English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

8:00 PM

OK, I'm out. Peace and love to you all!

user19161

@Vitaly Also, the fact is, people tend to project parts of themselves onto others. If they make things up in this way, they tend to think other people do that too.

user19161

@KitFox Bye! I hope your shoulder recovers quickly.

Vitaly

@JasperLoy And do people who project parts of themselves onto others tend to think that other people do that too?

Matt Эллен

@KitFox CU

user19161

@Vitaly Well, the people who project parts of themselves onto others usually are not too aware of it themselves. They don't even think about it.

user19161

8:07 PM

@MattЭллен Sometimes I type CU. But I feel weird when I use abbreviations like that.

Vitaly

@JasperLoy Then you are contradicting yourself because the same logic applies to your earlier statement. You assume that they are aware of their making things up and that they think about it.

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

5

Q: Is there a word to refer to the cap some British soldiers wear?

Whenever Britain is abuzz with some celebration, I find these people (cops or soldiers?) in red strutting about in parades wearing an elongated black headdress. Is there a word for this peculiar hat, just like there is a zuchetto to refer to the Pope's cap?

single-word-requests

Seriously, I keep misreading this as "Is there a word to refer to the crap some British soldiers wear?"

Can't help it.

It's annoying.

Gigili

Delete it.

Kill them all, with one bullet.

user19161

@Vitaly Hmm, I meant they know they make things up, and they think other people make things up, but they don't know they are doing projection there.

Gigili

I flagged it, @Reg. Now what?

Huh, nice. "declined".

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

8:22 PM

Well you flagged it as not constructive. Which it is not.

user19161

@Gigili No killing in this chat. We are full of love.

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

There is a specific term for that. It's not subjective.

Gigili

I don't get it.

Should I flag it as general reference?

Vitaly

@JasperLoy They don't know they make things up. That's the whole point. Neurologically, no single human alive on Earth has the mental facilities to arrive at any worthwhile theory about the inner workings of their brain through introspection. That is why we have evolutionary psychology and sociobiology to figure out under what circumstances people are more likely to make things up without explicitly realizing it.

Mitch

I do.

No..better..that whole evpsych is all made up.

user19161

8:25 PM

@Vitaly Maybe they just refuse to be honest with themselves.

Mitch

Even better...The evpsych people are just projecting.

user19161

Wow, all this is getting a little taxing.

Mitch

If they were honest with themselves, they'd -know- that other people think the same dirty thoughts.

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

@Gigili If you find it offensive, flag it as offensive. You are perfectly entitled to that. I can't say you are not offended if you actually are. However, if you flag it as something else, I have to check if there's any supporting evidence for your claim. If there is not, I have to dismiss it.

Mitch

Did I say 'dirty'? I meant to say a mother word.

user19161

8:27 PM

@RegDwightΒВBẞ8 Wow, you are so professional!

Vitaly

@Mitch What's wrong with rejecting mind-body dualism?

Gigili

@RegDwightΒВBẞ8 I don't find it offensive. Why would I? You asked me to flag it and I did so.

Mitch

uh..nothing? I thought that was rejected a long time ago.

user19161

@Gigili Oh I thought you loved to flag things.

Vitaly

@Mitch Then why do you say that evpsych is all made up?

Gigili

8:28 PM

I think you're just playing with me. If you feel like declining some flags, go find someone else.

@JasperLoy You were wrong, as always.

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

@Gigili Nah. You said you wanted to downvote it a million times. And said I should close it. Etc. etc.

user19161

@Gigili Thanks for the compliment.

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

I just pointed out that you are free to flag it if you are offended, and that so are others.

I never said you should flag it as not constructive.

Vitaly

Because every single criticism of evpsych on allegedly scientific grounds I have encountered so far can ultimately be traced back to mind-body dualism

Robusto

You just made that shit up. Admit it.

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

8:30 PM

I myself find the image suboptimal.

Certainly there's a less NSFW picture to demonstrate the concept.

user19161

Whoa I cannot follow the conversations!

