The Garbage Gene

It’s not that Europeans don’t have the faith ‘gene’, it’s that they accept the result. ‘Faith’ after all includes common bias, and gullibility; it also includes the suspension of disbelief that we make when we read a novel or see a movie. Western Europeans are inoculated against religious faith by the weaker faith in the false realities of language and storytelling. We are not quite rational beings. We may be capable of behaving rationally, to some degree, but that’s not the same thing. ‘Continental’ philosophy is built around an ironic relation to the ‘fact’ of faith. We on the other hand have moralizing technocrats and religious fundamentalists, both of whom have unending faith in what they say. And England is in no way the exception: The established religion, the central mythology of England, remains social class.

I’m arguing with you more than Kristof of course.

and a much larger proportion of the population in other developed countries, appears to lack the necessary gene.

It’s striking how a huge chunk of the population of Ireland born between c.1940 and 1960 — who phenotypically expressed the God gene like you wouldn’t believe — somehow completely failed to pass it on to their children born between c.1970 and 1990.

It’s hard to beat David Brooks in simplemindedness, but I think this is the worst the Times has produced this year. He uses the god gene to explain republican victories over the past three election cycles. It truly could not get any stupider than that (though who knows, tomorrow Steven Pinker or Charles Murray might get a chance in the Times to try).

We are doomed.

I keep waiting for them to discover the gene that determines whether or not you believe the claims of evolutionary psychology.

I must lack it, as I keep finding in myself a predisposition to disagree with sweeping, poorly-defined claims like Kristof’s.

And EO Wilson’s writing–even if primitive and anti-philosophical in sections—triumphs over the theological and “theoretical”

you dont need french post.mod, you need a f-n stats. classs

I’ve given up Kristoff for Lent (and all other seasons of the year), but I miss the connection between (most) Republican religion and spirituality referenced above as being genetic, with the usual reference to dopamine. My ideas of spiritual guides hardly resemble Ralph Reed, Jerry Falwell, and the rest of that gang of salesmen/manipulators. Even in my wife’s rather appealing denomination (American Baptist) I’ve had the feeling watching ministers change since the 50’s that learned men of compassion and character were being replaced by insurance salesmen.

I do take a sort of pleasure when I see headlines about the God Gene, however.

What struck me was Kristof’s use of “secular left” and “religious right” as indivisible units. Even supposing the (essentially meaningless) notion of a gene for “spirituality” were correct, how does Kristof get from there to the ascendancy of the right? This column, together with the one by Michael Behe earlier this week . . . WTF?

“Kristof doesn’t quite get to the point of asserting that there exists a gene for voting Republican, but it follows logically from his argument”

There is. 55% of voters with the SRY gene voted for Bush in 2004, compared to 48% of voters lacking it. That’s better data than a lot of genes. Yes, I am mostly kidding, but I suspect a lot of the “genes for” work in a similar way. Including my favourite, Desmond Morris’ gene for the English breakfast.

You know, Evolutionary Psychology probably forms the basis of my worldview, and I can see that this was unbelievably badly considered crap.

It seems to me that there was one (exactly one) interesting thing in the article, though of course it was described too vaguely to know just how interesting.

One bit of evidence supporting a genetic basis for spirituality is that twins separated at birth tend to have similar levels of spirituality, despite their different upbringings. And identical twins, who have the same DNA, are about twice as likely to share similar levels of spirituality as fraternal twins.

If that’s true, it would seem to provide good evidence that there’s some substantial genetic influence on “faith”, which (1) would be interesting and (2) wouldn’t be disproved by the obvious fact that faith is even more strongly influenced by cultural factors.

But I’m suspicious about the absence of a definition of “similar”, and about that oh-so-convenient-sounding “about twice as likely”…

“…but no one cares much about genuine cultural universals.”

That’s the sort of grand overstatement for which the pop EP people are rightly criticized.

I find these debates incredibly tedious—not in the “I’m not interested” sense, but rather in the “I’m so disappointed, I feel the strong urge for a nap” sense—because almost everyone that thinks these matters are worth strenuously arguing over are those who are following some ideological program. They have something to prove. Or disprove, as the case may be.

I don’t trust common sense in these matters. I don’t doubt that there are behavioral traits that are commonly thought to be unquestionably genetic but are actually purely cutural. Nor do I doubt that there are behavioral traits that are commonly thought to be unquestionably cultural that are actually purely genetic. Why can’t we shut up and just do some decent science to find out which is which?

