Here, I review many of the salient presentations from an annual conference on Evolutionary Psychology hosted a few years back. A report on many of the presentations is brought to us by none other than Michael Shermer, founder of The Skeptics Society. Social constructionists and cultu who like to label Evo-Psych as ‘pseudo-science’ should take note that Shermer speaks quite favorably of Evo-Psych (throughout this post, emphasis is my own):
I should note at the top that on this, the 200th anniversary of Darwin’s birth and the 150th anniversary of the publication of The Origin of Species, it is embarrassing that it is only now that the application of Darwinian principles are fully coming online in mainstream psychological research laboratories.
The Sexual Double Standard
U.T. Austin evolutionary psychologist David Buss examined “Sexual Double Standards: The Evolution of Moral Hypocrisy.”
…
Are sexual double standards cross-cultural or only an artifact of modern Western society? Buss presented data from a cross-cultural study across 15 different cultures (n=2,471) that examined the impact of various acts on status and reputation. Results:
- Being a virgin and effect on status and reputation: male’s reputation goes down, female’s goes up.
- Being sexually experienced on status and reputation: male’s goes up, female’s varies, but is less positive.
- Reputation as an easily accessible sexual partner: negative for both males and females.
- Having sex with a date on the first night: tends to be bad for both, but worse for females than males.
- Having sex with two people in one night: negative impact of status and reputation for both sexes, but more for women than men; Women view other women more negatively than they view men who have had sex with two people in one night.
- Being unfaithful to a Long-Term mate: decreases status for both sexes, but women more than men.
- Having an unfaithful mate: loss of status for both sexes, but more status loss for men than for women.
In other words, sexual double standards exist and are robust across cultures, and the reputational consequences are ubiquitous but worse for women than for men.
This suggests that sexual double standards are to a certain extent innate and tend to exist cross-culturally. Men prefer a woman who is chaste. Women, on the other hand, prefer a man who is somewhat experienced, but nevertheless not promiscuous. That is, a man who has options but is choosy about his options.
Women do not find intelligence attractive
In a related talk Steven Gangstad examined: “Men’s Facial Masculinity, but Not Their Intelligence, Predicts Changes in Their Female partners’ Sexual Interests Across the Ovulatory Cycle”. If you get that title, guys, it means that being super smart will not make up for lacking a masculine face when women are in their most fertile phase of the month and in search of a sexual partner.
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Gangestad reviewed the literature on what fertile women find sexy in men: symmetrical face, masculine face, faces of men with high testosterone, masculine voices, social dominance, etc. When women are in estrus (their most fertile phase of the month), the patterns of attractions are a function of fertility status: during estrus women do not report being more attracted to their partners, but they do report greater attractions to extra-pair men. When women are paired with men [who are] less preferred partners they are more likely to stray during estrus. What about intelligence?
According to Geoffrey Miller, indicators of intelligence may have been indicators of good genes, and that perhaps big brains evolved through sexual selection because women are attracted to smart guys (this is the “brain-as-peacock-tail” theory). Unfortunately (for all the eggheads in the world!), previous studies found no correlation between intelligence and women’s sexual interest during estrus. Gangestad added facial attractiveness and facial masculinity to the equation. “Results revealed predicted effects of male partners’ facial masculinity and attractiveness, but no hint of any effect of partners’ intelligence.”
In other words, intelligence is not an indicator of good genes, and women in the fertile phase of their ovulatory cycle are not more attracted to intelligent men. This compares with facial attractiveness, facial masculinity, and cad behavior, which women do find more attractive when they’re most fertile.
Also to be noted is that women feel a greater attraction for other men during estrus if their own partner comes up short – that is, women paired up with beta males have a biological drive to cuckold them by cheating with alpha males.
Bistrategic mating
The next talk was by Julia Pradel, of the University of Cologne, entitled “Partner in Life or One-Night stand? How reproductive strategies might have shaped the evolution of altruism.” Pradel began by asking: “How could altruism — which by definition reduces an individual’s fitness — ever have evolved?” Like McAndrew, Pradel adopted costly signaling theory: “Only people high in genetic fitness can afford to help others.” Moral virtues, she said, have two signaling functions: 1. Good partnership and parenting characteristics; 2. Good genes. Thus, prosocial traits should be sexually attractive, and therefore sexual selection plus costly signaling theory explains altruism. If so, then why do people differ in altruistic tendencies? Pradel’s answer can be found in the theory of strategic pluralism: both sexes possess psychological adaptations for both short term relationships and long term relationships. Preferences for long-term as opposed to short-term relationships vary among individuals (e.g., women choose between “Cads” and “Dads”). Perhaps altruism was a means to compensate for weaknesses in genetic quality (e.g., lack of physical attractiveness). Mixed reproductive strategies suggest distinctive mate preferences depending on the length of sexual relationship (short-term v. long-term).
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170 raters watched short video-clips of target persons with varying physical attractiveness and received additional information on the targets’ level of altruism. In a between-subjects-design, raters indicated their desire to win the targets as either (a) short-term mates or (b) long-term mates. While altruism was a significant predictor for long-term desire, it was irrelevant for rating short-term mates. The results suggest that although altruism is costly, at least for some individuals it might be a wretched necessity to obtain access to mates and to reproduce.
In other words, people are bistrategic. They prefer nice guys/girls for long term relationships, but don’t care about niceness when it comes to short term relationships.
Additionally, niceness (or ‘altruism’) appears to be an attempt to make up for a person’s unattractiveness. That is, “boyfriends are ugly” and “never make a pretty woman your wife“.
I think the claim that Evo Psych is ‘pseudo-science’ is not so much to do with the actual studies (which are essentially reproducible and thus follow the scientific method) but rather, it is to do with the evolutionary theories that are proposed to explain current behaviour. Essentially, they start with an observed fact and then work backwards, but the proposed explanations are merely ideas that cannot be tested and thus feel ‘tacked on’.
The explanations for the behaviour are either interesting but unproven (and unprovable) ideas or pseudo-science if the explanation is touted as essentially fact (when the only facts are the studies on modern behaviour).
“This suggests that sexual double standards are to a certain extent innate and tend to exist cross-culturally”
The standards may appear cross-culturally because they benefit the survival of the culture, and thus the surviving cultures embrace these beliefs, and untold extinct cultures didn’t.The commonality may be an artifact of memetic evolution rather than genetic.
Aunt Giggles wept.
@Rollo:
LOL!
O.
We didn’t need this study, all we needed to do was ask Giggle’s daughter what she finds so sexy about her boyfriend parkercote.com. Actually you don’t really even need to ask her either,..
http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/comm/haselton/papers/
” intelligence is not an indicator of good genes” I must disagree. The correct conclusion to draw from the data is that women are poor detectors of good genes.
“a wretched necessity to obtain access to mates and to reproduce” is the phrase of the week! “wretched necessity” describes my entire life choices, basically.
#2 no, because there is no cultural mechanism for memetically reproducing the *genetic* reproduction choices, as evidenced by actually having sexually-produced babies. The only thing that is memetically reproduced is memes, produced from like communication.
Good stuff Sir Nemesis.
Rollo, IMO one of the most critical red pill concepts I think is focus on what women do in their observable behavior, not what they say or claim they want. I think this sort of dovetails with your the medium is the message concept
That intelligence is not deemed a factor in good genes may be solely due to that it is a quality not as readily discernable as “facial attractiveness, facial masculinity, and cad behavior” all of which are discernable with the naked eye. Unless you’ve just kicked ass at your bar’s Trivia Night or just wooed the crowd with an exposition on the geopolitical implications of regime change in the Ukraine your intelligence is not on display to the same extent facial attractiveness, facial masculinity, and cad behavior are.
Being good looking AND intelligent is a deadly combo. I did a supply run for my restaurant a few weeks back and the girl at the bakery refused to return any of my flirting only to end up shitting herself when I computed a simple algebra problem in my head while she was still fucking with the calculator. Suddenly, she was the one asking me personal questions and stammering/fumbling adorably doing so. Granted, I’m a fairly handsome and rugged-looking, tan, and covered in tattoos so her anti-cads bitch shield was on.
Simple algebra is not intelligence.
Another blog described “Levels” of intelligence, and, funny it relates, specifically speaks of math. The blog-poster described that at a certain “level” of math, you can appreciate the level directly above you.
Two, three levels above you?
You can’t even recognize it.
If you started some limits or differences, she might flog you for your sorcery. But that’s par for the course for high school juniors. She just Dunning-Krueger’d you.
@ ADBG #12
Exactly. I’m always surprised when people get impressed by my mental calculation skills. Why should anyone care? We have calculators for a reason. The ability to do mental arithmetic should not be a measure of intelligence…
*Le sigh*
“170 raters watched short video-clips of target persons with varying physical attractiveness and received additional information on the targets’ level of altruism”…it sounds like the “physical attractiveness” information was provided in a direct, sensory manner (the videos) whereas the “altrusim” information was provided in a more indirect manner (“person X is very altruistic”.) If I’m understanding this right, then maybe an experiment where the altruism was displayed more directly (video of the person doing something altruistic) might have had different results.
