Download How much has this class changed your views on evolution and its

Long-term intellectual history: Observation #1
•For complex reasons, evolutionary theory has been
confined to the biological sciences and avoided for
most human-related subjects for most of the 20th
century.
• This situation is changing, but only very recently.
• Terms such as evolutionary psychology and
evolutionary anthropology didn’t gain currency until
the 1990’s and still have an air of scandal about them.
• Terms such as evolutionary economics, evolutionary
religious studies, Literary Darwinism are even more
recent.
• Important moment in the history of science.
Mainstream social sciences
“Of course social scientists have no objection to
applying evolutionary theory in the life sciences-biology, zoology botany, etc. Nevertheless, the idea of
applying evolutionary thinking to social science
problems commonly evokes strong negative
reactions. In effect, social scientists treat the life
sciences as enclosed within a kind of impermeable
wall. Inside the wall, evolutionary thinking is deemed
capable of producing powerful and astonishing truths.
Outside the wall, in the realm of human behavior,
applications of evolutionary thinking are typically
treated as irrelevant at best; usually as pernicious,
wrong, and downright dangerous.”
--Political scientist Ian Lustic, 2005
Long-term intellectual history: Observation #2
•In both biology and social sciences, the concept of
society as an organism was commonplace until the
middle of the 20th century.
• Eclipsed by individualistic and reductionistic
perspectives, throughout the second half of the 20th
century.
• This is also rapidly changing. We need to rediscover
group-level functionalism.
THE WAY IT WAS
Social commentators once found it very useful to
analyze the behavior of groups by the same expedient
used in analyzing the behavior of individuals. The
group, like the person, was assumed to be sentient, to
have a form of mental activity that guides action.
Rousseau (1767) and Hegel (1807) were the early
architects of this form of analysis, and it became so
widely used in the 19th and early 20th centuries that
almost every early social theorist we now recognize as
a contributor to modern social psychology held a
similar view.
--D.M. Wegner (1986)
THE AGE OF INDIVIDUALISM
IN THE SOCIAL SCIENCES
Methodological individualism dominates our
neighboring field of economics, much of sociology, and
all of psychology’s excursions into organizational
theory. This is the dogma that all human social group
processes are to be explained by laws of individual
behavior--that groups and social organizations have no
ontological reality--that where used, references to
organizations,etc. are but convenient summaries of
individual behavior.
--D.T. Campbell (1994)
THE AGE OF INDIVIDUALISM IN
EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY:
“Many an ecologist, equipped with no more than a
flimsy analogy, marched cheerfully from the
familiar Darwinian territory of individual
organisms into a world of populations and groups.
Populations were treated as individuals that just
happened to be a notch or two up in the hierarchy
of life.”
--H. Cronin 1991
THE AGE OF INDIVIDUALISM IN
EVERYDAY LIFE
“There
is no such thing as society. There are
individual men and women, and there are
families.”
--Margaret Thatcher 1987
Multilevel Selection Theory
D.S. Wilson and E.O. Wilson (2007) Rethinking the Theoretical
Foundation of Sociobiology. QRB
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Natural selection within groups favors selfish
strategies that disrupt group function.
Natural selection between groups favors cooperative
strategies that enhance group function.
Groups can evolve into adaptive units when betweengroup selection trumps within-group selection.
“Selfishness beats altruism within groups, altruistic
groups beat selfish groups. Everything else is
commentary.”
1960’s consensus
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Natural selection within groups favors selfish
strategies that disrupt group function.
Natural selection between groups favors cooperative
strategies that enhance group function.
Groups can evolve into adaptive units when betweengroup selection trumps within-group selection.
Empirical claim: higher-level selection is almost
invariably weak compared to lower-level selection.
Current assessment
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Natural selection within groups favors selfish
strategies that disrupt group function.
Natural selection between groups favors cooperative
strategies that enhance group function.
Groups can evolve into adaptive units when betweengroup selection trumps within-group selection.
Empirical claim: higher-level selection is almost
invariably weak compared to lower-level selection.
Balance between levels of selection needs to be
evaluated on a case-by-case basis.
Artificial selection for egg
productivity in hens
In both experiments hens are housed in
multiple groups (cages).
• Experiment 1: Select the best egg-layer
within each group.
