Daniel Sznycer

Start with W (Western). Is W falsifiable?

Take W and one population. Japan, for example. Is Japan a Western culture? Let's see... - Japan is in the East (so, no; it's not Western) - Japan had the Meiji Restoration (so, yes) - Kokeshi doll (no) - Hello Kitty doll (yes) - Japan has a security treaty with the US (yes)

So, is Japan W--a Western culture? Maybe. Maybe not. Who knows?

Also: Kitayama: Hokkaido in northern Japan is an independent culture, because it was settled relatively recently. Talhelm: Different cultures within China track the forms of organization necessary for growing their respective foods.

So how is Westerliness relevant to culture, causally speaking? Although Westerliness can be OK descriptively.

It may be that West is WEIRD concept. A “WEIRD” concept.

WEIRD was penned as a memorable thing. A reminder to think about human diversity. Like RSVP. Not a concept or an explanation. A good idea, since you’ll miss a lot if you study only undergrads.

We use WEIRD weirdly, though. Sometimes WEIRD occurs in the same breath with the labor theory of value creation: Your data are informative if you had to trek a lot to collect them. If you got your mturk data by sitting, well, forget about it.

The W in WEIRD is West not because it's West but because there's little trekking and sweating. We in the West are in the West already so we don’t have to trek to get to the West.

1980. Author: I have this cool finding from India! 2012. Me: I have this finding from the US! Reviewer 2: But US is WEIRD; in non-WEIRD India they do things differently. Stop being parochial!

2019. Me: I have this mturk finding replicated in the US and India! Reviewer 2: Duh, India is Westernized. Stop being parochial! I got that several times

India before Mturk = trekking = value = non-Western. India with Mturk = no trekking = no value = Western.

I’m guilty of the above too

WEIRD is used sociologically and talismanically

To be clear, I'm not saying the WEIRD thing isn't a thing. Although I'm also not saying the WEIRD thing is a thing.

I think much of the research being done on ecological, economic, cognitive, phylogenetic aspects of culture are steps in the right direction Great work being done by authors of WEIRD and others @JoHenrich @PsychoSchmitt @SpeciesTypical @joannaschug @masakiyuuuuki

@Oliver_S_Curry @azimshariff @ImHardcory @EPoe187 @ThomasTalhelm @M_B_Petersen @ahra_ko @JaimieKrems @joshtybur @KhandisBlake @mmuthukrishna @xygalatas @PascalBoyerUSA @baumard_nicolas @tavitonst @RebeccaSear @zhgarfield @ShinobuKitayama @ProfDavidBuss @dconroybeam

@durkeepk @samuelmehr @mmkrasnow @AndyDelton @DrQueue @lamba_shakti @michael_barlev @tscottphillips @PaulvanLange @ME_McCullough @ed_hagen @w_mcauliffe @DorsaAmir @esworldwide @RuedenChris @MicheleJGelfand @florianvl @rlmcelreath Deb Lieberman Eric Pedersen Dan Balliet

Oliver Sng Toshio Yamagishi Michael Varnum And many others

I think it's great that we are measuring and modeling culture. But I think the science of culture is still based on folk notions. Things that are intuitive because of how the mind works but aren't necessarily good as causal models of culture, whatever culture might be.

- Culture is an object or a substance or an essence, so Japan/US/Ecuador *has* a culture - Culture is a homogeneous thing, true across domains, hence *Japanese/US/Ecuadorian* culture - A culture is a type, hence WEIRD vs. non-WEIRD cultures