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Jordan peterson, a culturally popular psychologist, has made the following biological claim:

Human beings and their closest biological relatives, chimpanzees, are innately afraid of and attracted to reptiles.
Jordan Peterson - The Significance Of Snakes On Human Evolution - YouTube

The claim is plausible and believable. I know many people fearful enough of snakes and reptiles that they won't even touch one. I also know nearly every little boy would put one in his pocket. What gives concern before I'd take this without challenge is that Peterson has a long line of theory that nearly hinges entirely on this point.

I'm sure he's not the first to suggest this, so I suspect there's proper studies on human/chimp fear of reptiles. What does the evidence say?

He makes many other evolutionary and behavior claims derived from this base claim. They are equally questionable, but testing all in a single question is probably too much.

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    https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/10/infant-fear-phobia-science-snakes-video-spd/ – borjab Sep 22 '18 at 16:06
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    I don't really understand the claim "innately afraid of and attracted to ". What would that look like? How do you test "both afraid of and attracted to", and does he mean each individual is _both_ or one of the two? It seems like he's claiming two opposite things in the same claim. It's not clear to me what he means by that. – JMac Sep 24 '18 at 12:06
  • @JMac He mentions in the video that chimps run from snakes, but only so far, then turn and can't stop watching it. He also says many people are similarly intrigued by them. I think he very intentionally means to point out a cognitive dissonance. –  Sep 24 '18 at 16:36
  • Just recently reviewed one of Peterson's lectures which is a source for the "fear and attraction" statement. If you listen further to his thesis, the explanation becomes implicit. When you toss a rubber snake into a chimp enclosure two things happen: the chimps scatter to the corners (fear) and they lock their attention on the snake (attraction) until they determine that it's fake and not a danger. Only then do they feel comfortable ignoring it and return to their normal behavior. – Derek_6424246 Sep 24 '18 at 22:28
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    @Derek_6424246 that's an odd definition of "attraction" in my mind. If I were only afraid of something I would still probably pay a lot of attention to it especially if there was an enclosure preventing me from getting further away. – Kamil Drakari Sep 25 '18 at 15:29
  • @KamilDrakari There's more nuance to many English words than merely the knee-jerk common usages. "Attraction" isn't restricted to romantic interest, instead it could refer to magnetism (for example), or it could be a more subtle form of intense focus and interest, a synonym of fascination. If you're locked into thinking of "romantic attraction" then I would say that, yes, Peterson's comments will be largely unintelligible. – Derek_6424246 Sep 25 '18 at 15:38
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    @Derek_6424246 I don't think "attraction" is limited to romance, but I don't think that any reasonable definition of attraction applies to everything that you "lock your attention on". – Kamil Drakari Sep 25 '18 at 15:50
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    Makes me think of the [cat cucumber thing](https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/11/151117-cats-cucumbers-videos-behavior/) too. If felines have an innate fear (it's not proven they do) then primates could too. – curiousdannii Oct 31 '18 at 12:41

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