Love the article. My feeling is that a lot of people find talk of 'evolution', when it comes to any policy discussions or debate around the structure of society, a little 'weird' or uncomfortable.
I wonder if there's any practical steps people interested in this stuff can take not to put people off? Is there something in the manner in which science is talked about maybe?
Interesting question. I think evolutionary ideas challenge several of our intuitions and social narratives about the world. I am not sure there is an easy solution, but progressively making sense of the world in a way that allows people to adjust their intuitions and for new social narratives to emerge is one way forward.
I'm willing to be challenged in my views about the utility of evolutionary psychology to find solutions to social problems (if it can possibly move out of the impersonal realm), but one thing I don't like about it is that it portrays everything in life as a zero-sum game, with lots of cynicism sprinkled in. I also think when you try to extrapolate its theories, they get stuck in the realm of hindsight thinking, as its most prominent represents may not have personally witnessed every possible cultural shift as they happened, so they apply hypotheses that can neither be confirmed nor denied because not enough people like them were around to explain them. Now that we have better genetic evidence that people thrive more in cooperation than competition (at least when no wars or natural disasters or social strife are happening) and that we share a good portion of our genetic material with people who aren't our nearest relatives, the parts of evolutionary theory that justify biological superiority over others should be starting to become debunked. However, the fact that those arguments are still occurring means that evolutionary theorists have a lot of work cut out for them to convince people that the field is legitimately pro-social.
I do find Steve Stewart William's work interesting but I can't read everything he writes since most of his posts are behind a paywall :(. But thank you for listing sources I can check out!
I won’t speak for every evolutionary scientist, but I don’t think they tend to portray everything as zero-sum games. On the contrary, non-zero-sum games are a major feature of the world, and cooperation is a key principle in life. Indeed, it is the reason we exist in the first place (cooperation between genes and cells).
In a way, that was what I was referring to. I understand that there are obvious advantages with being tall, strong and smart, but when the parts of evolutionary theory that are co-opted by the “manosphere” (which I guess I am actually referring to) that take on a harsh Darwinian perspective saying that people that aren’t strong, smart and tall are not fit to survive capably are brought up time and time again as peoples’ first introduction to evolutionary theory, it’s not a good look for the entire field. To me, the ideal tall, smart and strong person that the evolutionary online community tends to idealize is not someone I would personally relate to. I’m female, and I’m not as tall and strong as a man, but I’m just as capable of being as smart or maybe even smarter than a man in similar life circumstances as me. To me, civilization has evolved significantly enough to where immediate survival or the quest to ensure immediate protection for ourselves and our loved ones does not always need to be our greatest concern. Do you see where I’m coming from?
I'm an evolutionary biologist, and one who shares frustration at the crude caricatures of evolution that often go around popular culture. Among the crudest of which is the idea that organisms can be set on a line from "less fit" to "more fit". If this sort of thing was your first introduction to the field, I sure can't blame your for being queasy about it!
The way I'd recommend thinking about that is that strength, size, and intelligence are just three of countless possible adaptations that improve one's chances to survive and breed in the environment. After all, many species survive just fine with none of the three. Cooperation is another major one, and to claim that contests of brute strength are in accordance with evolution but resource-sharing and cooperation are not (as people overly fond of brute strength often do) is silly in the highest degree. In fact, the most important passages of evolution (from naked genes to cells, from bacterial to complex cells, from single cells to multicellularity, from individuals to colonies and societies) resulted from resolution of conflicts and mutual cooperation -- I summarized them here: https://www.tumblr.com/o-craven-canto/743782234119684096/complexity-transitions-in-evolution
The living world in the optic of evolution is, per se, completely amoral; in my opinion, beautiful and horrifying at the same time. It does not follow that the study of the living world (indeed, nature contains many examples that we definitely would not want to follow, such as species of sharks where fetuses eat each other within the womb). Brutality and compassion are equally natural -- and I know which one I'd like to see more of!
Oh no. Adaptations cover *all sorts* of things. Bacteria in your intestine that help with the digestion of sugars, a buoyant oily liver to swim with less effort, contractile hinged shells, a mirrored retina to see better at dusk, inflatable balloons in your nose to signal health to sexual partners, ground poisons to kill other plants competing with you for sunlight, silk glands to weave traps for your preys, fatty humps to store water when crossing the desert, a tail you can break off to distract predators, modified muscles that accumulate charge to produce electric shocks, an instict to swallow your newly hatched spawn so they can grow up in your cheek pouches, chemicals that make light when mixed to communicate with your kin -- well, you get the idea. All sorts of things.
Now, I did mention cooperation, and it's true that cooperation in human society largely depends on intelligence (though not necessarily on its upper extreme). Not so in other organisms, like ants, coral polyps, slime molds, etc. My main point is that evolutionary biology doesn't really let you grade organisms from best to worst, since there are many, many independent parameters to be optimized for and all of them are contextual to your environment, which varies endlessly in space and time.
In a stably rich environment, victory goes to the organisms that can process food most efficiently; in a stably poor one, to the organisms who best endure whatever it is (cold, drought, etc.) that makes it poor; in one with variable conditions, to organisms who can suffer population crashes and bounce back quickly. And each of these goals, which trade off against each other, can be achieved in countless different ways.
I see. So all these adaptations coexist together rather than compete separately!
But wouldn’t observations of these adaptations only make sense if they are made with hindsight? Then, you run into the limits of the falsifiability of evolutionary theories. How then do evolutionary biologists steel man their arguments against accusations that the field is simply one big just-so story? And how has evolutionary biology not be able to penetrate outside academia much, or do you find that this has not been the case for your particular line of work?
Well, they're all possible. Every single species can only get so many adaptations -- (1) because of pre-existing constraints (can't develop communication by color if you don't have eyes, or evolve energy-consuming flight if you can only digest dead wood), (2) because some adaptations are useful in a particular environment but harmful in another (e.g. thick blubber in a hot desert), and (3) because they trade off against each other, for energy consumption if nothing else. But they do coexist in the whole biosphere.
> But wouldn’t observations of these adaptations only make sense if they are made with hindsight?
I'm afraid I don't quite understand what you mean here.
> Then, you run into the limits of the falsifiability of evolutionary theories. How then do evolutionary biologists steel man their arguments against accusations that the field is simply one big just-so story?
Well, evolutionary biology makes a number of predictions about what we'd observe in nature. At the highest level, it predicts the so-called "nested hierarchies", the tree-like pattern of categories within categories (e.g. all primates have the basic traits of mammals, all mammals have the basic traits of vertebrates, and so on). It may sound trivial, but without common descent there's no reason for life to form this pattern! (As opposed to, say, complete mix-and-match.) Actually, it predicts two nested hierarchies, one for body morphology and one for gene sequences, and that both roughly overlap, which would not necessarily be the case.
It also predicts the existence of some transitional forms but not others (e.g. reptile-mammal and reptile-bird intermediates, but not mammal-bird). It can even predict in what part of the world and which geologic layers such intermediates can be found -- the case of the proto-land vertebrate //Tiktaalik// is the most famous. These are the examples that first come to mind.
> And how has evolutionary biology not be able to penetrate outside academia much, or do you find that this has not been the case for your particular line of work?
I'd say it has, but in an over-simplified and caricatural form, much like any other field of science. The general shape of the theoryof evolution is simple enough that almost everyone assumes they understand it, but it turns out to be much more subtle and complex that most people think.
I think I do. Wow, I sure got introduced to evolutionary theory in different ways than you did.
Maybe because I came to it from an economic perspective. Everything has trade-offs. Being bigger might make you more likely to survive and pass on genes but it also means you require more energy so you might be less likely to survive and reproduce. Same with being fast or smart. Being fierce might be helpful, but too fierce too often will have more costs than benefits. Lions spend most of their time stalking or lolling around. For some, being a mean muh-fuh is a good strategy. For others, it's being a coward. "He who runs and hides away, lives to run another day." The diversity of life-style and reproductive strategies is immense.
Darwin can be read to say "stronger, taller, smarter is better" but modern evolutionary theory can't. "Manosphere" posts saying it is better are not modern evolutionary theory. On the other hand, modern evolutionary theory is foundational for Lionel or Steve Stewart-Williams or Dan Williams, to take three people I read online.
