Evolutionary Psychology Bingo!
Published by Sabotabby October 25th, 2007 in For the ladies, "Science"From the people who brought you Libertarian Troll Bingo, it’s time for a spot of gender essentialism!
Now you can back up all of your sexist ideas with something that sounds a bit like science. Feel free to tell me that I’m just going against nature here.
With thanks, as always, to zingerella and apperception.
39 Responses to “Evolutionary Psychology Bingo!”
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Perfect. I’m going to have to print out a few copies for when I go to seminars.
Yaaaaaaaaaaay!
oh, so fabulous.
I want a natural scientific explanation for why I like looking at breasts all the time. Can I have an explanation of that?
The weight of your skull is centred towards the front of your neck, making your head naturally tip forwards?
Perfect, EP in a nutshell. And don’t forget the last gem by Buss: murder is an adaptation.
You blank-slaters crack me up.
Certainly there’s no good reason at all to believe that 500 million years of animal evolution have left any traces at all in the pristine Human brain!
I hadn’t heard, though, the Party line that Steven Pinker was now to be regarded as a patriarchial fascist of the E.O. Wilson stripe. Have we scheduled the ceremonial public water-dousing yet?
I like it, but I think the free space can be generalized - there are graduate student, post-graduate, and non-grads who can’t get laid and eat this shit up as well.
AWESOME, just AWESOME
My favourite: “Believes women talk more than men, but for some reason won’t let you get a word in edgeways”
WELL DONE!!!
(Just as a side note, I thought the presentation was a bit confusing)
This is awesome, and funny!
I’ve heard a lot of these points before, and as posted here: You are correct in that a lot of them fall flat. I like the one in the fifth row, second from the top: I get that a lot as an attack point, and I just keep saying “Shouldn’t you be reading your history child?
Thank you very much. If you send a pattern to cafepress for items: I might buy it. ^_^
Love it! This is made of 100% organic, free-range WIN. I’ll have to print this out and see how many times I can make BINGO!
You blank-slaters crack me up.
Your false dichotomy is funny, but this isn’t an evolutionary psychology vs Lockean philosophy kind of situation.
What about “You don’t believe that sexism is hardwired into genes, therefore you must not believe in evolution!”
As exemplified a few comments up.
But, but … I thought the savannah was not in Europe …
Oh, wait …
“rises like Olympus across the Serengeti”
AAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA …..
What a *hilarious* way to critique the rationalizations so popular today.
I just wrote a book all about this, called THE CAVEMAN MYSTIQUE.
Beautiful. The only thing I think is missing is “Men are visual creatures!”
I feel compelled to add - from what I’ve seen, the evo-psychos and LOLbertarians have considerable overlap. It’s probably pretty easy to bingo both at once.
Fantastic. You make me think, and I appreciate that…
Sven, there aren’t many blank-slaters around, so Pinker’s attempts to attack those who disagree with him by claiming they are blank-slaters is pretty pathetic. Do some research before you follow him down the same path.
Oh, I was pretty much just trollin’. Sorry.
I do think, though, that false-dichotomization is a two-way street, and that mistaking “ought” for “is” can be as erroneous as the other way around.
I too would prefer it if sexism lacked any genetic basis, I’m just not so sure that that’s true. It’s certainly difficult to find any support for the notion in human history, cultural anthropology, or (non-human) behavioral ecology. That said, I put few limits on human behavioral plasticity, and whatever genetic influences on behavior exist are clearly transcendable on individual and probabl;y cultural levels. Human hard-wiring is relatively soft (which is not the same as claiming it does not exist).
And by the way, I haven’t read much Pinker and haven’t been all that impressed with what I have read.
I was just trollin’. Sorry.
I too would prefer it if sexism lacked any genetic basis, I’m just not so sure that that’s true.
So you’re saying we naturally selected devaluing women’s work and a blind belief in their general inferiority against all available evidence, leading to their status as essentially property? What on earth advantage could that possibly have led to?
Just because men got the upper hand a million years ago doesn’t mean that it’s encoded into our genes; it just means even cavemen can figure out a good thing when they happen upon it.
