, 2018 2:40 PM To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] the pseudoscience of evolutionary psychology? Glen - > OK. But I believe I merely asked the question: Why talk about these vague behaviors like "dress for sex", when we can talk about reasonably well-defined things like hormones and neurotransmitters? What explanatory power does evopsych have that, say, evolutionary neuroscience would not have? A question, yes, but "mere" I don't think so? > > One possible answer is that evopsych allows us to tap into folktales like Jungian archetypes, even if only so we can trick people into believing our rhetoric. while "rhetoric" is defined to be "persuasive", the goal might be to persuade others to consider a hypothesis long enough to investigate it further. On one end of the spectrum, your speculation is probably accurate, sometimes some people simply want to be "right" or "believed" (or may not care or know the difference?) but on the other, they may simply want to engage other's in a little broader speculation as part of expanding a search space? > That trickery is power of a kind, explanatory or not. Science popularizers walk that thin line all the time. But is there something *more*? Science Popularizers are a good (positive I think) example, but again, on the opposite end of the spectrum I think "guided speculation" has a value when combined/juxtaposed with more rigorous/formal methods for *validating* insights found during the wider ranging speculations? Where does intuition come from? It would seem to find a good launching pad on the foundation of good formalized, quantifiable work, but it also would seem to be fed well by more qualitative and perhaps even verging on "whimsical" considerations? > > Re: thread pollution -- > I don't think it's a big deal. The forum is asynchronous. Anyone can read or not read, reply or not reply, to any post at any time. It was easier, I'll admit, when the archives worked. I wasn't necessarily thinking of this as pollution (or any kind of problem)... but rather speciation... more on the exploration theme? It was a conjunction with my nod to Nick's original (early) appeal to those of us with higher bandwidths to somehow keep him in the loop as (even if?) we might explore (more) widely than he was seeking. ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove |
Re: the pseudoscience of evolutionary psychology?
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Nick, Is it possible that "behavioral patterns" is similar to what I called "dominant themes of motivation" when Glen suggested that I was over discretizing. Frank ---- Frank Wimberly www.amazon.com/author/ https://www.researchgate.net/ Phone <a href="tel:(505)%20670-9918" value="+15056709918" target="_blank">(505) 670-9918 On Feb 21, 2018 11:42 PM, "Nick Thompson" <[hidden email]> wrote: Glen and Steve, ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove |
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In reply to this post by Nick Thompson
But, again, testosterone obviously plays more roles in our behaviors than a behavior pattern of "tad more assertive". Do you mean animals with ZERO testosterone are the control and those with some tiny amount are a tad more assertive? Or do you mean the (fictitious) average person who takes an external dose of it becomes a tad more assertive than they otherwise would be? Your position is confusing. Testosterone is a ubiquitous part of a *complex* of structure and behavior. And it's the complex that is selected for or against. It seems to make perfect sense to suggest that "the complex of physiological processes of which testosterone is a part" has been selected. Formulating it into something testable would mean (in my naive view) checking for animals that don't use testosterone and finding where they relate, how they interact, if they compete, etc. Again, naively, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Testosterone#Other_animals might imply that testosterone is more competitive than androstenedione, 11-ketotestosterone, and ecdysone (whatever the hell those are). If it helps you, I'm happy to say "systems involving testosterone are more competitive than systems involving ...". Then again, maybe it doesn't imply that, at all. Maybe one could argue that each different male hormone is the most competitive in the niche we find it in. Fine. We'd have to explore the other (systems involving) other hormones that have gone extinct or are rare variants in those niches. But to claim some *vague* "behavior pattern" is a more clear topic in the context of natural selection seems strange to me. It seems like you're piling vague concepts on top of vague concepts ignoring huge swaths of available data. On 02/21/2018 10:41 PM, Nick Thompson wrote: > Let's imagine that (as I believe) that testosterone is an aggression hormone. It's effect on the nervous system is, other things being equal, to make a person a tad more assertive in all domains of action. Let it be the case that a little more assertiveness in all domains leads to reproductive success. The nature will be selecting not for the individual behaviors but for the "style" of behaving. Now, I call a style of behaving, a behavior, or a behavior pattern, or a meta-behavior, or a behavioral design. What have you. So talk of selecting for behavior doesn't bother me. I am not quite sure what "selecting for testosterone" would mean. When it comes to evolution, behavior functions, physiology mediates. -- ∄ uǝʃƃ ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
uǝʃƃ ⊥ glen
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Re: the pseudoscience of evolutionary psychology?