Thank you for your perspective! I sensed that there is more to evolutionary theory than meets the (layman's) eye. Sadly, I think most people are introduced to it in the distorted and antiquated way that the manosphere portrays it to be and then don't learn anything else to challenge it. They hear about how evolution harms us (like with the 20th-century eugenics movement), but not much about how it helps us. What do you think?
I think it is a damn shame how evolutionary theory is misrepresented. Evolutionary theory is to biology as Newton's Laws are to physics, a foundation. And biology has to be a foundation of the "human sciences". Because we are evolved animals.
What exactly that means is incredibly important and incredibly contentious. Lots of smart people have been accused of believing that "humans only evolved from the neck down." It's a nice line, but inaccurate. What I think is true is that they believe that over the course of human evolution, the brain was cleansed of most predilections and has turned into the equivalent of a general purpose computer. It will run any program that "society" or "the environment" loads into it.
This means that most bad things are the result of bad environment, bad socialization, bad social structures. Which is actually a heart-warming thing to believe because it means you can solve most problems by changing the environment, socialization, social structures, etc.
Some people, especially evolutionary psychology people, piss on that wonderful confection by saying that lots of bad things happen because that's just the way humans are. Some people are just a lot smarter or a lot stupider. Lots of people can't successfully go to college, or even actually learn a significant fraction of what state departments of education say they are supposed to learn (when states actually tried to test that, they found shockingly high numbers failing, so they stopped testing) We have a strong predilection to divide the world into good "us" and bad "them". Or, pace Joyce Benenson's "Warriors and Worriers", women and men have (on average) different predilections about a lot of things.
We humans have a wonderful predilection to obey rules and to co-operate, but that means we go along with bad laws and customs. One of our most visible co-operations is in the armed forces, where people will kill and die for their buddies.
I fear I'm getting carried away. Steve Stewart-Williams "The Ape That Understood the Universe" is a good introduction to co-operation, evolutionary psychology, and similar things. I found the meme chapter not real convincing. To the extent that meme theory is right, it seems to me to be "old wine in new bottles". In economic terms, it says that we can't just look at the "supply side" of ideas, practices, etc. We also have to think about "demand". What new ideas do people want to believe, what new practices fit in with what they want, etc.
I’m glad we mostly agree. Please don’t think you’re getting carried away! I appreciate when people want to speak in depth on a topic, and not stop the inquiry for the sake of polite conversation.
I don’t know about you, but I come at this topic for a more social/ positive psych perspective, and say that it’s difficult, but not impossible to change the environment someone is in for someone to change for the better, albeit at a smaller, personal scale. I don’t accept that the evidence for refusal to change because “it’s just how humans are.” And correct me if I’m wrong, but it seems like much economic theory, especially of the past, tends overemphasize human psychology in the strictest behavioral sense, or what I guess you would call on the “supply side.” Or maybe you’re just reiterating what Steve Stewart Williams is writing about, and I’m missing that?
Also, could you say more about how states have stopped standardized testing in light of the societal problems concerning literacy? Because what I hear ad nauseam from the literature is that states test too much!
I'd love to answer your question but I'm not at all sure what you mean when you say, "it seems like much economic theory, especially of the past, tends overemphasize human psychology in the strictest behavioral sense, or what I guess you would call on the “supply side.”"
I said I come to evolution/behavior/ecology/biology from an economic perspective but I've probably moved out of the economic mainstream. Of course, I think that means I'm wiser and less parochial :)
I should mention that for an important part of my life I was a high school science teacher (physics and physical science). This may sound cynical but ...
Teachers are incredibly scared that their students will not be able to pass outside tests. That is because they know that their students do not learn much--if by "learn" you mean understand for an extended period of time.
Instead, what happens is this. The year is divided into "units" of one to three weeks. During that time, students listen, do worksheets, maybe do projects or various classroom activities. Then at the end, the teacher reviews, being sure to hit everything that will be on unit test and not much that won't. Young people have good short term memories and most will remember enough to pass the test the next day. If not, the teacher may "scale" the scores because if she fails too many students, she will be called a bad teacher and get a bad schedule the next year or not be retained. The next year, she will try new things to get the student to understand but it won't work so, if possible, she will change the test to make it easier to pass. Or perhaps come up with something that can be graded subjectively so enough kids pass. More experienced teachers can help with this. For one thing, they know what proportion of students can be failed without incurring the wrath of the higher ups.
Most of the material in any one unit will not be mentioned again and within a few months, most of it will be forgotten. But the teacher can say, "they passed the test, so they must know it." Most teachers know deep down that that is b.s. (All teachers know that knowledge "decays" over summer but the official line is that's because they aren't in school. Yes, but not being in school is just a special case of not using the knowledge after the test.)
So when around the turn of the century states started giving subject matter tests that students might need to graduate, the scores were terrible. And of course teachers freaked. They would be blamed, though the problem is that the state expects young people to learn way, way more than they ever reasonably will. States responded by lowering the passing scores and making the tests easier and often doing away with them entirely.
Sure teachers complain about those tests. They take up time and generally the results aren't back in time to provide any useful information during that school year. BUT TEACHERS GIVE TESTS ALL THE TIME. They are not opposed to tests. They are opposed to tests made up by other people. But the states tell each teacher what the students are supposed to learn. I think every state now has state "standards" which prescribe a curriculum in just about every course, and also say what courses must be taken and passed to get a diploma. It hardly seems unfair for the state to try to find out if the students are actually learning what they are supposed to. But nobody, I mean NOBODY in the education industry wants to hear just how little they are.
I think of the scene in "A Few Good Men." Tom Cruise character: "I want the truth." Jack Nicholson character: "You can't handle the truth!"
To answer the original question I posed: I mean that I thought economic theory assumes that people are unthinking and irrational and simply live their lives in order to maximize pleasure and avoid pain. That they make financial decisions not for what’s best for themselves, their families and communities in the long term, but because they are greedy, selfish, motivated by immediate gratification and only willing to help others if it means they get something in return. To extrapolate this to how it occurs in daily life, institutions like the economy, healthcare and government who accept this immutable and unfortunate fact of the human condition then assist people simply to escape poverty, prevent disease and obey laws that ensure compliance rather than all three ensuring human flourishing. This may be something only internet cranks believe, but it’s difficult not to believe it yourself.
To continue the conversation on schools and testing: I definitely agree with and empathize with what today’s teachers have to deal with, but when I overhear possible solutions proposed to the effect of “stop hiring too many administrators!” or “demand an end to federal overreach,” it feels too black and white to me. Don’t schools need administrators? And don’t teachers sometimes need to be held accountable by some source of oversight? I understand that teachers want to have autonomy over what they teach, but obviously playing the blame game doesn’t help their cause.
The U.S. Navy now has more admirals than it had in World War II and fewer seaworthy ships. Organizations seem to get top-heavy over time because administrators draw up budgets and control what information gets to the outside world ("in order to fulfill our mission, we need an X% budget increase and these additional personnel"). Administrators are definitely needed, but a lot of big city school systems seem to have considerably more than necessary.
One of the purported advantages of capitalism is that a company which is top-heavy can be out-competed by a new company that is leaner. This puts pressure on the incumbent to have fewer useless administrators. And maybe to improve the product. In the 1960s and '70s, American cars were full of defects, got low mileage, and prices kept going up. Then Japanese imports hit our shores and for the American Big Three, it was change or die.
Most outsiders are surprised by how little accountability there is in education. Accountability is massively "front-loaded". To be hired in most places, you need state certification, which almost always requires graduating from an approved teacher training program (if not, you have to get the degree within a few years). Hopefully, it also includes a semester of "student teaching" where you have to teach a course in a real school. During the first two or three years, you will be on one year contracts, a department head or vice-principal will probably "observe" you teaching several times, some of the things you do--good or bad--will be noticed, you will meet with various administrators to discuss things, and in the spring you will be notified if your contract is being renewed.
Near the end of the second or usually third year, you will either not be retained or given "tenure" or "professional status." You now have a right to your job unless you do something awful or there is a "reduction in force". In which case, people will be let go in order of seniority. You will be paid strictly based on seniority and on the number of education courses you have taken.
