Steven Pinker explains the cognitive biases we all suffer from and how they can short-circuit rational thinking and lead us into believing stupid things. Skip to 12:15 to bypass the preamble.

  • snooggums@midwest.socialEnglish
    31·
    5 months ago

    That’s the same as saying darwinism is garbage because it led to eugenics.

    Quantum mechanics isn’t a garbage field because Deepak Shopra thinks it can cure baldness.

    Evolutionary psychology at its core twists the concept of genetic inheritence into justifications for racism and sexism, like phrenology before it. These two examples are people taking existing science and misapplying them to things they don’t have anything to do with.

    • streetlights@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      32·
      5 months ago

      Evolutionary psychology at its core twists the concept of genetic inheritence into justifications for racism and sexism, like phrenology before it.

      That is not evopysch “at its core”.

      Again, you may as well describe darwinism as racist at its core.

      These two examples are people taking existing science and misapplying them to things they don’t have anything to do with.

      Misapplying science doesn’t make the science wrong.

      • a lil bee 🐝@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        5 months ago

        As someone without skin in this game, I have a clarifying question and you seem willing to discuss. Why is phrenology junk science and evopsych not? What separates the two, for you?

        • streetlights@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
          3·
          5 months ago

          The premises that underpin any science is what separates it from a pseudoscience. Phrenology posits that random bumps on your skull predict mental abilities and behaviours, why? What mechanism could possibly be responsible for such a correlation. It was based on a theory that the brain was a group of muscles and like all muscles if you worked it it got bigger. Easily shown that this wasn’t the case.

          A bit like chiropractry positing that all diseases are due to the bones/spine being out of alignment.

          What’s the premise behind evopsych? Evolution. Where does animal behavior originate from? Is it entirely spontaneous? The brain, like every other organ, is subject to evolutionary pressures. Natural selection will produce behaviour that increases survivability, and that’s it.

            • streetlights@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
              2·
              5 months ago

              I couldn’t possibly speculate. Is this hypothetical phrenologist the sort of scientist who adjusts their position based on new evidence?

              • a lil bee 🐝@lemmy.worldEnglish
                3·
                5 months ago

                I guess what I’m getting at is: Is there a way you can explain why evopsych is a valid science where phrenology is not, without relying on an argument that a phrenologist would also make? That’s a tough set of criteria, but I think it’s required.

                  • a lil bee 🐝@lemmy.worldEnglish
                    2·
                    5 months ago

                    Right! So accepted “science” can become pseudoscience once further discoveries are made. I think we all agree on that. The question being debated in this thread, I think, is whether evopsych will also eventually be found to be a pseudoscience. To be clear, I am not proposing we try and guess the future, but to look at the state of the science now and extrapolate that as best we can into the future.

                    I am a complete lay(wo)man here, so I’m not casting aspersions either way. I would need to do a lot more research for that. I see the other arguments devolving into semantics and rhetoric though instead of focusing on that core conceit.

                    So you feel any confidence in evopsych as a science? Why or why not? And if those same arguments could be applied to phrenology prior to its official debunking, how valid is that confidence?