Originally Posted by Arkham '80

Women are not normally attracted to effeminate men, and men are not normally attracted to masculine women. This has been confirmed by studies of sexual attraction as it relates to everything from facial symmetry and bust-waist-hip ratios to the presence of facial hair, body odor, demonstrations of assertiveness and strength, etc.

The kind of women that are attracted to macho men and think us "sensitive guys" are "unworthy" are shallow people I have no interest in having a relationship with.

Originally Posted by Child of Socrates

Furthermore, there are many, many people who voluntarily choose to raise other people's biological children through adoption or step-parenting. In those cases, I believe they don't really give a crap about genetics. And God bless them all, I say.

Exactly, those "biological drives" are not the tyrannical imperative urges the Evo-Psych people claim they are

Anyway, a funny image I ran into:



And a link: http://www.democraticunderground.com...ress=229x10797

Originally Posted by Arkham '80

Some men are forced to become fathers against their will;

They should of thought about that before taking it out of their pants without using a condom. It is the woman's body and thus her choice and her choice only to abort or not. Period.

Originally Posted by Arkham '80

It's a scientific theory, not an ideology.

The Social Darwinists claimed the same thing, the source of "Scientific Racism".

Originally Posted by Bob Butler 54

I'm wondering about your point. From my perspective, human aggression evolved at a time when military competition was beneficial to the species. When one is throwing rocks and bashing with clubs, a moderate level of violence will produce a more competitive species.

Thinks are different with nukes, IEDs and assault rifles. Innovation has produced a very different dynamic. While once upon a time aggression undoubtedly accelerated the 'progress' of evolution, it is not so clear today. (And for once, I wouldn't complain if Mr. Saari jumped in with a comment that not all progress should be assumed to be good.)

I believe this is a time when reason and culture should be shifted to curb aggression. Are you seriously contending the opposite? In order to stimulate innovation, we should encourage aggression? If so, what forms of aggression would you favor?

General Progress, SIR!
Your Order is my Command!

Aggressiveness Training was instituted amongst Our Fellow Commercial Republicans in the late Awakening as a placeholder for the absent by leave (and much reduced in rank) Etiquette, and one was witness to innovatively reasoned cultural scenes such as:

Ag-Trained Boomerette: "What the f**k do you want?"

Yo. Ob. Sv.:"Excuse me. As I was seated here and then went to the dance floor, am now returned, I would like to have access to my Kools and my Bourbon and Branch, please."

A-TB: "Why the f**k didn't you take 'em with you?"

YOS:"I thought it might be disrespectful to my dance partner and my fellow dance couples to have drink and smoke in hand as I made way about the floor."

A-TB: "Well f**k it; I'm leaving in a few minutes anyway."

YOS: "That's quite okay. Have a nice evening."

The Aggressively-Trained Boomerette was a reasonably good example of the Progress of the Day! Things may have changed.

Not all change can be thought of as good, Sir.

This was styled EMPOWERMENT and Aggressiveness Training was Instituted by Progressive Professionals for the betterment of Our Commercial Republic. I do not know if it is still as popular. Those with a High School education or less were often not thusly prepared until this training was provided in Public Education in the Unravelling, and these ignorants often displayed good manners in public. Yo. Ob. Sv. at St. Louis County School #70 in the years up to 1967 knew it not as a schooling, but I was well aware of the the practice because of my long dealins with the Bovine-American populations upon the shores of the River Pike.

Aggression or forceful action carried out in an emotive state becomes problematic when the emotive state becomes that of Anger which is properly the Province of Providence and Not the Children of Men and when forceful action is taken toward a Child of Man under the false impression that a portion of the Children of Men can be used as objects. One can thusly use an axehead upon the limb of a Larch; but not upon the limb of a Cheesehead in a most forceful manner. The emotion in either case is not allowable to be anger.

Will that be all, Sir?
By your leave, I shall return to my unranks.
/salute/

Originally Posted by The Rani

Unless you happen to believe in a god or gods, biology does actually determine right and wrong.

Originally Posted by The Rani

You've got it backwards. The concept of Good is adaptive.

