Maybe, but your behavior on this forum now makes sense to me. Your constant attempts of attacking individuals instead of using reason and evidence to make a point/claim is now evident. Your inability to use reason in these discussions is also heavenly associated with your religious belief, you lack the ability to view issues objectively.

I use reason and evidence to make points all the time. I'm sorry they don't agree with you and that smearing and mislabeling my arguments is all you have left.

Yes, this is the response I would expect. You are completely unaware of some of the negative behaviors you exhibit. You are unintentionally giving into intuition and misinterpreting/misc characterizing peoples views and coming to erroneous conclusions, you constantly commit straw man arguments unintentionally.

I could explain why you do this from a psychological perspective but I would rather not, I will tell you what I tell everyone one else. Try and use more critical thinking, even when you think you are using critical thinking, try some more!

You just took another L

Wookie has successfully taken another thread in to the gutter. He can't do it by himself, he needs a dance partner. itshotinvegas is absent and had no self control. don't be his sloppy seconds

Yes, if you read that quote literally, it would seem that the author is making an outrageous claim. Do you think he intended to be interpreted in that literal of a fashion though? That there're people in the field who think NOTHING we do has a biological component, including the way we experience hunger or basic emotions? I think you're choosing to be uncharitable because you want to find something to pick at.

They don't suffer in the same way at all.

Biologists are limited in that they can't make claims about complex behaviors because we don't perfectly understand he interplay between culture and biology. Sociology doesn't have those limitations because the studies aren't held to clinical standards, and instead it suffers from a general lack of rigor. These are different deficiencies.

A biologists work is not undermined by lack of exposure to sociological theories as long as they recognize the limitations of their research. A sociologist who's ignorant of biological processes, however, is almost completely useless in determining the causes of human behavior and is better seen as an historian of human behavior.

Only if you don't have genuine convictions about the divine nature of scripture, revelation or institutions. In which case what does it even mean to be a Christian? That you think it's a good set of beliefs for OTHER people to believe? That a given bureaucracy is effective at helping people manage their lives? In that sense we can be both Christians, muslims, hindus and Buddhists all at the same time.

Or does it mean you attend services who celebrate a series of beliefs and convictions that you don't actually identify with because you think you're getting some kind of tertiary benefit?

Sorry to interrupt your circlejerk

Yes. And as a general rule, when authors of an academic journal article define a term and provide citations for the definition, I believe they intend the definition to be taken at face value ~100% of the time. I don't believe I've ever seen a counter-example to this.

I also don't see why you think it's outrageous to define terms like cultural determinism and biological determinism, or to use "blank slate" as way of referring to cultural determinism. But it is clear that your reaction is predicated on your incredulity at the idea. In any case, the terms are well defined and fairly widely used over a long period of time. I don't think you should take your lack of familiarity with them as evidence that they can't possibly mean what the authors say they mean.

Evolutionary psychology has cropped up in some threads recently, including this one. When it has been brought up, it has been largely misunderstood. So I thought I'd link a decent primer on what evolutionary psychology is. It's a bit old, but holds up well enough and it is short and concise.

https://www.cep.ucsb.edu/primer.html

It's important to understand that evolutionary psychology is very rarely (if at all) about studies, rather it is a way to understand psychology. One of the opening sentences from the primer says it well:

This is largely correct. Studies in psychology aren't really grounded in evolutionary psychology, psychology as a research field is tends to focus on proximate causes. EP is more an approach to discuss studies than to perform them.

It also brings up a point I made earlier in the thread:

I was thinking about this earlier, but the distinction didn't seem too important to the overall disagreement with folks like poker phenom so I didn't sweat it too much. Plus I'm much less familiar with methods in evolutionary psychology. So thanks for the link!

P.S.

Surely they don't mean this to be taken literally

For people that want to understand this topic more. Robert Sapolsky has 25 lectures on youtube. I have not watched the lectures, but I did watch the first lecture and he brought up free will so he probably understands what he is talking about. The point I am making is that nature/nurture both contribute to behaviors humans exhibit. What I am pushing back against is the people that make claims that biology/evolution has no impact contributing to complex human behaviors, or differences we see between genders male/female.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNnIGh9g6fA

2+2 I wish I knew how to quit you.

Yes, I am currently watching the lectures myself. With that said, I know where he is taking this discussion and I don't feel bad recommending it.

That was perhaps a bit overly poetic.

But "tabula rasa" theories were popular in psychology well into the 30s, and the view was instrumental in shaping both behaviorism and positivism, the reigning field and reigning methodology of psychology at the time.

