Orson Scott Card to overthrow US gov't over gay marriage

[Broomstick]

I think genetic reductionists forget that a trait can be either neutral in effect, or so minimally negative that they aren't selected against, or negative to one party but beneficial to another. As one hypothetical example, homosexuality triggered by crowding might impair the reproductive success of the one affected, but could improve the success of near relatives by leaving more resources for their offspring, defending those relatives, and so forth. I don't know if Marina's problem is genetic or due to development gone astray, but if it were genetic it may simply be rare enough that it doesn't impact the species in any significant way and thus not be eliminated.

The genetic reductionists also ignore species where some or many forgo reproduction. Aside from the social insects, where the majority of the species does not reproduce, there is the wolf pack, where generally only the alpha male and female reproduce but the entire pack contributes at least some to the upbringing of the pups. While reproduction is essential to a species, it is NOT essential that everyone have direct offspring, and "non-breeders" can have a significant, even crucial, contribution to the success of those who do reproduce. How much more true in human society, where it is not enough to physically reproduce, children must also be educated and acculturated.

[Turin]

The genetic reductionists also ignore species where some or many forgo reproduction.

They don't, actually. Remember that fitness is determined primarily at the level of the gene. So if the gene benefits, it's fine if it hurts the individual. In your example of the wolf pack, the genes of the alpha benefit most, but the genes that control the social behavior also benefit by being transmitted in the alpha's offspring (kin selection).

That being said, genetic "reductionism" doesn't work in explaining human behavior in particular because we have another "selfish replicator," the meme. We imitate (i.e., we have culture), and while culture is constrained -- held on a leash, if you will -- by genes, it's still it's own evolutionary force.

[Kanastrous]

Even if it's a response to population pressures, it would imply that a genetic tendency toward bisexuality is extremely common in the male populace.

Always been my belief...

[Alyrium Denryle]

*sigh*

Is Alyrium ass-raping Occam's Razor again with yet another long-winded explanation of how every single social mating behaviour in human culture must have an evolutionary advantage? Sort of like the way he insists that homosexuals are an evolutionary necessity, even though they have never amounted to more than tiny percentage of the population and are therefore easily dismissed as a maladaptive trait?

Let me ask you a question.

As a biologist (and it can no longer be said that I am not one) specifically one that works with animal behavior, if I see the same behavior in humans that is played out in hundreds of other species, what exactly am I to conclude? That infidelity exists as the result of sexually antagonistic selection, that is what. To conclude otherwise would be to rape occams razor.

If a behavior was maladaptive (IE. provided negative benefit to the individual, anyone related to the individual, or to the group in which the individual lives, and this can be either with genes or memes, doesnt matter), the ability to act in that way would be selected out of the population, unless the behavior was inextricably linked to another more adaptive behavior. This is an important point too, humans are extremely adaptive, specifically because we have the ability to react optimally to a wide variety of environmental and social conditions.

Homosexuality must be a by-product of something else. Homosexuals are a small proportion of the population, but they are not small enough to be the product of a mutation-selection balance. The selective forces culling them are too large and the mutation rate too slow.

Is some mating behavior neutral? Absolutely! Other stuff? Not so much. We can talk about some of these if you want. Hell, if you want to posit a specific behavior as being neutral and thus in an evolutionary sense arbitrary, I would love to have that discussion with you.

Aly who seem determined to attribute everything from using cotton for pants to lava lamps and Disco due to your genes trying to reproduce themselves.

The cotton is not genetically controlled. But the want to stay warm, and the ability to make tools is. The skills necessary to make cotton pants however are culturally transmitted As for the lava lamps... at most one could consider them nest decorations, but that is probably a bit of a stretch(understatement). So, probably also neutral and culturally transmitted.

In the entire admitedly long winded post above, I believe I specifically addressed culture as an evolutionary force when I was referring to the way that social rules are spread. Do you all think I am an idiot or something? I just dont view genetic and cultural evolution as being fundamentally different forces. Culture can transmit horizontally (from one organism to another in the same generation) which allows it to act in ways that genetic evolution cannot. For example, unless relatedness is very high, or there is a different sex determination system (like ants) you will not see the sort of seemingly pure altruistic behavior that you see in humans, unless there is cultural evolution at work. Which is why you only see those sorts of behaviors in social insects highly related groups like inbred naked mole rats, and highly social culture-able higher mammals like dolphins and the great apes, as well as maybe elephants. (as much as I like David Sloan Wilson personally he is a really nice guy, I think he is overgenerous with the amount of altruism he thinks can evolve genetically. Culturally is a different story, but I digress)

When I was referring to ethics (and enforcement systems) as a group-level adaptation, I was referring to them in that context. As cultural adaptations that allow us to (within some limits) skirt around some of the limits of genetic evolution in our responses to ecological constraints, and internal forces within the group. They interact with genetic evolution, and when it comes to who is mating with who there are certainly fitness consequences, and those consequences are well-documented in the literature. Sometimes culture has to mediate mate choice for the good of group-functionality, at the expense of individual fitness.

Let me ask another question. Why do we have ethics at all? Why does the question "what should we do?" have any validity? Is it arbitrary? Do we follow these ethical rules, and feel such strong emotions about ethical issues "just because"? Or, did we evolve a sense of empathy that allowed us to feel strong emotions regarding other human beings, that our powerful brains used as a scaffold upon which to build culturally transmitted codes of conduct that are adaptive in the physical and social environment? That makes sense to me. (after the codes themselves are subject to natural selection both for their spreadability, and in-group adaptiveness of course)

There are, necessarily going to be interactions between these evolutionary forces (at the memetic, cultural level. Not all memes are parasitic) and genetic evolution.

