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I agree that there are doubts about some of the models, e.g. evolutionary game theory is not a model of evolution. My problem with these kinds of evolutionary a

I agree that there are doubts about some of the models, e.g. evolutionary game theory is not a model of evolution. My problem with these kinds of evolutionary arguments is different, though. It seems to me that their interpreters often assume that identifying some behavior as evolutionary advantageous to an individual or group is somehow correlated with the goodness or desirability of that behavior. That's a fallacy. Whether the behavior is commendable, good, desirable, etc. is not related to its capability of increasing the long-term survival and spreading of someone's genes. (I'm not claiming everyone makes this association, but some seem to make it.) Moreover, there seem to be countless examples of behavior that we are perfectly capable of and whose effect is difficult if not impossible to explain with evolutionary arguments. Some of them are considered commendable, other not. Random examples: - spending your life in almost solitary confinement to solve some math problem - deciding not to have children - waging wars - not passing your wealth on to your useless son and instead give everything to a charity - being gay or asexual - writing a novel without getting paid for it and that also doesn't increase your mating chances The list could go on and on. Of course, evolutionary explanations may be constructed for any of them, but it's kind of doubtful that all human activities fit into this scheme. So my two points are: a.) Whether altruistic behavior is good/desirable or not has nothing to do with its contribution to evolutionary fitness. b.) Within some limits, we are perfectly capable of behaving in ways that are not evolutionary advantageous to us. Finally, evolutionary models of social behavior that are not based on the genetic transmission of behavior simply do not have anything to do with real evolution. I've often seen real evolution being deliberately mixed up with ideas about the spreading on information contained in books, web pages, speech, etc. but I fail to see how the spreading of this information could be even remotely related to the way genes spread. Once you hear about a social fitness function or the fitness of a meme, you can in my opinion safely assume that the author pulled that concept out of his ass or copied it from others who did so.

