GeneExpression has brought some interesting data to my knowledge.
http://www.epjournal.net/blog/2011/05/are-creationists-more-receptive-to-evolutionary-psychology-2/
It seems that people who reject evolution are more likely to accept claims made by evo psych (even if for other reasons). In other words, people who are antievolution are more realistic about gender differences in mating behavior (the actual example being about whether males value fysical attractiveness more than females do). How strange, sort of! As someone in the comments points out:
My take? The main group that is resistant evopsych-type findings are the middle class and intelligentsia. The lower classes seem entirely willing to accept the findings of evopysch and adaptationist type findings in general. To take an example from my own life coming from a relatively rural setting. My sister has a child who likes to pose for the camera. She is the type of girl who likes taking photos of herself and the father of the child is the same way. My mother will, without a moment’s pause, explain the child’s behavior by saying that “[the child] got it from both sides” and this will elicit head-nods of agreement from the other family members. While my mother is of above average intelligence and a voracious reader (I am indebted to her for my high verbal scores on standardized tests), she did not achieve a high level of formal education education. This sort of explanation of behavior by an implicit reference to genetics would never be remotely acceptable at a dinner party in the college town where I live. They’d object that the child was socialized by the parents to display the behavior. Reference to genes would be laughed at. Whereas, it was common place for me to hear older folks explain a young person’s wild behavior by referencing how wild the father or mother was at a younger age. I’ve done some very unscientific convenience polling of the people I work with and their experience is similar.
The problem is again the intelligentsia or rather, academic left (much the same these days).
Also, i didn’t know that the EPjournal had a blog. I had already subscribed to their articles, but not the blog. Now i have. :)