One of my main complaints with a strict genetic view of homosexuality is that it really doesn't explain societies like those where homosexual contact was normal and accepted and practiced on a wide scale. Even if it's a response to population pressures, it would imply that a genetic tendency toward bisexuality is extremely common in the male populace.

Male bisexuality is extremely common. Most men are not 0s on the kinsey scale, they are 1s. Primarily heterosexual but not above a greater or lesser degree of facultative bisexuality. You just have to get them in the right environment before they express it. Bisexuality is and always has been the swiss army knife of human evolution. It is useful for a lot of different things, from alliance building (this is seen in a lot of animals actually. Male-male sexual pair bonding that facilitates their cooperation in the search for mates, you see this for example in some species of ducks and geese) dominance assertion and hierarchy formation (this is what you saw in rome) sexual tutoring (greece) and as a density dependent response to male-biased sex ratios present in tribal communities. The specific phenotype that is expressed depends on a combination of genetics (which codes for a range of possible phenotypes via a probable quantitative trait locus and epistatic interactions) prenatal conditions (the fraternal birth order effect which is a male-density dependent control) and the environment (which determines the behavior of an individual who is "genetically capable" of sexual attraction to either sex)

Homosexuality (and strict heterosexuality) probably exist on the tail ends of a skewed distribution (in favor of what is basically a 1 on the kinsey scale), as individuals who have gene combinations that reduce the ability to respond to individuals of one sex or the other. Primary bisexuals often play a rather interesting evolutionary game, they start sexual activity young and have more partners, are better at hiding indiscretions, etc, but operate at an increased risk of disease and homosexual offspring, and, this is pure speculation but worth investigation, homophobia may be a cultural response to this.

For hell's sake, heritability of homosexuality is only ~50%. It is genetically impossible for it to have a strict genetic cause. There have to be environmental interactions in there, we have narrowed down a few, but the rest are unknown

He clings to a religious-esque conception of science. Its not enough for evolutionary biology to make accurate, testable hypotheses within the realm of its competency and verifiability

Well lucky for me, the study of behavior is well within the realm of evolutionary biology's area of competency. The fact that I am a philosophical naturalist, and think that human behavior fully caused (IE. not the result of the interposition of the self in mediating biological urges, but rather the self is built from our biology as is subordinate/intergrated within it) is a philosophical position that I am happy to debate you on.

To put it in a narrative: When you decide not to cheat on your girlfriend, it is not a case of All That Is IP saying "No! Bad biology! Get in your cage!" It is a case of IPs biological makeup: culturally and genetically determined mate choice parameters, risk calculation (disease risk, risk of being caught, risk of sanctions manifesting as guilt, etc), benefit calculation and other factors interacting in your subconscious and manifesting as All That Is IP deciding not to cheat in your conscious mind.

I don't know if Marina's problem is genetic or due to development gone astray, but if it were genetic it may simply be rare enough that it doesn't impact the species in any significant way and thus not be eliminated.

Development is controlled by your genes, and uterine environment. There was either a genetic issue (a rare gene interaction that reduced sensitivity in her brain to androgens for example) or a uterine environment issue such as a maternal immune response that feminized a brain that genetically should have been male (or both of these). In the later case, the ability of her brain to be feminized is passively allowed by her genes (starts out female, has to actively be made male. The femaleness is genetic, an immune response would have IIRC attacked androgens and androgen receptors)

Aside from the social insects, where the majority of the species does not reproduce, there is the wolf pack, where generally only the alpha male and female reproduce but the entire pack contributes at least some to the upbringing of the pups.

They are IIRC all related. And even then the lack of breeding of non-dominant individuals has to be enforced by dominance reassertion, and challenges.

Also: Animals do not reproduce for the good of the species. They reproduce for the good of their own genes. In organisms that are social that forgoe reproduction, the lack of reproduction is either facilitated by very high relatedness between individuals, or forced by the group. Usually both. Even in ant colonies there has to be social policing to keep workers from laying drone eggs.

or negative to one party but beneficial to another. As one hypothetical example

Gee, I have been talking all about these, and how it creates conflict in social groups... conflicts that lead to hypocrisy in humans. And nor have I dismissed neutral traits.

[lazerus]

Let me ask you a question.

As a biologist (and it can no longer be said that I am not one) specifically one that works with animal behavior, if I see the same behavior in humans that is played out in hundreds of other species, what exactly am I to conclude? That infidelity exists as the result of sexually antagonistic selection, that is what. To conclude otherwise would be to rape occams razor.

If a behavior was maladaptive (IE. provided negative benefit to the individual, anyone related to the individual, or to the group in which the individual lives, and this can be either with genes or memes, doesnt matter), the ability to act in that way would be selected out of the population, unless the behavior was inextricably linked to another more adaptive behavior. This is an important point too, humans are extremely adaptive, specifically because we have the ability to react optimally to a wide variety of environmental and social conditions.

(Emphasis Mine). So therefore, all birth defects are really adventagous traits in some subtle, darwinian way? Isn't it just as possible that homosexuality (while not a 'defect' per'se) is simply a result of the way the brain forms during the fetus's development and that -- due to the adaptability you mentioned -- the evolutionary pressures against it are *not* strong enough to force alterations of a highly evolutionarily desireable system? Your argument seems to be saying "It must be adventagous! Unless (This) is the reason." But you don't prove that (This) isn't the case.