I posit the existence of a gene coding for a need to eroticise randomly chosen axioms of political belief…..based on observational data culled from the blogosphere. The null hypothesis is confirmed.

So Mao Tse-Tung may have had a point when he said that bourgeois human nature and proletarian human nature are two completely different things…

The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind postulates, with some neatness, that gods date from about 10,000 BC to about 3,000 BC, during which period we heard the voices of the gods in our right brains, telling us what to do, and after which prayer arrived, for instance. Jayes I think is the author, it’s worth a look.

What is a “level of spirituality” anyway? Did Kristof’s source have a meter to measure it? If the twins were brought up in similar cultures it might be easier to compare, but then again that would also dilute the power of the result.

I become suspicious when people speak of a concept of “spirituality” independent of any particular set of religious beliefs. I get the feeling that they’re trying to slip something past me.

Kristof ignores some rather relevant points made by Hamer. First, what exactly is he measuring? Kristof thinks it’s enough to call it “a propensity to faith,” but that broad definition hardly separates true believers from secularists. What Hamer has sought to measure is ‘a scale called ‘self-transcendence,’ developed by psychologist Robert Cloninger, which provides a numerical measure of people’s capacity to reach out beyond themselves — to see everything in the world as part of one great totality. Mohandas Gandhi and Albert Einstein would score highly; Genghis Khan would not.” (Hamer, writing in Religion News Service).

Hamer’s ‘self-transcendence’ scale is built on a subscale of three precepts: “One of them is called self-forgetfulness: a measure of people’s propensity to completely lose themselves in what they’re doing, whether it’s weeding the garden or meditating or whatever. People who are self-transcendent put less focus on themselves and more on everything outside of them. They see the connections to things. A psychic component is called ‘transpersonal identification,’ a feeling of a sense of unity with everything else in the universe. Then there’s a third scale called mysticism or spiritual acceptance which is more like, do you think mystical experiences have changed your life? Do you believe that science can’t explain everything? Do you believe that there might be ESP, for example? Believing that there is more going on than meets the eye.” (See interview with Laura Sheahen.)

The most hard-nosed atheist can “see everything in the world as part of one great totality,” certainly inasmuch as such a predilection can even be measured in the laboratory. Moreover, does the propensity to lose oneself in a task — weeding the garden, e.g. — really confer “faith” on the subject who is lost in the task? The real contradiction here, though, is the third pillar of Cloninger’s subscale. People who believe science can explain everything (at least theoretically) have a very strong faith indeed. I know I do. I — and probably most of the heathen atheists I know — would score very high on this so-called “propensity to faith.” At the end of the day, it’s kind of meaningless.

P.S. Mao dangling from the rear window is no more superstitious than a St. Xtopher medal hanging there. Less so, in fact — at least Mao existed.

Kristof and Brooks appear to be competing to carve out a previously unheard-of niche in the chattersphere: the thinking person’s anti-intellectual.

I hope that some of those with relevant scientific expertise who have commented above will also submit their objections and ripostes to Kristof’s employers.

Until he or his sources give us some non-nonsensical measure of ‘spirituality’ I will continue to be a non-believer in the existence of Mr. Kristof’s intellectual capabilities.

A measure of superstitiousness would be a much more promising subject of investigation, however people would probably object to calling religious observances superstitious.

Isn’t it easier to postulate some kind of genetically caused brain malfunction which makes the sufferer credulous?

There are ongoing academic debates about the nature of tickling. It is in a category of emotional and physiological anomalies that includes crying and startle responses. There are current battles going on between those who claim tickling is the precursor to humor and those who consider it a complex reflex with little direct relationship to enjoyment or pleasure. It may have developed to encourage people to protect vulnerable areas during fighting, practiced during rough-and-tumble play (all young predators practice fighting in play). It is not necessarily an expression of affection or mutual enjoyment but can also be hostile. For example, some people enjoy being tickled, but others hate it (about 50-50). There exists a kind of “tickle torture” where someone is held down and tickled against their will. One cannot tickle oneself.

I object to Pinker’s glossing over these controversies in order to build a case for his own evolutionary point of view. That isn’t any kind of science.

Part of the evidence for a “God gene” is that religiosity develops as a symptom in certain neurological disorders affecting the temporal lobes (e.g., temporal lobe epilepsy).

Julian Jaynes book was just as speculative as these current evolutionary psychologists, if not more so, and is incorrect in many ways, especially since it is now so old.

