To put it concretely, the common evo-psych statement that women are more selective because they have to carry a fetus to term while men are more promiscuous because inseminating a woman is cheap causes rape apologism and policing of women’s sexuality. It provides a narrative by which the people who do those things can point to science and say “Look, clearly I’m right because of this finding that states that it is unnatural for a woman to do something I disapprove of!”
Just parachuted in.
So my first thought here is that the obvious point of attack for advocacy is the widespread false belief that natural=good, not the “idealized, entirely correct, and throughly non-sexist evolutionary psychology” which is philosophically misconstrued because of the natural=good conflation. (By all means, please criticize bad evo psych, which a lot of it is.)
In general it seems like stopping inquiry (or public disclosure) because some factual results might be philosophically misconstrued by the public has the potential to stop a lot of inquiry… off the top of my head, evolution in general is often wildly misconstrued to imply various bad moral stances. Do you think we should be censorious in many other fields of knowledge? Assuming you do, I’m guessing you’re of the opinion that this is acceptable on account of the harm thus prevented?
Just parachuted in.
So my first thought here is that the obvious point of attack for advocacy is the widespread false belief that natural=good, not the “idealized, entirely correct, and throughly non-sexist evolutionary psychology” which is philosophically misconstrued because of the natural=good conflation. (By all means, please criticize bad evo psych, which a lot of it is.)
In general it seems like stopping inquiry (or public disclosure) because some factual results might be philosophically misconstrued by the public has the potential to stop a lot of inquiry… off the top of my head, evolution in general is often wildly misconstrued to imply various bad moral stances. Do you think we should be censorious in many other fields of knowledge? Assuming you do, I’m guessing you’re of the opinion that this is acceptable on account of the harm thus prevented?