I'd almost say your making an Appeal to Ignorance here, with the end of your argument boiling down too: "But what else could it be?" in order to avoid having to present any proof that your argument is correct.

[Alyrium Denryle]

. So therefore, all birth defects are really adventagous traits in some subtle, darwinian way?

Depends on the birth defect. I was specifying behavior, but malformations (like trisonomy 21) are literally chemical errors. Others, like sickle cell, are byproducts of adaptive traits. Yet others are chemically induced by toxins. Behavior is a tad different.

Now mental disorders are fun, because most of the time the ones we see dont actually interfere with the ability of the individual to reproduce (like schizophrenia, as it manifests after people throughout history have usually had kids) or are caused by systems that are normally adaptive, but are subjected to conditions outside of what they evolved to handle (I imagine PTSD comes into this category) Evolution is not perfect. It jury rigs, and sometimes this creates defects. I wont dispute that.

Isn't it just as possible that homosexuality (while not a 'defect' per'se) is simply a result of the way the brain forms during the fetus's development and that -- due to the adaptability you mentioned -- the evolutionary pressures against it are *not* strong enough to force alterations of a highly evolutionarily desireable system?

If I am reading you right... you are agreeing with me. As I went through in that very post, in detail, how homosexuality is potentially a maladaptive byproduct of an otherwise adaptive system (theoretical. Easy in principle to test, hard practically due to ethical issues and funding). because the mechanisms are the same, the two are linked in a way that evolution cannot easily separate.

As for the appeal to ignorance... I assume you mean how ethics formed? How about the recent work, sited on this board numerous times on the evolution of empathy? How at an early age even babies are capable of it and will offer assistance to others?(I am unable to find the link presently)

Paper on the evolution of empathy

Our predominant ethical system, used on this very board, is a form of utilitarianism that directly derived from anticipating suffering. Other ethical systems seek the same aim. The basic moral precept of most of our various societies is grounded on empathy. The Golden Rule.

Now, I cant tell what goes on inside your head, makes things difficult to test. But when I make moral calculations, my gut reaction is built upon those empathetic feelings. If you have an alternative that makes more sense than an interaction between biologically evolved empathy, and cultural evolution responding to ecological constraints, I am all ears. I would love to think about alternatives

[lazerus]

If I am reading you right... you are agreeing with me. As I went through in that very post, in detail, how homosexuality is potentially a maladaptive byproduct of an otherwise adaptive system (theoretical. Easy in principle to test, hard practically due to ethical issues and funding). because the mechanisms are the same, the two are linked in a way that evolution cannot easily separate.

If this is the point you were trying to make, I do agree with you. I read your post as making the opposite point. Objection withdrawn.

[Darth Wong]

Let me ask you a question.

As a biologist (and it can no longer be said that I am not one) specifically one that works with animal behavior, if I see the same behavior in humans that is played out in hundreds of other species, what exactly am I to conclude? That infidelity exists as the result of sexually antagonistic selection, that is what. To conclude otherwise would be to rape occams razor.

Nonsense. It's impossible for you to have seen infidelity in other species, because infidelity is meaningless without some kind of promise to break in the first place, and animals don't get married or make promises. Infidelity, as opposed to promiscuity, is a misdeed that is entirely invented and defined by human culture. In order to commit it, you must first promise not to do it. The difference between those who commit and those who don't is not determined by simply looking at the fact that males have an instinctive desire to mate as much as possible, to say nothing of your bizarre and unsupported claim that ethics is entirely derived from evolutionary fitness as well.

[Akhlut]

Homosexuality must be a by-product of something else. Homosexuals are a small proportion of the population, but they are not small enough to be the product of a mutation-selection balance. The selective forces culling them are too large and the mutation rate too slow.

Probably hormone mimics affecting development of the brain, switching a few 'levers' for sexual attraction by changing brain structure itself to that of the opposite gender.

(as much as I like David Sloan Wilson personally he is a really nice guy, I think he is overgenerous with the amount of altruism he thinks can evolve genetically. Culturally is a different story, but I digress)

Tangent: You ever read Steven Pinker's book How the Mind Works? He describes how altruism could evolve in any social species, though it would require an evolutionary arms race to create anti-cheating strategies (i.e. finding cheaters, evolving altruistic traits difficult to fake, such as genuine smiles versus fake smiles, etc.).

Homosexuality (and strict heterosexuality) probably exist on the tail ends of a skewed distribution (in favor of what is basically a 1 on the kinsey scale), as individuals who have gene combinations that reduce the ability to respond to individuals of one sex or the other. Primary bisexuals often play a rather interesting evolutionary game, they start sexual activity young and have more partners, are better at hiding indiscretions, etc, but operate at an increased risk of disease and homosexual offspring, and, this is pure speculation but worth investigation, homophobia may be a cultural response to this.

Is this just humans, or is this also seen in other primates or other social animals? I had a generalized biology education and didn't get much into sexual studies.

For hell's sake, heritability of homosexuality is only ~50%.

Where'd you get that figure, out of curiosity?

To put it in a narrative: When you decide not to cheat on your girlfriend, it is not a case of All That Is IP saying "No! Bad biology! Get in your cage!" It is a case of IPs biological makeup: culturally and genetically determined mate choice parameters, risk calculation (disease risk, risk of being caught, risk of sanctions manifesting as guilt, etc), benefit calculation and other factors interacting in your subconscious and manifesting as All That Is IP deciding not to cheat in your conscious mind.