You will now be observed less (once every two years in MA) and you cannot be fired or have your pay cut. Though there are some things that can be done. You may get a lousy schedule or not be able to teach the courses you want to teach. You may be required to enter a "teacher improvement program", though these usually don't amount to much. Everyone is required to attend several days of "professional development" each year, which is sometimes useful, more often not.
To answer the original question I posed: I mean that I thought economic theory assumes that people are unthinking and irrational and simply live their lives in order to maximize pleasure and avoid pain. That they make financial decisions not for what’s best for themselves, their families and communities in the long term, but because they are greedy, selfish, motivated by immediate gratification and only willing to help others if it means they get something in return. To extrapolate this to how it occurs in daily life, institutions like the economy, healthcare and government who accept this immutable and unfortunate fact of the human condition then assist people simply to escape poverty, prevent disease and obey laws that ensure compliance rather than all three ensuring human flourishing. This may be something only internet cranks believe, but it’s difficult not to believe it yourself.
OMG! That sounds like Donald Trump describing Joe Biden or Joe Biden describing Donald Trump. No wonder you don't think much of economics.
"Maximize the excess of pleasure over pain" was indeed how the early utilitarians like Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) and James Mill (1773-1836) saw things. But that was a long time ago. What modern economics does do is assume that people have preferences and that they are stable. These preferences are generally self-regarding--in some sense people want to be happy--but the preferences can be almost anything. Because people can think "this will make me happy", "this is a good thing to do", "this is the person I want to be". Or actually don't so much "think" as do.
People can pursue what they think will will make other people happy, will further human flourishing, will "save the planet", whatever. (Of course, they may be mistaken. See, for an over-the-top example the Nazis, who thought they were perfecting the human race, and thus any methods were appropriate, or Lenin or Stalin or Mao who thought they were laying the foundations for a world without exploitation.)
The only real requirement is consistency. If I would rather go to Hawaii than Alaska, and I would rather go to Alaska than New York City, I will rather go to Hawaii than New York City. If I prefer going to Hawaii over Alaska this year, I will not prefer going to Alaska over Hawaii next year (assuming I haven't gone to Hawaii in the interim; having gone once, I may want to do something different. economists still use the old terminology and say there is "diminishing marginal utility": I may love ice cream but my tenth bowl of the day is going to be less preferred than the first or the fifth).
Having said that, economists tend to assume that people generally want more for themselves, more money, more comfort, more excitement, etc. But they also realize that someone who is nothing but selfish and greedy will probably not succeed. You have to be good to your significant other to have a satisfying relationship. You have to help your team in order to be accepted and promoted in an organization. You have to treat your friends well, etc. Most animals are pretty short-term selfish and they don't have the sort of society that humans do. But humans often want to do those good pro-social things. So we do have the society we do, with almost unprecedented levels of co-operation.
Now, you can say that deep down this is actually selfish and greedy because you are "doing well by doing good". And I think that is one reason lots of people are uncomfortable about evolutionary psychology. Because it says that those good feelings you have are the result of a process that is very, very self-regarding. Across the great sweep of history, they somehow were the result of a process which wanted nothing more than to survive and put genes in the next (and the next and the next) generation.
Dan Williams put it this way in an essay about G.A. Cohen's "Why Not Socialism?": "Like many others, Cohen assumes that capitalism is unusual and objectionable because it relies on human self-interest to sustain cooperation. However, this is the default mode of human cooperation, including cooperation that sustains highly egalitarian social worlds. Spontaneous order—forms of social organisation that result not from intentional design but from strategic interactions among self-interested individuals—is unavoidable. Capitalism is not unusual in featuring this incentive structure; it is unusual in making it undeniable."
What are you referring to when you say, "the parts of evolutionary theory that justify biological superiority over others"? Surely, you don't mean the idea that some people are stronger, taller, smarter.
Since you cite Pinker, I'll link to my review of The Blank Slate, which exhibits many of the problems of evolutionary psychology as it is actually practised, most notably what is now known as the motte-and-bailey style of argument, evident in the paragraph you cite. The evidence of utopian communities supports the weak claim that people aren't perfectly unselfish but not the stronger claims Pinker wants to make.
I think there actually is an argument that what is evolved for is more likely to be moral, because evolutionary benefit is likely correlated with increased utility for most behaviors (which are not zero-sum competition). If being able to walk better was sufficiently high utility (for example, because it let’s you avoid getting eaten by predators), then actually it does seem like you have a moral obligation to produce offspring that can walk better.
Here's an even better example. There's a very interesting theory called cosmological natural selection by Lee Smolin described by Julian Gough in The Egg and the Rock: https://theeggandtherock.com/p/in-which-i-tell-you-about-my-next, which posits that universes are created by black holes and therefore evolved towards their production (which explains fine-tuning). In this theory, intelligent life is also cosmologically evolved for as our energy needs will eventually result in us creating black holes and harvesting it from them. Assuming this is true, do we have a moral obligation to technological progress to continue down the path meta-evolutionarily set for us? From a utilitarian perspective, I think (so long as you aren't an anti-natalist) the answer is obviously yes, we should try to create many more universes like ours. If so, it's probably not a coincidence here that what's good for the goose is good for the gander.
Hi AG, see my answers interspersed in your comment:
I think there actually is an argument that what is evolved for is more likely to be moral, because evolutionary benefit is likely correlated with increased utility for most behaviors (which are not zero-sum competition). If being able to walk better was sufficiently high utility (for example, because it let’s you avoid getting eaten by predators), then actually it does seem like you have a moral obligation to produce offspring that can walk better.
> I don’t think this position is supported by a clear definition of what is “moral.” To whom do you owe that? You might owe kindness to your neighbour, but if you could choose to have a child with better walkability through embryo screening, you would be giving life to a specific child while passing over others who miss the opportunity. To whom do you owe this? If instead, you had a child with slightly lower walkability, who would be hurt? The child who exists but would not have been born if they had been screened out?
Here's an even better example. There's a very interesting theory called cosmological natural selection by Lee Smolin described by Julian Gough in The Egg and the Rock: https://theeggandtherock.com/p/in-which-i-tell-you-about-my-next, which posits that universes are created by black holes and therefore evolved towards their production (which explains fine-tuning). In this theory, intelligent life is also cosmologically evolved for as our energy needs will eventually result in us creating black holes and harvesting it from them. Assuming this is true, do we have a moral obligation to technological progress to continue down the path meta-evolutionarily set for us? From a utilitarian perspective, I think (so long as you aren't an anti-natalist) the answer is obviously yes, we should try to create many more universes like ours. If so, it's probably not a coincidence here that what's good for the goose is good for the gander.
> I am not familiar with this theory. In any case, even if it were true, why would you have a moral obligation? What does “moral obligation” mean here? What would be “wrong” if you personally chose not to follow a grand cosmological plan? This is an important question.
I am not sure if it’s Utilitarianism which is causing the non sequitur here. I think that the evolutionary approach is amoral (in the neutral sense) meaning that it does not need to refer to morality at all -except as an emergent phenomenon. But really, it’s survivability all the way down. Morality is kinda undefined in that context.
Correct me both if I’m wrong but I think Utilitarianism does not usually include objective morality (beyond something like “proliferation of sentient beings”). Do you have a specific “objective morality” within the framework of Utilitarianism? If it’s just about the survival and proliferation of the species/sentience/life, then do we even need to talk about Morality? It’s just optimization in that case.
Nope, I think morality is subjective because everyone has a different way to aggregate preferences and there's no one qualified to say which method is correct. That's why I say "so long as you aren't an anti-natalist", because they commonly have an aggregation function which states something like any suffering cancels out all the good.
I probably have some sort of simple summation combined with hyperbolic discounting, in which case if some evolutionary feature leads to less suffering and more enjoyment, I think it's good. For example, I like being able to walk and see, I think both of them have led to a lot of enjoyment in my life and probably will lead to more in the future.
Crazy that social darwinism is related to eugenics, when clearly women's sexual freedom is directly what caused unfettered eugenics. Even Nazi "social darwinism" was less than eugenicist than the average girl with freedom and her TikTok feed.
You have it backwards. It’s not the political implications. It’s the fact that you can see the political and sexual opinions of those proposing evolutionary theories. Comparing these silly and transparent projections-turned-scientific-theories to a telescope objectively looking at a planet’s moons is exactly the kind of arrogance that is exuded from evolutionary psychologists. The real concern is that it gives faux credence to political opinions by painting on a veneer of science. The field is actually ridiculous.
