Here’s a word game and brainteaser for everyone:
1. Harassment
2. Sexual Harassment
Can anybody spot the additional word in one of the
sentences?
Here’s the jumbled version for the more advanced
amongst us, if you want to play again:
1. Harassment
2. Harassment Sexual
No prizes unfortunately.
Accordingly, a 50-year-old man married to a 25-year-old woman would not go through a midlife crisis,
Because he's already there. Someone needs to read "Jennifer Fever"
Thank you Echindne! I remember reading about that study and thinking "what tha??" What sane woman would go off with an unknown man to have sex with him? Are they insane? It's not that the 20-yo girl doesnt want to get laid as much or as often as the 20-yo guy, it's that she doesnt want to get tortured and killed for christ's sake. jeesh!
Anyway, thanks for your great and excellent posts!
Always nice to know I get to trade in my wife at 50 years / 500,000 miles for a newer more updated model. Science tells me it's ok!
I wouldn't expect to live much past that, but at least I'd know I was a martyr at the altar of scientific progress.
Kingsley R. Browne is not a psychologist, he is a misogynistic law professor ( http://www.law.wayne.edu/
faculty...e_kingsley.html ) who writes articles arguing women are biologically inferior, see e.g.:
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/
pape...tract_id=877664
Kingsley R. Browne is not a psychologist
Thanks for the correction. Of course, Kanazawa himself is a sociologist and not a biologist.
Whatever he is, it's one of the strangest things I've read in a long time. How he managed to sneak Muslim suicide bombers into a list of 'evolutionary' characteristics I don't know. And his explanation for that is totally off the wall.....
What a weirdo. You'd need to be insane to find the links between his explanations.
Thank you, Goddess, for your take-down of that sexist fool Kanazawa! How his article was even published is beyond me.
In addition to the valid points already discussed, let's make the description of that "study" a little more precise:
Studies demonstrate unequivocally that men are far more interested in getting off than women are in getting men off. In one now-classic study, 75 percent of undergraduate men approached by an attractive female stranger agreed to let her get them off; none of the women approached by an attractive male stranger to get him off did.
My true introduction to evolutionary psychology arguments came from a brilliant Biology TA who was one of my (several) bosses in a work-study job in that department. She delighted in finding hilarious juxtapositions between human behavior and animal behavior and the often uncomfortable comparisons these prompted. It did a lot to bolster my already forming ideas about how much of the motivation for our actions seems to stem from unconscious sources, especially when that behavior related to reproduction.
But I remember when I asked her if she was really that cynical about humans (are they really just monkeys in pants?) her response was sanguine: Of course not. What she wanted to puncture was the hubris that says that everything we do is for a good reason and can be logically explained, that we are qualitatively different from animals and never, ever act on the primitive urges of our reptile brains.
Her point was that acknowledging that we are on some level animals imbued with the same basic drives as any animals was a necessary step to taking control of our actions, or at least being honest with ourselves about why we do things. I believe part of her motivation for pointing these things out was her own identification as a feminist -- she noticed that many aspects of our culture that are taken for granted seem to be codifications of ancient reproductive strategies, and she couldn't help but notice that many of these cultural norms had long since ceased to be either effective for their (inferred) original purposes or for the promotion of human contentment in general. So admitting that we are on some level just a bunch of monkeys full of selfish genes was a crucial first step to not being just a bunch of dumb monkeys.
Many of the Evolutionary Psychologists whose arguments you are here presenting (okay, let's be fair: mocking) seem to turn this on its head, saying that any social norms that can trace their roots to biology (i.e. all of them) are therefore right and proper and unassailable. Even if most of us don't really desire 1,042 offspring, they seem to be saying, well by god our genes do and you can't fight nature.
This conveniently ignores a very basic truth about the selfish gene concept: Things that are in the best interest of the gene (with the caveat that "interest" is here applied metaphorically -- genes are just self-replicating proteins with no consciousness whatsoever) are often not in the best interest of the individual. What's more, there is nothing more natural than extinction. Plenty of species have died off the face of the Earth while pursuing their genetically-mandated survival strategies. Evolution has no foresight.
I'm also curious as to why these "researchers" never seem to investigate the genetic basis for Not Rocking the Boat -- surely in all their talk of heirarchies and alpha dogs and so forth there must be some investigation of the tendency to affirm the basic values of the dominant culture as a precursor to gaining status within that culture.
Sorry to go on at such length. These ideas are very interesting to me and yet they seem to pop up their heads in the service of specious political arguments so often that I fear they are becoming exclusively identified with a particular stripe of cultural jackassery. Sort of like how the phenomenon of Social Darwinism gives Darwin a bad name.
Hmm... I've actually been through a husband's midlife crisis (I don't recommend it, even for science).
He's a bit older than I am, and hit the crisis precisely at 40. (I was 37... not nubile, but not menopausal either... still aren't, 15 years later, alas!) He kept saying, "I'm going to die!" meaning not that he had a terminal illness, but rather that for the first time, he understood he was mortal.
He did go for a younger woman (and made very sure to point that out to me, the meanie), but she was only 5 years younger than I was.
Anyway, while I think he tried to blame it on me, it seemed to have a lot more to do with his own disappointment with himself and his life than with being married to a no-longer-young woman. I haven't a doubt that if he were able to attract a beautiful young woman, he would have been at least momentarily assured of his worth, but to tell you the truth, I think he would have been more impressed with a RICH woman, that is, money was more a marker of success than youth and beauty. (He's always been financially successful, and I haven't, and the slutty She was pretty well off.)
Anyway, not that I really want to remember how that all felt, especially since we're still together (and he's much happier, even though I'm much older 
. But looking back, I have to conclude that it really had more to do with his sense of himself as a failure. He tended to blame that on me yoking him to the plow of family and work, but I think we both ended up realizing that his choices actually had little to do with me and a lot to do with his need to be conventional (which I've never much had). The midlife crisis was his big rebellion. I remember, btw, thinking at that time that he was rebelling against me as if I were his mother and he was a teenager, so... well, I'm not sure if that says, "Every woman over 25 is boring and mother-like," or "Every man in a midlife crisis is an adolescent."
But I don't think it -felt- to either of us, really, like his last-ditch effort to spread his sperm on some nubile ground, if only because we had children, and I was still "fertile," and she wasn't (she'd actually gone into early menopause, so factor that in!). I might be a symbol of his "failure", but not the cause, and his failure had far more to do with cultural notions of success than sperm-spreading.
Sociobiology so often doesn't apply to individuals, however illuminating it might be about a group.
Flamingbanjo, some E-psychologists have tackled the "don't rock the boat" question, arguing that we have an innate tendency to conform in order to advance our chances, so we adopt the religion, attitudes, culture we're surrounded with.
I personally don't find it very convincing--it often comes off as "OK, I can't prove that specific behavior was selected for, but it's still all evolutionary!"
I'm reminded of Daniel Dennett's comment that human beings invariably live in caves if there are caves in the area, but that doesn't prove living in caves is caused by some underlying live-in-caves gene.
As for monkeys, I remember reading one EP takedown that pointed out that none of the higher primates show similar mating patterns to humans.