But by the 30s they started taking an interest in minds again, instead of ignoring them. And ofcourse in the 50s we got advances in science regarding DNA, and suddenly it was all about the person. Poor behaviorists.

Just to riff on some of my comments about specialization again, I also enjoy it when different fields come to broadly similar conclusions, but with very different approaches and intellectual histories. From the article:

The ensuing discussion reminds me also of some classic texts in sociology and anthropology, e.g. Mauss' The Gift, or Malinowski's ethnography of Kula ring exchange. What I find satisfying is being able to combine insights that come from all these different approaches to thinking about the underlying phenomena. It goes to what I said before about different paradigms in turn clarifying different features, e.g. one approach might emphasize adaptive processes and evolutionary architecture, while another will highlight the importance of status seeking in human social behavior.

There's a Vox interview with the main author.

Some itshotinvegas bait:

It's not really bait, I'm sure everyone recognizes most of the people who stand on moral principal for purposes other than morality. I do no think it's "status", as much as it's selfish validation to quell connotative dissonance, or insecurity. The morality these people cling to only keeps them in denial of their inadequacies.

To be clear I didn't mean "bait" to be insulting. It just made me think of you and smile.

I think you might underrate the connection between insecurity and social status.

I did not take it that way. With that said, I disagree, in this context. In the type of people we are talking about, in their case I find ideology to be a manifestation of dogma, and that will invariably lead to warped world views, and ultimately isolation to a sub-group that shares those warped views. Social status is not their concern (they tend to think they are popular, even when they are not). To me, this issue goes to how someone thinks. There is no amount of information or social change that will change how they think (outside some serious psychological intervention, to which has shown to be mostly futile).


There are some people who join a cause for social standing, and participate in the dogmatic crap, for sure, but those folks, at some point realize it, and adjust based on more knowledge and wisdom. Obviously, those kind of people tend to be younger.

Actually, I think history has shown time and time again that a critical % of people who join groups initially as a means of social seeking status, will allow themselves to become radicalized by the dogma as a means of not losing the status.

Ironically, white supremacist recruiters (among recruiters of other extremist ideologies, such as radical Islam and Nazis circa 1930s) are/were well aware of of this and very adept at manipulating young male insecurity to their ends.

The reality is, most of them will walk away from it. Much easier to get involved today, but also easier to walk away from it, as well. I would guesstimate about 10% of those who get involved are true radicals, and even less of them would take action, outside bigoted/dogmatic statements.

When it is all done anonymously over the internet I agree. I was actually listening to some podcast (I dont even reminder whose) who pointed out that public shaming of the variety that is en vogue now actually has the effect of driving people into extremism. Which is a (IMO valid) criticism of the whole white privilege narrative. By accusing someone of being morally inferior due to the orginal sin of their melanin pigmentation, and offering no road to redemption, you may be promoting the exact behavior you supposedly are trying to correct.

This is so far away from what is meant by white privilege that it's barely even close enough to be a strawman. Nobody thinks white people are "morally inferior" because of the colour of their skin. The whole concept is simply that given two people placed into identical circumstances life will almost always be easier/simpler for the white person (assuming a western/white majority country) than for the person of colour.

Literally the only point of the phrase is to try to help people understand that others in similar situations to them have a harder life simply because of the colour of their skin. There might have been better ways of phrasing the concept but as is it's no more pejorative than saying someone born into a rich family is privileged.

Perhaps, but there is a certain prevalence of popular articles in mainstream media that say stuff like. "Why white people..." followed by things like "think", "like", "don't" and whatnot. And if you inserted another skin color into headlines like that, it would look pretty damn stupid, and if it was in mainstream media it would at the very least go under a lot more editorial scrutiny. There are other grating examples too. Like how "white trash" doesn't bat eyelids, but trying phrasing that with another skin color without feeling like you're going to a Klan meet. It hints at a view along the lines "if you're white and poor, it's probably all your fault".

So there seems to be a certain sense of "because white people are privileged, we can bash on them like a group". But of course, not all white people are privileged or fit into the group characterization.

I'll grant that compared to how bad racism can be, these things are a far cry off. Still, it is an annoying and arrogant trend.

Which is quite right. Being white does not make you part of a vulnerable group so there's no need to try to avoid causing offense to people on the basis of them being white. Doesn't mean it's correct but it's not causing any harm to a vulnerable group so it's not politically incorrect.

I think this attitude is somewhat shortsighted (and probably depends on some unrealistic assumptions) but I'd have to elaborate when I'm less drunk.