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CriticalThinker

Response to criticism of AC's r/K selection theories

Dec 9th, 2017
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  1. Response to criticisms of Annonymous Conservatives application of r/K selection theory:
  2. https://notpoliticallycorrect.me/2017/09/28/rk-selection-theory-rebuttals/
  3.  
  4. I have two disagreements with AC:
  5. 1. Use of the word liberal, which I think should be progressive.
  6. 2. Bias in favor of conservatism.
  7.  
  8. First it refers to a criticism of Ruston's application of r/K to humans:
  9. https://notpoliticallycorrect.me/2017/06/24/rk-selection-theory-a-response-to-rushton/
  10.  
  11. This article applies r/K selection to differences between races, I don't see how this is relevant. AC never discusses race and I'm only interested in how r/K selection applies to individuals within a civilization too. This to understand why empires fall when they're at their peek. I don't see how the way that r/K selection applies differently to races is relevant to the theory on a larger scale. r/K selection applies to almost all life forms, next to other selection mechanisms. So it goes much deeper than the specific situation a specific race may have lived in. Even if people in races now commonly express more r-selected or K-selected behavior, I'd expect that to change if their children grew up in a different environment.
  12.  
  13. I haven't read Rushton's work, still I've found several logical disagreements with this article which I'll list here:
  14. "It is erroneously assumed that living in colder temperatures is somehow ‘harder’ than it is in Africa"
  15. Yes, there is much less biomass available in colder temperatures. Of course Africans would still compete with each other for resources. The idea is also that there's more requirement to think ahead, in order to prepare for the winter. Requiring more deferral of gratification.
  16. The article generally asserts that r/K selection is a simple model:
  17.  
  18. "One of the main reasons that Rushton’s r/K continuum gets pushed is because it’s a ‘simple model’ that so ‘parsimoniously’ explains racial differences ... But ecological systems are never simple":
  19. Where was an implication that any ecological system is simple? I'd say the tropics are way more complicated than cold area's. The relevant aspect here is that a cold area is more difficult to live in, has less resources and thus supports fewer individuals. Which is a K-selected pressure.
  20. AC's book is for the public, not to be the bleeding edge of science. Most people have no idea about these theories. I think it would greatly improve their understanding of reality if they knew about it, it did mine. This seems like the situation with Newton's theory of gravity. It's been proven wrong, but we still use it when useful.
  21.  
  22. The rest is entirely about race, end of this section of comments.
  23. ----------------------------------------------------
  24.  
  25. 'So “the actual adaptation they have” is to “wear thick clothing“? This is bullshit and you know it'
  26. No it's not. The clothing is far thicker and thus harder to make with a higher required investment. It requires more quality of the individuals. The writer assumes a binary difference here, where none was asserted. Of course these things are on a spectrum.
  27.  
  28. "The preparation does work."
  29. Maybe it helps, much of traditional remedy use is based in tradition and superstition. Europeans where slaughtered by all kinds of diseases. It probably depends on the situation. If you can find a cure for the disease, then maybe it is a K-selected pressure.
  30.  
  31. "Here is what people like Samuel Skinner and AC don’t get: r/K selection theory WAS discarded; it is no longer in use. Age-specific mortality better explains these trends than r/K selection"
  32. But age-specific mortality doesn't apply to humans and doesn't explain differences between individuals within a species or population.
  33. Are you saying that we can't apply this theory to humans at all?
  34.  
  35. "We found that high K scores were related to earlier sexual debut and unrelated to either pubertal onset or number of sexual partners."
  36. In humans that correlation is broken because of advanced society. However, we can still find that correlation in progressive or conservative politics.
  37.  
  38. There are several links to scientific papers, several of which are no longer working, but fails to summarize how they support his position.
  39. Please make specific arguments for why his theories are wrong.
  40.  
  41. "Individuals WITHIN A SPECIES are not R OR K"
  42. Since environments can change, why would species not be able to adapt to the new situation?
  43. A Jelly fish has several reproductive strategies available and chooses based on available resources.
  44. Humans are much more complicated, but we could still have that ability.
  45.  
  46. "Something AC doesn’t get is that using the discredited r/K continuum, conservatives would be r"
  47. I don't get that either.
  48.  
  49. "women who reported being religious stated that having children was more important to them"
  50. And are in favor of investing in those children through their mother staying home to take care of them. Where progressives are more likely to be in favor of the mother working and putting the children in day-care. Progressives are also in favor of birth control and abortion. Allowing them to maintain the r-selected sexual life style, without having the burden of a child. r/K selection is about the underlying psychology, not surface level attributes like total number of children.
  51.  
  52. "I’ve already covered that libs are more intelligent than cons (Kanazawa, 2010; Kanazawa, 2014), and that conservative countries have lower IQs"
  53. AC says humans as a species are an K-selected and therefore have a high IQ. Of course individuals who switch to an r-selected strategy will also have that high IQ. What happens in modern society is that high IQ people raise their children in abundance, which makes them more likely to be r-selected. Availability of resources is a trigger for r-selected psychology.
  54.  
  55. "Conservatives are more likely to be religious"
  56. Yes because religions like Christianity are viewed as tradition. And progressives oppose tradition where conservatives favor it.
  57.  
  58. Rebuttal to this opinion: https://notpoliticallycorrect.me/?s=more+r%2FK+selection+rebuttals
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