Of course, just as bad as the people who launch these theories are the wingnuts who insist that women who don't get married and pop out babies (or men who become house husbands) just aren't natural, and should therefore be criticized, rather than accepting that no genetic predisposition, if it existed, would be uniform for everyone (men are generally taller than women but I'm 5' 2").
"Men sexually harass women because they are not discriminating between men and women!"
That's some mighty find doublethink going on there.
WAR IS PEACE!
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY!
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH!
The people who conducted that "classical study" don't read Overhear in New York on a regular basis. Women have casual sex all the time.
Studies demonstrate unequivocally that men are far more interested in short-term casual sex than women. In one now-classic study, 75 percent of undergraduate men approached by an attractive female stranger agreed to have sex with her; none of the women approached by an attractive male stranger did. Many men who would not date the stranger nonetheless agreed to have sex with her.
I don't want to defend ev. psych. at all (really, I don't) but part of there point about the difference in preferences for casual sex are precisely because of the differential cost. The better counterargument to the study is that (again IIRC) when queried in ways that protect anonymity and promote truthfulness, the casual sex preferences of men and women become much more similar, suggesting that the better proximal explanation is that culturally woman are punished more for casual sex than are men. (Of course, the EP's would probably argue that the differential prohibition is a cultural development borne of aggegated preferences to protect the certainty of the parent of any child a woman might be bearing, or something.)
Stlinquirer, thanks for giving me the "proximal" word. I knew what I wrote was wrong but I was too tired to Google.
I get the point about the differential cost argument, but my impression is that it is not used in the same sense as here. The argument is that women have different preferences for casual sex, over and above any such reasons as fear of violence or of pregnancy now.
At least the "now-classic" study looks at it in that light.
It should also be pointed out that dismissing sexual harassment as just men's greater desire to get laid isn't that big a step from blaming rape on men's desire to get laid. Particularly the undertone of "Well, this is the way men are, so women will have to accept it."
Of course, since sex as an evolutionary drive only works if offspring are involved, that means sexual harassers would never ask for oral sex or a blowjob since biologically that benefits them not a whit. There are other flaws in the argument, but that's one obvious one.
Thanks Echidne for giving us an opportunity to rip this thing to shreds.
Echidine, I am so glad you dispensed with this wingnut (and I knew he had to be a wingnut as soon as I read the words "politically incorrect" in the subhead of his article). What a sham Psychology Today is, publishing such crap.
I actually do think women and men have very different preferences for casual sex. It's not just differential risk levels -- young men will take huge risks for casual sex. There's just a mountain of evidence on this difference between male and female sexuality, to the point that denying it seems silly to me.
But the problem with Ev Psych the religion is that it goes far, far beyond the simplest basics of "egg expensive, sperm cheap" while totally ignoring the way social context structures desire. For example, as women gradually gained more choice in mate selection due to increasing societal individualism, the growth of the romantic ethic, etc. they rearranged their choices to pick men closer to their age who had a lot in common with them socially (i.e. more equal partners for companionate marriage). It seems pretty clear to me that things like 17 year old girls marrying 40 year old men are the product of either grinding poverty (so marriage absolutely needs to be economically based) or patriarchal institutions that simply forced young women to accept mates selected by their parents. A serious study would examine the social / contextual basis of mate choice and how it has changed over time, instead of assuming it is hard-wired.
To put it another way: how obvious can it be that there is massive culturally based variation in marriage behaviors and kinship structures, variation that changes very rapidly over time? Given that, why do you focus obssessively on the relatively smaller part of the variation created by biology?
Genes make no distinction between the two categories of children.
This has got to be part of one of the stupidest arguments (alas not limitted to this clown) ever. Evolutionary success =/= having as many kids as possible -- it means, as this clown seems all too aware in other arguments he makes, having those kids have kids who have kids and so far on down. And if wealth enables such things (as this clown argues), then what good is it for a powerful person to have a bunch of poor bastard kids around who can only cause him trouble (a la Mordred and Arthur) while not likely to provide for his gene's long term success.
And if genes are so smart they can distinguish between getting into daughters vs. sons and such, why would they waste their time on bastards, so to speak ...
"There's just a mountain of evidence on this difference between male and female sexuality, to the point that denying it seems silly to me."
What evidence are you talking about? How did they separate the effects of culture, socialization, differing levels of risk, etc.?
The problems I always had with Evolutionary Psychology (and I read a lot of it; I'm a psychologist) are that 1)there's NO way to prove or disprove it (which means it's not science), and 2) ANYTHING can be explained after the fact as being the result of natural selection pressure, even contradictory things.
Men like casual sex/infidelity more than women? It's because sperm are plentiful and eggs are rarer, and women need to be protected during gestation. Or...
Women like casual sex/infidelity more than men? It's because they're driven to maximize their offspring's genetic variability, enhancing their chances to continue on for further generations.
Try it, you could make an "evolutionary" argument for the exact OPPOSITE behaviors and traits in this article. And it would be just as valid, because WE'RE JUST MAKING IT ALL UP!
75 percent of undergraduate men approached by an attractive female stranger agreed to have sex with her; none of the women approached by an attractive male stranger did.
Huh. The first time I heard this story, there were three questions -- "Do you want to have sex?", "Do you want to grab coffee?", and "Would you like to go on a date?" Supposedly the yes responses for men were 2/3, 1/2, and 1/3 respectively, and 1/3, 1/2, and 2/3 for women.
Evidently we've moved on from that urban legend of a study, as too many women still wanted sex. As we all know, women hate sex, they just want the bling.
Ah, it's nice to see we've dispensed with any ambiguity and are just making stuff up now.
Try it, you could make an "evolutionary" argument for the exact OPPOSITE behaviors and traits in this article. And it would be just as valid, because WE'RE JUST MAKING IT ALL UP!
You've put it in a nutshell.
You've put it in a nutshell.
Pretty much, for the worst kind of studies in this field. There is also a similarity to some of those Freudian theories which are also fundamentally untestable, yet damaged many women for many decades. Penis-envy and such.
Maybe the author meant by "political correctness" something like "people with rigid socio-political commitments will attack my work on the basis of my being personally strange because they do not want to accept my conclusions, as they find implications thereof politically unacceptable." No doubt, those attacking the author of being strange will be social misfits themselves, miscellaneous refuse and mallrattery.
It is quite funny how gender feminism has the same two-edged answer for absolutely every bit of empirical evidence that men and women are different as of course. If women achieve or excell - they are equal/superior. If they do not achieve or excell - they are equal/superior and it was the patriarchy. (I've been to the meetings) I have even heard of a monumental fool argue that eating meat is a patriarchial excercise.
Carry on. I'll keep waiting for the first Female NFL Middle Linebacker, or an endocrinological study that backs y'all up.
What evidence are you talking about? How did they separate the effects of culture, socialization, differing levels of risk, etc.?
There is no study of any social phenomenon whatsoever that can fully separate all the factors you're talking about. But IMO it's pretty obvious that men and women have differing attitudes toward low-committment sex; casual observation is sufficient to show this (how many male prostitutes make a living servicing women?). There is now a pretty large academic literature supporting it as well, e.g.:
http://www.bradley.edu/academics...xuality-
ALL.pdf
That's for humans; there's also a biology literature showing that in animals the gender with the higher cost of reproduction is more selective in partner choice than the gender with the lower cost.
