(Part 2) Best books about evolutionary psychology according to redditors

I don't believe that was being suggested at all. I believe he was merely describing the "hard problem".

Roughly: even though we've mapped the sensory inputs and impulse pathways and can predict which parts of the brain light up when presented with different stimuli, and even can translate back to imagined sensory sources based on scans alone to such a degree that we can say "he sees a tree right now in his imagination" and that sort of thing, we still have zero understanding of how or why any of that data should give rise to the subjective experience of how it feels to see a tree in one's imagination.

-edit- Here's Stevan Harnad's short and easy to read description of the "hard problem": Correlation vs. Causality: How/Why the Mind/Body Problem Is Hard, a commentary on Nicholas Humphrey's How to Solve the Mind-Body Problem (Journal of Consciousness Studies).

Excuse me as I'm just stumbling about on reddit, but I came across this post's title and was intrigued enough to dip deeper. Doing this mostly to save these links for later but am up for a robust discussion on the matter.

Across all scientists in the US, only 6% identify as Republican and 9% as conservative: http://www.people-press.org/2009/07/09/section-4-scientists-politics-and-religion/

The only empirical study of evolutionary psychologists suggests that PhD students who self-identify as adaptationists are much less conservative than the general public, and no more conservative than non-adaptationists: http://www.unm.edu/~tybur/docs/Testing_the_Controversy.pdf

There is nevertheless a perception that evolutionary psychologists are coming from a right-wing standpoint: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26785604

There are well-known cases where evolutionary psychologists have published very bad science with clear ideological bias: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satoshi_Kanazawa

Published criticism of evolutionary psychology comes generally not from social psychologists, but cognitive scientists, neurobiologists, biological anthropologists (EDIT and philosophers of science):

https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/adapting-minds

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=KeqiKNFa3YgC

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Getting-Darwin-Wrong-Evolutionary-Psychology/dp/1845402073

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Alas-Poor-Darwin-Evolutionary-Psychology/dp/0099283190

https://instruct.uwo.ca/psychology/371g/Smith2001.pdf

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2005.04.003

Innate sex differences in children would be a likely implication of the veracity of evolutionary psychology. However there is little solid evidence for sex differences in children's brains:

https://www.amazon.com/Pink-Brain-Blue-Differences-Troublesome/dp/0547394594/

https://sites.google.com/site/dianehalperncmc//books/sex-differences-in-cognitive-abilities

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16366817

If you're interested in Harris's take on it in particular, I suggest looking at this blog post, and also follow the links to some philosophers' reviews of his book, The Moral Landscape. I'm glad Harris responded to his critics, though I don't think he rebutted the most important criticisms.

If you're interested in the underlying question about how ethics might be rationally derived, you could work your way through the SEP page on Kant's Moral Philosophy and investigate others from there. It's pretty dense though! Sidgwick's book that I mentioned above is good and very relevant if you want to trace through the history of these ideas.

If you want to skip to more recent discussion, Simon Blackburn has two books on the topic: Being Good is very accessible and meant to introduce the topics to non-philosophers; Ruling Passions is more technical but IIRC, Chapters 5 and 6 are very relevant to this exact debate and reasonably approachable.

Your are very welcome. I am quite sure my Being here to give you this Gnosis is purposeful and synchronistic because your inner and outer worlds are aligning. It is a Joy to Be the Messenger.

There is a lot of symbolism in the image you posted that reminds me of a Vision that I had.

I came to find out it is a common Vision spoken of across many Ancient Traditions and modern times. It is the vision that Jacob had before he wrestled with an Angel to become Israel. It is the vision that Enoch had when he went to Heaven. There was a French Catholic Priest named Pierre Teilhard de Chardin who also had the same vision. Interestingly, Salvador Dali, also had this vision and painted it. I see many symbolic similarities in Dali's painting and the image you posted.

In my vision I was told that the implement that Thoth wears on his head to balance the Universe through the Law of Karma is called the Omega Point. Pierre de Chardin was also told in his vision about the Omega Point and wrote about it in his book 'Phenomenon of Man'.

