Long-term intellectual history: Observation #1 • For complex reasons, evolutionary theory has been confined to the biological sciences and avoided for most human-related subjects for most of the 20 th century. • This situation is changing, but only very recently. • Terms such as evolutionary psychology and evolutionary anthropology didn’t gain currency until the 1990’s and still have an air of scandal about them. • Terms such as evolutionary economics, evolutionary religious studies, Literary Darwinism are even more recent. • Important moment in the history of science.
Mainstream social sciences “Of course social scientists have no objection to applying evolutionary theory in the life sciences-biology, zoology botany, etc. Nevertheless, the idea of applying evolutionary thinking to social science problems commonly evokes strong negative reactions. In effect, social scientists treat the life sciences as enclosed within a kind of impermeable wall. Inside the wall, evolutionary thinking is deemed capable of producing powerful and astonishing truths. Outside the wall, in the realm of human behavior, applications of evolutionary thinking are typically treated as irrelevant at best; usually as pernicious, wrong, and downright dangerous. ” --Political scientist Ian Lustic, 2005
Long-term intellectual history: Observation #2 • In both biology and social sciences, the concept of society as an organism was commonplace until the middle of the 20 th century. • Eclipsed by individualistic and reductionistic perspectives, throughout the second half of the 20 th century. • This is also rapidly changing. We need to rediscover group-level functionalism.
THE WAY IT WAS Social commentators once found it very useful to analyze the behavior of groups by the same expedient used in analyzing the behavior of individuals. The group, like the person, was assumed to be sentient, to have a form of mental activity that guides action. Rousseau (1767) and Hegel (1807) were the early architects of this form of analysis, and it became so widely used in the 19 th and early 20 th centuries that almost every early social theorist we now recognize as a contributor to modern social psychology held a similar view. --D. M. Wegner (1986)
THE AGE OF INDIVIDUALISM IN THE SOCIAL SCIENCES Methodological individualism dominates our neighboring field of economics, much of sociology, and all of psychology’s excursions into organizational theory. This is the dogma that all human social group processes are to be explained by laws of individual behavior--that groups and social organizations have no ontological reality--that where used, references to organizations, etc. are but convenient summaries of individual behavior. --D. T. Campbell (1994)
THE AGE OF INDIVIDUALISM IN EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY: “Many an ecologist, equipped with no more than a flimsy analogy, marched cheerfully from the familiar Darwinian territory of individual organisms into a world of populations and groups. Populations were treated as individuals that just happened to be a notch or two up in the hierarchy of life. ” --H. Cronin 1991
THE AGE OF INDIVIDUALISM IN EVERYDAY LIFE “There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. ” --Margaret Thatcher 1987
Multilevel Selection Theory D. S. Wilson and E. O. Wilson (2007) Rethinking the Theoretical Foundation of Sociobiology. QRB Ø Ø Natural selection within groups favors selfish strategies that disrupt group function. Natural selection between groups favors cooperative strategies that enhance group function. Groups can evolve into adaptive units when betweengroup selection trumps within-group selection. “Selfishness beats altruism within groups, altruistic groups beat selfish groups. Everything else is commentary. ”
1960’s consensus Ø Ø Natural selection within groups favors selfish strategies that disrupt group function. Natural selection between groups favors cooperative strategies that enhance group function. Groups can evolve into adaptive units when betweengroup selection trumps within-group selection. Empirical claim: higher-level selection is almost invariably weak compared to lower-level selection.
Current assessment Ø Ø Ø Natural selection within groups favors selfish strategies that disrupt group function. Natural selection between groups favors cooperative strategies that enhance group function. Groups can evolve into adaptive units when betweengroup selection trumps within-group selection. Empirical claim: higher-level selection is almost invariably weak compared to lower-level selection. Balance between levels of selection needs to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis.
Artificial selection for egg productivity in hens In both experiments hens are housed in multiple groups (cages). • Experiment 1: Select the best egg-layer within each group. • Experiment 2: Select the best group of egglayers in a population of groups.
Within-group selection
Between-group selection
“That first experiment describes my department! I have names for those three chickens!” --Professor to me, after a lecture
The Replicator Dynamic • Any process that causes the most successful behavioral strategy to increase in frequency in the population. • Genetic evolution • Learning • Imitation • Intentional thought • Processes of cultural evolution Vastly expands the domain of evolutionary theory to include fast-paced processes of behavioral change
Major Transitions of Evolution Ø Ø The balance between levels of selection is not static but can itself evolve. When between-group selection dominates withingroup selection, a major transition occurs and the group becomes a higher-level organism.
