Boeing having a normal one.
Streetlights
joined 2 years ago
And long may it continue.
Don't let me get started in what Isaac Newton used to believe. It ought to be a crime that we still teach his laws of motion in school.
Is there a solution to this problem?
Perhaps it's the ability to abstract 'empathy' into a hypothetical or scenario that is non-local. For example, I've known anti-abortionists who were proud members of the movement until they themselves needed an abortion, and then suddenly, their entire philosophy of life does a one-eighty. Were they unable to imagine what it was like until they were in the middle of it?
Is there a component of intelligence in being able to imagine yourself in situation you aren't currently in and thus reason how you should treat someone else who is in that predicament?
Well an easy intro is misconceptions in evopsych
https://areomagazine.com/2019/08/20/seven-key-misconceptions-about-evolutionary-psychology/
Which dispatches pretty much all the strawman objections.
Then I'd recommend the followup
Predicting new findings. https://areomagazine.com/2020/10/20/evolutionary-psychology-predictively-powerful-or-riddled-with-just-so-stories/
Contemporary essays that don't shy away from the awkward past.
Thank you, I am happy to share some links for further reading if you are interested.
The question being debated in this thread, I think, is whether evopsych will also eventually be found to be a pseudoscience.
Respectfully, the point of contention appears to be between the several users who have already concluded it is a pseudoscience and myself who has not.
The fundamental premise on which it lies is evolution by natural selection. Yes, the possibility exists that may one day be falsified but....its pragmatic to continue as if that is unlikely.
I am a complete lay(wo)man here, so I'm not casting aspersions either way. I would need to do a lot more research for that. I see the other arguments devolving into semantics and rhetoric though instead of focusing on that core conceit.
That is most welcome.
So you feel any confidence in evopsych as a science? Why or why not? And if those same arguments could be applied to phrenology prior to its official debunking, how valid is that confidence?
The premises are fairly robust, and I've not seen a convincing argument against them. Nothing is certain so I wouldn't describe myself as ideologically married to it.
That is not an unfamiliar experience, unfortunately. I often wonder if a significant portion of the population are just born without the ability to empathise, and they just hide it really well.
Careful you almost misquoted me there
For the non-human animals, it certainly isn't controversial to say evolution is the only explanation for the origin of behaviour. What else could it be?
there’s a lot to unpack here. firstly, there is more to human behavior than genetics/evolution, hence nature vs nurture.
It's a jolly good thing I was talking about non-human animals then.
in other words our human experience determines our behavior in addition to genetics.
It's a common fallacy to suppose that because an behavioural adaption has a genetic basis that therefore having the genes determines the behaviour.
https://areomagazine.com/2019/08/20/seven-key-misconceptions-about-evolutionary-psychology/
Misconception #3 in the above.
Secondly, that’s not the only claim or assumption of Evolutionary Psychology. There is lots of other stuff besides that statement that is controversial at best.
Evolutionary Psychologists make claims, some of which yes are clearly lacking in explanatory power, evidence and predictions.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_evolutionary_psychology
Yes I'm familiar with Wikipedia, if I'm just going to be talking to a search engine here I'm not terribly invested in continuing.
The premise upon which it was based was later shown to be false.
Post Office shits itself whilst on life support.