In my opinion, this cannot be an argument about whether genes determine a particular behavior. Obviously genes are the blueprint for the brain and the brain provides the substrate for all behavior. The arguments must be about specifics and evidence. These broad Pinker-type explanations are specious and only support ulterior motives to buttress cherished social beliefs. You can tell because he does not deal with any of the specifics and makes so many statements supported by no empirical evidence — just an appeal to common sense, an inherently unscientific way of knowing.

JQ:
“Dawkins defends the idea of a gene for tying shoelaces, for example”

Dawkins:
“You can easily translate “gene for religion” as “gene for developing the kind of brain that is predisposed to religion when exposed to a religious culture”. “Gene for skill tying shoelaces” will show itself as such only in a culture where there are shoelaces to be tied.

In another culture the same gene – which would really be responsible for a more general manual dexterity – might show itself as, say, a “gene for skills in making traditional fishing nets” or a “gene for making efficient rabbit snares”. I’ll come back to the more controversial idea of “a gene for sodomy” later.

First, there is a quite separate difficulty. Many people make a hidden, and quite wrong, assumption of a one-to-one mapping between single genes and single effects. We shall see in a moment that it is almost never really like that. Another equally wrong assumption is that genetic effects are inevitable and inescapable. Often, all they do is change statistical probabilities.

Cigarettes can give you cancer. So can genes. We’d expect insurance actuaries to be interested in both. We all know the cigarette effect isn’t inevitable: heavy smokers sometimes reach an advanced age before dying of something else. Smoking just increases the probability of dying of cancer. Genes are like cigarettes. They, too, change probabilities. They (usually) don’t determine your fate absolutely…

It is worth bearing this in mind next time you read of a newlydiscovered “gene for X”. It will almost certainly be a much less momentous discovery than it sounds and it correspondingly should be less alarming – and less controversial.”

While I am dubious about the existence of a god gene, personal observation suggests to me the possibility of a god chemical. I have always wanted, at times rather desperately, to believe in a god and/or a religion — I just can’t. As part of my spiritual seeking and investigation I have talked to a number of people about how their experience works, how/why they believe, and, especially, about conversion experiences. Almost invariably the latter involves a state which seems to be to be electro-chemically induced. Indeed, I seem often to see obvious triggers to alterered chemical states in these accounts. But the people involved invariably see the hand of god instead. Now, I have a chemically faulty brain. I take drugs to help regulate its serotonion and norepinephrine levels because it doesn’t do a good job of regulating those on its own. It’s a small step from there to suspecting that there’s very likely another chemical that causes or facilitates states many people perceive as religious experience of some variety. Brains are tremendously complex systems we really don’t understand very well, but those of us with malfunctioning brains can testify as to just how much of things traditionally called character or personality are, in fact, chemical in nature.

MKK

FWIW, there’s a weaker form of evolutionary psychology that avoids both the just-so stories and the stupid claims of the sort that Kristof makes. The “ecologically rational” view suggests that humans evolved to make good decisions quickly in uncertain environments, and so human cognition can be understood as a kind of statistical learning process with biases that are tuned to particular types of environments. So some kinds of prior assumptions are built into our decision-making processes, but particular beliefs are not. Moreover, to avoid circular reasoning, you actually have to look at the statistical structure of the environment. Unfortunately, no-one seems to be interested in writing editorials about this kind of work.

A lot of reasonable yammer here, all illusory mists of prejudice and pre-concieved notions of god, faith, spirituality, narrowly constrained by the dualistic argumentation of the post-Aristotelean arrogance of both western religion and atheist philosophy, locked in a petty fight of children afraid to admit the infinite extent of their ignorance.

Derrida is important, not just for his work in textual analysis, but his trans-rational taunting of the narrow, button down, objectivist, rationalist, robot mentality that demeans and diminishes the awesome wonder of the mind. He is correct that knowledge is a cultural artifact and that there is no external objective reality, for the simple reason there is no real externality or self-existing thought, there is only open, inter-active process. Some philosophers just want to have fun.

If I want science I go to the journals and look at the methodology, the data, the graphs, and the mathematical analysis. If there is any deductive speculation about the consequence of the given findings I do not conclude that is any kind of epistemelogical fact or worthy opinion, but speculation on how the process under examination can be further tested. Synthetic explications of scientific findings are marginally useful in apprising the innumerate of scientific knowledge, but extensive philosophical musings are of as much significance as the medieval counting of angels on pinheads. We used to call it Scientism.