Symbiotic origin of the eukaryotic cell 1970’s Lynn Margulis
Major transitions in evolution 1990’s John Maynard Smith Eors Szathmary
The transition from groups of organisms to groups as organisms has occurred repeatedly Ø Origin of life Ø The first bacterial cells Ø Eukaryotic cells Ø Multicellular organisms Ø Social insect colonies Ø Human groups
The evolution of chromosomes as a shift in the balance between levels of selection
Hallmarks of major transitions Ø Ø Rare events in the history of life. It’s not easy for between-group selection to dominate within-group selection. Momentous consequences once it occurs. New higherlevel organisms become ecologically dominant. The transition is never complete. Selfish elements that spread by within-group selection are only suppressed, not entirely eliminated. True organisms, whose members behave 100% for the common good, do not exist.
Intragenomic conflict Austin Burt Robert Trivers
SAVORING THE IRONY Ø During the Age of Individualism, it became a heresy to think of a social group as like a single organism. Ø Now it turns out that the single organisms of today are literally the social groups of past ages!
Terms used to describe genetic and developmental interactions in article titled “The Social Gene”by David Haig Allegiance, binding agreements, cabal, cajole, cheat, clique, coalition, coercion, collectives, commons, conspire, contractual arrangement, corrupt, deceit, egalitarian, exploitation, factions, fair play, firm, fraud, free-riders, gangster, huckster, institutions, licensing, lottery, manipulate, marketplace, misappropriate, monopoly, motivation, open society…
Human evolution as a major transition Ø Ø Ø Rare events in the history of life. Momentous consequences once it occurs. The transition is never complete. Ø Only once among primates. Ø Worldwide ecological dominance. Ø Thinking of human groups as organisms does not deny the existence of conflict within groups.
The 3 C’s of human special attributes: In which order did they evolve? Ø Ø Ø Cooperation Cognition Culture Ø Numerous scenarios assume that complex cognition (e. g. , theory of mind) came first, enabling increased cooperation. Ø A more plausible scenario is that the major transition came first (cooperation) and that enhanced culture and cognition subsequently evolved as forms of cognitive cooperation.
Stone throwing--the first human adaptation?
A major transition requires the suppression of deviance within groups, which needn’t require advanced cognitive abilities.
Human moral systems as the functional equivalent of chromosomes • Religion derived from religio-->”to bind together” • Jonathan Haidt “New Synthesis in Moral Psychology”
Taking the “society as organism” concept seriously for humans “The village or township is the only association which is so perfectly natural that, wherever a number of men are collected, it seems to constitute itself. ” --A. de Tocqueville 1835
What is the social physiology of human groups? • Humans are genetically adapted to function as coordinated units at the level of small face-toface society. • Cognitive activities can benefit from teamwork in addition to physical activities. • Genetic adaptations should include social control in addition to coordination mechanisms. • These social physiological mechanisms might be very complex but so automatic that we perform them “without thinking”--like vision.
Many implications • Eyes • Pointing • Infant cognition • Laughing • Music, dance, narrative • Gossip and other forms of language • Group decision making
The eyes are the windows of the soul…
…but only if you are human!
POINTING What could be simpler and more natural? Only if you are human…or a dog
When it comes to mental teamwork, 2 nd place goes not to the apes, and not to wolves (even when raised in captivity) but to the dogs, who have been genetically coevolving with us for app. 130, 000 years.
Infant cognition An adult gestures ambiguously toward three toys and says to a young child “Oh, wow! That’s so cool! Can you give it to me? ” They have previously played with two of the toys together and the child is familiar with all three.
Taking the perspective of others Remarkably, even one-year old children demonstrate awareness of the adult’s previous experience by choosing the toy that is new for the adult. This awareness of the perspective of others does not exist in apes at any age.
Major Conclusion Relevant to this Workshop • Activities associated with the humanities (e. g. , music, dance, visual arts, narrative) emerge as genetically evolved complex adaptations. Vital organs in the “anatomy and physiology” of the group superorganism. • Appear early in life, cultural universal, intrinsically enjoyable (like sex), etc. • Need to occupy center stage in the basic sciences.
Cultural evolution
Some basic facts • For all previous major transitions, rare origination events are followed by adaptive radiations, leading to hundreds and thousands of species. • For the human major transition, we remained a single biological species, but we still diversified behaviorally to fill hundreds of ecological niches. • Inhabit all geographical regions. • Eat everything from seeds to whales. • At this course-grained level, it is undeniable that a process of cultural evolution is at work. • We can interpret cultural diversity in the same way as biological diversity.
An analogy with the immune system • The immune system is an elaborate, genetically evolved adaptation to defend the organism against diseases. • Diseases are too diverse and rapidly evolving for a fixed arsenal of defences. • Fight evolution with evolution. • Randomly varying antibodies, selection of those that bind to antigens. • Fast-paced process of antibody evolution, built by the slow-paced process of genetic evolution. • Our capacity for culture might be like the immune system. • Elaborate genetically evolved psychological architecture. • Guides a fast-paced evolutionary process to adaptive solutions. • Subject to error (as with the immune system).