But the vast majority of evolutionary psychologists are left-wing, as he showed in the article. Do you think evolutionary psychologists are proposing theories based on their left-wing opinions? Or are you claiming that the whole field is some sort of pseudoscience used to justify right-wing opinions despite almost everyone in it being left-wing?
Hi Steve, what “field” do you have in mind? All evolutionary approaches related to human behaviour (evo psych, behav evo, evo anthropology, evolutionary game theory, and so on) or just evo psych? Or just the Santa Barbara School of evo psych (Tooby and Cosmides, modularity), or just the part of evo psych looking at sexual behaviour (Trivers, Buss, Miller, and so on)? Surely you are not making the first maximalist claim. It would imply either evolution stops at the neck and is not relevant to understand behaviour or it is but we way to study it (which would be a very strong. If you are interested in my approach (“evolutionary foundations of preferences”, reverse engineering), see this post below. Is it pseudoscience? Why? Is it ideological? Why? https://www.optimallyirrational.com/p/its-not-a-bug-its-a-feature-revisiting
Any “field” that attempts to explain differences in human psychology, behavior, personality or intelligence in terms of some made up evolutionary mechanism.
If you would like a more specific criticism, every section has something wrong with it, but I'll use the section on Sexism as an example.
"While evolutionary ideas have sometimes been used to legitimate inequalities between men and women, it is not the case in modern evolutionary science. In any case, with 75% of psychology doctoral students now being women, the future of evolutionary psychology will largely be shaped by women."
Riddle me this: in a section on Sexism, that concludes with pointing out that the field HAS been previously used to legitimate inequalities between men and women, why does it finish by noting that the field is/will shortly be dominated by women, but carefully avoids addressing whether the field was ACCURATE in legitimating those inequalities? Was the prior research inaccurate? Accurate, but misrepresented? Or were the inequalities truly legitimated by the research? What relevance does the shift from being male-dominated to female-dominated have to do with sexism in the field? Is 'the Future is female' here presented as a positive or a negative?
If the author is treating the gender ratio within the field as relevant, that would seem to call into question the accuracy of all previous research done while the field was male-dominated. Yet this does not seem to be the author's intent. If there was no problem with the field being male-dominated previously, why use the current female-domination of the field as a counterpoint?
If the author is purely seeking to reassure feminists that the field is not only hostile to the right wing (as already specified in another paragraph) but also 'safely' female-dominated, that's an example of Gamma Bias. "Sexism" theoretically should cover undue bias against EITHER sex, yet the implied concern here is solely for presumed male bias against women. No matching concern is shown that the female-dominated field may discriminate against men or misuse research to legitimate feminist critique of men (such as the explosion of papers regarding "toxic masculinity). The article does in fact explicitly note that researchers in the field are overwhelmingly left-wing, which is itself a valid argument AGAINST the field as a heavily biased ideological monoculture, yet interestingly the author only feels the need to defend against accusations the field is overly right wing, not against accusations the field is demonstrably overly left wing, only defend against the field being male-dominated, not against it being female-dominated, even under a category (Sexism) where having a roughly even gender balance would presumably be better for both actual research quality and public confidence than it being dominated by one gender over the other.
These facts that are presented as good and desirable here (the field is dominated by left wing "progressive" women) actually exist in direct tension with the article's theme that 'truth' ought to be pursued regardless of the harms it may cause, because that isn't a philosophy that left wing progressive women tend to be the most agreeable with. That is, in point of fact, precisely the demographic intersection with the lowest support for academic freedom and highest support for censorship.
"Some of the most controversial information in psychology involves genetic or evolutionary explanations for sex differences in educational-vocational outcomes (Clark et al., 2024a). We investigated whether men and women react differently to controversial information about sex differences and whether their reaction depends on who provides the information. In the experiment, college students (n=396) and U.S. middle-aged adults (n=154) reviewed a handout, purportedly provided by either a male or a female professor. The handout stated that (1) women in STEM are no longer discriminated against in hiring and publishing and (2) sex differences in educational-vocational outcomes are better explained by evolved differences between men and women in various personal attributes. We found that college women were less receptive to the information than college men were and wanted to censor it more than men did; also, in both the college student and community adult samples, women were less receptive and more censorious when the messenger was a male professor than when the messenger was a female professor. In both samples, participants who leaned to the left politically and who held stronger belief that words can cause harm reacted with more censoriousness. Our findings imply that the identity of a person presenting controversial scientific information and the receiver’s pre-existing identity and beliefs have the potential to influence how that information will be received."
"For example, a majority of men believe that colleges should not protect their students from offensive ideas, whereas a majority of women believe colleges should. Male students rated advancing knowledge and academic rigor as higher in value and social justice and emotional well-being as lower in value relative to female students. And in a 2021 report by Eric Kaufmann, female scholars in the US and Canada were more likely than men to support firing a scholar for controversial research...broadly, women reported stronger agreement with the statement that 'some scientific findings should be censored because they are too dangerous.'"
If your position is that the field is indeed primarily concerned with advancing knowledge and academic rigor, as the author here seems to assert, that's a hard claim to substantiate when also admitting that the demographics of the field skew heavily towards those most inclined to prioritize "social justice" and to reject, censor, and even fire "controversial" researchers whose results "dangerously" contradict their progressive dogma or "harm" their favored demographics, especially if that researcher happens to belong to the male minority.
Given an entire section intended to defend against accusations that the field is sexist, the author not only makes logically invalid arguments, not only fails to substantiate the central claim, not only avoids addressing the central relevant matter of whether the field's previously 'legitimatizing inequalities' was accurate or not, but instead accidentally lends credence to the accusation itself (despite, ignorantly or deliberately, ignoring relevant research regarding the academic habits and priorities of the demographics involved). The article attempted to assert that the field is not sexist, but ultimately the few facts given better support the accusation that it IS Sexist (currently sexist in FAVOR of women).
If you have had better success than I in finding ANY valid argument in this jumble of unfinished thoughts and unsupported conclusions that passed for an article, please, specify in reply to me exactly which argument you found to be valid, substantiated, and having proved the conclusion given.
Hi Steven, thank you for taking the time to engage with my post. I value constructive feedback, as it helps me improve the clarity and impact of my writing. That being said, I would appreciate it if we could keep the discussion civil.
I am sorry to have failed to convey useful insights to you with this post and your comment made me think about how I could have presented some things differently. Nonetheless, I think your first comment is slightly unfair in suggesting that the post throws out random things in the hope that something sticks. The post reviews diverse criticisms and discusses them. The diversity of content is in large part driven by the diversity of criticisms. The post responds to these criticisms with broadly two principles:
1. Evolution does not imply any particular moral principles.
2. Rejecting some factual arguments because we don’t like the conclusion is not a good idea.
Your later comments suggest that you have drawn incorrect conclusions from the post. It is not about denying that evolutionary ideas have been used to justify some social outcomes; it is about arguing that this justification does not follow from the facts of evolution. The fact that most evolutionary scientists are now left-wing or female is not necessarily a good thing; it is rather evidence that the worries (traditionally coming from the left) are not warranted.
Is there a risk of bias in the other direction now? Certainly. It is even discussed by Vandermassen in her 2005 book. Such a bias is not desirable, and I might talk about it in later posts. But this post is not primarily about the biases in evolutionary science as it is currently practised; it is about whether evolutionary principles have the dire political implications they have been accused of having.
Ironically, Steven's comments are a compelling example of the validity of Mercier and Sperber's ideas in The Enigma of Reason, which are rooted in evolutionary theory.
Funny how a critique of evolutionary thinking ends up coming full circle, unintentionally reinforcing it.
Love the article. My feeling is that a lot of people find talk of 'evolution', when it comes to any policy discussions or debate around the structure of society, a little 'weird' or uncomfortable.
I wonder if there's any practical steps people interested in this stuff can take not to put people off? Is there something in the manner in which science is talked about maybe?
(I consider myself one of these interested people!)
Interesting question. I think evolutionary ideas challenge several of our intuitions and social narratives about the world. I am not sure there is an easy solution, but progressively making sense of the world in a way that allows people to adjust their intuitions and for new social narratives to emerge is one way forward.