• Experiment 2: Select the best group of egglayers in a population of groups.
Within-group selection
Between-group selection
“That first experiment describes
my department! I have names for
those three chickens!”
--Professor to me, after a lecture
The Replicator Dynamic
• Any process that causes the most successful behavioral
strategy to increase in frequency in the population.
• Genetic evolution
• Learning
• Imitation
• Intentional thought
• Processes of cultural evolution
Vastly expands the domain of evolutionary theory to include
fast-paced processes of behavioral change
Major Transitions of Evolution
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The balance between levels of selection is not static
but can itself evolve.
When between-group selection dominates withingroup selection, a major transition occurs and the
group becomes a higher-level organism.
Symbiotic origin of the eukaryotic cell
1970’s
Lynn Margulis
Major transitions in evolution
1990’s
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John Maynard Smith
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Eors Szathmary
The transition from groups of organisms to
groups as organisms has occurred
repeatedly
 Origin of life
 The first bacterial cells
 Eukaryotic cells
 Multicellular organisms
 Social insect colonies
 Human groups
The evolution of chromosomes as a
shift in the balance between levels
of selection
Hallmarks of major transitions
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Rare events in the history of life. It’s not easy for
between-group selection to dominate within-group
selection.
Momentous consequences once it occurs. New higherlevel organisms become ecologically dominant.
The transition is never complete. Selfish elements
that spread by within-group selection are only
suppressed, not entirely eliminated.
True organisms, whose members behave 100% for
the common good, do not exist.
Intragenomic conflict
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Austin Burt
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Robert Trivers
SAVORING THE IRONY
 During the Age of Individualism, it
became a heresy
to think of a social
\
group as like a single organism.
 Now it turns out that the single
organisms of today are literally the
social groups of past ages!
Terms used to describe genetic and
developmental interactions in article titled
“The Social Gene”by David Haig
Allegiance, binding agreements, cabal,
cajole, cheat, clique,
coalition,
coercion,
\
collectives, commons, conspire,
contractual arrangement, corrupt,
deceit, egalitarian, exploitation,
factions, fair play, firm, fraud, freeriders, gangster, huckster, institutions,
licensing, lottery, manipulate,
marketplace, misappropriate,
monopoly, motivation, open society…
Human evolution as a major transition
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Rare events in the
history of life.
\
Momentous
consequences once it
occurs.
The transition is never
complete.
 Only once among
primates.
 Worldwide ecological
dominance.
 Thinking of human
groups as organisms
does not deny the
existence of conflict
within groups.
The 3 C’s of human special attributes:
In which order did they evolve?
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Cooperation
Cognition
Culture
 Numerous scenarios assume
that complex cognition (e.g.,
theory of mind) came first,
enabling increased
cooperation.
 A more plausible scenario is
that the major transition
came first (cooperation) and
that enhanced culture and
cognition subsequently
evolved as forms of cognitive
cooperation.
Stone throwing--the first human adaptation?
A major transition requires the suppression of deviance
within groups, which needn’t require advanced cognitive
abilities.
Human moral systems as the functional
equivalent of chromosomes
• Religion derived from religio-->”to bind together”
• Jonathan Haidt “New Synthesis in Moral Psychology”
Taking the “society as organism” concept
seriously for humans
“The village or township is the only
association which
is so perfectly natural
\
that, wherever a number of men are
collected, it seems to constitute itself.”
--A. de Tocqueville 1835
What is the social physiology of human groups?
• Humans are genetically adapted to function as
coordinated units at the level of small face-toface society.
• Cognitive activities can benefit from teamwork
in addition to physical activities.
• Genetic adaptations should include social
control in addition to coordination
mechanisms.
• These social physiological mechanisms might be
very complex but so automatic that we
perform them “without thinking”--like vision.
Many implications
• Eyes
• Pointing
• Infant cognition
• Laughing
• Music, dance, narrative
• Gossip and other forms of language
• Group decision making
The eyes are the windows of the
soul…
…but only if you are human!
POINTING
What could be simpler and more natural?
Only if you are human…or a dog
When it comes to mental teamwork, 2nd place
goes not to the apes, and not to wolves (even
when raised in captivity) but to the dogs, who
have been genetically coevolving with us for
app. 130,000 years.
