Ground rules for debating Evolutionary Psychology vs. evolutionary psychology

First, in many places on my blog, I have clearly explained the difference between Evolutionary Psychology, which at times engages in “just-so storytelling,” and scientifically investigatable evolutionary psychology. If you aren’t familiar with this difference, and if you’re not familiar with someone like David Buller who had explicated this difference, move on.

Related to that, if you are familiar with the work of people like Buller, but reject the idea of capital-letter Ev Psych, move on. You may not agree with me on the parameters on what falls in Ev Psych and what is legitimate ev psych, and I don’t expect that. But, if you reject the very existence of Ev Psych in toto, move on. You’re being dogmatic, and thereby moving beyond storytelling to mythmaking. I don’t have time to waste on you.

If you’re familiar with Buller and claim he’s been refuted, provide me with URLs. I will get back to you. That said, Buller’s far and away from the only person to distinguish Ev Psych from ev psych.

Related to that, do NOT accuse me of rejecting ev psych because I reject Ev Psych. For whichever reason you’re doing it, I’ve already rejected that immediately above; move on.

Second, if you’re not familiar with the latest in genetics, and beyond your high school biology teacher’s genetics to epigenetics and such, with a book like Matt Ridley’s Nature Through Nurture, move on. (And spare calling me an anti-naturalist in the process.) Or, Robert Sapolsky’s “Monkeyluv: And Other Essays on Our Lives as Animals.”

In fact, let me excerpt a few sex-specific comments from my Amazon review of Sapolsky, by page number:

63. In a study with ducks, with attractive males, it actually appears that the female invests more energy in the egg, laying a larger egg when impregnated by an attractive male. (The egg size is under female control.)
Both of these should put some question to old stereotypes about peacock tails being signs of fitness and so increasing mating, etc. At the least, they should caution us to look for more nuanced explanations.

177. In many species, females in some way manipulate alpha-male type males into fighting over them, to go off and mate with more "nice guy" types.

Some more food for thought.

Third, if you’re not familiar enough with hunter-gatherer societies to know that, in many of them that exist today, women bring home more calories than men, and control distribution of said food calories, and won’t engage intellectually with what this means for man the noble hunter, move on.

Fourth, if you aren’t familiar with the fact that, before man the “noble” hunter was man the hyena-like scavenger, and what that means for Ev Psych’s just-so stories about “male dominance,” move on.

Fifth, given that, if you’re not prepared to look at the idea that the “dominance of man” likely began with “man the not-so-noble farmer” and the domestication of agriculture, move on.

Sixth, given that the domestication of agriculture led to the rise of civilization as we know it, if you’re not prepared to discuss the role and prominence of cultural evolution in evolutionary psychology, move on.

Seventh, if you’re not prepare to describe why you personally, if you do, focus so much of your ev psych discussion, or especially, your Ev Psych discussion, on sexual selection issues, move on. Because that WILL be part of the dialog and investigation from my end.

Eighth, if you are going to focus on male-female issues and sexual selection, be prepared to talk about the difference between individual selection (for a single man as male or woman as female) vs. group selection inside sexual selection.