bloodyrosemccoy (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
bloodyrosemccoy) wrote2010-03-05 09:31 pm
bloodyrosemccoy) wrote2010-03-05 09:31 pm
Entry tags:
On Evolutionary Psychology, Intelligent Design, and Scuba Gear
First of all, when you get down past all the strawmen and junk science and media coverage, there is actually simple truth in the idea of evolutionary psychology: that an environment could shape the overall trends in inherited behavioral characteristics in a population. That’s established well enough in the way different species themselves behave differently.
The trouble with the science of evolutionary psychology is not just in explaining such universal characteristics, but in finding those characteristics in the first place. With every single attempt to explain Why We’re Like That, you first have to prove that we are like that—which is kind of impossible when you consider culture and neurology and individual experience and that obnoxious ability we have to rethink situations and alter our behavior—not to mention the scientist’s own bias. Me, I think the idea is fair enough, but I dare you to try illustrating it without turning into a douchebag.
But here’s the thing that interests me the most with people’s reactions to it: in all the crazy arguments for and against whatever individual characteristic we’re looking at, both sides treat the idea of an “adaptation” as, well, Ape Law. Regardless of whether someone has managed to isolate a real trait, you get one side arguing “It is TOTALLY an adaptation and therefore I am perfectly justified in behavinglike an ass this way!” and the others saying “It’s not an adaptation and therefore you are not justified!”
My question for both sides is this: since when did natural selection, a process that built the vertebrate eye upside-down and backwards, put tits on boars, and left wings on ostriches, become intelligent design?
Because that’s what it gets treated like. Instinct is handy, but dude, it’s not some kind of rule that God encoded into DNA as part of The Perfect Plan. Evolution is a process, but it’s not an efficient process, and there’s no trim end product with all the RIGHT traits. You can trick animal instincts so that they work against the animal. Some instincts may be maladaptive, or obsolete, or just kinda there. And fortunately, especially for humans, evolutionary traits can be overridden. Me, I’ve got a nice big brain full of culture and experience and analytical ability and empathy, all of which help me to analyze an impulse to do something, decide if it is the right thing to do in this situation, and then act according to that decision. And shit, everything from scuba masks to ski jumping, cooking to medicine, is a flip-off to evolution. Why is the behavior so sacred?
Basically, I don’t fucking CARE if rape or war or murder are adaptive, instinctive behaviors. That has no bearing on whether they’re things you can or should do. You want to use what natural selection gave you? Fine, dammit, you’ve got a good three pounds of complex neurology sitting just inside your head to work with. Use it. And quit saying that natural selection is Ape Law.
The trouble with the science of evolutionary psychology is not just in explaining such universal characteristics, but in finding those characteristics in the first place. With every single attempt to explain Why We’re Like That, you first have to prove that we are like that—which is kind of impossible when you consider culture and neurology and individual experience and that obnoxious ability we have to rethink situations and alter our behavior—not to mention the scientist’s own bias. Me, I think the idea is fair enough, but I dare you to try illustrating it without turning into a douchebag.
But here’s the thing that interests me the most with people’s reactions to it: in all the crazy arguments for and against whatever individual characteristic we’re looking at, both sides treat the idea of an “adaptation” as, well, Ape Law. Regardless of whether someone has managed to isolate a real trait, you get one side arguing “It is TOTALLY an adaptation and therefore I am perfectly justified in behaving
My question for both sides is this: since when did natural selection, a process that built the vertebrate eye upside-down and backwards, put tits on boars, and left wings on ostriches, become intelligent design?
Because that’s what it gets treated like. Instinct is handy, but dude, it’s not some kind of rule that God encoded into DNA as part of The Perfect Plan. Evolution is a process, but it’s not an efficient process, and there’s no trim end product with all the RIGHT traits. You can trick animal instincts so that they work against the animal. Some instincts may be maladaptive, or obsolete, or just kinda there. And fortunately, especially for humans, evolutionary traits can be overridden. Me, I’ve got a nice big brain full of culture and experience and analytical ability and empathy, all of which help me to analyze an impulse to do something, decide if it is the right thing to do in this situation, and then act according to that decision. And shit, everything from scuba masks to ski jumping, cooking to medicine, is a flip-off to evolution. Why is the behavior so sacred?
Basically, I don’t fucking CARE if rape or war or murder are adaptive, instinctive behaviors. That has no bearing on whether they’re things you can or should do. You want to use what natural selection gave you? Fine, dammit, you’ve got a good three pounds of complex neurology sitting just inside your head to work with. Use it. And quit saying that natural selection is Ape Law.
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1. What works for a small group of people doesn't work for us now, because our cultural evolution has vastly outstripped our biological evolution.
2. Even back then, I have a feeling if Bob was being a dick, eventually the tribe would get sick of him and leave him for the lions. Or at least not invite him along on hunts unless they really needed an extra body.
(Also, a lot of evopsych seems to depend on having good animal models. Any similarity we have to our nearest neighbors helps, since we can trace out simpler roots of behavior. Which makes family structure hard, since chimps and bonobos don't have the same structures humans do*.)
* At least the serial monogamy. Well aware that humans have a wide variety of family structures based on culture and resources and the individual human's ability to play nice with others.
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