edblarney 10y ago
No, I think this is wrong. Behaviours that groups exhibit will definitely be passed on from individual to individual and definitely have an effect on the ability of the group to survive. And - whether something is passed on socially or through genes, it doesn't matter. 'Evolution' is not just a function of genes, obviously. Your list of 'behaviours' is easy to describe, and I'll do it in context of your 'a' and 'b' positions. From 'b' - "we are perfectly capable of behaving in ways that are not evolutionary advantageous to us" - obviously. But who cares? The species that takes up the best behaviours for it's environment will persist beyond those that do not. From 'a' - Whether altruistic behavior is good/desirable or not has nothing to do with its contribution to evolutionary fitness. Yes it does. Run a little evolutionary simulation a a computer program. Create little 'bits' that evolve over time, and interact with one another - you'll see the bugs with the best social behaviours win - the others dissapear. - " spending your life in almost solitary confinement to solve some math problem" First off - this did not happen until way, way into human social development. Once we have complex social functions, it makes evolutionary sense to allocate some members of society towards 'very long term' thinking. 'The guy in the cave' is the same thing as a PhD today: someone who'd dedicated their life to something probably trivial or irrelevant, but which may have huge impact, possibly in the future. - 'war' - war is perfectly understandable as selfish behaviour in the short run: a social group can 'get ahead' quickly by taking stuff of others. - 'not passing on stuff to kids'. From a social perspective, it doesn't matter that much if the money goes to one's kids, or the neighbors kids. Both will contribute to group survival. "I've often seen real evolution being deliberately mixed up with ideas about the spreading on information contained in books, web pages, speech, etc. but I fail to see how the spreading of this information could be even remotely related to the way genes spread" It's very simple: an organism that learns how to read and write, and to pass down it's knowledge from generation to generation will 'out survive' ones that don't - and their genes are much more likely to be passed on.
- JohnStrange 10y ago
  And - whether something is passed on socially or through genes, it doesn't matter. 'Evolution' is not just a function of genes, obviously. That's not obvious at all and it matters a lot. The idea that there is e.g. an 'evolution of ideas' is ill-conceived and misleading for many reasons. The same can be said about similar ideas like 'evolution of social systems', 'evolution of memes', etc. In order to show that there is an evolutionary process that goes beyond of what is transmitted by genes you first have to show empirically that the respective information is transmitted non-genetically, then find a good model of how exactly it is transmitted and to which individuals and groups it is transmitted, and then develop and show that a concept of fitness applies to the process that is sufficiently similar to biological fitness to even be able to talk about evolution in a meaningful, non-contrived way. Then you can attempt to build an evolutionary model, and then you'd need to evaluate that model by looking at predictions. Unless the information is spread exactly like genes are spread, that model will look very different from biological evolution and each and every aspect of the model needs to be justified, in the same vein as you have to justify any analytical model. I don't claim to be an expert in this field but have to reiterate that from what I've inferred from many talks and conversations with colleagues who work in such areas (like EGT, social dynamics, etc.), that there is no widespread consensus on such a justification. Most models of non-genetic, nonbiological 'evolution' seem to be fairly ad hoc. They just stipulate certain information transmission mechanisms and come up with fitness criteria as it suits them, without much of an empirical basis. It's Lamarck's giraffes in fine modern mathematical clothing. From 'b' - "we are perfectly capable of behaving in ways that are not evolutionary advantageous to us" - obviously. But who cares? The species that takes up the best behaviors for it's environment will persist beyond those that do not. In my experience, everybody cares about what's good and what's bad, even those who think they don't. Not caring about it and placing evolution higher in your value system is a bit like saying "Hey, let's blow up the earth, that's more consistent with the laws of thermodynamics anyway." Run a little evolutionary simulation a a computer program. With arbitrary parameters, fitness function, and information transmission mechanism, I can certainly write seemingly convincing little computer programs to show of any behavior whatsoever that it is evolutionary advantageous or disadvantageous. That's because if I can choose all parameters and the transmission mechanism as I like, I simply redefine what 'evolution' means each time, disregarding how biological evolution works. But just because you make a dynamic model with some sort of fitness function, many individuals, and some starting state doesn't mean you model evolution. It's very simple: an organism that learns how to read and write, and to pass down it's knowledge from generation to generation will 'out survive' ones that don't - and their genes are much more likely to be passed on. I'd like to see evidence for that. But in any case that would only explain how reading and writing evolves, not any evolution about what's written - which is what I was criticizing. The written information is not transmitted by genes, hence not subject to biological evolution. If the written information is somehow subject to some evolutionary selection process, then you may try to find an analytical model for that. I'm not saying that all of these models are wrong for some principle reason, just that many of them are fishy, based on sometimes flawed analogy to biological evolution, and in need of more foundational justification. I also kind of disagree with many aspects of your 'easy' explanations and would like to see some evidence for them, but let's leave it at that.
naasking 10y ago
> Moreover, there seem to be countless examples of behavior that we are perfectly capable of and whose effect is difficult if not impossible to explain with evolutionary arguments. Even if we acknowledge that some of those examples can't be explained by evolution, evolution permits aberrations. It's in the very core of the model.
- dTal 10y ago
  It's also worth noting that nearly all of these examples are extremely rare. Homosexuality is the most common one, and as current research suggests a genetic component it seems likely that with further information it will ultimately make sense, if not as an adaptive trait, at least as a consequence of adaptive traits. The others are indeed examples of memes overpowering genes, and an evolutionary model (of memes) can help to explain them as well. It's not a well-developed field to be sure, but it's a worthwhile perspective. A cartoony example is religions that ban sex vs religions that ban contraception - given that religious memes are strongly conserved in offspring, which meme would you expect to spread better? How does that compare to what we actually see?
  - naasking 10y ago
    > Homosexuality is the most common one, and as current research suggests a genetic component it seems likely that with further information it will ultimately make sense, if not as an adaptive trait, at least as a consequence of adaptive traits. Given homosexuality is prevalent in the animal kingdom as well, that's pretty much assured.

edblarney 10y ago

No, I think this is wrong. Behaviours that groups exhibit will definitely be passed on from individual to individual and definitely have an effect on the ability of the group to survive. And - whether something is passed on socially or through genes, it doesn't matter. 'Evolution' is not just a function of genes, obviously. Your list of 'behaviours' is easy to describe, and I'll do it in context of your 'a' and 'b' positions. From 'b' - "we are perfectly capable of behaving in ways that are not evolutionary advantageous to us" - obviously. But who cares? The species that takes up the best behaviours for it's environment will persist beyond those that do not. From 'a' - Whether altruistic behavior is good/desirable or not has nothing to do with its contribution to evolutionary fitness. Yes it does. Run a little evolutionary simulation a a computer program. Create little 'bits' that evolve over time, and interact with one another - you'll see the bugs with the best social behaviours win - the others dissapear. - " spending your life in almost solitary confinement to solve some math problem" First off - this did not happen until way, way into human social development. Once we have complex social functions, it makes evolutionary sense to allocate some members of society towards 'very long term' thinking. 'The guy in the cave' is the same thing as a PhD today: someone who'd dedicated their life to something probably trivial or irrelevant, but which may have huge impact, possibly in the future. - 'war' - war is perfectly understandable as selfish behaviour in the short run: a social group can 'get ahead' quickly by taking stuff of others. - 'not passing on stuff to kids'. From a social perspective, it doesn't matter that much if the money goes to one's kids, or the neighbors kids. Both will contribute to group survival. "I've often seen real evolution being deliberately mixed up with ideas about the spreading on information contained in books, web pages, speech, etc. but I fail to see how the spreading of this information could be even remotely related to the way genes spread" It's very simple: an organism that learns how to read and write, and to pass down it's knowledge from generation to generation will 'out survive' ones that don't - and their genes are much more likely to be passed on.

