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How, if "for most of human existence, it was not normal for a man to know which kids were his", would it then follow that, when the concept of private property
by benaiah 14y ago
How, if "for most of human existence, it was not normal for a man to know which kids were his", would it then follow that, when the concept of private property came about, "[t]he most intuitive arrangement was for a landowner’s offspring to inherit it"? Wouldn't that be totally unintuitive if it was normal to not know lineage? Which begs the question - if his first postulate is true, what caused a total reversal of the situation?
The author makes enormous logical leaps with nothing but conjecture (corin_ pointed this out very well in another comment), practically inventing narratives for huge amounts of history with little to no actual evidence to support his suppositions (the concept of property didn't exist until agriculture; primageniture and inheritance came about because they were "intuitive", despite the fact that paternity wasn't normally known; etc.).
EDIT:
Just as a disclaimer, I ascribe to a Christian viewpoint on history (yes, I'm a young-earth creationist; yes, I've looked extensively at the evidence; no, I don't really want to derail the discussion with an argument about it) and morality, which includes sexual and marital monogamy, so I disagree with pretty much everything in the article. My point here isn't trying to convince anyone of that - I don't think the article stands even on its own premises, and is a terrible mess of conjecture and inconsistency. That's the only point I'm making.
- pavlov 14y agoWouldn't that be totally unintuitive if it was normal to not know lineage? It works if you expand the concept of "offspring" to mean basically "the person(s) that you want to be your inheritors". This is what the Romans did, at least -- it was common for an adopted son to become the principal inheritor. It does make sense that if you have a substantial fortune and influence and you're not really sure about who your genetic children are, then you'd want to pick your heir rather than simply having your children split it up evenly after you're gone. Romans even had the concept of posthumous adoption: Emperor Augustus became Julius Caesar's adopted son only after the latter's famous assassination. In turn Augustus passed his wealth and power on to an adopted son, Tiberius.
- benaiah 14y agoYou make good points, and I agree with you, but it doesn't help the author's case any, as his entire point in the whole discussion is an origin story for monogamy - men wanted their biological sons to inherit and thus enforced female monogamy to ensure biological heredity. It doesn't follow at all from his previous conjectures.
- drharris 14y agoI have to agree. Full of a lot of conjecture and giant leaps without much positive evidence. Unfortunately, stuff like this is all the rage even in scientific literature these days, especially in the realm of evolutionary biology. Many similar articles work like: "see, monkeys do it, therefore humans did it", assuming the premise to be true when there not a whole lot of evidence either way to support it.
- illuminate 14y agoI think you're referring more to "evolutionary psychology", a field rife with pseudoscience (and nearly 100% pseudoscience in the pop realm), much less so evolutionary biology.
- drharris 14y agoOops, good catch. This is what I meant.