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In reply to this post by Frank Wimberly-2
Hi, Frank, To answer your question, the language is do dominating and the issues so complicated that I can’t say for sure. Again, I apologize for being unable to put the kind of time I should into this debate. But … …let’s talk about sneezing … Is sneezing caused by dust OR by the forceful expulsion of air through our nasal tracts? We would never ask such a question, right? If I sneeze on you and give you the flu, should I feel guilty? Or is a sneeze an “act of God”, in the legal sense? Am I responsible for my sneezes? Are all sneezes the same? Or are some sneezes more intentional than others? How would we tell? My guess is that if we talked about sneezing for a while, and the transferred our relatively lucid patterns of thought back onto Glen’s challenge, we would perhaps see a path to clear thought and agreement. Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology Clark University http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Frank Wimberly Nick, Is it possible that "behavioral patterns" is similar to what I called "dominant themes of motivation" when Glen suggested that I was over discretizing. Frank ---- On Feb 21, 2018 11:42 PM, "Nick Thompson" <[hidden email]> wrote:
============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove |
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Neither, obviously. The proximal cause of sneezing is a complex of neuro-muscular behaviors. That complex has an untold number of triggers, from bright lights and sound to tickling. Any competent analysis of such causation will focus on the *bottleneck*, which is the neuro-muscular complex, not the huge number of triggers. On 02/22/2018 09:22 AM, Nick Thompson wrote: > Is sneezing caused by dust OR by the forceful expulsion of air through our nasal tracts? We would never ask such a question, right? -- ☣ uǝlƃ ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
uǝʃƃ ⊥ glen
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Re: the pseudoscience of evolutionary psychology?
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Glen,
Can you give me a model of causality your happy with, or do you avoid causal talk, generally? N Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology Clark University http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ -----Original Message----- From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of u?l? ? Sent: Thursday, February 22, 2018 10:39 AM To: FriAM <[hidden email]> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] the pseudoscience of evolutionary psychology? Neither, obviously. The proximal cause of sneezing is a complex of neuro-muscular behaviors. That complex has an untold number of triggers, from bright lights and sound to tickling. Any competent analysis of such causation will focus on the *bottleneck*, which is the neuro-muscular complex, not the huge number of triggers. On 02/22/2018 09:22 AM, Nick Thompson wrote: > Is sneezing caused by dust OR by the forceful expulsion of air through > our nasal tracts? We would never ask such a question, right? -- ☣ uǝlƃ ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove |
Re: the pseudoscience of evolutionary psychology?