If I understand you correctly (and do please correct me if I'm wrong), what human beings consider to be 'Good' is dependent on their environment, their psychology, etc. But that's an empirical claim that doesn't capture the thrust of what sociobiologists and evolutionary psychologists are suggesting: That what actually is Good (as opposed to our mere conceptions of the Good), in stark ethical terms, is that which is adaptive.

Originally Posted by Justin '77

Without aggressive risk-takers, new things would never be learned, problems would not be solved, and advance would be barely possible at all.

Why do you think aggression and risk taking are related attributes? One would think you were channeling the "evil Kirk" episode of Star Trek.

Originally Posted by The Rani

Who has suggested that? I only ask because we're talking about my field, and I've never heard of such a thing before.

Herbert Spencer said it explicitly. Kropotkin was more subtle. Arkham was making the same points. Conservatives love it. This Wiki link details more. Of course, once you think that what actually is Good is subject to functional analysis from an evolutionary standpoint, you're like 90% of the way there.

Originally Posted by Bob Butler 54

I'm wondering about your point. From my perspective, human aggression evolved at a time when military competition was beneficial to the species.

I don't see this at all. Technically evolutional success is related to procreational effectiveness. Females are always related to their offspring. Thus, they need spend zero energy ensuring that the babies they birth or the eggs they lay are genetically related to them. Hence their sexual focus can be entirely on the genetic fitness of their offspring, since more fit offspring means a higher prevalence of the mother's genes in subsequent generations. Thus females will select males for mating.

Males cannot know whether or not a particular youngster is related to them. Hence they spend considerable energy ito increase the probability that the offspring of the females with whom they mate are genetically related to them. This is why it is male birds that tend to have the most spectacular plummage (so as to be more appealing to females who will then mate with them and not another). This is why certain male beetles have such spectacular armament: they don't use it for inflicting damage on foes, but rather to prevent access by other males to tunnels leading to breeding chambers containing the "mate" of the male blocking the tunnel.

In social animals that don't live in tunnels, such as many primates, it is not possible for a male to ensure that the offspring of his mate are actually his offspring too by blocking tunnels. It is thus necessary to intimidate potential rivals and for that aggression is a useful trait.

In recent centuries, economic success (which often comes from risk-taking) makes men attractive to women, and so can serve the same function as aggression, but that doesn't mean they are the same thing.

I find it interesting that some on the left would be more than happy to make the conservative society uncomfortable when confronting long-held notions (Young Earth, Creationism) with new evidence (evolution, radiometric dating), but at the same time, when something like evolutionary psychology, and human biodiversity starts chipping away at notions such as the idea human differences are nothing but social constructs (one of the pillars of political correctness), suddenly the science becomes pernicious.

Regardless, it would be helpful to see what is being discussed on that end, so from order of formal to colloquial, here are three blogs that tend to have entries concerning things like biological determinism and whatnot:

Gene Expression

Steve Sailer

Half Sigma (warning: don't stick around too long there if you're one who can't tolerate brusque statements, bordering on what some may think of as racist)

Originally Posted by Andy '85

....but at the same time, when something like evolutionary psychology, and human biodiversity starts chipping away at notions such as the idea human differences are nothing but social constructs (one of the pillars of political correctness), suddenly the science becomes pernicious.
Steve Sailer

What "science" does Mr Sailer use?

Originally Posted by Andy '85

I find it interesting that some on the left would be more than happy to make the conservative society uncomfortable when confronting long-held notions (Young Earth, Creationism) with new evidence (evolution, radiometric dating), but at the same time, when something like evolutionary psychology, and human biodiversity starts chipping away at notions such as the idea human differences are nothing but social constructs (one of the pillars of political correctness), suddenly the science becomes pernicious.

My position is that normative statements of Right and Wrong cannot be justified by Science, trying to do so is the Appeal-to-Nature Fallacy, called the Is-Ought Problem by David Hume. What one OUGHT to do cannot be logically derived from what objectively IS. If science says "humans are by nature violent" does not mean "violence is good" or "violence must be tolerated". Just because our "biological function" is to reproduce doesn't mean we should pop out as many babies as possible and over-populate the Earth in the process.