Cultural Universals and Cultural Variation • Discussions of human evolution often focus identifying traits that exist in all cultures. • Yet, evolutionists seldom look for traits that exist in all species, and if they did the list would be short (not even including DNA replication). • Evolutionists spend most of their time explaining why species vary. • In addition to identifying cultural universals (especially the aforementioned psychological architecture that makes cultural evolution possible), we should be interpreting cultural varation. • Not only in geographically separated cultures, but also in our midst.
Liberalism and Conservatism • Jost, John. T. , Jack Glaser, Arie W. Kruglanski and Frank J. Sulloway. 2001. Political Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition. Psychological Bulletin 129(3): 339 -375. • Lakoff, George. 1996. Moral Politics: What Conservatives Know that Liberals Don't. Chicago: University of Chicago Press • Can liberalism and conservatism be regarded as cultural “species”, each adaptive in some social environments but not others?
Existential security • Low existential security is the “niche” of conservatism, favoring authoritarian cultural systems with strict adherence to rules and authority. • High existential security is the “niche” of liberalism, providing a safe and secure environment for experimentation and decisions that require a large amount of information processing on the basis of internalized values. • Norris, Pippa and Ronald Inglehart. 2004. Sacred and Secular: Religion and Politics Worldwide. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Religion as a quantitative trait
Liberalism vs. Conservative Religious vs. Non-religious • All four combinations are possible. • The liberal/conservative distinction is at least as important as the religious/non-religious distinction, as we will see.
Liberalism and its niche • Liberalism places a premium on individuals as “agentic”, actively experimenting to achieve new solutions. The guiding assumption is that the best solutions have not yet been discovered, so that new things are at least potentially good. The value of discovering new solutions outweigh the costs of error. • One niche for liberalism: very fast-changing environments • Another niche: cumulative cultural change in stable environments. • Experimentation requires time, energy, safety, education, etc.
Conservatism and its niche • Conservatism places a premium on obedience to authority. This does not necessarily mean an incapacity for change-as long as the change is initiated by the authorities. Obedience requires clear-cut distinctions between “right” and “wrong” Rules are followed because they are the rules, and they are not to be questioned by anyone other than the authority. • One niche for conservatism: elites interested in preserving the status quo • Another niche: dangerous and uncertain environments that do not provide enough time, energy, safety, education, etc. for individuals to function as their own moral agents. • Conservative belief systems frequently emphasize that “The world is a dangerous place”
Differences between conservatives and liberals documented by social scientists (Jost et al. 2003) • Dogmatism • Intolerance of ambiguity • Openness to experience • Integrative complexity • Uncertainty avoidance • Personal need for order and structure • Need for cognitive closure • All the earmarks of qualitatively different moral systems, adapted to different environmental conditions.
Conservative child rearing practices (The authoritarian model) 1) Attempts to shape, control, and evaluate the behavior and attitudes of one’s children in accordance with an absolute set of standards (including corporal punishment). 2) Valuing obedience, respect for authority, work, tradition, and preservation of order. 3) Discouraging verbal give-and-take between parent and child.
“Obedience is the foundation for all character. It is the foundation for the home. It is the foundation for a school. It is the foundation for a society. It is absolutely necessary for law and order to prevail. “ --Hyles, J. (1972). How to rear children. Hammond: Hyles-Anderson.
“But what if parents command something wrong? ” This is precocious inquisitiveness. Such a question should perish on the lips of a Christian child. --L. Christenson (1970). The Christian family. Minneapolis: Bethany House.
Liberal child rearing practices (The authoritative model) 1) Expectation of mature behavior from child and clear standard setting. 2) Firm enforcement of rules and standards using commands and sanctions when necessary (does not include corporal punishment). 3) Encouragement of child’s independence and individuality. 4) Open communication between parents and children, with parents listening to children’s point of view, as well as expressing their own; encouragement of verbal give and take. 5) Recognition of rights of both parents and children.
Comparison of liberal vs. conservative protestant denominations • Large sociological study • Everyone is American. Ingrid Storm • Everyone is a teenager. • Everyone is a Protestant. In these respects, the sample is culturally homogenous. • Some are from liberal Protestant denominations (e. g. , Episcopalian). • Some are from conservative Protestant denominations (e. g. , Pentacostal). • This cultural difference has such a transformative effect that the teenagers act like different species as far as their respone to their enviornment is concerned.
Summary • Evolutionary theory as a framework for explaining all aspects of humanity in addition to the rest of life. • Concept of society as an organism fully legitimate, at least when appropriate conditions are met. • Cultural diversity can be analyzed in the same way as biological diversity. • Activities associated with the arts part of the “anatomy and physiology” of the group organism, therefore part of the essence of what it means to be human.
http: //evolution. binghamton. edu /evos/ Evo. S, Binghamton University’s campuswide evolutionary studies program. /religion/ Evolutionary Religious Studies website. /bnp/ Binghamton Neighborhood Project, community-based research from an evolutionary perspective. /dswilson/ Personal website with numerous publications to download
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