Another blog described “Levels” of intelligence, and, funny it relates, specifically speaks of math. The blog-poster described that at a certain “level” of math, you can appreciate the level directly above you.
Two, three levels above you?
You can’t even recognize it.
I’ve always really liked the quote on Vox’s blog.
“I don’t expect you to agree. I don’t even expect you to understand.”
Good stuff Nemesis. Really interesting stuff here.
@#15: Like the Austrian geezer may have said: ” “Das ist nicht nur nicht richtig, es ist nicht einmal falsch!”
As Sir Nem pointed out, same as spelungs and rifmatiks .. we have machines to do that for us now.
Maffo-sperge-power?
Not appreciated, or even useful. Despite what its adepts may propound.
Same as cars and watches. None o’ that there horse-bashing or walking, or grimly watching the skies by night. Or even washing the dishes. Engineers removed the magic smoke, while you wasn’t lookin’.
I think I’ll keep the tag fail thanks. Looks better in this context.
I’ve seen the original data set and women were less likely to fantasize about other men when their partners were symmetrical: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1559901/
Which implies that it’s not so much a behavioural as a visceral preference.
Who are all these men who claim to want to bed virgins? I certainly don’t know any. The men I’ve known have described it as a negative thing “likely to progress to a stage 5 clinger.” Is this more commonly reported in cultures with female scarcity (like in the middle east)? I would think so.
[…] Here, I review many of the salient presentations from an annual conference on Evolutionary Psychology hosted a few years back. A report on many of the presentations is brought to us by none other than Michael Shermer, founder of The Skeptics Society. […]
What we have is a set of interlocking phenomena–because they’re made to interlock–looking for a home. We have no idea what that “home” looked like, but we presume–without saying it–that the Cro Magnon band had an SMP like ours with all the choice for women that implies.
And if you can’t lock all the phenomena back to the H. Sap’s bar scene, you don’t have connections.
And, hell, babies prefer the altruisic. Can’t find the link, but it was done with puppets.
Briefly, we had a puppet trying to close a box. On a Punch&Judy stage. A teddy bear with a belt of a certain color hassled him. An identical teddy bear with a belt of different color helped him. Afterwards, the babies went toward the helpful teddy bear.
Jen. WRT bedding a virgin. Perhaps the old bastards get off on deflowering, the act of, rather than sex. Hurting and so forth. Apparently, in Iran’s prisons, there are guards whose duty is to deflower virgins who are to be executed for one thing or another, which keeps them from going to heaven. (Yeah, these guys need nukes.) Point is, there may be different reasons in different cultures aside from the clinging or the difficulty–or not–of the act itself.
You guys kill me. I was able to figure out something right away while she had to use a machine to do it. Therefore, I was more intelligent than her in that particular instance. No need to make this some nerd-off e-peen measuring contest, fellas.
@Jen “Who are all these men who claim to want to bed virgins? ”
I’ve actually had a conversation with a group of 8-9 guys (19-25 y/o) about this topic pretty recently and all of them looked down on sleeping with virgins. But after transitioning to talks of the future and family-planning, all of them admitted that they’d prefer to be the one who deflowered their wives.
Also, as far as my closest friends and I are concerned, virgins are the more prized fuck, but we will never admit it in public — especially to women. This is why I think the group of guys that I talked to were just stating otherwise to appease public consensus. They definitely changed their standpoint as the convo progressed and they got more comfortable with each other. Personally, I think getting men to admit their feelings about virgins is like getting women to admit their feelings about assholes.
You know what, replace “assholes” in the comment above with “serial rapists”.
Getting men to admit their true feelings toward virgins is the equivalent of getting women to admit their true feelings toward serial rapists.
Walsh’s latest reveals she has fully enturtled into conventional femspeak.
hxxp://www.ho0kingupsmart.com/2014/02/26/hookinguprealities/slut-prude-tease-another-option/
“She deceived him into thinking it would be worth his time to come up after the bar closed. Of course, she is suffering from the hopeful delusion that he would be pleased to get to know her better. Maybe make out, then snuggle and talk for hours. (That’s what girls really like best early on with guys they are into.)”
Yeah, sure. Alpha snuggles in order to save themselves for later beta raptures. Yeah, sure.
#19 “Who are all these men who claim to want to bed virgins?” Every study ever done by everyone always finds that men prefer their women to be as least promiscuous as possible, period.
Most of it is entirely due to the simple skin-crawling ick factor i.e. the parasite factor, and almost all the rest of it is due to the complex mind-crawling ick factor i.e. the damaged psychological goods factor. Essentially none of it is due to competition factors i.e. the p size factor.
#3
No. She’s way too arrogant and proud for that.
Walsh’s latest reveals she has fully enturtled into conventional femspeak.
hxxp://www.ho0kingupsmart.com/2014/02/26/hookinguprealities/slut-prude-tease-another-option/
Ha, skimmed the comments during my morning crap, and what a hoot. I’m reminded of the urban expression “bitches be crazy”.
On a more serious note, here is the million dollar problem. There is a gross mismatch between the type and rough SMV level of some of the guys these women “find attractive” or go on some dates with, and the reasonable pace of sexual escalation one could and should expect from guys in that position. For many of these women, there are plenty of potential candidates/suitors/prospects willing to take things very slow, engage in cuddles for a few months, and really take their time “getting to know” each other, but these are often the same guys they “find unattractive” who they wish wouldn’t approach/bother them. Distilled to its essence, the one thing I’ve realized many women can’t or won’t figure out is that they are engaged in trying to square the circle, that they have competing interests/desires/paths they want to take vis a vis dating/interacting with men and that to a very large degree these competing interests are mutually exclusive. That message falls on deaf ears though.
Do any women truly misunderstand this, or are they just pretending? In both the MMV and SMV, young virgin females are greatly preferred.
Since LivingTree2013 is too cowardly to post her feminist-evangelism diatribes anywhere but on RM, I thought I’d repost her counterargument to evo-psych here and see what the consortium thinks:
http://therationalmale.com/2014/02/17/the-gift/comment-page-2/#comment-32028
Thoughts?
IMHO
Evo(hyphen) psych =science like
Economics=Political (hyphen) science.
Sheesh, even full fledged psychiatry is too busy moving the goalposts to pretend it’s science anymore.
I all depends on who’s “qualified” to dispense “credentials” that week, and who’s buying.
Crazy “expertise” in “recent studies” minutia ensues.
I, too, espouse the Vox(Beale, I assume) position, alas, I haven’t been bestowed credentials by last years popular also-ran academic dispensary.
Hm, I’m more impressed by someone who can do mental calculations than use the calculator.
“Do any women truly misunderstand this, or are they just pretending? In both the MMV and SMV, young virgin females are greatly preferred.”
Modern feminism has been fostering a skewed reality into females’ minds. Honestly, in some circles if you do not sleep around you are an outsider. Nope, not kidding.
#31 Certainly the one thing in this area that can be said to be purely a social construct is the notion of changing expectations for masculinity. Conversely if there is a paradigmatic masculinity qua masculinity which social constructionists seek to change, then that paradigm is not itself a social construct of the present culture, having been handed to the culture as an initial condition. And no it’s not turtles all the way down.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turtles_all_the_way_down
A better question to investigate, then, is: What aspects of the masculine paradigm remain consistent cross-culturally? Certainly the physical standards of A Real Man haven’t changed in forever, so those would be in there: strength, etc.
Regarding the calculator vs mental calculations issue, it’s not that mental math isn’t something to be valued. It is. It’s just that I think the ability to, for example, correctly analyze a statistical inference problem, is much more important. It can be the difference between life and death: http://understandinguncertainty.org/node/545
@ Rollo
I don’t really see much of an argument by LT2013 (it seems to be wishful thinking, not actual observation of reality).
Nevertheless, I’ll write a detailed critique when I’m free later today.
“Most of it is entirely due to the simple skin-crawling ick factor i.e. the parasite factor”
Progs can’t feel that.
See number six.
We’re dealing with people who are morally color-blind.
“The tide merely changes – masculinity comes into favor, and out of favor, into favor, out of favor, into favor, out of favor… and so on, as it has throughout history.”
Strauss and Howe have in fact identified a generational cycle of oscillating sex role differentiation, with, no surprise, the Boomers being raised at the most androgynous ebb. Since then, women have sought gradually more masculine mates, and men more feminine, but the solipsism of the Boomers has constipated the supply end.
My personal view: evolutionary psychology is one of a handful of major disciplines that, together, form a comprehensive Strategic Toolkit. The six that I personally find most instructive (in no particular order):
1. Evolutionary psychology
2. “Big History” (relatively new, extremely difficult to teach multidisciplinary academic subject)
3. Microeconomics (my particular flavors are the Austrian school of economics and the Public Choice school of political economy)
4. Decision Science/Game Theory
5. Worldly Philosophy and Positive Psychology
6. Military Strategy & Tactics (particularly rapid-cycling intelligence/execution fusion processes)
You all know the old saw about the blind men and the elephant—“rail on in utter ignorance of what each other mean, and prate about an elephant not one of them has seen.” These six study areas together give you different, very useful views of the social system—the elephant—under study, and can form a mosaic that offers deep insights and robust mental models.
