
Is Social Science Politically Biased? - aburan28
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-social-science-politically-biased/
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jensen123
So, I was thinking about reading some books on evolutionary psychology the
other day. About how men prefer good looking young women, and how women prefer
powerful/rich men with high social status and to a lesser degree tall and
muscular men. How men think about sex more often than women. Etc. Personally,
I find this stuff extremely depressing. It shows you that most animals and
humans are not particularly nice, and it blows up many of the commonly held
illusions in our culture, such as the idea that men and women are equal. I
wonder, do many people prefer to simply deny these truths, rather than facing
them and getting depressed?

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EliRivers
Evolutionary psychology is a set of just-so stories. There's no science there,
no way to remove massively confounding factors, no way to experiment. I
suspect that in other cultures, in other times, evolutionary psychologists
would have come up with different just-so stories to match whatever their
local breeding preferences were.

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Chris2048
But, it makes sense to me to examine the brain as a product of evolution. Does
it have to be a science to have value?

> in other cultures, in other times

There is at least a substance to evolution, it's not the same as bible quotes

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Chris2048
Hmm, I don't think 'diversity' is the answer, especially in a polarised
environment like the US.

How about higher academic standards for objective analysis?

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undersuit
>58 to 66 percent of social scientists are liberal and only 5 to 8 percent
conservative and that there are eight Democrats for every Republican

Maybe Social Science seems so politically biased to the author because he
can't label the 30% he left out under the insufficient binary separation of
Democrat/Republican. They are political parties, not a complete breakdown of
someone's political beliefs.

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Kristine1975
What a fluff piece. I had higher expectations of SciAm.

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gdwatson
What would you have liked to see in a discussion of the subject?