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In reply to this post by Nick Thompson
Nick -
Nice idiom there... the 747s bashing around in your head like blocks of text... (vice-versa)... in my own case, I am often most prolific here when I'm avoiding another project/deadline, but I understand your challenge. I feel mildly a failure to not be able to articulate (even recognize) what the fundamental abstraction is around the difference between selecting for behaviour vs something more material or more (presumably) quantifiable such as Testosterone levels. I am not sure if that is precisely the distinction Glen is making here, but the former seems "oh so more relevant" in spite of the latter being "possibly somewhat more measureable". I only invoked your name in the thread because you indicated you didn't want to be left behind (or run over) as we all scurried about on this thread as we are wont to do! - Steve On 2/21/18 11:41 PM, Nick Thompson wrote: > Glen and Steve, > > The reason that I am not answering is not that good points aren't being made, but that I am in the midst of a writing project and it's not going well, which means that I am carrying blocks of ill organized text around in my head like so many 747's just after the air traffic control system went down. If I stop to think about anything else, I am afraid they will all crash. > > I am inclined to share Steve's view that behavior is where the rubber meets the road, and so to agree that talk of the evolution of behavior makes sense. Let me risk one thought. Let's imagine that (as I believe) that testosterone is an aggression hormone. It's effect on the nervous system is, other things being equal, to make a person a tad more assertive in all domains of action. Let it be the case that a little more assertiveness in all domains leads to reproductive success. The nature will be selecting not for the individual behaviors but for the "style" of behaving. Now, I call a style of behaving, a behavior, or a behavior pattern, or a meta-behavior, or a behavioral design. What have you. So talk of selecting for behavior doesn't bother me. I am not quite sure what "selecting for testosterone" would mean. When it comes to evolution, behavior functions, physiology mediates. > > Nick > > Nicholas S. Thompson > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology > Clark University > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > > > -----Original Message----- > From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Steven A Smith > Sent: Wednesday, February 21, 2018 2:40 PM > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]> > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] the pseudoscience of evolutionary psychology? > > Glen - >> OK. But I believe I merely asked the question: Why talk about these vague behaviors like "dress for sex", when we can talk about reasonably well-defined things like hormones and neurotransmitters? What explanatory power does evopsych have that, say, evolutionary neuroscience would not have? > A question, yes, but "mere" I don't think so? >> One possible answer is that evopsych allows us to tap into folktales like Jungian archetypes, even if only so we can trick people into believing our rhetoric. > while "rhetoric" is defined to be "persuasive", the goal might be to persuade others to consider a hypothesis long enough to investigate it further. On one end of the spectrum, your speculation is probably accurate, sometimes some people simply want to be "right" or "believed" > (or may not care or know the difference?) but on the other, they may simply want to engage other's in a little broader speculation as part of expanding a search space? >> That trickery is power of a kind, explanatory or not. Science popularizers walk that thin line all the time. But is there something *more*? > Science Popularizers are a good (positive I think) example, but again, on the opposite end of the spectrum I think "guided speculation" has a value when combined/juxtaposed with more rigorous/formal methods for > *validating* insights found during the wider ranging speculations? Where does intuition come from? It would seem to find a good launching pad on the foundation of good formalized, quantifiable work, but it also would seem to be fed well by more qualitative and perhaps even verging on "whimsical" considerations? >> Re: thread pollution -- >> I don't think it's a big deal. The forum is asynchronous. Anyone can read or not read, reply or not reply, to any post at any time. It was easier, I'll admit, when the archives worked. > I wasn't necessarily thinking of this as pollution (or any kind of problem)... but rather speciation... more on the exploration theme? It was a conjunction with my nod to Nick's original (early) appeal to those of us with higher bandwidths to somehow keep him in the loop as (even if?) we might explore (more) widely than he was seeking. > > > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove > > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove |
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In reply to this post by Nick Thompson
Well, since you're talking about sneezing, and because sneezing is a physiological process, whatever model of cause we use will have to involve the physiological process. I'd claim that, if not identical, very close to the exact same physiological process occurs in the body when you sneeze because you have a cold vs. sneezing because you got some pepper up your nose. So, the model would have lots of possible input stimuli, go through a narrowing (bottleneck) at the set of physiological behaviors that "mediates" -- to use your word -- the sneeze, then the *effect* is high velocity/pressure air coming out your nose/mouth.
