wolfhnd » July 16th, 2017, 1:57 pm wrote:Well I read a bit of it and found a couple problems. First emotions are not socially constructed anymore than gender is. Humans are apes and evolution didn't stop below the neck. The interplay between physical and cultural evolution is complex and most of our evolution is buried in prehistory.
Most of evolutionary psychology is speculative and supported by correlations at best. Post Modernism however has polluted most of the other social sciences to the point that even correlation from properly constructed research is missing. It is a frustrating environment to sort through and many of my friends refuse to call it science at all which pretty much shuts down discussions like this between anyone outside the field and the practitioners. By contrast for example the physics section of these forums are often the most active areas of science discussion because in some ways physics is neater and cleaner. It is hard to have these discussions with the unavoidable limits on reliable data. I would recommend Jordan Peterson's lecture on IQ to understand how out of sync popular opinion is with the scientific data.
As to the grandmother theory all I can say is that the evolutionists are rethinking group selection and downplaying it at the moment. It is one of the more inaccessible possibilities and I don't give it much consideration.
What is certain is that the brain does not physically develop properly in the absence of social interaction. There is much discussion of the "language instinct" so the experts do seem to agree that some physical structure is necessary for language to develop regardless of the social environment. It may be cliche to say neither nature or nurture but that appears to be the case.
As I have said else where emotions are the seeds from which cognition grows. It is a physiological process influenced by culture. The trap to avoid is assuming that theories devoid of experience should go untested. This isn't just a principal for intellectual argument but is the nature of life. The brains of all animals capable of even rudimentary cognition are constantly testing theory. Because of a need to process information independent of emotional (instinctual) influence humans are susceptible to creating a mental matrix that does not reflect reality. On the other hand it would be a mistake to think that evolved structures such as emotions are attuned to environmental conditions. All evolved structures lag reality because they are fixed under conditions that no longer exist.
Thank you for your time and consideration of the subject. As for being overly imperialistic, it is unfortunate history is not considered as important as science. What is happening today reminds me of the Church and Scholasticism. Scholasticism depended on Aristotle and in the end, there was a backlash against Aristotle and Church controlled reasoning, opening the Age of Reason and intellectual growth. Today, I don't think we need more facts, but more wisdom and that need might become the backlash to imperialism.
Formally I am a gerontologist. That is the study of aging. Before we got so technological smart, we valued our elders for their greater knowledge and judgments based on having more knowledge. I must say my book learning held very little value compared to being old because knowing facts is not that useful without knowing the meaning of those facts. Our young are good at accumulating facts. In our later years, we realize the meaning of all those facts. From my educated point of view, few things are more exciting than how a large population of long lived people change society. Never before have there been so many long lived people and I see this as a great opportunity for humanity.
I find the grandmother theory completely plausible because I am a grandmother and realize there are important differences in being a grandmother. The further we are from raising our children, while still recognizing a special bond with them, the more rational we are about their care and if our group depends on the knowledge of the elders and defers to them, not only do we have the advantage of knowledge and experience and the mental development of a long life, but the security in who we are that we do not have when we are young. Physically life can get more challenging as we age, but psychologically life gets better when the elders are valued. I really want to say much more about the grandmother difference if there is interest.
So imagine animals running on instincts, perhaps learning from parents, but not contemplating the meaning of anything. Not reasoning and making choices based on reason, rather than on feeling. They are controlled by hormones and their position in the hierarchy. Now begin aging the members of the group and watch what happens.
There are some male and female differences and it has become popular to argue that these differences are not so much biological, but I don't think we would be arguing that if we did not have control of energy and machines making our lives easy. One of the important differences in chimps is the females take to learning from their mothers much better than the males, and this is an essential part of gaining knowledge versus brute force. That is the baboon on is not the path to higher intelligence but the chimp is, because of this difference in which one learns and which one does not. The organization of bonobos favors females, while the organization of chimps favors males. I think we have much to learn from studying animal behavior. When we come to our line, what was favored was a more female oriented social order. We don't just hunt (brute force), we cultivate the soil and we engage with each other better than other species (power of reason).
