
Why do we rape, kill and sleep around? Don't blame the caveman - madars
http://www.newsweek.com/id/202789
======
geebee
I'm glad that some of the more extreme conclusions of evolutionary psychology
are being challenged, though not for political reasons. Their conclusions
never really bothered me, because I never thought that an evolutionary
incentive for immoral behavior gave a "free pass" in any way whatsoever.

What I dislike about evolutionary psychology is that it often tries to use the
word "scientific" for explanations that are really "just so." I suppose it's
an improvement that the explanation made to fit "just so" fits with a vaguely
scientific worldview rather than consulting the bones, tea leaves, tarot, or
astrological charts. But a just so explanation that fits with science _is
not!_ scientific reasoning, and that's where the evo-pysch folks got
themselves in trouble.

I think evo-pysch is a great idea, but it needs to be scientific. And you
know, some of it probably is - though those studies probably haven't produced
the same sensationalistic headlines, and as a result aren't defining the
field. "Just so" isn't scientific, but evo-psych certainly could be.

~~~
dejb
I think the word 'scientific' is one of the most abused or confused words
around. Should it only be used for areas where relative certainty can be
established or should it also encompass logical and evidence-based speculation
on things that cannot currently be tested well? It doesn't matter what the
'true' definition of the word is when the majority of people use it
differently.

From one direction calling evo-psych 'scientific' can fool others into
believing there is more evidence than there really is. From the other side a
well-reasoned argument with incomplete evidence like 'smoking causes cancer
(in the 60s)' can be made to look like astrology by using the word
'unscientific'.

Perhaps a new words need to be invented so that people can talk about these
things more clearly.

~~~
berntb
>>I think the word 'scientific' is one of the most abused or confused words
around.

Agreed, it is misused. But note that some of the research in any field will be
of bad quality (the book on rape was probably one) -- and some will be good.
You will have probabilities in all active research areas (see e.g. diet
advice...).

Note that ideologically motivated people argue that researchers in all
evolutionary biology are in a conspiracy or complete idiots.

Many of the critics of evolutionary psychology are obviously also
ideologically motivated, but sure... they _could_ be closer to the target than
the creationists.

(Marxists and religious people have problems with lots of behavior being built
in; don't ask me about the specifics. Don't tell me either, I don't really
care).

Here is quite a fun answer to some of that criticism:
<http://cogweb.ucla.edu/Debate/CEP_Gould.html>

(And note, most researchers in two fields -- intelligence and evolutionary
psychology -- would have to be in a conspiracy for Gould to be honest... :-)

~~~
omouse
_Note that ideologically motivated people argue that researchers in all
evolutionary biology are in a conspiracy or complete idiots._

Note that alternative medicine, evolutionary psychologists, and
creationists/intelligent designers will argue that the "establishment"
scientists are in a conspiracy or complete idiots.

~~~
berntb
Evolutionary psychologists _are_ the establishment. :-)

If you want to contradict, do you have some references from non-idealists that
aren't discredited (like Buller)?

By the way, the author of the article was "downvoted" on Pharyngula, last time
she wrote about evolution...

[http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/01/sharon_begley_how...](http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/01/sharon_begley_how_could_you.php)

------
gort
Some points in the article could be queried... (but I'm not trying to suggest
this invalidates the whole thing)

 _the notion that being a brave warrior helps a man get the girls and leave
many offspring has been toppled. Until missionaries moved in in 1958, the
Waorani tribe of the Ecuadoran Amazon had the highest rates of homicide known
to science_

Why then are they being treated as representative? One would expect
adaptations to be suited to normal conditions, not extreme outliers.

 _If the male mind were adapted to prefer the most fertile women, then AARP-
eligible men should marry 23-year-olds, which [...] they do not, instead
preferring women well past their peak fertility._

It's unclear what "prefer" means; but the context suggests it means "who did
they actually marry" rather than "who would their ideal woman be". Clearly, we
can't all get what we want.

I really wish it was more common for articles like this to provide a list of
the scientific papers they're relying on, so readers could conveniently
investigate deeper (for some definition of "conveniently").

------
req2
"Depend on? The very phrase is anathema to the dogma of a universal human
nature."

It's unfortunate to find such a simple misunderstanding in the middle of the
article; as Robert Wright explains in "The Moral Animal", it is not
necessarily behavior that is coded, but adaptability. To shuffle this entire
domain off to behavioral ecology ignores the fact that adaptability doesn't
have to be an overt product of higher functions. An evolutionarily coded
genotype that is dependent on environment for phenotype still falls under the
purview of ev psych.

