evolutionary psychology is either a proto-scientific set of theories, or a young science which (like much of, e.g., economics, linguistics, or anthropology) cannot typically use clinical, double-blind methodology, nor typically draw conclusions with as great a degree of certainty as in those sciences that can.

O.k., but clinical, double-blind methodology isn’t the only way to do science-related program activities. Is there evidence that evolutionary psychology has produced scientifically respectable results, or may eventually be able to produce scientifically respectable results?

Depending upon what is meant by science,

Should you chose to consider the question, try – as hard as you possibly can – to forget that you wrote that.

thanks for your charitable reading. I’m not sure what you think is wrong with social theories of gender, racism/xenophobia, etc., but I’m looking forward to reading Ian Hacking’s “The Social Construction of What?” Perhaps that will help.

Whether the opposition to evolutionary psychology is ideological or not, the case against its audacious claims and speculations is strong, and the strictly scientific merits of the nascent discipline are weak. Besides, accusing your opponents of purely ideological opposition harvests the precise same treatment.

David. Why? Educators do not strike me as particularly qualified for determing what should go in the curriculum. How are they meant to have special knowledge about, e.g.:
1. what sort of knowledge citizens need to participate in the political system.
2. the mathematics and science knowledge that must be acquired at school in order to be able to study and, later on practice, medicine, engineering, physics, chemistry, surveying, etc.
3. what parts of history are the most relevant to understanding the current world.
4. what artistic knowledge will bring life-long benefits.
5. what level of literacy is required as a minimum by employers.

Let us say that educators determined the curriculum, and got at least one of these wrong, and, e.g., kids started showing up at uni not having studied calculus. If direct approaches didn’t work, you’d pretty soon see people trying to pressure politicians to intervene. And in that particular example, I’d be on their side.

The curriculum in public schools is inherently a political matter.

All reasonable points. Depending upon what is meant by “science”, evolutionary psychology is either a proto-scientific set of theories, or a young science which (like much of, e.g., economics, linguistics, or anthropology) cannot typically use clinical, double-blind methodology, nor typically draw conclusions with as great a degree of certainty as in those sciences that can.

You focus on the issue of race and intelligence, and I agree with you that historically the methodology in this area has been poor. But by the same token, the last half century’s predominant theories of gender, sexual orientation, violent behavior, racism/xenophobia, and the like, seem motivated much more by political negotiations (between people who had already made up their minds) than by consideration of the most plausible theories concerning why we are the way we are. The parallel between such paradigms among the New Left and intelligent design theory abong the Evangelical Right is, I believe, the major thrust of the comment to which you originally responded.

In short, evopsych makes for fascinating speculation, but as far as I’m concerned, it makes for dreadful science. For example: the reason studies that “prove” that blacks are “less intelligent” than whites are offensive is not their assault on P.C. culture: it is their simplitude.

As to whether challenges to the sacred cows of the Enlightenment worries me, the answer is very clear: I don’t hold any principled belief on the equality across the board of talents, biologically determined predispositions, nor anything of that sort. But I do profess a healthy scepticism for poorly argued, ill-conceived forms of argumentation that attempt to pass as science. In other words, it may very well be the case that whites are smarter than Latinos, but what constitutes convincing evidence of such a claim is a matter for debate: certainly those of us who suspect that social mores, economic conditions, cultural heritage, and political circumstance can have profound effects on groups of human beings, evopsych accounts of group differences in aptitudes or performance are quite simplistic.

Dude, what a straw man. No, they don’t “control for” environmental contributions to ontogenesis, because the interaction of factors right from the womb is so massively complex as to render the very concept far outside our limits of conception. (We could, of course, do experiments on twins where we control for as many factors as possible—but I believe you know where the nearest examples to that methodology came from.) But if evolutionary psychology is an academic field without clinical trials, it’s just in the same boat with much of political science, economics, anthropology, historical linguistics, and, well, uh, evolutionary theory in general.

Peter’s point stands, that there are powerful forces against the teaching of evolutionary psychology, and that these are politically rather than scientifically motivated (in much the same way as ID-vs-evolution). Why can’t we thoroughly investigate how sexual orientation develops? Because certain factors might offend certain groups. Why can’t we consider all of the knowledge available to us in asking why sexual assault exists and how it might be reduced? Because a bunch of people might see some factors as sanctioning the practice. Et cetera. Such important questions about who we are are rarely subjected to the best theoretic tools we have available, because they interfere with ideological goals of people who start off with all the answers.

I’m an atheist myself, but it sure does seem to me that many people find evolutionary theory acceptable only insofar as it dispenses with the big G, but not insofar as it challenges Enlightenment sacred cows.

Well, obviously all legislative have both substantive and political components. The issue is that legislatures are incredibly illsuited to make these sorts of curriculum decisions because they have a large, difficult substantive decisions and the political component is likely to utterly contradict the substantive part.

Gene – I’m an Irishman applying for a green card, so I suppose that makes me an Irish-American of sorts. I’m also quite attached for irrational and sentimental reasons to some of the achievements of Irish Americans. But the Draft Riots are a pretty nasty blot that can’t be excused or condoned.

David V. – I think I disagree with you here, but there’s an interesting argument to be had (maybe my mind can be changed). It seems to me that school history curricula aren’t technical matters that can be simply delegated to educators, as can, for example, biology. The history of one’s country, and how it is taught is inevitably going to be politically loaded, because it’s such a crucial component of national identity, because the historiography is always going to be complicated, and admit different legitimate viewpoints and thus create contention between different parties. It seems to me that this should be opened up to debate and deliberation in a democracy (although I’ll grant that state legislatures are obviously only a poor approximation to debate and deliberation).

Legislators sure do have business meddling with the curriculum. The issue is not procedural, but of the substance of their meddling.

NYS regularly has commissions to oversee curricular changes. For example, mathematics was recently changed. (Truth to tell, I don’t know if one of these commissions was involved in that.)

NYS has had one of these commissions looking at history before. One would be wrong if one were to think that “educators” don’t get involved. For example, Arthur Schlessinger, Jr. was on one of the previous ones, although he didn’t like the result.

As long as one is going to have a public education system, accountability demands that politicians run it. The problem with Kansas isn’t that politicians run their education system. The problem is that one can be politically successful (for a short while) in Kansas by promising to prevent schools from educating.

There is an important parallel between the cases: both involve legislators seeking to influence the curriculum. I don’t think that’s enough to he very interesting, though. I’d guess almost everyone agrees that legislators should have some influence over state-run education: shouldn’t they be allowed to stop it if the schools start teaching geocentrism or Holocaust denial? And I’d guess that almost everyone agrees that their influence should be limited. So the question is how limited, and it seems entirely possible to answer that in a way that says no to ID (hmm, haven’t I heard that slogan before?) and yes to Armistad.

Also, Creationism, pluralism and the compromising of science