Mike Waller

When the US 8th Airforce deployed to England and started their air campaign against Germany, they suffered far heavier losses than had been expected. As many of these arose from fighter attacks, some bright spark came up with the idea of using the bomber force to destroy the factories that built fighters or made their components. The result was even heavier losses because, understandably, the Germans had anticipated such attacks and established a lethal combination of flack and fighter defences around such facilities. Summing up this disastrous new strategy, one commentator said that it was an attempt to resolve a very difficult problem (dealing with the fighters) by tackling an impossible one. What has this to do with the present topic? My feeling is that I have successfully dealt with a very difficult problem in that, after decades of effort, I have come up with an explanation for the evolutionary persistence of depression and it its physiological consequences that fully accords with the genetic theory of evolution, itself, in my opinion, the only fully coherent explanation for the evolutionary process currently available. My difficult is that considerations of good manners are now confronting me with an impossible task: that of explaining my ideas in terms of Questionposters world view, something which remains as impenetratable to me now as it did when he or she first joined the debate. If there are those out there who can act as intermediaries, I should welcome their assistance. Otherwise, as I have previously suggested, I feel that QP and I shall simply have to agree to differ. I also have a more general point to make. I have proposed that people (and other organisms) can be led to act other than in accordance with their personal evolutionary interests by considerations of family reputation. This should not be taken to imply that such considerations are at the forefront of their minds when they so act. As long as what they do has the effect of protecting family reputation, their proximate motivation could be as simple as a burning conviction that what they are doing is somehow "right".

Reversal of Fortune A poor man, oppressed by life, seeking to hang himself, Climbs to fix the noose. Seeing, hid high upon a shelf, A bag of gold, he leaves rejoicing. Finding it not there, The owner then takes up the rope and dies in black despair. Thus the human mind, when sent reeling by some blow, Seems somehow constrained to quickly end the show. The above is my reworking of a short poem said by the original translator to have been based on an epigram composed in Ancient Greece. If so, it is another example of the timelessness of the phenomenon which I have sought to make compatible with the genetic theory of evolution. At risk of boring those who have followed this topic, I restate my solution as follows: 1. For species whose method of reproduction includes careful selection of mates, the fact that prospective partners only express half the genes they carry presents a serious problem in gauging their true adaptive worth. 2. An obvious way round this is to use close kin as a guide to those hidden genes. It works for stockbreeders, it works for insurance companies, and when we look, we usually find that natural selection has long preceded us. 3.As natural selection can be viewed as an endless series of strategies and counter-strategies, the use of kin as a guide to true adaptive worth will almost certainly have favoured the emergence of a counter-strategy. 4. In this context the most probable counter-strategy would be the self-elimination of individuals whose performance was sufficiently poor in relation to close kin as to do them reputational damage in the context of mate selection that will have quantitative and qualitative reproductive consequences far in excess of the likely genetic throughput of the under-performing individual. 5. The most likely way of bringing this about would be for the usual processes of natural selection to progressively forge a link between a sense of failure (as induced by the reactions of significant others) to low mood, and then a further link between low mood and the range of dire physiological consequences we know now it to have. This rational is either fatally flawed or one of the most important insights yet achieved in seeking to understand the human condition. I should much appreciate hearing from anyone competent to judge.

During the course of a 30 minute BBC radio interview with Chris Springer a couple of day ago, it was suggested that during the 1960/70s it was generally thought that humans evolved from Neanderthals. Yet I am fairly sure that when I was growing up in the 1950s the then conventional wisdom was that we were descendants of Cro Magnon man, and had not direct relationship with Neanderthals. Am I misremembering, or was there a subsequent switch of view which went unnoticed by me?

If you click on the following web address you will find a blog from the BBC's Home Editor with the title "Friends are a matter of life and death". It arises out a recent remark by a UK Government adviser that "Loneliness is probably more dangerous to our health in retirement than smoking". This, in turn, arose from a meta-analysis carried out by academics at Brigham Young University and the University of North Carolina. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-16989689

In an attempt to stimulate more debate, I make the following claim which is of relevance only to those who, as I do, believe that the metaphorof the selfish gene offers the best available way of understanding why we and all other life forms come to be as we are. Both here and in my paper "Family stigma, sexual selection and the evolutionary origins of severe depression's physiological consequences", I have contended that major depressive episodes reduce life-expectancy in the many ways they are now known to do because of a lethal interaction between mate selection pressures and those of inclusive fitness, acted out in the contest of the phenotype/genotype disparity. By this I mean that as individuals only express some part of their genetic inheritance, observation of a prospective mate's close kin offers the best chance of identifying the adaptive quality of those genes currently unexpressed but which are still likely to be transmitted to young. Against such a background and in a naturalistic setting, a mechanism which moved from sustained negative feedback with regard to performance, on to chronic depression and thence to an early death would be a very unpleasant, but evolutionarily effective, means of eliminating family members who, by performing well below the average for the family, would others inflict severe reputational damage on their siblings and other close relatives. In accordance with the postulates of selfish gene theory, the sole evolutionary beneficiaries of such a process would be the genes which defined the mechanism. It seems to me that to those who accept selfish gene theory, there are only two possibilities with this idea. Either it is fatally flawed in terms of that evolutionary logic, or it offers one of the most profound insights into the human condition yet to emerge. Regarding the former, if it is so, it would seem kindest were I to be relieved of my misconceptions as soon as possible. As I have indicated, I do have many otherinterests which, if I am mistaken in this, could be more profitably explored. If, on the other hand, my logic is as compelling as it seems to me, is it not of considerable importance that we would at last have a clear insight into the reasons why we seem so hag-driven to trash the planet as each individual strives to secure the physical evidence of comparative success, an endless struggle which results in so many living out their lives under life-destroying clouds of depression? If, as I am claiming, we are all born with a life or death need to secure the approval of others, is it any wonder that so many of us do scrabble so intently for the trappings of success? Similarly, with the approval of others so crucial to our self-esteem, is it surprising that, when we buttress this fundamental requirement with pride in country, we are prepared to be organised to die and kill by the many millions, as the twentieth century all too clearly demonstrated? On a more prosaic scale, cannot we suddenly see the underlying potency of advertising tag-lines such as "because you're worth it" and the enticing invitation to be "the only kid on your block with......" Does not the idea also explain Freud's conviction that thereis a death instinct, Thanatos, standing in opposition to the procreative urge; and in the world of literature, Victor Hugo assertion that "Man lives by affirmation even more than he does by bread";and Cervantes having given Sancho Panza these lines, over 400 hundred years ago: "Ah, don't die, Master, but take my advice and live many years; for the foolishest thing a man can do in this life is to let himself die without rhyme or reason, without anybody killing him, or any hands but melancholy's making an end of him"? Comments please.

