The self-defeating nature of using "Privilege (Theory)" (in societal discourse)

[Berzerker]

I think that you overstate the extent to which hunter-gatherers were battling mammoths or whatever. Humans mostly hunt birds and small mammals, and will mostly seem to have done so through trapping or extended pursuits. Dramatic scenes of ambushing mammoths are very romantic, but not typical.

And apparently it was the climate change associated with the Younger Dryas that wiped out much of the mega fauna, not us... The environmental disaster took a toll on the Clovis peoples too.

Most of the really nasty communicable diseases, the ones that merit the status of "plagues", originated in domesticated animals. This is why many of them were absent in the world outside of Africa-Eurasia, even in the dense urban cultures of Mesoamerica and the Andes. You can't get Bubonic plague without cattle.

Is that why new world peoples were so vulnerable to old world diseases?

 

[Lexicus]

It's not 100% clear to me that we're looking down the barrel of this particular binary choice.

Perhaps not, but you should perhaps consider why you have to constantly write these long posts debunking false beliefs about hunter-gatherers. It's almost always because people are spouting reactionary drivel derived from evolutionary psychology. I wouldn't care to speculate about the intent of individuals working in that field, but it's difficult to avoid the impression that most of the field's work consists of attempting to give scientific credibility to the basic postulates of conservatism (what Albert Hirschman called the "jeopardy" and "futiility" arguments - the idea that it is impossible to change things for the better, or that attempts to change things will inevitably result in terrible unintended consequences).

I will grant that Ryika is probably correct that I am arguing here against positions not really held by most evolutionary psychologists (but which are certainly argued by many forum posters), but it at least says something when their work can be misunderstood so commonly and in such consistent ways.

And apparently it was the climate change associated with the Younger Dryas that wiped out much of the mega fauna, not us...

This is actually more or less the opposite of mainstream opinion now.

Outside the mainland of Afro-Eurasia, these megafaunal extinctions followed a highly distinctive landmass-by-landmass pattern that closely parallels the spread of humans into previously uninhabited regions of the world, and which shows no overall correlation with climatic history (which can be visualized with plots over recent geological time periods of climate markers such as marine oxygen isotopes or atmospheric carbon dioxide levels).[33][34] Australia[35] and nearby islands (e.g., Flores[36]) were struck first around 46,000 years ago, followed by Tasmania about 41,000 years ago (after formation of a land bridge to Australia about 43,000 years ago),[37][38][39] Japan apparently about 30,000 years ago,[40] North America 13,000 years ago,[note 2] South America about 500 years later,[42][43] Cyprus 10,000 years ago,[44][45] the Antilles 6,000 years ago,[46][47] New Caledonia[48] and nearby islands[49] 3,000 years ago, Madagascar 2,000 years ago,[50] New Zealand 700 years ago,[51] the Mascarenes 400 years ago,[52] and the Commander Islands 250 years ago.[53] Nearly all of the world's isolated islands could furnish similar examples of extinctions occurring shortly after the arrival of humans, though most of these islands, such as the Hawaiian Islands, never had terrestrial megafauna, so their extinct fauna were smaller.[33][34]

 

[Traitorfish]

Perhaps not, but you should perhaps consider why you have to constantly write these long posts debunking false beliefs about hunter-gatherers. It's almost always because people are spouting reactionary drivel derived from evolutionary psychology. I wouldn't care to speculate about the intent of individuals working in that field, but it's difficult to avoid the impression that most of the field's work consists of attempting to give scientific credibility to the basic postulates of conservatism (what Albert Hirschman called the "jeopardy" and "futiility" arguments - the idea that it is impossible to change things for the better, or that attempts to change things will inevitably result in terrible unintended consequences).

The reason that pop-evopsych is such a cesspit of nonsense and bad faith is not because it fails to uphold standards of rigour appropriate to nuclear physics, though, but because it fails to uphold standards of rigour appropriate to its own field of inquiry. Physics done badly doesn't condemn physics; art history done badly doesn't condemn art history. The fact that there's a large and accessible enough body of anthropological and archaeological work to let a humanities peasant like me piece together these ramshackle debunkings should itself be a defence of soft sciences done right.

 

[Berzerker]

This is actually more or less the opposite of mainstream opinion now.

I was talking about people in North America during the Younger Dryas

 

[Lexicus]

The reason that pop-evopsych is such a cesspit of nonsense and bad faith is not because it fails to uphold standards of rigour appropriate to nuclear physics, though, but because it fails to uphold standards of rigour appropriate to its own field of inquiry. Physics done badly doesn't condemn physics; art history done badly doesn't condemn art history. The fact that there's a large and accessible enough body of anthropological and archaeological work to let a humanities peasant like me piece together these ramshackle debunkings should itself be a defence of soft sciences done right.

"Claims should be falsifiable" isn't some kind of tip-of-the-spear standard of rigor, though, it's the basic condition that distinguishes science from not-science (and I hasten to add that I do not presumptively dismiss as valueless what is not scientific).

Funnily, I actually believe the whole distinction between "hard" and "soft" sciences was invented by quant nerds so that they could pretend that the things they study are objectively cooler than fields that deal more with qualitative stuff.

