Agnostic Mom

We’re back home and I managed to return sans sunburn and weight-gain. Not having gained weight was the loftier achievement since the resort was all-inclusive. Yes, that’s what I said. My husband’s company provided us with an all-inclusive packaged resort vacation. The activities were all-inclusive. The food was all-inclusive. The alcohol was all-inclusive. And there was an open bar within five feet of anywhere we were at any given time.

I mostly ate fruits and vegetables while there. I love the tropics because of the wide availability of fruits, the mango being my very favorite. But since we drank a bit more than usual (just a bit; I’m not a big drinker) I was concerned about all those extra calories.

Not to worry. There was plenty to do at the resort to keep us active. Besides the fact that we walked everywhere and never once took the elevator to our third floor room, we rode bikes and played tennis, rode kayaks, went snorkeling, and danced in the evenings. We also played pool and table tennis. I doubt those two activities burned very many calories but I know they burn more than lying on a lounge chair at the pool consuming chips and pico de gallo.

We also spent a lot of time with our camera. My husband taught me some of the technical details of photography: setting the shutter speed, the F-stop, and light sensitivity. We went around the resort taking lots of cool photos. Maybe some day I’ll take the time to learn the simple art of putting those photos on my blog. Or into my empty flickr account. Yes, I realize I am probably the only blogger who hasn’t taken the five minutes to learn how to do that. I just have too many interests.

Our last evening in Cancun led me to an unexpected conversation. After three days of small talk with people from the company that I see once a year, I found out that one of the wives is a professor of Archaeology. Well, of course, that perked my ears. Not long ago on this blog there was a weeks-long debate that spanned at least four or five blog-entries in the comments. The debate was a bit confusing as it covered a few different topics at once, but one of those topics was Evolutionary Psychology, a subject that will probably appear in my next blog entry. One reader, whose degree was in Archaeology, could not stomach the field of Evolutionary Psychology and seemed to think it conflicts with all things archaeological.

So, not wanting to start a debate with this new friend on our vacation, but curious to see her reaction, I asked her, “Do you know about, and if so do you despise, the field of Evolutionary Psychology?”

And her answer was, “Yes! I despise it! All these years we have been moving successfully away from racism, and Evolutionary Psychology comes right back to racist beliefs.”

When she said she despised E.P, I hoped she’d have a more compelling disagreement than the racist card. I already know about claims of racism. I have studied enough of E.P. to know that that point is not valid. It is untrue. In fact, there are many reasons why the claims of E.P. should lead us to more compassion and understanding toward our fellow human beings.

She also made the common argument that it is deterministic. This is also not necessarily the case. In my readings, I have only come across one proponent of the field who is a determinist and he admitted that when his peers reviewed his book, they all disagreed with him on that point. When I hear claims of racism and determinism with regard to E.P, it usually means the person has read about the field from its opponents, but have not read the research itself.

I wanted to hear valid arguments against this field. I told the professor that I was trying to determine the various weaknesses and strengths of Evolutionary Psychology and that, while I have heard the claims that the field leads to racial and deterministic beliefs, my readings show otherwise.

I asked her if archaeologists unanimously disagree with Evolutionary Psychology, as one of my readers implied. She said it is split, practically down the middle. And then a funny thing happened. She admitted that as she has just begun reading on the subject recently, she is warming up to it. She read the work of one scientist about the differences in male and female sexuality and she said she could not deny it sounded accurate. And there are a few other things she has been learning from the field that also sound right to her.

We both agreed that some scientists, in an effort to get their name on a new theory, propose theories within the field that do not have strong evidence or support. Of course, these theories don’t go far. They also do not invalidate the rest of the entire field of research.

So in the end, the discussion evolved from her “despising” Evolutionary Psychology, to the fact that she is just beginning to learn about it and, in the process, is warming up to it.

In addition to the topic of E.P, she also told me that she teaches Evolution and that every semester she has a student(s) who make a point to challenge her on its validity.

I told her about my blog. She asked me if I know of Michael Shermer and the Skeptic Society. We played the “Do you know so-and-so?” game of scientists we read, as well as the “Have you read such-and-such?” game regarding books.

It was a nice detail to add to my trip of tropical fun and relaxation.