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Although sometimes believed otherwise by outsiders:
Mosuo women should not be considered promiscuous
While it is possible for a Mosuo woman to change partners as often as she likes, few Mosuo women have more than one partner at a time. Anthropologists call this system “serial monogamy.” Most Mosuo form long-term relationships and do not change partners frequently.[8] Some of these pairings may even last a lifetime.
Here is one that explains it is hard to know if the numbers in a study about affairs are true. Still it offers what is known.One point that interested me is that while men have traditionally been more active in having affairs the equation changes when women become more financially secure. As women make more money they tend to become more like men in this respect.
One colleague, a male evolutionary biologist, characterized to me evolutionary psychology as “the discipline which justifies middle-aged professors sleeping with their younger graduate students.” A bit harsh, but there does seem to be a lot of extrapolation and speculation in the absence of experimental rigor (although humans are awful experimental organisms). Fortunately, I don’t have to write an entire rebuttal because one of Amanda’s commenters did so (italics mine):
Classic. So what would evo-psych predict? That middle-aged professors would use any excuse to sleep with their younger graduate students. Is this guy absolutely stupid? And why the social resistance? I would predict there is a social resistance to allowing too much "benefit" for the individual at the cost of the society. Can't have too many older fathers.
The annoying thing is, evo psych is potentially useful, so it’s really frustrating that its principle application appears to be putting a pseudo-scientific facade on social norms and gender roles that are really not organic at all. After all, there is clearly some evolutionary history behind human behavior, e.g. why we are social instead of solitary, why we need sleep, etc. Where evo psych goes wrong is:
Is it as annoying as the pseudo-scientific facade put upon other fields or is it just that it is offending a particular noisy group of feminists trying to come up with a good reason why George Clooney, or his like, was never interested ?
1. The insistence that there must be some selective pressure behind every behavior, making emergent behaviors rare (I happen to think that MOST of our culture and social norms are emergent… which is why I’m not an evolutionary psychologist), and
Now we get to the key. He does not believe in selective pressure. I do. It may not not be a direct relationship but its always involved.
If you think Palmer Amaranth is already a Botanical Bully then consider this: It is unusual for an amaranth in that it has male and female plants which greatly aids in distribution and ability to adapt. It can also produce half a million seeds per plant. Every seed is a chance to defeat Genetically Modified Organisms, which are quite expensive to develop. When you consider Ma Nature produces million of Palmer Amaranth plants every year that adds up to perhaps billions of chances annually for her to roll a winner, virtually for free. And that’s exactly what happened. Palmer Amaranth developed a resistance to the weed killer glyphosate and became a superweed. That resistance is costing literally millions of dollar in lost agricultural crops. It single plantedly ruined large farming operation is southern Georgia. That has lead to a lot of hard feelings and finger pointing.
Amazing how quickly refrigeration and canning has altered our taste for fermented foods in just a few generations. Culture practically is food and is the result of environmental pressure.
The sad part is that a lot of bright scientific minds buy into this nonsense. Even smart people will happily embrace questionable hypotheses (and here’s the other problem with evo psych – not very testable) if they confirm their preexisting biases, especially about something so powerful as social norms and conditioning.
The sad part is he doesn't believe in selective pressure, and it makes him a complete blow hard, sententious idiot.
The point about emergent behaviors is really important, otherwise you really have to twist yourself into a pretzel trying to explain why Raoul Wallenberg spent his time rescuing Jews from the Nazis, as opposed to inseminating prostitutes.
They twisted pretzels all the time just down the road in Vienna. I don't suppose he even thought for a moment of the social forces of preservation of the species vs the individual goals were in any competition? Why would men risk themselves over their women when they could just bang prostitutes?...Oh my what a deep thought that is.
Back to the history books. Should Hector have been banging Thracian hookers rather than come to the defense of Troy? Would his children thrive better there in the bush than as princes and princesses of Troy? Cultures and the human species have a will to exist too. Its the simple balance of the individual, family and society that is so obvious at any dinner party where hunger pangs butt up against social grace.
I really don’t think evolutionary biology wants to get tagged as the ‘science that justifies adultery’,
Appeal to the Consequences fallacy. Once again its all about how it might be abused. That too is predictable.
