Darwinian Archaeology / Cultural Evolution

[UndercoverElephant]

That argument is so silly that it doesn't deserve a response. You want evidence that child abductors are a grave danger to your kids? Turn on the news! Piffle.

It's not silly. Human beings are motivated by self-interest at practically all times. How many people do you think would observe the laws of their country if they were guaranteed not to get caught? Given the power of invisibility, how many humans would be able to resist the temptation to act immorally, safe in the knowledge they could not be caught?

No need to repeat, I heard you the first time. I don't believe that humans are "generally altruistic". That's not the argument here.

Yes it is. You are claiming that humans are naturally altruistic. I am pointing out that they are nothing of the sort.

The question is whether people can be altruistic, and we certainly are.

We can be altruistic. This leaves two further questions. 1) Is human altruism any different to the altruism of vampire bats (for example). 2) If the answer to (1) is "yes", then do we have to fight against our basic nature in order to be altruistic in this non-animal sense? I believe the answer to both questions is quite clearly "yes".

And we don't always have to struggle to be so. At least I don't. Nor do most folks I know.

So why is there so much human-induced misery on this planet?

I've also answered the question about the carrot/stick, which cannot be said to have the exclusive purpose of inducing altruism, and which cannot be credited with exclusively doing so.

No, it's not the exclusive purpose of the carrot/stick, but it surely is one of the main purposes. No, it cannot be credited with neccesarily having the desired effect. Sometimes it just induces paranoia, pyschosis and a breakdown of the capacity to think freely.

People of all stripes engage in altruistic, and selfish, behavior. The threat of hell as a social engineering device likely has much more to do with power than encouraging altruism.

Sure, it's both. They are related. In both cases there is an attempt to modify people's natural behaviour to get them to behave in a way which is more desirable. That includes both altruistic behaviour and unquestioning submission to authority. Religion has at times tried to serve both of these purposes, with ambiguous results.

 

[Piggy]

JustGeoff, the system you propose seems to be this.

The selfish things we do are "natural" to us. The unselfish things we do are not the result of our natural evolution, but are the result of our conscious struggle against this brutish nature of ours. And the Darwinian model cannot account for the presence of this will to struggle against our selfish nature.

Your evidence for this is that it is "obvious" that we're naturally selfish, and if we want proof we can watch all the nastiness on the TV news. (Together with some patently incorrect assumptions about evolutionary theory.) And that religions exist which threaten heretics and backsliders with hell. To call all this "insufficient" would be generous.

But the motto of the newsroom is "If it bleeds, it leads".

So if we turn off the news and pay attention to the world around us, we see a gamut of behaviors, from the intentionally cruel like torturing children to death just for the fun of it, to the merely selfish like taking credit for others' work, to the mildly generous like giving up our seat on the bus, to the truly self-sacrificing like diving on a grenade or dedicating one's life to charity work.

If we don't make the unsupported assumption that only the selfish stuff is natural... if we allow that all of this is part of the observable behavior of one species among many (tho a species with apparently unparalleled high-order brain functions)... and ask ourselves if it could all arise from a Darwinian/genetic system of evolution, we find that yes, indeed, it certainly could.

And since the Darwinian/genetic model has stood test after test for over a century and become the cornerstone of all biology -- including the study of species-wide behavior as well as body types -- we find that there is no challenge to the Darwinian explanation for the presence of altruism here at all.

We can therefore safely put a fork in the OP. It's done.

 

[Bodhi Dharma Zen]

There is an inference here that because darwinism successfully explains animal behaviour, it also must therefore explain ALL human behaviour. Since the whole point in this thread is a claim that humans are significantly different to all other animals, this inference cannot be allowed to go through unchallenged. I have rejected the implicit assumption that humans are just another animal, but your argument here depends upon that assumption going unchallenged. We are products of evolution. It does not follow that we are incapable of transcending our evolutionarily-inherited instinctive behaviours.

What is "significantly different"?

You reject the conclusion about humans being animals (I noted your biased "just"), but you fail to support the difference with other than beliefs.

What would be to "transcend" evolutionary behaviours??? to "transcend" evolution?

Do you believe, for example, in the arbitrary disctintion between "natural" and "artificial"?

If yes, do you believe that a human house is different than a nest?

