The problem with this essay is that is paints us as slaves to our genes. Since Dawkins became fashionable, it is now normal to portray human beings as nothing more than meat-based mechanisms for storing and transporting DNA.
This idea is dangerously embedded in society now, and it risks creating a self-fulfilling prophecy of barbarism. What possible motivation does one have for behaving in a manner other than that of an animal, if society is telling me that I cannot do so, and that any internal experience I might have of doing so is an illusion? How is it even possible to behave in a non-animalistic manner once you have internalised these ideas?
Look into the history of George Price, one of the key figures in actually developing a lot of the stuff that Dawkins popularised:
The interesting part is how he spent the latter part of his life systematically giving away all his possessions to the poor in a guilt-ridden attempt to deny his own theories and to act against the interests of his genes. He eventually killed himself. The graphic method he chose to do so also comes across as an attempt to visibly deny his own ideas.
On an entirely separate note, all this talk of inter-gender differences is useless without some consideration of their scale relative to intra-gender differences.
Once you realise that the range in behaviour between members of the same gender is bigger than the difference in behaviour between members of different genders, by quite some way, this whole argument becomes a lot less compelling.
The problem with this essay is that is paints us as slaves to our genes.
Why would you say this essay "paints us as slaves to our genes?" I didn't read it that way at all. In fact there's so much content there to discuss that I think it's really unfair to make such an unrelated generalization about the whole thing.
There is much discussion about evolutionary traits, for sure, but just because it's there as an explanation doesn't mean it's "painting us as slaves" any more than is really the case. To some extent, you must admit that people are slaves to their biological disposition. We can't, for example, stop and start our own heart at will. Admitting that for the purposes of discussion is not "painting us as slaves."
All heritable behaviors that lead to men or women not reproducing don't stay in a population very long. It's not so much slave to genes as it's a boundary condition.
That doesn't take away from your daily experience as a human. You can still do whatever you want, day to day, year to year, not giving much thought of your genetic viability and still be a happy, healthy human being.
Just because you know how a rainbow works doesn't take away from your visceral human experience of one. (double rainbow!) In fact, I'd argue that knowing how a rainbow actually works adds to your appreciation of one.
"slaves to our genes"? Hardly. One of the most commonly forgotten things about evolution and DNA is it describes the system, not the individual.
In other words, it's kind of like statistics. When I roll these two dice, I could get any combination of results. The past has no control, the future has no control. But if I take it beyond one trial, and execute many trials, I will find the system tends towards statistically predictable results.
DNA and evolution is like those statistical predictions.
I am curious why people keep taking this attitude to Dawkins. And Dawkins himself was also curious why people had this reaction to his books. In his 1976 book The Selfish Gene, he says:
"We can rise above our genes, indeed, we do every time we use contraceptives."
As he makes clear, several times, in the book, our evolution allows a range of behavior that allows for more than simplistic game-theory calculations.
Personally, there were 2 main things that I got from The Selfish Gene:
1.) sometimes simple experiments, with simple motivations, lead to surprising results (or sometimes game theory models have surprising conclusions). For instance, the story of the 2 pigs was surprising -- they had to push a lever on one end of the pen to get a reward at the other end of the pen, and it turned out that it was the dominant pig who had to do all the work whereas the submissive pig got to eat most of the food.
2.) evolution is too slow to react to fast changing circumstances, so behavior was "invented" to allow creatures to quickly adapt to circumstances. The word "behavior" in this sense, is meant to suggest a range of possible actions that a creature can change without having to change its genes. Dawkins devotes a lot of time to this idea, and it seems to me this idea goes directly against the interpretation that so many people want to ascribe to Dawkins: "it risks creating a self-fulfilling prophecy of barbarism".
I suspect that a lot of people who criticize Dawkins have never actually read Dawkins.
This sentence deserves special criticism:
"How is it even possible to behave in a non-animalistic manner once you have internalised these ideas?"
Here the word "animalistic" is being used to suggest a failure of morality. There is history behind this usage, which I don't have time to get into. For now, I'll simply point out that humans are part of the animal branch of life, and therefore all human behavior is animalistic by definition.
The above sentence suggests that being an animal leads to immoral behavior. Frans B. M. de Waal has been especially good about undermining this idea:
Good Natured: The Origins of Right and Wrong in Humans and Other Animals
Kindness is also a product of evolution. Our sense of decency is also a product of evolution. To be clear about this, all human behavior has been facilitated by evolution. Our genes do not control us in a rigid and deterministic way, but our genes do establish perhaps the outer limits of the possible for us. It might be best to use the word "facilitate" when describing the effect of evolution on our behavior.
When Saint Francis of Assisi gave all of his possessions to the poor, his actions were facilitated by evolution.
When Hitler ordered 6 million Jews killed, his actions were facilitated by evolution.
When marine Jason Dunham decided to sacrifice his life to save his fellow soldiers, by diving on top of a hand grenade, his actions were facilitated by evolution.
When Susan Leigh Vaughan Smith killed her 2 children, her actions were facilitated by evolution.
When Adrienne Rich decided to write a book denouncing male-dominated family life, and when she came out as a lesbian, her actions were facilitated by evolution.
When George F. Gilder wrote a book denouncing feminism, his actions were facilitated by evolution.
What we are capable of has been facilitated by our history so far, all 4 billion years of it. This includes all behavior, including what some might regard as "good" and some might regard as "bad". But, while keeping all this in mind, it is also important to realize that we are still evolving today, still inventing the new, day by day. Possibly the pace is so slow that it is hard to see, but still, evolution is still happening, for every species on the planet, including humans. If we could get in a time machine and skip 100,000 years in the future, we would probably note the emergence of many new behaviors in the human line.
On an entirely separate note, all this talk of inter-gender differences is useless without some consideration of their scale relative to intra-gender differences.
But isn't that exactly what the author is suggesting? That the within-group variance tends to be higher in men than in women, even if the differences in averages between the groups are not significant?
