A good interview with me has gone up at Atheistically Speaking with Thomas Smith (“Taking a clear, rational look at atheism and surrounding issues!”). It’s episode 202, “Dr. Richard Carrier on EvoPsych.” The description:
Is 90% of all Evo Psych false? That’s the claim Dr. Richard Carrier makes in his mammoth article, which can be found here. While I’m hoping to have Richard on at a later date to discuss the topic he’s likely most known for – Jesus’s existence, this visit is all about Evolutionary Psychology and whether or not it is a pseudo science.
Smith was intrigued by the article I wrote, and asks me to discuss its claims, evidence, and basis, and why evolutionary scientists have deluded themselves into thinking they aren’t much more than astrologers carrying water for various social and political ideologies. Though on that last point we don’t get very far, for want of data. But the sneaking suspicion is addressed. As well as some of the dangers of their fallacious methodology.
Update: Part 1 is episode 202. Part 2 of our interview is episode 203.
I’m a huge fan of RC and love 99% of what he writes. RC is a dedicated feminist, and for that he should be applauded. Alas, he has fallen for the idea that any data suggesting that women and men might process information differently or in a way that isn’t 100% egalitarian must be false. Contra to his claim, EvoPsych uses mainstream psychological methodologies in it’s research and holds itself to very high standards (initially as a way of combating any suggestion that it is equivalent to sociobiology, which did suffer from too much dependency on “just so” stories). The only reason to complain about it is because one doesn’t like the conclusions the research demands, as many feminists do not. It’s unfortunate that Carrier is willing to throw science under the bus in the name forwarding gender equality, because EvoPsych in no way concludes or demands otherwise.
You evidently didn’t read my article. I actually say the opposite (I concur there are biological differences between the sexes, multiple times). And I document that your take on the field is incorrect (point by point, with tons of evidence, and cited experts concurring with me). You do not seem aware of any of that extensive documentation. Go read the article. Just repeating your biases here, just proves you don’t know what you are talking about, and instead are substituting your prejudices for facts.
First, Evo Psych is a very misleading field. Psychology itself is very difficult to study considering how complex human consciousness is let alone adding biological evolution into the mix. Second, it is not true psychology to say a physical change in the brain causes any mental process. It should be called Evo Neurology. The job of a psychologist is not to understand biological source of human behavior, cognition, etc. It is to use patterns and recognition to identify and understand the human condition. A real Evo Psyc type science might find the historical start of a behavior and all the places it begins, ends, changes over… MILLIONS of years i.e. my third point… EVOLUTION. A true Eco Psyc would have the same limitations as anthropologists. Written and verbal evidence can only go so far… can we truly put Evolution infront of Psychology? This science was dead before it was conceived. Here comes the big point… Evo Psyc cannot be used to compare men and women and it would be ridiculous to do so when normal psyc has already done this (I don’t have a direct citation for this, but google or a academic journal catalog should suffice. Psychology’s ability to recognize differences in gender based psychology is common sense really). I liked the article anyway… I agree that Evo Psyc had some good points, but they were things that other social fields could answer without biological or evolutionary evidence. I put to anyone, not just Carrier and Bowie, that any argument for or against feminism is void under these condition that Evo Psyc has no means to provide evidence to support either claim.
Hello Dr. Carrier,
I just listened to the podcast and you gave an outstanding interview. The original article was an excellent tour-de-force as well, it is thorough and devastating critique of the pseudoscience that is Evolutionary Psychology.
I would like to see more articles and interviews where you weigh in with your expertise and intellect on scientific issues. I am particularly interested in hearing your views upon the state of modern Physics. A few years ago, you solved one of the greatest problems in Physics when you reconciled General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics. Despite the enormous importance of your work in Physics, it has mostly gone unrecognized. It would be very interesting to hear your perspectives on how political agendas have contributed to the suppression of this important work of yours.
I hope to see more of your groundbreaking scientific work on 2016!
You are the most boring troll in the universe.
I guess no one goes to troll college anymore.
Wanted to leave a comment on your “Notes & Interviews” of Dec 21 but was too late and so I am putting it here.
Your examples of John Frum and Ned Ludd show just how fast a story around a possibly non-existent founder can form. With Ned Ludd there are letters and proclamations supposedly with his signature only 30 years after he supposedly founded the Luddites. But with John Frum we have a professional article only 12 years after the movement became noticed by the local authorities. This article (reference below) is referenced by Peter Worsley in his 1957 _The Trumpet Shall Sound_ but goes even further to show how the Christ myth still has validity…and potential problems with it.
Guiart, Jean (1952) “John Frum Movement in Tanna” Oceania Vol 22 No 3 pg 165-177
http://horizon.documentation.ird.fr/exl-doc/pleins_textes/pleins_textes_5/b_fdi_16-17/22920.pdf
Here we are given a snap shot of John Frum as seen only 11 years (given the lead time) noticed by the local authorities.