 

[Robin]

In the case of Darwinian explanations for altruistic behaviour, the problem is that these theories disregard the unresolved philosophical problems regarding determinism and free will, inevitably leading to a turf war both with philosophy and almost every form of religion.

How are unresolved philosophical problems relevant to science? Scientists cannot adapt their research to avoid treading on philosopher's toes. If a model matches an observation it makes no difference if it upsets a philosophical viewpoint.

In any case the philosophical problem of determinism and free will is unresolved largely due to - as Hume points out - a failure to define the terms properly. Come to think of it this probably accounts for most unresolved philosophical problems.

Such explanations involve a brute relegation of religion to a psychological crutch or social engineering and IMHO this is a failure to provide a full philosophical, anthropological or psychological account of either altruism or religion.

You are using somewhat loaded terms here "brute", "crutch". It would be more accurate to say that purely naturalistic explanations posit that religion is a psychological phenomenon.

I would agree that no account so far has provided a full account of altruism or religion. It is quite possible that, even if there is a naturalistic explanation, this could never be known, due to the complexity, both of the mind and the evolutionary process.

The interesting question here is did altruism develop from religion, did religion develop from altruism or did they develop separately?

If archaeology could answer this we could at least have a start.

 

[Robin]

It does not follow that we are incapable of transcending our evolutionarily-inherited instinctive behaviours.

Even super reductionist Richard Dawkins says that we are capable of transcending our evolutionarily-inherited instinctive behaviours (Last sentence Ch 11 "The Selfish Gene"

I am suggesting that the answer is that human beings have free will. Real free will.

But can you define what you mean by real free will?

 

[Z]

That we must fight against our natural dispositions in order to behave morally. If this were not the case, then there would have been no need to invent the forms of religion which are social engineering. Why, if human beings naturally behave altruistically, was there any point in threatening them with punishment in the afterlife if they did not? If your theoretical position was correct, there would have been no need for the religious carrot/stick.

How familiar are you with the development of organized religion? Organized religion did not develop to provide a framework to enforce morality; rather, it developed largely for political reasons. Threats of punishment, both now and in the hereafter, were largely to enforce rule by a social class which was seizing control of the population by exploitation of common myths and fears.

As it stands, it would appear that, more often than not, the carrot/stick has been used to promote more immoral acts than moral ones. Certainly, the vast stock of atheists and agnostics have proven themselves a peaceful group, while the major world atrocities can almost invariably be shown to have, at least on the surface, a religious origin (or at least, that religion was used as justification).

 

[Z]

Most humans are naturally altruistic????

Sorry, but I don't think you live on the same planet as me, let alone the same county.

Apparently. The planet I live on is full of people who donate for charities, risk their lives to save others from fires, floods, natural disasters; who lay down their lives to defend their countries and their ideologies; who obey laws to keep the public safe even though the police force is massively inadequate to the cause of enforcing those laws; who actively seek further means of preventing harm and misery; who strive to improve their world as best they may for those around them.

I know that, if you actually talk to anyone involved in a heroic act (a selfless, life-endangering act), you'd learn that there is no struggle involved. They do what had to be done to save lives. Firefighters face this all the time; there's no internal struggle or moral dialogue; they just do what has to be done.

The truth is that we have indeed barely advanced beyond this stage. There is only a thin veneer of civilisation at work. If the central government and law enforcement agencies were to collapse, total anarchy would ensue almost instantaneously. We are only just civilised, and could return to the law of the jungle at the drop of a hat.

While I do agree that some people would revert to anarchist behavior - indeed, that some people barely live a step beyond 'law of the jungle' at all times - that the vast majority do not. For example, look at New Orleans. Yes, there was looting, violence, etc. But that represents only a fraction of the population there. The acts of selfless, heroic, altruistic behavior in New Orleans far outnumbered the acts of selfishness and anarchy.

It seems like you view the world from your ivory tower with pessimistic glasses on, my friend.

As for the rest of your post, you are currently risking finding your way on to my ignore list. Lots of hyperbole, lots of accusations, lots of claims of your own brilliance, no substance. In short, you are trying to turn this into a pissing contest and if you continue to do so, I will simply ignore you.