If I want mysticism I go to the poets; Rumi, Donne, Shelley, Frost, Schiller, Rimbaud, Ginsburg, etc. People who can handle phatic evocative language, metaphor and mythological meaning without losing their cool; who find mystery and wonder exciting. So much more interesting than synthetic philosophers who want to reduce every damn thing to dry abstract dead mechanical premise. Loosen up, fellas. Closed systems are what you’re seeking, open systems are what we have.

If I want religion, I go to Buddhism; practical ontological advice free from the internal/external absolutism of dualistic theistic/athiestic belief and deadly abstraction.

If pressed I’d have to say the quart or so of gene plasm of all living things on the planet is collectively engaged in the evolving spiritual enterprise we call life, in intimate collaboration with the so called inanimate factors of mineral soil, air, water, and sunshine.

There is not likely to be a self-importance gene, as every ego can be crushed and humiliated, or even, even I say, compassionately removed from the psyche without organic damage, indeed leaving a feeling of relief and wholesomeness.

FWIW, there’s a weaker form of evolutionary psychology that avoids both the just-so stories and the stupid claims of the sort that Kristof makes. The “ecologically rational” view suggests that humans evolved to make good decisions quickly in uncertain environments, and so human cognition can be understood as a kind of statistical learning process with biases that are tuned to particular types of environments. So some kinds of prior assumptions are built into our decision-making processes, but particular beliefs are not. Moreover, to avoid circular reasoning, you actually have to look at the statistical structure of the environment. Unfortunately, no-one seems to be interested in writing editorials about this kind of work.

What is the response of those ridiculing the wretched Kristoff to g‘s point above, that twin studies suggest a strong genetic basis for religiousity?

More proof that social science is in big trouble. Somebody could probably unearth works from the late 19th century and put a modern scholars name on it and it would be seen as cutting edge work in ‘socio-genetics’.

Neil, some evolutionary psychology is decent science, but heaps & gobs of it isn’t — and that includes much of what Pinker says. I’m sure there are some knee-jerk politically-motivated rejections of some good science that is done by more responsible thinkers than he, but you’ve got no evidence that that’s what’s going on here.

rilkefan-
One obvious response is that religious institutions are attaching their belief systems to an existing genetic predisposition for something that religious faith matches well enough to work.
There are cogent theories around that humankind has been undergoing an evolutionary ontogeny-slowdown for some time. That we’re, as adults, a lot like young primates, not fully-haired, more playful, our learning circuits still wide-open. The idea that that infantilization – as evolutionary process as well as in the seemingly intentional downward manipulation of the “viewing public’s” median intellectual expectations – might produce in many individuals a hunger for a strong protective paternal authority figure who will take responsibility for all the bad things in the world, as well as providing the good – it doesn’t seem too farfetched does it?
What’s suspect is the insistence by so many that we’re all the same (when clearly we’re not), or that the median is immutable, that what is human now has always been what human is – and that anyone not sharing that “God gene’s” expression as religious “faith” is flawed, marginal, and therefore, when the time comes, suited to be left behind.

Not blasphemous, Neil. Stupid. Like Pinker when he says modern art is dissatisfying on genetic grounds.

what a laugh, EP folks indignant over a lack of evidence.

“Lots of things now considered scientific fact were once considered stupid.”- An historicist argument masquerading as an epistemic one. Care to give some examples? And wouldn’t the obverse obtain just as well?

HUH? More dopamine = more spirituality. Wait, I’m sorry, more dopamine = more openness to spirituality on a broad level.

Well, it is more complicated than that, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a biochemical or even genetic origin to it. There is a class of drugs called ‘dissociatives’ that can induce spiritual experiences; these drugs include PCP, ketamine (“special K”) and dextromethorphan (over the counter cough medicine, sometimes known as Robo, Dex, and Skittles when abused). All these drugs can cause a considerable release of dopamine, but they are far more complex than that–they mainly exert there dopaminergic effects through NMDA receptor blockade; though they also block dopamine reuptake at the PCP2 receptor. Ritalin (methylphenidate), the anti-ADD drug, also targets the PCP2 receptor. Additionally, there are internal dissociative chemicals (“angeldustin” or “endopsychosins”) that also exert the effects of dissociative drugs (including near-death experiences).

