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Evolution and baseball caps

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Interbane

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Re: Evolution and baseball caps

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ant wrote:Okay.. naturalism should be reducing behavior to lowest terms (material physiology) but you just keep saying its culture its culture.
No, naturalism doesn't simply reduce. Higher order patterns can't be explained by reducing them. They have to be explained at the same level they emerge. But that doesn't make them any less natural.

As far as saying it's culture... isn't it? At least in part? How could genes possibly dictate whether a backwards hat is fitter than a forwards hat? We have to identify this behavior with fitness somehow, and it is a memetic behavior. It is a product of cultural evolution.
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Re: Evolution and baseball caps

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ant wrote:Those last comments were excellent and is the justso scientific explanation i am looking for.

Great!
Exactly! You are looking for a just-so explanation so you easily dismiss possible naturalistic explanations without having to put forth an actual argument or even think about it too much. This has been your agenda from the start. Thanks for being honest!

The article offers anything but a just-so explanation. It offers possible explanations based on the limited data we have. The author of the article makes it perfectly clear that the science is speculative. More data is needed. The definitive, reductive conclusions are merely your own strawman.
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Re: Evolution and baseball caps

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geo wrote:
ant wrote:Those last comments were excellent and is the justso scientific explanation i am looking for.

Great!
Exactly! You are looking for a just-so explanation so you easily dismiss possible naturalistic explanations without having to put forth an actual argument or even think about it too much. This has been your agenda from the start. Thanks for being honest!

The article offers anything but a just-so explanation. It offers possible explanations based on the limited data we have. The author of the article makes it perfectly clear that the science is speculative. More data is needed. The definitive, reductive conclusions are merely your own strawman.
Its not me thats looking for them Geo. Its specific fields of science that arouse controversy like evolutionary psychology that develops untestable , unfalsifiable explanations for behavior.
You seem to think that just because its not a supernatural answer anything else is a natural explanation therefore it must be the correct answer regardless if it is testable or not.

Those are called justso explanations if they can not be sugjected to methodological verification.

But you dont understand that and would rather rattle on about it being natural and all, while throwing empirical standards out the window.
And you enjoy thinking you administered a "ggotcha!" at me.

Do you understand how you too can make up a justso scientific explanation and not have to test it?

Let me know if you have any questions. Ill clarify further. Or if you like, just say "culture explains behavior scientifically" and be done with it.
Last edited by ant on Sun May 31, 2015 2:37 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Evolution and baseball caps

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ant wrote: Do you understand how you too can make up a justso scientific explanation and not have to test it?

Let me know if you have any questions. Ill clarify further. Or if you like, just say "culture explains behavior scientifically" and be done with it.
Who says you don't have to test it?

The problems with evolutionary psychology are inherent to the field and also widely acknowledged. These are plausible explanations that always contingent on the evidence. If you read the article I posted, you will see the language is very speculative.

So please come up with some specific examples of scientists trying to fly under the radar and avoid testing their hypotheses.
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Re: Evolution and baseball caps

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ant wrote:Or if you like, just say "culture explains behavior scientifically" and be done with it.
How does culture explain behavior scientifically?
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Re: Evolution and baseball caps

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Isn't evolutionary psychology an attempt to explain behaviours and choices as being rooted in evolutionary history and genetic programming?
They say we can rebel against our "selfish" genes but if this is so we can rebel against other evolutionary "hardwiring" also.
How can evolutionary psychology be explanatory then unless we actually are hardwired and can't rebel against our genes.
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If our default evolutionary setting was disbelief but the species rebelled against its wiring and thesim was selected for survival purposes , whats the reason for rebeling against a rebellion that resulted in a successful survival strategy?

Is it because we experienced a conscious rising moment when evolutionary psychology "explained" the roots of religion and theistic belief (ie - religion is nothing more than a Kumbaya campfire social event to encourage social support and togetherness)

Does a evolutionary psych explanation increase the survival chances of the species? Is that why its being selected now (allegedly, but thats misinformation - church attendance is down, but belief in a higher power is not dissappearing)
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Re: Evolution and baseball caps

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Flann wrote:Isn't evolutionary psychology an attempt to explain behaviours and choices as being rooted in evolutionary history and genetic programming?
They say we can rebel against our "selfish" genes but if this is so we can rebel against other evolutionary "hardwiring" also.
How can evolutionary psychology be explanatory then unless we actually are hardwired and can't rebel against our genes.
The best evolutionary psychology can do is give a partial answer. There is a great deal of our behavior that cannot be reduced beyond the information we've gathered as a species. Our culture, our knowledge, our beliefs. Knowledge often trumps the impulses of our evolutionary heritage. Refraining from sex, applying altruism to our out-groups, avoiding sugar, quelling anger to maintain employment, etc.

Another part of the answer comes from cultural evolution, although the best efforts of science haven't cracked that nut yet. It's still in large part philosophical. This isn't a bad thing since cultural evolution is arguably the most complex field of study in science or philosophy.
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Re: Evolution and baseball caps

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Just to clarify:
No one said anything about it being a bad thing.
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Re: Evolution and baseball caps

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Interbane wrote:The best evolutionary psychology can do is give a partial answer. There is a great deal of our behavior that cannot be reduced beyond the information we've gathered as a species. Our culture, our knowledge, our beliefs. Knowledge often trumps the impulses of our evolutionary heritage. Refraining from sex, applying altruism to our out-groups, avoiding sugar, quelling anger to maintain employment, etc.

Another part of the answer comes from cultural evolution, although the best efforts of science haven't cracked that nut yet. It's still in large part philosophical. This isn't a bad thing since cultural evolution is arguably the most complex field of study in science or philosophy.
And yet Interbane, there is a great deal of behavioural and social diversity even among closely related species. Lions are highly social big cats, whereas Leopards are solitary and secretive.
If their genetic makeup is similar why is their behaviour so different? There are behavioural similarities too of course but the social behaviour can hardly be accounted for by genetics.
Animal behaviour is adaptable too. Urban foxes can switch from rural rodents to human food waste in garbage quite easily.
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