You are welcome to do so. My replies are never for your benefit - as I perceive that you are too set in your beliefs to consider evidence against them - but for the benefit of our Gentle Readers, our passers-by, who may benefit in some small way from alternative points of view. If it comforts you to place me on ignore, you are always welcome to do so. It will only affect you.

 

[Robin]

Why, if human beings naturally behave altruistically, was there any point in threatening them with punishment in the afterlife if they did not? If your theoretical position was correct, there would have been no need for the religious carrot/stick.

Rather a large assumption here. How do you know that the religious carrot/stick arose because of a need?

It could have more plausibly have arisen as a hook to keep people in the faith, or to attract new people to the faith.

For example early Egyptian faiths had immortality only for Kings. This was overtaken by a new faith that had immortality for all. It is not clear that there was a moral component to this religion.

It would be a lot better to gather facts before coming to conclusions.

 

[Z]

Since the whole point in this thread is a claim that humans are significantly different to all other animals, <snip>?

So far, you've offered nothing to substantiate that claim.

First, you appear to be claiming that animals are incapable of altruistic acts; then, you appear to claim that altruistic acts are an anomolous behavior in humans. Both claims have been disproven, yet I see no further evidence to support your claim. For what it's worth, I'd say that humans are significantly different from other animals, by reason of the extremes we take behaviors, and the underlying conceptual layer to our behavior which animals with less developed brains lack.

I have rejected the implicit assumption that humans are just another animal,<snip>

Yet you have given no reason for doing so.

It does not follow that we are incapable of transcending our evolutionarily-inherited instinctive behaviours.

Indeed, since we see other animals capable of doing likewise, there seems no reason to make such a statement.

 

[Z]

It's a statement of the blindingly obvious. Our natural disposition is to be selfish. You want evidence? Turn on the news.

Yes... the news... where we can see reports of a few hundred people behaving badly... out of how many on earth? What percent of the population is represented in the news?

We must always remember, when discussing the news, that newscasting is a business, not a service. News agencies capitalize on news that sells - and that means spectacular news, news that grips the public fears, news that highlights drama and action. The truth is, on an average day, the percentage of people acting selfish (as depicted on the news) is incredibly small. Altruistic acts happen quite often, yet remain unreported. After all, a lot of those acts happen anonymously, or occur in small, private situations. And the news wouldn't be nearly so popular if they spent their hour reporting on rescued kittens, donated food supplies, etc. That kind of news makes for a nice closer, but it isn't meat and potatoes to the agencies.

Just look around you on the average day, and get a more accurate sample of human behavior. Yes, most humans are stupid, and yes, most can be jerks a large part of the time. But if you really pay attention, you'll find most people aren't all that selfish; and when the opportunity arises for altruistic behavior, many people leap to grasp that opportunity.

I repeat: If humans were generally altruistic, and not selfish, why would the carrot/stick of mainstream religion have been needed?

Repeating it a hundred times still wouldn't have made it true. If anything, mainstream religion has served to limit some forms of altruistic behavior, further dividing humans into 'us' and 'them'. Christianity, which claims a 'turn the other cheek' attitude, has been used as a catalyst for war for hundreds of years. Christians are often told to hate those not like them, even though their own religious texts require them to love their enemy.

And atheists and agnostics have stepped up to the plate plenty of times to do the altruistic thing. Yet where is their carrot/stick? Not present.

Mind, I'm not saying that religion is always a cause for evil behavior, or that religion never spawns truly selfless acts; but to claim that religion is needed to force people to behave selflessly is foolhardy and ignorant.

Certainly, the firefighter who rushes into a blazing building to save people isn't weighing his selfish needs against his fear of damnation and eternal punishment...

 

[Z]

It's not silly. Human beings are motivated by self-interest at practically all times. How many people do you think would observe the laws of their country if they were guaranteed not to get caught? Given the power of invisibility, how many humans would be able to resist the temptation to act immorally, safe in the knowledge they could not be caught?

Depends on what you call 'immoral'. Acting in a way that endangers the lives or well-being of others? Very few people would bother. Acting in a way that might be 'socially unacceptable'? A lot.

But very few people, given the power of invisibility, would do more than spy on others and sneak an occasional peek at nekkid women. A handful would steal - once or twice. A rare few would use the power for evil. And a few would use the power exclusively for acts of good.