More info here:

http://www.erowid.org/chemicals/dxm/faq/dxm_neuropharm.shtml#toc.10.7

(endopsychosins)

http://www.erowid.org/chemicals/dxm/faq/dxm_neuropharm.shtml#toc.10

(Neuropharmacology of DXM; much of the info also applies to other dissociatives and endopsychosins)

On a side issue, Pinker’s musings on Art attract a fair amount of flak. I find them interesting but not necessarily convincing.

Ramachandran looks at this area from a slightly different point of view – The neurological basis of artistic universals – http://www.interdisciplines.org/artcog/papers/9/3/1

ajax: “What’s suspect is the insistence by so many”

Who are these “many”?

I’m disappointed in john quiggen‘s February 13, 2005 10:14 PM – seems too much like a failure to understand the point of twin studies or, worse, “let’s ignore data we don’t agree with”.

rilkefan-

Where’s the failure to understand?

Suppose we had a twins study that showed a strong genetic component in knowledge of French. In general, we know that the langauge one speaks is highly (in fact, entirely) dependent on environment. So we could make sense of these results only by asuming a very uniform environment — easy access to French classes, none to other forign languages — so that what we’re actually seeing is a genetic proclivity for learning lanaguages, which in this very specific context shows up as a higher probability of knowing French. Or we could conclude the twins study was flawed.

The study in question seems analogous.

Anthropologist Roger Brown catalogued a variety of kinds of universals, ranging from biological ones (e.g., all people have two legs) that are of no research interest because they are trivial, to cultural universalities that arise consistently across cultures because people with similar needs find similar solutions in similar contexts, to near universalities, to statistical universalities. As Brown explains, the broader you define a phenomenon, the more cultures it can encompass, and the greater universality, because greater similarity will be possible. If you define religion permissively and inclusively and do not specify which type of universality you are considering, then it is easy to call religion universal. But what if we define religion narrowly as, perhaps, lutheranism, and insist upon 100% representation in all cultures as the criterion for universality? Some people call science a religion using this trick.

When Pinker refers to tickling as a universality, it is a near-universality, since not everyone is ticklish within a culture, but ticklish interaction is found within MOST cultures worldwide. It is not necessarily biological on that basis but could represent a need for social bonding through play that is solved in the same way in all cultures, taking advantage of a biological mechanism that serves some other purpose. Pinker assumes the explanation consistent with his hypothesis, he does not examine the possible alternatives. That’s why he is not being a scientist but is instead making a propagandistic case through use of selective evidence and ignoring opposing views. I believe this is called “card stacking.”

It gets worse if you start talking about art or religion. I do not know enough about this argument to know whether they are defining in or excluding charismatic religious experience. If they are including it, that would exclude many of the world’s religions, which explicitly teach against such manifestations of religiosity. If they exclude such experience then they rule out the religious experience of many non-Western cultures. How does this work in Pinker’s/Kristol’s argument? Or are they focusing only on theological beliefs and so-called faith (something that plays a small role in religions that are taken literally in cultures where people live without a secular division)?

r-fan-
“…who…many?…”
Anyone who talks about universal generic human traits. Anyone who talks about human qualities that are constant through time. Anyone who talks about the “human spirit” as though it were some immutable thing that gets its features adjusted by evolutionary processes but never “really” changes. Anyone who talks about human evolution solely in the past tense, as something that happened to produce “us” but is no longer happening, no longer producing an other, different “us”.
That’s the who-dat for the first part of what was a complex sentence.
The second part would be referring to those who try to assimilate proof of genetic-triggering into their pre-existing superstitions, so that would include everyone from GWBush to the Intelligent Design’ers to who knows but there’s a bunch of ’em.
My reply was, in case it got away from you, to your original question “What is the response of those … to g’s point above, that twin studies suggest a strong genetic basis for religiousity?”
As I said then, it may well be that the genetic basis possibly revealed in the twin studies cited is for something religiosity, through the agency of religious institutions, opportunistically attaches itself to, not for religion per se.
In addition we could consider whether or not the steady removal of non-believers from the gene “pool” has, over time, selected for whatever gene it is that can cause people to mindlessly follow charismatic leaders and/or take comfort in logically inane explanations of existence that promise a reward to them for passive docility and blind obedience here, in the next world. Though that’s a tangent.
As I also said, a steady process of infantilization might just account for the willing acceptance of an unseen paternal authority figure by so “many”. But if quibbling over terms is more to your liking than addressing those points, have at it again.