We already ARE barbarians. Figuring out the cause does not suddenly make us so.
Plenty of people believe in equality but have trouble following through. Figuring out our impulses will only help us understand and control them better. (e.g. genetically-caused discrimination has been countered in many parts of the world by the brainwashing of "equality" memes)
That's an overly simplistic view of animal behavior. Spend some time studding game theory and you will find cooperation is natural in all but the most ruthless environments. Aka 3 man enter 1 man leave suggests creating a temporary alliance. Shure animals may posture 1v1 but both competitors are trying to avoid injury.
Animals cooperate at times, as in herds, troups and packs. One can see our instincts as our "animal" aspects, and that we also have an instinct for cooperation. An example is language, which being learnt unconsciously by children is arguably an instinct. Language is primarily used for cooperation. One can further see our emotions as being based on instincts, and clearly we have cooperative emotions and destructive emotions. Though sometimes labeled as "higher" or "lower" emotions, both are emotions.
Secondly, our instincts do delegate perceptual control to our intellectual selves: e.g. if we can work out who the bad guy is, our anger is directed at that person. We can even talk ourselves into all sorts of things! Though we have no choice in having instincts, we have great influence in applying them.
>>> idea is dangerously embedded in society now, and it risks creating a self-fulfilling prophecy of barbarism. <<<
That's something I don't understand.
What does a paradigm useful for understanding biological systems have in common with human society? I'm not saying that human society isn't a biological system. I'm saying that extending an abstraction suited for understanding and explaining how and why genetic evolution works, to the complex intricacies and dances of human society is like trying to use ohm's law (a very useful, proven and beautiful abstraction) to make a video game.
Sure, you can predict how the amount of current flowing per unit potential difference will change as the wires get thinner, and you can understand how transistors work to a certain point, but you won't see what that processor actually is and does. You'll miss the several layers sandwiched between this abstraction that video game. Layers built on top of each other, creating a richer set of knowledge, tools in the process.
I think that we have jumped the gun several times in this regard. Take the entire glorious soviet communism vs. Ayn Rand-ian capitalism. They are in fact different from the predecessors in the idea that they separate the producers and the consumers using something called the market, but they differ on how that market should be run. Before you launch a debate, I'm not saying that one is better than the other. It's just that both of them are economic theories talking about different ways to run a market. What on earth do they have to do with raising children? Or, our actions as human beings?
So, yes Dawkins is right and so was Price, but they explained how biological systems worked. Not how human society ought to, and must be forced to, work. If people were indeed such beings then the financial crisis wouldn't have happened. This article wouldn't have been written.
I might be wrong over here, but I really think that this born from a mistake of finding ways for humans to be perfect. I really think that this search to portray humans as rational beings, or beings that are genetic machines (note the implicit association with precise perfection we have in our mental models) is a product of human chauvinism. This is in a bizarre way the product of our quest to make ourselves special.
We aren't that special. We're flawed and it's okay, and I think that it's about time we as a species moved on.
>What possible motivation does one have for behaving in a manner other than that of an animal,
well, actually most of "behaving like an animal" is only done by humans and such behavior can't be found in the animal kingdom. Calling it "like an animal" is a typical hypocrisy of humans.
>human beings as nothing more than meat-based mechanisms for storing and transporting DNA.
yes, like any lifeforms we know.
>This idea is dangerously embedded in society now, and it risks creating a self-fulfilling prophecy of barbarism.
Blaming society, ideas, whatever ... instead of taking personal responsibility is a human species trait that, i think, will either have to disappear or it will take the human race down (it wasn't that important before, when Mother Nature held your personally responsible for your actions, yet with technological growth and power wielded by individuals and small groups over highly organized masses of humans it becomes an extremely dangerous trait - i think the 20th century was a nice preview of the future and the WW III is going to be an interesting exercise).
I don't think it's dangerous at all, because 'culture' and 'society' are derivatives of genes. The larger organization of culture and society stabilize the individual in context.
It would take quite a bit of evolution to expel those 'stabilizing' parts from Humanity, if it ever happened. Some people are genetically more likely to be generous, in certain conditions, and others are more likely to be selfish in those same conditions. Change the conditions, and change the probabilistic response. Those types of genetic probabilities keep the chaotic system stable.
The probability of action in context probably fits like a normal curve. Its a balancing act of some flitting genes moving around a median point equilibrium.
I'm making all these assertions from my intuition, of course.
A question on his genetic theory of altruism: although it is to do with allele frequency (interchangeable alternatives) in a specific population, is the argument applicable to a wider conception of a population?
This is getting new-agey, but selfish promotion of our genes would logically include helping all mankind, since we share many genes (of course, we'd have more reason to help those more closely related); then, to similar species such as apes, then to mammals, then animals in general, then plants - which we'd prefer over rocks. All based on genetic similarity, of ones own genes helping other instances of itself. Which does seem to fit in which the attitudes of most people.
I also have noticed this philosophy ( or I guess worldview, as it encompasses multiple disciplines) gaining traction (especially on sites like reddit), but I haven't read many rebuttals or articles even mentioning it. Maybe I'm looking in the wrong places. Anyone got good links?
We are slaves to our genes plus our conditioning, both of which are greatly influenced by our ancestors and completely influenced by things outside of our control.
Attacking Dawkins (of whom I am not even a reader) by citing some other guy's fall into religion, depression, and eventual suicide is not only tasteless but utterly irrelevant.
> The problem with this essay is that is paints us as slaves to our genes
The problem with your comment is that in the very first sentence it makes a huge assumption that we are not slaves to our genes. Compelling arguments may well be made otherwise but not by some attempt at an "appeal to assumed general knowledge" for want of a better description.
Obvious problem: Genghis Khan is dead. The fact that a full third of Asia and consequently a sixth of the whole world has some genetic similarity to Genghis Khan does not make him any less dead. Evolution is not teleological and genes do not "want". Genes just happen; they're chemicals. Working to ensure the continuation of your genes is not mandated or valuable -- it is likely. Your parents probably did, because you exist, and most people are like their parents; modus ponens you probably will. It's not a command or an idea or a system of value, it's a description.