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

@JasperLoy at last! At last you admit it!

user19161

@RegDwightΒВBẞ8 Thanks for the compliment. I am honest like that.

Mitch

@Vitaly for two reasons. I was trying to riff off of what you said about things being made up. And also, lots of evpsych has a bad rep for being bullshit, essentially projections of modern concerns totally irrelevantly to past uncheckable situations ('caveman with a club' behaviors, or the paleo diet)

Gigili

You speak as the problem is what I flagged it as.

Which is not.

Vitaly

8:32 PM

@Robusto Why would I admit to something false? These are the types of criticisms commonly directed at evpsych: environment-of-evolutionary-adaptedness-related criticisms, nature versus nurture, and massive modularity.

Gigili

I don't know what you're after.

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

I am after nothing. The transript contains all things.

Robusto

@Vitaly still thinks you're making shit up

Vitaly

@Mitch I was talking about the science, not about the folk just-so stories.

Gigili

Are you before something?

user19161

8:32 PM

@RegDwightΒВBẞ8 transcript

Mitch

@Vitaly ...ohhhhh... ok...I'm not thinking that deeply (or reading that quickly) ...let me consider for a moment.

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

@JasperLoy you misspelled Transsib.

user19161

@Robusto That's a good way to pretend to follow: by repeatedly telling the opponent he is making shit up.

Gigili

Hmmm... Venus with that picture. Me thinks someone is just jonesing for points with a pretty picture... — Affable Geek 23 mins ago

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

@Gigili I am between something. Mostly rocks and places.

Gigili

8:33 PM

Someone agrees with me.

Mitch

@Vitaly I don't know enough to differentiate.

Robusto

@JasperLoy I see you're not following the intent of my (obvious to others) humorous remark.

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

@Robusto he did say that he wasn't going to follow your conversation.

Mitch

@Gigili It's questionable, in the literal sense.

it's not obviously NSFW, but it's going in that direction.

did you flag it?

Gigili

The whole question is just nonsense.

Robusto

8:35 PM

@RegDwightΒВBẞ8 Who reads all his shit?

Jez

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

@Jez yes that's a better picture of Venus dimples.

Vitaly

OK, I can't follow the conversation anymore. I need some sleep. Night!

Robusto

More like Venus in Furze

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

@Robusto now I'm not following. Furz is German for fart.

Robusto

8:36 PM

@Vitaly Good night.

Mitch

@Gigili it's not nonsense ('dimples' is the right idea and makes sense) but I'm sure there are less provocative pictures that it could be illustrated with.

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

Night Vit.

user19161

@Vitaly Night!

Robusto

@RegDwightΒВBẞ8 Furze is a perfectly adequate English word. It means gorse.

Gigili

@Mitch Why in the world would someone refer to that part of body?

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

8:37 PM

@Robusto now you're just making shit up.

Gigili

Your -that part of body- looks good?

cornbread ninja

the small of your back

user19161

@RegDwightΒВBẞ8 There is so much shitting in chat today. It all started after I took a poo.

cornbread ninja

your tramp stamp area

Robusto

Venus in Furs

Venus in Furs () is a novella by Austrian author Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, the best known of his works. The novel was part of an epic series that Sacher-Masoch envisioned called Legacy of Cain. Venus in Furs was part of Love, the first volume of the series. It was published in 1870. Novel The novel draws themes and character inspiration heavily from Sacher-Masoch’s own life. Wanda von Dunajew (the novel's central female character) was modelled after Fanny Pistor, who was an emerging literary writer. The two met when Pistor contacted Sacher-Masoch, under the fictitious title of a...

The source of the pun.

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

8:38 PM

48 mins ago, by RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

@JasperLoy too much information.

@Robusto thank you.

I had no idea he had a book by that title.

Gigili

It's a rep hunting question, obviously seriously clearly.

Mitch

@Gigili there's all sorts of things out there that I would never have thought that people would need to have a word for (this one in particular) but I can't judge that they -have- come up with a term for it.

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

Well if it hits the MC, all bets are off.

Robusto

Auf Deutsch heißt das Venus im Pelz. But that ruins the pun.