Infant cognition
An adult gestures ambiguously toward three
toys and says to a young child “Oh, wow!
That’s so cool! Can you give it to me?”
They have previously played with two of
the toys together and the child is familiar
with all three.
Taking the perspective of others
Remarkably, even one-year old children
demonstrate awareness of the adult’s
previous experience by choosing the toy
that is new for the adult.
This awareness of the perspective of others
does not exist in apes at any age.
Major Conclusion Relevant
to this Workshop
• Activities associated with the humanities (e.g.,
music, dance, visual arts, narrative) emerge as
genetically evolved complex adaptations.
Vital organs in the “anatomy and physiology” of the
group superorganism.
• Appear early in life, cultural universal, intrinsically
enjoyable (like sex), etc.
• Need to occupy center stage in the basic sciences.
Cultural evolution
Some basic facts
• For
all previous major transitions, rare origination
events are followed by adaptive radiations,
leading to hundreds and thousands of species.
• For the human major transition, we remained a
single biological species, but we still diversified
behaviorally to fill hundreds of ecological niches.
• Inhabit all geographical regions.
• Eat everything from seeds to whales.
• At this course-grained level, it is undeniable that a
process of cultural evolution is at work.
• We can interpret cultural diversity in the same way
as biological diversity.
An analogy with the immune system
• The immune system is an elaborate, genetically evolved
adaptation to defend the organism against diseases.
• Diseases are too diverse and rapidly evolving for a fixed arsenal
of defences.
• Fight evolution with evolution.
• Randomly varying antibodies, selection of those that bind to
antigens.
• Fast-paced process of antibody evolution, built by the slow-paced
process of genetic evolution.
• Our capacity for culture might be like the immune system.
• Elaborate genetically evolved psychological architecture.
• Guides a fast-paced evolutionary process to adaptive solutions.
• Subject to error (as with the immune system).
Cultural Universals and
Cultural Variation
• Discussions of human evolution often focus identifying traits that
exist in all cultures.
• Yet, evolutionists seldom look for traits that exist in all species,
and if they did the list would be short (not even including
DNA replication).
• Evolutionists spend most of their time explaining why species
vary.
• In addition to identifying cultural universals (especially the
aforementioned psychological architecture that makes cultural
evolution possible), we should be interpreting cultural
varation.
• Not only in geographically separated cultures, but also in our
midst.
Liberalism and Conservatism
• Jost, John. T., Jack Glaser, Arie W. Kruglanski and
Frank J. Sulloway. 2001. Political Conservatism as
Motivated Social Cognition. Psychological
Bulletin 129(3): 339-375.
• Lakoff, George. 1996. Moral Politics: What
Conservatives Know that Liberals Don't. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press
• Can liberalism and conservatism be regarded as
cultural “species”, each adaptive in some social
environments but not others?
Existential security
• Low existential security is the “niche” of conservatism,
favoring authoritarian cultural systems with strict
adherence to rules and authority.
• High existential security is the “niche” of liberalism,
providing a safe and secure environment for
experimentation and decisions that require a large amount
of information processing on the basis of internalized
values.
• Norris, Pippa and Ronald Inglehart. 2004. Sacred and
Secular: Religion and Politics Worldwide. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Religion as a
quantitative trait
Liberalism vs. Conservative
Religious vs. Non-religious
• All four combinations are possible.
• The liberal/conservative distinction is at least as
important as the religious/non-religious distinction,
as we will see.
Liberalism and its niche
• Liberalism places a premium on individuals as “agentic”,
actively experimenting to achieve new solutions. The
guiding assumption is that the best solutions have not yet
been discovered, so that new things are at least potentially
good. The value of discovering new solutions outweigh the
costs of error.
• One niche for liberalism: very fast-changing environments
• Another niche: cumulative cultural change in stable
environments.
• Experimentation requires time, energy, safety, education,
etc.
Conservatism and its niche
• Conservatism places a premium on obedience to authority.
This does not necessarily mean an incapacity for change-as long as the change is initiated by the authorities.
Obedience requires clear-cut distinctions between “right”
and “wrong” Rules are followed because they are the rules,
and they are not to be questioned by anyone other than the
authority.