What influence would knowledge of a genetic predisposition for religiousness (if this turns out to be true) have on the matter of dealing with conservative religious assaults on liberal values?

Such knowledge would be of no use to conservative Christians since they would no doubt take umbrage at the suggestion that their belief in God has something to do with genes.

I don’t see why there being a genetic reason for believing in God makes it a good or necessary thing in the modern age. Human beings also have a genetic predisposition towards eating lots of salt and fat. Important and evolutionary necessary when these things were rare, now a positive liability, as obesity and heart-disease rates show. We have used our massive brains to change our environment far faster than our genes can cope with, so if anything all this shows is that credulous belief in God is as good for you as a Big Mac with large fries.

perezoso:

There is a large gap between a “theological or transcendent view of mind” and genetic determinism. This is one of those cases where the “law of the excluded middle” just ain’t so.

Re NK it’s the sheer *windiness* of it that gets me. I’d expect to see this in a 3rd-tier columnist but what’s the NYT for? No, don’t answer that. Easterbrook, Brooks, NK … I really start miss Safire. Wrong he may have been most of the time but he was smart, interesting, and had enough self-respect and respect for the reader not to pass off this sort of warmed-over crap as a column.

Even E.O. Wilson, for Chrissakes, wouldn’t waste your time like this. And at least he knows his damn ants.

Tried posting this once (about 15 minutes ago), but it didn’t show up. Trying again.

My problem with the “genetic” explanation of everything is the same as my problem with the “change in tastes” explanation of everything in econmics. In the absence of an observable gene-to-effect pathway, the genetic explanation explains everything, which means it can’t ever be shown to be wrong. Of course, that’s an economist talking about genetics, so you’re getting what you pay for.

kieran, any response to Pinker’s rebuttal of Fodor cited in that thread?

And really the post strikes me as yes buttery. You’d have to have leaned more on the yes side to make your February 14, 2005 05:21 AM claim.

“The only reason EP silliness gets more airplay here than the postmodernist variety”

How do you know this?

“there is more raw material to hand”

What’s the ratio and associated uncertainty?

I’m with Mary Kay (or MKK). If our genes code for anything that promotes a mystical experience, it’s likely as not a chronic neurotransmitter imbalance.

The technology required for making bread being essentially the same as that for making beer, and the near simulaneity of these accomplishments and the emergence of civilization and organized religion, suggest that differences in the ability to metabolize alcohol might incline some towards mysticism and others otherwise.

But are the god-mad saints the drunks or the sober?

“Evolutionary psychology has a very sound basis in science. This debate only shows how much sections of the Left have just as much of a problem with evolution as some on the Christian Right.”

Except evolution in _biology_ is in a completely different realm than “evolutionary psychology”. In biology, you can determine which traits evolved, in what species, in what time. With psychology, what with it being a social science and not a physical science, you cannot. You cannot arbitrarily decide a particular psychological trait is the result of genetics, with culture, society, personal experiences, playing no relevant part whatsoever. Because you cannot verify that, as you can never find a human being who hasn’t been exposed to social, cultural and personal experiences in their lives.

The only way to verify even the wackiest assumptions of evolutionary psychology would be to take a newborn baby, put them in a completely isolated environment, with no human contact whatsoever, for life. Then check if he or she starts believing in god, or playing with trucks instead of dolls, or voting Republican. Except, they wouldn’t be able to do any of that, and you wouldn’t be able to record their thoughts anyway, because they wouldn’t have even learnt to speak because no one taught them. In fact, they probably wouldn’t be able to survive without human interaction in the first place. Which perhaps says something about the importance of society and culture.

Maybe genetics is a more complex thing than simple determinism, when it comes to personality, emotions, thoughts. Shifting one theory from one scientific domain to an un-scientific one is not “rooted in science” – it is only a magician’s trick.

I’m not familiar with the man’s biography but as far as I can tell he’s a journalist, not an academic. So isn’t a lot of this invective missing the point somewhat? I mean EP has plenty of its own failings without ascribing the failings of a rubbish (and quite possibly light-hearted/fluffy) journalistic exposition to it.

Whenever I see a discussion like this I want to know:

a. How many of those posting have an undergraduate degree in a discipline relevant to evolutionary biology;
b. What proportion of these are broadly pro or anti JQ’s general thesis.

