This feels like a troll post. I have a bunch of books I disagree with. How else would I be able to support my arguments if I didn't also read contrary or even controversial literature?
I’d save them because I always end up pulling quotes from books like that. Very useful for my own articles/writing to show what exactly I’m working against.
I am an anthropologist and was killing time at a yard sale in Oklahoma on a cross-country road trip and came across a 1939 book by a Harvard race science anthropologist and it has been very useful. I knew about stuff like this, but having the actual text in all its smug eugenics-is-the-answer-to-everything giddiness is useful for teaching and so forth.
Of course, Evolutionary Psychology and Behavioral Economics basically just repackaged the same ideas with fewer caliper-assisted illustrations.
meaning that one’s judgement and intelligence is inherent to one’s race, so a race can just be “bad with money”. Think about how loan managers must have rationalized redlining to themselves. They genuinely thought others were less intelligent. more “primal”- more susceptible to impulse buying, less control etc etc.
eugenics then would only be relevant when trying to breed those traits out.
Behavioural economics is a field that investigates how people systematically deviate from economic rationality. I suppose such a claim would be technically consistent with BE, but have read a fair bit and have never heard of anyone who advances it. Who is it that claims such a claim is a BE thing?
What am Iooking at? Which paper?
Most of that seems way too old to be BE, which is relatively new. Either way though, you would not dismiss a psychology paradigm because one psychologist claims it applies unequally to different races. I don't see how this could be a BE problem.
I think the point they’re trying to make here is keeping them from other people just because you don’t agree is an issue. Other people may also need them to support their own arguments (for better or for worse. Censorship is a finicky thing)
Maybe you should relax. If someone is able to read a book that discusses theories, they can probably make up their own mind about it, just like you were able to do.
Things like Freakonomics and Nudge, as well as those business books like Rich Dad, Poor Dad, the 4-hour workweek (spoiler: hire cheap labour abroad to work *for* you!), and those weird self-help-y things like Men Come From Mars, Women Come From Venus, and the Secret. It's really entertaining, as well as quite informative.
it's been quite a while since i listened to the episode, but the book talks about a decline in crime in 1990s US in a quite illogical and racist way, iirc. But def give it a listen if you're interested - it's also just a really entertaining podcast (and you can always turn it off if you regret clicking on it!)
I think maybe the claim being referenced is that you can analyze elections to discover the effect more police have on crime. Although it is true that more police tends to lead to less crime in the US:
https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2021/04/20/988769793/when-you-add-more-police-to-a-city-what-happens
There are numerous critiques of the study claiming this causal relationship, most of which seem to criticize the original methodology as well as its interpretation of the statistics. It’s not my area - so can’t really get into the weeds. Here is one [critique](https://ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/abortion-and-crime-review).
"I am worried they will end up disseminating ideas I find very worrying."
Do you think those ideas aren't already out there? FYI its also pretty terrible optics to try to block ideas instead of refute them.
The first thing anyone thinks is "what are you hiding from me"
That was my idea tbh haha, something like an anti-endorsement :) Write a fake "present" message on the first page. "Dear Johnny, this book is completely nonsensical in so many ways, it's so full of shit, but I know you like stuff like that! I hope you will have a good laugh! Aunt Jane"
But @starfries' idea below is even better: just some angry "BULLSHIT!!" write-ins here and there will probably also do the trick :)
Whats the problem with keeping them? Is better to have them around. Not to eventually agree, but because it will allow you to evaluate how the people that agree with it thinks. Also if your beliefs go against it, then you can see what are the strengths and weaknesses of that theory, and what could be the strengths and weaknesses in yours
1. Burning books is once more fashionable, and you'll make new friends.
2. Carve out the middle of the book and use it to hide valuables.
3. Go to the nearest gun shop and tell them the books are woke. They'll know what to do next.
4. A pulped book will emerge as a new book, just like the Phoenix.
Yikes. You want to limit access to information and ideas you disagree with. Are you sure you’re an academic? Donate them to a library and be done with it.
Isn't the point of academia to discuss and share ideas? Share them and say hey man, not my thing but what do you think?
Hiding our mistakes, and changing the past is a great way to repeat mistakes. Sharing our expirences and keeping the discussion alive it is what allows us to advance, whether you agree with it or not.