------
philwelch
A lot of interesting and informative points. For instance, I never knew that
the "universal preference" for a 0.7 waist-to-hip ratio was debunked.

------
ellyagg
At some level, rape is absolutely a product of evolution, unless you don't
believe in evolution. The desire for a male to have sex with a female is so
strong that it approaches a need. Acknowledging this doesn't condone rape, but
it does allow us to not be morons.

~~~
dantheman
Isn't all human behavior is a product of evolution by definition? Humans like
to explore because it can improve their mating chances due to prestige,
wealth, less competitation (those unsuccessful thin the pack) hence people
went to the moon.

I'm not trying to be a troll, but how can we have behavior that wasn't caused
by evolution?

~~~
ellyagg
Sure, any behavior is going to be a product of evolution and environment. Of
course, sex is actually the mechanism of evolution, so it's doubtful that
pretending behaviors associated with it are not strongly related to it will
yield sensible results.

------
lallysingh
1) I'm not seeing any discussion of group survival. At an individual level, a
lot of human behavior can look counterproductive, but makes sense at the group
sense. If a genetic line evolves to support other members of the same (or
similar) line, then that line as a whole has a better chance of lasting.

2) If anyone's interested in longer discussions of these (and they are
interesting):

\- _The_Red_Queen_ (why we sleep around) [http://www.amazon.com/Red-Queen-
Evolution-Human-Nature/dp/00...](http://www.amazon.com/Red-Queen-Evolution-
Human-Nature/dp/0060556579/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1248738373&sr=8-1)

\- _The_Dark_Side_Of_Man_ (why we rape, kill) [http://www.amazon.com/Dark-
Side-Man-Michael-Ghiglieri/dp/073...](http://www.amazon.com/Dark-Side-Man-
Michael-Ghiglieri/dp/0738203157/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1248738408&sr=8-1)

Note that the 2nd tries to make political/policy conclusions which IMHO don't
hold up. However, the scientific work in the text is pretty enjoyable.

------
10ren
I don't think we have much in the way of "behavioural modules" that are
instinctively programmed for specific inputs and outputs, in the way a
sensible engineer would design it. I doubt that many animals do. It's more
likely that we have modules that react to a certain range of inputs, in
certain ways, and their combination forms reactions that evolutionary pressure
select against. It's neither modular nor hierarchical.

In other words: mess, not modules.

It's clear that animals have instincts, and it would be surprising if we
didn't have any. Clearly, we do: for hunger, for sex, for defending territory,
for pecking order (dominance hierarchies) but also for language, conscience,
law, commerce, cooperation, tool-making and wanting to believe in something
greater. These things arise in groups of us without instruction.

But I think two kinds of layers separate us from most other animals, which the
article refers to as our flexibility and adaptability. There is conscious
adaptability, where you refrain from punching the other fellow on the nose,
because of your ethics or fear of consequences or whatever - the reason
doesn't matter, the point is that you can modify your response.

And there's the much more important _unconscious_ adaptability (which I think
coincides with the physical outer layer in the brain - the cerebral cortex).
Conceptually, this acts like an abstraction layer, so that you can treat a
tool as an extension of your body; litigation as if it were a physical threat;
or users of a computer program as if they formed a tribe. Your interpretation
of input is what gives the input meaning - e.g. misunderstandings will affect
your reaction. I think this layer can pretty much convert anything into
anything; though some instincts, like hunger, can apply pressure towards
overriding it (but not control - consider hunger strikers).

I don't claim any special insight here, just restating common sense.

------
michael_browne
I'm surprised this article is getting as positive feedback as it is. The
author is clearly guilty of a pretty significant straw-man argument,
presenting evolutionary biology in very simplified, extreme terms, casting it
as essentially hardline biological determinism.

The author is clearly uncomfortable with the suggestion that violent and
socially unacceptable actions may be very normal parts of human behavior
(given the right environmental conditions) and seems very eager to validate
any suggestion that we are "blank slates."

The idea that there is no such thing as human nature is patently ridiculous.
Is there no such thing as dog, or elephant, or orangutan nature? If we accept
that at least one important aspect of what a human being is is an
evolutionarily-developed biological organism, than how can this also not apply
to us? At the same time, the idea that we are hopelessly determined to express
our instincts and innate drives in any one particular way is also surely not
valid.