The formation of a Strategic Toolkit is, in turn, perhaps one of a handful of truly meaningful, lifelong self-development projects for a modern man (I have my own little list, as I am sure many of you do). Investing in these projects and cultivating them ultimately will come to help define your single most important relationship—your relationship with yourself. Your LTR partner obviously needs to be someone who supports your investments; indeed, I think this should be one of the primary GO/NO GO selection filters.
Perhaps it is true that you have to get the development plan right or little else will matter, and that Oscar Wilde said it best: “To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.”
“For many of these women, there are plenty of potential candidates/suitors/prospects willing to take things very slow, engage in cuddles for a few months, and really take their time “getting to know” each other, but these are often the same guys they “find unattractive” who they wish wouldn’t approach/bother them.”
That was certainly true 10-15 years ago. It would be surprising if the market hasn’t adjusted in the mean time, especially given the economic crash that should be expected to push some women from r-selection to k-selection strategies.
Likewise, the chump-shaming effort among men these last ten years should be expected to reduce the prevalence of AFC behavior in the current under-30 SMP. That would account for some of the disconnect between what Susan is hearing from her readers and our perception of reality.
Susan’s readers no doubt continue to shit test her and she no doubt continues to fail them massively – it’s the malady of her generation after all – but the underlying reality is also changing.
Bastiat,
Outstanding list.
Haidt moral foundations and Strauss/Howe generational dynamics have both demonstrated remarkable predictive power.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t recommend good old, rugged original Sin/washed in the Blood Christianity. Strong track record.
Susan’s readers no doubt continue to shit test her and she no doubt continues to fail them massively – it’s the malady of her generation after all – but the underlying reality is also changing.
Difficult if not impossible to serve two masters. The truth is often indeed a bitter pill to swallow for both genders so the fork in the road is between truth-telling perhaps leading to some Come to Jesus moments or choosing to provide the messages that allow for everyone to feel good and feel like they are part of friendly social club. It gets even more complicated if you are creating/customizing your “message” to fit a successful, profitable business model. Charities run non-profit. Businesses exist to produce what their customers want even if it really isn’t good for them (junk food versus organic vegetables). PepsiCo does very, very well with its Frito-Lay snack divsion which is essentially a marketer of poisonous garbage for the body. We all make our choices….ce la vie.
@Morpheus
Haven’t looked at the post (have a late New Years Resolution not to read there anymore), but judging by the title, my guess is it’s a classic apex fallacy at play.
From my experience, the very small percentage of guys I’ve ever heard label girls as “prudes” were all right in the alpha cad mold. Although I’ve heard that label thrown around a lot more frequently from girls themselves.
Only times I’ve heard the term “tease” used has been when the girls in question were clearly attention whores looking to soak up orbiter-type attention without any intention of taking things forward. In that case, it’s a well deserved label.
But as you said, the vast majority of guys out there seem to be more than willing to give quality girls enough time to be comfortable before pushing things forward… In fact most probably wait too long, much to their own detriment.
Jimmy,
“In fact most probably wait too long, much to their own detriment.”
Were I writing that, not that I would, I’d substitute “some” for “most”. That being said, to what do you attribute the failure in timing? They had to get the idea someplace.
I recall Susan saying a guy who’s ready to walk away due to shit tests is really hot.
“We want to see your strength.”
I didn’t have the opportunity to comment that, “You’ll see our strength disappearing over the horizon in search of an adult.”
I guess one question is what women expect when they say something crappy. Maybe the guy will take them at their word as a reciprocal shit test. Wouldn’t that be funny.
@Rollo
the TL;DR version: Masculinity is only a social construct, nothing more.
LT has that far too ingrained in her outlook… that’s all that needs to be said now. Let’s move on from her.
Liked your Aunt Giggles quip at #3.
Could certainly be “some” rather than “most”… In either case, it’s a significant number.
Can’t speak for everybody, but in my case, I was always concerned with demonstrating that I wasn’t a pushy asshole only interested in one thing… Thought it would aid my cause to show that I could be patient and considerate.
It wasn’t a conscious concern, but I think the whole rape hysteria propaganda subconsciously affected me as well. Not so much that I was worried about getting into trouble with it, but more that I felt I needed to take extra time and effort to prove my suitability because I had already committed the terrible crime of being born with a dick.
Again, can’t speak for everyone. But through the years, the number of guys I’ve known saying “Damn, I blew it. I should’ve made a move sooner…” VASTLY outnumbers the number of guys who ditched girls because they wouldn’t put out. Like 10 to 1, if not more.
Re: #43
The term that average guys use for “prude” is “good girl”…
And the term that average guys use for “tease” is “she friend-zoned me”.
@Nemesis
Bingo
[…] Some objective evidence that female virginity is valued in many societies: […]
I don’t give much credence to evo-psych, personally. I think of it as the “supermarket gossip rag” version of science, which is to say, not very credible.
Let’s not forget that the same evo-psychs who posit that men want virgins espouse “sperm competition theory.” Humans exist on a spectrum; the only certainties are that we are drawn to visual cues of youthfulness, vitality and good health, and that we are culturally and socially motivated and influenced first, foremost and primarily.
Anyway, that’s just my opinion. I’ve seen some pretty good refutations of many evo-psych theories. The most interesting ones were the total take-downs of Jethra & Ryan’s “Sex At Dawn.” There is little consensus in that field.
Everything is a social construct.
So what?
That does not believe all behavior you want can be socially constructed. For instance, I cannot use social conditioning to teach you to fly.
Similarly, you will have difficulty teaching a man to operate entirely different personality Better Beta and Grovelling Gamma types, with Alpha Swag mixed in, that can be cycled by holding the “Y” button on his Prada-designer Xbox Controller. Particularly when some operate against his hardware.
Stupid blank slaters.
@Ms. Jen:
Please cite the evolutionary psychologist who says that “Men want virgins”? I’d need the direct quote, and either article quoted or book, please.
Thanks.
Also: “Sex at Dawn” has NO truck among the EvoPsych field, particularly with regard to Prof. David Buss, one of the world’s premiere researchers in the field, and who literally wrote the textboook on the topic. Have you read it?
EvoPsych has far and away more going for it in the way of empirical studies and researches than most “soft” social sciences in our time – and, interestingly enough, those who hail from that camp are running scared due to EvoPsych turning all their “cultural” arguments on their head.
Now, let’s get back to our discussion, shalll we? You didn’t think you’d actually be able to weasel out of it, did you?
1. By your own admission, you don’t know much about Black American life to intelligently comment.
2. By your own admission, your worldview, pparticularly as it relates to Black Men, is shaped largely by the rather small number (well under 100) of Black Men in your own family. Not particularly rigorous dataset.
3. Your viisits to the USA, do not include the locales I’ve previously mentioned.
4. For some strange and odd reason, you not only attract “ghetto Black Men” to approach you, but you also encounter numerous Black Men online, who have the same negative reaction to you. The constant, of course, in all of these interactions, is, yup, you guessed it, you.
And yet, you keep making the claim that my commentary is absurd?
Really?
OK, I’m game – please explain?
That is, AFTER you have answered my questions regarding EvoPsych?
Remember: I am not interestted in your opinion. Nor am I interesed in your personal life. I am interested in what you actually know, what you have actually studied. I want to test to what extent your knowledge base is informed by actually looking into EvoPsych, and by that term, I mean names like Buss, Cosmides, Symons, Palmer and Thornhill, Smuts, et al. I do not care one whit about your opinions. If you have NOT studied these names, in detail, don’t even bother respondiing. I want to determine your rigor as a prerequisite toward having an INFORMED, EDUCATED discussion on EvoPsych.
You know what can and will happen if you do not comply.
Good luck…
O.
@Ms. Jen:
More fun questions for ya:
1. Please explain what the sperm competition theory has to do with Men supposedly wanting virgins? Buss discusses the former in his books, including “The Evolution of Desire”. Have you read it?
2. Exactly what “refutations” of EvoPsych are you referring to, please? Can you link them up here so we all can see them for ourselves? Or is this yet another personal opinion on your part masqurading as truth and fact?
3. Your understanding of EvoPsych leaves a lot to be desired, and which tells me that you either haven’t read a popular market book on the topic like The Evolution of Desire, or you didn’t comprehend what you read. Buss makes it very clear in the book that what makes Humanity unique is both our wide menu of mating options and strategies, AND our ability to tailor them to meet our individual, specific needs at any given time. NO evolutionary psychologist who specializes in the area of human mating would EVER say, or even suggest, that humanity is locked into an invariant, fixed mating strategy. So, in light of that fact, I’d like to know, and I need names, exactly what are your sources when it comes to EvoPsych?
You were saying?
O.
Obsidian:
Very perceptive observations, as usual. Sex At Dawn is widely regarded as a joke among serious scholars, and evolutionary psychologists have been been responsible for many of the most devastating critiques. The EP theorists that you list, as well as a few others such as David Schmitt and Robert Kurzban, have done some of the most illuminating work on sexuality and human relationships published over the last two or three decades.
