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This is only tangentially related to the article. I find we (humans) have some kind of emergent "gene pool variety preservation" behavior, even when talking ab

by phn 12y ago

This is only tangentially related to the article. I find we (humans) have some kind of emergent "gene pool variety preservation" behavior, even when talking about non-directly-genetic stuff: culture, language, knowledge, ways of thinking, animal species, etc. It looks like we are wired to avoid natural selection over-fitting at a cultural level.

dalke 12y ago
Indian schools in the US and the Stolen Generation in Australia, prohibitions on non-approved religions (the Edict of Expulsion, Edict of Fontainebleau, the Alhambra Decree, and many, many more), the forceful spread of Christianity in the Americas, the Indian Removal Act of 1830, the Armenian Genocide, the Final Solution, the anti-bourgeois re-education camps of Cultural Revolution, and even the former President's call to "bring democracy to the world" all strike me as good counter-examples to there being some "wired" behavior of the sort you mean.
- marcosdumay 12y ago
  Counter-examples do not make the examples inexistent. People are complex, and populations even more so. The fact that our actions can't be explained by a superficial set of coherent principles shouldn't even be surprizing.
  - dalke 12y ago
    I don't understand your point. Would you explain further? The g'parent poster wrote "It looks like we are wired to avoid natural selection." I see no evidence for that. I see evidence that it's not true. The conservation ideal of preserving ecosystem diversity is a rather recent cultural invention. I don't think Alexander III of Macedon ordered the massacre of the men of Tyre, or the slaughter of the people of Massaga, in order to preserve cultural diversity. I don't think the death and destruction under the Mongol Empire was because of their wired desire to avoid natural selection. My comment is to ask why I should believe that the conjecture has any merit. I don't know what you mean by your response.
- phn 12y ago
  Those are good counter examples, but they seem to happen in the context of a somewhat direct conflict between two cultures, thus entering a "survival of the fittest" kind of situation. Maybe we only get this protective spirit when we have already "won" :)
  - dalke 12y ago
    Evolution, which is what I think you mean by "wired" behavior, has no idea that after 100,000s of years of human civilization if a given culture has "won". I don't understand what you mean by "direct conflict between two cultures". The Indian Removal Act was a US act on the one side against the Chickasaw, Choctaw, Muscogee-Creek, Seminole, and original Cherokee Nations. That's at least 6 cultures. And certainly the Indian schools affected a huge number of cultures. Unless you mean that all of the tribal nations are a single culture?
    - phn 12y ago
      Well, perhaps they aren't two, but that is completely irrelevant to the argument (How do you "count" cultures anyway?). The important part in that sentence was that there were opposing sides in conflict, thus removing any form of will to preserve from the equation. And yes, evolution (particularly in the context of darwinism and derivatives) is what I am talking about, specifically, some kind of mechanism that seems to exist that prevents us getting stuck in a "local maximum". A mechanism that I mentioned because I find it interesting that you can find signs of it at so many different levels, and in many different contexts.
      - dalke 12y ago
        You were the one who wanted to count cultures in the first place. If you can't count cultures (or other measures of diversity?) then how does any evolutionary behavior manage to do so? I would like to know your historical examples of "signs of it at so many different levels". All I know of occur relatively recently in history, which is a strong indicator that it's a cultural change, and not a deep evolutionary imperative.

by phn 12y ago

dalke 12y ago

Indian schools in the US and the Stolen Generation in Australia, prohibitions on non-approved religions (the Edict of Expulsion, Edict of Fontainebleau, the Alhambra Decree, and many, many more), the forceful spread of Christianity in the Americas, the Indian Removal Act of 1830, the Armenian Genocide, the Final Solution, the anti-bourgeois re-education camps of Cultural Revolution, and even the former President's call to "bring democracy to the world" all strike me as good counter-examples to there being some "wired" behavior of the sort you mean.

marcosdumay 12y ago
Counter-examples do not make the examples inexistent. People are complex, and populations even more so. The fact that our actions can't be explained by a superficial set of coherent principles shouldn't even be surprizing.
- dalke 12y ago
  I don't understand your point. Would you explain further? The g'parent poster wrote "It looks like we are wired to avoid natural selection." I see no evidence for that. I see evidence that it's not true. The conservation ideal of preserving ecosystem diversity is a rather recent cultural invention. I don't think Alexander III of Macedon ordered the massacre of the men of Tyre, or the slaughter of the people of Massaga, in order to preserve cultural diversity. I don't think the death and destruction under the Mongol Empire was because of their wired desire to avoid natural selection. My comment is to ask why I should believe that the conjecture has any merit. I don't know what you mean by your response.
phn 12y ago
Those are good counter examples, but they seem to happen in the context of a somewhat direct conflict between two cultures, thus entering a "survival of the fittest" kind of situation. Maybe we only get this protective spirit when we have already "won" :)
- dalke 12y ago
  Evolution, which is what I think you mean by "wired" behavior, has no idea that after 100,000s of years of human civilization if a given culture has "won". I don't understand what you mean by "direct conflict between two cultures". The Indian Removal Act was a US act on the one side against the Chickasaw, Choctaw, Muscogee-Creek, Seminole, and original Cherokee Nations. That's at least 6 cultures. And certainly the Indian schools affected a huge number of cultures. Unless you mean that all of the tribal nations are a single culture?
  - phn 12y ago
    Well, perhaps they aren't two, but that is completely irrelevant to the argument (How do you "count" cultures anyway?). The important part in that sentence was that there were opposing sides in conflict, thus removing any form of will to preserve from the equation. And yes, evolution (particularly in the context of darwinism and derivatives) is what I am talking about, specifically, some kind of mechanism that seems to exist that prevents us getting stuck in a "local maximum". A mechanism that I mentioned because I find it interesting that you can find signs of it at so many different levels, and in many different contexts.
    - dalke 12y ago
      You were the one who wanted to count cultures in the first place. If you can't count cultures (or other measures of diversity?) then how does any evolutionary behavior manage to do so? I would like to know your historical examples of "signs of it at so many different levels". All I know of occur relatively recently in history, which is a strong indicator that it's a cultural change, and not a deep evolutionary imperative.