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

0

Q: Loathe. The atypical use of the verb

I have a quick question about the atypical grammar of mine. I am a poet using iambic pentameter. The question is if the following is grammatically correct: I she loathes. That I loathe. Something + someone + loathe. (The someone loathes something). In other words, she loathes me and I loa...

grammar poetry

"I she loathes" is ungrammatical. Change it to "I she loaves".

Robusto

8:40 PM

I think that I may never answer another question on ELU. ELU is broken, and I don't think it can be fixed.

Mitch

I just did a google image search for 'butt dimple', with 'super safe search' on, and one of the top images was the one the OP gave. Also, (clears throat)...if the OP picture bothers you, the super safe search will also bother you (and I don't disagree, it should probably annoy people).

@Robusto now you have to explain. how is 'pelz' a pun?

Robusto

@Mitch I would pelt you with puns.

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

@Robusto I've heard that before.

user19161

@Robusto Just reinstall the whole thing. Problem solved.

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

Barrie is catching up. You can resist for a day, or a year, but you will not resist forever.

Robusto

8:42 PM

@RegDwightΒВBẞ8 Yeah, but then I got bored enough to answer a few. I could get that bored again, but I doubt it.

Mitch

That pun works in English. what's the pun in German? (that's what you're saying the pun is, right?)

user19161

@RegDwightΒВBẞ8 Then there is Daniel too, young and energetic!

Robusto

@Mitch No. I'm saying it's not a pun there. Did you read the part where I say "But that ruins the pun"?

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

@Robusto You are old enough to know that if there's anything in this universe that knows no limit, it's boredom.

user19161

Wow, almost all the stars are of R and R.

Gigili

8:43 PM

@Mitch Uh, whatever. I just closed the window and I'll go to sleep for 600 minutes and will leave all inappropriate content to the nice moderators. I have no idea why Reg asked me to flag it.

Mitch

@Robusto OK. I'm laughing inside now.

Gigili

@JasperLoy They're awesome like that.

user19161

@Gigili 10 hours is too long. 8 is good.

Robusto

@JasperLoy You're such a star-fucker.

3

Matt Эллен

@Gigili how's the new photo for you? (back dimples)

Robusto

8:44 PM

@Mitch Very discreet of you.

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

@JasperLoy I am sitting a couple feet away from the monitor, so the font size is so huge I only see exactly one starred message.

Robusto

There goes RegDwight, bragging about his huge font size again.

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

And for the last couple hours that message contained some variation of the word fuck.

Robusto

Now you're just fucking things up.

Gigili

@MattЭллен How do you mean?

user19161

8:46 PM

Now the entire star wall is R and R!

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

@Robusto loathe. The atypical use of the verb.

Gigili

Just for the record, I'm not starring anything.

4

Matt Эллен

@Gigili oh, well I thought you found the picture of the female human distasteful

Gigili

@JasperLoy We're not blind.

Matt Эллен

also I thought it was a crude ploy to get votes

so I've put a less vote grabbing picture in its place

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

8:47 PM

@MattЭллен that's what I said but then she said I must be imagining it.

Mitch

@MattЭллен THe other "(picture)" question by the same poster is of a bridge.

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

I think it's the third (picture) post today.

@JasperLoy get off my wall!

user19161

@RegDwightΒВBẞ8 The consolation to me though is that many stars in this room are for a message in response to my message!

Gigili

I said:

55 mins ago, by Gigili

I wish I could downvote a question a million times. Like whenever it gets an upvote, I downvote.

Was I referring to a particular question there?

The answer is no.

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

Yeah I was there. The rest is history.

@Gigili but you did flag a particular question.

No lame excuses.

Matt Эллен

8:48 PM

@Gigili ok

Gigili

And then Reg suggested to flag that question.

@RegDwightΒВBẞ8 You told me so.

user19161

Actually I really wonder how people read so quickly. I read really slowly myself.

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

@Gigili I never told you to flag that question.

See, I can use the Gigili defense, too.

user19161

And of course Mahnax reads super fast.

