Summary of "Pourquoi @LesRevuesduMonde se trompe (cas d’école des travers des sciences sociales)"
Overview
- The subtitles come from a video‑length rebuttal the author made to two Les Revues du Monde (LRdM) YouTube episodes: one on the history/origin of disgust (toilets/excrement) and one on beauty/attractiveness.
- The rebuttal argues LRdM misrepresents biology—especially evolutionary psychology—and makes unsupported, caricatured claims that many behaviors are purely cultural.
- The critic emphasizes that biological and cultural explanations are not mutually exclusive; many human behaviors are best understood as interactions between evolved predispositions and cultural learning.
Main ideas and arguments
1. Core critique of Les Revues du Monde (LRdM)
- LRdM presents disgust and beauty as essentially cultural phenomena and dismisses evolutionary accounts without sufficient evidence or sources.
- The videos rely on caricatures of evolutionary psychology (labeling it “pseudoscience” without substantiation) and recycle classic social‑science errors: the blank‑slate assumption, an exaggerated nature–culture dichotomy, and “if it varies it’s not biological” reasoning.
- LRdM uses selective historical anecdotes (e.g., Roman communal toilets, medieval church moralizing) as if cultural change alone explains origins, without addressing why those cultural changes targeted particular objects or behaviors.
2. Evidence and alternative explanations from biology and cognitive science
Disgust as an evolved/functional response
- Many species avoid parasite‑contaminated environments (examples: sheep and caribou migrations; various taxa avoid infected conspecifics), consistent with a behavioral strategy to reduce pathogen exposure.
- Humans plausibly possess a “behavioral immune system” or what Steven Pinker described as “intuitive microbiology”: evolved mechanisms that detect and avoid cues of pathogens. Disgust can be an evolved risk‑avoidance response even if proximate detection occurs via central brain processing rather than peripheral receptors.
- Cross‑species differences (e.g., flies attracted to feces while humans are repelled) do not refute evolutionary explanations; they reflect species‑specific costs and benefits.
Beauty and attractiveness
- Preferences for symmetry and typicality may partly reflect perceptual and cognitive processing: symmetry is easier to process and recognize, and many species show symmetry preferences.
- “Good genes” and mate‑choice hypotheses (preferences for cues of health or fertility) are legitimate scientific theories with decades of empirical work.
- Partner preferences such as men’s relative attraction to younger women have cross‑cultural support: classic multi‑site studies (e.g., a 1989 study) and more recent replications (including a 2020 study spanning many countries) suggest a biological contribution alongside cultural modulation.
3. Methodological and logical problems highlighted
- Lack of sourcing: LRdM made broad claims without appropriate citations.
- Direction of causality/priming issue: cultural explanations are often presented as if behaviors arise ex nihilo; critics ask why particular cultural elements emerged (for example, why the church branded excrement sinful rather than some other object).
- False dichotomies: portraying traits as either biological or cultural ignores the well‑established view that many traits are both—biological predispositions shaped and modulated by culture.
- Caricature and asymmetric treatment: cultural hypotheses are presented with nuance while biological hypotheses are ridiculed.
- Outdated claims: assertions like “genes have nothing to do with behavior” are scientifically obsolete and misleading.
4. Politics and motivation
- The critic suggests LRdM’s framing likely responds to political concerns (e.g., opposing far‑right or men’s‑rights rhetoric that misuses biological findings). Such motives can lead to overstating cultural explanations and rejecting biological ones.
- Warning: politicizing science by rejecting legitimate biological input can backfire and cede credibility to extremist groups that misuse biology; a better strategy is accurate, nuanced science.
Lessons, recommendations and practical steps
Scientific practice and interpretation
- Don’t treat nature vs. nurture as a binary; study how biological predispositions and cultural learning interact.
- Favor parsimonious explanations: if multiple phenomena are plausibly explained by an evolved pathogen‑avoidance mechanism, that explanation should be prioritized over many distinct cultural stories.
- Source claims: major assertions (especially universals) should cite primary literature or large cross‑cultural studies.
- Avoid caricaturing opposing hypotheses—present their best versions and test them empirically.
For communicators and viewers
- If you encounter questionable public claims: post corrective sources or links in comments; request corrections/errata where publishers are receptive.
- Don’t automatically reject biological explanations because of past abuses—use multidisciplinary, evidence‑based approaches.
- Support interdisciplinary work that integrates evolutionary, cognitive, and social sciences (“evolutionary social sciences”).
Specific suggested actions (practical)
- When encountering misinformation in popular videos:
- Calmly drop a link to relevant peer‑reviewed studies or reputable summaries in the comments.
- Encourage authors to publish corrections/errata.
- Prefer sharing reliable sources rather than amplifying oversimplified pieces.
- For researchers and students: pursue integrative research that studies how culture modifies biologically prepared responses (e.g., experiments, cross‑cultural replications, developmental studies).
Concrete methodological points mentioned
- Test hypotheses cross‑culturally rather than generalizing from WEIRD samples; LRdM failed to acknowledge broader literature (critic cites a 1989 multi‑site study and a 2020 replication across many countries).
- Examine proximate mechanisms (e.g., whether disgust detection is via peripheral receptors or central brain evaluation) but don’t conflate mechanism location with whether something is “biological.”
- Use comparative data across species to test evolutionary explanations (e.g., parasite avoidance in mammals, insects, amphibians).
- Consider both ultimate (evolutionary function) and proximate (developmental, neural) explanations together.
Summary judgment
- The critic believes LRdM’s videos contain many unsupported claims, logical errors, and outdated positions that mislead a broad audience about the state of behavioral biology.
- Rather than discarding biological approaches, the critic urges careful, sourced, interdisciplinary work and better public communication that acknowledges both evolved predispositions and cultural variation.
Speakers and sources referenced (as they appear in the subtitles)
- Les Revues du Monde (YouTube channel) — creator of the two contested videos: “Our toilets changed the course of history” and “Why you don’t think you’re pretty enough”
- The video’s narrator/critic (author of the rebuttal; unnamed in subtitles)
- Steven Pinker (quoted as describing disgust as “intuitive microbiology”)
- Robert Sapolsky (quoted/anecdotally referenced)
- Squeezie (YouTuber referenced regarding a prior LRdM response)
- Bernard Lair (sociologist cited as criticizing social sciences’ anti‑biological tendencies)
- An unnamed men’s‑rights influencer and an unnamed far‑right activist (clips used by LRdM as examples of biological arguments being politically misused)
- Research items referenced (not always named specifically):
- A 2003 paper on animals avoiding fecal‑contaminated areas
- Literature on the behavioral immune system / intuitive microbiology
- The 1989 cross‑cultural study on partner preferences
- A 2020 replication study (45 countries, 14,399 participants) on sex differences in mate preferences
- Conference on disgust in Toulouse (international, multi‑disciplinary)
- General fields and approaches mentioned: evolutionary psychology, behavioral immune system research, comparative studies of parasite avoidance
Category
Educational
Share this summary
Is the summary off?
If you think the summary is inaccurate, you can reprocess it with the latest model.
Preparing reprocess...