Liberals and Atheists Smarter?

[LynzM]

Liberals and Atheists Smarter? Intelligent People Have Values Novel in Human Evolutionary History, Study Finds

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/02/100224132655.htm

"Evolutionarily novel" preferences and values are those that humans are not biologically designed to have and our ancestors probably did not possess. In contrast, those that our ancestors had for millions of years are "evolutionarily familiar."

...

"An earlier study by Kanazawa found that more intelligent individuals were more nocturnal, waking up and staying up later than less intelligent individuals. Because our ancestors lacked artificial light, they tended to wake up shortly before dawn and go to sleep shortly after dusk. Being nocturnal is evolutionarily novel.

In the current study, Kanazawa argues that humans are evolutionarily designed to be conservative, caring mostly about their family and friends, and being liberal, caring about an indefinite number of genetically unrelated strangers they never meet or interact with, is evolutionarily novel. So more intelligent children may be more likely to grow up to be liberals."

<more at link>

[bananas]

1. Evolutionary Psychology is pseudoscience.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

2. No it's not.

You could argue that it's a soft science, like psychology in general.

But it's not pseudoscience.

[bananas]

3. Is too.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

4. Then explain yourself.

[trotsky]

7. Monkeys like bananas, and they like to fling poo.

So accordingly, some name themselves after the former, and can only do the latter.

[bananas]

8. See post #6, for example. nt

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

9. Chomsky isn't arguing that it's a pseudoscience.

Sounds like he's arguing it's a soft science. Like psychology, sociology, anthropology, etc.

[caraher]

10. Certainly "pop" evolutionary psych is pseudoscientific

I don't think Chomsky's comment is really a well-developed argument, because it strikes me as equally applicable as a criticism of evolutionary biology in general. Chomsky is quoted as saying,

“You find that people cooperate, you say, ‘Yeah, that contributes to their genes’ perpetuating.’ You find that they fight, you say, ‘Sure, that’s obvious, because it means that their genes perpetuate and not somebody else’s. In fact, just about anything you find, you can make up some story for it.”

Replace "people cooperate" with an observation about anatomy for one species, and "they fight" with an observation about a similar species with a difference in the same aspect of anatomy, and Chomsky's quote reads about the same. But I don't think it establishes that evolutionary explanations of anatomical differences are pseudoscientific.

The real force of Chomsky's criticism, I think, lies in the kinds of analysis people actually do. There are plenty of pop science articles full of dubious assumptions about the conditions under which humans evolved, what the social structures were among our ancestors, etc. couched in evolutionary language that could be used to support virtually any position. At the same time, there's nothing pseudoscientific about the notion that some aspects of behavior may be linked to genes in a way that would lead to plausible evolutionary explanations of those aspects of behavior.

I won't pretend to know enough about the actual literature to judge the whole field, but my gut feeling is that it's perhaps simply an immature field that could develop into something robust and help generate profound insights - or it could be a bit of a dead-end.

[Odin2005]

12. No, SOME Evo-Psych is pseudoscience.

Despite popular belief, not all Evo-Psych theories are from sex-starved male grad students! :P Don't confuse the real science with the ideologically-loaded, often racialist and sexist BS one finds in pop-sci articles written by blowhards looking for attention.

[bananas]

15. LOL - PZ Myers: "freakishly fact-free evolutionary psychology"

"And then look at the source: Satoshi Kanazawa, the Fenimore Cooper of Sociobiology, the professional fantasist of Psychology Today. He's like the poster boy for the stupidity and groundlessness of freakishly fact-free evolutionary psychology. Just ignore anything with Kanazawa's name on it."
:rofl:

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/02/stop_patting_yourselves_on_the.php

Stop patting yourselves on the back over this study

Category: Stupidity
Posted on: February 25, 2010 10:40 AM, by PZ Myers

Good grief. This ridiculous study is making the rounds of the atheist community, with its claim that liberals and atheists are smarter than conservatives and religious people. Look at the numbers!

Young adults who identify themselves as "not at all religious" have an average IQ of 103 during adolescence, while those who identify themselves as "very religious" have an average IQ of 97 during adolescence.

Seriously? Show me the error bars on those measurements. Show me the reliability of IQ as a measure of actual, you know, intelligence. Show me that a 6 point IQ difference matters at all in your interactions with other people, even if it were real. And then to claim that these differences are not only heritable, but evolutionarily significant…jebus, people, you can just glance at it and see that it is complete crap.

And then look at the source: Satoshi Kanazawa, the Fenimore Cooper of Sociobiology, the professional fantasist of Psychology Today. He's like the poster boy for the stupidity and groundlessness of freakishly fact-free evolutionary psychology. Just ignore anything with Kanazawa's name on it.

Thanks to alp227 for the link: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=7804487&mesg_id=7804538

[Odin2005]

16. I agree with PZ. "Just ignore anything with Kanazawa's name on it."

Kanazawa is one of those blowhards looking for attention.

[RZM]

5. Here's an article on a similar theme

Yes, I know it is from the AEI, but I still think it raises some good points.

http://www.american.com/archive/2009/october/are-liberals-smarter-than-conservatives

[demwing]

6. Noam Chomsky on Evolutionary Psychology:

"You find that people cooperate, you say, ‘Yeah, that contributes to their genes' perpetuating.’ You find that they fight, you say, ‘Sure, that’s obvious, because it means that their genes perpetuate and not somebody else's. In fact, just about anything you find, you can make up some story for it."

http://www.stevens.edu/csw/cgi-bin/blogs/horganism/?p=11

[DRex]

11. Why is there a question mark in the post title?

We already knew that, no? Haha...

Very interesting study, the way it defines behaviours and values as evolutionarily 'novel.'

This makes me think of morality in general, the constant push/pull of society trying to define what is and isn't moral. It is a battle in each of us that has our higher thought processes pitted against our basest instincts.

This makes sense in the context of politics. Black is other, gay is other, even woman is other, so the weak conservative frontal lobes lose the argument to the angry reptile brain and they settle on a course of destruction and subjugation against those others.

The liberal mind feels empathy for strangers and values their rights and well-being, even though it might not help our own genes propagate. Evolutionarily novel behaviour indeed, and perhaps the adaptive path that will eventually be the salvation of our species as conservatives and the parties of god plunge us toward oblivion.

K&R.

[Orsino]

13. I think Kanazawa was right.

Liberalism requires civilization to survive, and where civilization breaks down, liberalism vanishes or is driven underground.

Liberalism is the civilized orientation.

[jayfish]

14. Is It That We/They Are Smarter Or...

is it that we/they are unencumbered by intellectual roadblocks associated with religiosity and/or reactionary thinking?

FSH