[extropy-chat] Calling all EvoPsych Jedi...

[Robin Hanson]

At 09:19 PM 5/5/2005, Keith Henson wrote:
>>Am I missing something here based on an insufficiently deep knowledge
>>of EP? Can anyone shed some light on why so many professors seem to
>>think EP is crap?
>
>You will find that most of them are social "science" people and EP pretty 
>much junks their entire life work, and all the theories back to the 
>beginning of time for their fields.  EP does integrate psychology and 
>related subjects seamlessly into the rest of human knowledge where 
>currently the social sciences are this floating blob with no underpinnings.
>The rest of science is really one piece where the divisions between 
>chemistry and physics are more historical than an actual discontinuity. ...
>I predict that EP and related evolutionary understandings will displace 
>virtually all of social science, kind of like plate tectonics displaced 
>theories in geology.
>But it will take the present generation of social "science" professors 
>dying off to do it.

I don't plan on dying off anytime soon, and as economics is a social 
science, I must be one of these professors you are talking about.  I'm a 
big fan of evol pysch, and its expectation of functionality behind most 
behavior is close to a similar expectation of economists.  Economics is 
already quickly moving to integrate EP insights as they come along.  I see 
little chance of EP displacing economics, nor should it.



Robin Hanson  rhanson at gmu.edu  http://hanson.gmu.edu
Assistant Professor of Economics, George Mason University
MSN 1D3, Carow Hall, Fairfax VA 22030-4444
703-993-2326  FAX: 703-993-2323