Evolutionary psychology: The scam getting nailed at last?

_{Denyse O'Leary

December 24, 2008

Intelligent Design}

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Can this really be happening? Or am I going to wake up from some Nutcracker Suite fantasy tomorrow morning to discover that the cat is violently sick, due to a regrettable attempt to eat the Christmas flower arrangement?

Get this: In Scientific American (December 19. 2008), a load of evolutionary psychology rubbish gets nailed. In Evolution of the Mind: 4 Fallacies of Psychology, David J. Buller notes, “Some evolutionary psychologists have made widely popularized claims about how the human mind evolved, but other scholars argue that the grand claims lack solid evidence”.

Well, that is an appropriately scientifically modest way of putting it. And my best guess is that David Buller will not lose his position at Northern Illinois University over his effort to enforce some distinction between science and science fiction. Long overdue, of course.

Read the article here, and especially enjoy the fact that Scientific American will not likely be put under huge pressure to disown it. The Age of Nonsense about the Mind may be ending, and none too soon.

Thee are lots of serious questions to address, like how to fight off the debilitating effects of late life brain diseases. Foolish stories about cave men won’t help. Few cave men lived to an age where late life diseases even become an issue.

Comments

Khan: "using a non-Darwinian model to show that Darwinian processes can not work is a non-starter." But the problem is not what is darwinian and what is not. The problem is what is a realistic model and what is unwarranted assumption. The purpose of Behe and Snoke's paper was obviously to show that even a very small transition of two aminoacids can be a real challenge to evolution when the first mutation has negative effects on function. Lynch's answer is that things are a little better if the first mutation is neutral. I suppose that things are still better if the first mutation is favorable and is positively selected. I bow to Lynch's wisdom. And by the way, he employs a lot of complex population genetics and mathematics to show that! I can only support Paul's conclusion: "But given that most protein-protein binding sites require multiple residues to match on both sides, it seems that Behe and Snokes actually underestimate the average difficulty of creating a new protein interaction". And not only we need new protein interactions, but new significant protein interactions, and, in case we forget, new proteins! (see my post #24). In other words, Behe and Snoke's paper shows that, unless darwinian theory can show that all transitions from one protein to another one are deconstructible in simple steps where single aminoacid substitutions are at least neutral, and double aminoacid substitutions are favorable and selectable, it will face bigger difficulties than those shown in their article. Is that point relevant to darwinian model? You bet! Has darwinian model ever even tried to demonstrate that those assumptions are at least reasonable? No, it hasn't. Why? Because it is frankly impossible, as should be obvious to anybody. Well, if that is your best example of ID being "nailed", I believe we can relax a little... By the way, Paul, thank you for your wonderful review of the paper. Your work is practically perfect, as usual.gpuccio_{December 26, 2008
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Paul, Many of your points can be dealt with by pointing out that this paper is a specific response to Behe and Snoke's paper. thus, "It’s almost like it is a crime to suggest that some biochemical pathways might be non-Darwinian. Furthermore, we are not allowed to consider difficult cases" Since the Behe-Snoke paper claims to address Darwinian processes, they should have included Darwinian processes in their model. a non-Darwinian model can not test Darwinian hypotheses. agreed? as Lynch mentions, non-Darwinian processes are considered all the time in evolutionary theory- drift, biochemical constraints, genetic linkage to adaptive traits, symbiosis, etc. are all evolutionary processes that Darwin could not have conceived of, but are standard material in the evolutionary literature. so it is hardly a crime to consider them. but using a non-Darwinian model to show that Darwinian processes can not work is a non-starter.Khan_{December 26, 2008
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tragicmishap @ 17
Seversky: The reason we believe in historical events is because the people who lived in that time found a way to record them for posterity and we believe their testimony. It has nothing to do with reason by induction. We take the people who lived during that time at their word, which is exactly the argument Lewis is making in this essay.