Akehnaten, who was a Pharoah in Egypt, is frequently depicted in scenes that seem related to the vision. You can see the similarity in this relief to the Angels in your image (on the upper left side) receiving Life (the Ankh) from above. It is not well known, but Akehnaten was Moses. The child that was put in a basket and floated down the Nile who was adopted by the Pharoah's daughter. He grew up and became Pharoah. He tried to unify all of the Egyptian Pantheon into the One God, who is the Creator God. He was run out of Egypt for this which is the Old Testament Exodus story.

I hope this Gnosis unlocks doors for you on the Spiritual and Healing path

All Love

🙏💜🙏

Edit: Also Frank Tipler who is a Physicist, writes and speaks from a perspective that makes me think he had the Vision. He also speaks of the French Priest Pierre de Chardin so it seems likely this is the case. His views are really interesting as they relate to Physics and the Nature of Creation.

If anyone's interested, he's reading this book.

Yep, I was definately reffering to the Formics.
And I agree that intelligence is a very complicated matter. A good book about the subject is The Neighborhood Project. It talks a lot about human culture and civilazation from an evolutionary perspective, as pretty much a seperate evolutionary process on its own. All of what you're talking about (AI, advances in science, etc) are just steps in the evolutionary process that is our culture. Just think about how much smarter we are since we have computers, cars, boats, cooking recipes. It's not genetic, but it definately makes us look more intelligent than chimps. anyways, I feel like I'm repeating myself at this point. Great book tho

A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson is a very readable and engaging book that covers what we know and more importantly HOW we know it. There's another version I believe called A Really Short History of Nearly Everything that appears to be a condensed version.

There are 3 audiobook versions, but the best one is narrated by William Roberts and is impossible to find online. I'm currently working on turning my mp3 version into a proper audiobook with chapters, etc. PM me and I'll send you the link when I upload it.

You may also be interested in Caveman Logic and the more dangerously titled The Bonobo and the Atheist

I recommend:

Religion Explained: The Evolutionary Origins of Religious Thought by Pascal Boyer on the origins of superstitious and supernatural thinking

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In Gods We Trust: The Evolutionary Landscape of Religion by Scott Atran on why the tendency towards religiosity was preserved for its social utility instead of being eliminated.

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More than Nature Needs: Language, Mind, and Evolution by Derek Bickerton on the origins of language.

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A Natural History of Human Morality by Michael Tomasello on the origins of morals.

For the rough history read A Brief History Of The Mind by William H. Calvin.

A more speculative read is Adam's Tongue: How Humans Made Language, How Language Made Humans by Derek Bickerton.

The latter focuses on how language per se differentiates us from most other species (except some social insects: bees and ants). But it also reviews our history.

Historisch onderzoek sure, antropologisch onderzoek, sociologisch onderzoek, psychologisch onderzoek.

Als je bijvoorbeeld gaat bediscussieren of religie al dan niet goed is voor de samenleving, dan verwacht ik dat je psychologische studies over de relatie tussen religiositeit en fysieke en mentale gezondheid bespreekt, dat is namelijk een veel onderzocht topic geweest de laatste paar decennia.

Bijvoorbeeld van dit standaardwerk, p. 313:

> Over a century of research on the connections between religion, spirituality, and health has found a moderate association between religious involvement and better health status. This positive effect is found at both the individual and group levels, even when many possible confounding variables are controlled. Quite a bit of research suggests that this association is causal, that is, religious involvement appears to protect individuals against disease and promote health (Ellison & Levin 1998; Thoresen, Harris, & Oman, 2001; Chatters, 2000; Levin, 1994; Levin & Chatters, 1998). Only a few investigators now claim there is no relation between religion and health (e.g., Sloan & Bagiella, 2002), but their work has been criticized for selectively ignoring important studies and minimizing strong overall patterns (Koenig, Hays et al., 1999).

Ik bedoel, je kunt het daarmee eens zijn of niet, maar iemand als Dawkins schijnt zich er niet eens van bewust te zijn dat dergelijk onderzoek is gedaan en dergelijke literatuur bestaat.

