These guys are GENIUSES! I mean, their research goes all the way back to fifteenth century Italy – I mean, that covers pretty much all the bases for every single culture in every single period of human existence, doesn't it? Wow.

Despite what's being said over at The Curvature, the piece isn't overtly misogynist. Evolutionary Biology is based on the premise that all human interaction can be explained as an attempt to increase the number and value of one's offspring. While a highly questionable premise, it isn't necessarily misogynist. It treats men as brainless creatures operating on pure instinct as much as it treats women as baby-machines.

That said, this statement is too much to pass up: "So natural selection designs parents to have biased sex ratio at birth depending upon their economic circumstances—more boys if they are wealthy, more girls if they are poor. (The biological mechanism by which this occurs is not yet understood.)". It's pretty much an admission that they're just pulling stuff out of their ass.

How You, Too, Can Become an Evolutionary Psychologist in Five Easy Steps

1. Find a common social condition.

It can be pretty much anything. The key is to avoid detailed analysis. The surface is your friend. If your social condition of choice is the notion that “men like skinny women�, for example, there’s no reason for you to even think of the word Samoa (also try to avoid looking at Rubens’ paintings). The people who read you certainly won’t. It doesn’t hurt if there’s at least some tradition to the social condition you choose, though it doesn’t have to be a very long tradition. Remember the First Law of Evolutionary Psychology: the necessity of research is inversely proportional to (1) the amount of effort involved and (2) the likelihood that the results might undermine your conclusion.

2. Conclude that the social condition you have chosen is biologically determined. After doing all necessary research, as defined by the First Law, you must conclude that the social condition is biologically determined. If you are unable to reach this conclusion, you may have accidentally done unnecessary research. Go back to your research and omit anything that is not necessary.

Example:

The chosen social condition is that “women remain in the domestic sphere and leave the public sphere to men�. After careful study of selected women’s magazines and TV sitcoms from 1850 to 1957, you conclude that this has always been the case. The study of the gendered distribution of labour in pre-capitalist and modern society is unnecessary under the First Law. Thus, you can conclude, based on all necessary research, that the social condition in question is biologically determined.

3. Select evidence to show that certain physical characteristics bear out your conclusion.

Remember to examine all physical characteristics available in light of your conclusion. Your conclusion is the gold standard for the validity of the data you find. For example, in light of your conclusion that the assignment of women to the domestic sphere is biologically determined, it is clear that women’s smaller average stature is an evolutionary adaptation to facilitate cleaning in small spaces. This phase of your research must be guided by the Second Law of Evolutionary Psychology: data are relevant to the extent that they meet the requirements of the First Rule and support the conclusion you have reached.

4. Select evidence to show an advantage that the species might derive from the social condition you have chosen.

The principles described in Step 3 above apply fullselective.

Example:

Keeping with the social condition chosen in Step 2, your research shows that men have invented a lot of things. This is clearly in their nature, as the necessary and relevant research (see First and Second Laws) discloses no such inventions by women. The necessary and relevant evidence further discloses that these men were often able to do their work because they had women taking care of all of the domestic work that they would otherwise have to handle (despite being biologically unsuited, of course). The inventions disclosed by the necessary and relevant evidence are all clearly beneficial to the species as a whole (the eight-track cassette player, to name just one example). Clearly, therefore, the species evolved these traits in order to obtain the benefit of these inventions.

5. Circles are your friends.

One of the most irritating aspects of the work of an evolutionary psychologist is dealing with criticisms and contradictory findings. So why bother? Dismiss them out of hand. Clearly, social pressure and a patriarchal power structure could not have had any influence on the creation and preservation of the social condition under discussion. How could it? We have already established that it is a biologically determined, naturally selected species trait. These critic people might point out that this is a circular argument, but we humans have evolved to admire perfect circles for a reason.

Dammit, some of what I wrote seems to have accidentally been written over.

Step Four should read as follows:
The principles described in Step 3 above apply fully to this step. Be creative. Think “outside of the box�. Above all, be selective.

While there's a lot of bad EP research going on and a lot of worse pop science written about it, the reflexive EP-bashing and outright dismissal of any and all truthfullness is just dumb. It's really the height of arrogant anthropocentricism to assert that humans, unlike all other animals, think and behave in ways undetermined and/or uninfluenced by evolution. While we have great plasticity which is made even more important through the influence of culture, the truth is that we're animals. Deal with it.

The debunking link has at least one egregious error. Cross-cultural studies have found a few highly regular and universal traits that correlate to “beauty�. The dominant traits, by far, are body/facial symmetry and youthfullness. Beauty is not entirely culturally determined.

Elise - I swear I'm not stalking you in feministing, but doggam, that is one of the best responses to a post I've ever seen.

If I was wearing a hat, I would doff it to you.

Please forward your response to Papchology Today, or whatever the journal was...

While there's a lot of bad EP research going on and a lot of worse pop science written about it, the reflexive EP-bashing and outright dismissal of any and all truthfullness is just dumb. It's really the height of arrogant anthropocentricism to assert that humans, unlike all other animals, think and behave in ways undetermined and/or uninfluenced by evolution.