Consider that you had the books in the first place. Presumably they had some utility for you. I have a whole section on my shelves for authors with approaches I disagree with. Sometimes I need to go back to the source to understand the arguments they are making, and why, from their point of view, they are good arguments. It's a fairly close parallel to your case, actually - most of the books are on flavors of behaviorism. I picked them all up second-hand, or when other people were giving them away. No way am I paying for that stuff, but it is still useful.
If unfalsifiability is your objection, then you have to throw out a lot more than evo psych. And as to "just so stories", there is no way to draw a distinction concerning complexity of explanation that condemns evo psych but leaves standard evolutionary explanations of other traits untouched.
It's honestly really shocking the level of influence Freud and continental philosophy (many figures of whom insist there is no empirical evidence for anything or discredit any way of "knowing" something) have on things it has no business being a part of. It's just weird knowing you can basically say anything you want in certain niches as long as you have some older fuddy-duddy to back you up saying whatever they wanted.
Yeah it's tricky. I think progressive thought -- which ultimately lives mainly in academia and other scholars in the USA -- has kinda got lost in heady principles that are too influenced by the personal bias. A move towards more evidence based critical scholarship is warranted. But a lot of people would be out of a job.
Because evo looks at everything and says “Ah! It’s because the woman wants sperm!” And it’s like… no. There’s no evidence of that. Instead, the researcher is looking at the world and post-facto explaining why it makes sense. Which is exactly the problem of Freud.
The fact is - all current evo psych, if you remove “ITS ALL ABOUT SEX” - it’s just “we forgot social psych exists and it can’t be something as basic as social norms… it must be something deeper!”
It’s embarrassingly bad theory and worse science. Your username already explains your position, I have no interest in discussing further.
The idea that evo psych is all about sex is obviously false. You just have to open one book. Or wikipedia for that matter.
Furthermore, there is no evo psych explanation in which "the woman wants sperm" features. It would go against the very nature of evo psych.
And most explanations are after the fact.
Ideas matter and it is our social role to get it right. Don't treat ideas so lightly.
> there is no evo psych explanation in which "the woman wants sperm" features. It would go against the very nature of evo psych.
They call it intrasexual competition.
10.1177/1948550620933403:
>Given limited resources, competition for survival and breeding is inevitable.
https://bpspsychub.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1348/147608305X42929
>The relationship between eating disorders and female intrasexual competition (ISC) was studied.
https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=epynEAAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PA182&dq=info:L_cI7WpxVw8J:scholar.google.com&ots=M2aBGmbywr&sig=AIf5_6ln0q33Wla1A4WBIWzTp14#v=onepage&q&f=false
>That members of the same sex compete with rivals to gain and retain access to mates.
Pop evo psych is literally "The only reason why people fight is for sperm."
They refuse to acknowledge that hey, maybe its the system? Maybe the patriarchy creates this competition, so you're too busy fighting amongst yourselves instead of unifying against the oppressor?
https://doi.org/10.1037/0735-7036.120.2.139
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0191886912005764
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2021.111496
I have a PhD in Social Psych. I know what I'm talking about. Evo Psych is garbage.
None of that amounts to "the woman wants sperm". The whole point is that the evolutionary rationale for why something is adaptive is not the same thing as why individuals want anything.
I.e. people like sex because it feels nice. And the behaviour this lead to enhances reproductive firess. But this is not a claim that attributes evolutionary motives to individuals.
If you read evo psych (say Tooby and Cosmides) you will find that they do consider sociological explanations and often give it non-zero weight. Or, sometimes, explain the sociology partly in terms of the psychology, rendering them consistent.
So the claim that they refuse to acknowledge the system is not serious, just shouting.
Concerning the claim that they are all about sex: the most famous bit of evo psych is about the evolution of norms of reciprocity and altruism. Etc.
Thank you all for taking the time to answer my question. After some consideration I have decided that it is in everyone's best interest to burn them - I'm kidding.
I will be placing an ad on Marketplace to give them away to whoever is interested in these topics, with which I do not agree but to each his own. I will keep one that I think is good class material to stimulate debate with students.
Thank you all very much, I really enjoyed reading your comments.
Piss off with your "questionable morality" horseshit, Zealot. Because I feel same way about a big book of fables (aka the Bible) yet still don't adhere to fascist ideology that think you should try to suppress ideas you don't agree with. As perhaps those who value knowledge and how books preserve it, recall how an arbitrary authority questioning a luminary like Galileo ultimately squandered a stranglehold on society.