Altruism might also factor heavily in the choice to not engage in infidelity, and that would also have good evolutionary sense. Altruism with a trusted mate would improve the ability of the two mates to raise children successfully (why would a parent raise another's child if they knew it wasn't their own?), as they would both want to invest fairly heavily in the child. And, as our friends over at the Straight Dope show, the rate of actual cuckoldry is probably around 4%, with significant variation depending on cultural factors. This would make it more likely for stable environments to encourage altruism in partners (if your mate is a good provider, then your children should be able to provide for themselves and their own children in this environment), while unstable environments would encourage more infidelity just to raise the number of children and thus hope for the best (for men), or get the best genes for an unstable environment and a good provider, if the two aren't the same person (for women). Although, in an unstable environment, men are likely to encourage their own infidelity while heavily punishing a woman's, up to and including beating and killing an unfaithful woman.

Development is controlled by your genes, and uterine environment. There was either a genetic issue (a rare gene interaction that reduced sensitivity in her brain to androgens for example) or a uterine environment issue such as a maternal immune response that feminized a brain that genetically should have been male (or both of these). In the later case, the ability of her brain to be feminized is passively allowed by her genes (starts out female, has to actively be made male. The femaleness is genetic, an immune response would have IIRC attacked androgens and androgen receptors)

You're forgetting the large amounts of environmental interactions the mother has that are passed on or concentrated in the uterus by the placenta. Bisphenyl-A, for instance, is an estrogen mimic that easily passes through the placenta to the fetus and can feminize brains (and pretty much everything else) with extreme ease. Hell, it mimics estrogens better than estrogens; given the large amount of solvents, plasticizers, and other unusual organic compounds floating in the environment now that are introduced by humans, I'm surprised there aren't more developmental problems in the world due to hormonal mimics.

[Akhlut]

Now mental disorders are fun, because most of the time the ones we see dont actually interfere with the ability of the individual to reproduce (like schizophrenia, as it manifests after people throughout history have usually had kids)...

Considering schizophrenia is heritable and manifests after the onset of puberty, one can easily posit it as a hidden, selfish gene that tries to propagate itself, and does so using clever tricks (such as not always expressing itself and not becoming active until after reproduction). After all, genes don't care what they code for, only that they get passed along. Even if schizophrenia causes considerable harm to an individual and others around it (including family who might not have the genes), the gene merely 'cares' to propagate. Like a virus or other disease, it can go into hiding and become less virulent (for schizophrenia, less reality-dissociating) so as to propagate more effectively.

This is merely conjecture, of course, but interesting to think about.

[Illuminatus Primus]

Oh and you're a BS in Biology. So fucking what? Does that mean that something like 3/4ths of MDs can legitimately be called chemists and biologist in addition to doctors or physicians? A scientist is fully matured within his field when he is published. There's a reason you're in grad school, and its certainly not for kicks because all the potential job positions out there already consider you a "scientist."

[Illuminatus Primus]

I suppose everyone with a BS/BA in economics, everyone with a BA in history, a BA in anthro, a BA in psych, all those people are economists, historians, anthropologists, and pscyhologists, right?

[Imperial Overlord]

Schizophrenia is tricky in that it should be much less common based on natural selection (about 1% of the human race is schizophrenic) because it is extremely debilitating and that it often strikes before the victim can reproduce (like my brother, for example). Studies have shown that close relatives of schizophrenics frequently display high levels of intelligence and competency, leading some scientists to believe that schizophrenia is linked to some genes related to high intelligence. This would explain why it is relatively common as the beneficial genes would be selected for, with a few unfortunate bastards getting the full load and developing schizophrenia.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

I suppose everyone with a BS/BA in economics, everyone with a BA in history, a BA in anthro, a BA in psych, all those people are economists, historians, anthropologists, and pscyhologists, right?

Well, it's possible to become a licensed engineer with just a BS, but for the most part you're right, most fields these days require more education than that.

[Darth Wong]

I suppose everyone with a BS/BA in economics, everyone with a BA in history, a BA in anthro, a BA in psych, all those people are economists, historians, anthropologists, and pscyhologists, right?

Well, it's possible to become a licensed engineer with just a BS, but for the most part you're right, most fields these days require more education than that.

No it isn't. You need an apprenticeship period, which lasts as long as a typical postgrad education period.

[Illuminatus Primus]

I suppose everyone with a BS/BA in economics, everyone with a BA in history, a BA in anthro, a BA in psych, all those people are economists, historians, anthropologists, and pscyhologists, right?

Well, it's possible to become a licensed engineer with just a BS, but for the most part you're right, most fields these days require more education than that.

Yeah but engineering, like accounting and other things, has its own self-contained system. If Alyrium wanted a prayer of being a mature member of his profession already, he should have selected something like that, instead of preaching about his "scientist's" credentials. I mean AV is pretty obnoxious and he doesn't say "well as a scientist, I think..." Ditto for Mayabird, which as you've said, also has a BS in biology.

In any case, its a red herring because analogies and shared terminology between real science and guesswork doesn't lend the former's rigor to the latter. Has Alyrium ever done real studies comparing human sexual behaviors to those of the animals which he's drawing casual, off-the-cuff, on-his-own-authority parallels with? Of course not. And it is the heavy lifting done on the former which gives descriptions of their behavior from biological perspectives rigor. Furthermore, human beings are different than other animals in significant ways. And lastly, Alyrium's using a simplistic caricature of ethics and morality so he doesn't have to do that heavy lifting and can rely on his stereotype of science as an existential, quasi-religious philosophical crutch.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Let me ask you a question.