It’s not surprising that Jen disapproves of this work, because many EP findings are inconsistent with feminist doctrine. You will, I’m sure, have noticed that Jen is very selective in terms of the research that she quotes. She ignores or belittles any findings that do not fit her preconceived ideas. This is part of a familiar pattern, which is why we cannot generally rely on the mainstream media to represent research on human relationships accurately.
Jen,
I’ve always thought Evo Psych wasn’t the end all be all of explaining the SMP… And I absolutely agree that culture has a huge impact on things.
I try to think of EP as an important piece of the puzzle, but certainly not the only one. Makes more sense when you think of it in generalizatons instead of ironclad rules.
@Ms. Jen:
By now, you know what has happened – don’t you? And it ain’t like I didn’t give you fair warning.
Let do you the favor of explaining something to you:
J4G is a high octane blog – make no mistake, we are the sharp end of the spear when it comes to this here Manosphere thing. We don’t truck in personal opinion, hyperbole, and general BS – we deal with data, history, empirical fact. Please note the numerous posts that are chockfull of such things. We do this for a number of reasons, among them, the fact that there’s a lot of misinformation both in and out of the sphere, and we have taken it upon ourselves to meaningfully address it in a systematic, scholarly manner.
So, yes, it is something of a prerequisite for people who want to interact here, to either be coonversant on the topics obtaining, or, failing that, at least try to learn as they go along. Personal opinions, especially when they are not backed up by anything substantial, are of interest only to the one babbling them.
Not to any of us.
You may try again. Your instructions per my two comments specifically directed to you, are above.
Or you may say good night.
Your choice.
O.
@Thras:
Thanks. I don’t think we’ll have to worry much about Ms. Jen anymore. She doesn’t strike me as the type to do her homework before opening her mouth.
O.
@Obs
Why would she need to do any homework?
She’s right all the time.
Any thoughts on a future post on “solipsism and the hamster – when synergy goes bad”?
just a thought
#54 Obsidian
For a more complete picture of “the elephant in the room”, evo-psych is only a start. Any of its findings that turns out to be contradictory with human behavioral genetics and cognitive neuroscience (perhaps Michael Gazzaniga, for starters?) will be rejected outright.
As for Ms. Jen I recommend some David P. Barash as someone more in line with her delicate sensibilities and the level of reading comprehension.
Again, can’t speak for everyone. But through the years, the number of guys I’ve known saying “Damn, I blew it. I should’ve made a move sooner…” VASTLY outnumbers the number of guys who ditched girls because they wouldn’t put out. Like 10 to 1, if not more
Jimmy. Back in the day, like going on fifty years ago, I was a sort-of employee of the Dean of Students at Enormous State University. Between that and the required counseling situations, and some people I knew, there were some cases of women asking me about another guy, or women commenting about their friend or roommate’s experience…. “is he queer?” “Am I unattractive?” And this is about guys who, in a relationship of one duration or another, did not push for sex. In that day, even if you weren’t going to get any, you were, I suppose, supposed to try for it to indicate your own testosterone overload and her attractiveness.
Or “do I have to shove my [quite substantial] chest into his face?”
But some of these had to do with missing IOI entirely, and others about getting pushy about “one thing”. Not entirely sure about separating the two for any kind of count. They are different.
Now, you ‘ve mentioned the general ambience about such things. I agree that it is not necessarily in line with what (some) women want. Did you ever hear, directed to you, or about some other case, a woman saying, in effect, “don’t push”, and then slagging a guy for not pushing? IOW, an individual issue, not the cultural one?
Ultimately Jimmy I agree that there may be merit to some of it but it should be looked at holistically. I definitely have come across evo-psych theory that rang true to me (like that women prefer men with heavy stubble to all other beard types or clean-shaven). On the other hand, one might ask why women 50 years ago rated men with more masculined faces (like Burt Reynolds’ and Steve McQueens’) to be more attractive and rate men with more feminized faces (like Zac Efron’s) to be more attractive today.
What could be the evolutionary significance of that? Well, here’s one theory: http://www.livescience.com/10967-national-health-worsens-women-prefer-manly-faces.html. I remember reading the comments when that article was initially posted and someone stated that it probably has less to do with bacteria load and more to do with the fact that the women probably sense that the strong men know where to get the food! lol. So it’s all speculation but some of it is really fascinating stuff.
Yes Obsidian, you can let your rationalization hamster go into overdrive for why you feel the need to delete any comment I make towards you – even those with links to data – that answer your questions. Whatever you need to do, just please stop directing your comments to me. You’re not going to moderate me or bully me out of here. Not much of a man, are you? Oh, that’s right, you don’t identify as a man, but as a “bruva.”
3 comments sitting in moderation. Open comment policy no more or just a hold? Let me know so I don’t waste my time and can go elsewhere if it’s the former.
Good morning Ms. Jen,
I see you’re brighteyed and bushy-tailed! Excellent.
Not to worry. You’re not banned. You just will be kept from commenting on ANYTHING, until you address what I’ve asked you per coomment #54 & 55.
You have asserted a number of things about EvoPsych. Fair enough. I am then asking you to back it up and you can start with the names I have cited, names who are recognized as the tops of their field. If EvoPsych is as weak as you claim, you should be able to find clear and present evidence where the names I have cited have been clearly discredited. Please provide links and direct quotes.
Crunch time, Ms. Jen. It really is all up to you.
Put up or…well, you know the rest…
O.
@Jimmy:
If I may ask, who says that EvoPsych is the “end all/be all” of phenomena in the SMP? I for one haven’t said it, and I don’t recall anyone in terms of major figures in the Manosphere who have either. For example, Roosh doesn’t even talk about EvoPsych, at least I haven’t seen him mention it, and I’ve been following him for at least several years now. Roissy does discuss EvoPsych, granted. But other than that, I’m hardpressed to think up many Manosphere writers who discuss EvoPsych to any great degree.
Thanks!
O.
Hello Ms. Jen:a
You keep mentioning “Sex at Dawn”, which, as Thras has pointed out, has both been roundly discredited by actual EvoPsych researchers, like the ones I mentioned to you above (remember?), and, you have NOT actually presented any evidence that directly calls out the names I have specifically mentioned. “Skeptics”, while interesting, do NOT peer review make. Being that you claiim to be college educated, I thought you would have known that.
Let’s try this again, because it’s always good to be clear about these things:
1. You have asserted, that EvoPsych is the, and I quote, “the supermarket gosssip rag version of science”
2. You then asserted that EvoPsych researchers assert that “Men want virgins”
3. You keep mentioning the book “Sex at Dawn” – see my above comments regarding that
I have mentioned upwards of half a dozen well respected and groundbreaking names in the field of EvoPsych as it relates to human mating; again, they are:
Buss
Symons
Thornhill
Palmer
Smuts
Cosmides
Please point us to PEER REVIEWED critiques and studies, where these names have been roundly discredited?
Waiting for your response…
O.
@Ms. Jen:
If by “Rushton” you mean J. Phillipe Rushton – a Canadian, if I recall – then NO, he would NOT be considered to be a credible name in the EvoPsych field as it relates to human mating. He is not credentialed in that respect, and as you might well know, his colorful antics have not helped him in any event.
The names of the prominent researchers in the EvoPsych field are listed above.
Waiting for your response.
O.
O, you talking to yourself there? Deleting every single comment I make, and only directing your comments to me. Proving two of my assertions: that you are obsessed with me, and that you, as a black man, are the only moderator here with control-freak, anti-open-comment-policy tendencies. In a sexual meritocracy for the best black women, you would be sure to lose:)
I suppose y’all read the Wazienski report linked from the HUS article
http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Preferred+level+of+sexual+experience+in+a+date+or+mate:+the+merger+of%E2%80%A6-a020536041
in which he claimed that not only is there no double standard and chastity is totes unimportant to both genders, but men actually prefer their women to be promiscuous while women prefer their men to be chaste, and men don’t care if their wives are sexually available! Too funny! No wonder women would like this one report!
O.
Obs.
Ev psych is, like exobiology, a scientific field with no subject matter.
Ev psych is a bunch of phenonmena which somebody decided could be hooked together by looking at evolution. But we have no idea of the social ordering of pre-human or pre-neolithic societies, which would be the environment providing the evolutionary selection and pressure.
Therefore, we have a bunch of phenomena. In addition, of all creatures, human behaviorial “instincts”, those more complex than reflexes, humans’ behavior is ruled by propensities–which can be affected by culture–and are not hard-wired in a particular direction.
There is no ev psych credentialling institute. Even in the hard sciences, there are disputes about one thing or another, and in the social sciences even more.
Picking one side in an argument and insisting its proponents discredit the opposing side is fine. Point is, the other side can say their proponents discredit your side.
Even-steven.
Paying attention to these phenomena may work for you. But they don’t work for other guys….
Now what?
I know your view of disagreement is to act like a glacier, moving inexorably and endlessly until the other party gives up.
There are more profitable uses of bandwidth. It’s not personal.