If you want to check this out more, the linked article is particularly good because it has an extensive index along with a large set of responses by critics of the article (and a response to the critics). The most "feminist" of the critics are probably Wood and Eagly from Northwestern, who have a social-structural theory of male female differences. This "biosocial" theory emphasizes socially created role differentiation resulting from greater male physical strength and greater female biological adaptation to child-rearing. While their theory acknowledges the importance of evolutionary physical differences is seeding social role differentiation, they tend to deny that evolution has created innate / inborn differences between the sexes in psychological attitudes.
BTW, nothing said above should be taken to imply that the Psychology Today article is any good. The debate between Schmitt and Wood/Eagly is actually a good example of high-quality academic controversy on this stuff, as opposed to the Psychology Today piece.
Whoops, above post was from me.
A final note on that linked article: even though the piece consistently shows much greater desire for casual sex by men across many nations, Schmitt also finds very substantial variability in sexual attitudes both across and within cultures. There's obviously a lot of cultural variation; German women have more 'permissive' attitudes than South Korean men. His findings imply quite a lot of overlap between the genders. They are far less extreme than summing up attitudes toward casual sex as "all men want it, no women do".
Leamas Lives, you apparently think people here have said things they have not.
Who on this forum says that women are better than men? Who has told you that women have a good body build for professional football?
You are attacking strawmen.
marcus, I'm not sure how much you are responding to my original post in your comments, but I never stated that men and women would have identical appetites for casual sex if we could somehow make the cultural pressures and pregnancy-violence scares equal.
I don't know what we would find, honestly, because even the way one defines "desire" should have to be standardized and then made measurable.
For instance, suppose that the awakening of desire is a different process for men and women in the sense of speed or areas of brain that light up or whatever. How would you then define desire?
That may sound trivial, but the more I've thought about this whole question, the more complicated it looks to me.
Take the cultural assumptions about women's sexuality over time and in different places. If you read on those you find cultures which believed that women were always horny, always insatiable and that is why they had to be closely guarded from getting in touch with men. Spouse guarding, if you like, but explained in a way which clashes with, say, the Victorian idea that good women don't have sexual feelings at all.
Then there is the whore-madonna mythology, which says that women are either totally "impure" or totally "pure." Historically speaking, the pressures on women to be more madonna-like have been operating for a long time. I'm not sure if surveys asking people questions would reveal something that is not very strongly affected by societal expectations concerning sexual behavior.
The evidence on prostitution being almost totally for men as customers is interesting, true. But traditionally women have not had funds to buy sex.
I read about the Japanese Geishas actually having the equivalent of male sex-workers available for them. Other women can also use those establishments, but most of the customers are Geishas. An odd twist in some ways, and also perhaps linked to societal judgments as Geishas may already be outside those judgments and thus have more freedom. What those establishments do is not that different from what the Geishas do, though I read that the men give the women little love chats on the phone etcetera.
None of this should be interpreted to mean that I somehow argue for no differences between men and women in the desire for casual sex. It's just that the nuances are worth studying.
"But IMO it's pretty obvious that men and women have differing attitudes toward low-committment sex;"
The question is not whether they do or not, but what is the basis of those differences. If you have a sitaution where you punish A for doing something and reward B for doing the same thing, you are bound to get differing attitudes between A and B about doing that thing. To draw conclusions about innateness from this obvious difference without any scientific evidence or backing is stupid.
"The evidence on prostitution being almost totally for men as customers is interesting, true. But traditionally women have not had funds to buy sex."
My own completely unscientific opinion on this is that there may be a biological basis for this difference. But rather than saying anything about desire for casual sex, I think this says more about the greater propensity of men to objectify people and use them against their will. It takes a certain level of callousness and cruelty to use prostituted people (most of whom are not there willingly), and men are more likely to have those levels of callousness and cruelty. This is just a hunch, backed up by some research on sociopathy. The same thing goes for rape. Propensity for rape does not signify a greater desire for sex, but simply a greater propensity to objectify and dehumanize the victims.
Echidne, I wasn't responding to the original post, but the discussion that developed in the comments.
I agree completely about the complexity of sexual desire. Claiming that e.g. men are less selective in sexual partner choice, or more willing to engage in sex with those they don't know well, is a completely different statement than saying that men are more sexual than women or have more sexual desire, etc. It is for example perfectly possible that people who desire a lot of different casual sex partners they don't know well would desire less sexual activity overall. (Perhaps the easiest way to get the most absolute sexual activity is to find one highly sexual partner and settle down with them).
I do think that there is interesting and truly academic ev psych research starting to develop around these questions, which is why I linked the article above (and the responses and accompanying debate) It is far from perfect (as you'd expect with a new social science), but there is progress being made on looking at these questions objectively. For example, the main article finds that in countries with greater gender equity (presumably where there is less of a double standard about female sexuality), women are absolutely more likely to react positively toward low-committment sex, and the difference between men and women in such attitudes is lower. However, the within-culture difference between men and women remains significant. Also note how multi-dimensional the survey instrument is (from experiences to attitudes to fantasies); perhaps pulling out one survey component could get at some of the questions about desire you are raising.
to Jeff Fecke: you're the one hearing the urban legend making-stuff-up version of the study. I read the original, in an anthology of important psychological journal articles for a Social Psych class. When asked for a phone number by the random attractive stranger, both male and female undergrads gave a "yes" about half the time; the number of women who said "yes" to "let's have sex" was indeed exactly zero, to roughly 75% among men. The Psych Today article, while stupid and worthy of Echidne's takedown, got the facts of the study correct.
(My own reaction, as a college male, would have been "...... huh?". I don't know how that would have been scored. As a 33-year-old, my current answer would be "I don't think my wife would like that".)
As for what reasonable, thoughtful Evolutionary Psych types have to say about conformity: well, quite a lot. The best work on the subject, Judith Rich Harris's the Nurture Assumption (and its semi-redundant but semi-inspired followup No Two Alike), argues -- with extreme analytical rigor, yet very personably -- that the central purposes of the human brain are to help a person figure out "To what group(s) of people do I belong?", "How do I make them welcome me as a member?", and "How do I stand out as just a little better than they are?". I see no point in summarizing her arguments briefly, as Harris's own version is careful in ways I couldn't match. Still, I made a 2000-word attempt at
http://www0.epinions.com/
content...nt_228756196996
if you're curious. Evolutionary Psychology is not necessary to her arguments, but she uses its reasoning, among many other forms, to support her case. Lest you wonder, she absolutely _does_ discuss the pressures on psychologists (including herself) to conform with other psychologists.
A final note: Evolutionary Psychologists who say that we _should_ act in ways according to our supposed evolutionary programming are
(1) assholes and therefore
(2) far more likely to appear on mass media outlets than other, probably more numerous, Evolutionary Psychologists who think that we should use our minds to rise above our worst alleged instincts.
"I do think that there is interesting and truly academic ev psych research starting to develop around these questions, which is why I linked the article above"
Marcus, I don't think you are understanding the point being made here. Surveys don't say anything about evo-psych unless you are able to factor out the confounding cultural variables, which for obvious reasons is virtually impossible to do. In fact, the stuff that you are citing points in the opposite direction to evo-psych explanations.
