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evolutionary psychology

Subtexts in Evolutionary Psychology
A key issue in the debate over evolutionary psychology is the subtext of the debate. I am reading Stephen Gould's The Mismeasure of Man currently, and one of his points is that the science is inextricably tied into social policy. Rather than trying to pretend objectivity, it is better to make the subtext and social consequences clear.

Evolutionary Psychology Subtext

The subtext of much evolutionary psychology is that humans are inherently sexist, racist, and violent, and that our culture tries to reduce these tendencies but it cannot wipe them out entirely. Champions of this subtext tend to argue that humans are closer to common chimpanzees than bonobos. This is often accompanied by a warning that we should not go too far in trying to eradicate human nature, because there will be bad side-effects.

By identifying the source of problems as natural genetic tendencies, this subtext tends to be more conservative. It spins traditional culture in a positive light, by claiming how it is moderating unwanted tendencies.

An example of this would be Naomi Wolf's column "How the male brain can't see the laundry pile up," endorsed by wanton_heat_jet. Wolf claims, "The feminist critique, for example, has totally remade elementary-level education, where female decision-makers prevail: the construction of male hierarchies in the schoolyard is often redirected for fear of "bullying", with boys and girls alike expected to "share" and "process" their emotions. But many educators have begun to argue that such intervention in what may be a hard-wired aspect of "boy-ness" can lead to boys' academic underperformance relative to girls and to more frequent diagnoses of behavioural problems."

I was immediately set off by the use of scare quotes. Wolf cites no sources for her characterization of feminists, but links to two sources for her own view: anthropologist Helen Fisher, and neurobiology consultant Michael Gurian. In short, her message is that the modern breakdown of the traditional gender roles is going against nature, and that this has problematic consequences.

Contrasting Subtext

An opposing subtext sometimes found is that humanity is by nature relatively cooperative and egalitarian. The spin is that agriculture and global population pressures of the past 5000 years have tended to create more hierarchical societies than prior hunter-gatherer societies. Populations were selected for success in war, with more rigidly defined class, race, and gender roles. Such a spin is more critical of modern culture, pointing out its mix of advantages and disadvantages.

The difference between these views is often in spin rather than fact. For example, the comparison of humans versus both common chimpanzees and bonobos is relatively well known -- but the same list of similarities and differences can be re-phrased by either side to create a different emphasis. Neither way is wrong per se, nor would a neutral way be any more correct.

My View

Obviously, both of these views as expressed are simplistic. The history of culture will have influences in varying directions, and may not follow a simple progression. Rather than a single continuous trend, even in the broad view there may be shifts back and forth. I do suspect that violence levels during the past 5000 years among agricultural societies, have tended to be greater than among hunter-gatherers previously. However, I do not have proof of this.

My introduction to this was Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel, which presents a theoretical framework as well as a number of historical examples. He suggests that increased population density and other changes in agricultural life changed relations. However, hunter-gatherers still have some violence -- and most importantly, have levels of violence that vary just as agricultural societies vary in their violence. There are references to the scientific debate in a 2006 paper from University of New Mexico on the high violent death rates among the Hiwi of Venezuala, which contrast with low rates in previously measured hunter-gatherer societies (the Ache, Agta, Hadza, and Ju/'hoansi).

Regardless of the past trends of culture, though, possible future trends are not determined by them. While some environmental influences may be cyclical, there are clearly many that are not. Life in the 21st century -- both in our general environment and culture -- is not a simple function. For many centuries, our environment and culture have been vastly different from our ancestors 10,000 years ago -- even though as a species we are little changed genetically. There is no inherent reason to think that making our culture either closer to or further from our ancient past will be better. There are behaviors that we have in common with other animals. We have patterns of eating, mating, and socializing. Our culture sometimes clashes with behavior seen in other animals -- such as arranged marriage. Other times, culture reinforces patterns seen in many animals -- such as the common condemnation of incest.

Eating is a good example. Eating is critical to survival, and is a behavior we share with other animals. It is almost certainly genetically coded for, in both our instincts and our anatomy. Yet despite this, our modern eating habits vary widely by culture and are quite different from our hunter-gatherer ancestors. There have been some calls to stick to a paleolithic diet, but those are usually dismissed as fads even by sociobiologists. However, many do think that the paleolithic gender roles are important.

