Just noticed some Jordan Peterson styled ex-mos on the forum. But to be fair, there have been many over the years championing Evolutionary Psychology to bolster claims for this and that.

But mostly, I post this quiz because it is funny and others might find it funny, too.

https://www.currentaffairs.org/2019/05/evolutionary-psychology-quiz

Snippet:

4. “Why does this quiz only attack strawmen? Why does it fail to address very serious claims, like (((human biodiversity))), or how young women are genetically programmed to prefer older men even though older men’s dicks don’t work? Where can I address my angry emails? Are you making fun of me? Evolutionary psychology is very serious business! I AM TALKING TO YOU. MEN ARE TALKING.”

Well, there is a lot of junk pretending to be scientific just now or which is pandering to the Zeitgeist. Hard science has proven much harder to subvert than soft sciences or the humanities... The biggest lie is that we're all the same physically and intellectually*, which is patently not true.

The article was better written than the usual material. But I have known plenty of women who *hate* the color pink! :)

It would be very interesting to find out who funds Current Affairs magazine. The website is a bit evasive on that subject.

* Except white males. They're evil, even if they are homelesss..

Do you have an answer yet to why Neanderthal and Denisovan DNA don't match up with your "races?"

Mrs Lot, if you went to the Andes and saw a dromedary camel there out in the wild, would you think it was from there? Or would you think it was brought there from the Middle East?

After all, camelids originate in South America,* and according to your logic about hominid species, dromedaries must be South American, even though their ancestors crossed two continents and they evolved outside the Americas.

(* But then again, maybe llamas aren't actually native to South America, since placental mammals originate in the Old World, and the placentals crossed the Bering Land Bridge and Darien Isthmus into South America.)

Yeah, let's take this on directly. We'll look directly at your statement about camelids and then human races.

You assert that camelids originate in South America. That is false. They originated in North America round 40-45 million years ago and then spread south and across the Bering Strait into what we call the "Old World" although it was new to them.*

Putting that aside, if I saw a dromedary in South America, I'd assume it escaped from a zoo. I'm not sure what else you are trying to ascribe to me.

Now humans. Your argument is that 1) races exist; 2) they are behaviorally and perhaps intellectually significant; and 3) Europeans arose from a combination of African with Neanderthal DNA while East Asians arose from a combination of African with Denisovan DNA.

Your characterization of Asian and Caucasian genetics is incorrect, as you may note from the following study of ancient DNA.** Note initially that "the analysis showed that Denisovans were much more closely related to Neanderthals than to Homo sapiens. . ." So one would expect that those who inherited either set of DNA would not differ very much. That leaves little room for claims that the "races" are significantly different, particularly because the distribution of Neanderthal genes, Denisovan genes, and a combination of the two are distributed along a normal curve rather than having any clear boundaries.

And secondly, "the new DNA sequence also shows that Native Americans and people from East Asia have more Neanderthal DNA, on average, than Europeans." It therefore makes no sense for you to say that Neanderthal DNA is what make the European "race." If that were true, Native Americans would be more European than Germans; and Fijians "whiter" than Britons.

Do you understand that? Your assertion that Neanderthal DNA makes the "white" race implies that Native Americans are "whiter than "Europeans." How do you deal with that? Or will you ignore DNA facts that contradict your preferred racial, and racist, scheme?

You say you would like to apply Occam's Razor to the evidence, but you want to use it to scrape away the facts about Neanderthal and Denisovan DNA leaving only the assertions that support your position. With that in mind, I don't think you would last long if you ran into Occam in a dark alley.


*Camelids
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camelid,
http://yellowstonesafari.com/all-safaris/llama-treks/9-llama-treks/14-the-history-of-the-llama,
https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/4f37/fe98ebc113b1be3f5aca4b22cb0b5ef8b7f1.pdf

**Humans
https://www.archaeology.org/issues/60-1301/trenches/311-hominin-neanderthals-humans-siberia

Wikipedia as a reference, seriously?