We have to talk that way because we have common interventions like antihistamines that don't really block the stimulus, they block part of the physiology. Or, if you prefer, I could refer to my method for blocking sneezes, which is to put pressure on the bridge of my nose, which seems to have something to do with blood flow. The stimulant is (presumably) still there. But the sneeze is blocked because I'm interfering with the physiology. On 02/22/2018 01:22 PM, Nick Thompson wrote: > Can you give me a model of causality your happy with, or do you avoid causal talk, generally? -- ☣ uǝlƃ ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
uǝʃƃ ⊥ glen
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In reply to this post by Steve Smith
That's not at all the distinction I'm making (never mind "precisely"). 8^) All 3 of us are talking about selecting for behavior. The difference is that I'm claiming "expressing and responding to testosterone" is a behavior.
On 02/22/2018 01:39 PM, Steven A Smith wrote: > I feel mildly a failure to not be able to articulate (even recognize) > what the fundamental abstraction is around the difference between > selecting for behaviour vs something more material or more (presumably) > quantifiable such as Testosterone levels. I am not sure if that is > precisely the distinction Glen is making here, but the former seems "oh > so more relevant" in spite of the latter being "possibly somewhat more > measureable". -- ☣ uǝlƃ ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
uǝʃƃ ⊥ glen
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Re: the pseudoscience of evolutionary psychology?
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Well, than that is exactly where we part company. You're talking about the behavior of the testes (and the adrenals); I am talking about the behavior of the individual organism. Gets fuzzy when we talk about bees.
Nick Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology Clark University http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ -----Original Message----- From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of u?l? ? Sent: Thursday, February 22, 2018 3:31 PM To: FriAM <[hidden email]> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] the pseudoscience of evolutionary psychology? That's not at all the distinction I'm making (never mind "precisely"). 8^) All 3 of us are talking about selecting for behavior. The difference is that I'm claiming "expressing and responding to testosterone" is a behavior. On 02/22/2018 01:39 PM, Steven A Smith wrote: > I feel mildly a failure to not be able to articulate (even recognize) > what the fundamental abstraction is around the difference between > selecting for behaviour vs something more material or more > (presumably) quantifiable such as Testosterone levels. I am not sure > if that is precisely the distinction Glen is making here, but the > former seems "oh so more relevant" in spite of the latter being > "possibly somewhat more measureable". -- ☣ uǝlƃ ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove |
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Hm. To be clear, I'm not only talking about the testes and adrenals. I'm talking about the parts of the system that are modulated by testosterone as well ... which, given that testosterone partly determines our gender-associated traits, seems like a "behavior of the individual organism". So, you're position still seems muddled and vague. If there's no clear line between "behavior of the individual organism" and "behavior of a significant part of the organism", then what *IS* the subject of evopsych? Really?
On 02/22/2018 03:07 PM, Nick Thompson wrote: > Well, than that is exactly where we part company. You're talking about the behavior of the testes (and the adrenals); I am talking about the behavior of the individual organism. Gets fuzzy when we talk about bees. -- ☣ uǝlƃ ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
uǝʃƃ ⊥ glen
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Re: the pseudoscience of evolutionary psychology?
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Well, that was the point of my bee comment. We start in the middle somewhere and work out from there. There is no absolute boundary of the organism. But as boundaries go, it's a pretty good one, and so we start there. Once started, we don't switch without a good reason.
Did you ever answer my question about how you understand "causality"? So, let's say I give you a pill and you get happy. At the behavioral level, I would say that the pill caused the happiness. At the physiological level, I would say that the chemical in the pill slowed the uptake of serotonin. Then I might say that the slowing of the uptake of serotonin mediated your improvement of mood. I am not sure I would say it caused it because CAUSES by my definition have to occur BEFORE the events they cause and the up-take slowing and the mood-improving are going on simultaneously. Nick Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology Clark University http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ -----Original Message----- From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of u?l? ? Sent: Thursday, February 22, 2018 4:24 PM To: FriAM <[hidden email]> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] the pseudoscience of evolutionary psychology? Hm. To be clear, I'm not only talking about the testes and adrenals. I'm talking about the parts of the system that are modulated by testosterone as well ... which, given that testosterone partly determines our gender-associated traits, seems like a "behavior of the individual organism". So, you're position still seems muddled and vague. If there's no clear line between "behavior of the individual organism" and "behavior of a significant part of the organism", then what *IS* the subject of evopsych? Really? On 02/22/2018 03:07 PM, Nick Thompson wrote: > Well, than that is exactly where we part company. You're talking about the behavior of the testes (and the adrenals); I am talking about the behavior of the individual organism. Gets fuzzy when we talk about bees. -- ☣ uǝlƃ ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove |
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OK. It's good to have you respond directly to the physiology stuff. Thanks.
