Evolutionary Psychology, my thoughts pt 1

If evolution is the unifying theory of biology, and psychology is applied biology, wouldnt evolutionary psychology be a unifying theory for psychology?

Some of my thoughts on evolutionary psychology and why I think this field is not getting embraced like it should be.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Evolutionary
• Psychology
• communications
• science
• evolution
• human
• behavior
• keylimedelight

[TheObnubilators]

go to hell selfish genes!

[Keylimedelight]

Um, care to qualify that?

[NickAlexanderFirth]

I agree "it's a challenge in communication". I think part of the problem is that not enough people have a reasonable grasp of Evolutionary Psychology and so they fall back on easy assumptions, or gross exaggerations that EP is "deterministic" or "reductionist" or wishes to justify racism/ sexism etc. This is a tremendous shame because that is not EP's aim.

Also to paraphrase David Buss (2005): 'Everyone will find something offensive about EP.' But being offensive does not make it untrue.

[burnthesystem11]

There is problems in the methodology. As well as Modularity of Mind which it depends on. It is not because it is perceived to be offensive that it should be discarded. I agree with you on this account. It is because it is horrible science. Go read Jesse J Prinz. A plurality of views is good. I got them during my undergrad in psych, I can assure you there is only one in the EP paradigm.

[ianw19]

The evolutionary explanation of sex differences in sexual behavior EXPLAINS the cultural stud/slut double standard, which is useful in undermining its moral force. If we can explain to people why we tend to lack respect for promiscuous women in evolutionary terms (i.e. they were poor long term mates because its hard to know who the father of there babies are), we can show that there's nothing inherently WRONG with female promiscuity. Rather, its wrongness is an illusion programed by evolution.

[LaRock1969]

I wholeheartedly agree with this video. I've worked in the human and social services field for 20 years and have felt like something was missing in the interpretation of behavior. After studying evolutionary psychology, I finally feel like there is an answer.

[TheObnubilators]

I'm not entirely sure if I misrepresented this at all. I'm sort of new to the idea of the selfish gene. If anyone can correct me, please do.

[TheObnubilators]

I'll assume that you mean clarify, not qualify.

Mainly I'm referring to the unique capacity in humans to disobey our genes commands through some kind of moral system or sorts.

A decent example would be in the movie The Good Son, where the mother chooses to let her son (an evil McCauley Culkan) die, over her nephew. In this case the self-preservation of her genes (selfishness) was trumped by the fact that her son was a sadistic little bastard who deserved to die.

[PeeGeeBeeDee]

I don't like the backdrop. You might want to add a little more pizazz to it like Drew did.

[Keylimedelight]

Well I'm a student at the moment, so fortunately the Mohawk is not exclusive to the study of evolutionary psych or any other subject I've found so far. As for the hands free head set, we all do the best with what we have.

Do you have anything to comment on regarding the content of the video sir?