As a biologist (and it can no longer be said that I am not one) specifically one that works with animal behavior, if I see the same behavior in humans that is played out in hundreds of other species, what exactly am I to conclude? That infidelity exists as the result of sexually antagonistic selection, that is what. To conclude otherwise would be to rape occams razor.

Nonsense. It's impossible for you to have seen infidelity in other species, because infidelity is meaningless without some kind of promise to break in the first place, and animals don't get married or make promises. Infidelity, as opposed to promiscuity, is a misdeed that is entirely invented and defined by human culture. In order to commit it, you must first promise not to do it. The difference between those who commit and those who don't is not determined by simply looking at the fact that males have an instinctive desire to mate as much as possible, to say nothing of your bizarre and unsupported claim that ethics is entirely derived from evolutionary fitness as well.

Ok. let's change the term from one that does not have a loaded meaning. Extra-pair copulation. There. The fundamental behavior does not change. Individuals have a primary mate who's offspring they invest in highly. In the case of males they walk a tightrope of mate-guarding to prevent their female from mating with other males (thus tricking them into raising offspring that are not theirs, which is bad for one's fitness), and their own extra-pair copulations.(females cheat for different evolutionary reasons, and hide their extra-pair copulations differently) They face a trade off. This trade off is the same in humans and warblers, it makes no difference. The only difference is the perception of the behavior, and how complex the interplay is, and those evolved as a response the the behavior, and grows more complex with the complexity of the brains involved.

For more on these trade offs, I might be able to scan in pages from my old animal behavior textbook, it is kinda hard to cite my coursework, and these principles are assumed in the behavioral biology literature because they have been established for so long. If I can find my scanner/printer cable (I just moved) I will scan in the relevant pages. If not, I will type up the necessary textbook citation for this stuff tomorrow, and you can look it up in your local university library.

The consequences of cheating for an individual are good, they increase their fitness if they do it right and time it correctly. But bad for the social function of the group if they do it poorly (single parents, bastard children, crime as a result of poor offspring provisioning, etc) This is where culture kicks in.

(most)Birds, dont have culture. We do. But culture is not arbitrary. It develops as the result of selective forces on the social group in question(after the intelligence necessary is evolved of course). It is a tool. To exploit a new food source Macaques dont wait around for genetic mutations to give them the ability to exploit it. They literally set to work on the problem, and when one figures it out, he/she teaches the others. (CItation on this specific example is from a lecture by one Juergen Liebig, I would have to go back through my lecture notes and find the paper citation)

Humans dont live in social groups because we enjoy it. We live in social groups because we have to. Because group living was a solution to ecological factors. But, like pretty much everything in evolution, there is a trade-off involved, and a good amount of jury-rigging. We evolved a sense of empathy as part of our social intelligence package (other apes possess this too) but evolution did not get rid of the selfish impulses that cause individuals to want to maximize their own fitness at the expense of others.

So, in the broad sense, there will always be cheaters, and those cheaters will out-breed non-cheaters in a group unless there are counter-mechanisms. Cheater detection, punishment, etc. You see this in apes too. Fishing monkeys (or are they macaques? Damn old world primates) find food and dont share, they get the shit kicked out of them. These mechanisms exist to depress the fitness of cheaters so that it becomes maladaptive to cheat. Culture is what humans use to do this, it is how non-cheaters respond to the existence of cheaters (as well as other potential threats)

It also responds to internal forces in another way.

In cases of human infidelity, we stigmatize cheaters so it is more difficult for them to find mates in the future, we force resource costs on them if they should get caught and loose their mate. You can look at other things we sanction. Murder, rape, thievery. All the same The primary effect of our cultural mechanisms are to reduce the cheater's fitness to the best of our ability. The punishments are even commensurate with the group-level cost of the crime (with some power-issues tossed into the mix)

Are there sanctions on neutral traits? Sure, I cant remember many off the top of my head, but

You can think of it like this. Culture serves three purposes. It allows a social group to rapidly and efficiently respond (IE within one generation or so) to external selective pressures. (For example, and this is from David SLoan Wilson's book Evolution for Everyone, when the british were conquering africa they noticed IIRC that in two otherwise very similar tribes on similar land competed, one's mating customs allowed them to out-compete the other by producing individuals for their war effort faster, and the other altered its cultural behavior in order to compete, but were)

It deals with internal pressures, like detection and punishment of cheaters.

And it itself serves as an environment that places selective pressures on individuals. If you think the selective pressures are the same for humans now as they were 3000 years ago, you are kidding yourself.

It is a means by which our brains help us cope with selective pressures that our genetics cannot. If you can explain to me how this is bizarre, or posit another reason why cultures develop the way they do, I am all ears. But this sort of stuff is par for the course in any conference where the behavioral ecology of humans is discussed.

Also bear in mind: I am not trying to excuse any behavior. Only explain it, at a level above the ethical system. It is one thing to say "X is wrong because it causes Y amount of suffering/indignity etc" but it is another to ask "why do we care about suffering?" I can understand why someone would find this objectionable. It is just a causal chain issue. I see it going like this...

Action<---Calculated Moral choice<---empathy+culture+emotion<--Evolution and Environment(there is a loop where culture feeds back to environment)

You guys are talking about the reasons why ethics exist, and why people make decisions at the level of empathy emotion and culture. I am talking about why those forces exist. I am up link in the chain. No one sits around (except for behavioral ecologists) and talks about fitness, or thinks about it in their daily lives "Hmm... how will this action affect my fitness" That does not happen (unless you are me, but I am odd, and my answer is usually Zero, because all of my fitness has to be indirect through my siblings unless I visit a sperm bank). The actual decisions are made through more proximate cognitive processes, but those processes (I think at least, and I dont see an alternative) are the end result of evolutionary forces.