@Richard Aubrey:
Actually, there IS a kind of credentializing going on; as I’ve said, Buss has written the textbook on EvoPsych, and it follows the Scientific Method just as any other scientific field or discipline would do. Like Ms. Jen, you also have voiced critiques of EvoPsych,. but you have yet to offer peer reviewed papers or sources which roundly discredits the top names in the field. In fact, I don’t think you’ve even read them, to begin with(!).
So…why should I, or anyone else here, take what you or for that matter Ms. Jen, say seriously? For who? For what?
O.
@Ms. Jen:
Please; get over yourself. No one, not me, not anyone else, here or anywhere else, is “obsessed” with you. What I am interested in, is fostering INFORMED discussion and dialogue here; I for one, and I suspect quite a few others, really aren’t interested in your personal life, your opinions as they are informed therein, etc. We are interested in WHAT YOU HAVE ACTUALLY STUDIED. And when it comes to EvoPsych, you are not acquitting yourself very well I’m afraid.
On three distinct occasions, I have listed out for you some of the most easily reccognizable and topmost names in the field. And thusfar, you have refused to offer evidence proving that these researchers’ works have been roundly discredited.
You have offeredf the popular website Psychology Today as evidence in your favor. But PT is NOT a peer reviewed source, Ms. Jen. It simply is not. Moreover, I can just as easily go there and get you artciles that clearly supports EvoPsych – for example, go there and look up “A Billion Wicked Thoughts”, which cites the very names I have cited here. Do you see what I’m saying?
If you have ironclad evidence that proves EvoPsych is whacked, fine- bring it. Otherwise, you being mad and stamping your feet and calling me names won’t changed a blessed thing; indeed, it only strengthens the fact that you have nothing to begin with.
Other than your grossly misinformed opinions.
And you know what you can do with that – right?
Try again. The names are listed above.
Waiting for your response.
O.
“If you have ironclad evidence that proves EvoPsych is whacked, fine- bring it.”
Hello, are you really so stupid? There can be no such proof because ‘evopsych’ is not a single topic but a series of theories and speculations. The individual theories can be firmed up or discredited, with some being more credible than others. I posted one such example from skeptic.com which has dismantled several evo-psych theories, but that’s not to say that ALL HAVE BEEN DISMANTLED. Furthermore, foot-stomping and deleting every single source that I post just demonstrates how much of a child you are. It’s really sad that as the sole black male voice here (per your own implication), you are also the least reasonable and most pathetic of all males here, and that is really saying something because Spawny Get has offered nothing of value to ANY thread, only insults.
Now delete this too. And have a nice day. Don’t worry, your hostility and childishness ensures that I will not be back.
@Richard:
I disagree; this isn’t about “what works for you” or “what doesn’t work for others”; the Scientific Method does not work that way. EvoPsych operates on the principles of the SM, not “what works” for whoever. If you want to argue for “culture” – as you seem to be doing and have done from Day One – then you would have to account for the consistent phenomena across more than 30 world cultures that Buss and other researchers have documented.
For example, take the human female preference for male height. This is consistent across human cultures and societies. Culturally, how do you explain it in a way that EvoPsych does not?
Pllease see my post on whether the sexes are equally matched in terms of mating power. EvoPsych explains how and why this notion is deeply flawed, and that it is the human female, indeed all mammalian females, who have a distinct mating advantage over males in the main. If you say EvoPsych is flawed, than how do you account for this?
There are many, many other examples I could cite, Richard. EvoPsych has done its homework; its critics have not.
Waiting for your response – my guess is that it will be better informed than Ms. Jen’s.
O.
Oh, how interesting; the only comment/link of mine that Obsidian has approved was the one in which I stated that some evo psych theories ring true. He has deleted all articles and citations that dispute his worldview. Completely shocking.
@Ms. Jen:
The only reason why I’m allowing your squid ink above to remain in public view is to prove just how woefully wrongheaded you actually are.
Skeptics are NOT peer reviewed journals, or even academic papaers. Evolutionary psychologists, WHO SPECIALIZE IN THE ARENAS OF HUMAN MATING, operate on the same academic principles that other academics operate on. Therefore, they are open to peer review, just like any other academic discipline. In fact, this is how and why Rushton, who you’ve cited several times, has been so roundly discredited, BY HIS OWN PEERS (he’s been censured heaviily too, by the Canadian university he taught at too, as I recall).
You are right to point out that EvoPsych has many areas of inquiry and interest; however, by “EvoPsych” what is meant here, is that area of the discipline that specifically relates to ARENAS OF HUMAN MATING. Therefore, it is entirely possible, via the principle of Falsifiability, a part of the Scientific Method, to “attack” EvoPsych. To date, there have been NO credible, plausible “attacks” on EvoPsych in this regard – only vague allusions to “culture” which has ZERO predictive power – yet another key aspect and element of the Scientific Method. EvoPsych on the other hand, has been able toget replicable results via testable predictions which in turn, are based on solid hypotheses of human mating behavior.
If you wish to “attack” EvoPsych, you’re going to have to do a lot better than tossing around ONE mass market article written by “Skeptics” and some other newspaper fluff that, among other things, discusses how EvoPsychh is supposedly able to determine, beforehand, the potential sexual behavior of Women’s relative chin sizes(!). I know of NO evolutionary psychological researcher worth the name – certainly none of the ones I specifically cited – who would say such a thing. Which begs, exactly where did you get such nonsense from?
Both youand Richard seem to be of the “Culture” school of explaining human mating behavior. Fair enough – then what I wrote to him, alsoo applies to you. Please feel free to address it.
O.
#71 my mistake. The idea that men prefer promiscuous women is Susan Sprecher’s own personal dead horse she rides. She has made a career out of insisting that prior sexual experience enhances a woman’s desirability, even though she continually finds the opposite,
“For example, although our participants expressed a preference for chastity over sexual experience in a potential partner, they may have responded quite differently if they had been given an actual choice between a chaste but unattractive person and a sexually experienced, physically attractive person.”
“If you wish to “attack” EvoPsych, you’re going to have to do a lot better than tossing around ONE mass market article written by “Skeptics” and some other newspaper fluff that, among other things, discusses how EvoPsychh is supposedly able to determine, beforehand, the potential sexual behavior of Women’s relative chin sizes(!). I know of NO evolutionary psychological researcher worth the name – certainly none of the ones I specifically cited – who would say such a thing. Which begs, exactly where did you get such nonsense from?”
Evo Psych has met with a LOT of skeptcism within the scientific community because of the vast amounts of pseudoscience masquerading as “evolutionary psychology” within the field. http://www.science20.com/science_20/satoshi_kanazawa_and_freefall_evolutionary_psychology-79039.
Perhaps you weren’t aware of the vast amounts of dissension and how polarizing it IS within academia. That is a matter of your own profound ignorance and pigheadedness.
Your penchant for censorship likely arises from this personality defect as well.
@Ms. Jen:
Oh yes, I am very familiar with Prof. Kanazawaa and the trouble hes gotten himself into. Your citation of him, even when I’ve specifically cited half a dozen topmost and groundbreaking scholars/researchers in the field, only goes to prove my point:
That you have no credible critiques of the field of EvoPsych, that goes right to the core of it. It’s like trying to take a dig at Darwin by attacking his cousin, Sir Francis Galton. Doesn’t work.
Let’s try this again, shall we?
Buss
Thornhill
Palmer
Cosmides
Smuts
Symons
Please cite the PAPERS, ie, peer reviewed, where these names have been roundly discredited?
I’ll wait…
O.
Oh, and Ms. Jen:
If I have a “personality defect”, it’s a very short fuse with and tolerance for, the functional equivalent of flat-earthers. As I said, theonly reason why I’m allowing your squid ink to exist in public viewing form, is to mock your pathetic debating and evidentary discovery skills for the buffoonery that they are. Please feel free at any time to prove me wrong by citing actual peer reviewed evidence that the names I have cited are booty.
*Sly grin…*
O.
Jf12, # 79:
To state the obvious: promiscuous women are desirable… for sex. The reason a man assesses a woman’s promiscuity is to determine how easy it will be for him to have sex with her. If a lot of men had sex with her before he did, it’s at least possible she will give him sex with less effort and up front investment than would be necessary with a nonpromiscuous woman. Her value for sex goes up, but her value for investment and commitment decreases markedly.
@Deti, JF12:
Boom. Mae West once famously said, that “Men like Women with a past because they’re hoping that history repeats itself.” When it comes to purely short term mating, Men actually ffavor a Woman who’s been around. But when it comes to putting a ring on it, no, Men don’t want a Debbie Does Dallas wannabe.
Sweden is a case in point. Note that the marital rate there is very low, and while may would arge this is due to the welfare state there, and I wouldn’t necessarily disagree, I posit it also has as much to do with the fact that Women there are much more sexually liberated than in say, Iran. As a result, more potential Sewdish Men have access to “free” sex with Women, but at the cost of their (and Swedish Women’s!) long(er) term commitment in the form of actually getting married.
Note: this is purely a personal observation on my part, NOT anything cited by any reputable and topmost researchers/scholars in the EvoPsych field.
O.