TL:DR humans use science to support what they want to support, and reject science when they don't like the conclusions it may lead to.
I'm willing to be challenged in my views about the utility of evolutionary psychology to find solutions to social problems (if it can possibly move out of the impersonal realm), but one thing I don't like about it is that it portrays everything in life as a zero-sum game, with lots of cynicism sprinkled in. I also think when you try to extrapolate its theories, they get stuck in the realm of hindsight thinking, as its most prominent represents may not have personally witnessed every possible cultural shift as they happened, so they apply hypotheses that can neither be confirmed nor denied because not enough people like them were around to explain them. Now that we have better genetic evidence that people thrive more in cooperation than competition (at least when no wars or natural disasters or social strife are happening) and that we share a good portion of our genetic material with people who aren't our nearest relatives, the parts of evolutionary theory that justify biological superiority over others should be starting to become debunked. However, the fact that those arguments are still occurring means that evolutionary theorists have a lot of work cut out for them to convince people that the field is legitimately pro-social.
I do find Steve Stewart William's work interesting but I can't read everything he writes since most of his posts are behind a paywall :(. But thank you for listing sources I can check out!
I won’t speak for every evolutionary scientist, but I don’t think they tend to portray everything as zero-sum games. On the contrary, non-zero-sum games are a major feature of the world, and cooperation is a key principle in life. Indeed, it is the reason we exist in the first place (cooperation between genes and cells).
In a way, that was what I was referring to. I understand that there are obvious advantages with being tall, strong and smart, but when the parts of evolutionary theory that are co-opted by the “manosphere” (which I guess I am actually referring to) that take on a harsh Darwinian perspective saying that people that aren’t strong, smart and tall are not fit to survive capably are brought up time and time again as peoples’ first introduction to evolutionary theory, it’s not a good look for the entire field. To me, the ideal tall, smart and strong person that the evolutionary online community tends to idealize is not someone I would personally relate to. I’m female, and I’m not as tall and strong as a man, but I’m just as capable of being as smart or maybe even smarter than a man in similar life circumstances as me. To me, civilization has evolved significantly enough to where immediate survival or the quest to ensure immediate protection for ourselves and our loved ones does not always need to be our greatest concern. Do you see where I’m coming from?
I'm an evolutionary biologist, and one who shares frustration at the crude caricatures of evolution that often go around popular culture. Among the crudest of which is the idea that organisms can be set on a line from "less fit" to "more fit". If this sort of thing was your first introduction to the field, I sure can't blame your for being queasy about it!
The way I'd recommend thinking about that is that strength, size, and intelligence are just three of countless possible adaptations that improve one's chances to survive and breed in the environment. After all, many species survive just fine with none of the three. Cooperation is another major one, and to claim that contests of brute strength are in accordance with evolution but resource-sharing and cooperation are not (as people overly fond of brute strength often do) is silly in the highest degree. In fact, the most important passages of evolution (from naked genes to cells, from bacterial to complex cells, from single cells to multicellularity, from individuals to colonies and societies) resulted from resolution of conflicts and mutual cooperation -- I summarized them here: https://www.tumblr.com/o-craven-canto/743782234119684096/complexity-transitions-in-evolution
The living world in the optic of evolution is, per se, completely amoral; in my opinion, beautiful and horrifying at the same time. It does not follow that the study of the living world (indeed, nature contains many examples that we definitely would not want to follow, such as species of sharks where fetuses eat each other within the womb). Brutality and compassion are equally natural -- and I know which one I'd like to see more of!
Well said
You say there are countless adaptations, but wouldn’t they all derive from strength, size and intelligence?
Oh no. Adaptations cover *all sorts* of things. Bacteria in your intestine that help with the digestion of sugars, a buoyant oily liver to swim with less effort, contractile hinged shells, a mirrored retina to see better at dusk, inflatable balloons in your nose to signal health to sexual partners, ground poisons to kill other plants competing with you for sunlight, silk glands to weave traps for your preys, fatty humps to store water when crossing the desert, a tail you can break off to distract predators, modified muscles that accumulate charge to produce electric shocks, an instict to swallow your newly hatched spawn so they can grow up in your cheek pouches, chemicals that make light when mixed to communicate with your kin -- well, you get the idea. All sorts of things.
Now, I did mention cooperation, and it's true that cooperation in human society largely depends on intelligence (though not necessarily on its upper extreme). Not so in other organisms, like ants, coral polyps, slime molds, etc. My main point is that evolutionary biology doesn't really let you grade organisms from best to worst, since there are many, many independent parameters to be optimized for and all of them are contextual to your environment, which varies endlessly in space and time.
In a stably rich environment, victory goes to the organisms that can process food most efficiently; in a stably poor one, to the organisms who best endure whatever it is (cold, drought, etc.) that makes it poor; in one with variable conditions, to organisms who can suffer population crashes and bounce back quickly. And each of these goals, which trade off against each other, can be achieved in countless different ways.
I see. So all these adaptations coexist together rather than compete separately!
But wouldn’t observations of these adaptations only make sense if they are made with hindsight? Then, you run into the limits of the falsifiability of evolutionary theories. How then do evolutionary biologists steel man their arguments against accusations that the field is simply one big just-so story? And how has evolutionary biology not be able to penetrate outside academia much, or do you find that this has not been the case for your particular line of work?
Well, they're all possible. Every single species can only get so many adaptations -- (1) because of pre-existing constraints (can't develop communication by color if you don't have eyes, or evolve energy-consuming flight if you can only digest dead wood), (2) because some adaptations are useful in a particular environment but harmful in another (e.g. thick blubber in a hot desert), and (3) because they trade off against each other, for energy consumption if nothing else. But they do coexist in the whole biosphere.
> But wouldn’t observations of these adaptations only make sense if they are made with hindsight?
I'm afraid I don't quite understand what you mean here.
> Then, you run into the limits of the falsifiability of evolutionary theories. How then do evolutionary biologists steel man their arguments against accusations that the field is simply one big just-so story?
Well, evolutionary biology makes a number of predictions about what we'd observe in nature. At the highest level, it predicts the so-called "nested hierarchies", the tree-like pattern of categories within categories (e.g. all primates have the basic traits of mammals, all mammals have the basic traits of vertebrates, and so on). It may sound trivial, but without common descent there's no reason for life to form this pattern! (As opposed to, say, complete mix-and-match.) Actually, it predicts two nested hierarchies, one for body morphology and one for gene sequences, and that both roughly overlap, which would not necessarily be the case.
It also predicts the existence of some transitional forms but not others (e.g. reptile-mammal and reptile-bird intermediates, but not mammal-bird). It can even predict in what part of the world and which geologic layers such intermediates can be found -- the case of the proto-land vertebrate //Tiktaalik// is the most famous. These are the examples that first come to mind.
> And how has evolutionary biology not be able to penetrate outside academia much, or do you find that this has not been the case for your particular line of work?
I'd say it has, but in an over-simplified and caricatural form, much like any other field of science. The general shape of the theoryof evolution is simple enough that almost everyone assumes they understand it, but it turns out to be much more subtle and complex that most people think.
I think I do. Wow, I sure got introduced to evolutionary theory in different ways than you did.
Maybe because I came to it from an economic perspective. Everything has trade-offs. Being bigger might make you more likely to survive and pass on genes but it also means you require more energy so you might be less likely to survive and reproduce. Same with being fast or smart. Being fierce might be helpful, but too fierce too often will have more costs than benefits. Lions spend most of their time stalking or lolling around. For some, being a mean muh-fuh is a good strategy. For others, it's being a coward. "He who runs and hides away, lives to run another day." The diversity of life-style and reproductive strategies is immense.
Darwin can be read to say "stronger, taller, smarter is better" but modern evolutionary theory can't. "Manosphere" posts saying it is better are not modern evolutionary theory. On the other hand, modern evolutionary theory is foundational for Lionel or Steve Stewart-Williams or Dan Williams, to take three people I read online.
Thank you for your perspective! I sensed that there is more to evolutionary theory than meets the (layman's) eye. Sadly, I think most people are introduced to it in the distorted and antiquated way that the manosphere portrays it to be and then don't learn anything else to challenge it. They hear about how evolution harms us (like with the 20th-century eugenics movement), but not much about how it helps us. What do you think?
