This is great. Thanks for writing it up. Onward to part II…

Another use for visual-spatial skills in roleplaying is simply imagining what the fiction looks like. This is often useful, relevant and actually done outside combat, too.

Really? OK.

On that note, I would like to encourage you to try and look at these issues as something more than an abstract, intellectual concept. Being men, you and I have the privilege of looking at these issues as abstract, but many women don’t feel the same way. They feel like their everyday lives are affected by these issues, and they take them very personally. I would therefore appreciate it if you could try to be sensitive to this fact and refrain from voicing your dissent. On the Iris Network messageboards, they often tell male posters (myself included) to check our privilege. I may not be a woman myself, but many of my readers are, and I would like them to feel welcome here, and to feel like their concerns and feelings about these issues are being treated with respect. Therefore, while you are here, I would appreciate it if you could try and just listen, to ask questions if you don’t understand something, but to recognize that this isn’t the place to engage in a debate about whether or not gender based behaviors are genetically inherited. That said, if you feel like you need to debate these issues with me, you have my email address, and you can always feel free to PM me on the Wizards of the Coast messageboards. I promise I will do my best to respond. Take care.

You cite Godfrey-Smith as agreeing with you that “it is prudent to hold a certain amount of skepticism regarding the claims of evolutionary psychology.” That statement is so vague that I agree with it, too. For example, I’m skeptical about Pinker’s conclusion that there’s a genetic basis for us preferring paintings of landscapes and flowers. If you want me to seriously reconsider my views, find a biologist who disagrees with me, not a philosopher who simply advocates skepticism.

You state that “it’s possible that certain behaviors may have been genetically inherited.” That’s a bold statement, because it implies a striking parallel statement, that it’s possible that no behaviors have been genetically inherited, gender-specific or not. Can you find a reputable biologist who agrees with you that humans might have no inherited behaviors? To me, that view seems to be outside scientific orthodoxy. If, on the other hand, the existence of inherited behaviors is actually in doubt, then EP is on shaky ground indeed. Find me an expert who agrees with you, and I’ll have to look at my own views more skeptically.

The anagram is cute, isn’t it?

-Jonathan