Granted we use personal testimony as evidence of past events but are we limited to it? As I see it, there are two problems with personal testimony. The first is that we have experimental evidence that eyewitness accounts are unreliable. The second is that human beings have only been writing down their accounts for a few thousand years. That leaves an awful lot of history where we have to look for other types of data from which we can infer tentative explanations of what might have happened. That is why the Sherlock Homes quote seemed apposite. His emphasis on observation and deduction - as well as giving due consideration to the testimony of witnesses, which he does - is a model for how we should approach any investigation of the past.Seversky_{December 26, 2008
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I missed correcting an error: The sentence that begins with "Snoke then develops a model" should read, "Lynch accepts a basic model adopted by Behe and Snoke".Paul Giem_{December 26, 2008
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Khan, Since you (#22) recommended that we read Michael Lynch's article in Protein Science, "Simple evolutionary pathways to complex proteins", I decided to review it carefully. First, the claim of the abstract is that
Numerous simple pathways exist by which adaptive multi-residue functions can evolve on time scales of a million years (or much less) in populations of only moderate size. Thus, the classical evolutionary trajectory of descent with modification is adequate to explain the diversification of protein functions.
So I would expect the article to give supporting evidence for that assertion. Almost immediately one sees an egregious error. The claim is made that
Although an alternative mechanism for protein evolution was not provided, the authors are leading proponents of the idea that some sort of external force, unknown to today’s scientists, is necessary to explain the complexities of the natural world [Darwin's Black Box is referenced].
Intelligent design is unknown to today's scientists? What does this guy think was the cause of insulin-producing yeast? Or the organisms that produce t-PA, or rice with the ability to produce Vitamin A, or any number of other genetically modified organisms? This is either stupidity (that was approved by peers), or deliberate blindness. One can, if one wants, claim that no intelligence existed before or during the time that the fossil record was being laid down, but that is a different kind of claim. The paper then claims that "a fundamental flaw" in the argument of Behe and Snoke is that
Contrary to the principles espoused by Darwin, that is, that evolution generally proceeds via functional intermediate states, Behe and Snoke consider a situation in which the intermediate steps to a new protein are neutral and involve nonfunctional products.
It's almost like it is a crime to suggest that some biochemical pathways might be non-Darwinian. Furthermore, we are not allowed to consider difficult cases:
Moreover, given that the authors restricted their attention to one of the most difficult pathways to an adaptive product imaginable, it comes as no surprise that their efforts did not bear much fruit.
Instead, presumably we can only concentrate on the successes of Darwinism. What a way to stack the deck! Snoke then develops a model requiring two amino acid residue changes (one example would be a disulfide bond between two cysteines). This is assumed to be happening on a duplicated gene, so that the original gene can go on functioning. Lynch makes changes in the model considered by Behe and Snoke. One, starting with a single member of a population with a duplicate gene, should make Lynch's model less effective at creating new functions than that of Behe and Snoke. Another, assuming that the first mutation does not inactivate the old enzyme, makes Lynch's model much more effective. Lynch then goes on to say,
It is difficult to pinpoint the source of the difference between the results of Behe and Snoke and those contained herein
You use a different model, and get different results! Simply amazing! Who'd a thunk it? The real argument is whether the one model or the other fits a specific needed two-amino-acid change. There, Lynch's paper is quite weak. The best he can do is to argue that many single amino acid substitutions are neutral for the functioning of a specific protein. Sure, but all of them? Even if only 1% of the protein-protein interactions fit the Behe-Snoke model, that would still be a huge absolute number of protein-protein interactions and a huge problem for unguided evolution. Complaining that the pathway is non-Darwinian is just that, complaining. Who says that biology has to be Darwinian? Behe and Stokes may have been even more generous than necessary. As Lynch says,
An additional logical problem implicit in the Behe-Snoke model is how an organism producing 50% functional and 50% nonfunctional protein would avoid a reduction in fitness.
The point is, the Behe-Stokes model may be an overly optimistic estimate when one mutation will inactivate a protein and it will take two such mutations to allow a new function, for the reason Lynch gave. I had to chuckle upon reading this:
That is, the upper limit to N is probably higher than the 10^9 used in this study. [exponential modified]
I'd have to agree for E. coli, but for humans?, I mean really. Even for chimps and gorillas, I doubt that populations greater than 1 million have existed for most of history, and for that matter, most of prehistory. It has only been in the very recent past that the human population has crossed 1 billion. The final sentence is rich:
Thus, it is clear that conventional population-genetic principles embedded within a Darwinian framework of descent with modification are fully adequate to explain the origin of complex protein functions.
