Cultural Uplift and Evolution

This is a pretty good post by Ex-Army. I am sometimes critical of him but I think his heart is in a good place.

Though he hints at it I think he misses how important is the interaction between culture and evolution. There is a feedback loop between the two. (I am tempted to type "synergy" but that word is misused too often). For example, a factor in Western Civilization was the practice of primogeniture in the early and high middle ages. By forcing younger sons to find their own way, it allowed the genes from the upper classes to propagate into the lower classes. That probably helped raised average intelligence of the population and eventually gave rise to the middle class.

Donald Trump as a Product of System 1 thinking.

I rarely delve into electoral politics but a recent essay I read on Facebook (of all places) started me thinking about the current election cycle.

In his book entitled Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman describes two modes of thinking in the human mind. He gives these modes the the innocuous names of "System 1" and System 2". System 1 is the fast, intuitive, and emotional side whereas System 2 is more deliberative, logical and slower.

The two systems as Kahneman describe them, make perfect sense in an evolutionary context. I recall reading that a human neuron has a clock speed of about 15 Hz to 20 Hz. That means human reaction times are, at best, measured in tenths of a second. In a world where threats and opportunities happen unexpectedly, a system for selecting quickly from the available alternatives was necessary for survival. The System 1 we inherited from our ancestors was refined by millennia of a brutally efficient system of natural selection and it works very well for what it evolved for. By contrast, the more deliberative System 2 was patched on top of the older intuitive System 1 and is heavily influenced by it.

So, what does this a have do with Trump? Well, first politics is the real mind-killer. It may be an important aspect of life and we should certainly apply our individual rationality to it. However, it is an awful place to learn to be rational. To have a rational political discussion, all sides must first be rational. Trump, I think, represents the triumph of our atavistic evolutionary nature over the much more recent and less well proven rationality. He is in effect a super politician when seen through the filter of intuition and emotion. Whether that is a good thing or a bad thing only time can tell

Which brings me to the essay. Like Mr. Yudkowsky I do not agree with everything Mr. Monroe wrote but the following does have a good exposition as to how a man like Trump can rise toward political power in a manner that appears nearly inevitable. The fault is not in our stars but in our genes.

Read it here. This is a Facebook post so it may not be visible to everyone.

Evolution Proves Again it is More Clever Than You Are

This may gross out a few readers but I think it is a potentially valuable lesson. Evolution is not driven by any humanitarian ideals about "progress" of the species but rather by the survival of the individual on a day-to-day basis. Teleology is wishful thinking at best. That said, evolution is a wonderful thing and I encourage everyone to understand it as best he or she can. However, do not look to it for your morality. Let it inform your reason but not rule it.

From Science Daily

Fish-eating spiders discovered in all parts of the world

Spiders are traditionally viewed as predators of insects. Zoologists from Switzerland and Australia have now published a study that shows: spiders all over the world also prey on fish. The academic journal PLOS ONE has just published the results.

Although viewed by ecologists as the classical predators of insects, researchers have become increasingly aware that spiders are not exclusively insectivorous. Certain larger-sized species supplement their diet by occasionally catching small fish. This shows a new study by zoologist and spider expert, Martin Nyffeler from the University of Basel, Switzerland and Bradley Pusey from the University of Western Australia. The researchers gathered and documented numerous incidents of spiders predating fish from all around the world.

Fish as a diet supplement

According to their systematic review, spiders from as many as five families have been observed predating on small fish in the wild and three more families contain species that catch fish under laboratory conditions. These so called semi-aquatic spiders typically dwell at the fringes of shallow freshwater streams, ponds or swamps. These spiders, some of which are capable of swimming, diving and walking on the water surface, have powerful neurotoxins and enzymes that enable them to kill and digest fish that often exceed them in size and weight. "The finding of such a large diversity of spiders engaging in fish predation is novel. Our evidence suggests that fish might be an occasional prey item of substantial nutritional importance," says Martin Nyffeler.

Based on this study, naturally occurring fish predation by spiders has been reported from all continents with the exception of Antarctica. Most incidents have been documented in North America, especially in the wetlands of Florida, where semi-aquatic spiders have often been witnessed catching and eating small freshwater fish such as mosquitofish. In order to catch its prey, the spider will typically anchor its hind legs to a stone or a plant, with its front legs resting on the surface of the water, ready to ambush. The fish will then be dragged to a dry place before the feeding process can begin which usually lasts several hours.

Evolution

Recently, Rex F. May posted an article entitled. Wading and Dancing with Darwin in which he references Nicholas Wade's book A Troublesome Inheritance: Genes, Race and Human History. I thought he was making too much out of Wade's book and I said so in a comment.

I think you may be taking Wade's thesis too far. The last thirty-odd years of evolutionary biology have shown that the majority of evolutionary change is not adaptational. Most of what happens at the genome level is, in fact, not adaptive but is, at best, neutral. Wade does demonstrate that current science indicates there are measurable genetic difference in populations that can be called "race". What he does not do is demonstrate how this matters at the individual level where natural selection actually happens. Ultimately I think the genetic evidence renders evolution fundamentally anti-collectivist. Groups -- whether called race or religion or whatever, are just a survival tool for the individuals that make them up, not a useful classification tool.

