#evolutionary psychology is bullshit

[uramitashi]

women really do need better class consciousness.

before you are religious, before you are a citizen of your nation, before you are anything else; you are a woman. your identity is complex but womahood is one of its first pillars. and womanhood is so important because so strictly tied, during her whole existence, to her implications: the ability to reproduce and the relative independence (ie: not having to desperately find another mate to pass on your genes + developing a physiological selectiveness) coming from it. female objectification, sex work, misogyny, female modesty, FGM, everything that hurts women stems from it. males want to control women sexuality because of it. it is therefore natural that womanhood is ontologically more important than any other label - because if you neglect it, others will surely not.

[sillyfreakx5]

watching evolutionary psychology presentations on youtube really is a gamble, because sometimes you'll get genuinely fascinating insights into why some things may be the way they are and other times you'll get the most insane bioessentialist sexist shit ever

[soryualeksi]

"We should have tested whether the women participants scored better in this [test of observation of changing details in a movie] than the men. I mean, it's basic evolution. Men needed the tunnel vision during thell hunt, while women needed to keep a wide overview over the home cave."

I'm trapped in a fucking Mario Barth routine.

EDIT: Found out that the issue HAS been studied, gender differences in inattentional blindness I mean, and NO gender differences have been found. Fucker.

[tigerdragon1001]

Oh I am excited to watch this

Get their asses

[raygender]

My bioanth professor keeps giving us awful takes to read and pick apart and I love every assignment. She's really encouraging us to demonstrate our learning by just really tearing into some really bad-faith historical controversies and it feels like the grad student equivalent of zookeepers filling a pumpkin with ground beef and chucking it into the tiger enclosure.

[transmutationisms]

like in general if someone making a political argument is claiming their opponents are less evolved or evolutionarily regressing that should just immediately set off your bullshit alarms like that's extremely naive scientism at best and more likely specifically grounded in blatant anthropological racism. there is something to be said for cultivating a sceptical kneejerk response toward lots of different 'science-sounding' justifications of things you already believe but these evolutionary psychological sorts of cultural comparisons in particular are really just bad. wrong across the board and openly reactionary. using the terms of evolution etc should not make you more credulous toward them. the opposite in fact

[genderkoolaid]

okay everyone should go watch münecat's new video essay on disproving evolutionary psychology. it's focused on gender/sex/sexuality. she's both very funny and very thorough in explaining the problems with this "science" & with the scientific field in general. & god we desperately need to root this bullshit out in our society, especially in (trans)feminist spaces.

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

So there's this fallacy that's super-easy to fall into, of assuming that the end result of an ability existing means that there must have been evolutionary pressures for that specific ability in the past. Like, assuming that our five-fingered hands being perfect for typing on keyboards means that there must have been evolutionary pressure for keyboard-typing among our ancestors.

Maybe yeerks have the ability to talk to each other mind-to-mind because they're a social species, and then they discovered that that talking-through-fluids ability gives them the ability to override brains that exist in fluid. Maybe yeerks and gedds evolved simultaneously, but then split off from each other and left yeerks with most of the mental abilities while gedds kept most of the physical ones. Those are possibilities, given the end result.

I would say, your response to an ask saying Seerow "taught the Yeerks Andalite Imperialism" feels a BIT like putting too much blame on Seerow. From what we know, all he gave the Yeerks was the tech to go to other plants. Them deciding to conquer other species never seemed like something they got from him....though, now I DO wonder what got the Yeerks on their path to conquest? Like, I feel like there's a legit interesting story about how they went from Simply being able to go to other planets to mind controlling other races. Especially since they may not have even known they COULD brainwash other races. After all, the Geds were a species they had a symbiotic relationship with. How in the world did they figure out they could control other species too?