 

[Lexicus]

I was talking about people in North America during the Younger Dryas

Yes, and I'm saying that given the evidence mentioned in that paragraph I quoted, mainstream opinion has shifted back to the "humans are the key ingredient here" idea even in the case of the North American extinctions. Six or seven years ago when I was in Archaeology 101 they were telling us the Younger Dryas was the main culprit.

 

[Ryika]

I will grant that Ryika is probably correct that I am arguing here against positions not really held by most evolutionary psychologists (but which are certainly argued by many forum posters), but it at least says something when their work can be misunderstood so commonly and in such consistent ways.

But that's exactly what happens to feminist theory as well. What has feminist research to say about, say, the wage gap? Quite a lot of sensible things actually. But what will you read about the wage gap on the internet? "77 cents per dollar for the exact same job!" and similar nonsense that has nothing at all to do with the actual research. Well, not as much these days because the wage gap as presented by these idiots has been debunked 100³ times, but that used to be the common thing you'd hear from feminists.

The way information from the scientific community drips into the mainstream is via clickbait-y headlines and selective statistics drawn from the most extreme papers that people will believe because it fits their ideological narrative. That's the problem, and it's a problem for pretty much all scientific fields.

 

[MaryKB]

<Mary quickly googles "average salary for bank vice president">
<Compares her salary to search results from 2013>
<Sees she makes 72% of average>
<cries>

 

[Traitorfish]

"Claims should be falsifiable" isn't some kind of tip-of-the-spear standard of rigor, though, it's the basic condition that distinguishes science from not-science (and I hasten to add that I do not presumptively dismiss as valueless what is not scientific).

A lot of archaeology and anthropology is interpretative. Same with psychology, sociology, zoology, economics, large parts of astronomy and biology... Falsifiability isn't always (or even often) a useful way to approach these fields, and insisting upon it will simply force scholars misrepresenting their work.

 

[Berzerker]

Yes, and I'm saying that given the evidence mentioned in that paragraph I quoted, mainstream opinion has shifted back to the "humans are the key ingredient here" idea even in the case of the North American extinctions. Six or seven years ago when I was in Archaeology 101 they were telling us the Younger Dryas was the main culprit.

Did those other extinctions result in significantly declining human populations?

http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2009AGUFMPP31D1382A

While the causes of the YD remain controversial, a human population decline appears to have occurred, at least across parts of North America. Furthermore, the YD onset is associated with the abrupt replacement of Clovis by regional or subregional scale cultural traditions, potentially reflecting decreased range mobility and increased population isolation.

Now thats from 2009 but unless new data refutes it the Younger Dryas was killing us off too

 

[Lexicus]

A lot of archaeology and anthropology is interpretative. Same with psychology, sociology, zoology, economics, large parts of astronomy and biology... Falsifiability isn't always (or even often) a useful way to approach these fields, and insisting upon it will simply force scholars misrepresenting their work.

Which parts of astronomy or biology are interpretative? Why do you seem to think that an interpretative approach cannot yield any falsifiable propositions?

 

[Traitorfish]

Which parts of astronomy or biology are interpretative?

Insofar as astronomers and biologists are frequently working with data too partial and too imperfect to make strictly logical deductions.

Why do you seem to think that an interpretative approach cannot yield any falsifiable propositions?

It might, but we can't demand that it will. Falseability is useful when it gives you a definite claim to build experiments around, but not all fields work like that. Say that archaeologists are working on what they believe was some sort of ritual centre: how do we pose "we think this was a ritual centre" as a falsifiable claim, beyond simply acknowledging that an overwhelming number of finds inconsistent with interpretation would force reconsideration? It's not clear how we could build a research program around that. But that doesn't mean that the claim "this was a ritual centre" is illegitimate, it just means that the standards of rigour we apply to this claim have to be based on what the evidence can reasonably be expected to allow, not on an Platonic ideal of scholarship.

 

[Lexicus]

Insofar as astronomers and biologists are frequently working with data too partial and too imperfect to make strictly logical deductions.

To me this seems to suggest that what you are thinking of is more akin to mathematical rigor than falsifiability as such.

How do we pose "we think this was a ritual centre" as a falsifiable claim, beyond simply acknowledging that an overwhelming number of finds inconsistent with interpretation would force reconsideration?

"An overwhelming number of finds inconsistent with this interpretation can change the interpretation" means the interpretation is falsifiable as far as I'm concerned.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

<Mary quickly googles "average salary for bank vice president">
<Compares her salary to search results from 2013>
<Sees she makes 72% of average>
<cries>

Cue the usual outcry of "a single anecdote doesn't disprove my theory, which is absolutely unsupported by even a single anecdote but I spout as if it were fact."

PS...don't cry. As ugly as economic reality crafted by the despicable might be, it's not worth the emotion. Engage with the beauty instead.

 

[Traitorfish]

To me this seems to suggest that what you are thinking of is more akin to mathematical rigor than falsifiability as such.
...
"An overwhelming number of finds inconsistent with this interpretation can change the interpretation" means the interpretation is falsifiable as far as I'm concerned.