In the same vein, just because science says "men tend to behave like this and women like that" does not mean we should act like that, nor does it mean that men and women who do not follow those behavior tendencies are "abnormal" and need to have their behavior "corrected".

And in any case a lot of Evo-Psych people, even though they say they understand that environment and thus upbringing can effect gene expression, often seem to forget that complex interaction between genetic and environment in their hypotheses, which is why I am skeptical of how really "scientific" and unbiased Evo-Psych really is.

Originally Posted by Odin

They should of thought about that before taking it out of their pants without using a condom. It is the woman's body and thus her choice and her choice only to abort or not. Period.

No. Not period. Because the negation of choice is not a choice. Abstinence is, to paraphrase this excellent webcast, the default state in which every human being finds himself when he is not having sex. It is not a reproductive option. Women are not subject to any limits on their reproductive options. From the moment of conception, they hold all the cards, on the bogus rationale that the temporary physical inconvenience of pregnancy somehow trumps all other considerations. But it is the man's body that is subjected to 18+ years of labor in support of a child he did not want, while the woman is only inconvenienced by pregnancy for 9 months -- a condition that she can terminate at will. That is a 24:1 ratio, at minimum. There is no reasonable comparison between a pregnancy voluntarily entered into and a third of a lifetime or more of state-imposed indenture.

Originally Posted by Odin

The kind of women that are attracted to macho men and think us "sensitive guys" are "unworthy" are shallow people I have no interest in having a relationship with.

Sour grapes. The fox, being unable to reach the high fruit, concludes that it must not be as appetizing as it appears.

Originally Posted by Odin

The Social Darwinists claimed the same thing, the source of "Scientific Racism".

It's funny how much vitriol is being flung at these theories, given that the few ethical prescriptions to have originated from evolutionary psychology, sociobiology, and the tangentially-related field of game theory all point to (kin) altruism and reciprocity as the most advantageous ethical strategies.

Originally Posted by Matt1989

Herbert Spencer said it explicitly. Kropotkin was more subtle. Arkham was making the same points. Conservatives love it. This Wiki link details more. Of course, once you think that what actually is Good is subject to functional analysis from an evolutionary standpoint, you're like 90% of the way there.

I cannot find a way around the very basic realization that dead men have no moral attitudes. Ethics, as a human preoccupation, is predicated on the survival of those who are making judgments about the world.

Originally Posted by Odin

My position is that normative statements of Right and Wrong cannot be justified by Science, trying to do so is the Appeal-to-Nature Fallacy, called the Is-Ought Problem by David Hume. What one OUGHT to do cannot be logically derived from what objectively IS. If science says "humans are by nature violent" does not mean "violence is good" or "violence must be tolerated". Just because our "biological function" is to reproduce doesn't mean we should pop out as many babies as possible and over-populate the Earth in the process.

I've made no prescriptive statements explicitly derived from the science, so far as I can recall. The thrust of my argument, instead, has been that the opposite assumption -- that human beings are infinitely malleable "blank slates" that can be reshaped to fit the theories of utopian idealists -- does not hold up to scrutiny. There are limits to what cultural impositions human beings can tolerate, and all cultural change, even of the apparently benign sort, has costs.

In the same vein, just because science says "men tend to behave like this and women like that" does not mean we should act like that, nor does it mean that men and women who do not follow those behavior tendencies are "abnormal" and need to have their behavior "corrected".

Indeed, but it is unreasonable to expect all humans to behave as saints. Notions about the perfectibility of man are themselves artifacts of Christian eschatology.

And in any case a lot of Evo-Psych people, even though they say they understand that environment and thus upbringing can effect gene expression, often seem to forget that complex interaction between genetic and environment in their hypotheses, which is why I am skeptical of how really "scientific" and unbiased Evo-Psych really is.

And such skepticism is healthy. The fact that evolutionary science has in the past been used to justify social Darwinism should serve as a cautionary tale to anyone not to place undue faith in science. But the opposite extreme -- the wholesale rejection of any science that questions man's perfectibility -- is equally pernicious, because it gives free license to monomaniacal ideologues to radically reconstruct society from the ground up, without regard to the human cost of their vision.

