Evolutionary psychology must be constrained by evolutionary biology
Grasslands survival-memory effects are not Pleistocene adaptations. Invariant scenery is not a selection problem; evo psych must answer to evo biology.
Read Article →Category
social science
13 posts
New article in Pacific Standard
Angela Chen’s Pacific Standard piece on the BBS paper hits a neglected point: Big Five openness items track urban taste more than a culture-free trait.
Read Article →ISPP
Duarte chairs an ISPP session on political bias: Bilewicz on status vs. liberal bias; Duarte on ideological assumptions that quietly wreck study validity.
Read Article →Scientific American column on Duarte et al
Valdesolo covers the BBS paper well. Openness and RWA scales encode urban-left taste; conservatives rarely endorse the cartoon items treated as “high.”
Read Article →Thoughts on Gelman comment
Political homogeneity threatens social-science validity because ideologies smuggle human-nature assumptions into measures. Diversity is an epistemic tool.
Read Article →Methods
To learn why skeptics think as they do, read their own accounts--not a blog survey that ties them to moon-hoax items almost none of them endorse.
Read Article →Significance
Statistical significance is not binary. The 0.05 cutoff is a ten-finger convention for Type-1 control--not proof a hypothesis is true in nature.
Read Article →I was denied admission to a PhD program because of my perceived political views: reflections of a sellout; how diversity would strengthen social science (Updated)
A PhD program rejected the author after a Jimmy Carter critique. Viewpoint discrimination harms validity; social science needs heterodox voices.
Read Article →How one paleo-participant can change the outcome of a study
A 32,757-year-old in Lewandowsky’s PLOS ONE file erased real age correlations. Minors stayed in; authors knew for a year and still reported false results.
Read Article →Heritability of academic prowess
Twin data put GCSE scores about 62% heritable, traits 35-58%. Heritability is variance explained, not destiny; ideas and settings can still shift it.
Read Article →Data is often overrated
Invalid studies need no new data to be vacated. Logic can refute Napier & Jost and Lewandowsky; more numbers cannot rescue a validity collapse.
Read Article →More fraud
Lewandowsky claimed free-marketeers reject HIV and smoking science. Data show 95-96% agreement; correlations turned assent into “rejection.”
Read Article →Lewandowsky fraud
Lewandowsky’s moon-landing title is false: 3 of 1,145 endorsed both hoaxes. The paper slanders skeptics and should be retracted as scientific fraud.
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