Yes, I tried to respond to your causal model question. My response is basically that any causal analysis should target the parts on the "critical path" ... the bottlenecks ... the "rate limiters" ... whatever your language. In your example below, if happiness can be caused not only by the pill, but by thousands of other things, yet the physiological process is common to it all, then *that's* the important part, not whatever of the thousands of stimuli that might have stimulated it. And, yes, I admit that causality is often thought of in terms of time. But having struggled with parallelism and redundancy in my own thinking, time isn't what determines cause. The determinant is the limited resource ... the bottleneck. In biomedicine, it's the target of intervention. Even if you think that's a perversion of the word "cause", you should still be able to grok my point. On 02/22/2018 04:58 PM, Nick Thompson wrote: > Well, that was the point of my bee comment. We start in the middle somewhere and work out from there. There is no absolute boundary of the organism. But as boundaries go, it's a pretty good one, and so we start there. Once started, we don't switch without a good reason. > > Did you ever answer my question about how you understand "causality"? So, let's say I give you a pill and you get happy. At the behavioral level, I would say that the pill caused the happiness. At the physiological level, I would say that the chemical in the pill slowed the uptake of serotonin. Then I might say that the slowing of the uptake of serotonin mediated your improvement of mood. I am not sure I would say it caused it because CAUSES by my definition have to occur BEFORE the events they cause and the up-take slowing and the mood-improving are going on simultaneously. -- ☣ uǝlƃ ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
uǝʃƃ ⊥ glen
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Re: the pseudoscience of evolutionary psychology?
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Glen, So we are going to have to look out for our notions of causality as sources of confusion in the future because my notion of cause is: An C is a cause of an effect, E, if, and only if C and E are classes of events, and Class C events occur before and contiguously (for Immediate causes) to Class E events, and The occurrence of Class C events is statistically associated with an increase in the relative frequency of the occurrence of Class E events. Some consequences of this formulation are: 1. Simultaneous events (such as amygdala excitation and anger) canNOT be causes of one another. 2. The notion of cause and effect as we deploy it in ordinary language is a category error. No single event can ever said to be either a cause or an effect of another single event. 3. The very notion of causality as applied to ANY historical science – history, evolution, history of the universe, etc., is placed in question. I don’t know where that argument comes out. I would like to be able to say things like , “The physical and behavioral dimorphisms observed in the human species are to some degree the result of differential selection upon the two sexes,” but I am not sure how I can. Nick Nick Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology Clark University http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ -----Original Message----- OK. It's good to have you respond directly to the physiology stuff. Thanks. Yes, I tried to respond to your causal model question. My response is basically that any causal analysis should target the parts on the "critical path" ... the bottlenecks ... the "rate limiters" ... whatever your language. In your example below, if happiness can be caused not only by the pill, but by thousands of other things, yet the physiological process is common to it all, then *that's* the important part, not whatever of the thousands of stimuli that might have stimulated it. And, yes, I admit that causality is often thought of in terms of time. But having struggled with parallelism and redundancy in my own thinking, time isn't what determines cause. The determinant is the limited resource ... the bottleneck. In biomedicine, it's the target of intervention. Even if you think that's a perversion of the word "cause", you should still be able to grok my point. On 02/22/2018 04:58 PM, Nick Thompson wrote: > Well, that was the point of my bee comment. We start in the middle somewhere and work out from there. There is no absolute boundary of the organism. But as boundaries go, it's a pretty good one, and so we start there. Once started, we don't switch without a good reason. > > Did you ever answer my question about how you understand "causality"? So, let's say I give you a pill and you get happy. At the behavioral level, I would say that the pill caused the happiness. At the physiological level, I would say that the chemical in the pill slowed the uptake of serotonin. Then I might say that the slowing of the uptake of serotonin mediated your improvement of mood. I am not sure I would say it caused it because CAUSES by my definition have to occur BEFORE the events they cause and the up-take slowing and the mood-improving are going on simultaneously. -- ☣ uǝlƃ ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove |
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OK. So if you're not sure how to make a case *like* the one Peterson makes, and I'm allowed to call you an evolutionary psychologist, then I can say, at least, Peterson's argument is unjustified. ... or at least not well enough justified, even in the domain in which he works.
