I also find his articles annoying but I have no problem with ascribing a scientific or economic purpose/motive behind everything.
The problem is that the explanation has to be solid, based in evidence and experiments. This article is a well written rambling, or to be more clear just an opinion.
For example in:
> We're also the only creatures who sing from the ground, sing and dance together, bury our dead, point declaratively, enjoy spicy foods, blush, and faint [1] (not to mention all of our weird sexual practices).
> [1] human-unique traits. Some of these are contested. [...] And I'm sure there are other examples of similar behaviors enacted by non-human animals. But the basic point stands: We do a lot of things that, if not singularly unique, are nevertheless extremely rare.
He cherrypicks a few behaviors and say that they make us unique, and when there is contradicting evidence he just ignore it. Whales can sing, wolves howl (is that similar enough?) and just ignore birds because they are not intelligent enough. Bonobos have a lot of weird sexual practices that are similar to the human one, and other animals have even weirder sexual practices that are unimaginable in humans. And the list of exceptions go on ...
> See, that's just the kind of bullshit sexism that discredits evo-psych. Your "evolutionary histories" always seem tuned to produce 1950's gender roles.
The problem is that the explanation has to be solid, based in evidence and experiments. This article is a well written rambling, or to be more clear just an opinion.
For example in:
> We're also the only creatures who sing from the ground, sing and dance together, bury our dead, point declaratively, enjoy spicy foods, blush, and faint [1] (not to mention all of our weird sexual practices).
> [1] human-unique traits. Some of these are contested. [...] And I'm sure there are other examples of similar behaviors enacted by non-human animals. But the basic point stands: We do a lot of things that, if not singularly unique, are nevertheless extremely rare.
He cherrypicks a few behaviors and say that they make us unique, and when there is contradicting evidence he just ignore it. Whales can sing, wolves howl (is that similar enough?) and just ignore birds because they are not intelligent enough. Bonobos have a lot of weird sexual practices that are similar to the human one, and other animals have even weirder sexual practices that are unimaginable in humans. And the list of exceptions go on ...
It's similar to: from https://xkcd.com/775/
> See, that's just the kind of bullshit sexism that discredits evo-psych. Your "evolutionary histories" always seem tuned to produce 1950's gender roles.