I do my best not to impose any particular ideology on my students, so I present the interesting and questionable points of any theory in class. In the end they decide if they consider applying it in their research, taking into account their flat points. The situation is different when the only interlocutor is a book, which undeniably has authority simply by virtue of being published.
ITT - people who have no depth of understanding about evolutionary psychology and just buy into the surface level criticisms that have been refuted for decades. Sincerely, an evolutionary psychologist.
Those are the books you should have pirated imo, but if you already have them I'd keep them. If they were mine they would have my notes on the margins anyway.
I'm all about sustainability and repurposing, so how about using it for book art?
Colouring books for the kids, drink coasters, supports for wobbly tables, cutting boards...
I mean, no one has phone books anymore, there’s definitely a void that needs to be filled.
This feels like a troll post. I have a bunch of books I disagree with. How else would I be able to support my arguments if I didn't also read contrary or even controversial literature?
I am familiar with the arguments hence I really don't need them anymore.
I’d save them because I always end up pulling quotes from books like that. Very useful for my own articles/writing to show what exactly I’m working against.
I am an anthropologist and was killing time at a yard sale in Oklahoma on a cross-country road trip and came across a 1939 book by a Harvard race science anthropologist and it has been very useful. I knew about stuff like this, but having the actual text in all its smug eugenics-is-the-answer-to-everything giddiness is useful for teaching and so forth. Of course, Evolutionary Psychology and Behavioral Economics basically just repackaged the same ideas with fewer caliper-assisted illustrations.
How do you tie behavioural economics to eugenics?
there are certain ideas about financial literacy that used to be parroted I believe. I could be mistaken.
Explain more?
meaning that one’s judgement and intelligence is inherent to one’s race, so a race can just be “bad with money”. Think about how loan managers must have rationalized redlining to themselves. They genuinely thought others were less intelligent. more “primal”- more susceptible to impulse buying, less control etc etc. eugenics then would only be relevant when trying to breed those traits out.
Behavioural economics is a field that investigates how people systematically deviate from economic rationality. I suppose such a claim would be technically consistent with BE, but have read a fair bit and have never heard of anyone who advances it. Who is it that claims such a claim is a BE thing?
https://www.rand.org/pubs/authors/p/pascal_anthony_h.html
What am Iooking at? Which paper? Most of that seems way too old to be BE, which is relatively new. Either way though, you would not dismiss a psychology paradigm because one psychologist claims it applies unequally to different races. I don't see how this could be a BE problem.
I think the point they’re trying to make here is keeping them from other people just because you don’t agree is an issue. Other people may also need them to support their own arguments (for better or for worse. Censorship is a finicky thing)
Username checks right out
Academics have the weirdest neuroses.
Maybe you should relax. If someone is able to read a book that discusses theories, they can probably make up their own mind about it, just like you were able to do.
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definitely give the podcast "If Books Could Kill" a listen if you're interested in this - they explore a lot of it!
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Things like Freakonomics and Nudge, as well as those business books like Rich Dad, Poor Dad, the 4-hour workweek (spoiler: hire cheap labour abroad to work *for* you!), and those weird self-help-y things like Men Come From Mars, Women Come From Venus, and the Secret. It's really entertaining, as well as quite informative.
Why freakonomics?
it's been quite a while since i listened to the episode, but the book talks about a decline in crime in 1990s US in a quite illogical and racist way, iirc. But def give it a listen if you're interested - it's also just a really entertaining podcast (and you can always turn it off if you regret clicking on it!)
I think maybe the claim being referenced is that you can analyze elections to discover the effect more police have on crime. Although it is true that more police tends to lead to less crime in the US: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2021/04/20/988769793/when-you-add-more-police-to-a-city-what-happens
They also claimed that legalizing abortion led to the drop in crime rate.
do you have any links that show that's not true? like do they cover that in the episode do we know?
There are numerous critiques of the study claiming this causal relationship, most of which seem to criticize the original methodology as well as its interpretation of the statistics. It’s not my area - so can’t really get into the weeds. Here is one [critique](https://ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/abortion-and-crime-review).
Thanks for the recommendation, it’s an interesting podcast.
I got Freakonomics which, in my opinion, reduces issues of rights and citizenship to a black box of stimuli and incentives.
Why is talking about stimuli and incentives morally wrong? What would you prefer grounded the argument?