The other obvious problem is that societies which played into the competitive heirarchy were only successful for some weird definitions of successful. If the Mongol empire is your idea of success, you have some crazy ideas about success, because the empire flared up and disappeared within 100 years, leaving Asia in ruins. On the other hand, the British and their methodical boringness not only conquered the world but lived to tell of it, and they did so largely by exploiting the willingness of less organized and "fair" societies to turn on each other -- how, precisely, did the tiny island of Britain conquer all of India (which had 20 times as many people)? Mostly because the Indians of the 19th century were backstabbing assholes:
Hi all, earth rotated, greetings from another side of the globe. There are many good points in the article, but not this one:
"Communal (including communist) countries remain primitive and poor, whereas the rich, advanced nations have gotten where they are by means of economic exchange."
From European (continental) perspective, that statement is false. Rich countries in Europe (Germany, Switzerland, Sweden, Norway etc.) are observably more communal than poorer countries. Division is not between the former Communist countries vs. other countries. Among the former the more communal, bourgeois-oriented Czech Republic has bigger GDP per capita than more individualistic, nobility-oriented Hungary or Poland. More communal means richer, how weird! Why is that?
My favorite theory explaining it is based on historical military considerations - countries in mainland Europe have long land borders other countries of approximately equal size and development level. In order to maintain sovereignty a country (or other "culture" as defined in the article, say independent city) needs as many soldiers as possible. So it pays to offer free medical care and welfare to the population so that all citizens are stay in good health and can, if necessary, defend the country and it's culture. So it was beneficial to the country to divide resources more equally rather than based on equity. Prime example is Switzerland which was founded in exactly these circumstances and look where they are: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_....
The question this article raises for me is whether the strategy of out-breeding every other culture is going to continue to be a successful one at cultural level in the near future. The article suggests that it was, at least in the distant past.
It seems like the most successful cultures today (measured by standard of living, anyway) are no longer those with the fastest-growing populations. China (strictly speaking a nation and not a culture) explicitly embraced a policy of slowing population growth, but I'm not knowledgable enough to have an opinion on how complete a success it has been.
The interesting thing about culture in the modern age is that it is increasingly divorced from the genetic makeup of its members. If someone who is genetically foreign (to the extent that such a thing is possible) moves to the US and assimilates, their "home culture" has lost a member and "American culture" has gained one (leaving aside the plausibility of this scenario the current insanity of the US immigration system). If this "cultural switcher" phenomenon is large enough to overwhelm birthrate effects we could see culture shaped by some very different forces than in the past.
First off, the author misrepresents the idea of patriarchy as a "conspiracy of men to subjugate women". That's not how I've heard how it's been defined. Patriarchy/kyriarchy, roughly put, is a series of assumptions and privileges provided to a segment of the population, often at the expense of everyone else.
It's not, as far as I can see, a conspiracy -- i.e. a secret plan hatched by a clandestine group that goes against a larger society's interests. You can have a pat/kyriarchy where each member acts on their own best interests, and yet the results of that unfairly disadvantage certain groups.
A good example of the kind of decentralised, mass-action that disenfranchises a particular social group or class can be found in Michael Young's coining of the word "meritocracy", and how, through the collective action of a group of self-interested actors, a particular social group can be disenfranchised or demoralised. It doesn't require secrets, it doesn't require conspiracies, as a matter of fact it just requires everyone acting to their own best interests.
Secondly, the author doesn't make a convincing argument that the fact that the reason why men get all the risk and all the reward is because of something innate, instead of a self-perpetuating social system that actively encourages one gender to risk it all and reap the rewards, while holding back the other gender to mediocrity and risk-free existences. The possibility is raised for a few sentences, and discarded, as if it's ridiculous, and it's obvious that the reasons are inherent.
Since the arguments in the rest of the post requires me to buy the above premise without conclusively eliminating social mores and non-innate possibilities, I didn't bother reading the rest of the article.
Incidentally, as a member of a nation that was born out of British Colonialism, the statement "the British Empire did a lot more good than harm" is a disgusting, privileged statement that really doesn't elicit much more than pitying contempt from me. Since of course we wouldn't have known what our lives would have been without John Company coming down to "civilise" our barbarian asses, obviously the only feelings we should be having is gratitude, especially since we owe our broken conception of race and ethnicity, our de-facto one-party rule since we gained independence from our Magnanimous Masters, our police force, more intent in beating down dissent and enforcing "public order" that is beneficial to only the ruling class and no one else, to organisations, concepts and social structures derived from British rule.
That's right; it was this or barbarism. Yeah, I hope it helps you sleep at night too, jerk.
Secondly, the author doesn't make a convincing argument that the fact that the reason why men get all the risk and all the reward is because of something innate, instead of a self-perpetuating social system that actively encourages one gender to risk it all and reap the rewards, while holding back the other gender to mediocrity and risk-free existences.
The author may not have gone into it, but the argument exists, based on what we know about genetics and reproduction.
Female reproduction is inherently limited, first of all by the time it takes to have a single child, second by the probability of death due to childbirth (relatively small, but not insignificant for most of human history), and third by the reduced fertility that comes with age.
Male reproduction is essentially unlimited; the potential maximum "genetic fitness" (measured by simple count of the branches you spawn on the tree of life) of becoming a king and impregnating an entire harem of women over your life is easily 10x the maximum "fitness" for a woman (though the probability is very low for such extreme situations), so it's to be expected that any preferentially male-expressed genes that would increase the probability of ending up in that situation would be more prevalent in the gene pool than the corresponding traits for women (which would be mostly neutral evolutionarily, since a woman with a male harem is not going to spread, on average, more copies of her genes than she would in normal life).
We don't need to assume that the dominant factor is the king + harem situation, either; it's enough merely that men, on average, see wider variability in reproduction than women do (cheating, cuckolding, etc. tend to make that happen).