Another example would be incest. Evolutionary psychologists, following the first subtext, tend to say that murder and war are the outcomes of human instincts that favor violence, particular by men. Yet conversely, they suggest that humans have instincts against incest. Incest among humans is almost always condemned by culture, with a few exceptions. However, incest also happens -- often a father or uncle abusing a daughter. The rate is difficult to pin down, but in the modern United States it seems to be more common than murder (cf. the National Center for Victims of Crime Incest page). The facts can be spun in different ways, but the spin tends to say more about motivations than about the facts.

Steven Pinker and the History of Violence

Another example of imposed narrative is in a TED talk endorsed by Tweet, "Steven Pinker on the myth of violence." He attempts to spin the history of culture as reducing violence. Shortly into the talk, he presents a graph, saying:

"But the archeologist Lawrence Keeley, looking at casualty rates among contemporary hunter-gatherers -- which is our best source of evidence about this way of life -- has shown a rather different conclusion. Here is a graph that he put together showing the percentage of male deaths due to warfare in a number of foraging or hunting and gathering societies. The red bars correspond to the likelihood that a man will die at the hands of another man, as opposed to passing away of natural causes, in a variety of foraging societies in the New Guinea highlands and the Amazon rainforest. ... If the death rate in tribal warfare had prevailed during the 20th century, there would have been 2 billion deaths rather than 100 million."

I have not read Keeley's book, but I think can see the names on this graph. It looks like: Jivaro, Yanomamo (?), Mae Enga, Dugum Dani, Huli, Yanomamo (Nanowei), and Gebusi.

The first problem is that he begins with an obvious lie. Most of those societies are not hunter-gatherers, as a few searches will show. For example, the Mae Enga raise pigs and sweet potatoes along with taro, bananas, sugarcane, and others. He further implicitly claims that the seven societies listed are representative of "tribal warfare" in general. Starting off like this makes me highly doubtful of the rest of his statistics, and in particular suspicious of his choice of those seven societies. I noted before about the 2006 UNM paper on the high violent death rates among the Hiwi of Venezuala, which notes a wide range between violent death rates in different hunter-gatherers.

Steven Taylor reviewed the book by Keeley that Pinker cites, saying "And, while the ethnography he draws on is varied, you don’t have to be that attentive to notice the frequency with which a certain notoriously violent tribal society in New Guinea are referred to."

Methodology

I don't think that it is necessary or important to pretend to be purely objective. However, one should be truthful and clear about one's sources.

In particular, genetic influence is difficult to pin down. Supporters of evolutionary psychology often suggest that if a behavior is common in many cultures, and provides an advantage, that therefore it must be programmed into our genes. However, that is clearly a weak argument. Behaviors that are advantageous will be selected for among cultures as well -- sometimes referred to as the "meme pool." I had earlier used the example of making stone cutting tools. This behavior is older than hunting, continued for over a million years, and occurred across the world in a variety of cultures. Yet given the evidence of modern humans, it seems that the behavior is not genetically programmed. i.e. We do not find it natural or simple to make a stone axe.

One counter-argument is that genetics do not determine our behavior, but only produce predispositions that may be expressed to varying degrees based on the environment. wanton_heat_jet says a version of this in his post "genetic soft-coding." However, saying that genes code potential for behavior that is expressed based on environment is functionally the same as behaviors that are caused by the environment. Stephen Gould expressed his feeling on this in the conclusion of The Mismeasure of Man, saying:

I believe that human sociobiologists have made a fundamental mistake in categories. They are seeking the genetic basis of human behavior at the wrong level. They are searching among the specific products of generated rules -- Joe's homosexuality, Martha's fear of strangers -- while the rules themselves are the genetic deep structures of human behavior. For example, E.O. Wilson (1978) writes: "Are human being innately aggressive? This is a favorite question of college seminars and cocktail party conversations, and one that raises emotions in political ideologues of all stripes. The answer to it is yes." As evidence, Wilson cites the prevalence of warfare in history and then discounts any current disinclination to fight: "The most peaceable tribes of today were often the ravagers of yesteryear and will probably again produce soldiers and murderers in the future." But if some people are peaceable now, then aggression itself cannot be coded in our genes, only the potential for it. If innate only means possible, or even likely in certain environments, then everything we do is innate and the word has no meaning.