In the article, we are told that “A man named Manehevi had posed as a supernatural being by means of ingenious stage management.” But later we are also told “From elsewhere rail the rumour that, in spite of the Administration statement, Manehevi was not John Frum, and that the latter was still at liberty.”
Here we are told John Frum was a “supernatural being” while the believers are saying he is an actual man who “was still at liberty” (sound familar?)
If that isn’t enough we are also told “John Frum, alias Karaperamun, is always the god of Mount Tukosmoru, which will shelter the planes, then the soldiers.”
Here we are told that John Frum is Karaperamun (who is a long existing volcano god) but we were also told that Manehevi was (or pretended to be) John Frum and that John Frum was another person who was still at liberty.
As you can see from Guiart’s 1952 article, a mere 11 years after the John Frum movement become noticeable by nonbelievers it is not clear if John Frum is simply another name for Karaperamun (the High god of the region), a name that various actual people use as leader of the religious cult, or the name of some other person who inspired the cult perhaps as much as 30 years previously. If to confuse things further it has been suggested that Tom Navy is based on a real person: Tom Beatty of Mississippi, who served in the New Hebrides both as a missionary, and as a Navy Seabee during the war. (Brian Dunning (March 30, 2010) Cargo Cults Skeptoid #199)
So even if Paul wasn’t going on about getting his information from visions per John Frum he would still be too far away to “prove” Jesus actually existed.
I should point out that there is a third option from your book: the ahistorical theory ie a mixture of the minimal Christ Myth and historical Jesus positions. Say Jesus was a celestial being but per John Frum one or more people took up that name and tried to pull the movement in their own direction possibly getting killed for their trouble. I use the term you used for GA. Wells works in a 2006 Stanford handout which include the idea that Paul’s Jesus and the Jesus of the Gospels are two different people.
Thanks for that article. I do cite abundant scholarship on the Cargo Cults in OHJ (Element 29), but this would have been a nice addition to that list.
The alternative you suggest at the end doesn’t work as an explanation of the origins of Christianity, however. Certainly other people’s stories were cannibalized to create later myths about Jesus (e.g. the historical end of Jesus ben Ananias in the 60s AD was used by Mark to structure his crucifixion narrative for Jesus Christ, even though the latter was claimed to have died thirty years earlier). But Christianity was already around for decades by then.
Paul attests that Christianity began with the belief that the archangel became incarnate and died, which was learned by revelation from his resurrected self (and confirmed in secret messages in scripture), and that this event had occurred in very recent history (with some math, we can show it was most likely in the 30s, and within just a few years of Paul joining the sect). That leaves not enough time for earthly emulators to precede (no one had even thought of the death scheme before that, and in any event even if someone had, and tried to play the part, they would obviously not be the same person the Christians were talking about, since there can only be one of them, and that’s the one Cephas, and later Paul, saw in a vision) and none who followed could have any connection to Christianity (since the death already happened, no one trying to play the part later would be acknowledged as the real one, nor could even have been imagined to be, by Christians).
I think you missed an important point I raised from the Guiart article…in that 1949 letter contained with in it we are expressly told “The origin of the movement or the cause started more than thirty years ago.” Which implies that the concept of John Frum (though not perhaps the name) was bouncing around since the 1910s. As far as I can tell this is the only reference to the John Frum cult going back to the 1910s…all works that I know of after this go with the 1930s John Frum which has the Tom Beatty connection (though exactly when he gets woven into the story I have no idea)
Note that some have Paul converting as early as 31 CE while others have Jesus doing his thing in 33 CE or as late as 36 CE which really mucks up the timeline unless we go the pro-1910s John Frum cult route. Guiart documents no less then three natives taking up the name “John Frum” in a seven year period as well as some “sons” showing up in 1942.
Furthermore, Paul does make that strange warning in 2 Corinthians 11:3-4 about minds being “corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ” by “another Jesus, whom we have not preached,” “another spirit, which ye have not received, or another gospel, which ye have not accepted” but it is not clear (at least from the English translation) if Paul meant there were others using the name “Jesus” preaching their own gospel or if there were variant teachings in general.
This doesn’t track. Paul did not originate the religion. Peter did, from a revelation (1 Cor. 15; Gal. 1). The coming death of Jesus was a secret before then (Rom. 16:25-27) and as I noted was said to have occurred very soon before the revelation (and hence the apocalypse).
So there simply is no time for “multiple Jesuses” to have anything to do with originating Christianity. There can only have been one. And the only one reported by anyone who actually would know (Paul) is the one seen in a vision by Peter.