This comes as close to fact-free science as one can get. There is no attempt to connect any specific function containing two amino acids to his model rather than that of Behe and Snokes. One could fault Behe and Snokes for also not specifically connecting their model to a particular protein active site (for example, a binding site). But given that most protein-protein binding sites require multiple residues to match on both sides, it seems that Behe and Snokes actually underestimate the average difficulty of creating a new protein interaction. These comments were written before looking at the critique of Behe and Snokes. Their points are also valid (and some of them match mine). You call that nailing ID?Paul Giem_{December 26, 2008
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gpuccio, what exactly do you mean that their response was "clear enough"? do you think their paper has any relevance to evolutionary theory? Jerry asked for any examples of ID being "nailed" in the literature. I thought that was a pretty clear example. Behe and SNoke's model has so many incorrect assumptions that it is irrelevant to evolutionary theory- for example, although they claim to be critiquing classical Darwinian models of evolution, they do not use Darwinian processes (selection on slightly beneficial mutations accumulating over time) in the model. I hope to hear a response from Jerry. does this, a clear refutation of a peer-reviewed paper by one of the leading figures in ID, count as ID being "nailed"?Khan_{December 26, 2008
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Khan: I think Behe's answer is clear enough. And I would remind that all that discussion is about models implying a two-residue adaptation! I have recently read in a darwinist site an unilateral critic by someone to my affirmations about uniform distribution in the search space of proteins. This unilateral critic, of whom I was naturally not aware until by chance I read his post following, for other reasons, a link from here, argued that I was wrong in assuming an uniform, or quasi uniform, distribution, because an evolutionary search does not work that way, but works with what already exists, and the sequences near an existing functional protein are extremely likely, while most other sequences have amost zero probability to occur. That argument really susprised me, because it is so true that it is almost trivial. I think we may happily agree that, if we start mutating an existing protein, it is easier to obtain another functional protein which differs only by two aminoacids (see above models) than one which is completely different. Does that make sense? It certainly makes sense, even if, as shown above, even two aminoacids can be quite a challenge. Let's remember that the same Behe, later, in his TEOE, has put at two aminoacids the apparent limit for a random evolutionary step, and that only in very fast replicating beings. But that's another story... Our story here is instead about what does not make sense at all. What does not make sense is that the proteins we observe in nature are very different one from the other. Sometimes completely different. So, according to my darwinist critic, how did they arise through evolutionary searches which "work with what is already there"? I assume a quasi uniform distribution for the search space for two important reasons: 1) It is perfectly reasonable from what we know of random genetic mutations. 2) The proteins we do know (and we know a lot of them) are really interspersed in the search space, in myriads of different and distant "islands" of functionality. You don't have to take my word for that. It's not an abstract and mathematical argument. We know protein sequences. Just look at them. Go, for example, to the SCOP site, and just look at the hyerarchical classification o protein structures: classes (7), folds (1086), superfamilies (1777), families (3464). Then, spend a little time, as I have done, taking a couple of random different proteins from two different classes, or even from the same superfamily, and go to the BLAST site and try to blast them one against the other, and see how much "similarity" you find: you will probably find none. And if you BLAST a single protein against all those known, you will probably find similarities only with proteins of the same kind, if not with the same protein in different species. Sometimes, partial similarities are due to common doamins for common functions, but even that leaves anyway enormous differences in term of aminoacid sequence. So, I appreciate the discussion about possible microevolutionary mutations of two aminoacids, but please, let's remember that we have thousands and thousands of known different functional proteins. That's what we need to explain, not just one existing protein acquiring a single disulfide bond between two cysteines. In other words, the problem is to explain the whole biological information (let's call it macroevolution, although I don't like the term very much), and not to defend a small (and very dangerous, anyway) frontier of how an existing function could in theory be slightly modeled by minimal microevolutionary changes of one or two aminoacids in fast replicating organisms.gpuccio_{December 26, 2008
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-----"If Chesterton’s doubts were well-founded then the forensic science of detection would be impossible and Sherlock Holmes would be just one more cocaine addict." I don't think that the conclusion follows from the premise. Chesterton was simply saying that there is a limit to how much we can know about the past. He didn't say we can know nothing. If anyone was extravagant it was Doyle in his capacity to believe in almost anything except God. I suspect that he was offended by Chesterton's apt quote: "If a man will not believe in God, the danger is not that he will believe in nothing, but that he will believe in anything." Clearly, Doyle fell into that camp, and I suspect that his comments reflected a reaction against that inconvenient truth.StephenB_{December 26, 2008