While I don't dismiss the possibility that there cold be some good EP work being done someplace, try as I might, I haven't found any. This is not surprising, considering that the biological substrates of human behaviour are currently quite poorly understood. Where the science is only vaguely understood and the subject matter directly concerns the way society works, the work that is done and the results that are obtained show an impressive degree of consistency with contemporary ideology in the society in question. One does not have to deny biology a role in human behaviour (I do not) in order to find fault with the often laughable and occasionally racist ideological assumptions that are implicit (and sometimes explicit) that characterise so much of EP.

I should say a bit more about what is bad and what is indifferent about EP.

What's bad is that many people, including a number of EPs, use EP to make normative claims beyond biology. While one finds people of all types making arguments from nature when it's convenient to do so, the fact of the matter is that it's just plain stupid to do so. All sorts of things come indisputably “naturally� which we don't tolerate. That something is a hardwired tendency of human behavior doesn't mean that it's necessarily acceptable.

Our “natural� inclinations have, at best, an informative relevance and should not be seen as ethically or socially normative.

Because this is simply and obviously true, I find that as a feminist, I'm mostly indifferent to most claims made by EP and I'm quite willing to accept many of them as true. Whatever good, solid EP might say about men and women might slightly complicate our work towards social justice and the eradication of sexism, but it cannot prevent it. And because I think it's highly unlikely that, regardless of the quality of the science of current EP, eventually good science will come of it and will undoubtedly find a great many behaviors quite (in relative terms) evolutionarily determined, then I think it's important for we feminists to be prepared to acknowledge these things and work with/around them, and not be caught flat-footed because we are reflexively denying all EP science because many people are using EP as a weapon against feminism.

Wow, I'm pretty shocked right now . . . thanks for the link, Samhita!

Evolutionary Biology is based on the premise that ... OH MY GOD I NEED TO GET TENURE AND I NEVER LEARNED TO DO REAL RESEARCH!!!

There, fixed that for you :)

It would be one thing if this was human evolutionary psychology, but they're simply talking about cultural evolutionary psychology -- how humans have acted since the concept of personal wealth came around, now about how humans have acted while they were a hunter-gatherer society eating mammoths and wandering around in caves.

They couldn't even be consistent -- rich people have more sons but "very attractive" people have more daughters, so rich people are uglier, but rich men are more likely to attract the "very attractive" women? I guess my mistake is looking for logic in a pile of steaming bullshit. A more accurate title would have been, "Ten Incorrect Truths About Human Nature".

Thanks to The Curvature for making me laugh my ass off at the idea of my male coworkers slapping each other on the ass, asking each other out on dates, etc...

"Ten Politically Incorrect Truths About Human Nature"

Alternate titles include:
"Why men hate women and are subsequently forced to degrade and dehumanize them"
"No means yes and other short stories about why men can do whatever they want, and not be held accountable"
"Rape, Rendezvous and this is fucking ridiculous"

The truth is, none of these titles were in fact considered 'alternate' as I'm sure you've figured at this point, but I think they fit. It is still a little shocking to me that two guys could sit down, write this article and have it be taken seriously when authors like Judith Butler or Adrienne Rich aren't always considered legitimate.

I couldn't get past the "all men like blue eyes" part!

The casual racism of that comment is just unbelievable!

So, every man, in every part of the world, is attracted to blue eyed women - even though most of humanity has brown eyes?

Psychology today is pathetic

#10 is tops, really: "Men sexually harass women because they are not sexist." Riiight. Let's just ignore any and all legitimacy of women's perceptions of a situation here. It's like saying that a guy who date rapes a girl isn't at fault b/c he didn't intent to "rape" her. The fact that she felt violated clearly means nothing. *rolls eyes*

The problem I usually find with most pop EP is that they forget to separate biological evolution forces and cultural evolution forces.

Patriarchal cultures (as defined by men in charge; promotion of children; wars) have a lot of kids. Probably more kids than modern egalitarian societies (as we approach them) since there would be less rape, more access to birth control, and a compromise on the number of children bringing the per-couple total down.

If a culture punished peopel for having children, that's cultures values would probably dissapear within a few generations as their practitioners did.

Cultures do tend to produce more of themselves, but are also affected by the same forces (e.g. mutation) that species do.

So the partriarchy, unfortunately, with its forces produces more children does have better survival traits as a culture. This doesn't make it right, but it does mean its a hard-to-kill culture. Only mass-media and the ability for egalitarian cultures to pressure patriarchal cultures will force a large enough percentage of "mutations" within that culture. Thankfully it seems egalitarian cultures are best for happiness which is why I believe that patriarchal societies have a high mutation rate into egalitarian societies.

Hey I want to join in the EP bashing to! How exciting that there are other people who feel the same way about EP as I do! Does anyone hear remember that thread where some evolutionary psychologist (a grad student I believe) showed up here claiming that rape is an evolutionary behavior and that “loser males� rape because they can’t get any and it’s just natural?

There are basically two ways to spread an idea:

1) Convince adults that do not currently accept the idea that they should accept the idea.