Of een ander voorbeeld, van een artikel van Teemu Taira (New Atheism as Identity Politics):

> Harris’s work appears more informed at first glance, but it is
difficult to find awareness in his writings of studies in religious studies, sociology (of religion), or anthropology (of religion), although he makes bold claims about what religion is and how it functions. it is thus not surprising that responses from academics who study religion have been critical. Scholars specializing in islam
and the Middle east have complained of Harris’s lack of accuracy when discussing the history, politics, and religion of predominantly islamic countries (Dickson 2010). Scott Atran — an anthropologist of religion with credentials both in the evolutionary study of religion and the profiling of suicide bombers — has pointed
to several problems in Harris’s work: lack of data, ignorance of the empirical study of religion, selectivity of examples and idiosyncratic interpretations (for Atran’s views, see http://www.edge.org/discourse/bb.html, access date: 12 July
2010, Atran 2010). other scholars have extended the list of criticisms to Harris’s apparently careless interpretation of statistics, mixing of correlation and causation, narrow or selective conceptualization of religion (Bentley 2008; Hulsether 2008;
Reader 2008), and using pro-israel activist Alan Dershowitz as an authority in analyzing the Israel/Palestine conflict (Bradley and Tate 2010: 5–6).

Van mij mag iedereen overal een kijk op hebben, maar je moet niet pretenderen dat je een wetenschappelijke kijk op religie hebt wanneer je geen flauw idee hebt van wat de wetenschap nou eigenlijk over religie zegt.

Ik moet toch ook op de hoogte zijn van wat de huidige staat van zaken is in de wetenschap met betrekking tot, laten we zeggen, quantummechanica, voordat ik daar vergaande uitspraken over doe? Anders klets ik gewoon uit mijn nek.

Quantummechanica is een erg theoretisch onderwerp terwijl religie een sociaal alledaags fenomeen is en daarom kunnen we daar allemaal wel over meepraten, maar als je de wetenschap hoog in het vaandel hebt staan moet je niet zomaar dingen gaan claimen die gewoon niet gebaseerd zijn op wetenschap.

So the primary clues and references are often more behavioral (clinical or historical) than cellular or genetic? Or the overlap or correlation of the two?

This book: http://www.amazon.com/Recursive-Mind-Origins-Language-Civilization/dp/0691145474/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1381020234&sr=1-1&keywords=the+recursive+mind

got me thinking more and more about the facet of human culture having taken on a life of its own, an evolution of its own, for which the biology of the species seems just more of an underlying grid of infrastructure than deterministic of changes at the edge. Like a software that has found work arounds for any hardware limitations, even at the cost of efficiency. The book references basic associative capabilities growing into the capacity to name, conceptualize, generalize, and abstract, and then to perform layers of comparisons/computations on these building blocks.

It looks like your colleague Rich Keefe (Duke?) might get a lot of clues of function from examples of dysfunction. I was once married into a family with multiple examples of schizophrenia, and there is nothing like the pain of disability to sharpen one's appreciation for how the process ever works as well as it does.

I can also recommend this book about the way the brain works in terms of art and such. It's good reading for anyone creating art.
Finding that sweet spot between what's familiar and what's intriguing is what all artist should try and achieve. Reading this will make you understand that a lot more.

Riveted by Jim Davies

Check out the book Big Brain: The Origins and Future of Human Intelligence. It's pretty good.

You’re right. Humans are not like dogs. But if you are claiming that basic operant processes don’t effect humans, you’re wrong. However, with language, humans are vastly different from all other species. Skinner really did not capture this complexity within his research/writing at an adequate level. However, this guy might have: https://www.amazon.com/Evolution-Contextual-Behavioral-Science-Understanding/dp/1626259135

Aristotelianism. The most serious philosophers around are Aristotelians.

http://www.amazon.com/Natural-Goodness-Philippa-Foot/dp/019926547X

http://www.amazon.com/Natural-Ethical-Facts-Evolution-Connectionism/dp/0262532786

http://www.amazon.com/What-Good-Why-Ethics-Well-Being/dp/0674032373