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Jerry, Here's one, responding to Behe's Protein Science paper: http://www.proteinscience.org/cgi/content/abstract/14/9/2217 Behe responded to it: http://www.proteinscience.org/cgi/content/full/14/9/2226Khan_{December 26, 2008
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Noted Scholar, I suggest you summarize the articles that have nailed ID so we can debate the substance of them or to use a religious expression, "speak now or forever hold your peace."jerry_{December 26, 2008
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"whereas I doubt that you would admit that ID has been repeatedly nailed by all kinds of similar publications. So the distinction is: Something you happen not to like was “nailed.”" When has ID ever been "nailed?" All I have seen is distortions of ID and conflation of it with creationism. I have never seen an honest article about ID anywhere in the scientific press, so "nailed", I doubt it.jerry_{December 26, 2008
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If Chesterton’s doubts were well-founded then the forensic science of detection would be impossible and Sherlock Holmes would be just one more cocaine addict. Heaven forbid it should turn out that Holmes was just fictional character or something :-)tribune7_{December 26, 2008
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Seversky: Your approach is balanced enough, and I do believe that truth is someway in the middle, somewhere between Doyle and Chesterton (or, if we want, Lewis). As we cannot look for complete truth in scientific theories, so we should not hope to find it in literary authors (who are, however, much more fun than scientific theories). Although I have really loved Holmes and felt amazed at his deductions, I have always known that they were mostly artificial, and that if I had really tried to deduct in advance who was coming next through the door, I would have failed miserably. And I have spent some very good time with Father Brown, always aware that those fascinating metaphors about good and evil were sometimes a little too bold and self-conscious. Regarding History, I certainly believe that there was a Battle of Gettysburg, and in my most optimistic moments I am also convinced that there was a great flowering of culture in classical Greece (although ancient Egypt already starts giving me real trouble...), but I don't share the faith and assurance which most people seem to have that we really know much about those things, or that what we know is reliable. I often think that, as it is really so difficult to agree about what really happened last year, the only reason we feel that we understand ancient History is because, thanks probably to God's grace, we know too little about it. The same is probably true about biology, and scientific knowledge in general. Up to now, we really knew too little. But now we are starting to understand "a little bit more". And, as another author I very much love has written, a little knowledge is a very dangerous thing.gpuccio_{December 25, 2008
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Seversky: The reason we believe in historical events is because the people who lived in that time found a way to record them for posterity and we believe their testimony. It has nothing to do with reason by induction. We take the people who lived during that time at their word, which is exactly the argument Lewis is making in this essay.tragicmishap_{December 25, 2008
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(Off-topic) I started reading another essay in that book called "Modern Theology and Biblical Criticism" and ran across this tidbit: "Now let us suppose that the first hypothesis has a probability of 90 percent. Let us assume that the second hypothesis also has a probability of 90 percent. But the two together don't still have 90 per cent.[sic], for the second comes in only on the assumption of the first. You have not A plus B; you have a complex AB. And the mathematicians tell me that AB has only an 81 per cent. probability. I'm not good enough at arithmetic to work it out, but you see that if, in a complex reconstruction, you go on thus superinducing hypothesis on hypothesis, you will in the end get a complex in which, though each hypothesis by itself has in a sense a high probability, the whole has almost none."tragicmishap_{December 25, 2008
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That is from an essay called "The Funeral of a Great Myth" from the collection "Christian Reflections".tragicmishap_{December 25, 2008
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"Foolish stories about cave men won’t help. Few cave men lived to an age where late life diseases even become an issue." ROFL! Oh really? LOL! That's just...wow. Denyse I really think you should read something else for awhile and clear your head. Clive I will join you with the quoting. "It was all (on a certain level) nonsense: but a man would be a dull dog if he could not feel the thrill and charm of it. For my own part, though I believe it no longer, I shall always enjoy it as I enjoy other myths. I shall keep my Cave-Man where I keep Balder and Helen and the Argonauts: and there often re-visit him." -C.S. Lewistragicmishap_{December 25, 2008