• One niche for conservatism:elites interested in preserving
the status quo
• Another niche: dangerous and uncertain environments that
do not provide enough time, energy, safety, education, etc.
for individuals to function as their own moral agents.
• Conservative belief systems frequently emphasize that “The
world is a dangerous place”
Differences between conservatives and liberals
documented by social scientists (Jost et al.2003)
•Dogmatism
•Intolerance of ambiguity
•Openness to experience
•Integrative complexity
•Uncertainty avoidance
•Personal need for order and structure
•Need for cognitive closure
•All the earmarks of qualitatively different moral
systems, adapted to different environmental
conditions.
Conservative child rearing practices
(The authoritarian model)
1) Attempts to shape, control, and evaluate the
behavior and attitudes of one’s children in
accordance with an absolute set of standards
(including corporal punishment).
2) Valuing obedience, respect for authority,
work, tradition, and preservation of order.
3) Discouraging verbal give-and-take between
parent and child.
“Obedience is the foundation for all
character. It is the foundation for the
home. It is the foundation for a school.
It is the foundation for a society. It is
absolutely necessary for law and order
to prevail. “
--Hyles, J. (1972). How to rear children.
Hammond: Hyles-Anderson.
“But what if parents command something wrong?”
This is precocious inquisitiveness. Such a question
should perish on the lips of a Christian child.
--L. Christenson (1970). The Christian family.
Minneapolis: Bethany House.
Liberal child rearing practices
(The authoritative model)
1) Expectation of mature behavior from child and clear
standard setting.
2) Firm enforcement of rules and standards using commands
and sanctions when necessary (does not include corporal
punishment).
3) Encouragement of child’s independence and individuality.
4) Open communication between parents and children, with
parents listening to children’s point of view, as well as
expressing their own; encouragement of verbal give and
take.
5) Recognition of rights of both parents and children.
Comparison of liberal vs. conservative
protestant denominations
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• Large
sociological study
• Everyone is American.
Ingrid Storm
• Everyone is a teenager.
• Everyone is a Protestant.
In these respects, the sample is culturally homogenous.
• Some are from liberal Protestant denominations (e.g.,
Episcopalian).
• Some are from conservative Protestant denominations (e.g.,
Pentacostal).
• This cultural difference has such a transformative effect that the
teenagers act like different species as far as their respone to their
enviornment is concerned.
0.9
0.85
0.8
0.75
Liberal
C onservative
0.7
0.65
0.6
0.55
ve
ry
ye
s,
so
m
ew
no
ha
t
0.5
ye
s,
In my family, we express
opinions even when they differ
0.95
Do y ou think of y ourself as a
religious person?
Do you usually feel stressed?
4.5
4
3.5
Liberal
Conservative
3
2.5
2
1
2
3
4
5
In my family, I am
the one to decide
which friends I can
spend time with
Time spent alone
30%
25%
20%
15%
10%
5%
0%
Liberal
Conservative
Protestant group
4.8
Bored - Excited
4.6
4.4
Libe ral
4.2
Conse rvative
4
3.8
3.6
alone
not alone
Did you wish you had been doing something else?
6
5.8
5.6
5.4
Libe ra l
Conse rva tive
5.2
5
4.8
4.6
a lone
not a lone
Did not feel self-conscious or
embarrassed
9.5
9
8.5
8
Liberal
C onservative
7.5
7
6.5
6
alone
not alone
5.4
Lonely - Sociable
5.2
5
Liberal
4.8
Conservative
4.6
4.4
4.2
not w ith relative
w ith relative
Summary
• Evolutionary theory as a framework for explaining all
aspects of humanity in addition to the rest of life.
• Concept of society as an organism fully legitimate, at least
when appropriate conditions are met.
• Cultural diversity can be analyzed in the same way as
biological diversity.
• Activities associated with the arts part of the “anatomy and
physiology” of the group organism, therefore part of the
essence of what it means to be human.
http://evolution.binghamton.edu
/evos/
EvoS, Binghamton University’s campuswide evolutionary studies program.
/religion/
Evolutionary Religious Studies website.
/bnp/
Binghamton Neighborhood Project,
community-based research from an
evolutionary perspective.
/dswilson/
Personal website with numerous
publications to download