So you’re saying we naturally selected devaluing women’s work and a blind belief in their general inferiority against all available evidence, leading to their status as essentially property?
No, nothing so specific and direct. The argument is about behavior, not conscious mental attitudes or opinions. By the way, the phrase “we naturally selected” indicates strongly that you don’t know what you’re talking about–see column 3 row 2 above.
What on earth advantage could that possibly have led to?
Ever hear of sexual selection? Polygyny?
Just because men got the upper hand a million years ago doesn’t mean that it’s encoded into our genes
Correct. It also doesn’t mean it isn’t.
Go Sabs! Can you make one for Evolutionary Genetics too?
Sven DeMilo: No, nothing so specific and direct. The argument is about behavior, not conscious mental attitudes or opinions. By the way, the phrase “we naturally selected” indicates strongly that you don’t know what you’re talking about–see column 3 row 2 above.
“Conscious mental attitudes or opinions” ARE behavior. Also, I believe that Kyso’s use of “we naturally selected” is meant to mock evo psych’s MISUSE of the concept of natural selection.
Sven DeMilo: Ever hear of sexual selection? Polygyny?
I don’t get your point. First of all, sexual selection is a mechanism of natural selection used to explain the presence of traits within a given population that either have little to no evolutionary significance or seem random. For example, why is red hair and freckled skin very common among ethnically Irish people, and not other populations living so far north of the equator where such skin color would be beneficial to absorb vitamin D? Sexual selection dictates that red hair may have become culturally constructed as attractive, explaining its seeming lack of purpose. I don’t understand what this has to do with the cultural construction of female inferiority. Also, polygyny is a marriage system that resulted from the cultural construction of female inferiority. It is a cultural adaptation developed by males in power in given societies, not a hard-wired desire to have multiple wives. Believe it or not, our hunting and gathering ancestors lived in bands too small to have multiple wives, and polygyny only came about when economic and cultural development reached a point where women were considered inferior and having multiple wives meant an economic boon.
Sven DeMilo: Correct. It also doesn’t mean it isn’t.
Honestly, that retort is utterly meaningless. What you’re saying is basically, “Well, my biases and prejudices say this, and I’m too thick to grasp that sexism may just be a cultural construction, so I’m just going to keep indignantly disagreeing so that I can feel better.” Men and women have the same genes. Otherwise, how could they interbreed? “Inferiority” and “superiority” are hierachies established by people in power who do not want to lose their power. It is not natural. Men being on average stronger than women and women bearing children is biological, but those two things making women inferior is not.
I would strongly suggest you brush up on your archaeology, biological anthropology, and studies of cultural, physical, and societal evolution in general. One of the most irritating things about people who buy into evo psych is their utter misunderstanding of evolution. They forget one of the basic tenets that I believe is the most important: inheritance does not equal evolutionary significance, that is, just because it’s there doesn’t mean it evolved for any specific purpose.
I believe that Kyso’s use of “we naturally selected” is meant to mock evo psych’s MISUSE of the concept of natural selection
Darn, you mean I missed the irony AGAIN? So sorry.
sexual selection is a mechanism of natural selection used to explain the presence of traits within a given population that either have little to no evolutionary significance or seem random
Nah. It’s differential reproduction due to variation in mating success, as opposed to fecundity or survival. The concept was developed by Darwin to explain otherwise puzzling cases of sexual dimorphism (which often, as you put it, seem random or even detrimental, in terms of survival). Note that humans are sexually dimorphic. It’s absolutely relevant to the “construction of female inferiority” (whether “cultural” or not) because if males with a predisposition to such attitudes fathered more offspring than those without (mating success), and if the predisposition of such attitudes had a heritable genetic component, then those would become more common over successive generations. That’s how evolution works, or would work, in this speculative scenario. I do not know if that ever happened or not, but I am not so arrogant as to rule it out, especially with so many analogous cases in other animals.
polygyny is a marriage system that resulted from the cultural construction of female inferiority. It is a cultural adaptation developed by males in power in given societies, not a hard-wired desire to have multiple wives.
yeah, that would be “polygamy,” not “polygyny.” Polygyny is a term from behavioral ecology that refers to a mating system in which there is extreme variation among males in reproduction: some have lots and lots of offspring, others fewer or none. It has nothing to do with “wives”–which is a cultural construct.
