Love, Sex, and The Brain

[brynndragon]

I wanted to share a fascinating discussion on the biology of sex and love and how sex and love are changing (or not so much) given by anthropologist Helen Fisher: TEDTalks: Helen Fisher (30 min video w/sound) There were several places where I completely failed to agree with her (anyone who knows how much I bloody hate evolutionary psychology could've figured that out ;P), but overall it's worth watching.

Comments

[tober.livejournal.com]

I haven't had a chance to watch this yet but I plan to. Just wanted to say that I share your general distaste for evolutionary psychology. I've always felt that the field's theoretical underpinnings... to the extent it has them... are a bit iffy. Further, I briefly dated a woman who, while a student at $famous_local_institution, had an extra-marital affair with $extremely_famous_evolutionary_psychologist from $other_famous_local_institution - who proceeded to explain how this affair was acceptable - or at least inevitable - from the perspective of evolutionary psychology. Not that that is an indictment of the field exactly, but it sure is an indictment of the guy in question - who I am tempted to name but won't.

[For the record, maybe 15 years ago I was a fan of E. O. Wilson, but I got over it.]

[benndragon.livejournal.com]

I've always hated the "I was born this way!" excuse for poor behavior. I want to say to them, "There are people who were also born that way who manage not to engage in whatever you're trying to get out of being responsible for (especially when you're saying *all of humanity* is like that, which incidentally I'm not sure I buy in this case since there's a good arguement that it is much more related to how our culture approaches monogamy, but I digress). Accept that you, personally, fucked up and deal with it like a fucking adult already."

[tober.livejournal.com]

Pretty much. There is a general school of thought that free will itself is illusory, and I think a lot of evolutionary psychologists (and others in related fields) at least half belong to this school of thought. For that matter, I know of no good (as in fully satisfactory to your average philosopher) proof that people really do have free will - but, that being said, if I ever start acting or talking as if I hold the conviction that I have no free will, please kick my sorry ass.