2) Have children, and teach them that idea before they learn other, potentially conflicting ideas.

This applies to politics, religion, and cultural standards. We're routinely exposed to people who use method #1 to spread their ideas, but method #2, if you're willing to consider the long run, has also shown promise. If children tend to adopt the ideas of their parents, then, in the long run, is democracy simply rule by the most fertile?

The implications of this argument are a little bit creepy. If it's important that your ideology have great influence in the future, and having a high birth rate creates more believers and therefore more influence... I think I'll leave it at that.

Elise, that is a fanatastic rebuttal.

And this is not about social scientists, but about journalism--and picking up the most tarted up stuff they can to make an "intersting" article.

Using EP made it easy--for all the reasons everyone just said.

This is easily the funniest thing I've read all week.

Especially the bit about how women "evolved" blonde hair because they had to wear concealing clothing. That must be why all those kimono and burkha-wearing cultures have so many blondes! Oh, wait...

And the bit about blue eyes--gosh, imagine all those sexually frustrated non-white males having to "settle" for brown- or black-eyed mates. Wait, I suppose that's perfect evo-psych "evidence" of why black men all want to rape white women! Right? Right?
[/extreme sarcasm]

Sojourner - yeah, I remember that guy. What a tool.

I've seen evolutionary arguments that attempted to define "beauty" that seemed to have some merit (facial symmetry as a sign of good genes, etc.) but the linked article is just sexist, racist rubbish trying to "prove" that our current cultural standards of attractiveness are somehow "hardwired" into us. It ignores any evidence that refutes its claims and gives extra weight to anything that supports it. They mention that it was fashionable for 15th-century Italian noblewomen to bleach their hair because it supports their claim that blondes are more attractive, but I don't see anything about what was fashionable in the American 1920's in their "big boobs are better" assertion. Hmm...

I find the term evolutionary psychology a misnomer... It's not arguing that we act a certain way because we evolved, but because we can't. Since cavemen acted like this, and we can evolve physically but not psychologically, we must still act this way. It's more like imperative psychology; it's all about instinct and we *can't* change that, so please excuse men if they have to bonk you over the head with their clubs and drag you around by your hair.

The problem I routinely have with EP is that they take some survey of behavior or preference, often with a limited scope (e.g. blue eyes = sexy and exotic!) and without examining the multiple possible reasons for this phenomenon (both biological and cultural), come to the conclusion that this behavior is both universal and genetically encoded. How convenient!

There are interesting EP studies - I have seen them - but they don't lend themselves necessarily to the "politically incorrect" conclusions that people want them to.

I can't believe Psychology Today printed such garbage in their magazine! I just lost all respect for that piece of misogynist trash.

I think I am going to forgo my blond highlights from now on. ;-)

You know, after several shitty, sexist features in Psychology Today, this article just caused me to cancel my subscription.

They went from being such an interesting periodical to publishing nothing but sensational trash. I can't take it anymore.

As a geologist (who reads a great deal of the paleo journals), I am always amused by EP folks. The best evidence points to millions of years of a matriarchal polyandrous society for H. sapiens and other proto-human groups where men die young and grandmothers rule. The last eight thousand or so years of agriculture/patriarchy is an aberration to any sort of evolutionary inheritance by allowing genomes that are out of flux with the natural world to flourish due to a massive increase in the available food sources (How many people do you know would have survived childhood in the wild?). One of my favorite scientists/writers is Dr. Kristen Hawkes, an anthropologist out of U of Utah. Her work, Grandmothers and the Evolution of Human Longevity in AM. J. OF HUMAN BIO., is a fascinating read that explains both the old theories (think: English men in smoking jackets who never went to look at the evidence the couldn't observe in the billiard room) and there pitfalls alongside current theories.

My point is that while lots of EP is nonsensical fluff, there is some good science being done about the "natural" state of humankind.

I also noticed that pretty much nothign in the article is sourced. Granted its Psychology Today and not a journal, but still.

As for EvPsych, I think at a base level it has some validity, but not much beyond that.

On of the big things going on in computer science is an attempt ot construct artificial intelligence. To designe a computer that cna think beyond its programing, mauch choices, and learn.

I would argue that our genes have accomplished this feet already. We are not limited by our biology but can willfully override it. For example we are the only species that will consciously choose to be celibate our whole lives even with ample mating opportunities.

This is what EvPsych misses. It operates under the assumption that our behavior is as determined as our eye color. However this is no evidence that this is the case.

I prefer to think that genes define the terms by which we interact with the world. They determine the frequencies of light we see, but not the beauty of art. They give us a range of emotions, but do not fully define what we personally see as love. Choice, culture, and upbringing filtered though our physical nature truly define who we are.

And always remember for something to be selectable there has to be genes that correspond to what ever phenotype your looking at. We know this is the case for eye color, we can't say its the case for say preferring democratic government. You can't select for something that does not have a gene which influences it.

Sorry for all the spelling errors. I spell checked it, but must have copied back only part.

I used to subscribe to Psychology Today. This article makes me glad I canceled my subscription.