Evolutionary Psychologists who say that we _should_ act in ways according to our supposed evolutionary programming are
(1) assholes"
Only the most naive evo-psychos would do that, because it is very easy to shoot down that argument. The cleverer ones rely on defeatism (nothing can be done about it, so don't even try) and clemency (he couldn't help it, his genes made him do it, poor guy) to promote acceptance for social-darwinist agendas.
Surveys don't say anything about evo-psych unless you are able to factor out the confounding cultural variables
Surveys that cover a wide variety of different cultures help you do just that, that's the point. There is no way absent an experiment to fully factor out confounding variables, the only way to make a start is to see if the phenomenon stays stable across a wide range of cultural contexts.
In fact, the stuff that you are citing points in the opposite direction to evo-psych explanations.
Well, the main author certainly believes that his findings provide some support for evo-psych, and I agree with him. But the findings introduce complexity, are susceptible to different interpretations, and make it quite clear that there are many other major sources of variation in the behavior being examined besides the innate gender-linked evo psych explanation. (Culture clearly has a huge influence on those findings). All of those things are how you know it was decent social science, which was my point.
I suspect we may have a different referent for "evo psych" here -- you mean the crude junk from the Psychology Today article, which I agree is crap, while I'm trying to point to actual decent academic work being done.
Well, the main author certainly believes that his findings provide some support for evo-psych, and I agree with him. But the findings introduce complexity, are susceptible to different interpretations, and make it quite clear that there are many other major sources of variation in the behavior being examined besides the innate gender-linked evo psych explanation. (Culture clearly has a huge influence on those findings). All of those things are how you know it was decent social science, which was my point.
One of the things the study shows is that attitudes get closer as societies get more gender-equal. Of course we don't know what might happen with a totally gender-equal society as it doesn't exist.
The cleverer ones rely on defeatism (nothing can be done about it, so don't even try) and clemency (he couldn't help it, his genes made him do it, poor guy) to promote acceptance for social-darwinist agendas.
Right, but the respectable ones - which, again, in my experience are a majority - go out of their way to celebrate human choice and shoot down any form of "we can't help it" defeatism. Again, the glossy mags don't like them as much. This doesn't invalidate the Ev. Psych. approach.
As for Marcus's links re male/female attitudes to sex, I agree with what he says about them: that no, surveys do not constitute proof, and yes, they certainly show that cultural factors are important. The existence of the surveyed differences in all cultures is evidence - not proof - for them being, at some broad generalized full-of-exceptions level, innate.
However, the agendas of the MSM aside, Evolutionary Psychology tends to be far more about the _similarities_ among people than about the differences, and sex differences are one, far-from-central thread in the approach.
Well, this is the way men are, so women will have to accept it
That is EXACTLY the point of evolutionary psychology - it's a defense of partriarchy written in "scientific" terminology so that even liberal men can agree with it and not feel guilty.
It's no coincidence that ev-psychs are constantly churning out explanations for male dominance that absolve socio-political systems.
And thanks for the clarification on Kingsley R. Browne, Ann Bartow - you beat me to it!
"Right, but the respectable ones - which, again, in my experience are a majority - go out of their way to celebrate human choice and shoot down any form of "we can't help it" defeatism"
Name some "respectable ones." Just one or two will suffice.
Name some "respectable ones." Just one or two will suffice.
Edward Wilson, the founder/inventor of Evolutionary Psychology. Judith Rich Harris. Amotz Zahavi. Franz Van der Waal. David Buss. Robert Wright, not himself an evolutionary psychologist but one of its most important popularizers. Steven Pinker in this context (he has significant flaws, but he's absolutely emphatic that we can rise above bad programming). Richard Dawkins, who again is a jerk in other ways but who again emphasizes that we don't need to live down to our instincts.
That's more than "one or two", but I could still go on.
I should explain, I guess, why I care. Evolutionary Psychology as an approach - not each single hypothesis advanced in its name, but as a field of inquiry - pretty much has to be valid. Why? Because it derived directly from the acceptance of just two proven principles:
(1) Evolution happens. (For the 40% of Americans who reject even this, evolutionary psychology is a terrible place to start. Michael Shermer's Why Darwin Matters, followed by the Steven Jay Gould essay collection of your choice, should get any reader started, at an easy-access level, on why evolution is a Theory the way gravity is a Theory.)
(2) Personality traits have genetic aspects. Anyone care to argue that the only difference between dobermans and poodles are on account of environment ... or that identical twins reared thousands of miles apart have strongly similar personality traits because they mysteriously get raised in the same environment? Don't worry, the scientists are fully prepared to argue back.
If evolution happens and genes have an effect on personality, then universal and near-universal human traits (or monkey traits or bowerbird traits) are likely to have evolved for a survival- or reproduction-based reason.
Can evolutionary psychologists be guilty of Just So Stories? Sure - but its true practictioners also make hypotheses that can be and have been tested, by comparing across cultures or across species. I don't say the different broadly-averaged attitudes towards casual sex among men and women have been proven to be built-in .... but hundreds of other species with widely differing amounts of male and female investment in their offspring have been investigated. And the results of those studies strongly suggest that human males would risk a lot more to have casual sex than human females would.
This seems, in practice, to be true. If it isn't, well, that's maybe 3% of the research done by the Ev. Psych types.
(Meaning, again, the average human male and average human female. Individuals differ from each other a lot more than any "average"s do. Weird how it's the folks at Psychology Today, of all places, who forget to notice.)
David Buss. Robert Wright
!
Can evolutionary psychologists be guilty of Just So Stories? Sure - but its true practictioners also make hypotheses that can be and have been tested, by comparing across cultures or across species. I don't say the different broadly-averaged attitudes towards casual sex among men and women have been proven to be built-in .... but hundreds of other species with widely differing amounts of male and female investment in their offspring have been investigated. And the results of those studies strongly suggest that human males would risk a lot more to have casual sex than human females would.
But here we come back to that whole question about differential risks of physical violence and pregnancy. When evolutionary psychologists talk about this stuff they don't mean those very real aspects of being a woman. They mean that women are less interested in casual sex, and they ignore that casual sex is more risky for women. What they mean by the differential costs is the idea that women will not have sex except with "high quality" men because they invest more in the children than men do and so on.
Note that the actual physical risks of casual sex are about the same across cultures in this basic sense, and any measurement of some genetic differences in the preferences can't ignore that.
I should explain, I guess, why I care. Evolutionary Psychology as an approach - not each single hypothesis advanced in its name, but as a field of inquiry - pretty much has to be valid. Why? Because it derived directly from the acceptance of just two proven principles:
(1) Evolution happens. (For the 40% of Americans who reject even this, evolutionary psychology is a terrible place to start. Michael Shermer's Why Darwin Matters, followed by the Steven Jay Gould essay collection of your choice, should get any reader started, at an easy-access level, on why evolution is a Theory the way gravity is a Theory.)
(2) Personality traits have genetic aspects. Anyone care to argue that the only difference between dobermans and poodles are on account of environment ... or that identical twins reared thousands of miles apart have strongly similar personality traits because they mysteriously get raised in the same environment? Don't worry, the scientists are fully prepared to argue back.
