EP World: Tripe Alert

Here's the Daily Mail reporting from the cutting edge of 'science'.

'Women can work out whether a man will make a good father just by looking at his face, research shows. Simply studying a photograph can give them subconscious clues that he likes children - and would therefore be a good long-term partner. Scientists behind the discovery believe it adds an important dimension to knowledge about mate selection among humans.'

Forgive me, Mr Dacre, but my arse. The 'research' in question is just the latest bit of dimwit pseudo science from the Department of Genomania (or whatever) at the University of St Andrews. It is but one of the more prolific - prolific with a press release, that is - of the many and proliferating academic cells infiltrating our seats of learning and striving daily to evangelise the world with evolutionary psychology - EP for short - the third rate 'discipline' which claims to provide us with a complete account of human nature. Dreadful stuff, it is: methodologically suspect, intellectually simplistic, quasi-religious, assumption-laden guff that nicely legitimises the dreary 'sex war' agendas of stuck-in-the-mud newspapers and generates no useful insights whatsoever into the way the sexes can and do relate.

OK, OK, I haven't actually read the research yet. Oh, but have I read stuff like it? Too, too much of it. Zzzzzz.

Comments

[Quink]

My alma mater producing dimwit pseudo science and getting massive publicity into the bargain? Shurely shome mishtake?

[Tim Worstall]

I saw that research and thought it came from UCSB.
anyway, a little more sophisticated than you make out.
They checked first to see whether men liked children. Then they showed the photos of those men to women and asked them who they would pick as a long term partner. They picked the photos of those men who (claimed) to like children.

[Dave Hill]

Tim, hello. The Mail story refers to stuff from St Andrews and from USC. It would take too long for me to detail my objections to EP and the steam that would emerge from my ears while doing so would mist up my glasses and my screen. So let's just say it is a theme I will be returning to. Thanks for your comment. I'm almost starting to believe that I exist!