I give you one thing. The over emphasis on the propagation of the individual without the consideration of its affects on the species is the usual flaw of evo-psych application. The question is, what develops the better angels of social behavior?
Who care about laymen? Why do you keep bring this up?
If you decided to actually read and perhaps digest my posts you would understand why I bring it up. Or, perhaps why I care in a virtual sense. Arm chair hacks attempt to misinform others for their own gain, large and small. I don't know how many times I have to repeat this. A little bit of knowledge can be a dangerous thing, etc.
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Like I said, who do you think started all this crap? That's right, feminist social scientists. I was there when it happened. It was all nurture over nature and how little boys will like pink just as much as the girls if we raised them that way. So...evo-psych is now the stand in for the more established and conservative position that nature does indeed play a role. So all this, as far as I am concerned, is on another account.
Huh? You were there while it happened...getting a social science undergrad degree? I'm interpreting what you're saying is that one brand of sloppy science is standing in for another brand of sloppy science? Make no mistake, it's sloppy.
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As for the PUAs much of it is nothing more then men who simply failed to gain any traction acting more sensitive 'like girls". So they are looking for an answer. Others of course are just opportunistic bastards akin to the opportunism of so called gold digging et al,
What it is, is the dumbing down of peoples. It's a mindset, a worldview, and for many one of ignorance. The end game doesn't have to be landing a woman or about these young men specifically. It's how people view themselves, which is oviously very personal, and how they view and treat others. All that stuff is there and consequences follow (for better or worse). Surely, you must have noticed this during your life.
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I don't call conflating the messenger with the facts robust.
It's the methods that need to be robust. The examination and interpretation needs to be based on rigorous inquiry. That is how it goes in the sciences. That is at the heart of the scientific method. Arm chair evo-psychs have no facts, nor robust methodologies to demonstrate facts. They rationalize for their desired outcome and that's pretty easy to do with evo-p.
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And you did arrogantly dismiss social science. Don't suppose you care to follow traffic laws which is one of the applied sciences or how crowds move, or as historically applied to the French disaster at Agincourt. Your statement is incredibly arrogant. Since I actually work in a field of "hard science", I am well used to the almost amusing one dimensional nature of those individuals who don't know what a joke is without a hash tree. So if one thing gets under your skin, you now know what gets under mine, hard science stiffs who take no account for the ergonomic principles, the long term goals and unintended consequences. As I just downed some steamed Palmer Amaranth, I am now thinking of the stiffs in Monsanto who never saw glyphosate resistance coming. We "nature people" saw it coming 10 acres away.
I do largely dismiss it. That's not to say there is absolutely no merit to the social sciences. I know there is, although I do not believe social organization is reliant upon any social science field. I have participated in psych research as an undergrad and I simply cannot ignore the level of bullshyte I came across. The hokey statistics. The massaging of the data. It was unbelievable. I could not believe my own data post application of that stat tree I used. Maybe it would have seemed less outlandish if I weren't obtaining another degree in tandem. But I got to compare hard and soft science side by side for a number of years and I learned through experience that there are significant differences that cannot be ignored. You have to be very careful when reviewing any kind of social science data. We should be careful with all data, but more so on that side. And I don't take your experiences with "scientists" that you work near and around at face value. It's myth. Scientists are not only analytical, but very creative and pretty much every scientist I know is either some kind of artist, musician, etc.
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If so I wasn't born blind since, by all accounts, I digested and believed blank slate theory. I have since seen far too much as time passed to believe in such absurdities. What I find disturbing is that an otherwise intelligent person such as you can create this false dichotomy of hard or soft sciences. It is a rather long and gradual continuum. Physics certainly has hard evidence in some regards, but quickly must move into theory to advance itself. The stuff Hawing talks about is far more flimsy than any "social science".
You see it as a false dichotomy, but it's really not. One is entirely reliant upon personal bias and interpretation in most areas and the other, while temporarily vulnerable to such things, must adhere to the scientific method. I don't see a comparison between generating creative hypotheses that sit upon prior, rigorous scientific inquiry and the subjective assumptions that run rampant in evo-psych.
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OK but you do realize evolutionary biologists are squarely in a soft science of their own and do have very divergent camps have at time little tolerance for each other? Even Lamarck is back with a vengeance.