I think it is a damn shame how evolutionary theory is misrepresented. Evolutionary theory is to biology as Newton's Laws are to physics, a foundation. And biology has to be a foundation of the "human sciences". Because we are evolved animals.
What exactly that means is incredibly important and incredibly contentious. Lots of smart people have been accused of believing that "humans only evolved from the neck down." It's a nice line, but inaccurate. What I think is true is that they believe that over the course of human evolution, the brain was cleansed of most predilections and has turned into the equivalent of a general purpose computer. It will run any program that "society" or "the environment" loads into it.
This means that most bad things are the result of bad environment, bad socialization, bad social structures. Which is actually a heart-warming thing to believe because it means you can solve most problems by changing the environment, socialization, social structures, etc.
Some people, especially evolutionary psychology people, piss on that wonderful confection by saying that lots of bad things happen because that's just the way humans are. Some people are just a lot smarter or a lot stupider. Lots of people can't successfully go to college, or even actually learn a significant fraction of what state departments of education say they are supposed to learn (when states actually tried to test that, they found shockingly high numbers failing, so they stopped testing) We have a strong predilection to divide the world into good "us" and bad "them". Or, pace Joyce Benenson's "Warriors and Worriers", women and men have (on average) different predilections about a lot of things.
We humans have a wonderful predilection to obey rules and to co-operate, but that means we go along with bad laws and customs. One of our most visible co-operations is in the armed forces, where people will kill and die for their buddies.
I fear I'm getting carried away. Steve Stewart-Williams "The Ape That Understood the Universe" is a good introduction to co-operation, evolutionary psychology, and similar things. I found the meme chapter not real convincing. To the extent that meme theory is right, it seems to me to be "old wine in new bottles". In economic terms, it says that we can't just look at the "supply side" of ideas, practices, etc. We also have to think about "demand". What new ideas do people want to believe, what new practices fit in with what they want, etc.
I’m glad we mostly agree. Please don’t think you’re getting carried away! I appreciate when people want to speak in depth on a topic, and not stop the inquiry for the sake of polite conversation.
I don’t know about you, but I come at this topic for a more social/ positive psych perspective, and say that it’s difficult, but not impossible to change the environment someone is in for someone to change for the better, albeit at a smaller, personal scale. I don’t accept that the evidence for refusal to change because “it’s just how humans are.” And correct me if I’m wrong, but it seems like much economic theory, especially of the past, tends overemphasize human psychology in the strictest behavioral sense, or what I guess you would call on the “supply side.” Or maybe you’re just reiterating what Steve Stewart Williams is writing about, and I’m missing that?
Also, could you say more about how states have stopped standardized testing in light of the societal problems concerning literacy? Because what I hear ad nauseam from the literature is that states test too much!
I'd love to answer your question but I'm not at all sure what you mean when you say, "it seems like much economic theory, especially of the past, tends overemphasize human psychology in the strictest behavioral sense, or what I guess you would call on the “supply side.”"
I said I come to evolution/behavior/ecology/biology from an economic perspective but I've probably moved out of the economic mainstream. Of course, I think that means I'm wiser and less parochial :)
I should mention that for an important part of my life I was a high school science teacher (physics and physical science). This may sound cynical but ...
Teachers are incredibly scared that their students will not be able to pass outside tests. That is because they know that their students do not learn much--if by "learn" you mean understand for an extended period of time.
Instead, what happens is this. The year is divided into "units" of one to three weeks. During that time, students listen, do worksheets, maybe do projects or various classroom activities. Then at the end, the teacher reviews, being sure to hit everything that will be on unit test and not much that won't. Young people have good short term memories and most will remember enough to pass the test the next day. If not, the teacher may "scale" the scores because if she fails too many students, she will be called a bad teacher and get a bad schedule the next year or not be retained. The next year, she will try new things to get the student to understand but it won't work so, if possible, she will change the test to make it easier to pass. Or perhaps come up with something that can be graded subjectively so enough kids pass. More experienced teachers can help with this. For one thing, they know what proportion of students can be failed without incurring the wrath of the higher ups.
Most of the material in any one unit will not be mentioned again and within a few months, most of it will be forgotten. But the teacher can say, "they passed the test, so they must know it." Most teachers know deep down that that is b.s. (All teachers know that knowledge "decays" over summer but the official line is that's because they aren't in school. Yes, but not being in school is just a special case of not using the knowledge after the test.)
So when around the turn of the century states started giving subject matter tests that students might need to graduate, the scores were terrible. And of course teachers freaked. They would be blamed, though the problem is that the state expects young people to learn way, way more than they ever reasonably will. States responded by lowering the passing scores and making the tests easier and often doing away with them entirely.
Sure teachers complain about those tests. They take up time and generally the results aren't back in time to provide any useful information during that school year. BUT TEACHERS GIVE TESTS ALL THE TIME. They are not opposed to tests. They are opposed to tests made up by other people. But the states tell each teacher what the students are supposed to learn. I think every state now has state "standards" which prescribe a curriculum in just about every course, and also say what courses must be taken and passed to get a diploma. It hardly seems unfair for the state to try to find out if the students are actually learning what they are supposed to. But nobody, I mean NOBODY in the education industry wants to hear just how little they are.
I think of the scene in "A Few Good Men." Tom Cruise character: "I want the truth." Jack Nicholson character: "You can't handle the truth!"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FnO3igOkOk
To answer the original question I posed: I mean that I thought economic theory assumes that people are unthinking and irrational and simply live their lives in order to maximize pleasure and avoid pain. That they make financial decisions not for what’s best for themselves, their families and communities in the long term, but because they are greedy, selfish, motivated by immediate gratification and only willing to help others if it means they get something in return. To extrapolate this to how it occurs in daily life, institutions like the economy, healthcare and government who accept this immutable and unfortunate fact of the human condition then assist people simply to escape poverty, prevent disease and obey laws that ensure compliance rather than all three ensuring human flourishing. This may be something only internet cranks believe, but it’s difficult not to believe it yourself.
To continue the conversation on schools and testing: I definitely agree with and empathize with what today’s teachers have to deal with, but when I overhear possible solutions proposed to the effect of “stop hiring too many administrators!” or “demand an end to federal overreach,” it feels too black and white to me. Don’t schools need administrators? And don’t teachers sometimes need to be held accountable by some source of oversight? I understand that teachers want to have autonomy over what they teach, but obviously playing the blame game doesn’t help their cause.
The U.S. Navy now has more admirals than it had in World War II and fewer seaworthy ships. Organizations seem to get top-heavy over time because administrators draw up budgets and control what information gets to the outside world ("in order to fulfill our mission, we need an X% budget increase and these additional personnel"). Administrators are definitely needed, but a lot of big city school systems seem to have considerably more than necessary.
One of the purported advantages of capitalism is that a company which is top-heavy can be out-competed by a new company that is leaner. This puts pressure on the incumbent to have fewer useless administrators. And maybe to improve the product. In the 1960s and '70s, American cars were full of defects, got low mileage, and prices kept going up. Then Japanese imports hit our shores and for the American Big Three, it was change or die.
Most outsiders are surprised by how little accountability there is in education. Accountability is massively "front-loaded". To be hired in most places, you need state certification, which almost always requires graduating from an approved teacher training program (if not, you have to get the degree within a few years). Hopefully, it also includes a semester of "student teaching" where you have to teach a course in a real school. During the first two or three years, you will be on one year contracts, a department head or vice-principal will probably "observe" you teaching several times, some of the things you do--good or bad--will be noticed, you will meet with various administrators to discuss things, and in the spring you will be notified if your contract is being renewed.
Near the end of the second or usually third year, you will either not be retained or given "tenure" or "professional status." You now have a right to your job unless you do something awful or there is a "reduction in force". In which case, people will be let go in order of seniority. You will be paid strictly based on seniority and on the number of education courses you have taken.
You will now be observed less (once every two years in MA) and you cannot be fired or have your pay cut. Though there are some things that can be done. You may get a lousy schedule or not be able to teach the courses you want to teach. You may be required to enter a "teacher improvement program", though these usually don't amount to much. Everyone is required to attend several days of "professional development" each year, which is sometimes useful, more often not.