There was an excellent fic (which I must find but can't remember the title or author) that speculated that the yeerks were originally scavengers, until a living gedd fell into a pond and a yeerk discovered the ability to crawl into its ear and control it. From then on yeerks would sometimes ride around in gedds for a few hours or days at at time, then exit back to their pools when they got hungry, but there was no philosophy behind it. Their rationalization for this was as nonexistent as the tapeworm's rationalization for starving a human. It just happened on occasion, mostly by luck.

However, (as Aftran points out) humans went from hunters to factory-farmers, and invented elaborate justifications for that decision. And yeerks at some point went from using gedds as an occasional opportunity to hunt or joy-ride, to having a whole culture built around enslaving other species. My argument is that Seerow may have played a role in building that justification, however accidentally.

Sort of like how it'd be both false and racist to say that Europe taught Japan imperialism, but it is true (and part of the historical record) that Japan moved to conquer Korea and China because its government deduced that imperialism was the way to compete in this new global world. Japan's imperialism wouldn't exist without England's, even though neither country invented the idea of invading other countries to kill the locals and steal their resources. Yeerks' imperialism wouldn't exist without andalites', even though no one told yeerks to enslave their hosts.

[aleksanderscult]

What kind of "Alina" did Aleksander want?

I've seen so many different people in this fandom give their own opinion about how did the Darkling wanted Alina to be.

Did he wanted her meek, weak and obedient?

Did he wanted her strong and powerful?

So I took the liberty of creating this post to analyze this issue through his own words, thoughts and actions.

I know how popular the "Aleksander wanted her submissive by the way he put that collar around her" theory is but it doesn't really stand because:

A) we will never know how things would turn out if Baghra didn't approach Alina that particular night but it actually seems that he wanted to take her with him to the north.

“The key to the Shadow Fold is finally within our grasp, and right now, I should be in the war room, hearing their report. I should be planning our trip north. But I’m not, am I?”

He couldn't keep the truth from her forever so at some point of that journey he would definitely spill the beans to her.

B) he forcefully put the collar around her throat because she showed resistance at the worst possible moment. The Darkling had already set the wheels in motion: the King was slowly getting sick and the whole country (and most importantly, their enemies) would know it (so he had to work fast before anybody got any ideas of siege, rebellion or war) and he himself would have to show his true colors and plans. By having Alina slip away and act all dramatically with Mal was a blow to his plan and stomach since not only he had Alina as an enemy now but he fell for her so her rejection hurt him on a personal level.

(that weekend MUST have been the worst of his life)

He didn't want her to take that power unwillingly:

Or steal her powers in a violent manner:

He had little time and little patience. He worked his ass off for centuries and tolerated so much bullshit from the monarchs. He wouldn't allow her to foil his schemes. But it's also interesting how his feelings got in the way too and, therefore, acted impulsively.

But! How did he want her?

Well, the very fact that he grew up around a very strong, powerful and stubborn woman is an answer by itself. Baghra's influence definitely played its part if you look at this from a psychological point of view.

“It seems that most men are after a significant other that will essentially replace their mum.

A recent study by eHarmony has found that 64 percent of men are in a relationship with someone who shares significant personality traits with their mother. Fortunately, it’s totally normal from an evolutionary, psychological standpoint.”

Many studies have shown that plenty of men and women search a partner that resembles their mother and father respectively.

It wouldn't be surprising if Aleksander was the same given how many centuries he spent with his own mother and how much of an influence the latter was to her son in his childhood.

There is an abundant amount of proof in the books that Aleksander wanted Alina to be strong, powerful, to embrace her true self and believed that there was more to her.

He thought of her as someone like him and could see himself in her, no matter how much Alina denied it.

Baghra raised him to value power, so seeing Alina shy away from it is strange and peculiar to him. She has the chance to change everything and she seeks things that are beneath her. Aleksander can't fathom that because he doesn't believe that she's meant for something as simple and pathetic as this.

He chastises her for the choices she makes and the wishes she has. She was destined to shine and be seen and here we are watching a girl trying to hide her potential.

If Aleksander wanted her submissive he would be glad to see her state in the beginning of S&S. She's weak, right? So a perfect victim to have that can't fight him back. But, in fact, he's furious, disappointed and unsurprised with her state.

