opiate69

opiate69's Journal

October 27, 2012

Evolutionary Psychology and anti-intellectualism.

I've noticed from time to time, the utter disdain some of our radfem friends have for the field of Evolutionary Psychology. Now, being a huge fan of Anthropology as well as Psychology as academic pursuits, I always thought the concepts were pretty sound. Upon doing further research, I discovered that while the field can trace it roots back to Darwin, there is a more modern movement afoot. At the risk of falling into an appeal to authority fallacy black hole, I further discovered that the two people considered as the "founders" of the modern EvoPsych field are a married couple, Leda Cosmides and John Tooby, who have their Harvard PhDs in Cognitive Psychology and Biological Anthropology, respectively. Not exactly what I, or any other serious person, would consider "woo." So, where exactly does this anti-intellectual hatred for the field come from? Now, admittedly, I probably did study some of this material back when I thought it would be neat to get a degree in Clinical Psychology, but didn't realize there was a separate field apart from Anthropology, but I'm not 100% up to speed on everything about the field. Does seem to have some damned fine credentials behind it though (Twisty's derision notwithstanding lol)

October 23, 2012