Considering schizophrenia is heritable and manifests after the onset of puberty, one can easily posit it as a hidden, selfish gene that tries to propagate itself, and does so using clever tricks (such as not always expressing itself and not becoming active until after reproduction). After all, genes don't care what they code for, only that they get passed along. Even if schizophrenia causes considerable harm to an individual and others around it (including family who might not have the genes), the gene merely 'cares' to propagate. Like a virus or other disease, it can go into hiding and become less virulent (for schizophrenia, less reality-dissociating) so as to propagate more effectively.

Oh that is definitely true. Most schizophrenics dont need treatment because their disassociation is so mild. They hear the odd child laugh, or bell sound that is not there. It does not cause them any distress they just learn to tune it out. But even the ones that have full blown paranoid delusions do not manifest them until their late teens or early 20s, an age when, throughout all but the most recent human history, they would have already reproduced. Hell, even after they did they may have been considered prophets (hehe... the thought of Moses having been a schizophrenic or temporal lobe epileptic amuses me) and it may have increased their fitness.

Tangent: You ever read Steven Pinker's book How the Mind Works? He describes how altruism could evolve in any social species, though it would require an evolutionary arms race to create anti-cheating strategies (i.e. finding cheaters, evolving altruistic traits difficult to fake, such as genuine smiles versus fake smiles, etc.).

I have not... though now that you mention it... Amazon.com here I come...

Is this just humans, or is this also seen in other primates or other social animals? I had a generalized biology education and didn't get much into sexual studies.

I know that sort of facultative bisexuality is common in higher primates and some birds, as well as dolphins of various species. I am not sure how common it is elsewhere.

Where'd you get that figure, out of curiosity?

Consensus based on twin studies. let me get you the citation. This one is a large review...

Rahman Q, WIlson G. Born Gay? The Psychobiology of Human Sexual Orientation. Personality and Individual Differences. Vol 34 (2003) pp 1337-1382

Altruism might also factor heavily in the choice to not engage in infidelity, and that would also have good evolutionary sense. Altruism with a trusted mate would improve the ability of the two mates to raise children successfully (why would a parent raise another's child if they knew it wasn't their own?), as they would both want to invest fairly heavily in the child. And, as our friends over at the Straight Dope show, the rate of actual cuckoldry is probably around 4%, with significant variation depending on cultural factors. This would make it more likely for stable environments to encourage altruism in partners (if your mate is a good provider, then your children should be able to provide for themselves and their own children in this environment), while unstable environments would encourage more infidelity just to raise the number of children and thus hope for the best (for men), or get the best genes for an unstable environment and a good provider, if the two aren't the same person (for women). Although, in an unstable environment, men are likely to encourage their own infidelity while heavily punishing a woman's, up to and including beating and killing an unfaithful woman.

And this is of course exactly what we see. Though, from what I have read, population wide cuckholdry is 10%, though when broken down leads to a distribution of near zero in more stable environments, and up to 40% in unstable environments.

The later point is seen in the middle east where male multiple mating (and female punishment) reaches an extreme, with polygyny for the males, and ritualistic female genital mutilation and honor killing to prevent/punish female cheaters.

In my analysis above I was restricting myself to western more stable cultures for ease and so that I would not be even more verbose. I dont want to write a book on a messageboard...

You're forgetting the large amounts of environmental interactions the mother has that are passed on or concentrated in the uterus by the placenta. Bisphenyl-A, for instance, is an estrogen mimic that easily passes through the placenta to the fetus and can feminize brains (and pretty much everything else) with extreme ease. Hell, it mimics estrogens better than estrogens; given the large amount of solvents, plasticizers, and other unusual organic compounds floating in the environment now that are introduced by humans, I'm surprised there aren't more developmental problems in the world due to hormonal mimics.

I nested stuff like that in with uterine environment, but you are right, I should have mentioned it specifically.

My particular area of interest is in behavioral adaptations to anthropogenic changes in environment and species composition. My masters thesis will be on the adaptations of invasive anurans to novel predators for example (have not decided on whether that will be expanded to a dissertation or whether I will do something else for my Ph.D)

Sexual behavior and the implications of evolutionary theory in metaethics are... a side interest. Though I could integrate the sexual behavior and look at how environment effects mate choice in frogs/caudates...

[Alyrium Denryle]

Oh and you're a BS in Biology. So fucking what? Does that mean that something like 3/4ths of MDs can legitimately be called chemists and biologist in addition to doctors or physicians? A scientist is fully matured within his field when he is published. There's a reason you're in grad school, and its certainly not for kicks because all the potential job positions out there already consider you a "scientist."

I have been doing the work of a biologist for the last two years. Some working biologists never actually publish their own papers so your definition is entirely self-serving. Me, I have contributed to numerous papers, just never made it to the author line (one of which will shortly be published in the journal Ecology, others are in various stages of writing and publication)

Would you like to see a copy of my CV? It is somewhat more extensive than most other people who just graduated with a BS

I am in grad school because I want to specialize in a particular field and become a full tenured professor after 8 years of grad work, 6 years of post-doc and 7 or so years as an untenured professor. It aint just for kicks. It is because I have a goal in mind. Dipshit

[Darth Wong]

Nonsense. It's impossible for you to have seen infidelity in other species, because infidelity is meaningless without some kind of promise to break in the first place, and animals don't get married or make promises. Infidelity, as opposed to promiscuity, is a misdeed that is entirely invented and defined by human culture. In order to commit it, you must first promise not to do it. The difference between those who commit and those who don't is not determined by simply looking at the fact that males have an instinctive desire to mate as much as possible, to say nothing of your bizarre and unsupported claim that ethics is entirely derived from evolutionary fitness as well.