The "leaps of faith" required to let this explain increased male risk-seeking are:
a) That the traits we associate with risk seeking correlate well with the traits that cause men to be highly genetically successful
b) That the way things actually transpired in history, the variance in male genetic success was, in fact, significantly higher than the variance in female genetic success. Note that we are not talking about averages (they're equal, quite trivially), but variances
If you accept a) (which is not much of a stretch - sleeping with other men's wives is definitely a risk-seeking behavior that increases genetic success for men), then it's absolutely 100% certain that the amount of genetically linked risk-seeking will be higher (or equal) in men than in women. It's very easy to make a similar argument that implies that any genetically linked risk-avoidance genes that are preferentially expressed in females will be more common than those that are expressed in males, at least to the extent that they would reduce male reproductive variance without a corresponding survival benefit.
Bear in mind that your comment about a "self-perpetuating social system" and the things that it encourages may not be entirely off-base, but that doesn't change the genetic imperatives: given what we've seen above, such a social system would align very well with the genetic best interests of its constituents, so it's hardly a stretch to imagine that the two factors have coexisted and reinforced each other quite strongly.
"Secondly, the author doesn't make a convincing argument that the fact that the reason why men get all the risk and all the reward is because of something innate, instead of a self-perpetuating social system that actively encourages one gender to risk it all and reap the rewards, while holding back the other gender to mediocrity and risk-free existences. The possibility is raised for a few sentences, and discarded, as if it's ridiculous, and it's obvious that the reasons are inherent."
The article explains that the "innate" reason is simply that, biologically speaking, men are more expendable. A few men and many women can create a large population more quickly than many men and only a few women. Applying risk equally possibly results in a substantially reduced population, while leaving risk mostly to males allows more to be accomplished without strongly affecting population numbers. Great rewards provided for those who succeed in a risky endeavor merely supports the accomplishment of those objectives. I'm not sure where you find fault with this argument.
The premise is undeniable and the only conclusion that is on even possibly shaky grounds is that societies would act to preserve their population, hence leaving men responsible for risky activities. To suggest otherwise does seem "ridiculous," though I'd love to hear someone who disagrees with that and why one would believe otherwise.
The rest of the article has support for the reason you object to. You're papering over a lot of reasoning by just saying he "doesn't make a convincing argument." In what way is it not convincing?
Actually, the author goes to a great length to explain why that patriarchy definition can not be true, however it implies that some feminists may held that view.
I'm very sorry to write this, but you seem to fail at reading comprehension.
>Secondly, the author doesn't make a convincing argument that the fact that the reason why men get all the risk and all the reward is because of something innate, instead of a self-perpetuating social system that actively encourages one gender to risk it all and reap the rewards, while holding back the other gender to mediocrity and risk-free existences. The possibility is raised for a few sentences, and discarded, as if it's ridiculous, and it's obvious that the reasons are inherent.
I think that the mechanism for what he is describing is the difference in neurotransmitter and hormone balances. Nobody is going to argue that men have more testosterone than women and that women have more estrogen than men. Nobody is going to argue that these things change behavior - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Testosterone#Physiological_effe... Similarly, nobody is going to argue that men cannot bear children because of social conditioning. Why is it so difficult to accept that men and women are physically and psychologically built for different sets of requirements and therefore have different probabilities of performing particular actions? I'm not suggesting that it's set in stone, but there are certainly tendencies to go in a particular direction.
>the statement "the British Empire did a lot more good than harm" is a disgusting, privileged statement that really doesn't elicit much more than pitying contempt from me.
Completely agree, building roads for your slaves doesn't free them.
I had no idea that the dominant view today was that women are better than men. It is my view and I haven't dissected all the reasons why I think that, but a lot of it comes from seeing so many men at the bottom. Biology wasn't kind to a huge percentage of men.
I do find it true that men seem to try harder to be different, to entertain, to exceed and to impress. The top is dominated by cocky people and there aren't a lot of cocky women.
Now is that biology or society? I have no idea. Is there a society on the planet where women have to impress men to get any attention? Do lesbians rise higher than straight women because they have to impress other women to stand out?
Perhaps it's simple economics at work, with a physical foundation - men make many low risk investments whereas women make a handful of extremely high risk ones (bearing a child is physically very costly). Thus, men will be more inclined to approach and, therefore, lower their market value by increasing supply, while women will be more inclined to shoot down offers, since they are in great demand. I think that the society you're talking about would either have to be one where men have mutated into childbearing creatures or one where women have mutated to have very short and early pregnancies. An alternative might be a society where men take the brunt of the work of raising kids, though this is unlikely because women are more socially inclined due to their neurochemistry and, therefore, better at providing the emotional support a child needs, not to mention that they need to breast feed and physically recover after delivery which makes them less able to actively find food and shelter.
Apparently the existence of men, or more accurately some portions of the male genome coupled with the processes of epigenetic imprinting, is shortening everyone's lifespan. See:
"His misdeed was to think thoughts that are not allowed to be thought" << could not agree w/ this more, people are WAY too sensitive on both sides & fail to realize what really matters in life (including freedom of thought).
> Women specialize in the narrow sphere of intimate relationships. Men specialize in the larger group. If you make a list of activities that are done in large groups, you are likely to have a list of things that men do and enjoy more than women: team sports, politics, large corporations, economic networks, and so forth.
Very nice article. It is centred about observing the past. But as evolution is going on, things change and I think that we are living in an era where things are changing and society will less favour the capability to compete but more to cope together. Think about the globalization, about global political institutions like UN, IWF, etc. Think about the fact that mankind is reaching limits of resources - oil, water, soil. I tend to think that these changes will actually change the roles and favour women, because it will be more important to share equally - that's just my personal opinion and I am actually in favour for it. I think we had enough wars and at least on this planet there is not that much territory to be conquered.
> Recent research using DNA analysis answered this question about two years ago. Today’s human population is descended from twice as many women as men.