As for observing laws - depends on the laws. Traffic laws? Not too many would (or do) obey them - provided violating those laws doesn't harm others. Criminal laws? A vast majority would still obey them. Do you really think people want to steal, murder, etc., and don't just because of laws? Generally, people who are predisposed to criminal behavior are going to engage in that behavior regardless of laws.

So why is there so much human-induced misery on this planet?

Mainly because humans invented politics and religion. Remove those, and most of that misery would vanish.

Well, not politics; maybe just reducing politics back to tribal government levels...

edited for clarity

 

[UndercoverElephant]

JustGeoff, the system you propose seems to be this.

The selfish things we do are "natural" to us. The unselfish things we do are not the result of our natural evolution, but are the result of our conscious struggle against this brutish nature of ours.

This is an over-simplification of my position. I have clearly stated that some behaviours which can be legitimately labelled "altruistic" are the result of natural evolution. Others cannot.

And the Darwinian model cannot account for the presence of this will to struggle against our selfish nature.

Your evidence for this is that it is "obvious" that we're naturally selfish, and if we want proof we can watch all the nastiness on the TV news. (Together with some patently incorrect assumptions about evolutionary theory.) And that religions exist which threaten heretics and backsliders with hell.

Actually, they originally threatened badly behaved people with hell. The "backslider" stuff comes much later, well after a religion is established.

To call all this "insufficient" would be generous.

I have already stated that there is no empirical test of this.

And since the Darwinian/genetic model has stood test after test for over a century and become the cornerstone of all biology -- including the study of species-wide behavior as well as body types -- we find that there is no challenge to the Darwinian explanation for the presence of altruism here at all.

We can therefore safely put a fork in the OP. It's done.

Except this paragraph once again relies on the invalid inference that what works for the rest of the biological world automatically applies to humans. I have already stated that this inference is unacceptable to me. We are going round in circles here.....

 

[UndercoverElephant]

What is "significantly different"?

That means that we are fundamentally unlike any other creature which has ever evolved. We are an evolutionary novelty. Surely you do not need me to list the examples of why.....

You reject the conclusion about humans being animals (I noted your biased "just"), but you fail to support the difference with other than beliefs.

Of course we are animals. We aren't plants or funghi! We are a different sort of animal, though. As Nietszche put it - we are a bridge between an ape and a God.

What would be to "transcend" evolutionary behaviours??? to "transcend" evolution?

Yes. Via a combination of self-conciousness and free-will we can become more than our evolutionary heritage alone can explain.

Do you believe, for example, in the arbitrary disctintion between "natural" and "artificial"?

Not entirely sure what you mean here - an example?

If yes, do you believe that a human house is different than a nest?

There are many things about (modern) human houses that are different to nests, yes.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

But can you define what you mean by real free will?

Yes. I mean that given a specific situation we could actually have taken a different decision to the one we did make. At some point in the process, mere determinism is being transcended. If you could rewind history then it would be possible that human X made a different decision to the one he actually made, even though every physical thing in the Universe is identical. This would be libertarian/co-creational/incompatibilist free will, as opposed to compatibilist free will which simply claims that we are free from outside interference. For the compatibilist, determinism is still true so if you replayed history then exactly the same thing would occur, hence no real freedom whatsoever - only the illusion of freedom.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Geoff posted:

So why is there so much human-induced misery on this planet?

ZD answered:

Mainly because humans invented politics and religion.

This is where the position you defend goes completely insane, IMO. Politics and religion are not the cause of the problem. Human nature is the cause of the problem. Politics and religion are merely failed attempts to solve the problem.

You have at least hit the nub of why I am making the comments I am making. It is precisely this tendency to blame religion and politics for the very things they were invented to tackle that I wish to challenge.

 

[Piggy]

I have already stated that there is no empirical test of this.

Except this paragraph once again relies on the invalid inference that what works for the rest of the biological world automatically applies to humans. I have already stated that this inference is unacceptable to me. We are going round in circles here.....

Yes. And we will go around in circles forever as long as you continue trot out invalid assumptions without evidence and to reject the premises of well-tested theories that you pretend to challenge, merely on the basis that you find them unacceptable.

My statements do not rest on the mere assumption that proven biological theories do not exempt humans. My position is that a challenge to Darwinian explanations for the existence of altruism in humans fails if it simply states a contrary assumption then rejects those conclusions which are in fact completely in line with the Darwinian framework, which does find that biological laws do not exempt humans.