Believe it or not, our hunting and gathering ancestors lived in bands too small to have multiple wives
Again, “multiple wives” is irrelevant. But I must admit that your detailed knowledge of the social and mating systems of our hunting and gathering ancestors is far greater than mine if you can make such an assertion with such confidence. Were these systems consistent for all 3 million years of hominid evolution? (As an aside, I find the attempt to reduce all of human cultural diversity to economics a lot sadder than trying to reduce it all to genetics. Which, I must point out, I am not.)
What you’re saying is basically, “Well, my biases and prejudices say this, and I’m too thick to grasp that sexism may just be a cultural construction, so I’m just going to keep indignantly disagreeing so that I can feel better.”
Uh…nnoooo, what I was saying was actually exactly what I typed. Jeez, project much?
I do, in fact, grasp that sexism may be just be a cultural construction. But, see, in science, we try not to start with biases and prejudices, and we don’t stop at “may be,” we go looking for evidence. If I may be permitted the indulgence of quoting myself (from above): “I too would prefer it if sexism lacked any genetic basis, I’m just not so sure that that’s true. It’s certainly difficult to find any support for the notion in human history, cultural anthropology, or (non-human) behavioral ecology. That said, I put few limits on human behavioral plasticity, and whatever genetic influences on behavior exist are clearly transcendable on individual and probably cultural levels.”
“Inferiority” and “superiority” are hierachies established by people in power who do not want to lose their power. It is not natural.
Well, what’s “natural” and what isn’t is kind of the point of the whole argument, no? It pains me to emphasize this elementary point but we are not talking here about the evolution of male superiority and female inferiority, but of the attitudes of men on the subject. Clearly, men are very often full of shit. Equally clearly, a lot of that shit is cultural. My only point: I am not sure that all of that shit is cultural. And I don’t see how you can be so sure of that either.
Men being on average stronger than women
Huh. Sexual dimorphism, you say? How might that have evolved, I wonder…
and women bearing children is biological, but those two things making women inferior is not.
i can only agree 100%. Not that it’s relevant to this discussion though.
One of the most irritating things about people who buy into evo psych is their utter misunderstanding of evolution.
You talking about me? I can only remark that that is rich indeed.
But I should know better than to argue with sociologists. You-all get so touchy!
Sven DeMilo: Nah. It’s differential reproduction due to variation in mating success, as opposed to fecundity or survival. The concept was developed by Darwin to explain otherwise puzzling cases of sexual dimorphism (which often, as you put it, seem random or even detrimental, in terms of survival). Note that humans are sexually dimorphic. It’s absolutely relevant to the “construction of female inferiority” (whether “cultural” or not) because if males with a predisposition to such attitudes fathered more offspring than those without (mating success), and if the predisposition of such attitudes had a heritable genetic component, then those would become more common over successive generations.
There is no such thing as a genetic predisposition to a belief. Utter nonsense. What you’re saying is that if males who tend to believe that females are inferior produce more offspring, then their offspring will pass on these predispositions GENETICALLY. That is impossible. I understand that the innateness of beliefs is an evopsych cornerstone, but beliefs can only be passed on through socialization and enculturation. Also, the explanation you give for sexual selection is really no different from mine. It certainly has nothing to do with fecundity or survival ability, only CULTURAL preferences and what traits are present in the population at that time.
Sven DeMilo: yeah, that would be “polygamy,” not “polygyny.” Polygyny is a term from behavioral ecology that refers to a mating system in which there is extreme variation among males in reproduction: some have lots and lots of offspring, others fewer or none.
Polygyny is also a term from cultural anthropology. It is a kind of marriage in which one human male is married to two or more human females. This system is advantageous to men who want to increase their social standing and wealth, and is based on the construction women’s inferiority and primary social value of being a baby incubator.