Are evo-psych researchers suggesting that the existence of genetic tendencies
makes their (extreme) expression (via rape, murder, infanticide, etc.)
acceptable? Clearly not, though that is what the author of the article is
unavoidably hinting at with lines like "[l]et's not speculate on the motives
that (mostly male) evolutionary psychologists might have in asserting that
their wives are programmed to not really care if they sleep around..."

Her tone throughout the piece communicates the opinion that evol-psych
proponents are just looking for excuses for bad behavior, something which I
really don’t think is true. Understanding why bad behaviors are so common is
not the same things as justifying them and, actually, seems like a more useful
step towards making society better than arguing that they’re just the result
of "bad" individuals or something.

Evolutionary biology is effective and meaningful when it is used to explain
and account for the particular expression of some genetic tendency (in the
form of an observed behavior.) It doesn’t make sense to argue that abuse of
stepchildren, for instance, is an acceptable or inevitable thing in
contemporary society for several reasons, including the fact that this
particular expression of instinct is one we have deemed undesirable for
moral/ethical reasons. The underlying idea, that we are genetically
predisposed to care for our own offspring ahead of the offspring of others,
though, seems a useful observation. Overall, theories like evo-psych are ways
of understanding why things occur as they do, not a means of prescribing how
they should or must be.

That being said, political ideologies like mainstream feminism and much of
contemporary liberalism intentionally strive to deny the existence of human
nature or instinct because it doesn’t fit into their worldviews, more so than
because it really appears not to be present, I suspect. They start with an
abstract idea of how things "should" be and work backwards from there, rather
than trying to understand why we are the way we are and then working forward
from that. There seems to me a significant weakness and danger in drawing a
blind spot upon our underlying motivations and darker, biological imperatives.

~~~
olavk
The article does point out scientifically based refutations of some simplistic
eve-psych explanations rape, abuse of stepchildren and so on. Doesn't your
point about the motives of feminism and liberalism use political name-calling
to counter the scientific arguments?

I agree that evo-psych in general is an interesting field - and certainly all
human behavior is somehow rooted in evolution. So of course rape also have
some kind direct or indirect evolutionary explanation, just as love, music,
wine-tasting, pole-sitting and so on. But the explanation is probably a lot
more complex than "rape helps spread genes".

Pop-evo-psych have gotten great exposition in the popular media lately, so it
is quite refreshing to see a debunking.

~~~
Tichy
"refutations of some simplistic eve-psych explanations"

That's one of the classics, though. For the same reason creationists think
they have refuted evolution theory if they find some bone in some hidden
corner of the world that some random biologist had a wrong hunch about.

Some of the claims of "evo-psych" often seemed simplistic to me (like the hip-
waist ratio), but then these were often the ones spread by journalists in
popular newspapers, not by scientists. I wouldn't assume that they were as
universally accepted among scientists.

For a long time "strange" variations of sexual preference have been known, for
example the mutilations some people seem to prefer (small feet in chinese
women, elongated necks in some tribes where they put rings around their neck
during growth and so on). I can't imagine any serious scientist would not know
about them.

Many of the "refutations" seem a bit weak, too. For example the rape gene:
let's accept that for the average member of society rape makes no "economical"
sense. But is the typical rapist an average member of society? If rape is your
only chance at spreading your genes, the economics might be different. From
the article it did not sound as if that was taken into account in the
"refuation".

Another thing I am 100% sure: evo-psych did not predict that women would
prefer to be monogamous. So refuting that is just a strawman.

