In our second look at feminists rejecting scientific disciplines in favour of their own ideological opinions we find an article from a typical feminist blog. Admittedly this feminist blog actually seems to have bothered with some research on the topic, as well as having some background knowledge, instead of burying its head in the sand like many of these moronic 'science writers' who try and force their ideas of equality into everything. Although I don't hate this particular writer the article in question still full of the same old traps that feminist blogs always fall into, as well as some big factual inaccuracies.
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https://disruptingdinnerparties.com/2013/05/09/whyevopsychisalmostneverscience/
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I will begin by commending this article in opening with the view that evolutionary psychology is a perfectly valid discipline instead of just blindly claiming it's all wrong because you don't like it. I must admit it's quite a bizarre scenario to have a feminist lecture me on the validity of evidence, as usually it's me making this very point to criticise feminist theory, but in this scenario it's at least arising from someone with a science based background instead of some ignorant internet blogger. Still, whilst genetics and evolution are intertwined within one another, they are not the same, and so as an evolutionary biologist I'll gladly point to the route of sexism as partly genetic. Of course that comment comes with about fifteen million caveats, and my insignificant comments cannot hope to accurately explain such a complex area of science, but I will at least analyse your criticisms and see how they hold up. Without further ado, let's have a look at these assumptions:
There's certainly nothing wrong with calling out these assumptions as unscientific, although the explanation that evolution is a work in progress is misleading. It would be simply inaccurate to describe a constant process as a 'work in progress' because it assumes there's an end goal evolution in general is working towards, which is a point you actually raise in the very next sentence. I think I'll just put this one down as poor wording, as the core science behind this point is spot on. I am a bit confused by the comment about golden ages. I don't believe I've ever seen a study referring to golden ages, but these events certainly exist in literature and history. In fact there's numerous examples of them in almost every single society, whether that be the Dutch Golden Age, the Spanish Golden Age, or even the Golden Age of Hollywood. I honestly have no idea what point you're trying to make here. There is also an alarming lack of sources in this paragraph. I believe you're correct in the examples you give, but to fail at sourcing this information gives off the attitude that you must be right on any scientific point because that's your specialty. This is merely an argument from authority, and certainly isn't the way to make a point any more scientifically valid. Some might say you're just telling stories here.
There is certainly nothing wrong with the opening point, however the second starts to fall apart. You see evolution certainly can be directed change. Mutation and genetic drift may well be random processes, but
mechanisms such as natural, sexual, and kin selection all describe directional changes. Natural selection for example would simply be unable to operate if the changes in environmental conditions caused merely random changes in allele frequency. This isn't a perfect process, and indeed there are many deleterious mutations that have spread through the population, but this still isn't evidence that evolution is purely stochastic. If it was stochastic it would make fuck all difference what environment an organism happened to live in, and adaptations would be unable to spread through populations. You make a final remark that the fact a trait is persistent tells you nothing about whether it became more common under selective pressures, which isn't strictly true, and a crucial part of viewing natural histories is theorising the selective pressures that lead to common traits.
Studies such as the Galapagos ground finch are great examples of how selective pressures affect the frequency of traits within populations, with the persistence of certain traits being demonstrably distinguished. I'm honestly surprised that a self proclaimed geneticist hasn't been able to comprehend that allele frequencies over time are not purely random when
Mendel's second law of independent assortment has been violated in numerous examples, with linkage disequilibrium also being a common process in genomes.
The idea of differing reproductive strategies is actually a very important point to make, although the evidence used to back this up lacks any sort of clarity. Infanticide certainly isn't as common as you make it out to be, and actually
only exists in individually documented cases within primates. That isn't to say this seemingly counterintuitive phenomenon doesn't back up your argument, but let's stop with the assumption that all primates are routinely trying to curb the number of their offspring. There's also a strange comparison to abortion, which I would personally argue has the same evidence based merit as these anecdotal evolutionary psychology stories you're complaining about. Abortion is a completely separate issue to the point you're making.
What really did confuse me was the last point about male genes having a vested interest in the mother not disliking him, which is certainly not something I've ever seen evidence for. Since you've not bothered to back this sweeping generalisation up I'll happily dismiss the point, as I'm sure you would to if you found this statement in an evolutionary psychology paper. I find the idea that male genes benefit from having a strong relationship with the opposing sex hard to believe, as
the cost of the male ejaculate compared to the female egg is minuscule, so a poor relationship between the father and mother would be catastrophic to the fitness of the mother, yet a small obstacle for the male. It seems you've fallen into your own trap of just assuming that there's a singular mating strategy found throughout nature. You seem to be in denial here that polygamy is a completely natural behaviour, and far more common than infanticide may I add. And that I can tell you is a far better assumption than the ones you've been making throughout this article.