I wouldn't go as far to align it with SS, but I see what you're saying. One major difference is it's largely out of arms reach and not for sale. There is no point of reference (that I can tell) to latch onto in ignorance. I have more to say, but I need to get back to work for a little while.
If you decided to actually read and perhaps digest my posts you would understand why I bring it up. Or, perhaps why I care in a virtual sense. Arm chair hacks attempt to misinform others for their own gain, large and small. I don't know how many times I have to repeat this. A little bit of knowledge can be a dangerous thing, etc.
And yet it never occurs to you that modern day lay feminists are the exact same thing. 99% of it is personal anecdotes while we prop our ivory towers on top of Mexico and China that are subject to more primitive realities.
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Huh? You were there while it happened...getting a social science undergrad degree? I'm interpreting what you're saying is that one brand of sloppy science is standing in for another brand of sloppy science? Make no mistake, it's sloppy.
It was going on in every sociology department by the late 80s.
But for that matter so was Mickelson-Morley sloppy in physics. The real world just isn't easy. Certainties are hard to come by, but we do have probabilities, especially with populations.
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What it is, is the dumbing down of peoples. It's a mindset, a worldview, and for many one of ignorance. The end game doesn't have to be landing a woman or about these young men specifically. It's how people view themselves, which is oviously very personal, and how they view and treat others. All that stuff is there and consequences follow (for better or worse). Surely, you must have noticed this during your life.
We have gone from reproductive necessity to no immediate need in just a few hundred years. Thus the immediate pressure has been lifted. But its not going anywhere and will return is some way . We will have the legacy of human psychology built for the world that was. Surely you know this?
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It's the methods that need to be robust. The examination and interpretation needs to be based on rigorous inquiry. That is how it goes in the sciences. That is at the heart of the scientific method. Arm chair evo-psychs have no facts, nor robust methodologies to demonstrate facts. They rationalize for their desired outcome and that's pretty easy to do with evo-p.
Do you actually look at the banter back and forth from scientists? Its actually the disinterested parties that have the best chance to look at the results without bias. The problem is it does take a basic understanding of research methods, statistics, logic and creativity. Unfortunately the lay public in the best position to see this without bias does not have the basic tools.
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I do largely dismiss it. That's not to say there is absolutely no merit to the social sciences. I know there is, although I do not believe social organization is reliant upon any social science field. I have participated in psych research as an undergrad and I simply cannot ignore the level of bullshyte I came across. The hokey statistics. The massaging of the data. It was unbelievable. I could not believe my own data post application of that stat tree I used. Maybe it would have seemed less outlandish if I weren't obtaining another degree in tandem. But I got to compare hard and soft science side by side for a number of years and I learned through experience that there are significant differences that cannot be ignored. You have to be very careful when reviewing any kind of social science data. We should be careful with all data, but more so on that side. And I don't take your experiences with "scientists" that you work near and around at face value. It's myth. Scientists are not only analytical, but very creative and pretty much every scientist I know is either some kind of artist, musician, etc.
That is why I don't look at "data". I look at patterns that I see exist naturally. Like I said, go crossed eyed over the data but better I think to observe the cross cultural world wide institution of prostitution which I believe more than hints a significant difference in our reproductive goals. Otherwise its pretty simple, with the devil in the details. Get a real random sample, use a control, look for a statistically significant main effect. Its no different than the drug industry with the exception of tolerances to type I and type II errors. I think I can find out what people like on their pizza. No?
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You see it as a false dichotomy, but it's really not. One is entirely reliant upon personal bias and interpretation in most areas and the other, while temporarily vulnerable to such things, must adhere to the scientific method. I don't see a comparison between generating creative hypotheses that sit upon prior, rigorous scientific inquiry and the subjective assumptions that run rampant in evo-psych.
There is no direct hard and soft science applied in the real world. One might appreciate the T-34 and its innovative slope to its armor, but which way for the sake of humanity should we drive it? Should we have built such a weapon at all for a different one? What about world peace? Our "rigorous scientific inquiry" looking at toxicity rather than endocrinology, that is the FDA approach, is very flawed. You have to build models and theories in the soft science approach to make any use of a "hard" scientific fact. One fact I know is men like looking at naked women more than women like looking at naked men. What data do we need? Do we need data to see that women have their eyes dilate when they see an infant but not so much men? That is hard evidence that needs an explanation. You cannot explain it with "hard science" because the data is there.