To answer the original question I posed: I mean that I thought economic theory assumes that people are unthinking and irrational and simply live their lives in order to maximize pleasure and avoid pain. That they make financial decisions not for what’s best for themselves, their families and communities in the long term, but because they are greedy, selfish, motivated by immediate gratification and only willing to help others if it means they get something in return. To extrapolate this to how it occurs in daily life, institutions like the economy, healthcare and government who accept this immutable and unfortunate fact of the human condition then assist people simply to escape poverty, prevent disease and obey laws that ensure compliance rather than all three ensuring human flourishing. This may be something only internet cranks believe, but it’s difficult not to believe it yourself.
OMG! That sounds like Donald Trump describing Joe Biden or Joe Biden describing Donald Trump. No wonder you don't think much of economics.
"Maximize the excess of pleasure over pain" was indeed how the early utilitarians like Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) and James Mill (1773-1836) saw things. But that was a long time ago. What modern economics does do is assume that people have preferences and that they are stable. These preferences are generally self-regarding--in some sense people want to be happy--but the preferences can be almost anything. Because people can think "this will make me happy", "this is a good thing to do", "this is the person I want to be". Or actually don't so much "think" as do.
People can pursue what they think will will make other people happy, will further human flourishing, will "save the planet", whatever. (Of course, they may be mistaken. See, for an over-the-top example the Nazis, who thought they were perfecting the human race, and thus any methods were appropriate, or Lenin or Stalin or Mao who thought they were laying the foundations for a world without exploitation.)
The only real requirement is consistency. If I would rather go to Hawaii than Alaska, and I would rather go to Alaska than New York City, I will rather go to Hawaii than New York City. If I prefer going to Hawaii over Alaska this year, I will not prefer going to Alaska over Hawaii next year (assuming I haven't gone to Hawaii in the interim; having gone once, I may want to do something different. economists still use the old terminology and say there is "diminishing marginal utility": I may love ice cream but my tenth bowl of the day is going to be less preferred than the first or the fifth).
Having said that, economists tend to assume that people generally want more for themselves, more money, more comfort, more excitement, etc. But they also realize that someone who is nothing but selfish and greedy will probably not succeed. You have to be good to your significant other to have a satisfying relationship. You have to help your team in order to be accepted and promoted in an organization. You have to treat your friends well, etc. Most animals are pretty short-term selfish and they don't have the sort of society that humans do. But humans often want to do those good pro-social things. So we do have the society we do, with almost unprecedented levels of co-operation.
Now, you can say that deep down this is actually selfish and greedy because you are "doing well by doing good". And I think that is one reason lots of people are uncomfortable about evolutionary psychology. Because it says that those good feelings you have are the result of a process that is very, very self-regarding. Across the great sweep of history, they somehow were the result of a process which wanted nothing more than to survive and put genes in the next (and the next and the next) generation.
Dan Williams put it this way in an essay about G.A. Cohen's "Why Not Socialism?": "Like many others, Cohen assumes that capitalism is unusual and objectionable because it relies on human self-interest to sustain cooperation. However, this is the default mode of human cooperation, including cooperation that sustains highly egalitarian social worlds. Spontaneous order—forms of social organisation that result not from intentional design but from strategic interactions among self-interested individuals—is unavoidable. Capitalism is not unusual in featuring this incentive structure; it is unusual in making it undeniable."
https://www.conspicuouscognition.com/p/socialism-self-deception-and-spontaneous
What are you referring to when you say, "the parts of evolutionary theory that justify biological superiority over others"? Surely, you don't mean the idea that some people are stronger, taller, smarter.
Since you cite Pinker, I'll link to my review of The Blank Slate, which exhibits many of the problems of evolutionary psychology as it is actually practised, most notably what is now known as the motte-and-bailey style of argument, evident in the paragraph you cite. The evidence of utopian communities supports the weak claim that people aren't perfectly unselfish but not the stronger claims Pinker wants to make.
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/hzmo3eum2ci9ppr4uebxn/pinker0211-1.pdf?rlkey=fblodmgsspws4lgp2hmxjzkta&dl=0
Thanks John, I’ll read it carefully. Looking forward to catching up soon.
I’ll be in Brisbane next Wednesday and Thursday. Will you be around?
I think there actually is an argument that what is evolved for is more likely to be moral, because evolutionary benefit is likely correlated with increased utility for most behaviors (which are not zero-sum competition). If being able to walk better was sufficiently high utility (for example, because it let’s you avoid getting eaten by predators), then actually it does seem like you have a moral obligation to produce offspring that can walk better.
Here's an even better example. There's a very interesting theory called cosmological natural selection by Lee Smolin described by Julian Gough in The Egg and the Rock: https://theeggandtherock.com/p/in-which-i-tell-you-about-my-next, which posits that universes are created by black holes and therefore evolved towards their production (which explains fine-tuning). In this theory, intelligent life is also cosmologically evolved for as our energy needs will eventually result in us creating black holes and harvesting it from them. Assuming this is true, do we have a moral obligation to technological progress to continue down the path meta-evolutionarily set for us? From a utilitarian perspective, I think (so long as you aren't an anti-natalist) the answer is obviously yes, we should try to create many more universes like ours. If so, it's probably not a coincidence here that what's good for the goose is good for the gander.
Hi AG, see my answers interspersed in your comment:
I think there actually is an argument that what is evolved for is more likely to be moral, because evolutionary benefit is likely correlated with increased utility for most behaviors (which are not zero-sum competition). If being able to walk better was sufficiently high utility (for example, because it let’s you avoid getting eaten by predators), then actually it does seem like you have a moral obligation to produce offspring that can walk better.
> I don’t think this position is supported by a clear definition of what is “moral.” To whom do you owe that? You might owe kindness to your neighbour, but if you could choose to have a child with better walkability through embryo screening, you would be giving life to a specific child while passing over others who miss the opportunity. To whom do you owe this? If instead, you had a child with slightly lower walkability, who would be hurt? The child who exists but would not have been born if they had been screened out?
Here's an even better example. There's a very interesting theory called cosmological natural selection by Lee Smolin described by Julian Gough in The Egg and the Rock: https://theeggandtherock.com/p/in-which-i-tell-you-about-my-next, which posits that universes are created by black holes and therefore evolved towards their production (which explains fine-tuning). In this theory, intelligent life is also cosmologically evolved for as our energy needs will eventually result in us creating black holes and harvesting it from them. Assuming this is true, do we have a moral obligation to technological progress to continue down the path meta-evolutionarily set for us? From a utilitarian perspective, I think (so long as you aren't an anti-natalist) the answer is obviously yes, we should try to create many more universes like ours. If so, it's probably not a coincidence here that what's good for the goose is good for the gander.
> I am not familiar with this theory. In any case, even if it were true, why would you have a moral obligation? What does “moral obligation” mean here? What would be “wrong” if you personally chose not to follow a grand cosmological plan? This is an important question.
Yeah, if I recall correctly you are not a utilitarian. But if you are (and I am) I think it clearly follows.
I am not sure if it’s Utilitarianism which is causing the non sequitur here. I think that the evolutionary approach is amoral (in the neutral sense) meaning that it does not need to refer to morality at all -except as an emergent phenomenon. But really, it’s survivability all the way down. Morality is kinda undefined in that context.
Correct me both if I’m wrong but I think Utilitarianism does not usually include objective morality (beyond something like “proliferation of sentient beings”). Do you have a specific “objective morality” within the framework of Utilitarianism? If it’s just about the survival and proliferation of the species/sentience/life, then do we even need to talk about Morality? It’s just optimization in that case.
Nope, I think morality is subjective because everyone has a different way to aggregate preferences and there's no one qualified to say which method is correct. That's why I say "so long as you aren't an anti-natalist", because they commonly have an aggregation function which states something like any suffering cancels out all the good.
I probably have some sort of simple summation combined with hyperbolic discounting, in which case if some evolutionary feature leads to less suffering and more enjoyment, I think it's good. For example, I like being able to walk and see, I think both of them have led to a lot of enjoyment in my life and probably will lead to more in the future.
Crazy that social darwinism is related to eugenics, when clearly women's sexual freedom is directly what caused unfettered eugenics. Even Nazi "social darwinism" was less than eugenicist than the average girl with freedom and her TikTok feed.