If evolution happens and genes have an effect on personality, then universal and near-universal human traits (or monkey traits or bowerbird traits) are likely to have evolved for a survival- or reproduction-based reason.
Here is where I see the problem. That I don't accept the silly JustSo stories which often have political aims does NOT mean that I think there are no evolutionary influences in our psychology. To criticize bad quasiscience is NOT the same thing as arguing that science wouldn't matter. What I want to see is BETTER science.
Take the idea that having lots of casual sex is a successful evolutionary strategy for men. But is it the only one or the best one? Why don't we then have a society where men have lots of casual sex and where property is passed on through, say, brother-and-sister families?
Also, I suspect it's because the initial stories were told by men that the story always ends at the act of sex. Given how hard it is to bring a child to fertile adulthood even today, how many of those casual sex encounters led to the next generation of adults? This part of the story is of zero interest to some Evolutionary Psychologists, and so is the question of how those prehistoric people actually lived.
Then there is the impossibility of getting the required evidence. When tribes of today are used or primate studies are used the evidence is often picked to prove a certain point.
Consider the chimpanzees observed by Jane Goodall. She explicitly points out that the female chimpanzees mated with as many males as they could. Other studies tested the DNAs of chimpanzee babies in another group and found that a sizeable percentage of the babies were sired by some chimp outside the group. Now, these female chimpanzees don't show the kind of behavior the Evo-Psychos want to prove so this evidence is ignored.
"Edward Wilson, the founder/inventor of Evolutionary Psychology. Judith Rich Harris. Amotz Zahavi. Franz Van der Waal. David Buss. Robert Wright, not himself an evolutionary psychologist but one of its most important popularizers. Steven Pinker in this context (he has significant flaws, but he's absolutely emphatic that we can rise above bad programming). Richard Dawkins, who again is a jerk in other ways but who again emphasizes that we don't need to live down to our instincts."
David Buss is a GOOD one???? Un-fucking-believable. But I will examine them all for your benefit and others' amusement:
E. O. Wilson repopularized Social Darwinism. He didn't invent it. And it was called Sociobiology at the time, as was Wilson's first book on the subject.
Wilson claimed that polygyny was a genetic human trait, a claim that was refuted by many, including anthropologist Marvin Harris.
I don't know much about Judith Rich Harris, I'll have to learn more. However, her book is beloved of a men's rights group, which certainly doesn't bode well:
http://www.menstuff.org/books/by...ng-
general.html
It's late and I don't even want my brain to still be on (though it is) when I have a baby to resume care of in six hours. So to quickly respond:
1. It's not you, Echidne, whom I see as dismissing the entire concept that evolutionary psychology can be done well. It's many of your commenters ... although, intentionally or not, you clearly *do* egg them on in dismissing an entire field of study. As, obviously, do the morons who write the articles you dissect: I don't blame your commenters, I just hope to make them more curious/interested and less hostile.
2. The practical reasons why women fear casual sex are entirely valid. The ev-psych point is simply that they would be predicted, from the evidence of other species, to be more hesitant about casual sex (on average) than men. Apparently they are, across all known cultures.
3. I don't remember off-hand _how_ Gooddall's chimp evidence has helped shape anyone's mate-selection theories, but it has: I've seen at least one ev-psych writer take the subject on. My guess would be Buss and/or Matt Ridley; at any rate, no, it's not entirely tossed aside.
4. Finally, to repeat: most evolutionary psychology is about human universals and near-universals: the whys and the conditions behind love, altruism, cheating, shunning, violence, gossip, etc etc etc. Why the media wants only to talk about real or imagined sex differences is a very different question.
Amotz Zahavi - not an evolutionary psychologist - he's an evolutionary biologist. Specialized in non-human mating behaviors. Big difference.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amo...ki/
Amotz_Zahavi
2. The practical reasons why women fear casual sex are entirely valid. The ev-psych point is simply that they would be predicted, from the evidence of other species, to be more hesitant about casual sex (on average) than men. Apparently they are, across all known cultures.
But in all cultures they are also more vulnerable to violence and the repercussions of a pregnancy (which can kill you, too). Suppose, for the sake of a mental exercise, that women and men were equally interested in casual sex in the sense of desire. Then the actual differences I mentioned could explain why women are less likely to engage in it, even in the absence of any evolutionary differences. Add to that the fact that most societies used to punish women for casual sex and not punish men.
I'm not certain what animal evidence you refer to, but the evidence I discussed came from primates and usually that is the evidence that is argued to matter for humans the most.
E. O. Wilson repopularized Social Darwinism. He didn't invent it
He invented Evolutionary Psychology and loudly, repeatedly rejected Social Darwinism. If you've actually read any of his works on human evolution, you know this, so I assume you're working on third-hand libels. I've read him; now it's your turn.
Wilson claimed that polygyny was a genetic human trait
No he didn't, nor did he claim marriage of any form is genetic. That would be ridiculous.
He did claim that men on average show, across all known cultures, a stronger desire for multiple partners than women do. (There are polyandrous societies, and Marvin Harris, who more than anyone is the reason I got started on my minor in Anthropology, may well have been the author of the best environmental explanations of this; if it wasn't him, it was someone else. I don't think anyone has given reason to doubt that men in those societies are still horndogs.) How anyone acts on this is a matter of (1) culture and (2) individual choice, as Edward Wilson carefully stated. Carefully and indignantly - exactly because of accusations like yours, Nancy.
Amotz Zahavi - not an evolutionary psychologist - he's an evolutionary biologist
Who explains, in evolutionary terms, the impulses behind behaviors, including - here it comes - human behaviors. That's evolutionary psychology. The Handicap Principle can also go on your reading list.
Who explains, in evolutionary terms, the impulses behind behaviors, including - here it comes - human behaviors. That's evolutionary psychology. The Handicap Principle can also go on your reading list.
Since you already have it, why don't you quote examples of Zahavi's evolutionary psychology ? And no, claiming that some human behaviors have evolutionary roots is not the same thing as standard evolutionary psychology, not by a long shot.
He did claim that men on average show, across all known cultures, a stronger desire for multiple partners than women do. (There are polyandrous societies, and Marvin Harris, who more than anyone is the reason I got started on my minor in Anthropology, may well have been the author of the best environmental explanations of this; if it wasn't him, it was someone else. I don't think anyone has given reason to doubt that men in those societies are still horndogs.) How anyone acts on this is a matter of (1) culture and (2) individual choice, as Edward Wilson carefully stated. Carefully and indignantly - exactly because of accusations like yours, Nancy.
But why is it then the case that in all societies, pretty much, it is the women who are punished for having multiple partners? If they don't want them in the first place? A woman with several partners openly is still called a whore in most places on this earth. Why is this social policing needed if there is no reason for it?
Look, Nancy, I need to go to bed. You claim that evolutionary psychology is a field of pseudo-science that exists to justify the status quo. I gave you a list of authors -- we'll toss in Matt Ridley, Michael Shermer, and Daniel Dennett if you're going to be like this -- who in their books
(1) make testable hypotheses about possible evolutionary roots of human behavior, whether or not these hypotheses all turn out to be correct, and
(2) go out of their way to argue that, even if people have certain innate leanings or preferences, we can act contrary to them because we have minds.
