mormonsandscience

I'm not sure where you get the idea that Evolutionary Psychology somehow equals hedonism; there's plenty of reasons to actually dislike the subject, but that's not one. Actual Evolutionary Psychologist spend lots of time talking about why people are nice to each other and the associated benefits that accrue. Here's Darwin himself on the subject:

"The following proposition seems to me in a high degree probable- namely, that any animal whatever, endowed with well-marked social instincts, the parental and filial affections being here included, would inevitably acquire a moral sense or conscience, as soon as its intellectual powers had become as well, or nearly as well developed, as in man. For, firstly, the social instincts lead an animal to take pleasure in the society of its fellows, to feel a certain amount of sympathy with them, and to perform various services for them."

Social darwinism is not the same as evolutionary theory of any stripe; you may recall that it's mostly ben used as an excuse for cut-throat 19th century. capitalism.

Finally, using Jill Stanek as proof of something, anything--not still sure how this works into your dislike of evolutionary psychology unless you're accusing Stanek's co-workers of being EPists--does not lead credence to your arguments.

Illinois thoroughly investigated her claims and could find no evidence at all that there was any truth to them. More recently she has accused the Chinese of considering human fetuses a delicacy.

Dave C:

Darwin's theory of sexual selection is not going away anytime soon. It is the foundation of evolutionary psychology.

I assure you that evolutionary psychologists are NOT advocating Social Darwinism, the murder of babies, or anything of the like. Further, they are VERY aware of the naturalistic fallacy of making moralistic conclusions from natural observations. The Hanuman Langur may commit infanticide, but that does not make it right for humans.

Side note: Much of psychological theory describes human beings in hedonistic terms, such as the Law of Effect. Are you throwing out the Law of Effect as well?

There is indeed weak published evolutionary psychology, but it makes little sense to condemn the entire field. Your reaction to evolutionary psychology and Steven Pinker reminds me of how some outsiders react to Mormonism.

I would really like to see your version of theoretical psychology, as it seems to me (based upon your writings) that you have thrown out most of what exists.

My goodness. There are so many gaps in the post it is tough to know where to start, although it would seem most points of contention have been covered. But still:

1) How, exactly, does evolutionary psychology entail hedonism?

2) What evolutionary psychologist has ever tried to reduce ALL human behavior to biologically innate, and selected modules? All evolutionists accept that SOME humans behaviors should be reduced and exactly zero think that ALL human behaviors should be reduced. The only difference I can see is one of degree.

3) Other than the cheap guilt by association, what logical connect has ever been soundly drawn between evolution by natural selection and social darwinism? The "is" of natural selection entails exactly zero "oughts" of any kind at all. Neo-Darwinism neither justifies nor condemns any (im)moral action at all.

4) "By their fruits ye shall know them" is basically the fundamental premise underlying every anti-Mormon book ever written. What makes your use of that verse in this context any different from the antis' use of it in their books? Why do you get to discredit their use of it while at the same time expecting others to accept your use of it?

Eric Zorn of the Chicago Tribune investigated Jill Stanek's allegations. This is what he found (as written in a published email to her):

"As you well know, Jill, the Illinois Atty. General's office, then under abortion foe Jim Ryan, was quite concerned about your allegations and directed the Illinois Dept. of Public Health to conduct a thorough investigation of the claims made by you and Allison Baker.

Why?

"Because what they were alleging were violations of existing law," IDPH spokesman Tom Shafer told me yesterday. "We took (the allegations) very seriously."

Shafer told me that the 1999 investigation reviewed logs, personnel files and medical records. It concluded, "The allegation that infants were allowed to expire in a utility room could not be substantiated (and) all staff interviewed denied that any infant was ever left alone."

Shafer was quick to add that neither he nor the IDPH report concluded that your testimony was untruthful or exaggerated to help advance your anti-abortion views -- simply that their investigation did not substantiate the allegations."

Found <a href="http://mediamatters.org/research/200808200003?f=h_top">here</a>.

As to altruism, there's tons and tons of ongoing research on the subject in humans and other species. Your (loudly trumped) ignorance of the field really isn't an argument against it (and I wouldn't call you out if you haven't stated, such ignorance, twice now, as proof that no such evidence exists).

There's an entire field of EP devoted to studying, uh, "the mechanism by which morality ensues from evolution." As a single example, <a href="http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pbio.0050196">here's a study</a> showing altruism in rats. There's lots more where that one came from.