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I wouldn't go as far to align it with SS, but I see what you're saying. One major difference is it's largely out of arms reach and not for sale. There is no point of reference (that I can tell) to latch onto in ignorance. I have more to say, but I need to get back to work for a little while.
Well, at least we can actually have a conversation which is why on the whole, despite our little difference here, I still am rather fond of you. Though that my be slightly altered depending on the position you take in the dismal science, economics. I cannot believe the crap I see in the political forum in particular.
Take care Braunwyn, do not take offense at my sometime aggressive style in argument...ghrrrr
And yet it never occurs to you that modern day lay feminists are the exact same thing. 99% of it is personal anecdotes while we prop our ivory towers on top of Mexico and China that are subject to more primitive realities.
I don't understand what this has to do with this conversation, the OP, or evo-psych. What comes to mind for me is that evo-psych enables you, on some level, to deal with ill feelings about feminists and perhaps even women. I apologize if I'm way off the mark here, although it's something I sense about you (sometimes).
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But for that matter so was Mickelson-Morley sloppy in physics. The real world just isn't easy. Certainties are hard to come by, but we do have probabilities, especially with populations.
Sure, that makes sense, but it doesn't make sense of evo-psych.
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We have gone from reproductive necessity to no immediate need in just a few hundred years. Thus the immediate pressure has been lifted. But its not going anywhere and will return is some way . We will have the legacy of human psychology built for the world that was. Surely you know this?
The lifting of an environmental pressure will not induce evolutionary change within a few hundred years. That's one of the components at the heart of this debate. Speaking strictly about the field of psychology then, sure, I agree with you.
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Do you actually look at the banter back and forth from scientists? Its actually the disinterested parties that have the best chance to look at the results without bias. The problem is it does take a basic understanding of research methods, statistics, logic and creativity. Unfortunately the lay public in the best position to see this without bias does not have the basic tools.
Sure I look at the back and forth between scientists. You'll find it at conferences, presentations, seminars, and meetings. It's actually one of the reasons why I find rigorous methodology to be important. Someone (a scientist) will call you on your work. The forum can get quite aggressive. Although I do not agree that it's the disinterested parties that have the best chance to look at the results without bias because it's unlikely that disinterested parties will have the level of expertise and experience to consider and understand the results.
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That is why I don't look at "data". I look at patterns that I see exist naturally. Like I said, go crossed eyed over the data but better I think to observe the cross cultural world wide institution of prostitution which I believe more than hints a significant difference in our reproductive goals. Otherwise its pretty simple, with the devil in the details. Get a real random sample, use a control, look for a statistically significant main effect. Its no different than the drug industry with the exception of tolerances to type I and type II errors. I think I can find out what people like on their pizza. No?
I think that's a reasonable approach for your life, your worldview, and how you navigate in the world. It's not the case in the sciences and certainly not in pharma. If it were only so simple. That's the thing when it comes to a little bit of knowledge. People assume A, B, or C when they're missing so much in order to have an educated opinion in a particular subject matter. And as one of my favorite psych studies notes, the less people know the greater their level of confidence while it's the opposite for the reverse. I'm tempted to use real world problems in the drug industry to further my point, but I don't want to bore you. Lets just say most everything in drug discovery is a balancing act and it's not simple at all. There are so many variables to consider at every turn. A scientist must absolutely pay attention to the data.
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Our "rigorous scientific inquiry" looking at toxicity rather than endocrinology, that is the FDA approach, is very flawed.
I'm not an expert in all FDA guidelines, but metabolites, for example, certainly span the radar. Toxicity is one of many titled areas that have guidelines and regulations. If you visit the FDA website you will find the division of Division of Metabolism and Endocrinology and the Endocrinologic and Metabolic Drugs Advisory Committee. Although maybe I'm not understanding what you mean here. I work in Metabolism and pharamacokinetics platform as a physiochemist and ime the FDA has its thumb firmly placed.
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You have to build models and theories in the soft science approach to make any use of a "hard" scientific fact.
Models are built in all areas of hard science. It's par for the course and only makes sense in the soft sciences.