#83, 84 yeah, I keep forgetting that psychologists wouldn’t necessarily have bothered to make the SMV vs MMV distinction, when it seems so obvious. Wouldn’t it be great to have an automated research translator that maps other people’s data into one’s own model?
“For example, although our participants expressed a preference for chastity over sexual experience in a potential partner, they may have responded quite differently if they had been given an actual choice between a chaste but unattractive person and a sexually experienced, physically attractive person.”
The “actual choice” posed violates the Everything Else Being Equal condition. That said, I don’t disagree with that statement. For most men, at least the vast majority I’ve met in real life, socialized with, talked with, been friends with PHYSICAL ATTRACTIVENESS trumps all. It is the single most important variable men evaluate in partners. If a woman is a 9 or even an 8, most guys will find some way to overlook promiscuity even in the context of long-term committment, especially if the woman is really pushing the ceiling of what his own SMV can command in the market.
@Morpheus:
An excellent case in point in support off your comments above, is easily seen in the case of Kanye West and Kim Kardashian. West, being among the most successful Men in America, can literally write hisown check as to whom he wishes to mate with; he was unmarried with no kids to boot. And who did he select?
A Woman who had been twive married, twice divorced, AND had made a sex tape seen the world over. Yet, she is in the top 30%, if not higher, range of physical attractiveness. Yes, Hawt Women (and for that matter, Guys too) can and will “get away with” things mere mortal Men adn Women would have a much harder time doing. If at all.
But that still doesn’t “prove” anything from the standpoint of the lady attempting to argue that Men don’t mind promiscuity in Women as a general rule. If we could take two Kim Kardashians, one with the present sexual history, and one with literally half of that, and then presented them both to Kanye, which would he choose?
O.
Re: EP. Judging from several fruitful interactions with him in the past I believe that Thras *is* an evolutionary psychologist or perhaps a molecular biologist with a highly developed interest in the field.
EP itself evolves—many of the presuppositions about the Environment of Evolutionary Adaptedness have been modified as the paleo-climatologists talk to the EP guys and the EEA’s conditions become more defined. EP is seen as a kind of terrorist organization to many feminists because most—certainly not all, but most—professional/agitator feminist academics subscribe to something called the “Standard Social Science Model”, or SSSM. The SSSM is like a pinata that evolutionary psychologists keep enthusiastically destroying with bats and clubs.
Most gender studies academics cannot describe how an action potential works through a neural circuit, long-term-potentiation, cellular metabolism, etc. They usually specialize in either aggregating interviews and self-reported opinion surveys for very basic statistical decomposition or in writing papers about how cultural factors, often taken from popular media, create gender stereotypes (rather than being extensions of pre-existing gender stereotypes and so on).
I am a fan of some of the work in this field and feel that it is important, but it is important in the same sense that reading great literature can be important when it enables the reader to imagine what life is like for someone very different from yourself. It’s like studying fashion or art history.
In contrast, evo psych tends to be quite hard and bleak and cruel, an academic “Red Pill” discipline. We’re ultimately survival/replication machines pursuing an agenda set by little biocomputers called genes, and many of our cherished emotions are reduced to self-serving biochemical reward/punishment signals meant to push us along an approach-withdrawal continuum. The concept of a “unified self” is almost a conceit; a human being is more of a networked system of organs, tissues, and cells which communicate via hormones, neurotransmitters, etc., and Life itself is a phenomenon of organic chemistry.
When you marry evo psycho to microeconomics the result is usually an even more cynical view, possibly too cynical for most people.
I am good friends with a gender studies academic/2nd Wave feminist who now concedes that the SSSM is not an accurate depiction of human cognitive functioning, hormonal effects, etc. However, she believes that admitting to this would cause such a wave of fatalism and depression among those involved in the feminist/gender studies enterprise that it is better to have a consensus hallucination that keeps the movement alive—even if it ultimately morphs into a reactive branch of post-modernist literary critique and is housed in English departments—than to essentially concede the social sciences to the evolutionary psychologists and their buddies in adaptive decision science and the cognitive sciences.
Bastiat Blogger says:
“When you marry evo psycho to microeconomics the result is usually an even more cynical view, possibly too cynical for most people.”
“The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who haven’t got it.”- GB Shaw
Ohbs
Obs. Please link to, for example, Buss’ paper on the three years he spent with a Cro Magnon band. With particular attention to the number of adult males compared to adult females. The frequency and duration of whole-band meetings with other bands. The proportion of mating outside the band. Female infanticide. Digit ratios indicating High-T or not.
To try this again: Ev Psych links various behavioral propensities in mating behavior to…other various behavioral propensities in mating behavior.
Women prefer height. That could be a matter of selection for height because height meant better protection and provisioning. But if the women didn’t GET TO CHOOSE, it means something else. Thing is, everybody prefers height. Short people don’t look “good” unless they have the proportions of normal people, which is the case with so many actors. But it’s rare. So women’s preference might be a matter of something else. Because it is similar to men’s view of a normal, good-looking guy. And women don’t go for the seven-footer, either, or we’d be seeing them all over the women’s mags.
Please prove Cro Magnon women got to choose.
Certain things work in the SMP, some of the time, some work most of the time, others are complete fails. So what?
For what reason do we say “NAWALT” and “NAMALT”? Too rarely around here, but we do or should say it. And if NOT ALL, then EP has a problem.
Among other things, when convenient, we hear people claiming the SMP has changed drastically in fifty years, or thirty years. And what used to work, or didn’t work, or is now necessary, or is now a complete fail but didn’t used to be….. Hard to see the consistency that EP requires, if things change this fast.
Your failure to browbeat Jen into agreement shouldn’t ruin your day. There must be something else more important.
Oh, yeah. Where can I find the address of the EP Credentialling Institute?
@Basitat:
As per usual, excellent comments. And it reminds me of a part in The Evolution of Desire, where Buss, after giving a talk on EvoPsych, was confronted by a Feminist, who said that she couldn’t deny the evidence, but that Buss should suppress it because Women already have it tough enough already in terms of trying to meet the physical requirements of Men(!). Buss responded by saying that even if he did suppress the empirical findings, it wouldn’t change Men’s revealed preferences in Women.
So, the point is made: the evidence, by credible, reputable researchers in the field, are simply too much to ignore or wish away. And as you said, the social scientists simply do not have the means t stem the tidal wave of evidence coming from the schools of EvoPsych and neuroscience. They just don’t.
So, they will just keep stamping their feet, pointing and sputtering, spilling squid ink, and nibbling around the edges in a vain effort to hold the tsunami back.
They will lose.
O.
@Richard:
Sure, I’ll give you the cites you ask, after you answer my question:
Have you read the works of the scholar I’ve mentioned, or not, and why? We’ll start with Buss’ The Evolution of Desire. Yes or no, have you read it?
You were saying?
O.
#88 It is, or ought to be, some cold comfort that there are explainable causes of our own cognitive biases. Not merely others snickering or complaining “How come she can’t see that that cad is going to dump her?” but herownself realizing “I can’t be trusted to pick the right man myself.”
@Richard:
As I’ve said, Buss has literally written the textbook on EoPsych, and his lab at the University of Texas Austin can be seen as the “homebase” of EvoPsych on American soil, though by no means is it the only place where studies and researches are being conducted.
Two, no, “everyone” does not select for height in a mate. For example, it is a known fact tthat Men do not select for taller versus shorter Women, if anything its the reverse, and thats regardless as to the relative height of the male; and that holds constant throughout the world’s cultures. Same deal with the male preference for smal female feet (feeting binding is something that is seen throughout many of the world’s cultures when it comes to Women). The female mate choice notion is something that hilds constant throughout human cultures AND throughout the mammalian kingdom, and barring rape, it will out in the mating dance. Again: how does “culture” account for this fact?
You were saying?
O.
For Richard, who can’t stand theory and must see real world applications first. Luckily there are applications. There’s a nice big book I haven’t read.
http://www.amazon.com/Applied-Evolutionary-Psychology-Craig-Roberts/dp/0199586071
a nice little ppt explaining the rationale
http://www.aepsociety.org/uploads/1/0/2/4/10249682/aeps2012ppt11.ppt
and plenty of journal articles, authors referenced elsewhere, demonstrating the utility of the concept. In addition, this little pdf should open your eyes unless you want to remain blind.
http://www.epjournal.net/wp-content/uploads/EP10762769.pdf
Evolutionary medicine began to show major fruit about a generation ago in both extremely wide explanatory power (e.g. lactose intolerance, antibiotic resistance) and treatment design, especially for problems stemming from gene-environment mismatch (e.g. life stage considerations, personalized treatments (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2367146/), and diet).
Don’t fault evo psych for lacking treatment designs just yet.
“When you marry evo psycho to microeconomics the result is usually an even more cynical view, possibly too cynical for most people.”
I think most people cannot handle the reality that at least on some level pretty much all relationships involve some subconscious processing of value being exchanged. Sure, most people are not doing cold hard ruthless calculations on a daily basis, but it goes back to that concept I think BV mentioned of implied contracts or was that you BB? Now we are humans not Vulcans, so there are emotions, and emotional bonds, and virtues like loyalty and reciprocation, but I have no delusion that if I quit my job to play videogames on the couch all day, gained 200 pounds, that my wife might start to reassess the value I bring to the table regardless of past vows or promises. To think otherwise is naive.