Combined with finer grained arguments like those presented by Dave, it leaves Peterson's case pretty weak, albeit not as weak as I thought. On February 22, 2018 8:56:38 PM PST, Nick Thompson <[hidden email]> wrote: >Some consequences of this formulation are: > > > >1. Simultaneous events (such as amygdala excitation and anger) >canNOT be causes of one another. > >2. The notion of cause and effect as we deploy it in ordinary >language is a category error. No single event can ever said to be >either a cause or an effect of another single event. > >3. The very notion of causality as applied to ANY historical >science – history, evolution, history of the universe, etc., is placed >in question. I don’t know where that argument comes out. I would >like to be able to say things like , “The physical and behavioral >dimorphisms observed in the human species are to some degree the result >of differential selection upon the two sexes,” but I am not sure how I >can. glen ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
uǝʃƃ ⊥ glen
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Re: the pseudoscience of evolutionary psychology?
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Glen,
I think one is an evolutionary psychologist if and only if one thinks that knowledge of human evolutionary history has something to contribute to our understanding of contemporary human behavior. So, yes, you may call me an evolutionary psychologist. My guess is that, on that definition, so are you. If I am correct about all of that, the rest is details. Very important and interesting details, mind you, but details, all the same. And, yes, I do keep ducking your specific references to Petersen. Which is to say, I guess, that I am stipulating that there is a lot of stupid evolutionary psychology out there. My interest is in answering the question, When is it NOT stupid. After all, we are talking about a field which claims to explain things that happen today in terms of things that happened 150 THOUSAND years ago. On their face, such claims would seem tenuous, particularly if we take them as CAUSAL claims. And what other kind of claims to increased understanding are there? Nick Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology Clark University http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ -----Original Message----- From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of glen Sent: Friday, February 23, 2018 7:28 AM To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] the pseudoscience of evolutionary psychology? OK. So if you're not sure how to make a case *like* the one Peterson makes, and I'm allowed to call you an evolutionary psychologist, then I can say, at least, Peterson's argument is unjustified. ... or at least not well enough justified, even in the domain in which he works. Combined with finer grained arguments like those presented by Dave, it leaves Peterson's case pretty weak, albeit not as weak as I thought. On February 22, 2018 8:56:38 PM PST, Nick Thompson <[hidden email]> wrote: >Some consequences of this formulation are: > > > >1. Simultaneous events (such as amygdala excitation and anger) >canNOT be causes of one another. > >2. The notion of cause and effect as we deploy it in ordinary >language is a category error. No single event can ever said to be >either a cause or an effect of another single event. > >3. The very notion of causality as applied to ANY historical >science – history, evolution, history of the universe, etc., is placed >in question. I don’t know where that argument comes out. I would >like to be able to say things like , “The physical and behavioral >dimorphisms observed in the human species are to some degree the result >of differential selection upon the two sexes,” but I am not sure how I >can. glen ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove |
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