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One fact I know is men like looking at naked women more than women like looking at naked men. What data do we need? Do we need data to see that women have their eyes dilate when they see an infant but not so much men? That is hard evidence that needs an explanation. You cannot explain it with "hard science" because the data is there.
Indeed, I don't think it can be explained easily by science at all. It's part of why the behavioral sciences are difficult to deal with.
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Well, at least we can actually have a conversation which is why on the whole, despite our little difference here, I still am rather fond of you. Though that my be slightly altered depending on the position you take in the dismal science, economics. I cannot believe the crap I see in the political forum in particular.
Don't get me started on economists. Are you in economics? Dear god. The worst of the worst.
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Take care Braunwyn, do not take offense at my sometime aggressive style in argument...ghrrrr
You know I like you, gwyn, and I'm harsh with you as well. I have positions that I do not waver from. Anyhow, I have the day off and I'm building a front fence gate. You can check my blog to see what art or catastrophe I create.
I can't change my eye color, nor could my parents who both came from blue-eyed families. They also were alcoholics and so am I. However, I quit drinking 37 years ago, almost to the day. They never did and died from it. Our personalities are the product of nature and nurture: for most of us, our beliefs and our behavior and the consequences of both are within our control.
I don't understand what this has to do with this conversation, the OP, or evo-psych. What comes to mind for me is that evo-psych enables you, on some level, to deal with ill feelings about feminists and perhaps even women. I apologize if I'm way off the mark here, although it's something I sense about you (sometimes).
Sometimes? Feminism started the scientific justification . They used junk "science" to justify their politics which can be essentially be separated from the movement of equality under the law under the women's suffrage movement. . That was a moral political philosophy very unlike what we have now.
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The lifting of an environmental pressure will not induce evolutionary change within a few hundred years. That's one of the components at the heart of this debate. Speaking strictly about the field of psychology then, sure, I agree with you.
That's evo-psych. All it is is the assumption that human cognition evolved with everything else. How could it be otherwise unless you are a creationist? Are you?
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I think that's a reasonable approach for your life, your worldview, and how you navigate in the world. It's not the case in the sciences and certainly not in pharma.
My world view? Patronizing.... I was exposed to research methods in both psychology and engineering. We used the same statistical tools in both the "soft science" and the "hard science" Who has the better point of view here? The pharmaceutical industry uses the same inferential statistical methods and research tools as other fields. About the only differences I had were more or less proofs like Rockwell hardness or friction coefficients. So what? A soft science can establish whether someone is breathing or not. When people get better the next day from a drug, you have to deal with regression like everyone else.
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If it were only so simple.
It is that simple. Research methodology has a well establish set of rules and procedures that are applied in many fields, but how convent it was for you to patronize once again by leaving out my statement of "devil in the details" so that you could attack a simple minded statement I never made. One of the biggest problems in the details is getting true randomness. Sea water is rather more accommodating than people. Minerals diffuse in a rather predictable patter....but then so do people in a fire escape situation.
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That's the thing when it comes to a little bit of knowledge. People assume A, B, or C when they're missing so much in order to have an educated opinion in a particular subject matter. And as one of my favorite psych studies notes, the less people know the greater their level of confidence while it's the opposite for the reverse.
One of the proofs of a philosophy is one who can live by them. You obviosly cannot live without soft sicence studies that support your position , oddly to say the least, of discounting them.
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I'm tempted to use real world problems in the drug industry to further my point, but I don't want to bore you. Lets just say most everything in drug discovery is a balancing act and it's not simple at all. There are so many variables to consider at every turn. A scientist must absolutely pay attention to the data.
You too often turn to the philosophical approach. If you did give be an example of why pharmacology is so different than all the other fields, it would be an improvement. And as far as I can see, pharmacology has a record reminiscent of soft sciences, with all the failures, and unintended consequences. Of course their are always the nuances.
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I'm not an expert in all FDA guidelines, but metabolites, for example, certainly span the radar. Toxicity is one of many titled areas that have guidelines and regulations. If you visit the FDA website you will find the division of Division of Metabolism and Endocrinology and the Endocrinologic and Metabolic Drugs Advisory Committee. Although maybe I'm not understanding what you mean here. I work in Metabolism and pharamacokinetics platform as a physiochemist and ime the FDA has its thumb firmly placed.
