Well, it’s evidence that there is some difference between men and women that exists throughout all societies. I think the main epistemic problem is that the explanatory power of the null hypothesis (men and women are natively psychologically almost identical, but people know that women get pregnant and men don’t and social structures take this into account) is pretty high and, even worse, often gives reasoning that’s isomorphic to ev psychic explanations.
This isn’t exclusively a problem for gender, either—oftentimes ev psychic explanations in other domains tend to give explanations that are isomorphic to how one would explain the behavior of a minimally modular rational actor.
Of course if Eliezer is correct—and as best I can tell his reasoning is sound, although the conclusions, even when transported to much less mindkilly domains, seem to be absurd—then this isn’t much of a problem at all.
I think the main epistemic problem is that the explanatory power of the null hypothesis (men and women are natively psychologically almost identical, but people know that women get pregnant and men don’t and social structures take this into account) is pretty high and, even worse, often gives reasoning that’s isomorphic to ev psychic explanations.
There’s still a noticeable amount that it doesn’t explain. To pick just one easy example: men and women employ different strategies for navigation. There’s no particular reason in modern society for that to be true. If those traits were entirely learned, one would not expect men to have, purely by coincidence, learned only the skills that corresponded in the ancestral environment to increased navigation skills while hunting and at war, and women to have, purely by coincidence, learned only the skills that corresponded to navigation skills necessary for gathering.
From someone who believes cultural conditioning is more powerful than you seem to, here are some (hopefully) constructive criticisms, in the interest of sharpening the disagreement.
most people are unaware of it
Cultural conditioning asserts that the conditioned traits feel “natural.” At the very least, unawareness of the traits should not be evidence against cultural conditioning.
is not useful at all in the present society
“Not useful at all” seems like a great candidate for typical mind fallacy. Cf. status politics. I suggest a friendly amendment like “not presently used for the same purpose as the ancestral environment”.
More generally, a psychological trait which is useful for purposes present in the ancestral environment and not presently used for the same purpose as the ancestral environment is much better explained as inherited than by cultural conditioning.
That seems closer to true. Does it omit any important cases?
who believes cultural conditioning is more powerful than you seem to
How much powerful I seem to believe cultural conditioning is? I suspect that you underestimate my trust in the power of culture.
Cultural conditioning asserts that the conditioned traits feel “natural.” At the very least, unawareness of the traits should not be evidence against cultural conditioning.
I didn’t mean unaware of the fact that the trait is result of cultural conditioning, but that the trait exists at all. If, for example, nobody knows that women write on average 20% smaller letters than men (I made this up), then how the society manages to train women into smaller hadwriting?
But we are discussing socially contested positions (like possibly sex-based differences in ability to do math). What does it mean for the society to be unaware of the trait, when the very dispute is whether the trait is inherent or cultural? By contrast, the existence of cognitive bias is not culturally contested, which is some evidence that it is inherent rather than culturally conditioned.
nobody knows that women write on average 20% smaller letters than men (I made this up), then how the society manages to train women into smaller handwriting?
This is outside of my area of expertise, so I won’t offer judgement on the reliability of the metastudy referenced in the link, but not only is the biological explanation for gender differences in math performance contested, the existence of the phenomenon itself is apparently contested as well
The society in general can be unaware of a trait while few people who are aware of it (perhaps those who have just discovered it through a psychological experiment) can discuss its origin. I don’t see any contradiction in this. Of course it doesn’t apply to sex-based differences in math proficiency which are widely discussed. It can, on the other hand, in principle apply to the refrigerator staring problem discussed in the OP (although, as it has been pointed out, this exact difference can be caused by differences in gender roles with respect to preparing food).
To expand the unparseable section: Imagine you make a study to compare handwriting of men and women in which you, possibly among other things, measure the size of the lettres. You realise that female handwriting is smaller on average by 20% than male handwriting. You repeat the study to exclude confounding factors (compose your experimental groups of men and women of the same education, social and ethnic background, age, handwriting practice, physical dimensions, whatever else) and see that the effect persists. The main remaining explanations are
Men have inherent psychological inclination to write bigger lettres than women.
Men are socially conditioned to write bigger lettres.
Now imagine that the society is unaware of the fact. That means: if you ask random people whether men or women write bigger lettres, most people would answer “I don’t know” and the rest would split equally between the other possibilities; nobody would refer to small compact handwriting as feminine and to big, crude letters as manly. This leaves 2 with a problem: social conditioning is supposed to work by making gender stereotypes apparent and people then accomodate to the roles they are expected to play and traits they are expected to have. But when the traits are not apparent, this couldn’t work. Which pretty leaves us with 1 as the only explanation.
(Note that I have chosen a fictitious example because I am not an experimental psychologist and so I lack knowledge of sex-based differences or other psychological traits unknown to general public.)