Matt Эллен

@Gigili he said you could flag a question if it offends you

not that you should flag a question

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

8:49 PM

Really this is pointless. The transcript is out there in the open. You can google it.

Matt Эллен

you really can

Vitaly

@Mitch (I can't resist returning for a few seconds for this:) Well, to put it bluntly, there's about as much difference between academic evpsych and armchair evpsych as there is between the physical notion of energy and the New Age notion of energy. This paper by Tooby and Cosmides psych.ucsb.edu/research/cep/papers/pfc92.pdf is a foundational text of evolurionary psychology (although a bit old, 1992) and I think is a good introduction.

Mitch

@Gigili It's very reasonably flaggable (I'd even go so far as to say that even with Matt's less provocative picture it is still questionable).

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

Oh God I thought you went to bed!

user19161

@RegDwightΒВBẞ8 Yeah, one will be surprised what terrible secrets google shows up!

Vitaly

8:50 PM

I actually think that academic EP might be more rigorous than even evolutionary biology.

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

Is Vitaly sleep-talking?

Vitaly

Now night for realz. :P

Matt Эллен

Google found the transcript

Mitch

@Vitaly My strategy has succeeded. I've kept you from sleeping a few minutes more.

user19161

@RegDwightΒВBẞ8 I was about to but I saw the dimple picture.

Gigili

8:51 PM

@Mitch I knew you are a sensible kind of person.

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

@Mitch that's what I'm saying, yes. In the transcript, in fact.

Mitch

@Vitaly I'll check it out. thanks.

user19161

@Vitaly Night!

Mitch

lots of pictures, right? large type?

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

Except I never said it is flaggable as not constructive. Because in point of fact it is not.

user19161

8:51 PM

I should ask the OP where he got the dimple picture. There might be more where it came from.

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

Anyhoo. I think I'll go play some Paladog.

Gigili

2 mins ago, by RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

Really this is pointless. The transcript is out there in the open. You can google it.

Matt Эллен

I'm off to bed.

user19161

@RegDwightΒВBẞ8 Have fun!

Matt Эллен

CU @Reg

user19161

8:52 PM

@MattЭллен Night!

Matt Эллен

Good night y'all

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

Night Matt.

Gigili

CU

Night.

user19161

@Gigili Now it's just us.

Gigili

Bye.

@JasperLoy Umm.

Mitch

8:53 PM

@RegDwightΒВBẞ8 but 'non-constructive' is vague enough that it should apply (if you're worried about the letter of the law).

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

@Mitch No. "Not constructive" is what used to be "subjective and argumentative".

When someone is asking for the best neologism, say.

user19161

@RegDwightΒВBẞ8 You're supposed to be playing.

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

However, there is a specific medical term for this.

Mitch

well, no need to hold back on a technicality...if it's a problem, won't most any reason count?

SoftTimur

hello

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

8:55 PM

28 mins ago, by RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

@Gigili If you find it offensive, flag it as offensive. You are perfectly entitled to that. I can't say you are not offended if you actually are. However, if you flag it as something else, I have to check if there's any supporting evidence for your claim. If there is not, I have to dismiss it.

user19161

0

Q: Word or phrase for a lady with three breasts

I am writing a weird essay, I need plenty of weird words! one of them is word or phrase to describe a lady with three breasts. Is that even available in English?

single-word-requests phrases

user19161

HB!

SoftTimur

I have question... should we say "describe sth with sth" or "describe sth by sth"?

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

@JasperLoy what the hell.

@SoftTimur describe something as something.

But really, give us an example.

user19161

@RegDwightΒВBẞ8 We just had ...

user19161

8:56 PM

3

Q: Word for man with one testicle

I heard half-sack in a TV series before to describe a man with one testicle. Is there any single word to describe that?

single-word-requests

cornbread ninja

half-sack!

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

@JasperLoy same gravatar, no less.

user19161

@RegDwightΒВBẞ8 Haha.

user19161

I think maybe he is just trolling!

