Reddit reviews Sense and Nonsense: Evolutionary perspectives on human behaviour

Sarcasm and scientific articles are a terrible mix. It supercharges whatever biases the author already has, while making them take more hard-line stances on claims than they often should.

I get that this article is really entertainment, but if anyone wants a fair criticism (that is still effective at shutting down some of Peterson's arguments) take a look at Sense & Nonsense by Laland & Brown.

<300 page book that is pretty accessible and summarizes the current state of knowledge on what parts of human behaviour are evolved vs dependent on environment.

TBH I wish everyone who wants to discuss this topic would read it, as some science is bunk, but some is definitely not. And the topic is very controversial, so there are TONs of hit/smear pieces out there on both sides.

Hi Clint. I'm honoured that you've created a reddit account just to reply to me and despite your snarky tone, I think this could be an interesting discussion!

>I supported my contention of science denialism using pre-established criteria, not by "presenting" any form of evolutionary psychology. I certainly did not present anything, I merely evaluated the quality of a talk.

Not at all, since it's impossible to claim a case of science denialism without presenting the scientific position that is supposedly being denied. Your reference for "What is evolutionary psychology?", the basis for the position you think Watson is unfairly rejecting, is this resource page which describes a very specific form of evo psych - one that is at the very least controversial.

>The fact of a talk being poorly-wrought says nothing at all about the quality of its target, that is fallacious thinking.

I'm not sure what this means or how it applies to anything I've said. If the quality of the target is so low that it doesn't constitute "science", then no science denialism can occur.

>I have never once heard the phrase "Santa Barbara Church of Psychology"; and my background is psychology (University of Illinois, not UCSB or any UC). Perhaps this slur was common in some anti-evolution psychology circles, I would love to see evidence it was a broadly set attitude in the last decade.

The term was popularised by Laland and Brown in their book: "Sense and Nonsense: Evolutionary perspectives on human behaviour". I've never heard it used by people in "anti-evolutionary psychology circles", as Laland and Brown are both evolutionary psychologists.

It also appears again later in a book chapter by Gray, Heaney and Fairhall, who are all evolutionary psychologists, which was published in the book: "From Mating to Mentality: Evaluating Evolutionary Psychology" (a collation of essays written mostly by evolutionary psychologists).

As I mention elsewhere in this thread though, even if we want to say that the specific name isn't popular (I can't exactly cite conversations I've had so I'll concede the point for the sake of argument), we still obviously have to accept that it's referring to one particular approach in evo psych which has caused a schism in the field. That is, I'm sure you're aware that there are broadly two factions within evo psych (the Gray chapter I link to discusses this in more detail but it's a fairly well-discussed issue).

>Not only did I not let it die, I published this greatly expanded version in an edited book volume (13 Reasons to Doubt[1] ). If anyone "tore it apart" that escaped my notice.

It's just that many of your arguments seemed to be willful misrepresentations of what she said and your defence of the claim that she was engaging in "science denialism" seemed to be entirely predicated on the particular form of evo psych that is problematic.

In other words, even if we agree that she didn't do the best job in attacking the pop-psych reports and the bad evo psych in the field, we still have to agree that it exists and it can't be science denialism to reject it.

>Watson herself never said much of anything. She also (as far as I can tell) stopped giving the talk altogether.

I imagine she never said anything as she probably never read your article, can't say for sure though. As for giving the talk again, she did present it a few times after your article so I don't think we should try to find any correlation between the two things there.

>Before you rush to reply, I advise you to at least skim this update. It documents 90 different errors, with supporting citations backing them up and strongly (if I may say) refutes Watson's "it was just pop ev psych" claim.

I did read through it before responding the first time but I feel like most of your arguments are pedantic and detracted heavily from any point you were making. Like the bit about her using the picture of the wrong King Louis. I mean, sure, that's sloppy on her part and if she's getting paid to present then that's something she needs to work harder on but if I were to critique someone's position then I'm not going to include a statement to effect of: "And furthermore, they used the form "its" when they should have used the contraction "it's" and so they were wrong about that too".

In the spirit of constructive discussion though, I'll skip all the points that are more pedantic (and the silly attempts at calling her out for "sexism" and "racism"), and focus on some points which I think deserve response:

>She declared a paper she has not read to be “not science”

To be fair, the reason she "hasn't read it" is because it doesn't exist. It wasn't published, it was just a result of market analysis by the shopping centre. Your complaint is correct in that funding doesn't necessarily discredit a study but I think the charitable interpretation of her position here is that obviously if no study exists, and it was done purely for the shopping centre to publish a short article in the newspaper, then it's not really science as we know it.

>No one believes that just any behavior must be an adaptation. Behaviors and features are chosen for testing when they show coherent function which is not explained by existing understanding.

This is unfair. The problem of hyperadaptationism is so common that it even has it's own phrase "just-so stories". You can suggest that no good scientist does that, and I'd agree (and probably Watson would too), but her talk is specifically about bad science in the field and that certainly does occur.

>The idea that Clark and Hatfield “set out” to establish some evolutionary account could hardly be more mistaken. The purpose of the study was to try to arbitrate between competing theories. They recounted dominant theories of the time, both the evolutionary and the cultural account without praising or disparaging either

You've misunderstood her claim here. The thing taken as a "given" is the idea that men enjoy casual sex more than women and women only do it for babies or status. She then claims that the authors take that assumption behind their findings and try to give it an evolutionary explanation.

The very end of the section of her quote that you present contradicts your interpretation that she's talking about taking the evolutionary account as a given.

>In a presentation condemning the concoction of untestable “just so stories” Watson asked her audience to disregard the findings of a dozen scientific studies across multiple countries and decades in lieu of her ad hoc story about female psychology for which no evidence is given other than a single assault case from the news.

Her claim is that these studies are seriously methodologically flawed. It's not a rejection of scientific evidence when based on that assumption (of course we can argue whether she is right or wrong but scientific evidence isn't infallible and always acceptable regardless of the methodology behind it).

>Her explanation was contradicted by two different papers she cited herself. Guéguen 2011 (see 24:30) found that when propositioned by an attractive male, 57% of women agree to go to their apartment—just the activity Watson said women were too fearful to do (Guéguen, 2011). At point 58 Watson favorably referred to Conley 2011 which also contradicted this point: …perceived danger variables did not predict acceptance of the [sexual offer] for women or for men.

Her argument wasn't that they were fearful, it was that they would face social repercussions and judgement, which seems to be supported by the papers she cites.

I can go into more detail for the rest of your post if you like but these appear to form the main basis for your claims and when we remove all the pointless jabs at her that have no relevance to her points, there's no much left to form a rebuttal against her. I mean, even just reading that section of "sexism" was frankly painful and it ended up reading like those conspiracy theorists who complain about "SJW's" and "political correctness gone mad!"...