Evolutionary Psych. versus Sociobiology...: Philosophy Forums

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Evolutionary Psych. versus Sociobiology...

Evolutionary Psych. versus Sociobiology...

Persephone77
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Posted 11/08/03 - 01:25 PM:	#1
I'm doing a paper where I have to outline the 2 and distinguish them from each other. Just looking for opinions. I also have to give an account of the application of evol. psych. to a psychological mechanism. ie. emotions, cheater detection. I pretty much have my outline, but I like to hear what others have to say. TIA

sensabile
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Posted 11/08/03 - 01:56 PM:	#2
I'm doing a paper where I have to outline the 2 and distinguish them from each other. Just looking for opinions. I also have to give an account of the application of evol. psych. to a psychological mechanism. ie. emotions, cheater detection. I pretty much have my outline, but I like to hear what others have to say. TIA By evolutionary psychology you could mean some fairly different things because it ranges quite significantly. Are we talking social Darwinism or Tooby and Cosmides? EP (evolutionary pyschology) uses the work of evolutionary biology, it is an approach rather than a study into the way in which the human mind operates. If you've been taught about EP then you should know that William James is one of the central figues of EP, if not then you've been taught social Darwinism and not EP. According to EP, animals have instincts and like animals humans have instincts. It was thought that humans are better than animals because they have reasoning too, however EP suggests that we have more instincts not less. Here's a link to a website that I think it quite useful: http://www.psych.ucsb.edu/research/cep/index.html Go to the link on the left saying 'Evolutionary pyschology primer'. EP I find especially interesting because unlike some pyschological areas of study it doesn't ignore scientific proof and 'invent' terminology and assume it exists. EP looks at feasible objects (so for the materialist) like the brain and the nervous system. Further down the middle of the page of that website is a link to an article about cheater detection and even further down is a link to the evolution of emotions. It would probably be more helpful if you posted some of your own views of EP to be discussed.
For the winner there was a big three-legged cauldron to stand over a fire - it was worth a dozen oxen by the Greek's reckoning - and for the loser he brought forward a woman thoroughly trained in domestic work whom they valued at four oxen. -Homer's The Illiad Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can you make it salty again? -Mark 9:50

Persephone77
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Posted 11/11/03 - 08:31 AM:	#3
How about this question: Is evolutionary psychology more plausible than sociobiology?

sensabile
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Posted 11/11/03 - 11:16 AM:	#4
Well taking into account that both EP and S-B derive from evolutionary biology it isn't all that easy to distinguish them because they have the same start point and go in the same direction but perhaps look at different things in a different way. EP focuses more on the adaptions of functions rather than behaviour like sociobiology and more in the development of things such as vision, the nervous systems and the arrangement of the brain whereas the sociobiology field is more interested in the results of these in relation to social environments. In this sense perhaps S-B is an off shoot of EP. It has been said that Ep is just the politically correct version of S-B because S-B sometimes implicates differences between the sexes and race and someitmes quite justifiably whereas EP see's everyone as having the same evolutionary framework.
For the winner there was a big three-legged cauldron to stand over a fire - it was worth a dozen oxen by the Greek's reckoning - and for the loser he brought forward a woman thoroughly trained in domestic work whom they valued at four oxen. -Homer's The Illiad Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can you make it salty again? -Mark 9:50

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