This paper--linked by Michael Shermer & #JordanPeterson--is funny. It reads like evo psych profs trying to research-troll their social psych colleagues. Like Twitter debaters, they do so by asking a series of "imagine if, what would you say" questions. 1/
https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2018-57934-001 https://twitter.com/LitAnscombe/status/1141049075128819712

They sound a bit cranky about their own ideas not having been adopted fully by researchers in social psych. Because, you know, SCIENCE!, there can only be one system of knowledge and it's unbearable to have to fit two or more ways of thinking into the same field. 2/

I've heard that attitude from several anti-social-justice academics, "I've given everyone my evidence, why don't they adopt my conclusions?! You are against Truth and Science!" Welcome to the club, bud. I, too, have not been able to force all my colleagues to adopt my views. 3/

For most of us that situation translates into doing more research or doing it differently or changing how and where we present the research or finding like-minded researchers and working with them. Or. . . As I say, it happens daily. The strategies of response are many. 4/

It's next-level research-trolling though to send out a survey to the colleagues against whom you're holding a grudge, asking them a set of Twitter-debate questions, and then writing an article that claims they're resistant to your own theory because evolution. Hilarious. 5/

It should be performance art. Too bad the graphics are aesthetically very underwhelming (pictures 1 & 2). Props on the cheek though (picture 3). 6/

But the way in which this performance piece has been conceptually conceived, it is so rich!

Watch them accuse social psychologists of being coalitional--working together & toward agreement--by winking at their own coalition of lovers of the concept "virtue signalling." 7/

You might have noticed how in the above passage they virtue-signaled () evo psych as a "scientific discipline." There's lots in the paper that cleverly tries to cast social psych as not-scientific, e.g. through emphasis on ideological commitments and coalitional thinking. 8/

The survey questions wrap evo psych commitments inside sentences that all start with "Imagine that science found..." Performance art! Casting audience participants as NOT scientists (who have not done their own lit reviews, produced their own results). 9/ https://osf.io/5jqmn/ 

This caper of a sentence has rightfully been singled out by other Tweeters for its supreme cheek: "Nonetheless, the end result is that our evolved psychology actively interferences with the scientific quest to understand our evolved psychology." 10/

On that note, let me end by saying that as far as I can tell humans have also not evolved to be very good at doing handstands. Like scientific thinking, handstands are hard for us. Yet strangely, not all handstands are the same. Look at this guy. Definitely not my handstand. 11/

PS. Wanted to include this sweet section in the thread, but forgot. The line of argument in the conclusion is something to behold.
Step 1: GALILEO! Also, Darwin.
Step 2: Total non-sequitur but correct point on social scientists (incl. evo psych!) studying their own species. 12/

Step 3: Social psych scholars are lefty; that makes them IDEOLOGICAL! (Wait what? All researchers have political leanings, making all of them ideological. )
Step 4: Overdraw claims made in the article, "PRONOUNCED" bias like blank slate view and "EXTREME" situationism. Voila!

And by this 4-step magic the authors of this paper hope they have made us forget that they & evo psych colleagues, too, are studying their own species, have political leanings, are ideological, and work in coalitions; and that they haven't shown that social psych stands out.