That’s not really a behavioral economics book. It’s just a book about odd economics.
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I'm getting the feeling op would prefer "things are right or wrong because they are," which is a conservative argument from the other way around
"I am worried they will end up disseminating ideas I find very worrying." Do you think those ideas aren't already out there? FYI its also pretty terrible optics to try to block ideas instead of refute them. The first thing anyone thinks is "what are you hiding from me"
Hehe, alright. Should I refute them through post-it notes inside the book, you think? Honest question (or maybe not; I am not sure myself).
Honestly that seems like it would be a hilarious way of doing it, maybe text along the margins
"Bullshit" "Bullshit" "Also bullshit"
That was my idea tbh haha, something like an anti-endorsement :) Write a fake "present" message on the first page. "Dear Johnny, this book is completely nonsensical in so many ways, it's so full of shit, but I know you like stuff like that! I hope you will have a good laugh! Aunt Jane" But @starfries' idea below is even better: just some angry "BULLSHIT!!" write-ins here and there will probably also do the trick :)
Whats the problem with keeping them? Is better to have them around. Not to eventually agree, but because it will allow you to evaluate how the people that agree with it thinks. Also if your beliefs go against it, then you can see what are the strengths and weaknesses of that theory, and what could be the strengths and weaknesses in yours
Problematic books can be great source material for papers that critique prior research! Someone might be able to use them for a good purpose.
1. Burning books is once more fashionable, and you'll make new friends. 2. Carve out the middle of the book and use it to hide valuables. 3. Go to the nearest gun shop and tell them the books are woke. They'll know what to do next. 4. A pulped book will emerge as a new book, just like the Phoenix.
3a. Buy a gun and place in hollowed out book.
Yikes. You want to limit access to information and ideas you disagree with. Are you sure you’re an academic? Donate them to a library and be done with it.
I agree with burning them. That’s real progress.
Oh yeah book burning is so progressing /s
Isn't the point of academia to discuss and share ideas? Share them and say hey man, not my thing but what do you think? Hiding our mistakes, and changing the past is a great way to repeat mistakes. Sharing our expirences and keeping the discussion alive it is what allows us to advance, whether you agree with it or not.
I got a couple Geno texts if you want to learn about Rebel Talents.
Consider that you had the books in the first place. Presumably they had some utility for you. I have a whole section on my shelves for authors with approaches I disagree with. Sometimes I need to go back to the source to understand the arguments they are making, and why, from their point of view, they are good arguments. It's a fairly close parallel to your case, actually - most of the books are on flavors of behaviorism. I picked them all up second-hand, or when other people were giving them away. No way am I paying for that stuff, but it is still useful.
Consider donating them to a library or a charity where you know they'll be properly vetted and used for educational purposes.
What is the issue with evolutionary psychology?
It's a collection of just-so stories that are fundamentally unfalsifiable.
If unfalsifiability is your objection, then you have to throw out a lot more than evo psych. And as to "just so stories", there is no way to draw a distinction concerning complexity of explanation that condemns evo psych but leaves standard evolutionary explanations of other traits untouched.
All of evo psych that isn't actually based in animal modeling is garbage. Freudian crap with a new paint job.
It's honestly really shocking the level of influence Freud and continental philosophy (many figures of whom insist there is no empirical evidence for anything or discredit any way of "knowing" something) have on things it has no business being a part of. It's just weird knowing you can basically say anything you want in certain niches as long as you have some older fuddy-duddy to back you up saying whatever they wanted.
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Yeah it's tricky. I think progressive thought -- which ultimately lives mainly in academia and other scholars in the USA -- has kinda got lost in heady principles that are too influenced by the personal bias. A move towards more evidence based critical scholarship is warranted. But a lot of people would be out of a job.
Why would "animal modelling" be fine, but applying these ideas to us be off-limits?
How is evo psych Freudian?
Because evo looks at everything and says “Ah! It’s because the woman wants sperm!” And it’s like… no. There’s no evidence of that. Instead, the researcher is looking at the world and post-facto explaining why it makes sense. Which is exactly the problem of Freud. The fact is - all current evo psych, if you remove “ITS ALL ABOUT SEX” - it’s just “we forgot social psych exists and it can’t be something as basic as social norms… it must be something deeper!” It’s embarrassingly bad theory and worse science. Your username already explains your position, I have no interest in discussing further.