Originally Posted by Arkham '80

No. Not period. Because the negation of choice is not a choice. Abstinence is, to paraphrase this excellent webcast, the default state in which every human being finds himself when he is not having sex. It is not a reproductive option. Women are not subject to any limits on their reproductive options. From the moment of conception, they hold all the cards, on the bogus rationale that the temporary physical inconvenience of pregnancy somehow trumps all other considerations. But it is the man's body that is subjected to 18+ years of labor in support of a child he did not want, while the woman is only inconvenienced by pregnancy for 9 months -- a condition that she can terminate at will. That is a 24:1 ratio, at minimum. There is no reasonable comparison between a pregnancy voluntarily entered into and a third of a lifetime or more of state-imposed indenture.

Doesn't matter, her body, her choice. Period. The guy had the choice when he chose to not use protection. They hold all the cards because they are the ones that are pregnant, it is their body.

Gender Equality: 1, Evo-Psych pseudoscience: 0

Girls worse at math? No way, new analysis shows.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Girls can do just as well at math as boys -- even at the genius level -- if they are given the same opportunities and encouragement, researchers reported on Monday.

Their study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, contradicts studies showing girls can do as well as boys on average in math -- but cannot excel in the way males can.

They also said it is a clear rebuttal to Larry Summers, who as president of Harvard University said in 2005 that biological differences could explain why fewer women became professors of mathematics. Summers is now chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers for President Barack Obama.

"We conclude that gender inequality, not lack of innate ability or 'intrinsic aptitude', is the primary reason fewer females than males are identified as excelling in mathematics performance in most countries, including the United States," Janet Hyde and Janet Mertz of the University of Wisconsin in Madison wrote in their report.

More here...

An interesting tidbit I ran into on DU:

In Japan, girls are sterotypically considered better at math, presumably because women are expected to handle the household finances.

OOPS, there goes another Eurocentric bit of "conventional wisdom" regurgitated by Evo-Psych people.

To repeat:

Originally Posted by Arkham '80

It's funny how much vitriol is being flung at these theories, given that the few ethical prescriptions to have originated from evolutionary psychology, sociobiology, and the tangentially-related field of game theory all point to (kin) altruism and reciprocity as the most advantageous ethical strategies.

As they should, but perpetuating the human race is not a particularly good reason to be altruistic and reciprocal. Many other prescriptions, when functional analysis goes too far, sounds an awful like 'men and women are best served in complementary roles.'

Originally Posted by Matt1989

There has been plenty of empirical debunking of the biological foundations of modern sex roles, and I am led to believe that nearly all claims that assert the adaptivity of traditional sex roles are greatly exaggerated.

It is easy to find data confirming one's preexisting inclinations.

But it really doesn't matter too much: the extent to which certain traits are either adaptive or maladaptive bears virtually nothing on normative claims.

One must be alive to have moral attitudes. To be sure, this in itself says nothing about right and wrong, but it does set practical limits on what kinds of ethics people can tenably observe.

Which is, in fact, what most feminists are interested in, and this is what feminism has always gravitated around. The analysis of patriarchy has always had a prescriptive bent, and you'll rarely (if ever) see a major feminist make the claim that there are no differences between men and women in their 'natural' state. Because, quite frankly, from a standpoint of feminist critique, the extent to which men and women are similar or different really doesn't matter.

Which is absurd. One cannot dismiss the unique properties of an apple and insist that it behave as if it were an orange, which is what feminism seems to demand.

I'd like to add, from an empirical basis (namely, the fact that humans screw up a lot), that it's quite likely that many of our leading scientific theories (especially those relating to complex organisms such as humans) are wrong in either degree or type.

And if a better model comes along, I'll incorporate it into my worldview. Until then, I'll stick with what has the greatest explanatory value, given my life experience and the limits of my reason.

That's kind of the point of rectifying glaring inconsistencies and working toward a greater justice. The whole idea of radical feminism is that the inconsistencies have lended themselves to gross injustice, and the process of fixing how we relate to one another is something that can only be accomplished by the radical reengineering of societal expectations. Kind of like the prescriptivity of anarchism.