My point sticks. Camelids don't originate in the Middle East, but it would be crazy to say dromedary camels are an American species. Yet you apply that thinking to hominid species which did not evolve within Africa, and which have contributed to the DNA of most humans now living. (Since most humans live in Asia.)

"Your argument is that 1) races exist; 2) they are behaviorally and perhaps intellectually significant; and 3) Europeans arose from a combination of African with Neanderthal DNA while East Asians arose from a combination of African with Denisovan DNA."

1) There are broad types of human being. Yes, we've intermarried etc, but there are several distinctive types of human being. It's unfashionable to say this now. Unless you seriously think a native of Kyoto looks the same as a Kikuyu native. That doesn't make one better than the other, it is a fact of human development which exists regardless of what someone feels about it.

2) I've said nothing about this on here. Different types of human clearly have adaptations suited to certain environments. The Denisovan genes have helped some Asians live at high altitudes for example.

3 & 4) While these types exist, there has been some level of population exchange. This is very noticeable in the Middle East, Mediterranean, SE Asia, and Central Asia.

Denisovan DNA in Asian and Australasian groups is now proven. Given that a couple of new species of early human have been found in Indonesia, we may find they too are related to people now living.

Neanderthals have contributed to modern human DNA, and given that (one of?) their last redoubts was in SW Europe, it isn't unreasonable to make a connection. The Neanderthals share several physical features with modern Caucasians. They appear to have cannibalistic tendencies so it's not an entirely flattering connection.

* Neanderthals had big prominent noses. So do people in Rurope, North Africa and parts of SW Asia. Africans, East Asians, Australians and Amerindians tend not to.

* Neanderthals had lighter skin. So do people in Europe, North Africa, SW Asia, the Americas and NE Asia. Africans, and people from much of southern Asia, Australia etc do not.

* Neanderthals had varied hair colors. So do people from Europe (Northern Rurope more so), and to a lesser extent people around the Mediterranean. Blonde and red hair crop up very occasionally in parts of Africa, the parts round Papua New Guinea, Australia etc, but are still unusual. These hair colors are rare in north east Asia.

There are some other features that match as well. If we say that Neanderthals are not the reason for this in Caucasians, then we would have to go for parallel evolution - but if that was the case, why didn't it occur in north east Asia which is very similar to Europe?

Caucasians are strange looking people compared to many other sections of humanity. Some Asians are pretty distinctive too. Science tells us that humans share many traits in common, but that we also have some obvious differences. And less obvious ones. Some Europeans have a tendency to heart attacks. Some Africans have sickle cell anemia. South Asians often have kidney trouble. Polynesians have a tendency to obesity and so on. All these would exist without bigotry or prejudice.

"Polynesians have a tendency to obesity..."

Americans do too.

Dear Sir: "Jordan"

You have now bumped up against the academic/intellectual speedbump known as "Lot's Wife." You have now been catalogued, archived, and kept in que for further scrutiny, abuse, and ridicule. Enjoy the show!!

...ha, ha!! Welcome to the board's Chief Faculty lounge attendant.

...gotta love it!!

A typically substantial contribution.

...even if true?

...look, you should be rested up by now. Bring your best. We will treat you kindly...somewhat.

Again, do you have anything to say?

Jordan Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Wikipedia as a reference, seriously?

Wikipedia suffices if the fact is so thoroughly documented (as by my other reference) that it is beyond dispute. I note in that regard that you implicitly accept the Wikipedia position in your response below, indicating that you realize it is accurate. So yes, "seriously."


----------------
> My point sticks. Camelids don't originate in the
> Middle East, but it would be crazy to say
> dromedary camels are an American species.

You said Camelids evolved in South America. That assertion does indeed "stick," if not "stink." Now that we have established the North American origins of Camelids, you shift ground to say that Dromedaries are Middle Eastern. That is correct. But you are refuting a contention no one ever made.


------------
> Yet you
> apply that thinking to hominid species which did
> not evolve within Africa, and which have
> contributed to the DNA of most humans now living.
> (Since most humans live in Asia.)

