Post by Smithee on May 26, 2012 10:59:49 GMT 10
Popular Evolutionary Psychology is Mostly Bunk
“Their belief in the power of biology to control human behavior is so reflexive that they can't be bothered to consider even the most glaringly obvious cultural factors impacting their claims.”
Read more at forum.frontrowcrew.com/index.php?p=/discussion/4794/popular-evolutionary-psychology-is-mostly-bunk/p1
The majority of studies that I have seen classified as Evolutionary Psychology that are widely publicized by the media seem to be predominantly concerned with telling the public, in simplified "scientific" terms what it already believes about the true natures of men and women. I have run across very few of these studies that actually provide anything close to convincing or conclusive evidence and seem to be mainly drawing conclusions without regard for any number of compounding factors. The problem in my eyes is that they take data from these tests (such as, for example, 60% more women chose the red object than men did or something like that) and make this wild jump in logic to use this data to make the claim "Women like pink because they are reminded of babies and therefore are hardwired to search out pink things and therefore should have lots of babies" Now this is an exaggeration, but I feel that similar leaps are made when interpreting the data in these "evolutionary psychology" research experiments. I feel like this term adds an air of legitimacy to a rather flimsy and incomplete pseudo-science, a scientific field made infamous by the way it was used in the past to rationalize discrimination against women and minorities. I feel like these experiments takes the blame off societal influences and says "see, that's just the way they are, nothing to be done." This is by no means all the scientists working within the field, but I feel that the presence of these numerous bogus and agenda-driven studies has cast doubt into many minds about how solid of a science this really is.
“Their belief in the power of biology to control human behavior is so reflexive that they can't be bothered to consider even the most glaringly obvious cultural factors impacting their claims.”
Read more at forum.frontrowcrew.com/index.php?p=/discussion/4794/popular-evolutionary-psychology-is-mostly-bunk/p1