Thursday, March 1, 2007
Evolutionary Psychologists Gone Awry
In my evolutionary psychology class, we have been looking at same papers attempting to explain short and long term mating strategies as well as differences in sexual jealousy among the sexes. It has been an extremely interesting pursuit and the starting theories have been very logical and well placed in the framework of sexual selection. The issue is that the data sets they are picking out to support their theories are not necessarily representative of a population. They are not so random so to speak. Also, some clearly seem to be interpreting data in light of their theory in a very subjective manner. The methods one uses and the statistics are important as well! You can have a brilliant theory, but it will not be well respected unless the sampling is random and unbiased and the interpretation is not skewed. It is a little scary to think about especially because human psychology is so programmed to see a pattern even when there is not one!
You're absolutely right - one thing I've learned in the last few years is that science is not necessarily as fully objective as we would like to think it is. Even when we try our best to be neutral, we can't help - by our very nature - to seek patterns and purpose where there may not necessarily be any, and emphasize that data which supports your hypothesis. It's something you have to watch for in your own thinking and work as well as others'.
ReplyDeleteOne of the first papers I read on this - and the one which really influenced my thinking - is Gould and Lewontin's "Spandrels of San Marcos" (reference below). It specifically discusses the adaptationist program, but I believe it's applicable more generally in science.
Cheers,
Nicole
"The Spandrels of San Marcos and the Panglossian Paradigm: A Critique of the Adaptationist Programme," by Stephen Jay Gould, with R.C. Lewontin. in Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, B 205 (1979)