SoftTimur

sorry, If i say "describe A by B", I mean I use B to describe or express A

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

8:57 PM

@JasperLoy if you are interested in three breasts and one testicle, you are probably Arnold Schwarzenegger. Also, on Mars.

@SoftTimur still a bit vague. Do you have a specific example in mind?

You can describe something by using something, for example.

So by is an option. Except when it's not.

Mitch

@SoftTimur yes, give a longer fuller phrase. as is they both sounds just fine but maybe there are distinguishing contexts.

user19161

@cornbreadninja OP wrote half sac but someone edited it to half-sack!

cornbread ninja

@JasperLoy hmm

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

0

Q: Conjunction of Sentences with Modals

The problem is this sentence: it might not be adequate in some cases and worsen the results Is it correct or I should write worsens the results. If the effect of might not is propagated to worsen it is correct. Otherwise it should be worsens. But I don't know whether it propagates or not. Are th...

conjunctions modal-verbs

Mitch

@Gigili: so Reg is saying you shoulda flagged as 'offensive' instead of 'not constructive' if you wanted the question acted on.

Gigili

9:00 PM

I'm concerned what the OP is going to ask next.

user19161

I think the triple breast question will hit the MC!

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

This is the twenty-fiftieth question today by a new user complete with poor formatting and ending in "thanks a lot everyone I love you".

Did we get featured somewhere?

user19161

@RegDwightΒВBẞ8 Sounds like Carlo.

user19161

By the way, what happened to Carlo?

Robusto

@RegDwightΒВBẞ8 I'm always glad when 25 new users love me.

cornbread ninja

9:01 PM

@JasperLoy isn't he locked until July?

user19161

@cornbreadninja Oh, 7 more hours only.

cornbread ninja

@JasperLoy man the harpoons!

user19161

@cornbreadninja I did not know you followed such developments!

cornbread ninja

@JasperLoy CR bugged me.

Gigili

@Mitch Aha, okay. I'll flag nothing, none of my concern.

user19161

9:02 PM

@cornbreadninja How so? He's alright actually.

cornbread ninja

@JasperLoy I remembered a 7; must have been June 7 and not 7/x

user19161

@cornbreadninja Ah, you are quite a detective yourself!

cornbread ninja

@JasperLoy meh. I didn't appreciate some comments here and there

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

@Robusto not twenty-five. Twenty-fifty.

You are loved beyond repair.

user19161

I think JA should come here to close the testicle and breast questions. In fact I am closevoting them as TL now.

cornbread ninja

9:03 PM

@JasperLoy my rememberer is hyperactive

Mitch

@Gigili I was going to flag it as offensive, but now that Matt's changed the picture, I don't know.

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

@JasperLoy why are you closing them as TL? Just close them as Jasper. No sockpuppeting.

Robusto

@RegDwightΒВBẞ8 Even better.

@RegDwightΒВBẞ8 And I am feeling the love.

user19161

@RegDwightΒВBẞ8 I am actually fast enough today to understand that.

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

@Robusto You misspelled glove.

@JasperLoy poor that.

I am supposed to be playing, folks.

Mitch

9:06 PM

@JasperLoy Carlo was suspended (can't remember how long for this time) also Lewis Carroll (check their profile pages?)

user19161

Now he asks about one testicle and three breasts, the next moment he will ask about three testicles and one breast.

user19161

@Mitch Yes, and I suspected they are one.

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

@JasperLoy we did allow the question about one head.

Now that one was pointless.

user19161

70

Q: Is there a word for a person with only one head?

Reading this article by the fantastic Douglas Adams I came across this interesting quote: ‘[I]nteractivity’ is one of those neologisms that Mr Humphrys likes to dangle between a pair of verbal tweezers, but the reason we suddenly need such a word is that during this century we have for the fi...

word-choice single-word-requests etymology construction word-games

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

70

Q: Is there a word for a person with only one head?

Reading this article by the fantastic Douglas Adams I came across this interesting quote: ‘[I]nteractivity’ is one of those neologisms that Mr Humphrys likes to dangle between a pair of verbal tweezers, but the reason we suddenly need such a word is that during this century we have for the fi...

word-choice single-word-requests etymology construction word-games

user19161

9:07 PM

OK I am TL-ing it too.