What you seem loath to admit is that you are claiming to challenge Darwinism by asserting that it cannot account for altruism in humans, while basing your challenge on the unsupported rejection of one of its tenets while offering no justification for this rejection.

It's as if I claimed that standard mathematics could not describe the ratio between a circle's radius and its circumference, then when informed that pi serves this function very nicely, I declared that I did not accept the premise that standard mathematics can be assumed to apply to apparently infinite decimal values.

If you're going to challenge a theory on the basis of whether it can account for a given phenomenon, you cannot simply hamstring the theory and claim it fails. When the complete Darwinistic-genetic model is applied to human altruism, it accounts very nicely for it.

If you want to claim that the application of standard biology to humans is somehow flawed, then by all means, drop this business about altruism and go about providing evidence for that instead.

Fork, please.

 

[Bodhi Dharma Zen]

That means that we are fundamentally unlike any other creature which has ever evolved. We are an evolutionary novelty. Surely you do not need me to list the examples of why.....

Oh I do need a list. Giraffes are an example of a novelty. Anything that is significantly different from the rest of animals qualify as a novelty in my book. True, we dont need the necks of the giraffes, and they dont need our language abstractions. If you are implying that our "novelty" gives us advantages... look again, the last time I checked insects were the best candidates for long time survival.

Of course we are animals. We aren't plants or funghi! We are a different sort of animal, though. As Nietszche put it - we are a bridge between an ape and a God.

Every animal is different, I fail to se a point here. We are naked apes, imaginative sure, with complex rituals, sure, but if gods are human inventions, then saying we are more like those inventions that other animals seems to be just the product of imagination. Yes, we are half Titans too.

Yes. Via a combination of self-conciousness and free-will we can become more than our evolutionary heritage alone can explain.

I still fail to see the meaning of the "more" here. Are any animals who have some very specialized system to perform anything (there are literarily millions of examples here) candidates to this "more than evolutionary heritage alone"? If not, why? You have stated "free will" as some kind of proof, and I still dont see an answer for my post commenting the issue.

Not entirely sure what you mean here - an example?

(I asked Geoff about the disctintion between "artificial" and "natural"). Some people believe that what humans make is artificial (houses, computer, cars, books), and what the rest of the animal do is natural. I fail to see the distinction. Every product of an animal is natural, by definition.

There are many things about (modern) human houses that are different to nests, yes.

If with this you mean that beehive is also different we agree. But I have the sensation that you wanted to mean other thing.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

My position is that a challenge to Darwinian explanations for the existence of altruism in humans fails if it simply states a contrary assumption then rejects those conclusions which are in fact completely in line with the Darwinian framework, which does find that biological laws do not exempt humans.

Yes, this is correct. If one assumes naturalism/materialism/determinism then one inevitably arrives at your conclusion. If one does not, then one might equally arrive at mine.

What you seem loath to admit is that you are claiming to challenge Darwinism by asserting that it cannot account for altruism in humans, while basing your challenge on the unsupported rejection of one of its tenets while offering no justification for this rejection.

Which tenet have I rejected? I don't think I have rejected any part of Darwinism. I am claiming that a full explanation of human behaviour requires more than Darwinism. That does not make Darwinism wrong. It just restricts its applicability in certain situations. Darwin's theory is about the origin of species, not the entirety of existence or of human life.

If you're going to challenge a theory on the basis of whether it can account for a given phenomenon, you cannot simply hamstring the theory and claim it fails.

I'm not challenging Darwinism. I am challenging it's universalisation.

 

[Piggy]

If you could rewind history then it would be possible that human X made a different decision to the one he actually made, even though every physical thing in the Universe is identical.

Actually, if Stephan Wolfram is right -- and I believe he is -- if you rewound the universe and pressed Play again, the whole shebang would be different. Randomness is built-in everywhere.

As for us being a novelty... so is the platypus. But you seem so enamoured of your brain that you would think yourself an entirely different manner of stuff than other life because of it.

Around here, you're gonna have to pony up some support for that claim. Your own sense that it's just obvious won't cut it.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

BDZ,

Just so you know I am not ignoring you, I will answer your post tomorrow.

Later.

Geoff