At 01:00 PM 12/5/2007, Nick Arnett wrote: >On Dec 4, 2007 3:10 PM, hkhenson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > At 01:00 PM 12/4/2007, Nick Arnett wrote: > > > > snip > > > > >You've set an impossibly high burden of proof by claiming that religion > > >causes evil. You'll never prove it. > > > > I don't think that's the proper model. > >My argument there is really about the squishiness of psychology and >sociology.
The *claim* made by EP figures such as Buss, Cosmides, Tooby and company is that EP provides a way to link these "sciences" into the rest of science. > > Evolutionary psychology states that *every* human psychological trait > > is either the result of direct selection or a side effect of direct > > selection. (With a bit of possibility of something being fixed due to > > random genetic drift.) >This is arguing from a conclusion. The conclusion is that everything that >exists in living organisms arose via evolution, therefore everything has an >evolutionary explanation. I'll certainly allow that it *may* be true, but >it certainly isn't proved -- our understanding of evolution is far from >complete. We can only work with the best explanations we have now. For the moment evolution or as it was known, natural selection, is the best unifying explanation for all of biology we have. >Furthermore, I think pure Darwinian explanations are generally >wrong. Everything doesn't arise from competition and we have mathematics >(complexity) that demonstrates that, or at least very strongly suggests that >Darwinian models are substantially incomplete. Until Hamilton came up with the concept of inclusive fitness, there was a big hole in Darwinian theory that even Darwin was aware of. But I am not aware of any other holes. >(Nothing in this is an >argument for or against God; like the majority of people, I don't think >religion has anything much to say about evolution.) I agree with the last point. Evolution, however, may have a *great deal* to say about religion. > > I think we can agree that the psychological mechanisms behind > > religion are a species wide psychological trait. It's known from > > twin studies to be at least as heritable as other personality traits. > >That's interesting and certainly speaks to causes. > > > You have a choice of directly selected (like the psychological > > mechanism behind Stockholm syndrome) or a side effect like drug > > addiction. (In the EEA being wiped out on plant sap was a formula > > for experiencing the intestines of a predator from the inside.) > > > > I favor direct selection via a primary mortality mode in the EEA, > > wars between groups of humans. Here is the background: > > > > http://cniss.wustl.edu/workshoppapers/gatpres1.pdf > > > > I have gone a little further than Dr. Gat and propose that the > > psychological mechanism leading to wars starts with a population > > average "bleak outlook." Under circumstances where parents can see > > they won't be able to feed the kids through the next dry season, it > > makes genetic sense for an evolved behavioral switch to flip. So the > > future looks bleak enough, it is cost effective from the gene's > > viewpoint for a group of related males to go to war and take the high > > risk of dying. > >Hmmm. Are you suggesting that this mechanism directly explains, for >example, our invasion and occupation of Iraq? Yes. I go into it in some detail in "Evolutionary Psychology, Memes and the Origin of War." "War mode" which a population can get into either by a long buildup of xenophobic memes in response to a bleak future *or* by being attacked inhibits rational thinking. The reason is that when people get into war mode there is a divergences in interests between the individual and his/her genes. I can't explain this unless you are up on inclusive fitness and the human EEA, in which case it is fairly obvious. >Or is war simply a leftover >from a time of scarcer resources? Have you looked at the price of gasoline lately? > > You ask: "How do religions fit in here?" What are religions? They are > > memes of course, > >Ouch. Though I love the concept of a meme, it is at best vaguely defined. >Clever, but not obviously useful, at least to me. So it's very little help >to me to postulate that religions are memes. Memes are elements of culture, replicating information patterns and dozens of other equal ways to define them. They are at the root information and could be measured in bits if you want. >but in particular religions are *xenophobic* memes. > > When times are good they are relatively inactive seed xenophobic > > memes. What we see today as religions are the result of evolved > > psychological mechanisms that induce groups to go to war as needed by > > conditions. By this model religions don't _cause_ wars. > >How does this explain non-warring religions? How could they have anything >meaningful left over? You can show me a very few religions that were not involved with war. My response would be to say wait and that distinction will go away. > > If you consider killing people "evil" or at least undesirable, and > > want to get back to a "cause," it's population growth in excess of > > economic growth. Malthus with method if you like. Religions are just > > xenophobic memes. When people feel the need to thin out the > > overpopulation, some meme (including memes like communism) will gain > > enough influence over enough people to serve as a "reason" for a war. > >As I see it, one can substitute "idea" for "meme" in everything you've >written here and it makes no difference in the meaning... I'm curious why >you're using the word. That's correct. I have written *extensively* on the distinction between meme and idea. Google says 651 for pages "Keith Henson" meme idea. In short meme is preferred over idea when the propagation and survival of an idea is being discussed. Second link: " Meme is similar to "idea", but not all ideas are memes. A passing idea which you do not communicate to others, or one which fails to take root in others, falls short of being a meme. The important part of the "meme about memes" is that memes are subject to adaptive evolutionary forces very similar to those that select for genes. That is, their variation is subject to selection in the environment provided by human minds, communication channels, and the vast collection of cooperating and competing memes that make up human culture." >Back to the point at hand, I smell the same argument from conclusion that >you started with. I.e., if people kill each other, there must be an >evolutionary explanation, since all behavior arises from evolution. >Tempting, but tautological. Predictive though. Do people fight all the time? Or do they fight only when conditions are such that fighting is better for the survival of their genes (including copies in relatives) than not fighting? (Or were in the stone age. Don't forget that we are a very long way from the human EEA.) > I think it is tempting because we are >hard-pressed to see any other mechanism at work. At some point, we have to >explain all the ways that living things behave that isn't clearly >competitive. War is rather obviously survival of the fittest, so it is no >surprise that it fits neatly into Darwinian thinking. War isn't always survival of anybody. The Southwest corn farmers after about 1260 went to war and over a huge area they *all* died. War may no longer be adaptive like it was when high tech was chipped rocks (before agriculture). > > Is this model logical enough for you? > >It's great food for thought, but I'd still like to escape the circularity. >Is it just politically incorrect to consider non-Darwinian explanations? Not at all. I just don't know any that can't be mapped to biology/evolution. >And I mean *scientific* non-Darwinian explanations, not the non-thinking >kind that some folks seem to think is all that fits in one's head if one >chooses to have faith. > >For example, how does the anthropic principle (which I suspect the math of >complexity hints at) fit into this discussion? It doesn't. Wrong level. >Intuitively, I'm tempted to >believe that if Darwinism was all there is, we wouldn't be here to observe >the universe. But how can one prove the anthropic principle without a few >other universes available as examples? Really understanding biology (and natural selection) depends on understanding the level below it, chemistry. The existing elements are dependant on physics processes in stars (which is where the anthropic principle comes in). But evolution is emergent. As far as I know, *nothing* in biology makes any sense without invoking evolution. The same is true (I think) if you want to understand levels that depend on biology such as psychology and sociology. Best wishes, Keith _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
