The post Poli-Sci mocked pseudo-scientists and journals that seemed to have little or no grasp of the subjects they discussed, i.e. cooperation. Consider:

The unstated moral behind most media stories on our biological instincts to cooperate seems to be that we would do better to empower and emphasize these instincts. Such as, oh, taxing carbon, and shaming those who don’t tax carbon.

But such stories mostly ignore the dark side of cooperation: pro-cooperation instincts rely on dangerous conformity. Yes groups can be better off if individuals can see who do things that hurt the group overall, and punish those folks, and punish those who don’t punish them, etc. But our evolved instincts about which are the individual actions that actually hurt others might be quite out of whack.

Conformity is not cooperation. It isn't reasoned pro-social behavior for the good of the group, it's merely go along to get along behavior even if the group is harmed. It's mindless.

If others mistakenly intuit, that we are suggesting acts they consider uncooperative, they will punish us for such suggestions. They will similarly punish us if their usual conformity rumor mill, not exactly designed for subtle analysis, tells them our suggestions are uncooperative. And even if others agree that we are actually suggesting cooperation, they may still have to punish us to avoid being punished themselves by others for failing to punish non-cooperators.

The problem is that evolved cooperation instincts reward supporting behavior that most people feel is cooperative, and not what is actually cooperative. In novel situations, where our ancient instincts and simple rumor mills are poor guides, ordinary folks can be quite mistaken about which actions help vs. hurt everyone. In this case our “cooperative” instincts can make it much harder to share info about what actually helps or hurts.

My mudge is that scientists and journal writers ought to be fully aware of this and be honest about it. Instead, they just do politics. One would be wise to be extra skeptical of their work, knowing that they lack integrity. This sort of behavior is to be expected from the humanities, not that it's OK, but it is so contrary to science that it's extra wrong.