Reading Comprehension

PT134 · S4 · P3 · Q17 Evolutionary Psychology

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Passage A Evolutionary psychology has taught us to examine human behavior from the standpoint of the theory of evolution—to explain a given type of human behavior by examining how it contributes to the reproductive success of individuals exhibiting the behavior, and thereby to the proliferation of the genetic material responsible for causing that behavior.

Passage A

The first paragraph introduces us to the concept of Evolutionary Psychology, which tries to explain behaviors based on how they would have contributed to the reproductive success of the individual behaving that way.

At the end of the 1st, the author asks a Puzzling Question: how can altruism (self-sacrifice) help the reproductive success of an individual?

The 2nd paragraph begins, the answer probably lies in identification / empathy.

So our reading goal is to understand how identification/empathy make it so that altruism helps the reproductive success of an individual. The story seems to be that we can visually identify people who resemble us (and thus who are likely to share some of our genes), and this makes us empathize with them and want to help them more. In the end, I guess the explanation is that we learn to be altruistic to people who look like us, because if they are related to us, then saving them is technically helping the reproductive success of our genes (since they share many of our genes).

The 3rd paragraph is saying that once this mechanism existed (so that we'd be more likely to help our our genetic relatives), it got co-opted more socially within our kin-based groups turned into bigger groups that included non-relatives. Altruism may end up helping strangers in a way that looks "unselfish", but it arose for selfish reasons (trying to save "your genes" by helping someone near you who shared some of your genes).

Passage B

Right away we see there's a Topic Overlap with Evolutionary Psychology. However, this author seems to be against it, not using it. She calls it a "conspiracy theory", which sounds negative.

There's also some saucy attitude in the last sentence of the 1st paragraph: what seemed to be your unsurprising interest in your child's well-being turns out to be your genes' conspiracy to propagate themselves.

The author is saying,

In the 2nd paragraph, the author is providing an example of what she considers to be typical evolutionary psychology -- we have monogamous families (not for the superficial reason of "I found my one true love") because our offspring mature slowly so this type of family improved the reproductive chances of our offspring.

In the 3rd paragraph, the author continues her skepticism of this type of thinking. She feels like evolutionary psychologists are forcing everything through their explanatory lens, when there are other, possibly simpler and more intuitive ways to explain some forms of behavior.

She seems convinced that some of our behaviors are not controlled by genetic interests; they're just products of our own curious free will.

Overlap

Both passages deal with evolutionary psychology and with altruism.

Passage A presents how evolutionary psychology would explain altruism. Passage B alludes to it very vaguely at the end of its 3rd paragraph.

Divergence

Passage A seems to like / trust evolutionary psychology, whereas Psg B seems a little annoyed that evolutionary psychology insists on thinking that every single thing has an evolutionary explanation.

17.

How does the purpose of passage B relate to the content of passage A?

  1. The author of passage B

    Unsupported Relationship

    Passage B is mainly written to push back against Passage A. The author of B is a skeptic of evolutionary psychology, like that in Passage A. So we wouldn't say B is seeking to support A's main claims.

    1% picked this

  2. The author of passage B

    Out of Scope: analogous argument

    There isn't any analogy in passage B other than the metaphor of "conspiracy theory" being used in the first sentence. But the author of passage B doesn't create an argument about conspiracy theories with a conclusion that is clearly false.

    2% picked this

  3. The author of passage B

    Unsupported Objection

    Passage B is criticizing the type of reasoning done in passage A, that it makes an confident leap to an evolutionary explanation when there are other possible explanations. Passage B does not criticize the accuracy of the evidence, i.e. "Those observed data points are erroneous data points"

    3% picked this

  4. The author of passage B

    Too Strong: vacuous / no possible

    Calling a claim vacuous means it's hollow, empty, meaningless (a vacuum). The author of B is not trashing evolutionary psychology, just pumping the brakes and saying, "are we sure we're not getting carried away? these sorts of causal inferences are tricky". Passage B never complained that there was no conceivable kind of evidence that could ever resolve this debate. This answer is saying "no possible evidence could confirm or rule out this idea".

    16% picked this

  5. Correct

    The author of passage B

    Why this is right

    The 1st paragraph of B summarizes the reasoning from evolutionary psychology. The 2nd paragraph of B begins by saying, "such arguments can appear persuasive on the face of it". This definitely signals that the author is here to question the reasoning. The last sentence of 2nd paragraph is saying, evolutionary psychologists take this as evidence that ____ . Are they right? That pair of sentences is explicitly questioning the reasoning. The final paragraph discusses how we need to handle such inferences (handle drawing such conclusions) with care.

    Skill tested: Primary Purpose · how this choice captures the passage's function is the move to repeat next time.

    79% picked this

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