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

Jinx!

cornbread ninja

(o.O)

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

Holy crap, 70 upvotes.

I wasn't aware of that.

user19161

Next he will ask about 0 heads and 2 heads.

user19161

The former is simply headless.

Mitch

9:08 PM

@JasperLoy I doubt it highly...Lewis had a fluent command of English in his comments, Carlo was abysmal. (Carlo could write questions and answers well but that's because he copy pasted a lot and took time with a grammar/spell checker)

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

Going by votes, only 12 questions on this site are better. Out of 16000. The sad thing is, that's an awful state of affairs whether or not that is actually true.

user19161

@Mitch Hmm OK. You are right. However, I must say for the tenth time that I still suspect Kris is Thursagen.

user19161

Actually the answer to the breast and testicle question is simple: triple-breasted and single-testicled.

user19161

@cornbreadninja Not only are the debates and jokes in this room taxing, the smilies are pretty taxing too!

Mitch

@Vitaly: I doubt the basis for evpsych. if the data is anthropological, then its anthropology (e.g. Chagnon's work on the -cultural- fitness of violence in the Yanamamo). If the data is comparative animal behavior with other primates, the comparison is, well you don't know if you're comparing the same thing.

no concern for monism or ...

or whatever you thought I was leading towards.

Gigili

9:14 PM

@Mitch It's still inappropriate as the person is taking his pants off.

user19161

@Gigili Where?

Gigili

There's no such an option, flag as offensive.

user19161

OIC the pic has been changed!

Mitch

the correct option, which I just exercised, is 'it is not welcome in our community' which goes on to use the term 'offensive'.

user19161

One can always use "others" if there is such an option.

Gigili

9:18 PM

Ah yes. "This question contains content that a reasonable person would consider offensive, abusive, or hate speech"

Did you flag it @Mitch?

Mitch

Yes

cornbread ninja

@JasperLoy would mine have been less so without parentheses?

Mitch

(because it is still offensive)

Gigili

Okay, great.

user19161

@cornbreadninja Well, I'm just bad at smilies!

Mitch

9:21 PM

@cornbreadninja I had to google for it (urban dictionary) and there is no mention of parens.

Gigili

I'm off to bed, good night.

user19161

@Mitch You mean the new pic?

Mitch

Yes.

too provocative.

user19161

@Mitch Perhaps inappropriate would be a better term.

user19161

@Mitch provocative

Mitch

9:22 PM

what are you talking about?

cornbread ninja

@JasperLoy at the risk of being insensitive... :(

user19161

Well, I like both pics so I won't flag.

cornbread ninja

heh

user19161

I belong to the camp which believes that people should be allowed to walk naked on this planet.

Mitch

won't they get cold?

cornbread ninja

9:24 PM

@JasperLoy I see your point (no pun intended)

user19161

@Mitch Maybe, but they should not be penalised for doing so.

cornbread ninja

@JasperLoy giggle

user19161

@cornbreadninja Oh, you need to use the right arrow to reply otherwise I can't follow.

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

Where I live people walk naked all the time.

user19161

@cornbreadninja giggles

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

9:26 PM

And let me tell you, people are hideous.

Mitch

underneath all their clothes

user19161

@RegDwightΒВBẞ8 That is true beauty!

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

No. Beauty is true beauty. Hideousness is not true beauty.

user19161

@RegDwightΒВBẞ8 What happened to your game?

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

It's not even false beauty. It just isn't any beauty of any kind.

@JasperLoy well you were wrong on the Internet, so I had to drop by and teach you.

cornbread ninja

9:28 PM

@JasperLoy but would they be allowed to sit?

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

Now I'm off again.

user19161

@cornbreadninja That might be painful, if the ground is uneven.

cornbread ninja

@RegDwightB8 toodles

what a shame; I have yet to draw any letters today

Robusto

dougstanhope.com

Gotta watch this guy. Pretty damn funny.

