I actually find it fascinating to listen to evolutionary psychologists, and marvel at their naivete.
First of all, they seem totally ignorant of how many of the things that they say 'evolved to do this' would work equally well with 'God designed to do this'.
The second is how much their language doesn't fit their thesis. "The pre-elephant saw that it needed a longer trunk to reach higher leaves' or some such. As if! They use design and intention language throughout their prose, tho it contradicts their thesis. I just heard a podcast with Dawkins and he did this continually.
7. Realize that much of evolutionary psychology consists of providing an explanation that is plausible, which is not the same thing as substantiating an explanation. Then realize that scholarly domains that depend on getting others to believe your plausible claims, beyond all hope of ever proving them true, are inferior domains of scholarship, the kind of domains that usually end up with enforced conformity to a "consensus" opinion.
For example, evo-psych proposes that men are attracted to young women because they are fertile and have years of fertility left. But I can come up with other plausible conjectures, even a different evo-psych conjecture: In ancient societies, females were matched up with males not too many years after puberty, so if any male tended to prefer 30 year old women, he would find himself pursuing women who were already matched up, leading to his violent death.
There is also the possibility that aesthetics are involved. Maybe young skin looks better than older skin, and evo-psych has nothing to do with it.
Has anyone identified a gene or group of genes responsible for this male preference? Of course not.
Mere plausibility is a weak basis for any "scientific" field.
Just-so stories! Yes, and every society has engaged in them. That’s why I think statements about biology that are connected to divine purpose are actually the most biologically plausible. They seem the least jerryrigged and the most accurate to the visible purposes of things.
It's funny that I generally don't have the same kind of problem you do with evolution but abominate evolutionary psychology. Whether evolution is true or not, it is useful in explaining many biological phenomena, and predicting undiscovered biological phenomena, which is what science is for. Evolutionary psychology, even if true, seems very dangerous to the proper functioning of society, and we should hope it does not become widely believed.
That is a funny divergence in our intellectual proclivities! However, why think that about evolutionary psychology? Those seem to be the only secular thinkers able to speak biological reality into our current cultural mess.
On evolution, I think it leads to some correct predictions and some incorrect ones. That’s why I’m after a sensible old earth creationist biology. :)
I tend to associate evo-psych with race realism (Aporia, Cofnas, etc.), and with respect to race I am a social constructionist, and anything that smacks of scientific racism makes me really nervous. Since most of the evo-psych people I have encountered seem to be really interested in such things, it has caused me to question their motives. The people who are interested in evo-psych also tend to be IQ fetishists, and I am skeptical of the measurability of intelligence generally. Actually, I am kind of skeptical of social science as a whole! In addition, on a purely biological level, evo psych's theories do tend to be just so stories. They aren't bound to paleontology or genetics like the rest of evolutionary biology, and they often underestimate the importance of "chance", in the sense of features which are not the result of selective pressure. Not every feature has to be explicable in terms of evolutionary fitness. Finally, they tend to underestimate the importance of culture. Biology is important, but things like gender roles are to a great extent culturally determined within the outer bounds set by biology. Humans beings are fallen, but the way they are fallen varies greatly from one place and time to another. The evo-psych people go too far in the other direction from the progressive left. The progressive left minimize nature, the evo-psych people minimize nurture.
If you check out the kind of people interviewed on Louise Perry and Chris Williamson’s podcasts (and read some Rob Henderson), you’ll notice that they are quite distinct from the Aporia crowd. Steven Pinker, Robin Dunbar, and the like cannot be lumped in with people who think “race realism” is super important.
These tend to be liberal, scientific types who are opposed to trans ideology and, if anything, somewhat sympathetic to religious points of view. (Maybe not Pinker on the last point, but sub in Jonathan Haidt.)
>The other interesting observation, as a Christian, is that the ancestral environment is no Edenic paradise.
There have been discussions around this. That is, some claimed the weirdest element of Christianity is that it celebrates savagery (Eden) and denigrates civilization ("sweat of your brow").
