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A friend’s Google alert for evolutionary psychology …

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As follows:

Ooga Ooga! Men Overspend to Attract MatesLiveScience.com – New York,NY,USAThe finding, detailed in the current issue of the journal Evolutionary Psychology, did not hold with women. Vying for women is simply what men do and have …See all stories on this topic

Study: Men’s overspending hard-wired from caveman days CreditCards.com – Austin,TX,USA… “Male Financial Consumption is Associated with Higher Mating Intentions and Mating Success,” printed in the journal Evolutionary Psychology. …See all stories on this topic

A Resilient Suburbia 4: Accounting for the Value of Decentralization The Oil Drum – USABoth evolutionary psychology and modern commerce suggest that cities may actually be counter-productive in these functions. Dunbar’s number, for example, …See all stories on this topic

Status, sex prime for aggressionMinnesota Daily – Minneapolis,MN,USA… deny the senselessness of such violence, but recent University of Minnesota research indicates that such behavior could indeed make evolutionary sense. …See all stories on this topic

Feeling lonely? Genes might be at fault CNN – USA… University who runs the psychology department’s Self, Emotion and Behavior Lab. Part of the explanation for loneliness is evolutionary, experts say. …See all stories on this topic

Gifts often wrapped in self-interest Canada.com – Don Mills,Ontario,CanadaHarvard psychology professor Ellen J. Langer reports that giving gifts “typically makes us feel competent, empowered and engaged,” allowing us to feel like …See all stories on this topic

Daily Digest: Legal doping; aggresive behavior and status Minnesota Daily – Minneapolis,MN,USA… and Social Psychology. It says that fighting for status is similar to fighting ofr survival of their genes and not doing so can be evolutionary suicide. …See all stories on this topic

Nietzsche and MoralityPhilosophy Now (subscription) – London,UK Nietzsche’s The Genealogy of Morals is an exercise in ‘animal psychology’, studying (in Nietzsche’s own words) “the physiology and evolutionary history of …See all stories on this topic

Ooga ooga …

I keep having to remind myself that some people think this is science.

I remember science in Grades Eleven and Twelve. It was about measuring things accurately, estimating according to fixed rules, and – above all – understanding how the laws of physics and the periodic table worked. If I were a Darwinist trying to make some order in my life and career, I would begin by banishing “evolutionary psychology” from any pretense whatever to be a science. I do not know what they can lose, but I can sure see what they would gain.

Hmmmm. Maybe it’s just as well for me that they will never actually do it!

Comments
Hello folks.I`m just a nubee at anything to do with computers and the level of debating as this site entices.I won`t say that evolutionary psychology is a science but it an art.When a degreed professional illusionalizes ignorance of human growth as a fault in the genes of transformation from the act of dying to the act of being given back the opportunity to live if one only knew its process,it has to be an art and not a science,doesn`t it?Predicting what is to happen for individuals and/or society is or atleast has been a closet astrological,high percentage of accuracy and still is by those who do know making it an art in itself just to keep alive from the wolves who use slander,poisonous chemicals,crude electrical and brain washing reverse thinking techniques as a science accomplishment.Do we remember to forget or do we forget to remember who we as a society are supposed to be trying to become?From being a child to becoming a child again,could it be said that one cycle gets to be completed? Just want to pose a thinker::From that stage,will the wheel turn or will the pendulum start returning to its point of no momentum again in another direction? If being alive notices actions of social and economic backwardness,what kind of a picture does an artist have to paint for science as a blueprint for thought direction? If science has difficulty understanding that a compass needle is propelled at its magnetic point and not attracted,I really wonder which direction they will point their needle of medicine and know whether to inject or withdraw and how much enough will be to balance conscience.Dr. Time
January 8, 2009
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O’Leary 2, Good question. The biologists routinely produce excellent science, so why not heave goofy socio-biologists and evolutionary psychologists overboard? I mean they’re an embarrassment. You signaled the answer as you referenced tenure, i.e., fully universalized incentives and penalties, All now strive in the one available matrix, source of all grants; ergo whosoever shilleth for the matrix is acceptable. Consider examples from another realm: social advocacy. Even when representing diametric agendas, advocates happily coexist in the same office. If mere acolytes, they may even share the same phone or desk. Typical contradictory agendas: For the elderly Against the “gerontocracy” For corn ethanol Against excessive fertilizer use For illegal immigrants Against “harmful” population increase The matrix resolves all contradictions. All activists are Good Activists if only they support the “advocate class” and unite around their party, that each may continue to bask in nutrients expelled from bloated foundations and government agencies. Conversely, they galvanize against Warming skeptics, ID-ers, any opponent of official matrix dogma (itself a slough of contradictions). Darwinism began as a Rebel. It is now a bureaucratic monopoly. Mutual affirmation is required. Resistance is futile.pmob1
January 4, 2009
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russ, you hit it, it's all made up as they go along. Observation leads to caveman narrative, no matter what the result. We see men treating women nicely. That behavior must have evolved because of selective advantage. We also see that men commit rape. This must have evolved as well because it confers a selective advantage. The only challenge in this field of "science" is coming up with a coherent narrative based around "we observe X, so X must confer a evolutionary advantage".angryoldfatman
January 4, 2009
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Do evolutionary biologists/ psychologists have a problem with evolutionary explanations that prove both a thing and its opposite? For instance, you can make up a story and do a study to show that both fidelity to a mate and promiscuity are evolutionary adaptions. You can also show that heterosexual, homosexual and bisexual behavior all confer survival and reproductive advantages. So, evolution can't be disproved by any observable facts, because an evolutionary explanation can be devised to explain all possible events. Is this acknowledged? Do they care?russ
January 3, 2009
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I mean "evolutionary house is BUILT on sand". You know. Like in the parable.russ
January 3, 2009
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[blockquote]The research found the strongest correlation between males who stressed consumption over saving, and sexual activity, past and anticipated. In short, men who sport big bling have an evolutionary advantage over the guy who makes regular 401(k) contributions and drives a Toyota Prius.[/blockquote] Or, the opposite is true. Cavemen who devoured all their food instead of storing some away for the winter, starved. And the same spendthrift caveguys who boinked their next door-cave-neighbors' wives were bludgeoned to death at an early age when the 401k-saving husbands found out. If this is the stuff that "mountains of overwhelming evidence" is made up of, then I would say the evolutionary house is made of sand. If not, then Denyse is right that they better start disowning this stuff more enthusiastically.russ
January 3, 2009
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The part I don't understand, pmob1, and I still await a really good explanation for this, is why the evolutionary biologists don't just disown evolutionary psychology. First, it's completely ridiculous, and therefore an easy target. Second, they don't need to defend it because it isn't in any sense a science. Hey, make up an ooga! ooga! cave man story and you're in business .... Too bad the theorists don't get royalties, like Jean Auel (Clan of the Cave Bear author, officially classed as a fiction writer). But maybe they get tenure instead, and that pays better in the long run? Is that what is really behind it?O'Leary
January 3, 2009
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Evolutionary biologists are hardwired for tautology. Minnesota Daily reporters are hardwired for gullibility. Big-time college sports cause violent sex crimes.pmob1
January 3, 2009
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