Initial studies, such as Thomson et al. 2000[7] proposed that Y-chromosome Adam lived about 59,000 years ago. This date suggested that Y chromosome Adam lived tens of thousands of years after his female counterpart Mitochondrial Eve, who lived 150,000-200,000 years ago[8]. This date also meant that Y-chromosome Adam lived at a time very close to, and possibly after, the out of Africa migration which is believed to have taken place 50,000-80,000 years ago.
One explanation given for this discrepancy in the dates of Adam and Eve was that females have a better chance of reproducing than males due to the practice of polygyny. When a male individual has several wives, he has effectively prevented other males in the community from reproducing and passing on their y-chromosomes to subsequent generations. On the other hand, polygyny doesn't prevent most females in a community from passing on their mitochondrial DNA to subsequent generations. This differential reproductive success of males and females can lead to fewer male lineages relative to female lineages persisting into the future. These fewer male lineages are more sensitive to drift and would most likely coalesce on a more recent common ancestor. This would potentially explain the more recent dates associated with Y-chromosome Adam.[9][10]
"In the 19th century in America, middle-class girls and women played piano far more than men. Yet all that piano playing failed to result in any creative output."
The sub-point he was making that aptitude or talent does not imply creative output. So he gave an example of a group that had extremely high ability in an area but did not produce in that area. With the bigger point being that differences in achievement in certain areas between women and men may come down to interest more than ability.
The logical counter-response to this would be "well there were so many social barriers (de-facto and de-jure) preventing women from producing creative output"
He then gives an example of a similarly or more repressed group with extreme ability in an area (Black jazz musicians) that managed to be extremely prolific in that area.
It is actually pretty convincing. Or at least thought-provoking.
[+] [-] credo|14 years ago|reply
The first submission points to http://denisdutton.com/baumeister.htm (which has the same post with better formatting than this submission)
[+] [-] JonnieCache|14 years ago|reply
This idea is dangerously embedded in society now, and it risks creating a self-fulfilling prophecy of barbarism. What possible motivation does one have for behaving in a manner other than that of an animal, if society is telling me that I cannot do so, and that any internal experience I might have of doing so is an illusion? How is it even possible to behave in a non-animalistic manner once you have internalised these ideas?
Look into the history of George Price, one of the key figures in actually developing a lot of the stuff that Dawkins popularised:
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/George_R._Pri...
The interesting part is how he spent the latter part of his life systematically giving away all his possessions to the poor in a guilt-ridden attempt to deny his own theories and to act against the interests of his genes. He eventually killed himself. The graphic method he chose to do so also comes across as an attempt to visibly deny his own ideas.
On an entirely separate note, all this talk of inter-gender differences is useless without some consideration of their scale relative to intra-gender differences.
Once you realise that the range in behaviour between members of the same gender is bigger than the difference in behaviour between members of different genders, by quite some way, this whole argument becomes a lot less compelling.
[+] [-] Goladus|14 years ago|reply
Why would you say this essay "paints us as slaves to our genes?" I didn't read it that way at all. In fact there's so much content there to discuss that I think it's really unfair to make such an unrelated generalization about the whole thing.
There is much discussion about evolutionary traits, for sure, but just because it's there as an explanation doesn't mean it's "painting us as slaves" any more than is really the case. To some extent, you must admit that people are slaves to their biological disposition. We can't, for example, stop and start our own heart at will. Admitting that for the purposes of discussion is not "painting us as slaves."
[+] [-] iamwil|14 years ago|reply
That doesn't take away from your daily experience as a human. You can still do whatever you want, day to day, year to year, not giving much thought of your genetic viability and still be a happy, healthy human being.
Just because you know how a rainbow works doesn't take away from your visceral human experience of one. (double rainbow!) In fact, I'd argue that knowing how a rainbow actually works adds to your appreciation of one.
[+] [-] sliverstorm|14 years ago|reply
In other words, it's kind of like statistics. When I roll these two dice, I could get any combination of results. The past has no control, the future has no control. But if I take it beyond one trial, and execute many trials, I will find the system tends towards statistically predictable results.
DNA and evolution is like those statistical predictions.
[+] [-] matwood|14 years ago|reply
Reminds me of what a friend of mine used to tell his girlfriend when she would catch him looking at other girls walking by.
"I can't fight thousands of years of evolution." :)
[+] [-] lkrubner|14 years ago|reply
I am curious why people keep taking this attitude to Dawkins. And Dawkins himself was also curious why people had this reaction to his books. In his 1976 book The Selfish Gene, he says:
"We can rise above our genes, indeed, we do every time we use contraceptives."
As he makes clear, several times, in the book, our evolution allows a range of behavior that allows for more than simplistic game-theory calculations.
Personally, there were 2 main things that I got from The Selfish Gene:
1.) sometimes simple experiments, with simple motivations, lead to surprising results (or sometimes game theory models have surprising conclusions). For instance, the story of the 2 pigs was surprising -- they had to push a lever on one end of the pen to get a reward at the other end of the pen, and it turned out that it was the dominant pig who had to do all the work whereas the submissive pig got to eat most of the food.
2.) evolution is too slow to react to fast changing circumstances, so behavior was "invented" to allow creatures to quickly adapt to circumstances. The word "behavior" in this sense, is meant to suggest a range of possible actions that a creature can change without having to change its genes. Dawkins devotes a lot of time to this idea, and it seems to me this idea goes directly against the interpretation that so many people want to ascribe to Dawkins: "it risks creating a self-fulfilling prophecy of barbarism".
I suspect that a lot of people who criticize Dawkins have never actually read Dawkins.
This sentence deserves special criticism:
"How is it even possible to behave in a non-animalistic manner once you have internalised these ideas?"
Here the word "animalistic" is being used to suggest a failure of morality. There is history behind this usage, which I don't have time to get into. For now, I'll simply point out that humans are part of the animal branch of life, and therefore all human behavior is animalistic by definition.