The concept of a “unified self” is almost a conceit; a human being is more of a networked system of organs, tissues, and cells which communicate via hormones, neurotransmitters, etc., and Life itself is a phenomenon of organic chemistry.
Perhaps. Whether one is religious, spiritual, or even just coming at it philosphically though, there is the case for a soul, or some type of higher-level consciousness, the mind which is not simply equal to the brain. I’m not sure what I exactly believe on this, but I do believe human beings are something more than just a collection of our constituent parts. That said, I think far too many believe we are all special snowflakes and completely disregard the impact of things like genetic programming that we or one gender or another share in common.
Bastiat…”I am good friends with a gender studies academic/2nd Wave feminist who now concedes that the SSSM is not an accurate depiction of human cognitive functioning, hormonal effects, etc. However, she believes that admitting to this would cause such a wave of fatalism and depression among those involved in the feminist/gender studies enterprise that it is better to have a consensus hallucination that keeps the movement alive”…that would imply that she wants to be a Liar (capitalization important) in the sense that the term is used in this classic SF story–The Way of Cross and Dragon:
http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/the-way-of-cross-and-dragon/
I am good friends with a gender studies academic/2nd Wave feminist who now concedes that the SSSM is not an accurate depiction of human cognitive functioning, hormonal effects, etc. However, she believes that admitting to this would cause such a wave of fatalism and depression among those involved in the feminist/gender studies enterprise that it is better to have a consensus hallucination that keeps the movement alive—even if it ultimately morphs into a reactive branch of post-modernist literary critique and is housed in English departments—than to essentially concede the social sciences to the evolutionary psychologists and their buddies in adaptive decision science and the cognitive sciences.
This is a fascinating perspective because I literally cannot fathom it. I simply can’t wrap my head around or accept that it is ultimately better to have a foundation that sits on lies and delusions. But I think many do believe that “pretty lies” ultimately serve some larger, greater social purpose. It certainly explains why some change directions.
Morpheus says:
“This is a fascinating perspective because I literally cannot fathom it. I simply can’t wrap my head around or accept that it is ultimately better to have a foundation that sits on lies and delusions. But I think many do believe that ‘pretty lies’ ultimately serve some larger, greater social purpose.”
For examples similar thinking see also:
Keynesian economics
US fiscal policy
US foreign policy
The Global War on Terror
Churchian theology
Global Warming/ Climate Change/ IPCC
Popular opinion of nuclear power
Renewable energy as a matter of policy
Gun control
In the above cases the lies are intentional to serve a greater social purpose. That purpose being the political goals of the advocates who maintain the lies.
“In the above cases the lies are intentional to serve a greater social purpose. That purpose being the political goals of the advocates who maintain the lies.”
Well, Badpainter, bring it all the way down to brass tacks.
In every one of the categories you listed from economics to US fiscal and foreign policy to gun control, the lies are maintained because they help shift MONEY and POWER to people who want them and don’t have them and can’t get them any other way. It is ultimately about power.
When we get to the realm of intersexual relationships it is always and forever about power. Who will have the power, individually and collectively? Who has the power as between this man and woman in any given situation? Who has the power as between men as a sex and women as a sex? Every change in intersexual relationships, from sex harassment to street harassment to no fault divorce to alimony to palimony to birth control to Game to Godly masculinity, is all about power.
Who has power and who doesn’t. Who has the upper hand and who doesn’t. Who has the freedom to walk away and who doesn’t. Who has options. Who gets this woman’s sexual favors and who will not. Who gets this man’s resources and who will not. And what must be done to increase what one has and to decrease the pain and inconvenience associated with being a “have not” sexually and relationally. And it is this way in relationships; and as between men and women as a whole.
Power. It is always about power.
Nihilism, fatalism, chucking it all, men going no way, etc., all aspects of totally giving up are the proper response to life as we know it. Any kind of confidence, or any planning for the future, or any effort at all, can only be the result of a cognitive bias. This is the exact thing that has fascinated Martie Haselton and made her career.
http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/comm/haselton/unify_uploads/files/Johnson_etal_2013_TREE.pdf
If a sentient or semi-sentient being is going to live and reproduce, it has to be infected with irrational optimism and fallacious hope. Hence, it some sense the most evolved consciousness is also necessarily the most deluded. Given that we have evolved to be selected for optimism, it is amusing to speculate how Eeyore-ish our distant ancestors must have been.
Humans would not be the creative, intelligent beings that they are if they came birthed with a fully developed brain. The interaction with the outside world as the brain is developing allows for better development of intelligence.
Sir.
Not talking about fully developed, which is enormously, hugely clear. Just a couple of months. Not a decade, as is enormously, hugely clear.
103# “Human infants are born far earlier in their development than the young of any other placental mammal.” ? ? ? 9 months gestation is perfectly in line with other mammals of our size. A white-tailed doe deer weighing 120 lbs will have one fawn weighing 8 lbs or two fawns each weighing 5 lbs after 7 months gestation. “why don’t young women show up a yard across the beam” does’ hips are fairly narrow too. Most gross physical charateristics are shared across males and females; roughly the only way to make women’s hips a lot wider is to make men’s hips a lot wider too.
#104 I started getting bored at 6 months gestation.
@Richard:
You know what – you’re right. I do in fact have better things to do with my time than going back and forth with the likes of you. Now worth the bandwith.
Have a great weekend!
O.
Too wide pelvis would endanger the survivability of the mother far too early for her to become a mother at all. The nomadic lifestyle, dangerous animals, natural disasters like avalanches, mud-slides, flash floods or flash-fires , men of other, sometimes cannibalistic tribes…
#108
Exactly. Men, in looking for the magic .7 hip/waist ratio, are selecting for mobility in women and against increased survivability for the munchkins. What I said.
WRT deer, recall those happy bits where the newborn fawn struggles to its feet
at the age of, IIRC, minutes? Kids?
Now,since women selected for are selected for being able to take care of biz, who is looking for provisioning and protection, hmmmm?
This is really fun See Mark Twain.
Richard.
Evo-Psych is ultimately based on the idea that some of our thinking and behavior is hard-wired and became hard-wired due to environmental pressures in the past.
You don’t need to have a long study with actual Cro-Magnons to demonstrate that this is plausible. You would look for similarities in behavior across culture and across environment.
Re: wider hips. See what JF said. It may have been impossible for women to have wider hips without men having wider hips, too. Evolution cannot select for something that is impossible.
And who wins the evolutionary race is another question. Humans might have been better off with dramatically larger ears, or something, and that initial genetic code might have been there, but got selected against BEFORE it could become Dumbo-Ears.
So is your take dismissing all of evo-psyc, assigning it a low probability of truth, what?
#108
Not so fast.
It places an upper limit on the neonatal head diameter. How many cesarean sections are required because of that, and how many are caused by too weak contractions during labor? Women in EEA weren’t as well fed as now, making births easier.
ADBG
Are men’s jugs the same size as women’s? You can have gender differences. Knees. Femur angle from pelvis.
My point is that one can use the presumed evolution solutions to make any case you want to. And it’s easy and fun. The hip thing was the first that occurred to me. And I did it to attack the selection for provisioning and protection. Turned it backwards and with as much so-called evidence as anything else.
EVPSYCH depends on women having choices as to whose sperm was going to do the job. No C-m, no idea if that is true.
ADMIN:
Please fellas, do not feed the Trolls, no matter how “convincing” they make their “arguments” sound. Debating such people is like debating flat earthers. Just not worth the time, or the bandwith.
Especially when said “debators” can’t even be bothered to read up on the chief source material of the EvoPsych crowd, like a popular mass market book, intended for the express purpose of educating the wider public about EvoPsych, called The Evolution of Desire. Whenever you see people hem and haw about their having read the book, you know that they haven’t, have no intention of doing so, and simply want to attack EvoPsych because of their own personal BS.
Don’t go there folks.
IT IS NOT WORTH ENGAGING PEOPLE WHO HAVE AN AXE TO GRIND AGAINST EVOPSYCH BUT CAN’T BE BOTHERED TO TAKE THE TIME TO ACTUALLY FIND OUT WHAT THE CHIEF PREMISES AND ARGUEMNTS OOF THE TOPMOST NAMES IN THE EVOPSYCH FIELD ARE.
For Richard:
Please take some of your own advice, and drop it. Just let it go. You don’t think highly of EvoPsych. OK, we get it.
Go do something productive with your weekend.
O.
#99 “I simply can’t wrap my head around or accept that it is ultimately better to have a foundation that sits on lies and delusions. But I think many do believe that “pretty lies” ultimately serve some larger, greater social purpose.” The blue pill has its purpose.
A large percentage of these 113 comments directly or indirectly, e.g. through awareness of distorted self reflection, support the observation that very many people, especially women, view the world through an evolved cognitive bias e.g. hypergamy. Some of the hanging references and internal numberings in comments are wrong because of comment deletions.
