Using science to justify your lifestyle - empirics vs normative

[Kean]

There is a recent trend in the self-help/personal development world:
the use of scientific discovery to justify lifestyles and behaviors.

More specifically, some people confuse statistical observations with natural laws (or "human nature") - and as a conclusion they try too enforce them as their life doctrine.

I must admit that I was among the first people who read about the cyclical reproduction behavior among human beings in a science magazine and then thought, "Hey, wow! This must mean that we are meant to have multiple partners in our life! Yeah, I wanna have as many women as possible! This is gonna be fun!"
(My enthusiasm faded away after I attended a real Evolutionary Psychology class at university...)

I'll try to explain the problem in simple words:
Firstly, most empirical scientific research is based on data and tries to analyse the behavior of a majority of subjects and/or find how such behavior is related to other observations.
However, this doesn't mean that the analysis is universally valid, nor does it mean that it is right/correct (normative), nor that it should be done that way.
There are outliers (sometimes lying very far) and there are unobserved characteristics as well (scientists can rarely conduct experiments on unwilling population, and often experiment subjects behave differently when they know they are being observed). So, just because more than half of the sample of women prefer to marry a partner who earns at least 68% of the population level earnings, does not mean that all women are like that.

Secondly, whatever happens now or happened 100 years ago does not mean that it was meant to happen. It simply happened to happen, and you can make it happen differently if you want to, in as many ways as you wish!

This quote by one of the most important evolutionary scientist (Buss) summarizes well what I am saying
"Natural selection acts only on those variants that happen to exist. Evolution is not intentional and cannot look into the future to foresee distant needs."

You can choose to be monogamous, or you can choose to be polyamorous - nature doesn't dictate which one is the "right" or "better" lifestyle (though your choice may be based on the current conditions of your current environment and what exactly you want from it; e.g. if you want to increase your chances to get ANY woman, then of course go ahead and become richer&dominant, but this doesn't say anything about the quality of the women you will get nor the type of your experiences with them).

So, next time you read an exciting article about human nature, analyse it critically before putting aside existing personal values, experience and other normative teachings (ethics, morals, religion, philosophy, etc.). Just because 1900 out of 2000 subjects attracted a woman by exerting a more arrogant and dominant attitude does NOT mean that you won't attract anyone if you are more altruistic.

I would like to invite those who are further interested in this problem to take some time and read some internet introductions about applied statistics / applied research methods - or, if you have a lot of time, study Psychology!

It's a whole new world :-)

My final message: true success (in any area of our lives, especially social relationships) is not an average behavior!

Feel free to discuss and ask any questions.

[Plato]

You haven't taken your point far enough.

Your post implies the existence of right and wrong. It seems to say: although it cannot be derived from empirical fact, it is still out there somewhere.

Actually, there is no right and wrong, good and bad at all. I could track you down and brutally murder you and that might not be your preference but it's not wrong.

[Kean]

Originally Posted by Plato

You haven't taken your point far enough.

Your post implies the existence of right and wrong. It seems to say: although it cannot be derived from empirical fact, it is still out there somewhere.

Actually, there is no right and wrong, good and bad at all. I could track you down and brutally murder you and that might not be your preference but it's not wrong.

Whether "right" and "wrong" exists or is relative depends on your personal normative beliefs.

What I'm saying is that whatever is "out there somewhere" entirely depends on your subjective perception.

Even the belief that there is no "right" or "wrong" is one of the many possible normative beliefs that will lead you either somewhere or somewhere else

[Iggy K]

so basicaly what you saying is everything is relative?
I agree on that.
I will quote your final message,its good

[chrisrushton]

it's not an average behavior, but there are trends. whether these trends are genetic or social (nature vs nurture) is another question.

edit: it's prudent to plan for the rule, not the exception. it's also prudent to have a plan for the exception too, if it comes up. it shouldn't be plan A though. The plan for the rule is always plan A.

[Kean]

Originally Posted by chrisrushton

it's not an average behavior, but there are trends. whether these trends are genetic or social (nature vs nurture) is another question.

They are related though, and what most research is concluding nowadays is that the world is simultaneously shaped by both ("nature and nurture", "epigenetic view").

edit: it's prudent to plan for the rule, not the exception. it's also prudent to have a plan for the exception too, if it comes up. it shouldn't be plan A though. The plan for the rule is always plan A.

Depends on what our objectives are though... what I am saying is that if we aim to be exceptional or do exceptional things, it is better not to plan at all or - as a saying goes - "aim for the moon, you will still land among the stars" (and obviously keep a contingency plan), i.e. not to base our decisions on anything we observe in common trends.
i.e. if polyamory becomes a social norm and monogamy will be socially rejected, yet you aim at a monogamous relationship, you may still find what you wish by concentrating on becoming an outlier/exception.

[aggie]

fascinating post, kean.

do you have any thoughts as to whether the individuals that do these particular studies do them not out of objective research, but are a bit biased on what the might like the outcome to be?

and plato...no offense, but why is it so many posters want to take a subject back to defending murder as not wrong

[Michael Chui]

"Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That man should not think he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all he does. "

?

[Kean]

Originally Posted by aggie

do you have any thoughts as to whether the individuals that do these particular studies do them not out of objective research, but are a bit biased on what the might like the outcome to be?

This has been an age-long problem of research as well. As a matter of fact, when you casually read the names and background of the researchers, you sometimes have a gut feeling that there might be other interests rather than being entirely objective.

e.g. a research paper written on the efficiency of the Federal Reserve System... written by two academics who have also worked at state-level Federal Reserve.... hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm?!
e.g. research on the side-effects of a pain killer... written by a university that is funded by the drug company that produces it... hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm?!??!

Such things require investigation as well.

And this is also why I believe that peer review is important in all kinds of research, so that as many fellow scientists as possible can express their views on the results.

One important criteria of modern science is also replicability, i.e. the experiments should be able to be repeated by other scientists as well and lead to the same results.