You have it backwards. It’s not the political implications. It’s the fact that you can see the political and sexual opinions of those proposing evolutionary theories. Comparing these silly and transparent projections-turned-scientific-theories to a telescope objectively looking at a planet’s moons is exactly the kind of arrogance that is exuded from evolutionary psychologists. The real concern is that it gives faux credence to political opinions by painting on a veneer of science. The field is actually ridiculous.
But the vast majority of evolutionary psychologists are left-wing, as he showed in the article. Do you think evolutionary psychologists are proposing theories based on their left-wing opinions? Or are you claiming that the whole field is some sort of pseudoscience used to justify right-wing opinions despite almost everyone in it being left-wing?
I think the whole field is a pseudoscience.
Hi Steve, what “field” do you have in mind? All evolutionary approaches related to human behaviour (evo psych, behav evo, evo anthropology, evolutionary game theory, and so on) or just evo psych? Or just the Santa Barbara School of evo psych (Tooby and Cosmides, modularity), or just the part of evo psych looking at sexual behaviour (Trivers, Buss, Miller, and so on)? Surely you are not making the first maximalist claim. It would imply either evolution stops at the neck and is not relevant to understand behaviour or it is but we way to study it (which would be a very strong. If you are interested in my approach (“evolutionary foundations of preferences”, reverse engineering), see this post below. Is it pseudoscience? Why? Is it ideological? Why? https://www.optimallyirrational.com/p/its-not-a-bug-its-a-feature-revisiting
Any “field” that attempts to explain differences in human psychology, behavior, personality or intelligence in terms of some made up evolutionary mechanism.
I realize that you are an evolutionist, but "throw random stuff at the wall and see what sticks" is not actually a good persuasion strategy.
I struggle to find even a single argument in here that is valid. You asserted much, substantiated little, and proved nothing.
That's a very unspecific criticism
If you would like a more specific criticism, every section has something wrong with it, but I'll use the section on Sexism as an example.
"While evolutionary ideas have sometimes been used to legitimate inequalities between men and women, it is not the case in modern evolutionary science. In any case, with 75% of psychology doctoral students now being women, the future of evolutionary psychology will largely be shaped by women."
Riddle me this: in a section on Sexism, that concludes with pointing out that the field HAS been previously used to legitimate inequalities between men and women, why does it finish by noting that the field is/will shortly be dominated by women, but carefully avoids addressing whether the field was ACCURATE in legitimating those inequalities? Was the prior research inaccurate? Accurate, but misrepresented? Or were the inequalities truly legitimated by the research? What relevance does the shift from being male-dominated to female-dominated have to do with sexism in the field? Is 'the Future is female' here presented as a positive or a negative?
If the author is treating the gender ratio within the field as relevant, that would seem to call into question the accuracy of all previous research done while the field was male-dominated. Yet this does not seem to be the author's intent. If there was no problem with the field being male-dominated previously, why use the current female-domination of the field as a counterpoint?
If the author is purely seeking to reassure feminists that the field is not only hostile to the right wing (as already specified in another paragraph) but also 'safely' female-dominated, that's an example of Gamma Bias. "Sexism" theoretically should cover undue bias against EITHER sex, yet the implied concern here is solely for presumed male bias against women. No matching concern is shown that the female-dominated field may discriminate against men or misuse research to legitimate feminist critique of men (such as the explosion of papers regarding "toxic masculinity). The article does in fact explicitly note that researchers in the field are overwhelmingly left-wing, which is itself a valid argument AGAINST the field as a heavily biased ideological monoculture, yet interestingly the author only feels the need to defend against accusations the field is overly right wing, not against accusations the field is demonstrably overly left wing, only defend against the field being male-dominated, not against it being female-dominated, even under a category (Sexism) where having a roughly even gender balance would presumably be better for both actual research quality and public confidence than it being dominated by one gender over the other.
These facts that are presented as good and desirable here (the field is dominated by left wing "progressive" women) actually exist in direct tension with the article's theme that 'truth' ought to be pursued regardless of the harms it may cause, because that isn't a philosophy that left wing progressive women tend to be the most agreeable with. That is, in point of fact, precisely the demographic intersection with the lowest support for academic freedom and highest support for censorship.
https://joibs.org/index.php/joibs/article/view/1
"Some of the most controversial information in psychology involves genetic or evolutionary explanations for sex differences in educational-vocational outcomes (Clark et al., 2024a). We investigated whether men and women react differently to controversial information about sex differences and whether their reaction depends on who provides the information. In the experiment, college students (n=396) and U.S. middle-aged adults (n=154) reviewed a handout, purportedly provided by either a male or a female professor. The handout stated that (1) women in STEM are no longer discriminated against in hiring and publishing and (2) sex differences in educational-vocational outcomes are better explained by evolved differences between men and women in various personal attributes. We found that college women were less receptive to the information than college men were and wanted to censor it more than men did; also, in both the college student and community adult samples, women were less receptive and more censorious when the messenger was a male professor than when the messenger was a female professor. In both samples, participants who leaned to the left politically and who held stronger belief that words can cause harm reacted with more censoriousness. Our findings imply that the identity of a person presenting controversial scientific information and the receiver’s pre-existing identity and beliefs have the potential to influence how that information will be received."
https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/the-antisocial-psychologist/202104/the-gender-gap-in-censorship-support
"For example, a majority of men believe that colleges should not protect their students from offensive ideas, whereas a majority of women believe colleges should. Male students rated advancing knowledge and academic rigor as higher in value and social justice and emotional well-being as lower in value relative to female students. And in a 2021 report by Eric Kaufmann, female scholars in the US and Canada were more likely than men to support firing a scholar for controversial research...broadly, women reported stronger agreement with the statement that 'some scientific findings should be censored because they are too dangerous.'"
If your position is that the field is indeed primarily concerned with advancing knowledge and academic rigor, as the author here seems to assert, that's a hard claim to substantiate when also admitting that the demographics of the field skew heavily towards those most inclined to prioritize "social justice" and to reject, censor, and even fire "controversial" researchers whose results "dangerously" contradict their progressive dogma or "harm" their favored demographics, especially if that researcher happens to belong to the male minority.
Given an entire section intended to defend against accusations that the field is sexist, the author not only makes logically invalid arguments, not only fails to substantiate the central claim, not only avoids addressing the central relevant matter of whether the field's previously 'legitimatizing inequalities' was accurate or not, but instead accidentally lends credence to the accusation itself (despite, ignorantly or deliberately, ignoring relevant research regarding the academic habits and priorities of the demographics involved). The article attempted to assert that the field is not sexist, but ultimately the few facts given better support the accusation that it IS Sexist (currently sexist in FAVOR of women).
If you have had better success than I in finding ANY valid argument in this jumble of unfinished thoughts and unsupported conclusions that passed for an article, please, specify in reply to me exactly which argument you found to be valid, substantiated, and having proved the conclusion given.
Hi Steven, thank you for taking the time to engage with my post. I value constructive feedback, as it helps me improve the clarity and impact of my writing. That being said, I would appreciate it if we could keep the discussion civil.
I am sorry to have failed to convey useful insights to you with this post and your comment made me think about how I could have presented some things differently. Nonetheless, I think your first comment is slightly unfair in suggesting that the post throws out random things in the hope that something sticks. The post reviews diverse criticisms and discusses them. The diversity of content is in large part driven by the diversity of criticisms. The post responds to these criticisms with broadly two principles:
1. Evolution does not imply any particular moral principles.
2. Rejecting some factual arguments because we don’t like the conclusion is not a good idea.
Your later comments suggest that you have drawn incorrect conclusions from the post. It is not about denying that evolutionary ideas have been used to justify some social outcomes; it is about arguing that this justification does not follow from the facts of evolution. The fact that most evolutionary scientists are now left-wing or female is not necessarily a good thing; it is rather evidence that the worries (traditionally coming from the left) are not warranted.
Is there a risk of bias in the other direction now? Certainly. It is even discussed by Vandermassen in her 2005 book. Such a bias is not desirable, and I might talk about it in later posts. But this post is not primarily about the biases in evolutionary science as it is currently practised; it is about whether evolutionary principles have the dire political implications they have been accused of having.
Ironically, Steven's comments are a compelling example of the validity of Mercier and Sperber's ideas in The Enigma of Reason, which are rooted in evolutionary theory.
Funny how a critique of evolutionary thinking ends up coming full circle, unintentionally reinforcing it.