#2 survival of beliefs which faciliate survival
#9 women’s beliefs about their behavior
#26 Walsh’s straw woman portrayal of women’s motivations
#27 revealing own cognitive bias
#29 “women can’t or won’t figure out” I think I am good at snagging what is relevant.
#30 “Do any women truly misunderstand this, or are they just pretending?” Still a serious question btw.
#31 “social construct” I still roll my eyes.
#34 again showing my relative fearlessness in facing the mirror
#37 speaks to motivations and self-examination
#39 classic “the blind men and the elephant”
#40 “disconnect … from … reality” You are permitted to also say I’m good at this, so I don’t have to.
#42 “bitter pill”
#44 the concept of shit tests incudes that the tester doesn’t know her own purpose
#46 “It wasn’t a conscious concern” C’mon, you can say it.
#54 “worldview”
#55 “masqurading as truth and fact”
#56 “preconceived ideas”
#60 “solipsism and the hamster”
#61 classic “the elepehant in the room”
#62 “missing IOI” and “a woman saying, in effect, “don’t push”, and then slagging a guy for not pushing” the idea of cognitive bias is there
#71 giant bias, researcher doesn’t even believe own data
#79 providing the researcher’s disclaimer about own data
#88 “The concept of a “unified self” is almost a conceit” and “it is better to have a consensus hallucination that keeps the movement alive”
#93
#96 “I think most people cannot handle the reality that at least on some level pretty much all relationships involve some subconscious processing of value being exchanged”
#97 “there is the case for a soul, or some type of higher-level consciousness, the mind which is not simply equal to the brain. I’m not sure what I exactly believe on this”
#98 Liar for the good of the masses
#99
#100 “the lies are intentional to serve a greater social purpose”
#102 my best attempt
Every finding presented in the O.P. can readily be observed in real life, while contrary examples are few to none.
Example: I know exactly one (1) married couple where the wife is taller than her husband.
Culturalists have no explanation for this beyond handwaving. The same is true for women’s shift during ovulation in their way of dressing, and how they pay attention to men. I’ve seen that personally as well.
In the next few years, most feminists will start to become anti-science, or they’ll have to change to some “4th stage” feminism that rejects pretty much all of 2nd stage equalitarianism. Because it is obvious that the notion of men and women as interchangeable – the “men and women are the same except women can have babies” is crumbling under the weight of facts from not just evo-psych, but MRI studies, cognitive studies, PET scans and so forth.
We can see the physical changes a woman’s brain goes through during her monthly hormonal cycle via MRI. It’s not something anyone makes up, it’s there, on a screen.
The burden of proof is now on those who seek to debunk, and that burden gets bigger every week. Pretty lies will perish, one way or another.
Richard “Are men’s jugs the same size as women’s? You can have gender differences.” I’ll see your gender difference, and raise you one Futrelle.
Two possibly three exes I recall as being alarmingly more than averagely enthusiastic had tits you could fit in a breakfast cup. “Two fried eggs”, as one mused. But they were very fit and limber.
Proper milkers seemed to take it all for granted, and that their norks had already done all the work, so they could take it easy.
Here is the simple explanation of cognitive neuroscience coauthored by M. Gazzaniga that I forgot to link to in the comment #61:
http://www.wisspd.org/htm/ATPracGuides/Training/ProgMaterials/Conf2012/JBDevelopment/Neuroscience.pdf
#63: “On the other hand, one might ask why women 50 years ago rated men with more masculined faces (like Burt Reynolds’ and Steve McQueens’) to be more attractive and rate men with more feminized faces (like Zac Efron’s) to be more attractive today.”
It’s no great mystery. Oral contraceptives have come along since that time. Women on oral contraception don’t ovulate, and women who ovulate are attracted to more masculine features than women who don’t.
http://news.discovery.com/human/life/women-ovulation-hormones-behavior.htm
“Oral contraceptives have come along since that time. Women on oral contraception don’t ovulate, and women who ovulate are attracted to more masculine features than women who don’t.
“ plus in metropolitan areas all that crap ends up in the potable water supply for various reasons of ‘efficiency’ and environmentalism. Gotta go now, and shave my supernumerary nipples.
#119: Too true.
Eventually all dicks will require splints.
But before then it might be against the law to have a functioning penis anyway (at the very least it will require a license).
Tam.
Tam.
Back in the day, mine could fit salad plates, with substantial rims. But since I tore up my rotator cuffs, I haven’t been doing the pushups as before.
Question: Did Hugh Hefner makes his money on A cups?
David, Morpheus, jf12: re: consensus hallucination. Two major features of the academic gender studies landscape include “intersectionality” and “triggers”. They work together to form the policy landscape that you guys are observing.
Intersectional Theory obsessively views the world from the POV of oppressor-oppressed adversarial power dynamics (it owes a great debt to Marxism, as many of you have previously diagnosed). The practical ramification of Intersectional Theory is that there are circles of oppression which interact, and street credibility within the field is usually gained by finding and championing the most oppressed group.
However, the Theory shows obvious path-dependence problems because the first filter used is almost invariably gender. You literally go through a series of pair-wise competitions to find who the most oppressed member of the population is: one simplified hypothetical might be to start with Male vs. Female, then Black vs. White, then Straight vs. Gay, High vs. Low SES, then Pre- vs. Post-Menopausal, then Obese vs. Non-Obese. At each turn you would pick the most oppressed option of the pair; you chain these together to find the most privileged and most oppressed.
The path-dependency issue is a real problem from a philosophical standpoint, which is why there are 2nd Wave feminists who fear that the widespread adoption of Intersectional Theory among the 3rd Wavers is going to cause the movement to lose political coherence.
Let me give you an example: the archetype for a 2nd Wave feminist today is a white post-menopausal female, non-obese, armed with at least an undergraduate degree and coming from an MC or UMC SES demographic. They are clearly divided on the straight/lesbian dimension.
But is this woman more or less socially oppressed than is a black, gay, obese *male* of a comparatively low SES? 2nd Wavers and 3rd Wavers tend to come down very differently on this type of question, with the 2nd Wave using gender as the battle axe and saying that it trumps any other social dimension, while 3rd Wavers would be typically saying that the gay black man’s issues probably deserve more attention than do those of the 2nd Wave UMC post-menopausal housewife “activist”. In other words, the 3rd Wavers might well defect and find that the woman in this pair-wise competition was more privileged than was the man.
“Triggers” are another interesting concept. The idea here is that the oppressed have been beaten down psychologically by cultural forces to the point that they have high levels of neuroticism and absorption; in fact, the language used frequently cites “PTSD”. Large numbers of undiagnosed cultural-trauma victims roam society and they can suffer from “triggers”, or catalysts which cause them to go into depression, anxiety, and other forms of de-regulation. The triggers can be almost anything—the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition featuring nubile Kate Upton’s blonde hair and buoyant breasts has been referenced as a sort of PTSD-triggering weapon that reinforces male privilege and that should be stopped/banned by some kind of cultural Jihad authority.
A trigger can be the mere existence of a discussion of a controversial topic. So let’s say that a veteran Chicago police officer discusses the high percentage of false rape accusations that he had to investigate during his career (ask a cop about this problem and you will probably be amazed and deeply saddened by what you hear). According to the trigger concept, this very discussion should be discouraged because it might serve to be emotionally provocative to those women who have in fact been raped, who know someone who has been raped, or even those who fear being raped.
One can sympathize with the trigger position and wish to see victims treated with dignity while also seeing how it ultimately contributes to even more adversarial gender relations over time, as one side feels that its attempts to bring up injustices and grievances are always given short-thrift. Triggers provide the moral authorization for a sort of cultural version of pre-emptive strike doctrine: editing and even censoring certain arguments is ok if these arguments are seen as emotionally threatening to those whose fragile and traumatized psychological states are vulnerable to being triggered. Evolutionary psychologists are frequently decried as being apologists for demonic masculinity and evidence supporting the notion that “alphas do as they will, and betas suffer as they must” promotes a particularly ferocious view of idealized manhood being a wild, unregulated place of hunting, fighting, activity-supportive bromances, and casual sex opportunities with pornstar template women.
Re: cognitive bias recognition. A good bias wouldn’t make itself obvious, such as making thinking difficult, so “thought that are too hard to think” isn’t where they’re at. Instead they would reveal themselves by concealing themselves: in thoughts that are too easy to think, even reflexive, and difficult to question. The dead giveaway would be a reflexive thought that you keep thinking even after being presented with evidence that it is wrong, but the problem would be that you think the evidence is wrong.
Jf12 says:
“The dead giveaway would be a reflexive thought that you keep thinking even after being presented with evidence that it is wrong, but the problem would be that you think the evidence is wrong”
You have just described my blue pill life experience. Maintaining reflexive thinking eventually requires the belief or strong suspicion that one is indeed somehow mentally defective, cognitively impaired, or both because the evidence is contrary “approved thinking” as endorsed and encouraged by some external authority.
#111
In the EEA the first case usually resulted in the death of both mother and child, the second one usually had cerebral palsy, some other kind of brain damage, or death from oxygen deprivation for the child as a result.