That is a false characterization of my views. My stance is that all hominid species originated in Africa and that the genetic differences between most of them are marginal, which is why they can interbreed. I have complete confidence that evolution continued outside of Africa as well, although over a vastly shorter timeframe than it had within that continent. The question which you raise is whether the introduction of Neanderthal and Denisovan DNA at a late date transformed a unitary HSS into different races.

That proposition is misguided in several different ways. First, the greatest human biodiversity by far is in Africa, so if you insist on describing different "races," you should have about a dozen there and zero in the rest of the world. That is quantified fact. Yet for some reason you ignore the diversity in Africa, treat people there as if they are a single genetic group (why is that, one wonders) and then lower your standard dramatically outside of Africa to produce "races" of Caucasians and Asians even though those two groups separated a mere 45,000 years ago and are almost identical in terms of DNA. Why don't you apply the same standards across the board?

Second, you claim that HSS+Neanderthal and HSS+Denisovan explains Caucasians and Asians, respectively. As the article I presented (and which you conveniently omit) demonstrates, Neanderthal DNA in several groups of Asians and Native Americans is significantly greater than that in Caucasians. So by your logic, Native Americans are the true "whites" and Europeans are some other race. How do you explain that?


-------------
> 1) There are broad types of human being. Yes,
> we've intermarried etc, but there are several
> distinctive types of human being. It's
> unfashionable to say this now. Unless you
> seriously think a native of Kyoto looks the same
> as a Kikuyu native.

Sure. And I know families in which skin colors vary from white to olive, with eyes from black to green and blue, and hair from black to red and blonde. Some members have big noses and some small. Are the members of such families from different races or the product of random genetic combination? The question is whether physical differences have any genetic significance. You insist they do, but you may find yourself alone out there on that thin limb.

You also seem to think that genetic characteristics arise from genetic exchange alone, which is untrue. Over most of human history, if you took a group of people from a tropical clime and put them near the Arctic, within a few thousand years natural selection would ensure that their skin grew lighter as a result of natural selection; the same occurred if you took a northern group and moved it south. Skin color, nose size, and the other factors you think are indicative of Neanderthal and Denisovan contributions are anything but. The founder effect, genetic drift, and natural selection are at least as important--which is why the greater Neanderthal DNA in Native Americans hasn't turned those people "white" as you insist it should.


> That doesn't make one better
> than the other. . . I've said nothing about this on here.
> Different types of human clearly have adaptations suited to
> certain environments. The Denisovan genes have
> helped some Asians live at high altitudes for
> example.

The presumptive Denisovan alititude gene does not comprise a separate race. Using your scheme from previous threads, the Denisovan genetic presence in Tibetans would make them a different race from, say, Asians in Melanesia (who incidentally have a negrito appearance) and yet they are the same race. There are a variety of different physical characteristics that develop from factors other than different primate descent.


----------
> Denisovan DNA in Asian and Australasian groups is
> now proven.

No one disputed that.


--------------
> Given that a couple of new species of
> early human have been found in Indonesia, we may
> find they too are related to people now living.

Of course we will. The article I provided indicated that besides Neanderthals and Denisovans, who are virtually the same, there is at least one other hominid ancestor in Central Asia; we also know about Hobbit Man in Indonesia and, from the fossil and genetic record, other subspecies. One thing we will find, I predict, is that those various genetic sources do not line up with your arbitrary delineation of the scientifically illusory concept of race.



--------------
> Neanderthals have contributed to modern human DNA,
> and given that (one of?) their last redoubts was
> in SW Europe, it isn't unreasonable to make a
> connection. The Neanderthals share several
> physical features with modern Caucasians. They
> appear to have cannibalistic tendencies so it's
> not an entirely flattering connection.

Sure Neanderthal DNA had an effect on their successive HSS peoples. But the factors you list don't apply to most of those successors, including those East Asians and Native Americans with greater Neanderthal contributions than Europeans. What matters isn't when the last interbreeding occurred but rather the total DNA contribution, which does not support your Southeast European hypothesis. And the different quanta of Neanderthal DNA does not line up with your "races."