I think the main epistemic problem is that the explanatory power of the null hypothesis (men and women are natively psychologically almost identical, but people know that women get pregnant and men don’t and social structures take this into account) is pretty high and, even worse, often gives reasoning that’s isomorphic to ev psychic explanations.
So your null hypothesis is that genetic evolution failed to produce any traits in humans that accommodate this fact, so all behavioral differences are the result of memetic evolution and explicit reasoning. This hypothesis strikes me as extremely unlikely.
Well, it’s evidence that there is some difference between men and women that exists throughout all societies. I think the main epistemic problem is that the explanatory power of the null hypothesis (men and women are natively psychologically almost identical, but people know that women get pregnant and men don’t and social structures take this into account) is pretty high and, even worse, often gives reasoning that’s isomorphic to ev psychic explanations.
This isn’t exclusively a problem for gender, either—oftentimes ev psychic explanations in other domains tend to give explanations that are isomorphic to how one would explain the behavior of a minimally modular rational actor.
Of course if Eliezer is correct—and as best I can tell his reasoning is sound, although the conclusions, even when transported to much less mindkilly domains, seem to be absurd—then this isn’t much of a problem at all.
There’s still a noticeable amount that it doesn’t explain. To pick just one easy example: men and women employ different strategies for navigation. There’s no particular reason in modern society for that to be true. If those traits were entirely learned, one would not expect men to have, purely by coincidence, learned only the skills that corresponded in the ancestral environment to increased navigation skills while hunting and at war, and women to have, purely by coincidence, learned only the skills that corresponded to navigation skills necessary for gathering.
More generally, a psychological trait which
is useful for purposes present in the ancestral environment,
is not useful at all in the present society, and
most people are unaware of it
is much better explained as inherited than by cultural conditioning.
From someone who believes cultural conditioning is more powerful than you seem to, here are some (hopefully) constructive criticisms, in the interest of sharpening the disagreement.
Cultural conditioning asserts that the conditioned traits feel “natural.” At the very least, unawareness of the traits should not be evidence against cultural conditioning.
“Not useful at all” seems like a great candidate for typical mind fallacy. Cf. status politics. I suggest a friendly amendment like “not presently used for the same purpose as the ancestral environment”.
That seems closer to true. Does it omit any important cases?
How much powerful I seem to believe cultural conditioning is? I suspect that you underestimate my trust in the power of culture.
I didn’t mean unaware of the fact that the trait is result of cultural conditioning, but that the trait exists at all. If, for example, nobody knows that women write on average 20% smaller letters than men (I made this up), then how the society manages to train women into smaller hadwriting?
But we are discussing socially contested positions (like possibly sex-based differences in ability to do math). What does it mean for the society to be unaware of the trait, when the very dispute is whether the trait is inherent or cultural? By contrast, the existence of cognitive bias is not culturally contested, which is some evidence that it is inherent rather than culturally conditioned.
I’m sorry, I can’t parse this.
This is outside of my area of expertise, so I won’t offer judgement on the reliability of the metastudy referenced in the link, but not only is the biological explanation for gender differences in math performance contested, the existence of the phenomenon itself is apparently contested as well
The society in general can be unaware of a trait while few people who are aware of it (perhaps those who have just discovered it through a psychological experiment) can discuss its origin. I don’t see any contradiction in this. Of course it doesn’t apply to sex-based differences in math proficiency which are widely discussed. It can, on the other hand, in principle apply to the refrigerator staring problem discussed in the OP (although, as it has been pointed out, this exact difference can be caused by differences in gender roles with respect to preparing food).
To expand the unparseable section: Imagine you make a study to compare handwriting of men and women in which you, possibly among other things, measure the size of the lettres. You realise that female handwriting is smaller on average by 20% than male handwriting. You repeat the study to exclude confounding factors (compose your experimental groups of men and women of the same education, social and ethnic background, age, handwriting practice, physical dimensions, whatever else) and see that the effect persists. The main remaining explanations are
Men have inherent psychological inclination to write bigger lettres than women.
Men are socially conditioned to write bigger lettres.
Now imagine that the society is unaware of the fact. That means: if you ask random people whether men or women write bigger lettres, most people would answer “I don’t know” and the rest would split equally between the other possibilities; nobody would refer to small compact handwriting as feminine and to big, crude letters as manly. This leaves 2 with a problem: social conditioning is supposed to work by making gender stereotypes apparent and people then accomodate to the roles they are expected to play and traits they are expected to have. But when the traits are not apparent, this couldn’t work. Which pretty leaves us with 1 as the only explanation.
(Note that I have chosen a fictitious example because I am not an experimental psychologist and so I lack knowledge of sex-based differences or other psychological traits unknown to general public.)
So your null hypothesis is that genetic evolution failed to produce any traits in humans that accommodate this fact, so all behavioral differences are the result of memetic evolution and explicit reasoning. This hypothesis strikes me as extremely unlikely.