via brown_betty

[marnanightingale]

Special to Creek Running North: Biologists have long assumed that evolutionary psychology, a controversial branch of psychology that ascribes many common social behaviors to genetics, is a muddled blend of half-understood evolutionary biology, selective data mining and resentment of women’s changing roles in society.

A new study, published in today’s issue of the German publication Unwirklichen Genetikjournal, does not challenge that assessment. But it does suggest that some men may be genetically predisposed to believe in evolutionary psychology, a finding that may well suggest future methods of treatment of the psychological malady.

Believers in evolutionary psychology maintain that feminism sets itself in opposition to millions of years of anthropoid evolution, and is thus futile and inhumane to men. Allegations made by believers include references to putative differences in math skills between men and women, a supposedly irresistible but entirely non-visually stimulated female attraction toward powerful and/or arrogant males, and the existence of a genetically preordained male right to multiple female sexual partners.

Many such men hold to these beliefs despite an absolute lack of supporting scientific evidence, says Dr. Ulrike Mann-Esser, chair of the sexual anthropology department at Universität Ulm and the study’s lead researcher. “But we had no way to determine why this was so until last year’s discovery of the locus taedius.”

I'll be over here, on the floor, where I am genetically predisposed to land when a particularly deft skewering of the patriarchy is this funny.

Comments

Er, hm, well...

[the-blue-fenix.livejournal.com]

I feel like I should be laughing, except....

a) I've seen some quite sane stuff (e.g. Steven Pinker, Robert Wright) written under the flag of evolutionary psychology,

b) which was not especially, let alone -primarily-, sexist

c) nor did it make the descriptive/prescriptive category error taken for granted in the spoof (i.e. "men more often want to cheat" not held to equal "men have every right to cheat")

d) and their complaints about the countervailing "Standard Social Sciences Model" sound awfully justified after reading said spoof.

Is the terrain between Nietzsche and Pollyanna (the latter in the "people can do anything they really really want," i.e. no biological constraints at all) really as unpopulated as this makes it sound?

Re: Er, hm, well...

[azdak.livejournal.com]

It's not just social scientists that don't like evolutionary psychology, though - lots of geneticists take issue with their methodology and argue that they're conflating biolgical with cultural effects.

And it would be rather a strange satire that took the middle ground - the pleasure of satire comes from its rampant extremism. Even Swift didn't think people would really want to eat babies.

Re: Er, hm, well...

[the-blue-fenix.livejournal.com]

It's not just social scientists that don't like evolutionary psychology, though - lots of geneticists take issue with their methodology and argue that they're conflating biolgical with cultural effects.

Surely if certain cultural patterns are common (or for a very short list universal) across cultures they get to poke into whether those might have some genetic component to them?

(And YES, you then go on from there to decide whether you want to flow with those predispositions or fight them with the advantage of knowing what you're up against. I have a genetic predisposition to The Crazy and knowing that has been a great help in dealing.)

If it's possible to get more information about what sort of animals we H. sapiens are, I find it both interesting and useful. That's the main thing I'm saying.

Re: Er, hm, well...

[azdak.livejournal.com]

Yes, but it's very different to isolate cultural products and say these stem directly from biology. I mean, cross-culturally little boys have a strange obsession with playing with cars, but whatever causes it clearly isn't a genetic predisposition to like cars.

If it's possible to get more information about what sort of animals we H. sapiens are, I find it both interesting and useful. That's the main thing I'm saying.

Oh, I agree with that completely. The question is whether evolutionary psychology is actually doing that.