I think the other important point to add is that evo psych in popular discourse is rarely used to explain alone. Instead it seems to always lead into the naturalistic fallacy as an explanation for why the world can’t or shouldn’t be kinder, more humane, or less authoritarian. Add on to this that the people making these arguments are usually pretty out of touch with the actual archaeological record about their supposed environment of evolutionary adaptiveness and it’s not at all surprising that whatever legitimate insights it may offer are buried under a mountain of bullshit.
Comment on Just So
MonkeMischief@lemmy.today 2 weeks agoI’m kinda glad this is so heavily contested, because I thought I was some kinda “science denier” for being annoyed that there was some “bEcAuSe OuR aNcEsToRs” explanation for everything.
- Altruism? "CaveBros died without bros."
- Faith? "Simple explanation of complex universe make ape happy."
- Complex reasoning? "CaveBros threw selves off cliff or poked predators otherwise."
- Love? “CaveGals selected for strong sensitive CaveBros.”
(Disclaimer: I’m being intentionally facetious and making these up in an attempt to be funny. This is likely because my ancestors wouldn’t get beaten with sticks if they made funny joke, the funnier ones got to reproduce, but the trait may have diluted over eons, you tell me.)
I respect the desire to understand us, but I also think there’s a subset of people that want to reduce the complex beauty of humanity to cold, mechanical, precictable, reproducible determinism.
They’re easily spotted when they say things like “The concept of the soul is stupid, we’re just a bunch of furless lab accident monkeys that started using tools in an uncaring universe and love is just chemicals mixing because monke needed to maek moar monke.”
I feel like this stance is prized by the types that want to mind-control the world’s humans with ads, or State coercion, or corporate culture. The same types that enthusiastically rave about one day merging all human consciousness with some giant FacebAmazOogleFliX Ai or something. The same types that have no problem leveraging technology to reduce art, poetry, storytelling, relationships, down to algorithms and claim “There’s no difference.”
It disrespects the absolute mind-blowing wonder of humanity and our understanding of it, usually to appear smart or edgy for personal gain. And I’ve personally had enough of it.
YourNetworkIsHaunted@awful.systems 2 weeks ago
athinglikethat@leminal.space 2 weeks ago
THEY are the science deniers! I’m so glad their reign is coming to an end. Their foundational text is hilarious: Oh, the brain is “massively modular.”
Wow, how much modularity qualifies as massive? How about medium modularity? Why not a minimally modular brain?
(By this point in the questioning, the Evolutionary Psychologist has already fled back to his lab where he’s running a study that surveys 12 self-proclaimed incel undergrads to determine what all woman wanted in the Pleistocene.)