Ok. let's change the term from one that does not have a loaded meaning. Extra-pair copulation. There.

Uh, no. Not "there". You fail to acknowledge that your previous statement was careless and factually incorrect, despite your attempt to buttress it with an appeal to your own credentials. This seamless mixing of professional knowledge and personal opinion that you habitually do is a fucking disgrace and you should know that.

Moreover, you fail to recognize that it is a red-herring. Your long-winded ramblings have almost nothing to do with the simple statement that "infidelity is immoral", which you have been attempting to challenge with what is nothing more than a gigantic appeal to common practice and an even more gigantic is/ought fallacy, stated with as much excess verbosity as one would normally expect from the worst post-modernist wankers.

Fucking racism has an evolutionary background too, but that doesn't mean you should write goddamned 10 page essays about how anyone who says "racism is immoral" just doesn't know enough about evolution.

[Alyrium Denryle]

as Alyrium ever done real studies comparing human sexual behaviors to those of the animals which he's drawing casual, off-the-cuff, on-his-own-authority parallels with? Of course not. And it is the heavy lifting done on the former which gives descriptions of their behavior from biological perspectives rigor. Furthermore, human beings are different than other animals in significant ways.

Have I done those? No. Have others? yeah.

The book Sociobiology was written back in the 70s. Do try to keep up.

for something more recent...

Jackson. The structure and measurement of human mating strategies: toward a multidimensional model of sociosexuality. Evolution and human behavior [1090-5138] yr:2007 vol:28 iss:6 pg:382 -391

Abstract:Abstract: Recent theoretical perspectives concerning the structure of variation in human mating have focused less on conceptualizations of alternate mating strategies and more on the evolution of a conditional strategy. Empirical evidence suggests that this conditional strategy may involve the simultaneous pursuit of long-term and short-term mating tactics. Despite these developments, empirical measurement has proceeded using the Sociosexual Orientation Inventory (SOI), which measures restricted and unrestricted mating orientations along a single bipolar continuum. To fully capture the pluralistic nature of human mating, we suggest that a multidimensional empirical measure is required. To test our hypothesis, we subjected an expanded version of the SOI, which included items measuring psychological orientation toward short-term mating and long-term mating, to principal components analysis. A three-factor structure representing short-term mating orientation, long-term mating orientation, and previous sexual behavior emerged. In subsequent analyses, we demonstrate that our newly developed long-term and short-term dimensions (a) are largely independent and (b) correlate differentially with other theoretically relevant variables.

Luxen. Sex differences, evolutionary psychology and biosocial theory - Biosocial theory is no alternative. Theory & psychology [0959-3543] yr:2007 vol:17 iss:3 pg:383 -394

Abstract: Biosocial theory claims that evolution did not design human psychological sex differences. It argues that these are the result of the allocation of men and women into different sex roles, based on physical differences. This article argues, however, that biosocial theory is not an alternative to evolutionary psychology in the explanation of human psychological sex differences. Specifically, biosocial theory is incompatible with evolutionary reasoning and it ignores findings of hormonal psychology, developmental psychology and comparative psychology. Moreover, by posing the need for special explanations, it violates the principle of Occam's razor. Finally, it does not provide an explanation as to why sex differences in human partner choice are finely tuned to fitness.

Fisher. Romantic love: a mammalian brain system for mate choice. Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London [0962-8436] yr:2006 vol:361 iss:1476 pg:2173 -2186


Abstract:Mammals and birds regularly express mate preferences and make mate choices. Data on mate choice among mammals suggest that this behavioural 'attraction system' is associated with dopaminergic reward pathways in the brain. It has been proposed that intense romantic love, a human cross-cultural universal, is a developed form of this attraction system. To begin to determine the neural mechanisms associated with romantic attraction in humans, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to study 17 people who were intensely 'in love'. Activation specific to the beloved occurred in the brainstem right ventral tegmental area and right postero-dorsal body of the caudate nucleus. These and other results suggest that dopaminergic reward and motivation pathways contribute to aspects of romantic love. We also used fMRI to study 15 men and women who had just been rejected in love. Preliminary analysis showed activity specific to the beloved in related regions of the reward system associated with monetary gambling for uncertain large gains and losses, and in regions of the lateral orbitofrontal cortex associated with theory of mind, obsessive/compulsive behaviours and controlling anger. These data contribute to our view that romantic love is one of the three primary brain systems that evolved in avian and mammalian species to direct reproduction. The sex drive evolved to motivate individuals to seek a range of mating partners; attraction evolved to motivate individuals to prefer and pursue specific partners; and attachment evolved to motivate individuals to remain together long enough to complete species-specific parenting duties. These three behavioural repertoires appear to be based on brain systems that are largely distinct yet interrelated, and they interact in specific ways to orchestrate reproduction, using both hormones and monoamines. Romantic attraction in humans and its antecedent in other mammalian species play a primary role: this neural mechanism motivates individuals to focus their courtship energy on specific others, thereby conserving valuable time and metabolic energy, and facilitating mate choice.

