Amerika

Scientists should be forced through philosophy classes so that they understand logical argument beyond a conflation of correlation and causation, such as polycausal argument:

The history of western civilization aside, humans are naturally polygamous. Polyandry (a marriage of one woman to many men) is very rare, but polygyny (the marriage of one man to many women) is widely practiced in human societies, even though Judeo-Christian traditions hold that monogamy is the only natural form of marriage. We know that humans have been polygynous throughout most of history because men are taller than women.

Among primate and nonprimate species, the degree of polygyny highly correlates with the degree to which males of a species are larger than females. The more polygynous the species, the greater the size disparity between the sexes. Typically, human males are 10 percent taller and 20 percent heavier than females. This suggests that, throughout history, humans have been mildly polygynous.

Relative to monogamy, polygyny creates greater fitness variance (the distance between the “winners” and the “losers” in the reproductive game) among males than among females because it allows a few males to monopolize all the females in the group. The greater fitness variance among males creates greater pressure for men to compete with each other for mates. Only big and tall males can win mating opportunities. Among pair-bonding species like humans, in which males and females stay together to raise their children, females also prefer to mate with big and tall males because they can provide better physical protection against predators and other males.

In societies where rich men are much richer than poor men, women (and their children) are better off sharing the few wealthy men; one-half, one-quarter, or even one-tenth of a wealthy man is still better than an entire poor man. As George Bernard Shaw puts it, “The maternal instinct leads a woman to prefer a tenth share in a first-rate man to the exclusive possession of a third-rate one.” Despite the fact that humans are naturally polygynous, most industrial societies are monogamous because men tend to be more or less equal in their resources compared with their ancestors in medieval times. (Inequality tends to increase as society advances in complexity from hunter-gatherer to advanced agrarian societies. Industrialization tends to decrease the level of inequality.)

Psychology Today

This giant pile of stupidity comes to us, we imagine, from someone who wishes he or she had more sex.

Let’s look at the bad logic, step by step:

The history of western civilization aside, humans are naturally polygamous.

Western Civilization was created by a different subspecies with different genetics than other groups. You need to study them separately.

Among primate and nonprimate species, the degree of polygyny highly correlates with the degree to which males of a species are larger than females. The more polygynous the species, the greater the size disparity between the sexes. Typically, human males are 10 percent taller and 20 percent heavier than females. This suggests that, throughout history, humans have been mildly polygynous.

There are multiple factors that influence height. One could be the degree of testosterone present in the womb; it doesn’t make sense to assign a result to an arbitrary cause like this. You need more intervening steps and greater knowledge of how height is coded and developed before you can make this sweeping statement.

Relative to monogamy, polygyny creates greater fitness variance (the distance between the “winners” and the “losers” in the reproductive game) among males than among females because it allows a few males to monopolize all the females in the group.

What about the fitness of the women? How does a society develop so that there are more fit women than men? Answer: it doesn’t, so you have one man impregnating many clueless women, producing half-clueless offspring.

In societies where rich men are much richer than poor men, women (and their children) are better off sharing the few wealthy men; one-half, one-quarter, or even one-tenth of a wealthy man is still better than an entire poor man.

No, they’re not, because the real question is how the children will be raised. In the view of science, we’re all rodents who want to fire and forget with our breeding; in reality, women of IQs above 100 tend to plan for the future as best they can. Being one wife of a rich man makes sense only if he’s a really rich man, but at that point, the child does not have much of an active father figure; a nuclear family makes more sense for the development of the child’s psychology.

And finally, the piece de resistance of BS argumentation:

Despite the fact that humans are naturally polygynous, most industrial societies are monogamous because men tend to be more or less equal in their resources compared with their ancestors in medieval times.

Western civilization was monogamous before Christianity and before industrialization.

He just shot his foot off.

Watch for more bad science like this. Being a scientist doesn’t mean someone is logical; it means they are rational, or can compare a single factor of many in “before” and “after” conditions. That’s how they confuse correlation with causation and make other, similar mistakes.

Scientists like to think that philosophy is memorizing logical fallacies. They generally are unaware of the complexity of argument or polycausal factors.

It makes them a bad choice as our experts and leaders.