But the reality, reading e.g. Against The Grain, or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_affluent_society hunter-gatherer life was indeed better than the agricultural life. In this sense, the Christian narrative seems closer to correctness.
Do you believe that God created humanity with a certain type of mind, and then our mind has been shaped over the millennia by natural selection? Or are you saying that God created our minds in their current form, with only the appearance of having been shaped by natural selection?
Simon, I would say the former. The fight or flight response, mental systems for anxiety, fear, personality, traits, sexual differences, etc. - I would think that the main structures of the human mind had to have been created/designed. Then natural selection had millennia in the ancestral environment to favor certain mental attributes and diminish others.
Our current human psychology is a product, then, of a combination of original design and many generations of natural selection.
But that all comes back to my argument that natural selection only explains genetic drift within a biological kind, not the original coming-to-be of the organism and its mental capacities themselves. Andreas Wagner would be the example of a secular biologist who agrees with me with regard to natural selection and its limits. Jerry Fodor would be the secular philosopher who is an example. But both of them think there are other kinds of evolution that can do the explaining. I am all ears, but I’m a skeptic that those other theories will emerge.
Fascinating essay, thank you. I've wondered in the past if anyone has pursued a theological or philosophical development of Wallace's creationism-based view of evolution, but I confess I have not searched very hard. Would you happen to know of such a work off the top of your head?
Just looking into Wallace now, but the thing that pops out is his belief in the divine origin of human higher faculties. I would default to Catholic theologians, philosopher, and scientists for that view. But I don’t know of a particular individual, especially one who works out a creation-based theory of evolution. Many of the intelligent design proponents continue to believe in evolution, yet they often don’t spell out an argument for the view. The exception is Michael Denton.
I actually find it fascinating to listen to evolutionary psychologists, and marvel at their naivete.
First of all, they seem totally ignorant of how many of the things that they say 'evolved to do this' would work equally well with 'God designed to do this'.
The second is how much their language doesn't fit their thesis. "The pre-elephant saw that it needed a longer trunk to reach higher leaves' or some such. As if! They use design and intention language throughout their prose, tho it contradicts their thesis. I just heard a podcast with Dawkins and he did this continually.
7. Realize that much of evolutionary psychology consists of providing an explanation that is plausible, which is not the same thing as substantiating an explanation. Then realize that scholarly domains that depend on getting others to believe your plausible claims, beyond all hope of ever proving them true, are inferior domains of scholarship, the kind of domains that usually end up with enforced conformity to a "consensus" opinion.
For example, evo-psych proposes that men are attracted to young women because they are fertile and have years of fertility left. But I can come up with other plausible conjectures, even a different evo-psych conjecture: In ancient societies, females were matched up with males not too many years after puberty, so if any male tended to prefer 30 year old women, he would find himself pursuing women who were already matched up, leading to his violent death.
There is also the possibility that aesthetics are involved. Maybe young skin looks better than older skin, and evo-psych has nothing to do with it.
Has anyone identified a gene or group of genes responsible for this male preference? Of course not.
Mere plausibility is a weak basis for any "scientific" field.
Just-so stories! Yes, and every society has engaged in them. That’s why I think statements about biology that are connected to divine purpose are actually the most biologically plausible. They seem the least jerryrigged and the most accurate to the visible purposes of things.
It's funny that I generally don't have the same kind of problem you do with evolution but abominate evolutionary psychology. Whether evolution is true or not, it is useful in explaining many biological phenomena, and predicting undiscovered biological phenomena, which is what science is for. Evolutionary psychology, even if true, seems very dangerous to the proper functioning of society, and we should hope it does not become widely believed.
That is a funny divergence in our intellectual proclivities! However, why think that about evolutionary psychology? Those seem to be the only secular thinkers able to speak biological reality into our current cultural mess.
