Evolutionary Psychology: valid but not necessarily cogent

There's an important distinction in logic between inductive and deductive reasoning. Deductive reasoning proceeds from law-like premises to sound and valid conclusions along the sure path that: if the premises were all true, then the conclusion would follow necessarily.

Despite the image of science as deducing sure conclusions, most science is inductive. Induction starts from observations and assumptions that are not necessarily law-like and ends with conclusions that are only probable.

The best example is the statistician's urn analogy. There are no laws about the contents of urns, but only (supposed) observations about the marbles drawn from these urns and then conclusions about the probability of their marbles being white, red or a mixture with some specific frequency.

That is, even if all assumptions were true, the conclusion would not follow necessarily. It might still be false. It is my hunch that a lot of the debate about evolutionary psychology is due to a mistake of the logic categories of induction with deduction.

Take the recent publication on cunnilingus being a sperm retention strategy.  As a piece of deductive reasoning it would be valid but not necessarily sound.  As a piece of inductive reasoning, however, it is based on many assumptions, with only weak observational support for some of them.

For example: "Men mated to more attractive women also are at greater recurrent risk of sperm competition because rival men more frequently approach, and successfully lure away, more attractive women." (Pham et al. 2013. 'Is cunnilingus-assisted orgasm a male sperm-retention strategy? Evolutionary Psychology 11(2):405-414) How is that? The rival men are all equally attractive to the gals and therefore even the ugliest men rival for them and never for the lesser females?

Websites about Alfred R. Wallace

Time for some links to websites providing information about Wallace.

Alfred Russel Wallace Page by Charles H. Smith (Kentucky University)

Wallace Letters Online by George Beccaloni (The Natural History Museum, London)

Wallace Online by John van Whye (National University of Singapore)

So much about sites that provide information about Wallace, and now to one catering the opposite.

The Discovery Institute (Intelligent Design think tank) also launched a website dedicated to Alfred Russel Wallace. Of course this is not due to his ideas about natural selection as the force behind evolution but his later esoteric ideas, in particular, the one that the mind cannot be a result of natural selection. They seize him as the father of Intelligent Design and call this ur-ID Intelligent Evolution. The alternative is Darwinian Evolution, of course, which by implication must be stupid.

Better go back to one of the first three pages linked above. They address the question whether Wallace can be regarded as a forefather of ID for example here, here, and here.

Carnival of Evolution 62: The Whig History

Whig history is abridged retro-spective. Double Refraction has a discerning post on different shades. A whiggish image of the evolution of man is the marching band of hominids.

ADAM BENTON explains why this picture is not only abridged but also false at EvoAnth - ditto ZEN FAULKES at Neurodojo. It is also sexist. I am not sure, however, whether the female version at the left would be received as non-sexist. It surely is as triumphant, and hopefully as funny, as its male version above.


When it comes to the history of evolutionary theory, a whiggish image could look something like this:

I leave it to the readers to come up with a female version (including, for example, Maria Sibylla Merian, Rosalind Franklin, Barbara McClintock, Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard).

Arranging July's posts that I found interesting or entertaining as well as the few submitted by others according to a Whig history of evolutionary theory in the following is purely ornamental and does, of course, not imply any whiggishness on the side of the contributors.

Evolution vs Creation

Jean-Baptiste de Lamarck

KEN WEISS poses a Question of the Campagna? The poignant side of 'Intelligent Design' at The Mermaid's Tale.

JOHN S. WILKINS is Evolving Thoughts about the animal nature of humans here and here.

Ball State Univerity hires intelligent design leader to teach astronomy, says SETH SLABAUGH at The Star Press.

PETER keeps an Eye on the ICR and on Creationism at University.

EVIN BARIŞ ALTINTAŞ guest posts at SciLogos: Turkey’s science agency says evolution is ‘too controversial’ (see also here).

MASSIMO PIGLIUCCI deals with Plantiga's Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism at Rationally Speaking. Platinga managed to create a paradox that pits evolution against naturalism, but the conclusions do not necessarily follow from the premises.

The equivalent of Batesian and agressive mimicry in academic publishing is described by CHRIS SMITH at Nothing in biology makes sense.