Psychology Today needs to do some research into why it sucks so bad. Their idea of a good article is apparently looking at something that is a partial truth today, find times in the past when it may have also been true, then declare it to be human nature.

What I learned from this article:

1. Men desire women who look like Barbie dolls. All men. From the beginning of time.

2. Human monogamy is a crime against nature.

3. Polygyny is the way to go, ladies! (Monogamy only benefits men.)

4. Teenage boys will do some pretty crazy things to sleep with 72 virgins (aka The Porky's Principle.)

5. Daughters are responsible for their parents' divorce.

6. Attractive couples have more daughters, and are therefore more likely to divorce (see #5). Or something like that.

7. Old people can't do anything.

8. Middle-aged women (over age 25) make men do stupid things, for which the men bear no responsibility.

9. Presidents do it all for the nookie.

10. Men commonly groped and solicited sex from each other at the office before women entered the workplace.

"Evolutionary Biology is based on the premise that all human interaction can be explained as an attempt to increase the number and value of one's offspring."

The biggest problem I have with evolutionary biology/psychology is that I have never seen any of these scientist put out an explanation for why so many modern people routinely use birth control (even those penis controlled men) and put off child birth until later in life, often pass the supposed "peak" of fertility. Most young men do not want children until they are older, correct? Why is it that the instinct to reproduce would control so many sexual decisions EXCEPT the decision to actually make a baby? If there is some EP article or site that attempts to explain this major whole in the theory, show me.

Other problems with this article.
-Why aren't "all" women attracted to blond, young looking men as well? If a woman is merely searching for a supportive, protective mate, wouldn't she want one who was in better physical shape, less likely to be impotent or ill, and around for a longer period of time?
-If men are attracted to signs of fertility, why aren't things like stretch marks considered attractive? Shouldn't single mothers with multiple children have a bigger sexual following? Big tits may indicate possible fertility, but nothing says fertile like a body that's been through , say, 10 pregnancies.
-Number 2 and 3 have NOTHING to do with producing mates. "Monogamy ensures that men will find wives"...well, aren't men more concerned with having tons of babies?! Wouldn't sharing a lots of wives between lots of husbands be more effective because it ensures that all men get to mate? What special genetic benefit is 1/10 of a rich man going to give women? Wouldn't a strong, good looking, healthy poor man be beneficial because of his *awesome* sperm? Oh right, women's sexual drive is controlled by flashy red sports cars, mankind's peacock tail.

I'm not offended by the tone of the article as much as how inconsistent, poorly cited, and weakly supported it is. Blah.

uberpatriot- I think you could boil that all down to what my husband said after just scanning the article: "Everything is women's fault." (And I would add, "Men are just naturally sexist assholes.")

He insists that he finds me attractive, in spite of the fact that I'm not 15, blonde, large-breasted, or planning on reproducing ever, but clearly he's just fighting against his natural instincts. *rolling eyes*

While we have great plasticity which is made even more important through the influence of culture, the truth is that we're animals. Deal with it.

Only when it's convenient for some...notice how they fail to cover "sperm competition?"

How is it that men prefer both young women - who typically have small breasts - and large breasted women - which, as the article tries to explain, sag to exhibit a woman's age?

When I read that inconsistency in the very first section, I had a pretty good understanding of what the rest of the article was going to be like - a load of crap.

Also, because I am unfamiliar with the field of Evolutionary Psych, perhaps someone can clarify for me - how do surveys or studies such as this account for the differences between what people say their *preferences* are, and the reality of what they actually end up choosing? Or is that not really a concern of the field?

JonesingforaDem,

Most EP folks basically claim that "what people say they want" is in the end "what they actually want". What they end up choosing is argued to be "what they could get" instead of "what they actually wanted". This is different from most modern psychology studies who admit this dichotomy and try to get around it using other methodologies.

JonesingforaDem, accounting for those differences are extremely difficult. That is one of the biggest problems inherent in self-reporting surveys.

For example, in America there is a huge difference between the number of people who say they go to church regularly and in the number of people who actually go to church regularly (http://tinyurl.com/2xxcue).

I noticed that too Jones. They contradict themselves big time in that they say men prefer younger women but they have to have large breasts which apparently sag when they age so apparently the sagging shows they are older so they actually prefer older women with large breasts that have sagged. It doesn't make any sense.

Number 10 was the real kicker. I highly doubt that before women entered the work force that men were pinching male bottoms and whistling at each other as they walked by each others door and looking each other up and down with a perverted grin on their face as if they were undressing you. I don't buy that bullshit.

I read this article sometime last week. God.

The similarity between Bill Gates, Paul McCartney, and criminals—in fact, among all men throughout evolutionary history—points to an important concept in evolutionary biology: female choice.

Women often say no to men. Men have had to conquer foreign lands, win battles and wars, compose symphonies, author books, write sonnets, paint cathedral ceilings, make scientific discoveries, play in rock bands, and write new computer software in order to impress women so that they will agree to have sex with them. Men have built (and destroyed) civilization in order to impress women, so that they might say yes.