Sven DeMilo: Again, “multiple wives” is irrelevant. But I must admit that your detailed knowledge of the social and mating systems of our hunting and gathering ancestors is far greater than mine if you can make such an assertion with such confidence. Were these systems consistent for all 3 million years of hominid evolution? (As an aside, I find the attempt to reduce all of human cultural diversity to economics a lot sadder than trying to reduce it all to genetics. Which, I must point out, I am not.)
I can make that assertion with terrific confidence, because the archaeological record shows that hunting and gathering bands all over the world were generally composed of between 5 and 12 people. Usually a male and female of reproductive age, a few children, maybe a grandparent or an aunt or uncle. Additionally, there wasn’t the kind of property and wealth accumulation that would inspire a system like polygyny. Also, there have actually been about 6 million years of hominid evolution, not 3, and I’m talking about Homo sapiens sapiens, not every hominid species. In addition, I’m not reducing all of human cultural diversity to economics. What I AM doing is proposing that the quest for enough resources to sustain your population is integral to and at the basis of all societal evolution. The new economic systems come hand-in-hand with new cultural justifications for those systems, e.g. polygyny and women’s inferiority.
Sven DeMilo: Uh…nnoooo, what I was saying was actually exactly what I typed. Jeez, project much?
I’m not projecting, because I’m not too thick to grasp that sexism may just be a cultural construction, and I’m not indignantly disagreeing with anything.
Sven DeMilo: I do, in fact, grasp that sexism may be just be a cultural construction. But, see, in science, we try not to start with biases and prejudices, and we don’t stop at “may be,” we go looking for evidence. If I may be permitted the indulgence of quoting myself (from above): “I too would prefer it if sexism lacked any genetic basis, I’m just not so sure that that’s true. It’s certainly difficult to find any support for the notion in human history, cultural anthropology, or (non-human) behavioral ecology. That said, I put few limits on human behavioral plasticity, and whatever genetic influences on behavior exist are clearly transcendable on individual and probably cultural levels.”
I don’t know whose responses you’re reading, but I am using scientific arguments. I’m using my knowledge of human evolution, human ecology, human variation, societal evolution, cultural evolution, and women’s studies to make my arguments. I am using evidence, and if I have a bias, it’s that women are human. Also, I don’t know why you’re requoting yourself. That quote provides no justification for the absurd hypothesis that sexism has a genetic basis which, though you continue to claim the opposite, is exactly what your arguments are trying to prove.
Sven DeMilo: Well, what’s “natural” and what isn’t is kind of the point of the whole argument, no? It pains me to emphasize this elementary point but we are not talking here about the evolution of male superiority and female inferiority, but of the attitudes of men on the subject.
Yes, that is the point of the argument. And your point is that sexism may be innate. My point is that it is not innate. I am not talking about “the evolution of male superiority and female inferiority,” because there is no such thing. There IS a such thing as the evolution of cultural attitudes about male superiority and female inferiority, and that IS what I’m talking about. Men’s attitudes about sexism are directly related to these cultural constructions, because men’s attitudes help perpetuate them.
Sven DeMilo: Clearly, men are very often full of shit. Equally clearly, a lot of that shit is cultural. My only point: I am not sure that all of that shit is cultural. And I don’t see how you can be so sure of that either.
I’m sure the “full of shit” attitudes held by all humans are cultural, and I’m sure that those attitudes are infinitely malleable. All humans have the same brains, and the same ability to learn a great variety of behaviors. The fact that there is such a great variation in cultural beliefs but so little variation in the composition of human brains means that cultural behaviors must be learned. Also, when you say “a lot of that shit,” do you mean behaviors and attitudes? Because if you do, and your hypothesis is that some attitudes are innate, then wouldn’t it stand to assume that all beliefs and attitudes should be innate? Plus, if humans can unlearn these innate beliefs, then what makes them innate in the first place? Humans cannot learn or unlearn their blood types or their predispositions to disease, so how could cultural behaviors and beliefs be both learnable and unlearnable?
Sven DeMilo: Huh. Sexual dimorphism, you say? How might that have evolved, I wonder…
I don’t know exactly how it evolved, but I’d guess it has something to do with different reproductive roles. The problem is that these different roles are the biological basis that a lot of sexists use to promulgate beliefs about women’s inferiority.