Assuming I'm telling you the truth (and it would be silly of me to lie, since it's so easily checkable), then YOUR CLAIM IS WRONG, and mean-spirited.
Your arguments are the equivalent of a man reading an article about Catherine MacKinnon and Andrea Dworkin's views, not liking those views, and dismissing the entire women's movement as trash. Do you want to be that way? Why?
*****
(For the record, I have no idea why a men's-rights group would embrace Judith Rich Harris's work. I don't see how her work is relevant to their cause. Maybe they misinterpret her; then again, maybe they just like a good book?)
How anyone acts on this is a matter of (1) culture and (2) individual choice, as Edward Wilson carefully stated. Carefully and indignantly - exactly because of accusations like yours, Nancy.
Well I guess you are accusing Marvin Harris of being a liar, because this is what he says:
"According to Wilson (1977:132) we share a number of gene-controlled behavior traits with the Old World primates, while other traits are uniquely human. Among the more general primate traits Wilson mentions the following... (2) polygyny"
So is that what you are saying? Wilson did NOT say that polygyny is a gene-controlled behavior, and Marvin Harris simply made it up?
Are you saying there's no difference between sociobiology and evolutionary psychology? If there are no differences, why the change in terminology from Wilson's book?
David Buss has to be one of the very worst eps. One of my favorite examples of exactly how bad he is was given by David Buller in his book Adapting Minds, Evolutionary Psychology and the Persistent Quest for Human Nature:
"...in a well-documented study, the anthropologist William Irons found that, among the Turkmen of Persia, males in the wealthier half of the population left 75 percent more offspring than males in the poorer half of the population. Buss cites several studies like this as indicating that "high status in men leads directly to increased sexual access to a larger number of women," and he implies that this is due to the greater desirability of high-status men (David Buss 1999 "Evolutionary Psychology the New Science of the Mind").
But, among the Turkmen, women were sold by their families into marriage. The reason that higher-status males enjoyed greater reproductive success among the Turkmen is that they were able to buy wives earlier and more often than lower-status males. Other studies that clearly demonstrate a reproductive advantage for high-status males are also studies of societies or circumstances in which males "traded" in women. This isn't evidence that high-status males enjoy greater reproductive success because women find them more desirable. Indeed, it isn't evidence of female preference at all, just as the fact that many harem-holding despots produced remarkable numbers of offspring is no evidence of their desirability to women. It is only evidence that when men have power they will use it to promote their reproductive success, among other things (and that women, under such circumstances, will prefer entering a harem to suffering the dire consequences of refusal)."
*sigh* Echidne, one last answer to you, since you argue respectfully, for which I thank you. You deserve to have me look up full descriptions and citings of the studies I vaguely remember on female adultery; instead, alas, I made a quick failed search and muttered "heck with it".
If the studies exist as I remember (and maybe they don't), women who cheat on their partners are disproportionately likely to do so at the peak-fertility time of their cycle -- no, the women studied weren't aware of this -- and to do so with men stronger, taller, and better-looking than their partners (which I assume they did realize). I think the study involved anonymous diaries, medical exams, and some form of double-blinding. I could be wrong.
Anyway, the hypothesis was that women subconsciously cheat to get better genes donated, while men subconsciously cheat in order to just mate with more genes, more more more. Since men and woman also have conscious minds, and sex is fun, and sex is potentially costly, they (we) can obviously behave in ways that totally violate this general trend.
Why men punish women, I have no idea. I liked the Joss Whedon essay you linked.
And *sigh* again, Nancy: Marvin Harris clearly over-simplified Wilson's claims in a way that made them false. He probably meant well. Don't believe me; read Wilson, not Harris, before you comment on Wilson. How hard is that!!?! Goodnight.
"Your arguments are the equivalent of a man reading an article about Catherine MacKinnon and Andrea Dworkin's views, not liking those views, and dismissing the entire women's movement as trash. Do you want to be that way? Why?
"
My arguments? I haven't even BEGUN to argue, pal. I am just getting warmed up. You think that my strutting and taking a few lazy potshots is the full extent of my arguments against evolutionary psychology? I've done this argument so many times, I need a LITTLE variety to make it stay interesting.
And are you saying you are unaware of the many many scientists who disagree with evolutionary psychology, from their political agenda all the way down to disagreements on gene vs. group selection and arguments over spandrels?
Yeah go to bed - that way you won't be disabused of your simplistic, self-serving comprehension of me and my arguments.
*sigh* - no Marvin Harris did NOT simplify Wilson's arguments. I don't happen to have Wilson's book handy, so I can't quote from it. But I will, if you can ever get enough oxygen to stop sighing in exasperation at these foolish silly females who are too stupid to GET evolutionary psychology.
But why WOULDN'T Wilson be saying that polygyny is biological? That is what ALL the EP's claim.
Or rather, they used to claim it much more in Wilson's heyday before it was discovered that so many children were not biologically related to their mother's husband. Then the EP's changed the party line from man-polygamous, woman-monogamous, to we all cheat, but women cheat to get better genetic material.
The EPs cannot STAND for there to be one human sexual behavior that is shared by males and females. They will move heaven and earth to come up with a theory that demonstrates differences in behavior and especially motivation - preferably oppositional behavior and motivation. And prefereably behavior and motivation that mirrors 1950s American mores.
P.S. Sadly, Nancy, it turns out I'm still awake. In answer to your question, yes: sociobology = evolutionary psychology. I believe the name change was partly for accuracy and partly because the potshots at Edward Wilson (from people who hadn't read him) had gotten boring.
I've finished my arguments: they amount to "please read highlights from the source material before you dismiss an entire field of human study". I'm a liberal social democrat with a degree from a right-wing Economics program and a subscription to American Conservative. I'm a straight white male whose favorite writers include Richard Wright, Ellis Cose, Octavia Butler, Barbara Ehrenreich, Echidne of the Snakes, and the scriptwriters of Six Feet Under and Queer as Folk. I actually _like_ to learn new things. These arguments are for people who share this trait. You, Nancy, don't seem to be among them.
"make testable hypotheses about possible evolutionary roots of human behavior, whether or not these hypotheses all turn out to be correct, and
"
TESTABLE HYPOTHESES???? I must have missed it. Do you mean like David Buss's "test" where he mailed out a survey asking people questions about their sexual practices, and averaged the responses to arrive at what he claimed were biological universals?
I've finished my arguments: they amount to "please read highlights from the source material before you dismiss an entire field of human study".
But I have. And even better, unlike you, I've read the refutations. Did you read David Buller's book, which I mentioned? You don't bother to address that at all. You claim David Buss is a good EP, and I present evidence to the contrary, and all you can do in response is sigh and yawn and dismiss me with a royal wave of your hand and tell me I'm an ignoramus.
And what, exactly does your litany of leisure-time activities have to do with ANY of this?
(I took a nice long walk; I took out my contact lenses; I snuggled next to my wife. WHY am I still thinking about this, brain? Why hast thou forsaken me?)