The above sentence suggests that being an animal leads to immoral behavior. Frans B. M. de Waal has been especially good about undermining this idea:
http://www.amazon.com/Good-Natured-Origins-Humans-Animals/dp...
Good Natured: The Origins of Right and Wrong in Humans and Other Animals
Kindness is also a product of evolution. Our sense of decency is also a product of evolution. To be clear about this, all human behavior has been facilitated by evolution. Our genes do not control us in a rigid and deterministic way, but our genes do establish perhaps the outer limits of the possible for us. It might be best to use the word "facilitate" when describing the effect of evolution on our behavior.
When Saint Francis of Assisi gave all of his possessions to the poor, his actions were facilitated by evolution.
When Hitler ordered 6 million Jews killed, his actions were facilitated by evolution.
When marine Jason Dunham decided to sacrifice his life to save his fellow soldiers, by diving on top of a hand grenade, his actions were facilitated by evolution.
When Susan Leigh Vaughan Smith killed her 2 children, her actions were facilitated by evolution.
When Adrienne Rich decided to write a book denouncing male-dominated family life, and when she came out as a lesbian, her actions were facilitated by evolution.
When George F. Gilder wrote a book denouncing feminism, his actions were facilitated by evolution.
What we are capable of has been facilitated by our history so far, all 4 billion years of it. This includes all behavior, including what some might regard as "good" and some might regard as "bad". But, while keeping all this in mind, it is also important to realize that we are still evolving today, still inventing the new, day by day. Possibly the pace is so slow that it is hard to see, but still, evolution is still happening, for every species on the planet, including humans. If we could get in a time machine and skip 100,000 years in the future, we would probably note the emergence of many new behaviors in the human line.
[+] [-] bermanoid|14 years ago|reply
But isn't that exactly what the author is suggesting? That the within-group variance tends to be higher in men than in women, even if the differences in averages between the groups are not significant?
[+] [-] divtxt|14 years ago|reply
We already ARE barbarians. Figuring out the cause does not suddenly make us so.
Plenty of people believe in equality but have trouble following through. Figuring out our impulses will only help us understand and control them better. (e.g. genetically-caused discrimination has been countered in many parts of the world by the brainwashing of "equality" memes)
[+] [-] onemoreact|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 6ren|14 years ago|reply
Secondly, our instincts do delegate perceptual control to our intellectual selves: e.g. if we can work out who the bad guy is, our anger is directed at that person. We can even talk ourselves into all sorts of things! Though we have no choice in having instincts, we have great influence in applying them.
[+] [-] todayiamme|14 years ago|reply
That's something I don't understand.
What does a paradigm useful for understanding biological systems have in common with human society? I'm not saying that human society isn't a biological system. I'm saying that extending an abstraction suited for understanding and explaining how and why genetic evolution works, to the complex intricacies and dances of human society is like trying to use ohm's law (a very useful, proven and beautiful abstraction) to make a video game.
Sure, you can predict how the amount of current flowing per unit potential difference will change as the wires get thinner, and you can understand how transistors work to a certain point, but you won't see what that processor actually is and does. You'll miss the several layers sandwiched between this abstraction that video game. Layers built on top of each other, creating a richer set of knowledge, tools in the process.
I think that we have jumped the gun several times in this regard. Take the entire glorious soviet communism vs. Ayn Rand-ian capitalism. They are in fact different from the predecessors in the idea that they separate the producers and the consumers using something called the market, but they differ on how that market should be run. Before you launch a debate, I'm not saying that one is better than the other. It's just that both of them are economic theories talking about different ways to run a market. What on earth do they have to do with raising children? Or, our actions as human beings?
So, yes Dawkins is right and so was Price, but they explained how biological systems worked. Not how human society ought to, and must be forced to, work. If people were indeed such beings then the financial crisis wouldn't have happened. This article wouldn't have been written.
I might be wrong over here, but I really think that this born from a mistake of finding ways for humans to be perfect. I really think that this search to portray humans as rational beings, or beings that are genetic machines (note the implicit association with precise perfection we have in our mental models) is a product of human chauvinism. This is in a bizarre way the product of our quest to make ourselves special.
We aren't that special. We're flawed and it's okay, and I think that it's about time we as a species moved on.
[+] [-] VladRussian|14 years ago|reply
well, actually most of "behaving like an animal" is only done by humans and such behavior can't be found in the animal kingdom. Calling it "like an animal" is a typical hypocrisy of humans.
>human beings as nothing more than meat-based mechanisms for storing and transporting DNA.
yes, like any lifeforms we know.
>This idea is dangerously embedded in society now, and it risks creating a self-fulfilling prophecy of barbarism.
Blaming society, ideas, whatever ... instead of taking personal responsibility is a human species trait that, i think, will either have to disappear or it will take the human race down (it wasn't that important before, when Mother Nature held your personally responsible for your actions, yet with technological growth and power wielded by individuals and small groups over highly organized masses of humans it becomes an extremely dangerous trait - i think the 20th century was a nice preview of the future and the WW III is going to be an interesting exercise).
[+] [-] ap22213|14 years ago|reply
It would take quite a bit of evolution to expel those 'stabilizing' parts from Humanity, if it ever happened. Some people are genetically more likely to be generous, in certain conditions, and others are more likely to be selfish in those same conditions. Change the conditions, and change the probabilistic response. Those types of genetic probabilities keep the chaotic system stable.
The probability of action in context probably fits like a normal curve. Its a balancing act of some flitting genes moving around a median point equilibrium.
I'm making all these assertions from my intuition, of course.
[+] [-] 6ren|14 years ago|reply
This is getting new-agey, but selfish promotion of our genes would logically include helping all mankind, since we share many genes (of course, we'd have more reason to help those more closely related); then, to similar species such as apes, then to mammals, then animals in general, then plants - which we'd prefer over rocks. All based on genetic similarity, of ones own genes helping other instances of itself. Which does seem to fit in which the attitudes of most people.
