Charles
Altruism & Evolution? Charles Brown cbrown at michiganlegal.org Tue Nov 30 09:43:35 PST 2004
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I gotta spank Luke on this one: this is naive sociobiology. Not even Darwin argues that all traits in a species are inevitably the result of natural selection! Check out Gould's spandrel analogy (discussed at some length in The Structure of Evolutionary Theory). It is absolutely incorrect to assume that all behaviors observed in humans today must have occasionally contributed to reproductive success at some point in human history. (To be a little snarky, only someone who doesn't understand Darwin's concept of evolution would make Luke's claim above.)
Miles
^^^^^
CB: OK. However, Gould is still talking about genetically based behaviors, but just saying that some genotypes arise not through natural selection. I believe you want to go further than what you say above and say that much (most) human behavior is culturally based and not biologically based at all, don't you ?
Radical anti-essentialism is the idea that _no_ human behavior is biologically/genetically based. It is based on the kernel truth that "most" human behavior is not biologically, but culturally, based.
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Altruism & Evolution? Charles Brown cbrown at michiganlegal.org Tue Nov 30 14:23:25 PST 2004
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Miles:
But how do we "demonstrate" either of these points? Justin has made this point before: sure, we can create a just-so group selection story to explain how altruism persists, but that does not meet the threshold of scientific evidence in even "soft" sciences like psychology. For instance, if I want to study the effects of cognitive behavioral therapy on anxiety disorders, I can set up a rigorous experimental study to assess the claim that cognitive behavioral therapy reduces anxiety symptoms.
^^^^^^
CB: However, I believe it is true that Darwin did not demonstrate directly that any trait of any species came about through natural selection. He didn't prove that the tail of the giraffe evolved to swat flies. How could he from fossils ? He speculated that. Or he didn't have any direct proof on the selection process that resulted in the eye. He speculated. So inability to directly show that "altruism" came about through natural selection in humans is no different than the whole of Darwinism.
About the only thing directly proven might be modern viruses or bacteria evolving immunities to medicines. Or there is the study of different coloring on modern moths as camouflage as the colors of factories in England darkened from soot. Then Anthropologist Frank Livingstone demonstrated that heterzygosity for sickle cell anemia was selected for in humans in West Africa when malaria became epidemic due to standing bodies of water from newly introduced agricultural techniques. But these are all modern. Proof of ancient selection for traits is all "just so" stories and relatively soft.