[lbo-talk] Bonobo you don't

[James Heartfield]

Miles throws a big hissy fit about a phrase 'survival of the fittest' to 
avoid the central point. If there is no natural selection taking place then 
there can be no natural evolution. Socialised human beings do not choose 
their mates according to ruddy good health, but acording to social class, 
dress sense etc. nor are they directly exposed to natural pressures on 
population, but protect themselves through human industry. From here on in 
the only evolution taking place among humans will be evolution of social 
organisation.

"the nature/nurture dichotomy is tired, simplistic, and misleading"

There is no dichotomy, what you mean is that the people who were having the 
conversation were tired of it, simplistic and misled themselves.

Miles' following formulation says nothing about either nature or society, 
only describing the fact that the two parties have achieved a truce on the 
ground of ignorance:

'All notable human characteristics are produced by the  complex interaction 
of genetic instructions expressed in varied  environments.  Is it impossible 
to assess the discrete impact of  "nature" or "nurture" on most important 
human characteristics.'

Miles:

"Nine-tenths of us could  disappear if a virulent incurable disease rapidly 
infected the world's  population.  Would that be evidence that evolution is 
irrelevant?"

Yes, indeed it would. The conditions for the spread - or arrest - of the 
disease would no longer be a process of natural selection, but one of social 
preparedness. The high mortality among AIDS sufferers in southern Africa, 
for example, or the spread of Malaria there, while Italy and Florida is free 
of it, is not due to evolution, but social evolution.

'Similarly, demonstrating that sociocultural factors can extend life or the 
number of people on the planet is not evidence that evolution  doesn't 
matter anymore; it just means that evolution can't explain everything.'

Unless natural selection is taking place, evolution cannot explain anything 
of what is happening to the human species, only what happened up to the 
point when we diverted its effects.