Humans differ from other animals yes. But in such huge respects that the rules of natural selection no longer apply. And what is this about science being a pseudo-religious crutch?

How am I characterizing morality? by trying to explain it? By asking the question "why does this exist?" how the hell am I trying to avoid heavy lifting? Do you think I just want to avoid moral choices or something? I will have you know my angry little friend, that that is not my intention, that in my every day life I (at least try) to be a rather consistent preference/act utilitarian, because I find that this composite conforms best to what our culture considers a moral life and it helps meaningfully guide my decision making. That however does not preclude me from asking questions that relate to why I am motivated to do so.

[Darth Wong]

Why the fuck do you think this is about your right to theorize about evolutionary sources of human behaviour? No one is saying you're not allowed to do it. We're saying that your long-winded ramblings on the subject do not constitute a valid rebuttal of the simple statement "infidelity is immoral". Honesty is one of the core values of every ethical system for a good reason, moron.

Anyone could just as easily write a long-winded article about the "evolutionary fitness" benefits of gay-bashing, every time you make any statement which implies that gay-bashing is immoral.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Uh, no. Not "there". You fail to acknowledge that your previous statement was careless and factually incorrect, despite your attempt to buttress it with an appeal to your own credentials.

I thought it was a simple definitional issue with you nitpicking. I am accustomed to the word infidelity (which is used in biology for what I described) not carrying connotations of promises and trust. I was using the same word differently. So I tried to resolve the issue by switching to a term that was not loaded. I should have used extra-pair copulation from the beginning and I apologize

This seamless mixing of professional knowledge and personal opinion that you habitually do is a fucking disgrace and you should know that.

The biology is a product of the fact that I am formally trained. The philosophy is my personal opinion (the metaethics) and it is not the result of any professonal credentials at all. I have mentioned this several times, but it appears people have selective vision when reading my posts.

To clear this up: The actual behavior of humans and how this evolves is within the scope of my training as a behavioral biologist. The implications for ethical thought, specifically in metaethics (the reason ethics exist, and how we determine what modes of ethical thought are valid) are outside of that scope and depend on certain premises that are non-scientific and untestable.

That better? I would have thought that this would simply be assumed. But it seems I was incorrect.

Moreover, you fail to recognize that it is a red-herring. Your long-winded ramblings have almost nothing to do with the simple statement that "infidelity is immoral", which you have been attempting to challenge with what is nothing more than a gigantic appeal to common practice and an even more gigantic is/ought fallacy, stated with as much excess verbosity as one would normally expect from the worst post-modernist wankers.

Fucking racism has an evolutionary background too, but that doesn't mean you should write goddamned 10 page essays about how anyone who says "racism is immoral" just doesn't know enough about evolution.

There is a difference between understanding something and excusing it. Infidelity is so common I personally do not get worked up over it. There are a lot of things I dont get worked up over. I think, personally, that all the fuss about it is a waste of energy. There. Maybe that makes me a horrible person, but you are talking to the guy that laughs when ducks rape each-other.

In my day to day life, I accept the rules of society at face value. I have internalized the norms of society. WHen I try to ponder them intellectually, and apply evolution, the reasons for the rule, all their interactions with the environment, individuals, feedback loops. They make sense.

I am not trying to say something akin to "Evolution, therefore X is right!" or "everyone does X therefore X is right!" I am trying to say "In this culture, X is held to be true. This culture holds X to be true because of evolution"

There is no ought. WHen I am asking these questions, I am not concerned with what my idealistic mind thinks the world SHOULD be like. I can name a list of possible improvements right now. I am trying to explain what is. Not prescribe what should be.

Is this clear now?

[Alyrium Denryle]

Why the fuck do you think this is about your right to theorize about evolutionary sources of human behaviour? No one is saying you're not allowed to do it. We're saying that your long-winded ramblings on the subject do not constitute a valid rebuttal of the simple statement "infidelity is immoral". Honesty is one of the core values of every ethical system for a good reason, moron.

Anyone could just as easily write a long-winded article about the "evolutionary fitness" benefits of gay-bashing, every time you make any statement which implies that gay-bashing is immoral.

Ok. If that is our disagreement there has been a misunderstanding somewhere along the line and for that I apologize. I have been reading these prior posts as being attacks on the competency of evolution to adequately explain human behavior.

Of course I already accept the evolutionary benefits of gay bashing. I know they are there (I wont go into an explanation for everyone's sake it involves intraspecies competition between phenotypes). But that does not mean it is moral.

[Illuminatus Primus]

I am in grad school because I want to specialize in a particular field and become a full tenured professor after 8 years of grad work, 6 years of post-doc and 7 or so years as an untenured professor. It aint just for kicks. It is because I have a goal in mind. Dipshit

Right, because a BS by itself means you're not a scientist, you're a scientist's assistant and apprentice.

[Illuminatus Primus]

Ok. If that is our disagreement there has been a misunderstanding somewhere along the line and for that I apologize. I have been reading these prior posts as being attacks on the competency of evolution to adequately explain human behavior.

Of course I already accept the evolutionary benefits of gay bashing. I know they are there (I wont go into an explanation for everyone's sake it involves intraspecies competition between phenotypes). But that does not mean it is moral.

That's the whole goddamn point. You've subjected us to endless spiels on your scientific credentials and evolutionary basis of human behavior, without a coherent, justified, logical mechanism which ties ethical judgments to these evolutionary roots of human behavior. And worse, you've engaged in laughable caricatures of ethical systems, with such red herrings as "its not really that illegal, so its not immoral."