Sven DeMilo: i can only agree 100%. Not that it’s relevant to this discussion though.
It IS relevant to this discussion, because the discussion is about whether or not sexism is biologically innate. Since men’s and women’s different reproductive roles and different secondary sex characteristics ARE biological, they are often misused as proof that women are naturally inferior and that sexism itself must therefore be natural.
Sven DeMilo: You talking about me? I can only remark that that is rich indeed.
Nope, that was in reference to the evo psych crowd in general, not you particularly.
Sven DeMilo: But I should know better than to argue with sociologists. You-all get so touchy!
Actually, I’m an archaeologist and a feminist, not a sociologist. And I only get touchy when people spew misinformation and falsehoods about my topics of choice.
uh huh.
Well, it must be wonderful to have everything all figured out like that. As long as it doesn’t bother you that most of your confident assertions are actually quite controversial among people more knowledgavble than both of us, rock on.
But remind me why you dislike being called a “blank-slater”?
Wow, Andrea. What A Post. Even the faux was rendered speechless and, yeah, sorry, I absolutely can’t stop myself here, “un-manned” by your brilliant rebuttal. Do you think the fact that I couldn’t stop myself means that I was hard-wired genetically to say that? Hey, maybe being a man is a learned behavior so that something somebody else says can remove from you, thereby destroying any idea that being a man has a ineradicable biological basis! You know, you can have lots of fun with this stuff once you let go of every modicum of logical thinking, fondness for physical facts and disinterested observational skills. I think I will give up on this engineer crap and become an evo-psych today!
Seriously though, that was a totally brilliant post.
Ha! I know I’ve won when I get “but really, neither of us knows what we’re talking about” and my opponent starts making up things I supposedly said. Sven, where did I claim to be a blank-slater?
Thanks Lisa KS! Though I don’t know why I devote so much time to these people. Maybe I hope that someday they’ll learn?
OH, please. It wasn’t a “brilliant rebuttal” unless you already agree with her, which just means you don’t understand the issues involved any better than she does. It just became clear that there’s no point in arguing about it. Plus the way she continually read crap into my (I think) clear statements that just isn’t there just makes me weary. Also the basic confusion between “is” and “ought” that pervades her rhetoric just seems too deep-rooted to bother trying to clarify.
As long as I’m here, though a couple of pissing-into-the-wind replies to specific statements, mainly for the benefit of lurkers:
There is no such thing as a genetic predisposition to a belief. Utter nonsense. What you’re saying is that if males who tend to believe that females are inferior produce more offspring, then their offspring will pass on these predispositions GENETICALLY. That is impossible.
*shrug* It’s not impossible, and your ridiculous certainty in asserting otherwise is precisely the reason I gave up (temporarily, evidently) in arguing about it.
I’m talking about Homo sapiens sapiens, not every hominid species
But see, this was my one and only original point: there is no reasonable justification for drawing a thin bright line between H.s. sapiens and the entire rest of the animal kingdom with regard to potential genetic influence on mating systems and behavior. Your insistence on doing so (just like your insistence on only using the term “polygyny” to refer to cultural constructs like marriage) just underscores the ideologically motivated blinders necessary for a rejection of evolutionary psychology as a reasonable framework for understanding aspects of human behavior. (You’re right about my misuse of the term “hominids,” though; I meant something more like “hominins.” But surely you knew that from context.)
the archaeological record shows that hunting and gathering bands all over the world were generally composed of between 5 and 12 people.
I’m a biologist and don’t know much archaeology, but I suspect that a) the archaeological record for hunter-gatherers is poor, b) even if it could give a good, generalizable idea of the size of bands it would be very difficult to extract the relationships of their members, and c) the size of bands is not a good proxy for the actual mating system, since mating must have involved movement from one band to another. Polygyny need not have been simultaneous, in any case, and there is a large and growing literature on extra-pair copoulation in supposedly monogamous birds (including some with ostensibly nonreproductive helpers that are likely analogs to archaic human bands) that is highly relevant. You just don’t know what you claim to know.
the absurd hypothesis that sexism has a genetic basis which, though you continue to claim the opposite, is exactly what your arguments are trying to prove.
