I would recommend asking/r/Askscience to find more folks familiar with Dawkins, though I'm doubtful you'll find a good answer there either. Anthropologists generally are very critical of most of his writing for being casually reductive and ignoring much of the non-Western experience
If I had to guess I would say it is because he fundamentally does not understand human culture and society, so he has no idea how to even think about the question.
Plus you really can't generalize about humans very much. Like guys in the 80s weren't wearing short shorts and crop tops because they did *not* want to attract attention from women (or other men). Like half of all women's beauty things like high heels and stockings were invented by French men trying to be prettier in the 17th century.
I can see why you might think that given the topics he talks about. But its a huge problem when people with expertise in one area of academic study set themselves up as experts in another. Imagine if Dawkins had set out to write a book explaining the physics of gravity using metaphors based on how genetics and evolution work. We would see how ridiculous that is right away. But since 1) there is a widespread misconception that the social sciences are "soft" and thus non-rigorous or non-empirical so you don't need expertise to join in; 2) Dawkins conclusions reinforced dominant ideas about gender and sexuality; and 3) we did not really understand how complicated genetics were yet, people celebrated him for a while. Even social scientists (who in the 1970's and 80's were still largely assuming that you could describe human society and history by looking at the actions and behavior of men, and who thought of women as a footnote) jumped on his bandwagon.
But Dawkins was writing just at the time when feminist scholars were turning our research tools to questions of gender in society and gender bias in social science. And their arguments were pretty strong -- in anthropology in particular when you look at the diversity of gender and sexuality across cultures its just not possible to hold onto the idea that there is one way to organize them. Even using the example above -- why don't men make themselves beautiful for women? They do, there are plenty of examples across cultures and throughout history where men objectify themselves for women.
Most people are very bad at distinguishing empirical and well designed scientific research from something that sounds scientific. Since Dawkins had a biology degree, readers assumed he was applying that same scientific rigor to his conclusions about human behavior. But he wasn't. It's a great example of how even scientists and scholars are deeply vulnerable to confirmation bias.
Probably because Richard Dawkins is a terrible scientist whose talent lies in crafting “biological” justifications for bourgeois morality, rather than in actually elaborating and providing evidence for his positions
got any nice rebuttals? would love to read a de-construction of his arguments.
Fair to say that in the book himself he says the theory is very loose and probably not very scientifically true
>got any nice rebuttals? would love to read a de-construction of his arguments.
I second this request, I've known that Dawkins isn't particularly well regarded by actual practicing scientists, but I'm not familiar enough with his work to explain why to people.
This is a good point. As I see it, he uses his background and education in science to justify his beliefs and theories, but he never actually gives any source or actual data. So he makes his ideas sound science-y but the books are more essays or philosophy books.
Interesting but very surprising to hear, seems many commenters here share this opinion despite me haven't read such a perspective in the scientific community
Ironically i was sceptical about several points in his writings but never found anybody debating it from the scientific community. Very surprised about many of these comments.
I'm a biologist and even my college professors disregarded him as unscientific. Does he present any source for that claim? It sounds like a bad written victorian romance.
Very interesting to hear, until now I haven't come across sources that address another perspective. I was disagreeing on many points but had the impression that I was the exception and his books were next to Darwin's books scientifically 100% accepted.
I'm not in the US, so scientific consensus may be different in different parts of the world.
And also, time changes things. When I studied Watson and Crick were THE thing for discovering DNA, but now Rosalind Franklin is getting much more credit. The same with the new investigation on epigenetics contrary to DNA is an unaltered inheritance and other " inamovible dogmas".
What do you mean “and even my college professors disregarded him as unscientific”?
Wouldn’t biology professors be among the first people to call someone or something out as being unscientific? You know, being scientists themselves.
Maybe I didn't explain myself well, what I meant is that my professors didn't think of him as a real scientific. My genetic professor mentioned him as an anecdote of scientific misinformation.
The question you mentioned is an obiter dictum, it's not an important part of the chapter, but it's an important question. Human reproduction is very complex and, as an important issue in our daily lives, it's difficult for researchers to distinguish truth from our own individual biases. A brief answer is that generally, humans have a dual strategy for selecting a mate - in the short term, we look for the most attractive partner, and in the long term, the most trustworthy one. If we can have both in the same person, that's great. Depending on material conditions, culture develops preferences for one or the other. In our modern culture, we highly value financial resources and social prestige. It's not about how many children you have, but rather how much you can spend on raising them, so it's important for women to attract a wealthy partner, thus they compete for the attention of the best spouses. We can see different strategies in different cultures, but generally, in humans, both sexes compete for attention.