Variation & Selection 

Charles Darwin 

JOSH JONES shares the vintage documentary The Blind Watchmaker at Open Culture.

At Aeon, LEWIS SPURGIN sets his research into a broad context about the role of chance in evolutionary change.

CHARLES GOODNIGHT introduces The multivariate breeder’s equation and explains the founder effect with drift and epistasis at Evolution in Structured Populations.

XAVIER reveals the trick behind 'magic' traits at eco-evolutionary dynamics.

See a newly discovered, historic photo of Darwin and Wallace together at BUG GIRL's Blog.

CARL ZIMMER describes how Archaeopteryx becomes a minor find among a crowd as new finds of feathered dinosaurs and primitive birds Loom large.

Particulate Inheritance 

Gregor Mendel

Mathbionerd M. WILSON SAYRES explains evolutionary changes in the Young sex chromosomes of Silene latifolia.

NATHANIEL COMFORT asks whether the discovery of The Arsehole Gene will change the perspective on a socially stigmatized group at Genotopia.

Researcher at work, SIMON URIBE-CONVERS, describes his research on parasitic plants (Bartsia) at Beacon.

ANNE BUCHANAN updates you on progress in gene therapy at The Mermaid's Tale.

Soma & Germ-Line 

August Weismann

The Conversation of JUSTIN ST. JOHN invites you to Meet Mama, Papa and Mama: how three parent IVF works.

Feeling older than you are? DAVID MORRISON from The Genealogical World of Phylogenetic Networks can help you understand.

CARL ZIMMER asks What good is half a sucker? at The Loom and finds hints in the development and fossils of Remora fishes.

Arizona State University fused cancer research with physics geekdom in the Center for the Convergence of Physical Science and Cancer Biology. Surprise! The new theory is sophisticated and evo-devo, but the physicists PAUL DAVIES and CHARLES LINEWEAVER came up with it.

Mutation vs Selection

Thomas Hunt Morgan

The method of Pentagruel

This is one of many video clips deposited at the Web of Stories showing John Maynard Smith in an interview with Richard Dawkins (recorded in 1997, put online in 2008). In this one John Maynard Smith recounts a funny anecdote with J.B.S. Haldane.

xlix = 49

I just got confused about the baroque numbering of the preface of Narrow Roads of Gene Land, Vol. 2. Page 49 of the preface, for example, is given as xlix and I'm pretty sure that must be il instead. But what about xix (19) or xxxix (39)? Wouldn't it be simpler to write them as ixx and xil respectively? I'm confused.

Carnival of Evolution: catch 49

[note] Due to a late loss of the whole CoE49 post from my blog, I chose to structure the re-make economically. Hence the format of all entries is alike and as follows:

• Author (Date) Post title (also links to blog post). Blog Name (no link to blog for clarity). Link to source article (when needed).
  My comment will follow in italics, if I have one.

P.S.: I did neither include submissions of posts from March or earlier nor submissions of posts that are only loosely about evolution as in 'evolution' of the solar system or climate. [/note]

Evolutionary studies are rich both in concepts and methods but not dis-integrated. As you will see, there is a common theme. Have fun.

Trees or Networks

Both figures from Gibson (1881). 

• Kathy Orlinsky (9 June) Recombination between RNA and DNA viruses. The Stochastic Scientist. Relates to an article in Biology Direct.
  As RNA viruses are not retro-viruses, the enzyme reverse transcriptase should be lacking and recombination at the DNA level should be impossible. Nevertheless, recombination did happen somehow.
• David Morrison (16 June) Charles Darwin’s unpublished tree sketches. & Charles Darwin's unpublished tree sketches, part 2. The Genealogical World of Phylogenetic Networks.
  One sketch is in The Origin of Species and another headed “I think” has become emblematic, but there are more sketches in the notebooks etc.
• Carlos Anderson (18 June) Speciation and genetic incompatibilities in digital organisms. BEACON Researchers at Work.
  He’s also doing experiments with real yeast, so he’s not just a simulator.
• David Morrison (20 June) Rooted networks for exploratory data analysis. The Genealogical World of Phylogenetic Networks.
  Discusses the merits of rooted phylogenies with an example of pathogen data allowing inferences about transmission events.