To internet feminist activists anything that doesn't conform to their way of thinking must be part of some patriarchal sexist system. That's where the discipline of evolutionary psychology comes in, which aims to explain human behaviour through evolutionary mechanisms. Not surprisingly explaining behaviour using biological reasoning comes into contact with the feminist ideas that oppressive behaviour is inherently sociological. To illustrate how this irrational hatred in a single discipline is ingrained throughout the whole feminist sphere we'll split this conflict into three parts. This edition will showcase some moronic journalist who clearly doesn't comprehend scientific reasoning. The second article will be from a blog on the internet that at least attempts a rational counterargument. And the third and final piece will be from an academic paper.
This particular article comes from the hub of all scientific knowledge 'Jezebel', and is written by a lady called Lindy West, whose catalogue gives me the utmost faith that she knows fuck all about evolutionary theory. Still maybe click-baiting morons can produce a valid argument every once in a while, so here's her take on evolutionary psychology:
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http://jezebel.com/5941433/you-can-tell-evolutionary-psychology-isnt-true-because-its-not-true
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Now this is confusing. Here we have a title that would have us believe this is an article focusing on the truth of a subject, yet we have an opening line that outlines a clear subjective bias. But sure, hating something because it's manipulated into some political crusade is a fair enough reason for wanting to discredit it altogether. That's why I hate this article so much. In the intro it becomes instantly clear this isn't a serious piece of opinion journalism. Really all we get is an opinion that doesn't support the title, and some hilarious jokes, although when I say hilarious jokes I can feel my nose slowly starting to grow. I hate to be this person but no evolutionary psychologist is claiming women are attracted towards people who stomp animals to death, especially when that animal existed tens of millions of years before humans ever evolved. Still, just because this author disagrees with some psychological studies they are therefore invalidated, because remember, anecdotal evidence easily trumps any study in a scientific journal. I'm not calling you stupid because you're a woman, I'm calling you stupid because of your piss poor argument. I don't need to be an 'evo-psych dude' to figure that one out.
The good news is that instead of using scientific studies to discredit a scientific discipline, like maybe you would do if you claimed something wasn't true, this writer decides linking to other journalistic sources is a good idea. Why wouldn't you when they provide the reader with such a trove of evidence to back up the arguments in this piece? Well the only real source in this article supplies us with a survey, which I would argue is not a good way to determine inherent sexual desires. I find it simply inadequate to disprove inherent biological behaviours with a basic survey considering just how diverse and discreet sexual desires express themselves in human behvaiour. Even if we do use this study as evidence, there's still nowhere near enough information to discredit the whole of evolutionary psychology. this particular survey found an apparent cultural difference in desirable traits, which still doesn't disprove the role of genetics in attraction. You simply can't reject a biological explanation of something if you never even bother testing for it in the first place. All you've prove here is that different cultures value different sociological traits. That's not biology in any form, and cannot hope to answer this broad question from an evolutionary perspective.
Oh dear, here's a big evolutionary faux pas. How do you measure progress in evolution? That assumes there's an end goal of evolution, which there isn't considering its a constant process merely revolving around reproductive success. I know feminists love to go on about progressive ideas, but evolutionary processes have no notion of these terms, and so are entirely irrelevant in this discussion. Wouldn't be twisting this study towards your political ideology would we now? No I'm sure there's nothing hypocritical about this article whatsoever.
Again, where's the evidence that genes have no role in these behavioural trends? What is cultural evolution if not genes interacting with their environment? I hate this assumption that just because a behaviour is prehistoric it instantly means it's suddenly bad. How dare the majority of women select mates based on archaic traits. Why don't they conform to my progressive desires? Restricting female choice is absolutely what progressive ideals are all about. I don't know what the fuck evolutionary psychology has got to do with opposing freedom and equality, and there's certainly no evidence presented for this outrageous claim, so like everything else in this piece we can simply dismiss this slanderous comment as unqualified rhetoric.
I can't imagine why evolutionary psychologists would discuss things in the past tense considering evolution is literally allele frequency change over a period of time. You have to look back in time to observe the effects of evolution. The process itself doesn't change, it's a constant, and just because evolution may cause unexpected changes doesn't mean we can't snapshot a given area of natural history and describe how this applies to modern human behaviour. The only person claiming that evolution has an end goal is you with your progressive ideals. And anyway, just because evolution is a process happening all the time doesn't mean we're going to be seeing the huge radical shifts in sexual desires that you claim are happening within the brief timeline of modern society. That sort of change takes millions of years to observe, which is why we have to look way back in time to find evidence of these changes. You even say yourself that evolution is always changing desirable traits, yet in the previous paragraph we were outlining a set progress that funnily enough followed your political ideology. That's your second huge faux pas, and yet more proof you have absolutely no idea what you're rambling about
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Then there's the big reveal. Turns out this whole article is based merely on feelings, and not facts like the title made us stupidly assume. I for one am completely shocked. In the face of this individual's feelings there is simply no point in rationally explaining a scientific debate, because the way she feels is far more important. For some reason modern life separates humans from natural processes, and subsequently cancels out the roles of evolution, despite this writer claiming in the previous fucking paragraph that evolution is still happening. The rest of biology, well that's also irrelevant, because obviously the mind would never play tricks on an individual. Well here's a dose of reality, your experiences do not effect something that is biologically true. I'm not calling you a liar, as I do truly believe you've experienced the things you describe. What I am calling you is a moron who thinks their useless anecdotes somehow trump the wealth of evidence. Currently that's the only attitude in this debate that should be called out for bullshit.
Wouldn't science be easier if we could just throw away all that peer reviewed empirical nonsense in the bin and instead decide the validity of a scientific theory through some moronic test? The moral of this story is that evolution cannot be applied to human behaviour because people have different tastes. Fucking useless conclusion that adds absolutely nothing to the discussion, nor is it even valid. I'm not quite sure who this article is aimed at. The majority of people that advocate for evolutionary psychology in serious debates are scientific professors, and I'm sure they aren't going to be swayed by this reductionist nonsense. Maybe I might be willing to take your stance more seriously if you provided factual information instead of self-centered garbage.
This is possibly the lowest form of scientific journalism possible. There is zero evidence provided for such radical claims, and the only argument is essentially some woman putting her fingers in her ears and screaming how she doesn't agree with something when faced with evidence. That's not scientific reasoning darling, just pure ignorance, and ignorance alone is not a good enough excuse to simply dismiss a serious academic field of study.
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