-------------
The rest of your post comprises a list of physical traits that you attribute to race. But saying that Caucasians and East Asians, on average, have different eyes; or that Caucasians and Africans, on average, have different skin tones has nothing to do with race--nor with Neanderthal and Denisovan contributions. That alone disproves your argument that those hominid genes inform modern races, particularly how you have defined them but more generally how anyone would do so.

"But saying that Caucasians and East Asians, on average, have different eyes; or that Caucasians and Africans, on average, have different skin tones has nothing to do with race"

This is one of the original definitions of race. We can't just pretend these don't exist to avoid upsetting people. We shouldn't use them to segregate people either but that's yet another matter.

"nor with Neanderthal and Denisovan contributions."

Well then where do they come from? Space men? Gods and angels? Interbreeding with dolphins or wild cattle?

I remember years ago, when I was a young man, long before Neanderthal genomes were sequenced, seeing a map of the Neanderthal range, and then being struck by the fact it had a significant overlap with the traditional range of white people.

The answer is fairly obvious. The scientific evidence is there for this, but for anyone to publicize the connection is to be seen as pandering to white exceptionalism, or even worse white supremacism. Modern science is overcompensating for the racial supremacy claims made by scientists as recently as the early twentieth century.

I suspect the success of the Ruropean people is due partly to geography, rather than genetics though. Europeans are not the fastest runners or most tolerant of the sun, both of which work against them - they did however have a good temperate climate for agriculture (which increases numbers), a long cosstline (which encourages naval and sea faring power) and Europe has strong natural defences to tbe north, west and south. I think these have contributed to European success more than any inbuilt superiority.

The establishment right now is very sensitive to ideas of European exceptionalism. Google seems to be doing its bit in that direction. If you type in "European people history" and then search images, you mostly get pictures of black Africans and a few Europeans (yet no Asians - why?). If this isn't an example of how things are being manipulated, I don't know what is.

https://www.google.com/search?q=european+people+history&prmd=insv&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiNhfHxjYjiAhXDsHEKHeLuASgQ_AUoAXoECA0QAQ&biw=360&bih=592

Correction - one pic of South Asians and no East Asians on page one.

Race is a "non word" as you would say.

There is as much diversity within any "race" as there is between "races," so what we mean by race keeps changing and is a non issue.

Maybe you are not separating social construct from biology when you use the term.

What do you mean by "diversity"? That's one of the buzzwords of the moment, which means everything and nothing to social reformers.

A race is a subdivision of a species. In the older sense, it is also a group of people (not even a nation, necessarily, but a family.) There are some pretty obvious traits that people from certain parts of the world have - tightly curled hair, prominent noses, epicanthic folds etc... That's without going into people's complexions. Pretending yhat these don't exist, won't make them go away.

Of course appearances can be misleading. So called African Americans should be Eurafrican Americans since they are of partial European origin too (although much of that came about by conditions of slavery.) And a lot of whites, including Obama's mother may well have black ancestry, as some claim.

"Maybe you are not separating social construct from biology when you use the term."

The social construct is when people pretend these differences don't exist. That's worse than overemphasizing them to create segregation or pretending they don't exist. Some of these are biological adaptations to various environments, not social constructs.

Traits. Variation. For example the tallest and shortest within a group you call race can be more diverse than the average between groups you call races.

We wouldn't call finches with different beak characteristics races either.

Taxonomy includes kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus and species. Race is a social construct that people tend to use instead of sub-species. There are currently no subspecies of humans alive.

"Diversity" is the simplest, most quantitative idea in genetics. It means exactly what it says: how many genes differ in any genetic pool. It is how we measure the evolution of the human genome. You simply count.

Why do you call "diversity" a faddish mantra? It is as old as DNA science and no more subject to subjective reinterpretation as measuring humidity in the air or pebbles on the side of a road.

Do you consider arithmetic a liberal fad?

Arithmetic must be a buzzword or a non-word?

Change = non-word
Diversity = buzzword
Nature = God


It's hard to keep up!

I think people with little background in genetics don't understand that "diversity" in that context is a highly quantifiable and objective variable. It is not "fluff" of the social science sort.