JohnStrange 10y ago
And - whether something is passed on socially or through genes, it doesn't matter. 'Evolution' is not just a function of genes, obviously. That's not obvious at all and it matters a lot. The idea that there is e.g. an 'evolution of ideas' is ill-conceived and misleading for many reasons. The same can be said about similar ideas like 'evolution of social systems', 'evolution of memes', etc. In order to show that there is an evolutionary process that goes beyond of what is transmitted by genes you first have to show empirically that the respective information is transmitted non-genetically, then find a good model of how exactly it is transmitted and to which individuals and groups it is transmitted, and then develop and show that a concept of fitness applies to the process that is sufficiently similar to biological fitness to even be able to talk about evolution in a meaningful, non-contrived way. Then you can attempt to build an evolutionary model, and then you'd need to evaluate that model by looking at predictions. Unless the information is spread exactly like genes are spread, that model will look very different from biological evolution and each and every aspect of the model needs to be justified, in the same vein as you have to justify any analytical model. I don't claim to be an expert in this field but have to reiterate that from what I've inferred from many talks and conversations with colleagues who work in such areas (like EGT, social dynamics, etc.), that there is no widespread consensus on such a justification. Most models of non-genetic, nonbiological 'evolution' seem to be fairly ad hoc. They just stipulate certain information transmission mechanisms and come up with fitness criteria as it suits them, without much of an empirical basis. It's Lamarck's giraffes in fine modern mathematical clothing. From 'b' - "we are perfectly capable of behaving in ways that are not evolutionary advantageous to us" - obviously. But who cares? The species that takes up the best behaviors for it's environment will persist beyond those that do not. In my experience, everybody cares about what's good and what's bad, even those who think they don't. Not caring about it and placing evolution higher in your value system is a bit like saying "Hey, let's blow up the earth, that's more consistent with the laws of thermodynamics anyway." Run a little evolutionary simulation a a computer program. With arbitrary parameters, fitness function, and information transmission mechanism, I can certainly write seemingly convincing little computer programs to show of any behavior whatsoever that it is evolutionary advantageous or disadvantageous. That's because if I can choose all parameters and the transmission mechanism as I like, I simply redefine what 'evolution' means each time, disregarding how biological evolution works. But just because you make a dynamic model with some sort of fitness function, many individuals, and some starting state doesn't mean you model evolution. It's very simple: an organism that learns how to read and write, and to pass down it's knowledge from generation to generation will 'out survive' ones that don't - and their genes are much more likely to be passed on. I'd like to see evidence for that. But in any case that would only explain how reading and writing evolves, not any evolution about what's written - which is what I was criticizing. The written information is not transmitted by genes, hence not subject to biological evolution. If the written information is somehow subject to some evolutionary selection process, then you may try to find an analytical model for that. I'm not saying that all of these models are wrong for some principle reason, just that many of them are fishy, based on sometimes flawed analogy to biological evolution, and in need of more foundational justification. I also kind of disagree with many aspects of your 'easy' explanations and would like to see some evidence for them, but let's leave it at that.

naasking 10y ago

> Moreover, there seem to be countless examples of behavior that we are perfectly capable of and whose effect is difficult if not impossible to explain with evolutionary arguments. Even if we acknowledge that some of those examples can't be explained by evolution, evolution permits aberrations. It's in the very core of the model.

dTal 10y ago
It's also worth noting that nearly all of these examples are extremely rare. Homosexuality is the most common one, and as current research suggests a genetic component it seems likely that with further information it will ultimately make sense, if not as an adaptive trait, at least as a consequence of adaptive traits. The others are indeed examples of memes overpowering genes, and an evolutionary model (of memes) can help to explain them as well. It's not a well-developed field to be sure, but it's a worthwhile perspective. A cartoony example is religions that ban sex vs religions that ban contraception - given that religious memes are strongly conserved in offspring, which meme would you expect to spread better? How does that compare to what we actually see?
- naasking 10y ago
  > Homosexuality is the most common one, and as current research suggests a genetic component it seems likely that with further information it will ultimately make sense, if not as an adaptive trait, at least as a consequence of adaptive traits. Given homosexuality is prevalent in the animal kingdom as well, that's pretty much assured.