Oh, I am not trying to “prove” that (a statement, by the way, that reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of science on your part). I merely hold the door open to the possibility, whereas you want it to be “impossible,” and think that the assertion makes it so. Nope.
All humans have the same brains
Do you really believe that? Do you really think we know enough about how brains develop and work that anybody could say anything like that? With regard to the issues at hand, don’t the obvious phenotypic differences between sexes suggest that brains might be able to differ too? You can’t just decide how you think things should be and declare that they are that way…that’s the reason I think your approach is, in fact, unscientific.
if…your hypothesis is that some attitudes are innate, then wouldn’t it stand to assume that all beliefs and attitudes should be innate?
Of course not. That’s just stupid.
Humans cannot learn or unlearn their blood types or their predispositions to disease, so how could cultural behaviors and beliefs be both learnable and unlearnable?
Give me a break. Blood types? Brain wiring is outrageously complex. It’s also highly plastic. I suspect that all of us, to live in modern societies, have to override a thousand “innate” responses every day. But then I’m not a blank-slater. And of course “learnable vs. unlearnable” is just as false a dichotomy as “nature vs. nurture.” Things are just more complex than that.
The problem is that these different [reproductive] roles are the biological basis that a lot of sexists use to promulgate beliefs about women’s inferiority.
I agree that that’s a big problem. I just don’t see that biological differences go away by willing them to be nonexistent. Again, morphology, physiology, and biochemistry clearly differ between men and women, but you want to exclude behavioral phenotypes from that possibility. It makes no sense to do so, especially given what we know about all kinds of other animals.
But of courese I am probably wasting my time. Actually, though, I just popped back in to bring to the attention to anybody that might still be reading this this article in the current Science, clearly suggesting polygyny and intrasexual selection (look it up, Andrea) in a fossil hominid.
Sven DeMilo: *shrug* It’s not impossible, and your ridiculous certainty in asserting otherwise is precisely the reason I gave up (temporarily, evidently) in arguing about it.
No, it really seriously is impossible. Beliefs are part of culture, and culture is not genetic.
Sven DeMilo: But see, this was my one and only original point: there is no reasonable justification for drawing a thin bright line between H.s. sapiens and the entire rest of the animal kingdom with regard to potential genetic influence on mating systems and behavior. Your insistence on doing so (just like your insistence on only using the term “polygyny” to refer to cultural constructs like marriage) just underscores the ideologically motivated blinders necessary for a rejection of evolutionary psychology as a reasonable framework for understanding aspects of human behavior.
There is a reasonable justification for that line between Homo sapiens sapiens and other species, because Homo sapiens sapiens is the only living species (that we know of) capable of complex thought and the creation of culture beyond simple tools and shelters (I hope that didn’t sound speciesist, as that’s not what I intended, and I apologize if I offended anyone.) I have to repeat for Sven’s benefit that I’m only talking about Homo sapien sapiens. I know that Homo habilus, Homo erectus, Homo ergaster, Homo heidelbergesis (I can never spell that right), Homo sapiens neandertalensis, etc. all had culture. I know that chimpanzees and gorillas have been observed to use tools and sign language. But their culture is learned as well. The ability to construct a certain shelter is just as learned as the ability to view certain people in certain ways. The culture of past and current species and past societies does have a monumental influence on our culture, but in the sense that we all have the mental capability to learn, understand, change, and reproduce culture, not that we have their specific cultural adaptations built into our DNA. Also, I never insisted that polygyny is only a human cultural construction. i said it was ALSO a human cultural construction. I grasp that it also describes one male of a given species mating with two or more females of that species. Plus, why do you accuse me of being ideologically motivated, as though that were a bad thing? I’m not blindly rejecting evo psych, I’m thoughtfully considering reasons to dispute it.