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In answer to the quote from Chesterton, consider this from Arthur Conan Doyle: "Sherlock Holmes closed his eyes and placed his elbows upon the arms of his chair, with his finger-tips together. "The ideal reasoner," he remarked, "would, when he had once been shown a single fact in all its bearings, deduce from it not only all the chain of events which led up to it but also all the results which would follow from it. As Cuvier could correctly describe a whole animal by the contemplation of a single bone, so the observer who has thoroughly understood one link in a series of incidents should be able to accurately state all the other ones, both before and after. We have not yet grasped the results which the reason alone can attain to. Problems may be solved in the study which have baffled all those who have sought a solution by the aid of their senses. To carry the art, however, to its highest pitch, it is necessary that the reasoner should be able to utilize all the facts which have come to his knowledge; and this in itself implies, as you will readily see, a possession of all knowledge, which, even in these days of free education and encyclopaedias, is a somewhat rare accomplishment. It is not so impossible, however, that a man should possess all knowledge which is likely to be useful to him in his work, and this I have endeavored in my case to do." Sherlock Holmes, in "The Five Orange Pips" If Chesterton's doubts were well-founded then the forensic science of detection would be impossible and Sherlock Holmes would be just one more cocaine addict. More than that, whole fields of research which investigate events far distant in space and time would be so unreliable as to be worthless. But is such pessimism justified? How many here doubt that there was a First World War or a Battle of Gettysburg during the Civil War or a Battle of Yorktown during the War of Independence or Christian crusades to the Holy Land or a Roman Empire or a great flowering of culture in classical Greece or a great civilization in ancient Egypt and so on? But how many here witnessed any of those events in person? How far back in time does an event have to be before we decide it did not happen? We now know that we live on a small, rocky planet orbiting an unremarkable yellow star which is just one of a congregation of billions of such bodies that comprise our galaxy which, in turn, is one of billions of galaxies strung out through space as far as the telescope can see. Or is that all worthless speculation and are all the stars just lights embedded in a crystal sphere? While there is debate about how far pure reason can carry us toward a complete explanation of the world, is there any doubt that inference from slender and fragmentary data has shed light on events far distant in space and time? There is nothing wrong with speculation, be it about the nature of God or an intelligent designer or the origins of the Universe or how the mind evolved. The scientist's favorite philosopher, Karl Popper, urged them to be bold in their conjectures. All we need to remember is that we should not place the same confidence in unverifiable speculation or unverified hypotheses as we do in explanations that have withstood repeated and extended testing.Seversky_{December 25, 2008
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Merry Christmas to everyone here as well! You guys are all awesome!Domoman_{December 25, 2008
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Thank you bb. Merry Christmas to all, especially the lurkers, for whom this blog mainly exists.Barry Arrington_{December 25, 2008
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Off topic....Merry Christmas to everyone here at UD. Thanks for all you do. I daily look forward to your blog posts.bb_{December 25, 2008
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And will you ripple your brawny muscles at Kant as well, Noted Scholar, when he says that the study of origins lies outside the realm of science because origins cannot be observed? Would it be too much to ask you to descend from Olympus and demonstrate to us benighted souls at UD that you understand the historical conflict between theory and empirical science? Is evolutionary psychology science or theory? Does it actually demonstrate any tangible knowledge of nature—for as you know, “science” means knowledge—or is it pure speculation? You want us to call it a “soft” science. Is this because you are soft-hearted, a kindly professor with twinkling eyes, exhibiting a magisterial tolerance of all manner of academic tomfoolery, with the exception of intelligent design? Or are there darker forces at work in your magnanimity?allanius_{December 25, 2008
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Clive: Thank you again for the new Chesterton quote. I was just thinking, what would Chesternon have thought of OOL theories? I really would like to apply that back-yard concept to the primordial soup of the RNA world... notedscholar: I understand you are a scholar, and a noted one, but aren't you a little too unsmiling? Denyse has written many times, and with reason and passion, about the evident abuses of evolutionary psychology: why shouldn't she feel some satisfaction when it is finally partially recognized that such a discipline is mainly bogus thinking? As Clive suggested, let's say that it was nailed via scientific methods. And Denyse was very happy of that, like me and many others. Yes, we are nasty people here at UD, as recently discussed! :-) Regarding your affirmation that "ID has been repeatedly nailed by all kinds of similar publications", I was going to counter it, but I suddenly realized that, thanks probably to your accurate choice of words, it is perfectly true: ID has certainly been repeatedly nailed by all kinds of similar publications. But without any good motive, least of all "via scientific methods"...gpuccio_{December 25, 2008
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What if evolutionary biologists were terrible story tellers? What if their powers of imagination were totally lacking? I think the overall explanation would suffer terribly.Clive Hayden_{December 25, 2008
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Anyway, it’s well-known that evolutionary psychology is not well-respected by those in the natural sciences.