The final straw for the article is when they describe how evo-psych can now
only fight back by getting personal and unscientific. Followed up by a
personal and unscientific quote by the anti-evo-psych guy.

~~~
fh
I agree, I used to bash evolutionary psychology myself, but then I realized:
We know how "accurately" the media portray research in physics, mathematics,
biology and chemistry; how do we figure that the way they represent
evolutionary psychology is any better? Instead of arguing against strawmen
like the article does, why not first listen to what evolutionary psychologists
actually have to say?

I don't know how representative Steven Pinker is for the field of evo-psych in
general, but I found that he explains his reasoning very clearly and
understandably.

Steven Pinker debunks the idea of a blank slate:
[http://www.ted.com/talks/steven_pinker_chalks_it_up_to_the_b...](http://www.ted.com/talks/steven_pinker_chalks_it_up_to_the_blank_slate.html)

Richard Dawkins interviews Steven Pinker (really long, but I found it had some
interesting insights about evolution and psychology):
[http://richarddawkins.net/article,3941,Steven-Pinker---
The-G...](http://richarddawkins.net/article,3941,Steven-Pinker---The-Genius-
of-Charles-Darwin-The-Uncut-Interviews,Steven-Pinker-Richard-Dawkins)

------
sethg
I quibble with one small part of this article:

 _[Evolutionary psychology] has had the field to itself, especially in the
media, for almost two decades. In large part that was because early critics,
led by the late evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould, attacked it with
arguments that went over the heads of everyone but about 19 experts in
evolutionary theory._

Philip Kitcher's _Vaulting Ambition: Sociobiology and the Quest for Human
Nature_ (MIT Press, 1987) is a thorough devastating takedown of sociobiology,
especially what Kitcher calls "pop sociobiology". Except for bits of the first
and last chapters, it is entirely based on empirical arguments rather than
"OMG the political implications of this are awful"; and you don't need a
biology degree to understand it.

All the arguments I have seen for the controversial claims in popularized
evolutionary psychology (e.g., "this behavior exists and therefore it must be
adaptive") were answered by Kitcher twenty years ago. (I don't follow the
field, so if there are people doing good work in evo-psych that is too boring
for the mainstream press, well, good for them.)

(Kitcher also wrote _Abusing Science_ , a takedown of "creation science", back
when it was called "creation science" rather than "intelligent design".)

------
drcode
I think it's good that the tenets of evo psych are being challenged (they are
indeed based on shaky evidence) but these naysayers do little to propose an
alternative. The evo psych folks are at least offering some theories, which is
still vastly superior than just saying "we'll never know."

~~~
Avshalom
They're saying "We don't know" which is worlds apart from saying "We'll never
know" and running around spouting bullshit to the the lay audience is vastly
worse than saying "We don't know."

~~~
drcode
That's what science is: Coming up with bullshit (or "theories" as scientists
call them) and then finding evidence for and against.

As for scientists "spouting off", I think you sound pretty paternalistic
saying that lay audiences need to be protected from scientific theories, no
matter if they are unproven.

As for whether the article argues "we'll never know", the gist of the article
is that there is no way of answering these questions without having a time
machine- That suggests they preclude the possibility of answering these
questions. Then it knocks scientists who at least attempt to come up with
theories, given the limited data, which is exactly what scientists _should_
try to do.

(That being said, evo psych folks clearly have been sloppy in popular
expositions just how shaky the foundations of the discipline actually are.)

------
akamaka
Thank you very much for posting this!

After years of reading articles that thoughtlessly parroted the lastet evo
psych "research", I started to think that good science journalism was dead.

Apparently some journalists can still think critcally!

------
tokenadult
"Cashdan puts it this way: which body type men prefer 'should depend on the
degree to which they want their mates to be strong, tough, economically
successful and politically competitive.'

"Depend on? The very phrase is anathema to the dogma of a universal human
nature. But it is the essence of an emerging, competing field. Called
behavioral ecology, it starts from the premise that social and environmental
forces select for various behaviors that optimize people's fitness in a given
environment. Different environment, different behaviors--and different human
'natures.'"

The article reports a really interesting integration of evolutionary pressures
on human thinking and social constraints on human behavior. Well worth a read.

~~~
berntb
The article really _do_ say that evolutionary biologists (here evol
psychologists) don't think evolution can build a function into the brain that
modifies behavior after environment...

Which should either be a straw man argument or that the journalist has garbled
some serious argument.

Edit: In the last evolution article from the author, she fell over her own
feet... explains a bit.

[http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/01/sharon_begley_how...](http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/01/sharon_begley_how_could_you.php)

~~~
tokenadult
_The article really do say that evolutionary biologists (here evol
psychologists) don't think evolution can build a function into the brain that
modifies behavior after environment._

I'd like to respectfully request that you restate that sentence with clearer
grammar.

For what is mainstream in evolutionary psychology, one reasonable source is

<http://www.psych.ucsb.edu/research/cep/primer.html>

~~~
berntb
Is this understandable: The article _really_ claims that evol psychology says
that the environment shouldn't influence behavior!

(English isn't my native language and the only thing I can write clearly,
without a few rewrites, is code.)

It is a nice link, a long while since I read it.