Sven DeMilo: I’m a biologist and don’t know much archaeology, but I suspect that a) the archaeological record for hunter-gatherers is poor, b) even if it could give a good, generalizable idea of the size of bands it would be very difficult to extract the relationships of their members, and c) the size of bands is not a good proxy for the actual mating system, since mating must have involved movement from one band to another. Polygyny need not have been simultaneous, in any case, and there is a large and growing literature on extra-pair copoulation in supposedly monogamous birds (including some with ostensibly nonreproductive helpers that are likely analogs to archaic human bands) that is highly relevant. You just don’t know what you claim to know.
The archaeological record for hunter gatherers is not poor, it’s just not as obvious or famous as the archaeological record for chiefdoms and states. You’re probably not going to know off hand the name of a 10,000 year old rock shelter in modern-day Mexico, but you may know the name of the Aztec capital a few hundred miles north. As for your b), it is actually quite easy to extract the relationships of members of a band, to varying degrees. Obviously, the best evidence is some sort of skeletal remains from a common burial site for several bands that can be broken down into age, gender, and approximate year of death. The frequency of hearth usage, the size of the fires, the types of plant and animal remains found in the midden, all indicate how many people there were and what the jobs of those people may have been. As for c), mating did involve movement from one band to another. But that doesn’t necessarily lead to multiple wives before more sedentism comes into play. It takes a specific culture with varying economic, political, and social factors to establish polygyny. Actually, it just occurred to me that you’re probably considering polygyny as only a mating system and not also a cultural system, when the question at hand is culture, and that’s where part of our misunderstanding stems from. And honestly, birds without culture being a likely analog to archaic human bands and their potential development of genetic cultural beliefs? What about a great variation in documented human societies being analogs to archaic human bands? Also, I do know what I claim to know. And I claim to know everything I’ve presented in this discussion.
Sven DeMilo: Oh, I am not trying to “prove” that (a statement, by the way, that reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of science on your part). I merely hold the door open to the possibility, whereas you want it to be “impossible,” and think that the assertion makes it so. Nope.
Again. Sexism is culture. Culture is learned. Genetics is not learned. Therefore, sexism is not part of genetics. There is no possibility.
Sven DeMilo: Do you really believe that? Do you really think we know enough about how brains develop and work that anybody could say anything like that? With regard to the issues at hand, don’t the obvious phenotypic differences between sexes suggest that brains might be able to differ too? You can’t just decide how you think things should be and declare that they are that way…that’s the reason I think your approach is, in fact, unscientific.
Of course I really believe that. It’s a cornerstone of my entire worldview, that all human beings are fundamentally the same. Also, for a biologist, your understanding of phenotypic variation is abysmal. Phenotypic differences reflect incredibly miniscule changes genetically. Humans wouldn’t be a species if they weren’t genetically all pretty much the same. And, I will repeat once again that I am not simply deciding how things should be and arguing them unscientifically. I’m explaining how I believe things are in a scientific fashion.
Sven DeMilo: Of course not. That’s just stupid.
Again, have to disagree. It’s not stupid to assume that if some cultural beliefs are innate, then they all must be. Otherwise, how would we know our cultural beliefs if they can’t be learned? Clearly, we’d have to be born knowing and supporting all of them, every belief possible in the history of the universe, which is just ridiculous.
Sven DeMilo: Give me a break. Blood types? Brain wiring is outrageously complex. It’s also highly plastic. I suspect that all of us, to live in modern societies, have to override a thousand “innate” responses every day. But then I’m not a blank-slater. And of course “learnable vs. unlearnable” is just as false a dichotomy as “nature vs. nurture.” Things are just more complex than that.
Brain wiring is certainly outrageously complex. But it is just an organ. And you aren’t even really responding to my point. My point was that blood types are genetic, and we can’t unlearn them. If cultural behaviors are genetic, then we also shouldn’t be able to unlearn them. But we can. That was my point, you didn’t answer to it. Also, We don’t have to override a thousand innate responses every day to live in a modern city, because part of our adaptation as a species is to be incredibly malleable culturally and technologically. What do you think people are doing, struggling day in and day out not to just give up and take a dump in the middle of the street? Modern society is part of our culture, and our brains are adapted to process and understand culture. They are not, and I think this is another point where you completely misunderstand me, they are not adapted to process and understand a SPECIFIC culture and a SPECIFIC set of cultural beliefs, but to process culture in general and manufactured adaptations to our environment. And, seriously, it would be so delightful if you would please stop insinuating/outright saying that I refer to myself as a blank-slater. I haven’t done that anywhere.