[+] [-] jongraehl|14 years ago|reply
1. It doesn't. 2. What's wrong with the gene-centric view of human nature?
[+] [-] oflannabhra|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] qubit|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] saturn|14 years ago|reply
> The problem with this essay is that is paints us as slaves to our genes
The problem with your comment is that in the very first sentence it makes a huge assumption that we are not slaves to our genes. Compelling arguments may well be made otherwise but not by some attempt at an "appeal to assumed general knowledge" for want of a better description.
[+] [-] Hisoka|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] scythe|14 years ago|reply
The other obvious problem is that societies which played into the competitive heirarchy were only successful for some weird definitions of successful. If the Mongol empire is your idea of success, you have some crazy ideas about success, because the empire flared up and disappeared within 100 years, leaving Asia in ruins. On the other hand, the British and their methodical boringness not only conquered the world but lived to tell of it, and they did so largely by exploiting the willingness of less organized and "fair" societies to turn on each other -- how, precisely, did the tiny island of Britain conquer all of India (which had 20 times as many people)? Mostly because the Indians of the 19th century were backstabbing assholes:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divide_and_Rule
And how were the British kicked out of India? Well, by none other than some pacifist self-sacrificing guy named Mohandas Gandhi.
[+] [-] k_kisiel|14 years ago|reply
"Communal (including communist) countries remain primitive and poor, whereas the rich, advanced nations have gotten where they are by means of economic exchange."
From European (continental) perspective, that statement is false. Rich countries in Europe (Germany, Switzerland, Sweden, Norway etc.) are observably more communal than poorer countries. Division is not between the former Communist countries vs. other countries. Among the former the more communal, bourgeois-oriented Czech Republic has bigger GDP per capita than more individualistic, nobility-oriented Hungary or Poland. More communal means richer, how weird! Why is that?
My favorite theory explaining it is based on historical military considerations - countries in mainland Europe have long land borders other countries of approximately equal size and development level. In order to maintain sovereignty a country (or other "culture" as defined in the article, say independent city) needs as many soldiers as possible. So it pays to offer free medical care and welfare to the population so that all citizens are stay in good health and can, if necessary, defend the country and it's culture. So it was beneficial to the country to divide resources more equally rather than based on equity. Prime example is Switzerland which was founded in exactly these circumstances and look where they are: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_....
[+] [-] kqr2|14 years ago|reply
http://www.amazon.com/There-Anything-Good-About-Men/dp/01953...
[+] [-] frankus|14 years ago|reply
It seems like the most successful cultures today (measured by standard of living, anyway) are no longer those with the fastest-growing populations. China (strictly speaking a nation and not a culture) explicitly embraced a policy of slowing population growth, but I'm not knowledgable enough to have an opinion on how complete a success it has been.
The interesting thing about culture in the modern age is that it is increasingly divorced from the genetic makeup of its members. If someone who is genetically foreign (to the extent that such a thing is possible) moves to the US and assimilates, their "home culture" has lost a member and "American culture" has gained one (leaving aside the plausibility of this scenario the current insanity of the US immigration system). If this "cultural switcher" phenomenon is large enough to overwhelm birthrate effects we could see culture shaped by some very different forces than in the past.
[+] [-] tariqk|14 years ago|reply
It's not, as far as I can see, a conspiracy -- i.e. a secret plan hatched by a clandestine group that goes against a larger society's interests. You can have a pat/kyriarchy where each member acts on their own best interests, and yet the results of that unfairly disadvantage certain groups.
A good example of the kind of decentralised, mass-action that disenfranchises a particular social group or class can be found in Michael Young's coining of the word "meritocracy", and how, through the collective action of a group of self-interested actors, a particular social group can be disenfranchised or demoralised. It doesn't require secrets, it doesn't require conspiracies, as a matter of fact it just requires everyone acting to their own best interests.
Secondly, the author doesn't make a convincing argument that the fact that the reason why men get all the risk and all the reward is because of something innate, instead of a self-perpetuating social system that actively encourages one gender to risk it all and reap the rewards, while holding back the other gender to mediocrity and risk-free existences. The possibility is raised for a few sentences, and discarded, as if it's ridiculous, and it's obvious that the reasons are inherent.
Since the arguments in the rest of the post requires me to buy the above premise without conclusively eliminating social mores and non-innate possibilities, I didn't bother reading the rest of the article.
Incidentally, as a member of a nation that was born out of British Colonialism, the statement "the British Empire did a lot more good than harm" is a disgusting, privileged statement that really doesn't elicit much more than pitying contempt from me. Since of course we wouldn't have known what our lives would have been without John Company coming down to "civilise" our barbarian asses, obviously the only feelings we should be having is gratitude, especially since we owe our broken conception of race and ethnicity, our de-facto one-party rule since we gained independence from our Magnanimous Masters, our police force, more intent in beating down dissent and enforcing "public order" that is beneficial to only the ruling class and no one else, to organisations, concepts and social structures derived from British rule.
That's right; it was this or barbarism. Yeah, I hope it helps you sleep at night too, jerk.
[+] [-] bermanoid|14 years ago|reply
The author may not have gone into it, but the argument exists, based on what we know about genetics and reproduction.
Female reproduction is inherently limited, first of all by the time it takes to have a single child, second by the probability of death due to childbirth (relatively small, but not insignificant for most of human history), and third by the reduced fertility that comes with age.
Male reproduction is essentially unlimited; the potential maximum "genetic fitness" (measured by simple count of the branches you spawn on the tree of life) of becoming a king and impregnating an entire harem of women over your life is easily 10x the maximum "fitness" for a woman (though the probability is very low for such extreme situations), so it's to be expected that any preferentially male-expressed genes that would increase the probability of ending up in that situation would be more prevalent in the gene pool than the corresponding traits for women (which would be mostly neutral evolutionarily, since a woman with a male harem is not going to spread, on average, more copies of her genes than she would in normal life).