On evolution, I think it leads to some correct predictions and some incorrect ones. That’s why I’m after a sensible old earth creationist biology. :)
I tend to associate evo-psych with race realism (Aporia, Cofnas, etc.), and with respect to race I am a social constructionist, and anything that smacks of scientific racism makes me really nervous. Since most of the evo-psych people I have encountered seem to be really interested in such things, it has caused me to question their motives. The people who are interested in evo-psych also tend to be IQ fetishists, and I am skeptical of the measurability of intelligence generally. Actually, I am kind of skeptical of social science as a whole! In addition, on a purely biological level, evo psych's theories do tend to be just so stories. They aren't bound to paleontology or genetics like the rest of evolutionary biology, and they often underestimate the importance of "chance", in the sense of features which are not the result of selective pressure. Not every feature has to be explicable in terms of evolutionary fitness. Finally, they tend to underestimate the importance of culture. Biology is important, but things like gender roles are to a great extent culturally determined within the outer bounds set by biology. Humans beings are fallen, but the way they are fallen varies greatly from one place and time to another. The evo-psych people go too far in the other direction from the progressive left. The progressive left minimize nature, the evo-psych people minimize nurture.
If you check out the kind of people interviewed on Louise Perry and Chris Williamson’s podcasts (and read some Rob Henderson), you’ll notice that they are quite distinct from the Aporia crowd. Steven Pinker, Robin Dunbar, and the like cannot be lumped in with people who think “race realism” is super important.
These tend to be liberal, scientific types who are opposed to trans ideology and, if anything, somewhat sympathetic to religious points of view. (Maybe not Pinker on the last point, but sub in Jonathan Haidt.)
I have only heard good things about Haidt. As for Pinker, I have only heard bad things.
>The other interesting observation, as a Christian, is that the ancestral environment is no Edenic paradise.
There have been discussions around this. That is, some claimed the weirdest element of Christianity is that it celebrates savagery (Eden) and denigrates civilization ("sweat of your brow").
But the reality, reading e.g. Against The Grain, or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_affluent_society hunter-gatherer life was indeed better than the agricultural life. In this sense, the Christian narrative seems closer to correctness.
Do you believe that God created humanity with a certain type of mind, and then our mind has been shaped over the millennia by natural selection? Or are you saying that God created our minds in their current form, with only the appearance of having been shaped by natural selection?
Simon, I would say the former. The fight or flight response, mental systems for anxiety, fear, personality, traits, sexual differences, etc. - I would think that the main structures of the human mind had to have been created/designed. Then natural selection had millennia in the ancestral environment to favor certain mental attributes and diminish others.
Our current human psychology is a product, then, of a combination of original design and many generations of natural selection.
But that all comes back to my argument that natural selection only explains genetic drift within a biological kind, not the original coming-to-be of the organism and its mental capacities themselves. Andreas Wagner would be the example of a secular biologist who agrees with me with regard to natural selection and its limits. Jerry Fodor would be the secular philosopher who is an example. But both of them think there are other kinds of evolution that can do the explaining. I am all ears, but I’m a skeptic that those other theories will emerge.
Your point about Henderon's chimpanzee comment was my thought exactly. The "humanness" of humans can't fully be explained by material forces.
Loved the post! I don't know to what extent I am a creationist or evolutionist, but I like using both ideas to explain the world around me.
Fascinating essay, thank you. I've wondered in the past if anyone has pursued a theological or philosophical development of Wallace's creationism-based view of evolution, but I confess I have not searched very hard. Would you happen to know of such a work off the top of your head?
Just looking into Wallace now, but the thing that pops out is his belief in the divine origin of human higher faculties. I would default to Catholic theologians, philosopher, and scientists for that view. But I don’t know of a particular individual, especially one who works out a creation-based theory of evolution. Many of the intelligent design proponents continue to believe in evolution, yet they often don’t spell out an argument for the view. The exception is Michael Denton.
I don't know much about Wallace, but have you heard of Simon Conway Morris, who might be the sort of person you are looking for?