The following evolutionary psychology books are either not at all about the differences between men and women, or devote less than 10% of their pages to the subject:
* Susan Blackmore, the Meme Machine
* Daniel Dennett, Consciousness Explained
* Judith Rich Harris, the Nurture Assumption
* Steven Pinker, the Language Instinct and How the Mind Works
* Matt Ridley, the Origins of Virtue
* Michael Shermer, How We Believe
* Franz van der Waal, Chimpanzee Politics and (unless I remember wrong) Our Inner Ape
* Robert Wright, the Moral Animal
* Edward Wilson, Sociobiology
* Amotz Zahavi, the Handicap Principle
Pretty weird, given that evolutionary psychology is a conspiracy to subjugate women, but you can check for yourself. It's almost as if the Feminine Mystique, For Her Own Good, Reviving Ophelia, Backlash, and In a Different Voice weren't all a bunch of dykes insisting that all sex is rape.
Final (?) P.S.: I haven't read David Buss in ten years - his was one of the first ev-psych books I ever read. I'd be surprised and sad if it was as shallowly researched as you suggest, since I already had a double-minor in Anthropology and Sociology and I don't think I'd've been impressed by bad research, but I dunno.
According to Publisher's Weekly, Buller is being partly unfair: Buss and colleagues researched 37 cultures. Says Amazon customer Bob Fancher, "I teach evolutionary psychology in college, organizing my classes around the "logic of inquiry." I use this book to illustrate cross-cultural investigation, including the pragmatic difficulties of getting good data from massive studies. For that purpose, the book has its uses.
However, unless you are a critical, already-knowledgeable reader, this book may not be a good choice. The book exemplifies neither the state of the art nor a model of how to think soundly about the questions.
Buss's hypotheses tend to be very vague. Indeed, he often says things like, "Evolutionary psychology explains this constellation of traits," as if there were some one hypothesis held by all evolutionary psychologists. He rarely, if ever, presents alternative hypotheses from within evolutionary studies.
He presents little, if any, contradictory or complicating data, never shows what would be involved in falsifying his hypotheses, and never shows why his theory is better supported than others' views of evolution. You get no sense from this book of the vigorous, usually exciting debates on mating *within* evolutionary circles.
You get litle or no sense from this book that problems of sexual adaptivity do not occur alone. You would never know that for humans, copulation has less to do with reproduction than in nearly any other species-and that this complicates immensely understanding our evolved mating habits".
He gives the book three stars. Sounds plausible.
Surveys that cover a wide variety of different cultures help you do just that, that's the point. There is no way absent an experiment to fully factor out confounding variables, the only way to make a start is to see if the phenomenon stays stable across a wide range of cultural contexts.
If there are factors that remain stable across all cultures, such as threat of violence and pregnancy, and non-zero inequality, then, no, surveys cannot provide evidence for innateness of those differences. However, they can provide evidence *against* innateness, which is what they are doing by showing that preferences become more similar with greater equality.
Your arguments are the equivalent of a man reading an article about Catherine MacKinnon and Andrea Dworkin's views, not liking those views, and dismissing the entire women's movement as trash.
Your gratuitous insult of Catherine MacKinnon and Andrea Dworkin is not appreciated.
Why men punish women, I have no idea.
The point is that they do, and it suggests something that contradicts your theory. How easy it is to dismiss whatever doesn't fit your world view.
Pretty weird, given that evolutionary psychology is a conspiracy to subjugate women, but you can check for yourself.
Evo Psychos do spend an inordinate amount of time defending the status quo, whatever else they do. And considering that the nature of the field itself makes it scientifically handicapped, I fully agree with Nancy and many others, including evolutionary biologists, who look at evo psysh with extreme suspicion.
Your gratuitous insult of Catherine MacKinnon and Andrea Dworkin is not appreciated.
Who insulted them? I have no opinion about them, and no basis for an opinion about them, having not read their work. I say only, by way of analogy, that it would be contemptible for someone to judge all of feminism by them, even if the dismisser was an expert on their work; and even more so to do so without knowing what they actually have to say. Nancy's posts are the equivalent.
Who insulted them? I have no opinion about them
If you have no opinion about them, then why pick them for your analogy?
even more so to do so without knowing what they actually have to say
Do you have to read every word written by every creationist to view the entire field of creationism with extreme suspicion?
If you have no opinion about them, then why pick them for your analogy?
Because I know they piss people off. You will note, however, that my central point is that just because people get pissed off at what someone says, doesn't mean they've actually made a serious and sympathetic attempt to understand it first. And that maybe, for once, people should.
Do you have to read every word written by every creationist to view the entire field of creationism with extreme suspicion?
No, but I've read key works, and one of my best (and otherwise smartest) friends in high school was a devotee of them for awhile. So I've made very sure I was responding to the actual content of the arguments.
And if someone well-versed in creationism informed me, respectfully if with a touch of a 2 a.m. weariness, that I was in fact completely misunderstanding or unaware of a large portion of the field, I would acknowledge their claim and leave the argument. It hasn't happened, but who knows? Someday it might.
And if someone well-versed in creationism informed me, respectfully if with a touch of a 2 a.m. weariness, that I was in fact completely misunderstanding or unaware of a large portion of the field, I would acknowledge their claim and leave the argument.
And you would grant creationism credibility based on their claims? Because that is what you are asking for - credibility for the field of EvPsych based on the claim that the skeptics haven't read/understood the allegedly trustworthy/capable practitioners of EvPsych.
you would grant creationism credibility based on their claims?
I would stop arguing until I'd had a chance to read and ponder their evidence, yes. See my conceding the issue of David Buss's research, above: I knew I don't remember his work at all well, so I bowed to superior evidence and even posted some half-support I'd found for Nancy's charges.
I've commented on like four Echidne threads, and every time I've let myself get dragged into long arguments with people who seem unwilling to take that basic, basic step. I don't think the point of arguments is to win, but to learn. Nobody is learning here. I need to stop, so I will make myself go away. I'll look for further replies on Monday or something; by then, I should be able to not reply.
I state that virtually all of the most important authors on the subject vigorously emphasize that "whatever is" DOES NOT EQUAL "is right".
I've said it before and I'll say it again. One does not need to say it is right in order to support the status quo. One can support the status quo by repeating and popularizing unsubstantiated speculations supporting stereotypes. One does not make anyone get a disease by telling them the (speculated or real) cause of the disease. But behaviour, and response to behaviour (acceptance or punishment) is much more susceptible to influence by suggestions of innateness. If there was any scientific basis behind these suggestions, I would just say "too bad" and leave it at that. But the worst part is that the EvoPsychos are causing the damage through pure speculation.
Well talk about shameless hypocrisy. You complain because I quote Marvin Harris on Wilson, so who do you quote on Buss?
" Says Amazon customer Bob Fancher, "I teach evolutionary psychology in college, organizing my classes around the "
Jesus christ on a pogo stick.
But this is EVEN BETTER:
===============
If you have no opinion about them, then why pick them for your analogy?
Because I know they piss people off.
=================
There's a term for people who try to piss people off, for the sheer hell of it. It's called "being a fucking asshole."
And here I was planning to drag you up one side of EP bullshit mountain and back down again to demonstrate that your belief system is based on fucking assholishness - and then you go ahead and OUT yourself just like that. What the hell kind of fun is that for me?