Also, pretty damn right about many, many things.

►

Vitaly

9:44 PM

@Mitch OK, the most important premise of EP is that natural selection is the only known force to shape the designs of species, and that the brain is an information-processing device that is no different from other organs shaped by natural selection in that respect. Evolutionary anthropology neglects the computational formalism, and social anthropology neglects that and, additionally, advances from primatology and hunter-gatherer studies that provide us with data about the environments in

which our ancestors lived, research in neuroscience that shows that the mind is not a blank slate, and research in evolutionary biology that gives it a very solid mathematical foundation (replicator dynamics and game theory).

Fields like nativist cognitive science and sociobiology also fail to account for all of those advances. This necessitates another approach, namely, evolutionary psychology, that encompasses all of that data.

Hopefully, I answered your anthropology part.

Now, about the “comparative animal behavior among primates”, I guess I don't really see a problem with that as long as the scientist remembers that the brain is, basically, an information-processing device shaped by natural selection and instantiated in neural tissue. Nevertheless, there are vast quantities of data coming from many angles besides that one. Namely, it is perfectly possibly to study the computational and modular nature of the brain on live subjects (I guess I won't

really be able to argue why cognitive science is insufficient for that at length and will leave that to Tooby and Cosmides); we know with certainty lots of important data about the environment our ancestors lived in (contrary to the popular belief that EP is based on uncertainty; e.g. we know perfectly well what physical laws governed the motion of objects, which allows researchers to discover how the brain represents the motion of objects, etc, etc).

The traditional approach to human psychology doesn't really work either because it presupposes what early philosophers called “general intelligence” and lack of modularity, which is patently false as demonstrated by the existence of dozens of known and described cognitive biases and inconsistencies in the operation of the human mind.

Mitch

sounds nice but if you gave a specific theory of evpsych that would help us both (I could complain that it's not science and you could show me how I'm wrong)

Vitaly

10:01 PM

Would it be sufficient to state that error management theory (a specific theory of evpsych) has predictive power? It has apparently predicted several cognitive biases a priori, most notably women's commitment skepticism.

Mitch

I'll check it out. I am sincerely skeptical about that particular subject because it sounds like a survey quiz from Cosmopolitan magazine.

ok...the web page is ... short on details, so I'll have to look at the papers. later.

Vitaly

@Mitch Absolutely not. While testing on live subjects, it goes through the actual scientific process of eliminating hypotheses.

I can try and find an example now.

<about 30 pages of text skipped straight to the summary of B10's elimination>

(From the description of the Wason task experiment through the lens of evpsych, via The Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology edited by David M. Buss)

OK, the PDF appears to be on the Web. @Mitch here you go, psych.ucsb.edu/research/cep/papers/20finalbusssocexweb.pdf (Ctrl+F B1)

Mitch

10:39 PM

The first link in the wiki page on EP was about 'commitment' which I maintain is a culture and generation specific behavior which was nit shown to be transferable to other cultures.

Vitaly

Frankly, I haven't read those papers and I don't remember where I read about EM.

Mitch

Forgot to say, I have no problem with most behaviors being inborn and thus subject to evolutionary (results of sex death and genes) processes.

Vitaly

The Wiki link was intended as a summary because I am barely awake.

Mitch

The social contract/cheating paper ... I haven't gone through all the data yet but it looks 'not laughable'.

Vitaly

Yeah, I read that one.

Vitaly

11:06 PM

So… Proposing a hypothesis based on the available data about our ancestral environment and the information-processing model, making a prediction, verifying that prediction, testing and eliminating alternative hypotheses, doing cross-cultural comparisons (Harvard student and those hunter-gatherer peoples)… This looks more scientific to me than most of evolutionary biology published these days.

I honestly don't understand where that public image of evpsych comes from. (Tooby & Cosmides mention in the introduction to the Handbook that it's an image created by ‘authoritative’ outsiders wedded to the blank-slate theory as opposed to the scientists of the field, but I don't know how true that is. I haven't been there to witness it.)

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