Anarchism has no program -- can't have a program, really. You will not see an anarchist working through the state to impose a singular vision of the perfect world from above. Feminists do this sort of thing, because they are of the same species as other radical totalitarians who believe human beings can be forced to be good.

The character trait of aggression is either a virtue, vice, or the talk about virtues and vices is either meaningless or wrong. The consequences of aggressive personality (i.e. coercion) are mostly irrelevant to the discussion of whether its a virtue or a vice, as in virtue ethics, consequences are not an essential principle of justice. A man who attacks a burglar may be acting intelligently by acting aggressively (that is, defending oneself and one's property with force) if the situation permits, but being an aggressive person is certainly undesirable. To clarify, acting a certain way toward a burglar (right action; isolated incident) does not necessarily indicate that sort of personality (right character; continuous). A person who does demonstrate the virtuous mean may have the same response to the burglar as the aggressive person.

Fair enough. Still, you're not going to extirpate aggression from the human organism by talking circles round it.

Herbert Spencer? The dude who wrote: "Every man has freedom to do all he wills, provided he infringes not the equal freedom of any other man?" What heinous social theories are you talking about? Spencer's biggest mistake, despite his excellent liberal credentials, was believing something like: 'What is adaptive is good, what is maladaptive is bad.' His reasoning was that biology determines ethics, and this is something that runs afoul of the is-ought gap and the naturalistic fallacy.

Don't be facetious. You know very well Spencer was one of the chief proponents of social Darwinism in the 19th century. And as I understand them, the naturalistic fallacy and is-ought problem make a hash of all ethical judgments, since they cannot be tied to real-world circumstances. The good is what it is, which is an unhelpful tautology, since no one can ever hope to define the good except as a nebulous abstraction. If you can't reference the natural world when developing an ethic for living in that world, then you are left either with some supernatural authority or nihilism, so far as I can tell.

If sociobiologists wish to begin applying their field into ethical and political discussions, by suggesting that what is adaptive is Good, or that there is relativity in the matter, or that it somehow trumps philosophy (leading to naturalistic fallacies, relativism, or nihilism), then there are serious problems which do in fact perpetuate the status quo by saying what is must be the way the things should be. And when this should crosses over into an ought, as is far too often the case, then I object most strenuously.

I think it's more reasonable to say that survival is a precondition to the activity of moralizing, and that maladaptive beliefs that lead to extinction render all other moral attitudes moot. It doesn't matter from my perspective what is good, true, and beaufitul if there are no humans around to appreciate the distinctions.

Originally Posted by Arkham '80

I cannot find a way around the very basic realization that dead men have no moral attitudes. Ethics, as a human preoccupation, is predicated on the survival of those who are making judgments about the world.

Even so, that does not entail that being moral is properly adapting to one's environment.

Doing the right thing, such as being reciprocal and altruistic, on the other hand, is usually a sound mechanism for a healthy species.

Originally Posted by Odin

Doesn't matter, her body, her choice. Period. The guy had the choice when he chose to not use protection. They hold all the cards because they are the ones that are pregnant, it is their body.

And it is the man's body that is usurped to pay for the unwanted child. You cannot blithely dismiss this fundamental inequity. Even if you choose to ignore it, other men will not, and they will mount an ever-growing resistance as the double-standard ruins more and more lives. Placing your hands on your ears and shouting "La la la, I'm not listening!" will not suffice to quiet the critics.

Originally Posted by Matt1989

As they should, but perpetuating the human race is not a particularly good reason to be altruistic and reciprocal. Many other prescriptions, when functional analysis goes too far, sounds an awful like 'men and women are best served in complementary roles.'

Why should they? One what basis do you make this statement? You can't reference the science; that would lead to a fallacy, as you put it. Where do your ethics come from?

Originally Posted by Matt1989

Even so, that does not entail that being moral is properly adapting to one's environment.

Doing the right thing, such as being reciprocal and altruistic, on the other hand, is usually a sound mechanism for a healthy species.

Again, on what basis can you make this judgment?