What's interesting to me about this statement is that in the formulation of their just so stories, evolutionary psychologists often employ the same method as evolutionary biologists (the imagination method). In fact, some of the most popular atheist biologists and scientist make fairly frequent use of their imagination to develop evolutionary psychology just so stories when they're not busy invoking their imaginations in their chosen field. I reference them as 'atheists,' because they make such a big deal out of it.TCS_{December 24, 2008
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It ( the article) means absolutely nothing. Natural selection is the core of Darwinism. When a “just so story” is criticized, it is not the concept of adaptational just so stories that is under attack, but only that particular story. The stories that are rejected today in Scientific American will be replaced with “better” stories tomorrow. There is no demise of evolutionary psychology, it’s only beginning.OLDMAN_{December 24, 2008
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Well, it was nailed, (in and of itself that point is perfectly true), and the question of motive you're implying from O'Leary for simply pointing out that fact, is irrelevant and erroneous. "Nailed" things can be "nailed" via scientific critiques. There is no need to invoke the motive game here NS.Clive Hayden_{December 24, 2008
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A very odd post on a blog that JUST promoted with approval Justin Barret's work on the, yes, evolutionary psychology of religion. Anyway, it's well-known that evolutionary psychology is not well-respected by those in the natural sciences. It operates mostly by conjecture within a good system. The article you cite is evidence for this. Note that many psychology classes at universities in fact begin with saying why psychology is a science. The reason they have to do this is because the field is so controversial, occupying a netherworld between "soft" and "hard" science. And in any case it doesn't get "nailed" in the articles you mention. It gets critiqued via scientific methods, as is expected and proper. Interesting that this counts as "nailed," whereas I doubt that you would admit that ID has been repeatedly nailed by all kinds of similar publications. So the distinction is: Something you happen not to like was "nailed." Nothing new here. NSnotedscholar_{December 24, 2008
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The chapter quoted above from Chesterton is called "Professors and Prehistoric Men" from The Everlasting Man. http://www.cse.dmu.ac.uk/~mward/gkc/books/everlasting_man.html#chap-I-iiClive Hayden_{December 24, 2008
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G.K. Chesterton, from The Everlasting Man: "Science is weak about these prehistoric things in a way that has hardly been noticed. The science whose modern marvels we all admire succeeds by incessantly adding to its data. In all practical inventions, in most natural discoveries, it can always increase evidence by experiment. But it cannot experiment in making men; or even in watching to see what the first men make. An inventor can advance step by step in the construction of an aeroplane, even if he is only experimenting with sticks and scraps of metal in his own back-yard. But he cannot watch the Missing Link evolving in his own back-yard. If he has made a mistake in his calculations, the aeroplane will correct it by crashing to the ground. But if he has made a mistake about the arboreal habitat of his ancestor, he cannot see his arboreal ancestor falling off the tree. He cannot keep a cave-man like a cat in the back-yard and watch him to see whether he does really practice cannibalism or carry off his mate on the principles of marriage by capture. He cannot keep a tribe of primitive men like a pack of hounds and notice how far they are influenced by the herd instinct. If he sees a particular bird behave in a particular way, he can get other birds and see if they behave in that way; but if he finds a skull, or the scrap of a skull, in the hollow of a hill, he cannot multiply it into a vision of the valley of dry bones. In dealing with a past that has almost entirely perished, he can only go by evidence and not by experiment. And there is hardly enough evidence to be even evidential. Thus while most science moves in a sort of curve, being constantly corrected by new evidence, this science flies off into space in a straight line uncorrected by anything. But the habit of forming conclusions, as they can really be formed in more fruitful fields, is so fixed in the scientific mind that it cannot resist talking like this. It talks about the idea suggested by one scrap of bone as if it were something like the aeroplane which is constructed at last out of whole scrapheaps of scraps of metal. The trouble with the professor of the prehistoric is that he cannot scrap his scrap. The marvellous and triumphant aeroplane is made out of a hundred mistakes. The student of origins can only make one mistake and stick to it." rip was right, I like quoting Chesterton and Lewis, but that doesn't make me "smarmy" or "extremely ill." On the contrary, I think it makes me quite well, it certainly puts silly things like evolutionary psychology in the correct perspective, or what might be called the "reality-based" perspective. :)Clive Hayden_{December 24, 2008
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