Hasn’t evolutionary psychology been heavily debunked at this point?
I think it’s much easier to say that dudes have it hammered into their heads that girls are bad at games, so when they underperform and a girl is on their team, they feel emasculated. This isn’t too far off from when dudes end up losing their ‘bread winner’ status in their relationship. They were told they had explicit traits to exhibit and they failed to do so, so it hits them in their self esteem. Classic fragile masculinity.
Patriarchal conditioning makes way more sense than “caveman brain HATE competing with woman!”.
I tend to think the social angle is more credible Because the behavior of being a dick to female-sounding voices in games is not a universal behavior. Those who aren’t misogynists don’t act that way. How strange.
The entire field of evolutionary psychology debunked? Do you mean the idea that our brains are subject to evolutionary forces like every other part of our anatomy? No, not debunked.
This is conflating specific methodological problems with theoretical claims. Yes, many have criticized the game theoretical methodology typical of evolutionary psychology. There are a lot of highly speculative junk claims out there. It’s also true that some (not all or even most!) cognitive scientists think that we cannot take the perspective that psychology evolved at all. But it is certainly untrue that there is some consensus that evolutionary psychology has been “debunked”.
This criticism is also a bit ironic given the highly speculative nature of the claims you put forward. Your guess sounds plausible I suppose, but I see no reason to think it’s any more methodologically rigorous.
That’s not how science works. I understand that you’re trying to criticize the field, but lack of predictions, even reliable ones, is not itself a problem it has. For one thing, even false theories can make reliable predictions, like Levoisier’s defunct theory of caloric in the 18th century which has now been replaced by modern thermodynamics. The caloric theory can be used to make mathematically accurate predictions, but the underlying theory is still wrong.
Similarly, evo psych can make a lot of reliable predictions without saying anything true. On the contrary, one criticism of the field is that it’s unfalsifiable because an evolutionary theory can always (allegedly) be proposed to fit the data. Which is to say, you’re barking up the wrong tree.
One example: it is proposed that the fusiform face area of the brain is a domain specific module evolved for face detection. It’s present in other animals that recognize conspecifics by their face. In humans, damage to the area leads to face specific agnosia. The theory makes accurate predictions, but is it true? It’s still being debated.
Hasn’t evolutionary psychology been heavily debunked at this point?
I think it’s much easier to say that dudes have it hammered into their heads that girls are bad at games, so when they underperform and a girl is on their team, they feel emasculated. This isn’t too far off from when dudes end up losing their ‘bread winner’ status in their relationship. They were told they had explicit traits to exhibit and they failed to do so, so it hits them in their self esteem. Classic fragile masculinity.
Patriarchal conditioning makes way more sense than “caveman brain HATE competing with woman!”.
It’s not without a good heap of criticism, that’s for damn sure.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_evolutionary_psychology
I tend to think the social angle is more credible Because the behavior of being a dick to female-sounding voices in games is not a universal behavior. Those who aren’t misogynists don’t act that way. How strange.
The entire field of evolutionary psychology debunked? Do you mean the idea that our brains are subject to evolutionary forces like every other part of our anatomy? No, not debunked.
This is conflating specific methodological problems with theoretical claims. Yes, many have criticized the game theoretical methodology typical of evolutionary psychology. There are a lot of highly speculative junk claims out there. It’s also true that some (not all or even most!) cognitive scientists think that we cannot take the perspective that psychology evolved at all. But it is certainly untrue that there is some consensus that evolutionary psychology has been “debunked”.
This criticism is also a bit ironic given the highly speculative nature of the claims you put forward. Your guess sounds plausible I suppose, but I see no reason to think it’s any more methodologically rigorous.
Show me a prediction it makes
That’s not how science works. I understand that you’re trying to criticize the field, but lack of predictions, even reliable ones, is not itself a problem it has. For one thing, even false theories can make reliable predictions, like Levoisier’s defunct theory of caloric in the 18th century which has now been replaced by modern thermodynamics. The caloric theory can be used to make mathematically accurate predictions, but the underlying theory is still wrong.
Similarly, evo psych can make a lot of reliable predictions without saying anything true. On the contrary, one criticism of the field is that it’s unfalsifiable because an evolutionary theory can always (allegedly) be proposed to fit the data. Which is to say, you’re barking up the wrong tree.
One example: it is proposed that the fusiform face area of the brain is a domain specific module evolved for face detection. It’s present in other animals that recognize conspecifics by their face. In humans, damage to the area leads to face specific agnosia. The theory makes accurate predictions, but is it true? It’s still being debated.
Yeah, the problem is it slips too easily into essentialism. “Oh we evolved this way, nothing we can do about it I guess ¯\_(ツ)_/¯”
Especially for questions like this, which could pretty easily be explained by cultural influences, no need to bring evolution into it.