Aleksander never wanted her meek or weak. He even admired her stubborness:

(there is a sense of admiration and annoyance here)

BUT he never wanted that stubborness and ferocity to be directed against him:

He even thought of her better than the men that surrounded her and believed that they couldn't measure up to her power:

The aftermath of their battle in the chapel is extremely interesting because we see the Darkling showing a genuine admiration for her powers and how quickly she (sort of) mastered them:

It also seemed that he showed understanding for the fact that she wanted to keep her freedom. Now that was a very good reason to fight him in his eyes. Since the Darkling himself believed in freedom and fought for it.

And, of course, he offered her a throne at his side. He didn't mind sharing power as long as she wasn't an obstacle to his plans.

He strongly believed in equality between them and according to the author he envisioned a future with her:

In order to have someone to keep your power under control then that person needs to be as powerful as you.

And then we have him at his most vulnerable state confess that he didn't lie about equality after all:

He talked about equality again and again. His disgust and anger every time he saw her weak from not using her powers was prevalent as well as his admiration every time she used her powers to their fullest.

The only thing in which he found her inferior to him was her knowledge of power. Which is understandable since Aleksander had much more time to understand it, study it and use it.

In RoW, his anger and disappointment for her state continues.

So:

1) He believed that she could rule as Queen and her life in hiding is not right for her.

2) He believed that she was meant to be powerful and strong and stood by that statement many times.

3) Didn't consider her life a worthy life at all.

The only character in the Grishaverse, the one that people keep saying that she wanted her weak, was the only one that wanted the opposite for her and considered her fate disgusting, wrong and tragic.

His plan of having Alina on an equal stand beside him continued in this book as well:

Which means that he wasn't lying when he said that he didn't intend to make a slave of her.

And of course her stubborness was a trait that he found annoying and admiring at the same time. It showcased how strong-willed she really was:

So according to his own thoughts and words, I would say that Aleksander actually admired her fierceness and determination. It showed strength and he found it attractive. In fact, it probably even enhanced his conviction that she was the right partner for him.

But he didn't want that hostility to be directed against him and his plans. Which is not weird at all because what kind of person would like someone to screw up his goals.

In conclusion: Aleksander was actually the biggest fan of "powerful Alina".

[alpaca-clouds]

The Bogus Science Of "Evolutionary Psychology"

Let me talk about the bogus science that makes me most angry right now. Because it is so fucking bogus and a lot of people actually take it at least somewhat correctly: Evolutionary psychology.

Of course, like most unscientific stuff it is mostly employed on the right, but a lot of people who are more left wing and progressive still do not know how to respond to it. Especially as the evolutionary psychologists do have scientific publications to point to that they managed to push out (often in some rather bad science publications, but most people are unable to tell). And partly because psychology as a field of science has a big issue right now - but I will talk abou that problem tomorrow. Today I am going to talk about evolutionary psychology and why it is bullshit.

Basically, evolutionary psychology more or less tries to explain human behavior in terms of evolution. They look at human behavior and psychology and go like: "Oh, this must have happened as an evolutionary adaption to X."

There are some issues about this, though. With the main issue being that evolutionary psychology acting as if western culture was somehow natural and engrained into the human behavior, rather than being culture.

Let's be very clear about thing: Most of those "evolutionary psychology" grifters are hyperfixated on human sexual behavior, and in that they tell on themselves in more than one way.

If you ever heard those pick up artists talk about "high value men/women", it is actually language that partially originates with evolutionary psychology. Because in that they show both their misogyny, and their lack in understanding of one simple fact: Humans biologically are not monogamous animals.

See, when they go about it, they act as if for humans mating it was a thing they did for life and they needed to hence properly choose the right partner, because it was important for breeding. (Yes, this sounds wrong for humans, I am sorry.) And hence humans developed mating patterns.