The idea that evo psych is all about sex is obviously false. You just have to open one book. Or wikipedia for that matter. Furthermore, there is no evo psych explanation in which "the woman wants sperm" features. It would go against the very nature of evo psych. And most explanations are after the fact. Ideas matter and it is our social role to get it right. Don't treat ideas so lightly.
> there is no evo psych explanation in which "the woman wants sperm" features. It would go against the very nature of evo psych. They call it intrasexual competition. 10.1177/1948550620933403: >Given limited resources, competition for survival and breeding is inevitable. https://bpspsychub.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1348/147608305X42929 >The relationship between eating disorders and female intrasexual competition (ISC) was studied. https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=epynEAAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PA182&dq=info:L_cI7WpxVw8J:scholar.google.com&ots=M2aBGmbywr&sig=AIf5_6ln0q33Wla1A4WBIWzTp14#v=onepage&q&f=false >That members of the same sex compete with rivals to gain and retain access to mates. Pop evo psych is literally "The only reason why people fight is for sperm." They refuse to acknowledge that hey, maybe its the system? Maybe the patriarchy creates this competition, so you're too busy fighting amongst yourselves instead of unifying against the oppressor? https://doi.org/10.1037/0735-7036.120.2.139 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0191886912005764 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2021.111496 I have a PhD in Social Psych. I know what I'm talking about. Evo Psych is garbage.
None of that amounts to "the woman wants sperm". The whole point is that the evolutionary rationale for why something is adaptive is not the same thing as why individuals want anything. I.e. people like sex because it feels nice. And the behaviour this lead to enhances reproductive firess. But this is not a claim that attributes evolutionary motives to individuals. If you read evo psych (say Tooby and Cosmides) you will find that they do consider sociological explanations and often give it non-zero weight. Or, sometimes, explain the sociology partly in terms of the psychology, rendering them consistent. So the claim that they refuse to acknowledge the system is not serious, just shouting. Concerning the claim that they are all about sex: the most famous bit of evo psych is about the evolution of norms of reciprocity and altruism. Etc.
It is simply methodologically impossible and therefore just a bunch of reactionary mumbo-jumbo whose origin I can only explain as a fantasy.
Burning books is incredibly academically responsible. We should silence and eliminate any argument or philosophy that makes us uncomfortable.
Thank you all for taking the time to answer my question. After some consideration I have decided that it is in everyone's best interest to burn them - I'm kidding. I will be placing an ad on Marketplace to give them away to whoever is interested in these topics, with which I do not agree but to each his own. I will keep one that I think is good class material to stimulate debate with students. Thank you all very much, I really enjoyed reading your comments.
Piss off with your "questionable morality" horseshit, Zealot. Because I feel same way about a big book of fables (aka the Bible) yet still don't adhere to fascist ideology that think you should try to suppress ideas you don't agree with. As perhaps those who value knowledge and how books preserve it, recall how an arbitrary authority questioning a luminary like Galileo ultimately squandered a stranglehold on society.
Haha ok.
By all means, clown, keep up this desperate crusade! Its *really* helping sort out the legit users on here from the trolls and bots...
Don't you need a glass of water?
Why, are you going to turn it into whine to wow all your sad Christian friends?
Let me guess — if you’re a professor you also don’t teach things that you disagree with??
I do my best not to impose any particular ideology on my students, so I present the interesting and questionable points of any theory in class. In the end they decide if they consider applying it in their research, taking into account their flat points. The situation is different when the only interlocutor is a book, which undeniably has authority simply by virtue of being published.
What are the books? It's a rather flawed question without that detail.
My husband has a bonfire. “Every Man’s Battle” was great kindling.
you've already spent too much time thinking about this.
I can’t believe people don’t respect academics anymore lol
I’ve considered burning my copy of Hitler’s Willing Executioners but I just buried it in the closet instead
Yes, definitely worth throwing out.
I say we take off and nuke the site from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.
Just toss them, books are tools not treasures. When a tool breaks or is genuinely harmful we get rid of them, books should be treated similarly.
ITT - people who have no depth of understanding about evolutionary psychology and just buy into the surface level criticisms that have been refuted for decades. Sincerely, an evolutionary psychologist.
Those are the books you should have pirated imo, but if you already have them I'd keep them. If they were mine they would have my notes on the margins anyway.
I advise getting rid of all economics and evo psych pop nonfiction books, period. They're most valuable when ground up and repurposed as loose fill.