Jordan Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> This is one of the original definitions of race.

Exactly. It is one of the definitions of race, a concept that now enjoys as much expert support as phrenology and eugenics. Your definition of race is a historical curiosity, like the belief that the earth is flat.


------------
> We can't just pretend these don't exist to avoid
> upsetting people.

We are long past the point where the assertion that race is a scientific reality upsets people. For the most part it just amuses them.


----------------
> "nor [do skin color, hair color, eye color, etc., have much to > do] with Neanderthal and Denisovan
> contributions."
> Well then where do they come from? Space men? Gods
> and angels? Interbreeding with dolphins or wild
> cattle?

Uh, evolution. Natural selection over decades of existence in different places, founder effect, genetic drift, random mutations. This isn't rocket science; it's taught in any genetics class.


----------------
> I remember years ago, when I was a young man, long
> before Neanderthal genomes were sequenced, seeing
> a map of the Neanderthal range, and then being
> struck by the fact it had a significant overlap
> with the traditional range of white people.

How inconvenient, then, that Neanderthal DNA is spread throughout much of Asia and is more common in parts of East Asia and the Americas than in "white" parts of the Old World.


-----------
> The answer is fairly obvious.

It was obvious to you as a young man but is not obvious to scientists who search for, and understand, actual data. You posit a genetic pattern that does not exist.


------------
> The scientific
> evidence is there for this, but for anyone to
> publicize the connection is to be seen as
> pandering to white exceptionalism, or even worse
> white supremacism.

White supremacy is neither here nor there. The question is whether the scientific evidence is as you say. It is not, as anyone on RfM with a background in biology or genetics will presumably tell you.


--------------
> Modern science is
> overcompensating for the racial supremacy claims
> made by scientists as recently as the early
> twentieth century.

You confound the two phenomena to argue in favor of a conspiracy theory against the truth. That is unfortunate. The data are clear. The problem is when someone looks at an old map of where Neanderthals lived and decides it overlaps with, and explains, physical characteristics you ascribe to race. The house of cards falls when you realize that that Neanderthal map from decades ago was wrong--in some cases profoundly wrong.


----------------
> I suspect the success of the Ruropean people is
> due partly to geography, rather than genetics
> though. Europeans are not the fastest runners or
> most tolerant of the sun, both of which work
> against them - they did however have a good
> temperate climate for agriculture (which increases
> numbers), a long cosstline (which encourages naval
> and sea faring power) and Europe has strong
> natural defences to tbe north, west and south.

There is a ton of research on this. Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel would be a great place to start. I think you'll find it persuasively makes the case you adduce in this paragraph.


-------------------
> I
> think these have contributed to European success
> more than any inbuilt superiority.

If you read Diamond, you'll realize that your hunch is absolutely correct. Seriously, I think you would enjoy reading that book.

"Your definition of race is a historical curiosity, like the belief that the earth is flat."

Australia has the highest rates of skin cancer in the world. And that's nothing to with its long established indigenous peoples. That isn't a fantasy, it's a hard fact. Yet you think this is just something "amusing". I guarantee plenty of people in southern California or Utah have similar troubles due to their origins versus the local climate. And certain people in these places won't.

But of course, none of that exists, does it?

Flat Earthers are the people who prefer sentiment over that what can be seen with their own eyes in many cases, and which can be proven with independently derived data.

p.s. I did read Guns, Germs and Steel some time ago. It is a good book, but contains some serious flaws. He puts an overemphasis on the role of latitude vs longitude - many forms of agriculture and livestock keeping got around that a long time ago.

Eurasia certainly provided a good environment for ideas to travel - like the wheel or horses, but that still doesn't explain why people in the New World invented the wheel (which they did - it can be seen on some toys), but failed to turn it into a serious transport mechanism. It also doesn't explain why parts of Europe were such "late bloomers", and why China as an early bloomer failed to fulfil its potential (although it may yet.) In all these cases, some free will is involved. I could easily see a world where China won out and Europe was largely a single stagnant empire. And why the heck did Easter Island develop its own script all by itself but Greenland didn't?