They have their thumb firmly placed in many areas as I first discovered with the Stevia case which apprised me of the fact that it is a creature of merchatilistism among other things. The point is the FDA typically views things as a threat of toxicity which is why Bisphenol-A and other endocrine disruptors are on a whole different scale than the run of the mill mercury toxin.
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Models are built in all areas of hard science. It's par for the course and only makes sense in the soft sciences.
Every applied science.
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Indeed, I don't think it can be explained easily by science at all. It's part of why the behavioral sciences are difficult to deal with.
They are only difficult to deal with when people have way too much faith in the yes-no answers of science.
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Don't get me started on economists. Are you in economics? Dear god. The worst of the worst.
Part of the triad of my history( business, psychology and computer science + a little engineering) Economics is not when you understand it. Its actually quite simple in many areas. The problem is people become somewhat insane and cannot tell the difference between a full grain tower and saving money( One which is a real saving vs a debt instrument) . So they see all this paradoxes because of simple mistakes like these.
You know what ruined it? "Hard science", just like it did our food industry. The early economists like Adam Smith, Ricardo, JS Mill, Henry George were more or less moral philosophers who used human pattern recognition, still far superior to anything else in these cases(much like our tongue is a reliable chemical analysis tool in the natural world where I have no need of a nutritionist to reassemble my diet ). I also find it interesting that chess computers kept losing to humans using mathematical algorithms and instead created a database of historical moves by grand masters. Human pattern recognition was what the computers turned to after all....
The 19th-century creators of neoclassical economics—the theory that now serves as the basis for coordinating activities in the global market system—are credited with transforming their field into a scientific discipline.
My absolute favorite trick of the neoclassical economists is how you can show economically efficient models...that includes slavery. It was the "hard scientists" that are the charlatans. And its why the science fetish in the US really is just so much fun, not.
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You know I like you, gwyn, and I'm harsh with you as well. I have positions that I do not waver from. Anyhow, I have the day off and I'm building a front fence gate. You can check my blog to see what art or catastrophe I create.
I am a little beyond the point where it would bother me at all. I admire anyone who can separate the argument from the person behind it. I wonder if other people thought for a moment how ridiculous it is to have ill will when they agree on the vast majority of things but nurse a hatred because of one's opinion of Neapolitan horticulture? If you and I jumped out of a plane together would we care? Oh, sure I do let people have it, but is always with provocation.
Sometimes? Feminism started the scientific justification . They used junk "science" to justify their politics which can be essentially be separated from the movement of equality under the law under the women's suffrage movement. . That was a moral political philosophy very unlike what we have now.
I had an interesting conversation with my husband last night. He told me about an old Scientific American article he still has that addresses psychology and the soft vs hard science debate. In that there is no soft vs hard science, there is only science and psychology is not science. He's so concise and spot on. So, whatever the feminists are doing, whatever the pro-evo-psych misogynists are doing, none of it is about science, but political manipulation.
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That's evo-psych. All it is is the assumption that human cognition evolved with everything else. How could it be otherwise unless you are a creationist? Are you?
No, I'm an atheist. Although, you are a creationist or at least you were). And you are using the term evolution in common form, while I'm pretty sure that people who use the term evo-psych actually mean evolution as adapted, heritable biological processes.
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My world view? Patronizing.... I was exposed to research methods in both psychology and engineering. We used the same statistical tools in both the "soft science" and the "hard science" Who has the better point of view here? The pharmaceutical industry uses the same inferential statistical methods and research tools as other fields. About the only differences I had were more or less proofs like Rockwell hardness or friction coefficients. So what? A soft science can establish whether someone is breathing or not. When people get better the next day from a drug, you have to deal with regression like everyone else.
Yes, your worldview. It does not fit in pharma research. I'm a research scientist in pharma. I think I know how it goes. And I have a psychology degree as well as chem, premed, and clinical grad degrees. I think my pov is at the middle of the road. As noted earlier, I now reject the idea of soft science all together. It's not science and there shouldn't be debate here. To be clear, I'm not addressing value.
You cling to stats because that's the only tangible thing in psych, but it's a very small aspect of scientific research in my experience. It's the last thing on my mind until I'm nearing the end of a project.