But... That is not how humans biologically evolved. Humans did not evolve for a monogamous pair of one man and one woman to mate for life and then with only the two of them raise their children.

Humans have evolved to live in small to medium sized groups, in which people had sex for various reasons, and would raise any resulting children as the group - rather than just the biological parents being responsible for the child. From all we know about sexual behavior in humans (mostly by watching apes), human sexuality has evolved to smooth social dynamics more than anything. That is why the non-ace folks among us crave sex even outside of situations that allowed for pregnancy.

And it should be said, that there is a lot of biological and evolutionary evidence that generally this is something that happens with a lot of the species of higher intelligence. Because it seems that the more intelligent a species gets the less likely they are to procreate without generally getting a massive boost to their horniness.

And yet, those evolutionary psychologists do ignore all of that. They will also generally act as if patriarchy is natural to the animal species of humans. And that is... Well, an issue.

Outside of that: If you have like 3 hours, watch this video on the topic. It is actually pretty great.

[savefrog]

Dude the human body is crazy

That post about T giving you too much blood, and how thats a genetic condition passed down mainly through cis men (hemachromatosis). And how its a risk for going on T because someone can have inherited the gene but not know until going on T triggers the issues. I need to do more research, because I cant find a lot of information on how it reacts to T (besides it often resulting in lower T), but it almost looks like the body gets T and is like "Oh cool we're going dude mode now, heres that condition you were missing!"

Makes me think of how people who have had a hysterectomy can still experience the menstruation cycle even without a Uterus. Like PMS and the soreness and bloating associated with cramps. And its hard to find research on because its a newly recorded phenomenon with a lot of bias against it, but trans women on E may also experience a monthly cycle (PMS and the soreness and bloating associated with cramps) even without a Uterus as well. The body gets estrogen and is like "oh sick i know what to do with this! Pain!!!!!"

Like it really drives in how the human body is made of analogous structures. The reproductive system is all the same parts, just given different instructions. The clitoris can get erections! Hormones can change BONES even though its limited! (Horomonal changes also affect the bones during menopause for example, something archaeologists or forensic scientists can notice)

And speaking of, that whole thing about "when archaeologists see your skeleton THEN they will know" is bullshit! (ON SO MANY LEVELS)! Sex determination with bones is typically based on the measurement of literally ONE bone. And the field of archaeology has, for quite some time, acknowledged how innaccurate this can be. (And honestly, this assumption shows a lack of science knowledge in general, where in my experience researchers like to lean more towards "probably" rather than "definitely" when making ANY kind of assertion about something because there are ALWAYS EXCEPTIONS!)

Thanks to X-rays, we have classifications for different types of pelvis shapes. Do you know what may cause someone to have a C-section???? Having an Android (or "male-shaped") pelvis. Yes. A cis woman LITERALLY GIVING BIRTH, may have a pelvic shape that is labeled as having a masculine shape. AND IT IS NOT THAT RARE!!!! (A brief search says 20% of cis women)

But consider that people usually only get X-rays or other scans when absolutely needed. There could be so much more overlap that we arent even aware of. Things that are "rare instances" may not be that rare. We arent analyzing the dna of every person in existence, we only see what we are looking for and research has only just opened up past our cultural biases towards gender!

We know from studies of the brain that a lot of gendered assumptions (women are good at sorting colors because they were gatherers, etc) are not well-defined AT ALL. A lot of it may be learned during development. There are some stereotyped trends, but they're just small percentage trends such that its impossible to look at a brain and 100% say "yup thats male!", only at the most "well, statistically, its Slightly More Likely male" and still be very wrong. Exceptions are the NORM.

(And that whole evolutionary psychology thing of "women are better at colors because gatherers?"...based on what ancestors?!?!?!?!? Different groups of ancient people had different gender norms!!! There wasn't just one big caveman family for the entire paleolithic!!!! There are SO MANY recorded remains of what are most likely female hunters!!!!! Why would they not take advantage of having MORE HUNTERS during a hunting season?!?!!)