That was right about when my head exploded. I still can't form an appropriately coherent response. I just stare and remember the episode of Designing Women (Reservations for Eight, if memory serves) wherein this claim is asserted by the dudes, and Mary Jo contradicts it, saying men do these things to show off to each other.

Ok, so we all had to take Cultural Anthro 101 at some point. So, yes, there are many parts of "Human Nature" that have been built into our evolutionary structure but are not necessarily "politically correct". However, another part of human nature is (obviously) to form societies, civilizations in which humans come together and decide on what is ok and not ok, in the interest of all. We have decided that it's not ok to have more than one spouse, cheat on your primary mate, leave your family just because you have no sons, or sexually harass female co-workers. It's human nature for men to rape women, for people to steal what they want instead of work for it, for larger people to beat up on smaller people -- does that make it ok? Of course not. The big thing missing from this article is that there are human nature reasons that our society has developed "politally correct" standards, and these are just as valid and vital to our survival as a species as all these little tidbits of evolutionary flotsom.

One of the ads I saw on the site just after reading the article was for low-price Anger Management classes--how appropriate.

well, alot of it is true and backed up by science and alot of it isnt. but thats why he titled it "politically incorrect". so people like us would freak out. and it worked. i do believe people are not naturally monogamous but i dont believe all women want to be in long term relationships. i do believe that men harass women in the workforce bc they feel they are no longer in control but it doesnt mean its not sexist. also, yes, i do believe there is something inherent within the muslim religion that has been twisted to a point where it encourages violence and suicide in a greater number then the other religions. of course, its not as simple as he makes it out to be. i also believe that MOST (not all) want women with larger breasts and smaller waists bc it is an evolutionary thing, just like how women generally like taller, broader men. does that mean you cant fall in love with someone outside that paradigm, well, clearly no.

What special genetic benefit is 1/10 of a rich man going to give women? Wouldn't a strong, good looking, healthy poor man be beneficial because of his *awesome* sperm?

Hence, female infidelity. Marry the 60 year old billionaire for the money, and then cheat on him with the hot personal trainer. According to evolutionary psychology, that's the ideal female strategy. ;)

EvoPsycho theories have replaced Freud for cocktail party talk about the differences between the sexes. And, we all know how well Freud has withstood the test of time.

There might be some valid stuff being worked on at the academic level (I've never bothered to find out, to be honest) but you know that anything that gets filtered through the media is going to sensationalist bullshit.

"true, less desirable men can marry only less desirable women, but that's much better than not marrying anyone at all."

I'm sorry, but that just DISGUSTED me. By his previous definition, I'm 'less desirable' as I'm over fifteen, my breasts aren't that big, and I have brown hair and green (-ish gold) eyes. And so is pretty much EVERY WOMAN OUT THERE, if their definition of desirable is: blond, blue eyes, fifteen years old, big boobs, thin. I'm sorry, but not all men think that women who look EXACTLY LIKE THAT are the epitome of beauty. If they did, then let's see...Angelina Jolie, Salma Hayek, Anne Hathaway, Rachel Weisz, Isla Fisher, Beyonce--none of them would be gracing the covers of magazines for being beautiful, and also none of them would have the boyfriends/husbands/fiancees that they have. Nor would I. Further, women don't all follow one standard of what is attractive either. I'm sure SOME women (myself included) do go for the taller, stronger-looking men. But I've talked to women who clearly prefer slimmer, shorter men, and date accordingly. And also, IF blond women with blue eyes and all those other attributes are the only truly beautiful ones, how are any races except the Caucasian race still in existence today? Oh wait, I forgot. It's because men from those races are grumpily having to settle for less-than-desirable women from those races. God. Sexist AND racist.
And furthermore, what's to stop a fifteen-year-old, blond, blue-eyed thin white woman with large breasts from being attracted to a 'less than desirable' man? Or Mr. Tall-and-Strong from being attracted to a less-than-desirable woman? And don't you love how women pretty much get a complete dossier of what they should look like, but men only get tall (which for an American man means anything over 5'9) and strong? What hair and eye colours are desirable in MEN? How big should a man's penis be? What size pants should they wear? Should they have a six-pack? And by tall, do you mean the bare minimum of 5'10? Or do you mean my dad's height, 6'2? My favorite male cousin's 6'4? My boyfriend's 6'8? Do you mean Yao Ming? And how strong is strong? Strong enough to lift A Desirable Woman? An Undesirable Woman? A desk? A truck? As strong as Magnus Magnussen from the beer commercials? Oy vey.
Yeah, this makes me angry.

I love the assumption that skinny women will "naturally" have very large breasts often enough to establish an "evolutionary" preference for that body type. Because I'm a near perfect 0 (little bit too much booty) and I'm a 30A. All skinny women in my family are small breasted. If we had D cups or larger, we wouldn't be able to walk upright. Also, if blue eyes were preferred THAT strongly, wouldn't "evolution" dictate that they emerge as a dominant trait? So, in my family, with a blue eyed father and a brown eyed mother, all three children should have blue eyes, right? Except only my brother does, and my sister and I have brown or hazel eyes. And how do they account for my male friend who, despite being fairly good looking and having many chances to date skinny blonde girls, almost always goes for heavier girls with ample figures?