We don't need to assume that the dominant factor is the king + harem situation, either; it's enough merely that men, on average, see wider variability in reproduction than women do (cheating, cuckolding, etc. tend to make that happen).
The "leaps of faith" required to let this explain increased male risk-seeking are:
a) That the traits we associate with risk seeking correlate well with the traits that cause men to be highly genetically successful
b) That the way things actually transpired in history, the variance in male genetic success was, in fact, significantly higher than the variance in female genetic success. Note that we are not talking about averages (they're equal, quite trivially), but variances
If you accept a) (which is not much of a stretch - sleeping with other men's wives is definitely a risk-seeking behavior that increases genetic success for men), then it's absolutely 100% certain that the amount of genetically linked risk-seeking will be higher (or equal) in men than in women. It's very easy to make a similar argument that implies that any genetically linked risk-avoidance genes that are preferentially expressed in females will be more common than those that are expressed in males, at least to the extent that they would reduce male reproductive variance without a corresponding survival benefit.
Bear in mind that your comment about a "self-perpetuating social system" and the things that it encourages may not be entirely off-base, but that doesn't change the genetic imperatives: given what we've seen above, such a social system would align very well with the genetic best interests of its constituents, so it's hardly a stretch to imagine that the two factors have coexisted and reinforced each other quite strongly.
[+] [-] nocipher|14 years ago|reply
The article explains that the "innate" reason is simply that, biologically speaking, men are more expendable. A few men and many women can create a large population more quickly than many men and only a few women. Applying risk equally possibly results in a substantially reduced population, while leaving risk mostly to males allows more to be accomplished without strongly affecting population numbers. Great rewards provided for those who succeed in a risky endeavor merely supports the accomplishment of those objectives. I'm not sure where you find fault with this argument.
The premise is undeniable and the only conclusion that is on even possibly shaky grounds is that societies would act to preserve their population, hence leaving men responsible for risky activities. To suggest otherwise does seem "ridiculous," though I'd love to hear someone who disagrees with that and why one would believe otherwise.
[+] [-] scott_s|14 years ago|reply
The rest of the article has support for the reason you object to. You're papering over a lot of reasoning by just saying he "doesn't make a convincing argument." In what way is it not convincing?
[+] [-] Shorel|14 years ago|reply
I'm very sorry to write this, but you seem to fail at reading comprehension.
[+] [-] Produce|14 years ago|reply
I think that the mechanism for what he is describing is the difference in neurotransmitter and hormone balances. Nobody is going to argue that men have more testosterone than women and that women have more estrogen than men. Nobody is going to argue that these things change behavior - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Testosterone#Physiological_effe... Similarly, nobody is going to argue that men cannot bear children because of social conditioning. Why is it so difficult to accept that men and women are physically and psychologically built for different sets of requirements and therefore have different probabilities of performing particular actions? I'm not suggesting that it's set in stone, but there are certainly tendencies to go in a particular direction.
>the statement "the British Empire did a lot more good than harm" is a disgusting, privileged statement that really doesn't elicit much more than pitying contempt from me.
Completely agree, building roads for your slaves doesn't free them.
[+] [-] jfriedly|14 years ago|reply
Where was this quote even in the article?
[+] [-] Aloisius|14 years ago|reply
I do find it true that men seem to try harder to be different, to entertain, to exceed and to impress. The top is dominated by cocky people and there aren't a lot of cocky women.
Now is that biology or society? I have no idea. Is there a society on the planet where women have to impress men to get any attention? Do lesbians rise higher than straight women because they have to impress other women to stand out?
[+] [-] Produce|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ebaysucks|14 years ago|reply
I believe men are better at creating civilization and seeing more men who failed fits exactly in that worldview.
[+] [-] yread|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jongraehl|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] orofino|14 years ago|reply
The typesetting makes this terrible to read.
[+] [-] reasonattlm|14 years ago|reply
http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2011/07/continued-investi...
http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2010/12/an-update-on-mice...
http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2011/03/rasgrf1-deficienc...
For what it's worth.
[+] [-] maren|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sandstrom|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nhangen|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|14 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] munificent|14 years ago|reply
...open source?
[+] [-] reirob|14 years ago|reply
What do you think?
[+] [-] Joeboy|14 years ago|reply
Does anyone know what research he's referring to?
[+] [-] simonsarris|14 years ago|reply
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitochondrial_Eve#Not_a_contemp...
Initial studies, such as Thomson et al. 2000[7] proposed that Y-chromosome Adam lived about 59,000 years ago. This date suggested that Y chromosome Adam lived tens of thousands of years after his female counterpart Mitochondrial Eve, who lived 150,000-200,000 years ago[8]. This date also meant that Y-chromosome Adam lived at a time very close to, and possibly after, the out of Africa migration which is believed to have taken place 50,000-80,000 years ago.
One explanation given for this discrepancy in the dates of Adam and Eve was that females have a better chance of reproducing than males due to the practice of polygyny. When a male individual has several wives, he has effectively prevented other males in the community from reproducing and passing on their y-chromosomes to subsequent generations. On the other hand, polygyny doesn't prevent most females in a community from passing on their mitochondrial DNA to subsequent generations. This differential reproductive success of males and females can lead to fewer male lineages relative to female lineages persisting into the future. These fewer male lineages are more sensitive to drift and would most likely coalesce on a more recent common ancestor. This would potentially explain the more recent dates associated with Y-chromosome Adam.[9][10]
From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y-chromosomal_Adam
[+] [-] isomorph|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JairusKhan|14 years ago|reply
Well, I'm convinced!
[+] [-] btcoal|14 years ago|reply
The logical counter-response to this would be "well there were so many social barriers (de-facto and de-jure) preventing women from producing creative output"
He then gives an example of a similarly or more repressed group with extreme ability in an area (Black jazz musicians) that managed to be extremely prolific in that area.
It is actually pretty convincing. Or at least thought-provoking.
That is, if you do in fact think.
[+] [-] bonch|14 years ago|reply
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