'Psychology Today' is a marketing rag. I have seen articles in it on my technical specialty (which is not evo-psych), and they were appallingly ignorant of the literature, and about as wrong as you could get.
Don't waste your money. Stick to the hard peer-reviewed stuff, as boring as a lot of it is.
Jesus Christ on a pogo stick. Talk about shameless hypocrisy. You complain because I quote Marvin Harris on Wilson, so who do you quote on Buss?
Someone who at least halfway AGREED WITH YOU. I was conceding that particular point, you rage-blind functionally illiterate viper.
I now believe you, Nancy: you surely did "read" Edward Wilson. I remember how after an attempt once to enjoy a Woody Allen film, I decided to read (a couple pages of) Proust in the original French, just so I could announce I had. The punchline, of course, is that I couldn't understand a word of it.
Brian, while I don't doubt your motives and I respect your style of argument (and thank you for not taking the usual arrogant, high-handed tone of many EP-advocates), I think you're a little over-sanguine in your assessment of EPs like Buss or Ridley or Wilson. In my view, they're over-confident in their pronouncement and too prone to peddle conventional wisdom under the banner of science.
I don't doubt that there are innate human qualities or that there are some innate differences between males and females. But I also see very little evidence to support the notion that these differences are what our society thinks they are, and I believe in being very cautious about making pronouncements about what traits are innate--even if, or perhaps ESPECIALLY if, those pronouncements are in line with "common sense." That's why most scientists who study gender differences are cautious about describing the implications of their work, and are quick to suggest possible alternatives to their hypotheses.
Part of my objections to many EP advocates has to to with the philosophy of science. Many of them seem to be misguided in their view of what the scientific method is. Mary Midgley (a philosopher) has written a good account of some of this in her book "The Ethical Primate," if you're interested.
Regardless of the disagreement in this thread, though, I think we can all agree that studies of gender differences should be analyzed from all possible angles and that we should be wary of our tendency to assume that observed differences are biological or evolutionary in origin.
Mary Midgley (a philosopher) has written a good account of some of this in her book "The Ethical Primate,"
Reading List status: added. Thanks for an intelligent post! I have no disagreements with it.
Echidne,
Thank you so much for your detailed critique of the Psychology Today article. I found it last week, via aldaily.com, and laughed with horror as I read through it -- but hadn't been able to shake off the sense of doom it engendered in me. I spent some time Friday night trying to relay how disturbing it was to a group of my fellow cultural anthropologists, but somehow seeing you pick it apart in such fine-grained, excellently argued detail has acted as a sort of exorcism for me.
Glad to be of service, Emma.
Exorcisms are a bit scary for me, though...
You could always continue spreading the word. This particular kind of sexism must be fought, too.
I haven't read all the comments on this one since there are so many of them, so I may repeat what other people have already said. (Or maybe not.)
8. You're right here. The good thing about Kanazawa's claim in this item is that it is testable, unlike most of his claims. So someone should do the study, and that will resolve it.
9. Again, I agree with you, not Kanazawa. I would point, though, out that it seems to be the case that most men do want multiple partners, and if they're powerful enough to get them, then as a general rule, they will try to do so. I don't know whether that's true of women or not. Elizabeth I seemed to have found power in refraining from sexual activity, at least openly. Personally, I would suspect that women in power might behave the same way, or at least if they refrain it's due to societal pressures, not biological ones. But men's willingness to sacrifice their job for an affair does not require an evolutionary explanation. It just requires understanding that all people have a hard time with delayed gratification and risk avoidance; if something seems good in the here and now, we tend to reach for it, and ignore the possibility that something bad may or may not happen in the future as a result of it. And people in power are used to getting their way, and if what they want is women, then women they'll have. Also, powerful men have the advantage or disadvantage of more women being interested in them, so it's easier for them to have an affair than it is for less desirable men.
Oh, and in regards to this theory that keeps popping up about all behavior being motivated by the desire for sex: it's ludicrous and wrong. Success is intrisically good - it is what we are striving for, our goal - that's how you define success in the first place. So we don't need to posit theories for why people like to succeed at things; we don't need to say it helps them win mates - even if it does, there's a simpler explanation: people will try for it anyway, by definition. Similarly, we don't need any more explanations for why people like to have money. Money gets you things you want. It's not an intrinsic good, but it is probably the most valuable thing in the world that isn't; you can exchange it for almost anything else that you desire. So, yes, it may get you more mates, but that doesn't mean that's why people want it. I could go on but the point has been made.
10. You're right again in that sexual harrassment is caused by treating women differently than men, not by treating them the same. After all, men don't make other men perform sexual favors in order to be promoted. Maybe that's not a fair criticism, since men tend to be sexually attracted to women more than to other men. But either way, the point is that women are being treated differently, which they are. As for the "now-classic study", I agree with you that it is flawed. Maybe a better one could be done; it'd have to be based on self-reports, but it'd be interesting to see what the results were. As you point out, you would not have said "yes" to such an offer, whether you desired it or not, because of practical considerations, namely the risks involved. But I wonder, if we asked the men and the women WHY they said yes or no, what we would find out. Would the women desire it just as much as the men, but just decline for practical reasons? Or would they actually desire it less? I don't know, but I would guess the latter. Maybe that's wrong, but it's an empirical question and I would defer to the data if it exists. But my guess is that close to 100% of the males would have the desire to go with the attractive stranger, and most of the 25% who said no did so for practical reasons too. And I just don't know if that'd be true of women or not.
Hey - I really enjoyed reading this series, I was looking for a good review of that book and this is just what I wanted. A couple of quick comments though:
(1) You will be pleased to know that in the segment about politicians risking everything for an affair - the man must have done the most superficial research possible about Moulay Ismail; the number of his sons is not firmly established, and he was not the last Sharifan sultan of Morocco - in fact, he was a member of the Alaouite dynasty that continues TO THIS DAY and still claims descendence from the Prophet Muhammed. I don't know much about science, but I do know Morocco, so my one opportunity to fact check against my own knowledge here had unimpressive results.
(2) I have my own theory about the study with the undergraduates propositioning sex - I think it has to do with the individuals deciding whether or not the sex is likely to be pleasurable. I've heard a few men say that sex is kind of like pizza; you know, it's hard to find bad pizza, even bad pizza is usually pretty good. It's a meal that's easy to get right. But sex for women just isn't that way - it's pretty easy to have sex that is a chore rather than a pleasure. I think sex for women is more like fish; fantastic when done right but, alas, easily spoiled. Which means that even if you just want a FUN TIME you have to consider your options more carefully. When I'm trying to size up a guy to figure out if I think he'll be fun to sleep with - no more or less - I don't just look at his face or body (though I do look at those) but I also consider how he moves or how he eats or how he tackles various kinds of physical activities, his confidence level. I've had too much rotten sex to do otherwise.
Plus, I think it's key that the study has people who AGREE to have sex, not people who actually do it. I think men are much more likely to talk the talk but not walk the walk - because they have to keep up a certain kind of appearance or image of themselves, maybe. I think if push came to shove, a decent percentage of those men would chicken out or be unable to perform.
Women are less likely to think that agreeing to have sex with a stranger is a point of personal pride, or an image-enhancer.
Commenting by HaloScan