That's enough of my moaning though. Despite my criticisms, I'd rec it to anyone.

If you know Guns, Germs and Steel, you should understand the profound limits of genetics in determining outcomes. Also, you dislike the analysis of longitude and latitude. Can you offer some examples of the flaws? Because I don't think you can.

Jordan Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> It would be very interesting to find out who funds
> Current Affairs magazine. The website is a bit
> evasive on that subject.


Me, too. That’s a good question.

Robinson and his magazine have been on my radar since his Kickstarter campaign. From emails soliciting more funds since then, I think they claim to be 100% subscription funded. But that seems highly unlikely, and not only because they maintain three offices (London, DC, New Orleans).

Not knowing the funding bothers me, but we can still make judgements article by article, from what is put in and from what is conspicuously left out (Tulsi Gabbard, for example), and from old fashioned critical reading skills.

Great link and read. Thank you.

"But to be fair, there have been many over the years championing Evolutionary Psychology to bolster claims for this and that."

COMMENT: Yes, evolutionary psychology is a many-edged sword, and those that embrace it are not afraid to use it! And those that selectively reject it only seem to do so when it is "misused" against their favorite political or social position. After all, everyone loves both evolution and psychology, right!

And let's not forget that the roots of evolutionary psychology can be found in the adaptationist excesses of evolutionary "biology" not psychology! Darwin, in suggesting the explanation of species change can be found through variation and natural selection, invited all sorts of adaptationist "just so" stories to "explain" this or that biological trait. Thus, the possible often became *the* explanation. Even Stephen J. Gould could not stop it. Little wonder that psychologists, who long for scientific legitimacy wherever it might be found, took up the evolutionary sword, looking for psychological "traits" and evolutionary "explanations" in every corner, beyond any logical restraint.

Remember the 70s when the sociobiology debate was raging between Richard Lewontin and Steven Jay Gould, on the one hand, and Edward O. Wilson, on the other, essentially about the application of Darwinism to culture. It should not be surprising that in the early 90s evolutionary psychology took root to add fuel to this fire, as exemplified in Barkow, Cosmides, and Tooby, The Adapted Mind: Evolutionary Psychology and the Generation of Culture, which in my view is complete nonsense from beginning to end.

So, for me, if you want a lesson from all of this it is to take a step back from Darwinism, and realize that that not every trait of human beings, biological or psychological, is an adaptation susceptible to some sort of evolutionary story. Human beings in particular, and animals generally, are far too complex for that sort of thing--both biologically and psychologically.

What is "Darwinism" ?

Henry Bemis Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> COMMENT: Yes, evolutionary psychology is a
> many-edged sword, and those that embrace it are
> not afraid to use it! And those that selectively
> reject it only seem to do so when it is "misused"
> against their favorite political or social
> position. After all, everyone loves both
> evolution and psychology, right!

I love how you reduce EP to a rhetorical move in political/cultural discussion. That’s accurate. Sure, the scientists themselves may not be this reductive, but how the science filters down to the ‘folk’ level certainly is.


>
> ... Thus, the possible
> often became *the* explanation. Even Stephen J.
> Gould could not stop it. Little wonder that
> psychologists, who long for scientific legitimacy
> wherever it might be found, took up the
> evolutionary sword, looking for psychological
> "traits" and evolutionary "explanations" in every
> corner, beyond any logical restraint.

You get this exactly right. Psychologists from the start have hungered for scientific legitimacy, and, while satisfying the hunger, end up ridiculously reductive every time out.



> Remember the 70s when the sociobiology debate was
> raging between Richard Lewontin and Steven Jay
> Gould, on the one hand, and Edward O. Wilson, on
> the other, essentially about the application of
> Darwinism to culture.

It seems that the war was between those who wished to apply Marxist ideas and those who wished to apply Darwinian ideas (or, worse, Spenserian). Either way, overreach was inevitable; and, because of ‘science envy’, the soft sciences and the humanities were diminished.