We're moving away from evolution now. I must admit that I never find any studies peddling this rhetoric. Sure, there may be a few angry comments on Twitter, but since when do random morons on the internet represent a whole scientific discipline? I do suspect this article suffers from a very large straw man argument, cherry picking a few select comments that can't hope to successfully generalise this large field of study. I doubt the majority of scientists know the ins and outs of changing social values that come with the emergence of a sedentary lifestyle, so are probably unlikely to bring them up as evidence in their papers. We'll never know, as there's fuck all sources for the purely sociological points made here, so we'll just label these as irrelevant to the scientific discussion and continue.
To be fair to evolutionary psychologists this is actually a very accurate assumption to make. Mate choice is defined by a conflict over resources, and when males cannot actively dominate the supply of females they actively compete for reproduction by advertising to females. This is not something exclusive to humans, it's universal in sexually reproducing organisms. I'm sorry if you think this idea devalues the role of women, but this is a biological truth, and accounts for the sexual dimorphism found between sexes. Evolution doesn't care if you choose not to be a part of this system, because you don't get a choice whether to apply by the laws of nature if you're an organic being. Nobody is denying that women can't make choices, and in fact female choice is a widely seen mechanism in mate selection. I just hate this assumption often projected by feminist scientists that if you simply choose to go against the logic of evolution you'll somehow be able to defeat it.
I also have an issue with how you describe systems of mate selection. Mate choice is not an overly simplistic process, and actually a very complex one that requires explanation from multiple different hypotheses. The study you cite does not take into account these various hypotheses, and actually only focuses on the good genes hypothesis. Furthermore the cited study describes females that have been affected by a certain parasite, which is really insignificant evidence for the huge generalisation you've just made. There is
far more evidence for instance that mate choice in guppies is largely determined by the sensory bias hypothesis, which is a drastically different mechanism than the good genes model. Does this mean females don't have anything other than a passive role in these systems? No, but females having a disproportionately large role in mate selection is not the predominant trend
unless you were examining rarities such as seahorses or pipefish.
Come on now, you're allegedly a geneticist. You must be aware that the phrase 'some behaviour has a genetic basis' is a massive understatement. That's not denying the role of the environment within human behaviour, but recognising that genetics are fundamental for behaviour to manifest itself in humans. This particular article is running into the trap of assuming that a vocal minority of idiots represent the merits of a whole discipline. Are we seriously going to start sourcing Salon articles as academic discourse? You could easily
attempt to invalidate everything in academia if you simply cherry pick
poor studies. Interestingly it was the actual paper you had an issue with instead of the sub par journalistic source, but you are right to highlight the rather ambiguous generalisation the conclusion of that study comes to, although to then claim they're full of shit is very unfair when you yourself make the following conclusion that's no better:
How can you criticise a discipline for making gross generalisations but then turn a blind eye when your hypothesis is riddled with the exact same faults? Those scientists you criticise could just as easily use your tactics to invalidate your argument, leaving us with a non existent discourse. For some reason we're supposed to blindly believe that your explanation is superior, which is an attitude just as anti-science as the idiots you've been taking down all article. There's further evidence of this pathetic behaviour in the comments section where you prevented a participant in the discussion from responding because they disagreed with your perspective. Was their comment any good? No, but that doesn't give you an excuse to arrogantly prevent scientific discourse. This is an incredibly hypocritical attitude to have, because your whole piece advocates testing for assumptions. It turns out you're only supposed to test the assumptions that you don't personally align with.
At least those scientists provided evidence for their speculative conclusion, whereas your ramblings just make blanket assumptions without backing any of it up, which is now becoming a recurring theme. My main question with your explanation is why can't socialisation be an evolutionary trait? Why do you assume that this teaching cannot possibly have a merit in evolutionary terms? I also don't understand the assumption that men have a vested interest in learning to read each other better in order to keep social power. How the hell is that a better explanation than competition? Perhaps it's a bit unfair to start ridiculing your criticism of a terrible study, but I think these questions do need to be brought up considering you're so keen to reject evolutionary psychology.
As I've said before, I don't think you're accurately portraying a whole discpline here. Of course you're going to find studies riddled with faults if you only bother analysing one side of the argument. Funnily enough if you go beyond reading news based science you might actually find some primary evidence with academic merit. This, like the previous article we viewed, just simply dismisses the discipline without critically analysing the field, and so it's plainly obvious that you're merely rejecting an idea based on pure ideological biases rather than producing an objective assessment. It's a genuine shame, as you do seem to have a solid base in the technicalities, but you seem to hold your own ideas to different standards than that of disciplines you don't agree with. It's all very well if blaming behaviour on institutionalised sexism is based on guesswork, but when anyone else dares to think differently you instantly stamp that thought process out.
The concluding thoughts follow the idea that because of a few bad apples the whole field of evolutionary psychology should be shunned. Sure, you've highlighted some assumptions that stump a minority of studies, but where's the evidence that this whole discipline is inherently flawed?
Even though we have an article that approaches this topic from a scientific mindset, it still hasn't dodged the classic feminist flaws that manage to cloud many areas of the scientific world.
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