I could go on for days, I don't think there's anything here to take seriously at all. It's a way for men to justify sexism and account for the "ideal woman" who looks amazingly like a porn star from what I can gather. Oh, and those "barely legal" girls I'm sure they're thinking of when they talk about men desiring younger women? Big secret; not all of them are 18. Probably most of them aren't. Shocking, I know.

I'll just go ahead and file these "scientific" findings under "Convenient Theories for Assholes."

There was a time in my life when i would have read this and taken it at face value, accepting that science and evolution have finally provided enough evidence that I (with my brown hair & eyes, A cup breasts, very little money, 5 sisters and divorced parents)was unattractive and horribly doomed. I've thankfully grown out of that school of thought, but I worry for others that may read this article and accept it blindly as fact...

(btw I've only recently discovered Feministing and fallen in love with it, although I should tear away and do some homework for a while...)

You know the really stupid part? What they're saying doesn't make any evolutionary sense! A quick glance at world populations will tell you that dark hair and eyes have been wildly successful evolutionary traits--remember, evolutionary success is measured only by reproductive and population success. Given the huge numbers of people with dark hair and dark eyes, I'd say that actually, blonde hair and blue eyes are remarkably unsuccessfuly, evolutionarily speaking.

Their nonsense about hair length and health is too silly to even be entertained, and speaks of writers who have no idea what goes into maintaining the healthy looks of long hair. Unless you're starving to death or something like that, the state of your hair tells you far more about the weather, how carefully you comb your hair, etc. than it does about your general health.

"10. Men commonly groped and solicited sex from each other at the office before women entered the workplace."

...uh, I've spent most of my working life on all male jobs (I'm a carpenter) and I've never been on a job where the guys did that to each other!

Yet another flaw in these arguments:

Suicide bombers are not exclusively male. Yet I've never heard of a masculine equivalent to the houri in Muslim mythology.

Uberpatriot: "The Porky's Principle" made me laugh out loud.

The combined ignorance and certainty of most of the above comments is an embarrassment for feminism.

Colin wrote (sadly advancing the myth that won't die) "The best evidence points to millions of years of a matriarchal polyandrous society for H. sapiens..."

Jesus, please tell me you're joking. Take this "Chalice and the Blade" gibberish to Kristen Hawkes and count the laughs before she shows you the door. Kristen is a terrific human behavioral ecologist, and the pairing of the baseless polyandrous fantasy and her good name was quite disturbing. Are you by chance a “young earth� geologist?

Psychology Today has always been a shit publication, reflecting journalists' typically poor job at reporting science in general. When reporting on behavioral sciences, the journalists really drop the ball.

The lame, empty criticism of EP here reflects feminist's response to criticism of their dogma. Evolutionary psychology should be embraced by feminists. Sadly, the intractable ignorance of the faithful prevents them from hearing the neodarwinist words, including "Sisterhood is Powerful"...an early EP classic by Barbara Smuts.

EP includes some of the brightest and most sophisticated theoretical and empirical social scientists in the world. Read the primer on EP by Leda Cosmides and her husband John Tooby at hbes.com. Better yet, read their chapter The Psychological Foundations of Culture, in The Adapted Mind.

The major stumbling block in appreciating EP is the difficulty of developing a sufficient understanding of evolutionary biology, including neodarwinism. Far too many times to list, significant misunderstandings of how evolution works appear in the above comments. I’m a reasonably fast learner, and was a serious and successful, social science major. It wasn’t until I was well into a year’s worth of post-baccalaureate coursework, and significant outside reading that I really started to appreciate EP.

There's a lot for feminists in EP. Please don't throw out the baby with the bathwater.

There's a lot for feminists in EP. Please don't throw out the baby with the bathwater.

Any examples handy, or are we just going to stick with unspecified invective and sweeping generalisations?

Elise,

For the unblinkered, my posting's invective was sufficiently specified. It's laughable to be chastised for making "sweeping generalizations" from you--hah! Also, I casually referenced three easy-to-find "examples". If I had to narrow it down to one--the Leda Cosmides chapter from The Adapted Mind comes out on top. It's a whopper, and I triple dutch dare you to read it. While you're at the library, check out Who's Afraid of Charles Darwin by the feminist Griet Vandermassen--one of my favorites so far this summer, though overshadowed by the amazing Infidel, by my hero of the year, Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Now, there--there's the kind of kick-ass, pro-Enlightenment feminist the world could use a lot more of.

Perhaps, for those of us who don't just go out and buy a book because some vaguely trollish commenter on a blog mentions it, you might summaise examples of the work that is being done that you find so worthwhile for feminists(not just titles)? And just to be clear, do you just mean that the conclusions happen to be ideologically serviceable to whatever you believe feminism to be, or that the data and methodology are scientifically valid?

Ugh. How quickly some turn to name calling as soon as their wits dry up!

I would think that the phrase "just to be clear" should not immediately follow with a borderline non sequitur. There was no mention of conclusions in my posting.