> So, for me, if you want a lesson from all of this
> it is to take a step back from Darwinism, and
> realize that that not every trait of human beings,
> biological or psychological, is an adaptation
> susceptible to some sort of evolutionary story.
> Human beings in particular, and animals generally,
> are far too complex for that sort of thing--both
> biologically and psychologically.

Yes. Of course.

On your point that even animals are psychologically more complex than we are wont to assume: with the ubiquity of cameras there have been so many weird inter-species relationships recorded. It has literally become a daily feed on many social media platforms. Observing these feeds daily, with a remnant of religious training at the back of the mind, it can seem that the lion is laying down with the lamb across the board. Almost as if, dare I say it, love and affection for their own sake isn’t strictly human, or even mammalian. Not what I was taught on the prairie farm, that’s for sure.

Heh. Henry, look what was in my morning email:

https://www.chronicle.com/article/EO-Wilson-on-the-Next-Big/246257?utm_source=at&utm_medium=en&cid=at

This is an interesting interview. Thanks for posting it.

What I always find fascinating in scientific discourse is how quickly a scientist is willing, on the one hand, to dismiss humanism in the name of some brand of materialist science, while on the other hand extolling its virtues in human culture; often without noticing the inconsistency. Wilson does that here.

Yes. Also with the requisite half-condescending half-ironic admission to being “pretty much of an ignoramus in the traditional humanities” before nonetheless opining on its shortcomings.

I love how you reduce EP to a rhetorical move in political/cultural discussion. That’s accurate. Sure, the scientists themselves may not be this reductive, but how the science filters down to the ‘folk’ level certainly is.

COMMENT: Well, certainly at the "folk" level when applied to political and social discussion (as you say), but whenever you have a soft science like psychology that engages in *theoretical* speculations, you have abuses at the scientific level as well. If one reads the literature of EP, you find nonsense almost whenever the "scientist" strays from just reporting facts as the outcome of psychological experiments, and engages in theory. And they get called out, if at all, by other EP who have their own EP theories to spew.
_____________________________________________

You get this exactly right. Psychologists from the start have hungered for scientific legitimacy, and, while satisfying the hunger, end up ridiculously reductive every time out.

COMMENT: Yes, but let's not confuse legitimate reductionism in science, which works well in many contexts, from speculative reductive explanations in the soft sciences which are often based on assumptions that are unsupportable; in the case of EP the assumption that Darwinian evolution must be the ultimate explanation regarding all things human. Once you make that assumption, the just-so stories flourish.
____________________________________

It seems that the war was between those who wished to apply Marxist ideas and those who wished to apply Darwinian ideas (or, worse, Spenserian). Either way, overreach was inevitable; and, because of ‘science envy’, the soft sciences and the humanities were diminished.

COMMENT: Yes, Sociobiology (the Wilson book) by studying insects came to the conclusion that culture (including altruism!) was the product of biological, evolutionary forces--So much for humanism! The reaction, of course was great and according to Wilson was instigated by "leftist" academic influences who were unscientific. On the contrary, evolutionists, like Gould, wanted to treat individuals, not as Darwinian pawns, but as autonomous agents who could consider and act for the greater good of society, notwithstanding evolution. Thus, I think the reaction was against a kind of Darwinian social determinism in favor of *humanism* and not in favor of Marxism as a political ideology. (Although, as I recall Lewontin was a declared Marxist. (Don't hold me to that.)

___________________________________________

On your point that even animals are psychologically more complex than we are wont to assume: with the ubiquity of cameras there have been so many weird inter-species relationships recorded. It has literally become a daily feed on many social media platforms. Observing these feeds daily, with a remnant of religious training at the back of the mind, it can seem that the lion is laying down with the lamb across the board. Almost as if, dare I say it, love and affection for their own sake isn’t strictly human, or even mammalian. Not what I was taught on the prairie farm, that’s for sure.

COMMENT: I agree. Certainly there are evolutionary forces at work in nature, nobody disputes that. (Not even the ID crowd) But, again, making Darwinism in particular, and evolution generally, as the be all and end all of scientific explanation in biology, and especially psychology, is simply false, if not ludicrous. (IMHO)

As always, I appreciate your comments.