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It is that simple. Research methodology has a well establish set of rules and procedures that are applied in many fields, but how convent it was for you to patronize once again by leaving out my statement of "devil in the details" so that you could attack a simple minded statement I never made. One of the biggest problems in the details is getting true randomness. Sea water is rather more accommodating than people. Minerals diffuse in a rather predictable patter....but then so do people in a fire escape situation.
You don't want true randomness in pharma research. You start with a specific diseased target. That's not random. If your molecule binds to the target you then begin to assess potency. Then you evaluate physiochemical properties. Is the molecule soluble? How quickly does it dissolve? If it's too soluble it won't permeate a cell, so how permeable is it? Insert molecular modification. Does the compound have affinity to protein binding in the blood, fatty tissue, etc? Is the compound cleared quickly? If so, why? If/when it's metabolized then it's time to study the metabolites, look at toxicity, etc.
Insert a million details that have to be juggled. I took at least a half dozen stats classes in my psych major and a number of epidemiology stats courses as well while an undergrad. It's not the same anything. Clearly, you're not going to believe that statement. All well, I suppose it doesn't really matter.
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One of the proofs of a philosophy is one who can live by them. You obviosly cannot live without soft sicence studies that support your position , oddly to say the least, of discounting them.
Again, I don't devalue what psych can potentially offer. It is what it is and I know what it's not. I love epi as well. It's invaluable, but it's not science.
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You too often turn to the philosophical approach. If you did give be an example of why pharmacology is so different than all the other fields, it would be an improvement. And as far as I can see, pharmacology has a record reminiscent of soft sciences, with all the failures, and unintended consequences. Of course their are always the nuances.
Failed hypotheses do not determine what is and isn't science. A pharmaceutical molecule with an acidic pKa of 5, for example, is going to be fully ionized at pH 9. That's the chemistry of it. What it means in pharma, tho, is that this molecule will be unionized at gastric pH (2-4). If oral administration is wanted, that may affect its solubility, therefore the compound never dissolves, never reaches the intestinal lumen in a solubilized state, never makes it to the blood stream. It's a fail. Doesn't change the science.
I'm not sure why you speak with confidence about fields in which you have no professional experience. What is that about?
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They have their thumb firmly placed in many areas as I first discovered with the Stevia case which apprised me of the fact that it is a creature of merchatilistism among other things. The point is the FDA typically views things as a threat of toxicity which is why Bisphenol-A and other endocrine disruptors are on a whole different scale than the run of the mill mercury toxin.
Of course the FDA is concerned with toxicity. Pharmaceutics are first and foremost toxins. But, again, the FDA has its hands all over the place. I really don't understand your point. The FDA even has guidelines for the physiochemistry.
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Every applied science.
Sure, but I don't understand the point of even mentioning it.
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They are only difficult to deal with when people have way too much faith in the yes-no answers of science.
That has not been my experience at all! There's no yes/no. At least not in my field. I wish I could find a pic that has a few dozen scales/balances on it and having them all positioned to arrive at the "sweet spot". That's the kind of answer in science I'm used to.
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Part of the triad of my history( business, psychology and computer science + a little engineering) Economics is not when you understand it. Its actually quite simple in many areas. The problem is people become somewhat insane and cannot tell the difference between a full grain tower and saving money( One which is a real saving vs a debt instrument) . So they see all this paradoxes because of simple mistakes like these.
I don't know economics well, but I do know of a few economists who like to take the role of social scientist (or at least their understanding of it). I have some funny comics in my bookmarks about economists that I'll have to find for you.
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You know what ruined it? "Hard science", just like it did our food industry.
Perhaps that wouldn't be the case if folk stopped trying to put everything under the umbrella of science where it doesn't belong.
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I am a little beyond the point where it would bother me at all. I admire anyone who can separate the argument from the person behind it. I wonder if other people thought for a moment how ridiculous it is to have ill will when they agree on the vast majority of things but nurse a hatred because of one's opinion of Neapolitan horticulture? If you and I jumped out of a plane together would we care? Oh, sure I do let people have it, but is always with provocation.
You remind me of my dad lol. We argue and get over it at the end of the conversation. Although, you were not provoked in this conversation.
Have to run, gwyn. I have really bad CV's that I must attend to . I'm not kidding. I'm at 20%, and that's not good. I've got to get them down to <5.
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I cannot believe the crap I see in the political forum in particular. 