Also, those who have Paul converting in 31 have Jesus dying in 30. You shouldn’t conflate different theorists. In actual fact everyone agrees Jesus (were he historical) could have died anywhere between 26 and 36 A.D. (the placement of the crucifixion in the Gospels is based on theology, not reality, so the only real time window we have is the administration of Pontius Pilate) and that Paul could have converted anytime before 40 A.D.
Unless the Babylonian Gospel is true, in which case Jesus died in the early 70s B.C. and Paul was converted in the late 70s or the 60s B.C. (OHJ, Ch. 8.1). Or the Claudian Gospel is true, in which case Jesus died in the early 40s A.D. and Paul was converted sometime before the late-40s A.D. (ibid.).
As for the other “spirits” Paul spoke about, he means spirits, as he says. Revelations. Not persons. Moreover, these were post-origin, and thus can’t have had anything to do with the origins of Christianity. Nor could they have been people. Because Jesus can’t have died twice. And his death was already being preached before Paul even joined.
Finally, Guiart notes that originally “John Frum could not be seen by whites or by women,” he was a revelatory being only (in fact an ancient mountain god). Manehevi was only a prophet channeling his spirit, so as to deliver his message. And this was in 1940. The letter does not say John Frumism began thirty years before 1949, it says the protest movement, spanning many islands, had done so, in other words, the entire Cargo Cult phenomenon, not just this one manifestation of it. And that phenomenon did start in the 1910s: with the Vailala Madness, the example I use in OHJ. Which was not associated with John Frum (at least at no time before the 1940s). As you suspect. But again, that doesn’t tell us about John Frumism (as in the worship of John Frum, and his subsequent invention as a historical figure).
Ok that makes sense.
I have one question of dating that has been bothering me. Based on its reference to the Temple many people put Mark around 70 CE but then I read something like 1 Clement which has passage which seem (at least in English) to be acting as if the Temple was still intact:
Let each of you, brethren, in his own order give thanks unto God, maintaining a good conscience and not transgressing the appointed rule of his service, but acting with all seemliness.
Not in every place, brethren, are the continual daily sacrifices offered, or the freewill offerings, or the sin offerings and the trespass offerings, but in Jerusalem alone. And even there the offering is not made in every place, but before the sanctuary in the court of the altar; and this too through the high priest and the afore said ministers, after that the victim to be offered hath been inspected for blemishes. – 1 Clement 41:1-2
Yet the dating range I have seen for 1 Clement has it from 80 CE all the way to 140 CE; why is that? How does the above differ from that what is in Mark?
I agree that makes little sense. 1 Clement was far more likely written in the 60s. I make this point myself in OHJ, pp. 271-73 (in Ch. 7.6).
There are no sound arguments for dating it later, IMO. Not even to its “traditional” date of 95 A.D., which is based on ancient legend and conjecture. Whereas, as you note (and I add several other evidences besides), that’s wholly implausible from its content.
Just recognize the conceptualizing mind.
Okay.
There are two sets of predictions that I hear attributed to evo psych. The first is a set of predictions that are generally applicable to any species, the second is a set of predictions that are specific to humans.
The first set of predictions seem to be generally well founded. The only problem is that they are not specific to evolutionary ‘psychology’, they are just standard results of evolutionary theory that were proposed long before evo psych was proposed as a separate field.
I have yet to see an example of an evo-psych result of the second type that wasn’t specious. And what I find most insulting here is the claim by certain of their supporters that you have to understand the evo psych field to be able to see why their results are valid. No, that is absolutely bogus. If someone is proposing a scientific theory they have to be able to justify it to the scientific community at large, not just a small in crowd. That is one of the constraints that keeps scientists honest.
I don’t see any predictive power to the evo-psych theories. When anyone puts forward a theory in the social sciences that has little predictive power but significant political consequences, it is time to call bullshit.
I’m interested in what you mean by the “first set of predictions.” I think examples would help people get what you mean.
Academic honesty is easy to miss in any scientific field when politics is involved, but people need to realize social sciences cannot continuously provide data that is significant and maintains high predictive power. It is much easier to predict one’s sample then the whole population and as long as one’s data has a p less than .005 it is publishable. Also, the effect size does not show the accuracy of predictions across the population, but the size of the population the data will be most accurate. The mind is very unpredictable and an outlier in your sample that seems insignificant could be unexpectedly amplified through the entire population or, more likely, amplified when one uses that data to predict for entire continents, nations, or creeds. Also, be careful not to be swayed by example shoehorned to fit anothers agenda. In all likeliness though… Evo Psyc people are probably not checking for nuisance variables, skewed data, or the academically dishonest amongst their own.
Update: Part 2 is now up as episode 203.
Hi Richard,
What is your take on the debate between group selection and individual selection? It seems to me that they reduce to each other, as any group selection will necessarily have to occur on the basis of variations within populations of individuals.
Richard Martin
Not my area. That’s a question for Myers perhaps.