My academic training is in empirical social science ("empirical" to distinguish myself from the jerk-off, solipsistic, postmodern "critical" ooze soiling so much of the past 20 years of sociology and cultural anthropology, among others), so I look at data collection, methodology, and analyses with great interest.

I have, indeed, abandoned cherished ideologies when recurrently presented with facts that contradicted some of the core beliefs. I was raised with a vaguely Buddhist, new age sense of cosmic meaning and "spirituality"--whatever the hell that is. I dropped these childish beliefs once they were sufficiently overwhelmed by evidence and reason.

Your question needs a rear view mirror: Are you able to look at a solid work of science (or two decade's worth, on, say, cross-culturally stable patterns of sex differences in human mate choice that conform amazingly well with the evolved primate and mammalian patterns) and fit that into your ideology?

Also, I don’t about you, but I read /about/ 10 or 20 books for every one that I buy. But, I read a lot about books---because there’s a lot to read: reviews, discussions, publishers stuff, wiki stuff, and, or course, huge caches of chapters and articles on academic sites, like the aforementioned hbes.com.

In other words: whatever EP supposedly has to offer feminists, you're certainly not going to provide specifics.

Assuming that you somehow did not understand the very specific question I posed:

You claim that EP has something ("a lot") to offer feminists. What do you mean by this claim - do you mean that the conclusions expressed by the work to which you are referring are ideologically serviceable to feminism in your opinion, or something more than that?

The other part of the question was whether you can provide something more specific than the titles of books that you think highly, in terms of a description of the work contained in them and the reasons you believe that they back up your claims?

I hope I have expressed myself in less mystifying terms.

In any case, thanks for the self-congratulatory mini-CV. You seem to think as highly of yourself as you do of the books you are so reluctant to go into detail about.

"In any case, thanks for the self-congratulatory mini-CV. You seem to think as highly of yourself as you do of the books you...."

Are you so intimidated by modest debate that you have to invent shortcomings for me? I've seen this kind of dishonest, personal attack countless times in the few weeks I've been lurking/reading on this forum, and it keeps surprising me. Maybe it's a youth thing? I've got to go to work, but I'll post something tonight re: specific benefits EP has to offer feminists. One caveat--creationist feminists may be offended.

Seriously, though, all men do go for the blonds with big boobs because of their burning desire to procreate with a fertile woman.

Oh, I mean, except the homosexuals.

That totally ruined my lunch.

Are you so intimidated by modest debate that you have to invent shortcomings for me? I've seen this kind of dishonest, personal attack countless times in the few weeks I've been lurking/reading on this forum, and it keeps surprising me. Maybe it's a youth thing? I've got to go to work, but I'll post something tonight re: specific benefits EP has to offer feminists. One caveat--creationist feminists may be offended.

Thank you for finally answering at least one part of my question.I'll be looking forward to seein gyor descriptions and citations of the work you've told us so much about. Please remember to discuss methodology and sample size/selection in addition to the conclusion reached by the respective study.

I don't know how the hell that happenes. The above message should only read:

Thank you for finally answering at least one part of my question.I'll be looking forward to seeing your descriptions and citations of the work you've told us so much about. Please remember to discuss methodology and sample size/selection in addition to the conclusion reached by the respective study

All of this was debunked on "Secrets of the Sexes" on PBS last night!

Whilst the article has its flaws, I think it's a shame that the generic feminist reaction to evolutionary psychology is negative. EP has the capacity to explain in helpful ways many of the negative aspects of patriarchal society, and provide suggestions for antidotes.

This is a case of shoot the messenger, but still read the message imho

Elise (and anyone else who's interested),

Who's Afraid of Charles Darwin: Debating Feminism and Evolutionary Theory by Griet Vandermassen really is a thought-provoking book (and a relatively quick read). I found it to be an interesting take on many common fears, misconceptions, and misapplications of EP in general and with respect to feminism.

Here's a review of the book from the journal Feminist Theory: http://fty.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/7/3/369.pdf

Here's a short article in the European Journal of Women's Studies by Vandermassen that goes over some of the same ideas discussed in her book:
http://ejw.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/11/1/9.pdf

Hope that's somewhat helpful.

Whilst the article has its flaws, I think it's a shame that the generic feminist reaction to evolutionary psychology is negative. EP has the capacity to explain in helpful ways many of the negative aspects of patriarchal society, and provide suggestions for antidotes.

That is precisely what evolutionary psychology is not capable of. Perhaps one day we'll have more than a rudimentary understanding of the human brain and some ability to determine reliably what aspects of behaviour are biologically determined (and therefore potentially evolved behaviours) and what are not. We are nowhere near that day.

When you combine our rudimentary understanding of the mind/brain with the sparse and inconclusive data on human behaviour and society beyond recorded history, it is unsurprising that EP is as dismal and ideologically infected as it is. Essentially, evolutionary psychologists look at a Rohrschach test and then record what they see. What they perceive is, quite unsurprisingly, influenced by their assumptions and beliefs about the present.