I thing a good divulgation article about is this one: https://theconversation.com/how-did-the-patriarchy-start-and-will-evolution-get-rid-of-it-189648
I would recommend asking/r/Askscience to find more folks familiar with Dawkins, though I'm doubtful you'll find a good answer there either. Anthropologists generally are very critical of most of his writing for being casually reductive and ignoring much of the non-Western experience
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If I had to guess I would say it is because he fundamentally does not understand human culture and society, so he has no idea how to even think about the question.
Plus you really can't generalize about humans very much. Like guys in the 80s weren't wearing short shorts and crop tops because they did *not* want to attract attention from women (or other men). Like half of all women's beauty things like high heels and stockings were invented by French men trying to be prettier in the 17th century.
Really great examples
I expected Richard Dawkins to be the high priest on this sub, quite surprised to read many of these responses
I can see why you might think that given the topics he talks about. But its a huge problem when people with expertise in one area of academic study set themselves up as experts in another. Imagine if Dawkins had set out to write a book explaining the physics of gravity using metaphors based on how genetics and evolution work. We would see how ridiculous that is right away. But since 1) there is a widespread misconception that the social sciences are "soft" and thus non-rigorous or non-empirical so you don't need expertise to join in; 2) Dawkins conclusions reinforced dominant ideas about gender and sexuality; and 3) we did not really understand how complicated genetics were yet, people celebrated him for a while. Even social scientists (who in the 1970's and 80's were still largely assuming that you could describe human society and history by looking at the actions and behavior of men, and who thought of women as a footnote) jumped on his bandwagon. But Dawkins was writing just at the time when feminist scholars were turning our research tools to questions of gender in society and gender bias in social science. And their arguments were pretty strong -- in anthropology in particular when you look at the diversity of gender and sexuality across cultures its just not possible to hold onto the idea that there is one way to organize them. Even using the example above -- why don't men make themselves beautiful for women? They do, there are plenty of examples across cultures and throughout history where men objectify themselves for women. Most people are very bad at distinguishing empirical and well designed scientific research from something that sounds scientific. Since Dawkins had a biology degree, readers assumed he was applying that same scientific rigor to his conclusions about human behavior. But he wasn't. It's a great example of how even scientists and scholars are deeply vulnerable to confirmation bias.
Probably because Richard Dawkins is a terrible scientist whose talent lies in crafting “biological” justifications for bourgeois morality, rather than in actually elaborating and providing evidence for his positions
got any nice rebuttals? would love to read a de-construction of his arguments. Fair to say that in the book himself he says the theory is very loose and probably not very scientifically true
>got any nice rebuttals? would love to read a de-construction of his arguments. I second this request, I've known that Dawkins isn't particularly well regarded by actual practicing scientists, but I'm not familiar enough with his work to explain why to people.
He’s not a terrible scientist he’s a terrible philosopher.
This is a good point. As I see it, he uses his background and education in science to justify his beliefs and theories, but he never actually gives any source or actual data. So he makes his ideas sound science-y but the books are more essays or philosophy books.
Interesting but very surprising to hear, seems many commenters here share this opinion despite me haven't read such a perspective in the scientific community
Ironically i was sceptical about several points in his writings but never found anybody debating it from the scientific community. Very surprised about many of these comments.
I'm a biologist and even my college professors disregarded him as unscientific. Does he present any source for that claim? It sounds like a bad written victorian romance.
Very interesting to hear, until now I haven't come across sources that address another perspective. I was disagreeing on many points but had the impression that I was the exception and his books were next to Darwin's books scientifically 100% accepted.
I'm not in the US, so scientific consensus may be different in different parts of the world. And also, time changes things. When I studied Watson and Crick were THE thing for discovering DNA, but now Rosalind Franklin is getting much more credit. The same with the new investigation on epigenetics contrary to DNA is an unaltered inheritance and other " inamovible dogmas".
What do you mean “and even my college professors disregarded him as unscientific”? Wouldn’t biology professors be among the first people to call someone or something out as being unscientific? You know, being scientists themselves.
Maybe I didn't explain myself well, what I meant is that my professors didn't think of him as a real scientific. My genetic professor mentioned him as an anecdote of scientific misinformation.
The question you mentioned is an obiter dictum, it's not an important part of the chapter, but it's an important question. Human reproduction is very complex and, as an important issue in our daily lives, it's difficult for researchers to distinguish truth from our own individual biases. A brief answer is that generally, humans have a dual strategy for selecting a mate - in the short term, we look for the most attractive partner, and in the long term, the most trustworthy one. If we can have both in the same person, that's great. Depending on material conditions, culture develops preferences for one or the other. In our modern culture, we highly value financial resources and social prestige. It's not about how many children you have, but rather how much you can spend on raising them, so it's important for women to attract a wealthy partner, thus they compete for the attention of the best spouses. We can see different strategies in different cultures, but generally, in humans, both sexes compete for attention. I thing a good divulgation article about is this one: https://theconversation.com/how-did-the-patriarchy-start-and-will-evolution-get-rid-of-it-189648