Chris,

Short answer:
a. Kinda
b. Kinda

Long answer:
a. Studied evolutionary biology and animal behaviour as part of a wider undergraduate degree, extensive postgraduate experience of biology and psychology
b. See previous post, but essentially I agree with the sentiment if not the specific arguments.

And this just in (in yesterday’s LA Times):

Love, Lust and Homo Sapiens

By Caryl Rivers and Rosalind Barnett, Rosalind C. Barnett is a senior scientist at Brandeis University and Caryl Rivers is a professor of journalism at Boston University. Their book, “Same Difference: How Gender Myths Are Hurting Our Rela

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-op-mating13feb13,0,2637899.story?coll=la-news-comment-opinions

How exciting, we get to declare our expertise! Well, as an undergrad I did psychology, took both advanced evo psych options, taught the concepts behind The Selfish Gene to my seminar class, and generally headbanged for the cause. I’m now a PhD student, and read more widely around than the fun ‘one-size-fits-all’ stuff I was toting back then. It’s interesting, because when you break it down, it seems to me it is NOT the scientists who are the big EP advocates.

In the study of brain and behaviour, everyone employs evolutionary constraints – it’s embedded in the way we approach problems (that seems implausible, as it would be very costly to instantiate). But with the exemption of those who actively pursue it, people don’t think very much of Evolutionary Psychology, as coined, at all. A lot of them are pretty embarrassed by it. See, EP as not looking at the biological underpinnings of our brain, and the forces that may have shaped it. EP is a fairly big leap to applying physicalist-type arguments to the social realm.

You will find no sensible scientist grumbling about research into the evolutionary basis for colour vision, but a fair few will deride work on the evolutionary basis for standing in queues, or a phenomena as complex, wide-ranging and ephemeral as religion. I think it should be fairly self-evident as to why. And the key point is that EP is all the stuff about queues and religion, sulking and modern art, and NOT the other stuff. I’m not playing a definition game here: EP is a fairly specific research program, and no-one researching visual area V4, the role of the hippocampus in spatial memory or failures motor coordination is not part of this.

Meanwhile, many of the people enthusiastic about evolutionary psychology seem without a scientific brief, and it seems to me its popularity is partly due to the fact it allows you to play at science without really knowing very much science at all. Just arm yourself with a casual observation, conduct a little unrigourous thought experiment for why it might be so, and conclude that dang, it must be so for those very reasons.

Of course, this has all been said before, in previous CT threads – http://tinyurl.com/6y93a – and again I will suggest
the Heyes paper and Panksepp papers for those who only get their goods from one market

Heyes – (2003, in psychological review, 110(4), 713-727 – I seem to be hawking this around the internet in a campaign of putting EP in its place….)
Abstract and possible full text here (you will need to have a password for full text) http://tinyurl.com/6dl28

Or equally a Panksepp paper, which is a bit older so some of the crit may be obsolete. But its worth checking out.
http://tinyurl.com/382pm

The bracketed comment above

(that seems implausible, as it would be very costly to instantiate)

should read

(e.g. “that seems implausible, as it would be very costly to instantiate”)

and

the role of the hippocampus in spatial memory or failures motor coordination is not part of this.

should read

the role of the hippocampus in spatial memory or failures of motor coordination is part of this.

Damn. I guess I never got the proofread gene.

Criticizing the people involved in ev.psych. for making inferences (beyond any observable gene-to- effect pathway still to be discovered) is not tenable; true ev. psych. is not biochemistry, but since Pavlov forward psych. people have claimed that the study of human behavior deals with the same world–physical and chemical– that science deals with.

it seems one must assume that human behavior is determined by genetic factors (and shaped/affected by conditioning/environment /adapatation etc.)….or join david chalmers and the rest of the nut cases in the quantum theology department– or perhaps throw the i ching? tarot? call David Chalmers now for a free tarot reading!

“Of course evolutionary psychology has such an appeal for certain people precisely because it can be used to do away with any attempt to analyze social phenomena for what they are.”

Absurd. No one involved in EP denies the influence of the environment.

“Meanwhile, many of the people enthusiastic about evolutionary psychology seem without a scientific brief, and it seems to me its popularity is partly due to the fact it allows you to play at science without really knowing very much science at all.”

Many people enthusiastic about evolution have no science background. Evolution must therefore be wrong.

“You cannot arbitrarily decide a particular psychological trait is the result of genetics, with culture, society, personal experiences, playing no relevant part whatsoever.”

That is true and no EP is so arbitrary and, again, no one is denying the role of the environment.

