>I don't have a name for this odd "because of evolution" argument but I hear it a lot when discussing sociology
sociology without evolution/natural selection is like physics without Newton's laws - a religion.
> "Kids smoke cigarettes because cavemen wanted to explore the horizon" isn't a coherent causal explanation at all.
both have the same major component - they are different manifestations of the drive to disobey authority and the established order of things. There are 2 ways of dealing with such things - 1. to convince against and to explain harm, etc vs. 2. to suppress, to force into submission.
>Ok so what I'm getting is that you have a pet theory that kids not smoking these days is a symptom of an overall rejection of some form of naturalism that you believe is overall harming our society somehow.
You picked an easy example (borderline strawman) - smoking (well, it is easy today, after 300+ years it took to establish the harm of tobacco smoking) where the 1. is easy. In many situations the 1. isn't that easy and it requires approach specific to the issue at hands, and the society more and more it seems drives toward applying the 2. as a general solution for all the issues, be it cigarettes or horizon exploration. That general drive of widespread application of the 2. is, i think, very harmful for our civilization.
sociology without evolution/natural selection is like physics without Newton's laws - a religion.
> "Kids smoke cigarettes because cavemen wanted to explore the horizon" isn't a coherent causal explanation at all.
both have the same major component - they are different manifestations of the drive to disobey authority and the established order of things. There are 2 ways of dealing with such things - 1. to convince against and to explain harm, etc vs. 2. to suppress, to force into submission.
>Ok so what I'm getting is that you have a pet theory that kids not smoking these days is a symptom of an overall rejection of some form of naturalism that you believe is overall harming our society somehow.
You picked an easy example (borderline strawman) - smoking (well, it is easy today, after 300+ years it took to establish the harm of tobacco smoking) where the 1. is easy. In many situations the 1. isn't that easy and it requires approach specific to the issue at hands, and the society more and more it seems drives toward applying the 2. as a general solution for all the issues, be it cigarettes or horizon exploration. That general drive of widespread application of the 2. is, i think, very harmful for our civilization.