BTW, I found, "You have to have all of Darwin or none of him." in juxtaposition with a quote from Vox Day to be amusing. I assume you do know he rejects all but the wimpiest version of biological evolution. He invokes Darwin when it is convenient but leaves the dance with Ken Ham.

Mr. May replied with Darwin: All or None and seems to be asking for some clarification. I'll try.

This confuses me a bit, and I'd be glad if parabarbarian would elaborate. I may be punching above my weight here, but my concept is that when mutations occur, the adaptive ones tend to spread through the population, while the maladaptive ones tend to die out. And neutral ones may or may not spread, randomly. And I do think the math would indicate that only a tiny percentage are adaptive, but I don't have an instinct for the relative percentages of maladaptive and neutral. I'd think the vast majority would be maladaptive, but someone needs to enlighten me about that.

Naural selection was, arguably, Darwin's greatest contribution to the then nascent theory of evolution. He described a mechanism by which variations in the phenotype between individual organisms can be filtered. In modern terms it means that if an allele increases an organism's probability of producing offspring, the frequency of that allele in the population will increase. Similarly, if an allele decreases the probability of offspring the frequency will decrease. However, I think it is important to recognize that it only works if there is sufficient genetic diversity in the population -- It can only select for what exists. Also keep in mind that natural selection is "blind" to the source of a trait and operates on the individual holistically. Heritable and non-heritable traits alike are filtered for "fitness". A difference can confer a reproductive advantage regardless of whether it is cultural, genetic or a result of an outside force like charity or welfare.

I am not aware of any good studies of how often mutations in humans are beneficial. The perception that most mutations are harmful may simply be an artifact -- we notice a harmful one more precisely because it is harmful. However, studies done with the fruit fly suggest that, if a mutation changes the protein produced by a gene (not all mutations do), about 70 percent of those mutations will have damaging effects with the remainder being either neutral or beneficial. Since natural selection minimizes the spread of detrimental mutations in the population, their impact is minor. Evolution by natural selection is driven by the beneficial changes.

Also, while it's valid to say that evolution takes place at the individual level, but not at group level, nevertheless I think it's fair to say that there is an emergent evolution at the group level, made up of the sum total of individual evolutions. Taking the popular idea that harsh winters in Europe caused individuals to become more cooperative and capable of gratification-deferral in order to survive, this resulted in groups of that sort, with such an ethic, and the culture that developed tended to intensify selection on the individual level for those characteristics.

Over the years I've encountered many different definitions of evolution and I am not sure what definition Mr. May is using here. I said that natural selection happens to the individual but I don't equate the process (natural selection) with the result (evolution).

There is a simple and relatively uncontroversial definition that evolution is the change in a population's allele frequencies over time. This is distinct from the theory of evolution which is a continuously developing attempt to explain how evolution works.

In that sense, evolution can be measured at the level of the group. If two groups that share a common ancestor vary by P number of alleles and I have a good guess about the rate of mutation then I can conclude they diverged Q generations ago. That may be an interesting number for classification but it does not tell me much of anything useful about the individuals within those groups. For example, just knowing a person's group is French Canadian, Ashkenazi Jew or Cajun doesn't tell me if he or she carries the mutation for Tay-Sachs disease. The probability of an individual being a carrier in those three populations is higher than normal but it is only a probability.

Discosure: I am not a geneticist nor am I a biologist. I'm just a dumb 'ol engineer who reads too much. Make of that what you will. I have not finished Wade's new book and it may well be he answers all my questions by the final chapter.

Harrison Bergeron come to the Screen

Family Security Matters has a review of 2081 a short film based on the dystopian short story "Harrison Bergeron" by Kurt Vonnegut.

Trailer

The reviewer compares the story to John Rawls influential book, A Theory of Justice

I wonder how many readers remember John Rawls’s A Theory of Justice, that scholarly paean to egalitarianism and institutionalized envy, from 1971. How would one dramatize, in visual and auditory concretes, its high-blown, insidious principles?

That's not a bad comparison,

I first read Vonnegut's short story at least 40 years ago. The story is a simple and brutal cautionary tale of the principle of equality taken too literally and carried to absurd extremes. That is the simple part. The brutal part is because those who accept those extremes as proper moral behavior have the power to force compliance and the effects of that are devastating. While I admit I only half understood it at the time, the images of athletes bound by weights and the best human minds interrupted in their thinking by discordant noises acted as an inoculation against later temptations to let a blind application of a principle override my intelligence.

John Rawls' conceptions of justice and fairness are rooted in the Platonic notion that there is a moral order imposed on the Universe by cosmic or supernatural forces and that human morality is measured by how closely it conforms to this ideal. This is convenient for the philosopher because it allow him to "discover" these laws using thought experiments based on purely imaginary scenarios.

Perhaps this explains why one of Robert Heinlein has one of his characters describing philosophers as scientists with no thumbs.

The simple fact is that the moral nature of human beings arises from the evolutionary and intellectual history of our species. Understanding these dual influence requires more than lying about discussing made up principles within a framework of made up scenarios. To understand the evolutionary side requires some knowledge of biology and evolution. To understand the historical side requires a knowledge of history.

It takes what we used to call in Engineering, "skull sweat", a phenomenon much lacking in modern philosophy and apologetics.

H/T to Western Rifle Shooters Association