"Its simple biology" is quite possibly the most ignorant statement one can make, its a paradox. Biology is INHERENTLY complex, varied, and difficult to categorize. If you say it's simple even just for the sake of categorization, you are literally admitting to not knowing SHIT. Ask anyone into taxonomy. Categorizing animals seems easy if youve never actually done it, and meanwhile there are appparently heated debates on river dolphin teeth and whether or not river dolphins with no visible differences except slightly different teeth are different species or not. Birds are reptiles!!! Everything is a fucking fish!!!! Rigid thought based on societal bias is antithetical to science (though it has SURE affected science!)

Its that bias where the less you know about something, the easier you think it is. Someone may think they already know everything about a topic if they never actually researched it because they dont know whats out there. Whereas someone actually knowledgeable in that field KNOWS that its complicated and feels LESS like they know everything about it. Cis people who have never thought deeply about gender THINK it is simple because they lack any experience. They THINK its the same as they believed in preschool because they never challenged it - when everything else you learn in grade school is obviously simplified!!!

Its so blatantly apparent how little transphobes want to actually consider facts. Its all "just ask a biologist" until real biologists tell them its complex, then its "science is woke". They'll talk about gender all day and yet mock anyone actually studying it. It's all about rigid definitions, until someone tells them the literal definition of gender makes it seperate from sex. They pretend to care so much about the literal definitions of words and what you can and can't call something due to biology...but still call a seastar a "starFISH".

The WORLD is amorphous! Words are merely tools! Biology hates rigid categorization! EXCEPTIONS ARE THE NORM! live your damn life!

[rockscanfly]

i think "dark empath" is genuinely the stupidest fucking thing i've heard of this year. this is not a clinical term. this is a horking pile of fucking nothing. who raised you. all of the articles are recursive fluff that cite one another and its so steeped in 'evolutionary psychology' pseudo-scientific bullshit that i'd be surprised if jordan perterson didn't use the printed articles to jack himself off regularly

be serious, please

[helenofsimblr]

This... is precisely why you should not trust the mainstream media. About ANYTHING, because they are lying fuck-bastards!!

We will just totally ignore multiple evolutionary physical and psychological advantages that men actually posses over the average woman: Literally 5,600 genetic differences that all manifest physically, biochemically, and/or psychologically all point to men being better at hunting and killing. Including but not limited to.... Strength, speed, stamina, vision and coordination.

Next time you see the words to the effect of: "Experts warn" "Experts say" "Experts reveal." or my personal favourite "Top Scientists..." You can be sure these "experts" or "top scientists" are either talking bullshit or they are being widely misquoted.

Next we'll see an article claiming that pre historic men were probably better at breast feeding than women!

[skylordhorus]

evolutionary psychology is one of those things that isnt inherently bad; the brain is the body and hypothesising as to why we may think or feel things in an effort to understand the organ that is so important but we know little about is valuable imo. what may cause fears? why may depression exist? etc

however it has been so poisoned by bullshit (often abt men vs women) that just mentioning it is a red flag for people, and thats a fucking damn shame

[maddaddamwasright]

Just chipping in here to say that evo-psych is largely misogynist BS. The Srsly Wrong podcast has good episodes going in to the details about this:

There are plenty of cultural explanations for this behavior - why even bring evolution into this?

Still the best gaming fact.

[gemsofthegalaxy]

watching munecat's long ass video on why evolutionary psychology is bullshit

even in my BA of psych i knew evo psych was mostly all garbage but like how it is even science at all? it's all untestable theories like we cannot go back in time and verify exactly how our ancestors lived, even our understanding of history a few 100 years ago isn't necessarily bulletproof, you know. and like.

if your theory is women generally pick mates that will be good husbands and fathers. how.. does that account for lesbians? women who don't want children? women who don't like sex? like. maybe on average most women want kids and yeah um duuuuuuuh they would probably want to pick someone who will be a good parent to have the children with but like. there are so many other potential desires that don't have anything to do with that?