If we're using "falsifiable" in such a broad sense, if we're accepting that "to be made to appear highly improbable" is functionally equivalent to "falsified", then what is this artillery that we're supposedly bringing against pop-evopysch? I haven't much doubt that advocates of pop-evopsych could frame their claims such to meet these criteria; I wouldn't be surprised if they already do, since pop-evopsych is basically a cargo cult to begin with.

 

[adcarrymaokai]

<Mary quickly googles "average salary for bank vice president">
<Compares her salary to search results from 2013>
<Sees she makes 72% of average>
<cries>

Do you think you could bring it up and ask for a raise? If you are VP level, surely you are important enough for them to give you more money (I hope). You deserve market rate.

 

[Peuri]

Again, this has nothing whatever to do with my point, which was a refutation of methodological individualism and not an argument about how peaceful or violent pre-agricultural societies were.

Maybe I jumped the gun in my first post, eagerly trying to point out that the hunter-gatherers were not very pleasant either. But this back and forth makes me seriously at a loss at what constitutes the "majority" of the things that I said that were "simply untrue". It seems that the only bone of contention is the amount of violence in hunter-gatherer societies. The possible value of evolutionary psychology to understanding our ancestors, and even ourselves in the end is immense. Rather than evolutionary psychology that claims to explain why a society does X, men wear pants or what ever, claims that are often rife with ethnocentrism, the more pressing questions where I see immense value is with things like how and why do people form groups from an evolutionary perspective, and how the evolution of such things affects our ways of thinking in the present.

On the other hand, a society where "women secretly want to be raped and men are biologically hardwired to be thoughtless killing machines" is considered a legitimate scientific assertion may be a more interesting place to live, but not very pleasant.

I'm not sure who is claiming such things, but such questions should be posed nevertheless, and most likely discarded eventually. But even if it were true, we do not have to be drones to our biological predispositions. I would even contend that knowing about such effects of our biological nature on our cognition would allow us to intervene in situations such as that more effectively. If it were true, and it was known, a society would certainly be more pleasant, than a society where such things were true and going on, and no one knew why.

It's almost always because people are spouting reactionary drivel derived from evolutionary psychology. I wouldn't care to speculate about the intent of individuals working in that field, but it's difficult to avoid the impression that most of the field's work consists of attempting to give scientific credibility to the basic postulates of conservatism

It would be interesting to see a study about the political leanings of the field, but like most academic fields, I would suspect in leans to the "left". For me it's difficult to avoid the impression that most of the "studies" field's work consists of attempting to give scientific credibility to the basic postulates of the American "progressives". Either way, a study that happens to end up supporting some political view or the other, shouldn't be buried under heaps of moral condemnation. It should be buried under heaps of dispassionate criticism.

But that's exactly what happens to feminist theory as well. What has feminist research to say about, say, the wage gap? Quite a lot of sensible things actually. But what will you read about the wage gap on the internet? "77 cents per dollar for the exact same job!" and similar nonsense that has nothing at all to do with the actual research. Well, not as much these days because the wage gap as presented by these idiots has been debunked 100³ times, but that used to be the common thing you'd hear from feminists.

The way information from the scientific community drips into the mainstream is via clickbait-y headlines and selective statistics drawn from the most extreme papers that people will believe because it fits their ideological narrative. That's the problem, and it's a problem for pretty much all scientific fields.

Yes and the unequal pay for equal work narrative even derails the real reasons behind the very real earnings gap, which is the unequal amount of time fathers and mothers spend with children, the gender roles which end up segregating the job market and that women spend more time in part time jobs. While there is undoubtedly still sexism in wages, those are the real reasons behind the earnings gap being that large, all of which are discussed by gender studies scholars and those are the problems into which policy should be directed, instead of worrying about how much upper middle classed BBC presenters make. Interestingly there isn't much talk about the possible wealth gap, which I suspect is even larger than the wage gap.

 

[Lexicus]

but like most academic fields, I would suspect in leans to the "left".

Where "left" is defined as Steven Pinker & co, sure.

If we're using "falsifiable" in such a broad sense, if we're accepting that "to be made to appear highly improbable" is functionally equivalent to "falsified", then what is this artillery that we're supposedly bringing against pop-evopysch? I haven't much doubt that advocates of pop-evopsych could frame their claims such to meet these criteria; I wouldn't be surprised if they already do, since pop-evopsych is basically a cargo cult to begin with.

Most pop-evopsych, as you put it, takes its postulates about human nature first and then goes about rationalizing them. This means that any set of facts will be adduced in a way that it appears to justify the postulates.

 

[Peuri]

Most pop-evopsych, as you put it, takes its postulates about human nature first and then goes about rationalizing them. This means that any set of facts will be adduced in a way that it appears to justify the postulates.

Isn't that what history as a discipline does also when trying to explain historical phenomenon? It takes a historical phenomenon first, and then goes about trying to rationalize it through source material.

 

[Lexicus]

Isn't that what history as a discipline does also when trying to explain historical phenomenon? It takes a historical phenomenon first, and then goes about trying to rationalize it through source material.

Good history doesn't.