This situation, one hopes, will not last forever. Once we resolve some of the more rudimentary questions of brain functioning and are able to ask the questions we want to ask now in a manner that will allow them to be answered, EP will be able to evolve into a scientific discipline, like evolutionary biology.

eh! what happened to darwin66? never came back to enlighten us? hmmm

First, to Elise who writes:

“Please remember to discuss methodology and sample size/selection in addition to the conclusion reached by the respective study.�

....oh piss off Nancy Drew. This isn't a Current Anthropology review paper. You sound exactly like the obfuscating creationists I've debated. You read the details in the literature. I'll provide a beginner's bibliography at the end of this.

Next, to Grace, who wrote (honest to baby jesus--it's a few comments up there):
"All of this was debunked on "Secrets of the Sexes" on PBS last night!"

Well good, it's all settled then :)

Ok, the workday is over, and chores are done. I promised something specifically beneficial for feminists from EP. If only a single neofeminist bigot reads one of these, my time will have been well spent. Besides, typing out thoughts is good for my aging noggin.

A quick clarification: EP is not striving to become evolutionary biology as per the weirdly confident nonsense above. EP is, for all points and purposes, as much a subfield of evolutionary biology as it is a subfield of anthropology, psychology, or economics. EP is cross-disciplinary through and through, but theoretically grounded in neodarwinism, vis a vis the post group-selection advance in EvBio by Williams, Hamilton, and Trivers.

I’m setting an egg timer for 10 minutes because there are newspapers to be read and a good book to finish.

What are the goals of feminism? Certainly one set of key goals would be to increase control of resources, autonomy, and opportunity for women in contemporary society. By the way, of the dozen or so EP-related professors I know well, I can’t think of one who would object to any of these key goals.

How do we make progress towards these goals? First off we need to know how current sex asymmetries in the control of resources, autonomy, and opportunity (CRAPP) arose. Here’s where feminism has, in my opinion, failed miserably, while EP makes continuous headway.

Finally, to address Elise’s insistent request for a real example from the EP literature that supports feminist ideology. The primatology, behavioral ecology, and EP literature has shown increasing empirical support that female ambition, status seeking, competition for resources, and hierarchy formation are perfectly normal, evolutionarily logical consequences of the natural history of the animals. Women are not “by nature� passive spectators of the struggle for dominance among males. This sexist assumption was well addressed and abandoned by sociobiologists and early EPers by the late 70’s—though you wouldn’t know that if you just read journalists’ accounts. For female primates and humans, high status pays off in many measurable ways—better mates, healthier children, less illness, better food access, longer lives, etc. Joan Silk, Barbara Smuts, Meredith Small, Sarah Hrdy, Jane Goodall, Cheney and Seyfarth—go to JStore, PsychInfo, or EAI if any one’s interested. Sarah Hrdy’s books (The Woman Who Never Evolved, and Mother Nature), both discuss the payoffs for female ambition, with the latter of the two focusing on human female sexuality. Anne Campbell wrote a nice review of the EP take on female competition a few years ago in the Journal of Sex Research….2004.

There goes the fucking egg timer already. Screw the bibliography—

Good night.

Finally, to address Elise’s insistent request for a real example from the EP literature that supports feminist ideology.

...which I did not in fact ask for. What I did ask was for darwin66 to explain and substantiate this claim that EP has a lot to offer feminists, specifically, whether this should be interpreted just to mean that darwin66 believes there is EP work that concords ideologically with darwin66's idea of feminism or whether the statement was made in some other sense.

I also rather specifically asked for something more than titles, along the lines of an actual description (and citation) of the work done with enough information to reach at least some opinion as to its scientific validity.

After two requests, darwin66 still hasn't been willing or able to provide that substantiation, though s/he is happy to provide non-answer answers and mischaracterise the questions asked.

I'm leaning towards "troll" on this one.

"... men find women with large breasts more attractive"

Hmm, I remember my Anthropology professor telling my class about a video from a tribe in New Guinea (or somewhere around there) where the women nursed many animals along with their own human babies. When told by the Anthropologist that Western men were sexually attracted to breasts, the woman laughed for five minutes straight. When she finally stopped laughing long enough to speak, she said, "What? Are all American men BABIES?"

I have also heard that in the Phillipines breasts are not seen as sexually attractive because their function is for feeding babies. So there is evidence that refutes his theory that all men like large breasts, or are even attracted to breasts period.

I just finished reading the article in it's entirety. So female children increase the risk of divorce? Hmm, I'm pretty sure that my parents got divorced because my dad and my mom were incompatible, NOT because my dad was experiencing an existential crisis about how he couldn't change mine or my sister's physical appearance.

I can't believe that this crap is coming from Psychology today. I realized a few years ago that their magazine had gone down a tad in quality, but my god(dess), has it gone bad!

Oops, hit button too soon.
And men sexually harass women to treat them as equals, because men also degrade other men? I'm sorry, I think I need to go take a shower...I have a definate case of the icks.

Women's desire to look like Barbie—young with small waist, large breasts, long blond hair, and blue eyes—is a direct, realistic, and sensible response to the desire of men to mate with women who look like her.

Good to know "psychologists" are still on fire for the Third Reich.