As to your original point, there's a book by Sarah Blaffer Hrdy called "Mother Nature" that discusses many many historical examples of infanticide. If you read it, you could write a much more scholarly post **against** Evolutionary Psychology.

Okay, but as I'm sure you have read in many sources "survival of the fittest" is, at best, a misleading description of Darwinian evolution by natural selection. If this is the strongest link you can find between it and social darwinism, you're gonna be hard pressed to persuade anybody.

"I don't know what your talking about. May I politely suggest you stay away from the anti literature?"

Ha! Don't worry, while I am roughly familiar with that "literature" (scare quote intended in the most derisive tone imaginable), I have no intention of bring up any particulars.

My point was that as badly reasoned as the anti-Mormon literature is, you are following the exact same line of reasoning. This reasoning is as follows:

The anti tract goes something like the following:
"Brigham Young/Joseph Smith said/did the following obviously false/evil thing. By your fruits you shall know them. Therefore, Mormonism is false/evil. QED."

You are doing the exact same thing with evolution here, just substitute BY/JS's names with that of Darwin, Spencer or Dawkins.

You know that Neo-Darwinian evolution does not entail Social Darwinism. You know it doesn't entail hedonism. You know it doesn't entail atheism. But you still keep bringing them up.

If you brought these things up as a way of steering people away from misrepresentations of Neo-Darwinism, as S. Faux and Steve P. do, that would be just dandy. But that is clearly not what you are doing.

Here's a story (and a video) of a dog behaving completely altruistically.

http://www.sonnyradio.com/herodog.html

Elephants are also altruistic to other elephants and even other species, using your definition. You can google it, or read about it here. http://www.andrews-elephants.com/elephant-altruism.html

S.Faux,

Re: " great proportion of the field of evolutionary psychology is devoted to how moral values and altruism evolved. In fact, the issue is central. Sounds like you have some homework to do."

While evolutionary psychology may attempt to account for these characteristics, their explanations are woefully inadequate. Or in the case of Dawkin's selfish gene theory they misunderstand true altruism or consider it an illusion. "Beyond Evolution" by Anthony O'Hear delineates the limits of evolutionary explanation. Homework done professor ;)

Those weren't ad hominem attacks, which requires that I say I dislike your argument for no other reason than I dislike you; they were asides that had no bearing on my argument. What do you think of the examples of altruism in animals that I gave?

I see Dave's views regarding altruism as being very closely related to his views about evolutionary psychology. EP is able to explain fairly well the creation of "altruism" towards kin as well as reciprocal "altruism" among non-related individuals.

The question is whether EP can take us beyond "altruism" to full blown Altruism and Dave wants to hold out for. Dave suggests that it cannot.

One response would be to suggest that there is no difference between the two; the Altruism that we see in humans just is the "altruism" of EP and that there is nothing left to explain. I, however, am not terribly comfortable with this. Like Dave, I'm not convinced that all forms of human altruism fits neatly within these two categories.

Where I get off the boat with Dave is when he goes on to say that perhaps "evolutionary psychology is intellectually bankrupted from the get go because it cannot account for behaviors that makes us uniquely human." This is a HUGE jump for which he provides no justification whatsoever.

Indeed, the only way that I can see him making such a jump is if, in his mind, EP claims to fully explain ALL types of human behavior. But as I said yesterday, EP makes no such claims. No evolutionary biologist claims that EP explains ALL human behavior, just as no evolutionary biologist claim that EP explain no human behavior at all.

What EP does accomplish, however, is getting us to a point where the gap between "altruism" and Altruism is relatively small and can easily be bridged by other naturalistic processes such cultural learning.

Does EP explain it all? Of course not, but why should it have to for it to be perfectly legit?

Dave,

I don't know if you've read Jerry Fodor's relatively recent criticisms of Darwinism or not. If not, just google "Fodor Darwinism" and you'll be led to all sorts of material.

What's interesting about Fodor's perspective is that he is a full blown naturalist who believes in evolution but thinks Darwinism is conceptually flawed and as such launches a philosophical criticism of the idea.

I thought you'd find it interesting if only because it elevates Darwinism debates above the typical Creationism/Intelligent Design debate that just seems to go round and round without anybody ever changing their mind about anything.