Sven DeMilo: I just don’t see that biological differences go away by willing them to be nonexistent. Again, morphology, physiology, and biochemistry clearly differ between men and women, but you want to exclude behavioral phenotypes from that possibility. It makes no sense to do so, especially given what we know about all kinds of other animals.
Okay, one more time. Specific behaviors are not genetic. There are not definable sets of behaviors in the way there are definable ranges of complex physical characteristics, hormones, and morphological characteristics. Behavior and culture are infinite. For example, there is a definable range of human skin colors, and a biological explanation for it. There is an indefinable range of religious beliefs, there is an indefinable range of book ideas, there is an indefinable range of words in a language, because human cultural creativity and behavior cannot be put in bounds. I just came up with another place where I think you completely misunderstand me. Some behaviors IN GENERAL is genetic. For example, getting enough food and water is a biological necessity. HOW you get that food and water is not set in a proverbial genetic stone. Similarly, humans of all societies have some form of religion. This means that humans have the ability to conceptualize religion, but not that religious belief is genetic. Otherwise, how do you explain people who convert to other religions or atheism?
Anyway, peace out.
I admire your passion, and you make a superficially good case. And I just don’t care enough to argue this point by point. So a couple of general observations and then I’ll be happy to “peace out.”
a. Your entire approach begs the question. You assume that all behavior is cultural, therefore you can only conclude that all behavior is cultural. My whole point is that that’s debatable.
b. Behavior can indeed be genetically determined, and I think you could learn a lot from any textbook of animal behavior. What’s more, it really isn’t difficult to produce genetically based behavioral differences between sexes; there are hormones, and there are hormone receptors, together they influence the developmental trajectory and function of neurons, and both differ between sexes. Again, see that textbook of animal behavior.
c. “Homo sapiens sapiens is the only living species (that we know of) capable of complex thought and the creation of culture beyond simple tools and shelters” is of course 100% correct, but that does not mean that cuture completely trumps instinct every time. The huge mass of cerbral cortex that makes thought and culture possible is just layered on top of the brain-parts we inherit from nonhuman, nonprimate, and indeed nonmammalian ancestors. As I have tried to make clear, it is my sincere hope and desire that thought and culture CAN trump instinct, but to state categorically that they obviate all other influences on behavior is simply unwarranted extrapolation at this point.
d. “It’s a cornerstone of my entire worldview, that all human beings are fundamentally the same.”
Of course the veracity of that cornerstone hangs entirely on what you mean by “fundamentally.” Individual humans do differ genetically and phenotypically; that’s empirical. Males and females differ genetically; that too is empirical. You wish to except brain structure and function from those observations, and I can’t see any good reason to do so. (Please note that I am making no claims about differences among racial, geographical, or any other groups.)
“Also, for a biologist, your understanding of phenotypic variation is abysmal. Phenotypic differences reflect incredibly miniscule changes genetically.”
Huh? You’re going to have to point out where I wrote or implied otherwise. “Miniscule” (define, please?) differences are nevertheless differences.
e. I repeat, I am not talking about specific, conscious, stateable-in-a-sentence beliefs. Your little rhetorical trick of “But beliefs are behavior” and then arguing about beliefs is therefore misguided. Also, “if some behaviors are genetic then they all must be” is an obvious logical fallacy of the squares & rectangles variety.
So I still think you are probably wrong.
But I apologize for insulting you.
Sven,
I hope you haven’t gone too “peace-out,” because I found the debate interesting and I wanted to interject a little something here:
“As I have tried to make clear, it is my sincere hope and desire that thought and culture CAN trump instinct, but to state categorically that they obviate all other influences on behavior is simply unwarranted extrapolation at this point.”
Thought and culture vs. instinct? In a “one trumps the other” reaction? That seems awfully limited and linear to me. Is it possible that both in generally in humanity, and/or in the individual human at any given time, that the interaction is much more dynamic and complex than that?