Still no substantial challenge to the hypothesis that religiousness has a genetic component. Lots of allegations about the motives of those who are keen on EP but no challenge to the science involved except John Q’s query about the methodology of twin studies.

John Q’s first line of argument against the hypothesis is that if it were true then atheists would be extinct. That is not a valid argument in the same way that the non-extinction of homosexuals contradicts a genetic explanation for homosexuality is not valid.

Ah. Thanks. I may have misparsed the original statement.

John, I take that point back, there would have to be something as you suggest. But just because Kristof doesn’t outline something is hardly a major criticism. It’s a newspaper artilce not a scientific paper.

Further to my other post (which may or may not show up)…forgot about the twin studies – more similar levels of religiosity among MZ versus DZ twins may not indicate a genetic basis of religiosity per se – rather it could be due to the closer relationship of MZs and their, therefore being more likely to do things together (like go to church, which is I think the measure of religiosity).

“Still no substantial challenge to the hypothesis that religiousness has a genetic component.”

I know a few people working in personality genetics (bored psychiatric geneticists by and large) and they tell me that it is very very very very difficult to establish gene associations with personality traits, the sample sizes required for these sorts of effects are currently unfeasible because the effects are so small, and replication is nigh impossible. So I am, unsurprisingly, skeptical about data that the author won’t publish, because I can guess why.

Interesting. Have any of you checked out the prescription information on Medicare? In case you need any no prescription needed medication, I recently got mine through this site http://www.noprescriptioneeded.com/ and I have already received my no prescription needed meds. Or you can find more information on no prescription needed pharmacies here. Again, awesome point.

Mary Kay, I was responding to both your post and the topic in general, not attributing to you everything I was responding to. No offence was meant by getting your name “wrong” by reading only the first and not the second name. Sorry!

Neil – “No one invloved in EP denies the influence of the environment.”

No, but, again, when someone makes the following statement (see this post):

bq. Boys are more likely to be learning disabled or retarded but also more likely to reach the top percentiles in assessments of mathematical ability, even though boys and girls are similar in the bulk of the bell curve. The pattern is readily explained by evolutionary biology. Since a male can have more offspring than a female–but also has a greater chance of being childless (the victims of other males who impregnate the available females)–natural selection favors a slightly more conservative and reliable baby-building process for females and a slightly more ambitious and error-prone process for males.

and that someone happens to be Pinker, not Kristof, how is it a “misrepresentation” of Pinker to observe he is a) positing differences in academic results equal differences in academic skills and b) “explaining” that (without actually explaining it) simply by making a jump into another field entirely, ie. biology, reproduction, with the accompaniment of colourful vignettes from prehistoric times to boot?

How is that reasoning not a way of dismissing the complexities of phenomena in which social, cultural factors do play a relevant part?

Forgive me for expressing my thoughts in such simplistic ways that do not stand up to the kind of exact scrutiny required by the most strenous defenders of the most bombastic claims by the most prominent evolutionary psychology theorists. I am taking for granted the distinction someone pointed out, which I didn’t think would need pointing out, between that kind of claim as Pinker’s above, and the mere, simple idea that there may be a biological, genetic component to certain _behaviours_. Talk about straw men. You don’t need to be a Pinker fan to accept that. Especially when it comes to specific kinds of behaviour, such as behavioural disorders, for instance, that can be observed a bit more precisely than complex historical, social, cultural phenomena. For those phenomena, be they academic performance or religious faith, simply positing, or affirming (“can be easily explained”…) a genetic predisposition via a jump from sociology into biology is not the same thing as genuinely researching the possible hereditary factors of, say, alcoholism, addiction, depression, or OCD.

peter – And I’m not even sure x’s stuff isn’t preferable, despite its ignorance, to those like John Quiggin who will happily concede that all sides agree human behaviour, the mind etc. are a mixture of genetics and environment
Everyone is “happily conceding” that, it’s not some kind of controversial revolutionary concept. What’s being denied is that making an unsupported leap from revealed preferences in complex social phenomena to biological differences is enough of a genuinely scientific approach. “Evidence” is dismissed when it’s not real evidence but simply assertions. Again, see the above-linked post for another obvious example of what’s being debated.

x, you managed to omit the “One doesn’t have to accept the evolutionary explanation to appreciate how greater male variability could explain, in part, why more men end up with extreme levels of achievement.”
without which your argument about Pinker might actually be reasonable.