I think the opposite of what you do. I think first of all, when early humans entered Europe, they found the neanderthals, and if we look at people today using your logic, they would have mated. Why? Well people have sex with goats, trees, and even leather boots. Why not a new type of hominid ? I once heard somebody remark (or, perhaps, quote), "They say that familiarity breeds contempt, but, from my observation, it mostly just breeds".

At last, a kindred spirit!!! It is the genes that define the mechanism that reap the evolutionary reward. Though they, of course, are in competition with rival alleles who operate in precisely the same way, with, as usual, those who do the job most effectively achieving ascendancy. Effectiveness in this case is being not so over-active as to take out too many marginal threats to familial reputations, nor so lax as to allow too many to persist. More generally, I think this the only sensible way of looking at the evolutionary process. Although "we are all gene theorists now", many still seem to have pointless debates on topics such has why sexual reproduction has persisted in that it seemingly halves the chances of any given gene getting through. The only sensible answer is that it had proved a brilliant way for the genes defining sexual reproduction to persist over massive evolutionary timescales. Amongst species that go in for assortative mating, this is achieved by using the organism's own brain to identify the mate most likely, by coupling some of its genes with those of the mate-selector, to carry the sexual selection genes through into future generations. As we know, this is an effective strategy in environments where genetic variability pays big dividends in terms of environmental adaption, including parasitic resistance. In such circumstances asexual reproducers run a much greater risk of being driven to the evolutionary wall by parasites, or whatever, perfectly attuned to their relatively unchanging genetic inheritances. The field is thus left clear for the sexual reproducers. From this standpoint, we can see that the genes defining the sexual selection mechanism are locked in an unending contest with the genes that define the mechanism I am proposing. The former seeking to get as much high quality information out of a prospective mate's kin as possible before making a mating commitment; the latter continually striving to mask familial weaknesses and secure mating opportunities better than their real adaptive merits would attain. The irony is that both genes are carried by all individuals.

I am deeply touched to be linked with Einstein even if only in terms of his ultimately unsuccessful quest. And whilst we are in the realm of back-handed compliments, may I commend you on your remarkable capacity to impute to others opinions they do not hold. For example, I gave as an instance of non-human reasoning a crow that used a piece of wire as a hook. Yet you reply with a claim that I haven't considered that "words are not the only way to consciously process or perceive information". Indeed, given the extreme recency of language in the evolution of the organisms who eventually became humans, it would seem to me self-evident that most, if not all, reasoning is other than language-based. As for your claim that "cells can't reason", it seems about as insightful as an observation that cells can't run. In my view the answer to both propositions is "No, but they build structures that can". Everything you have said notwithstanding, I remain convinced that anybody who accepts the genetic theory of evolution would find the following propositions conceptually irrefutable 1. Given that when proprioception is disabled by trauma or viral attack, the conscious mind loses its sense of control over the entire body, yet the body continues to operate seemingly as normal, that sense of control is unlikely to be anything more than an adaptive illusion. 2. Whilst it is perfectly possible for individuals within species who carefully select their sexual partners, to come into being with little or no interest in the careful election of sexual partners, the genes defining such indifference would be rapidly out-competed by genes favouring the opposite approach. 3. Again, with in such a species, using kin as an indicator of a prospective mate's true genetic worth would be of such adaptive value that once genes favouring such a strategy emerged, they would rapidly be generalised. 4. Once they were in place, inclusive fitness considerations would mean that individuals would cease to be, in terms of sexual selection, sole traders. Instead, their performance, good orbad, would impact upon the perceived mate-worthiness of all close kin. 5. Under such a regime the point can be reached at which an individual inadvertently does so much damage to his/her kin's' perceived mate-worthiness that the aggregate reproductive cost significantly outweighs that individual's probable personal gene-throughput. 6. At this point, in the very unpleasant world that is shaped by natural selection, self-elimination starts to pay bigger evolutionary dividends than does continued existence.

I think that you first need to define what you mean by "reason". Would you consider the use of calculus (sadly,a closed book to me) an example of reasoning? I ask, having read that billions of folk who would claim no such capability routinely use it, for example, in catching a ball. This is particularly so when the curving flight of a baseball or cricket ball hit high requires complex positional calculations if it is to be caught. Again who was doing the reasoning that kept your car out of trouble when you were thinking about how to reply to me? Folks remarking that "they" don't remember covering some part of their journey is fairly common in my experience. My expectation is that you will say that you actually mean is high level reasoning as in "Who should I vote for?" or "What does freedom really mean? ; but to me, privileging this kind of mental function over all others would be the equivalent of giraffes privileging long necks were they the dominant species. Giving thought to such things is just something we do because that is the kind of species we are. Big brained, opportunistic problem-solving, environmental exploiters have to have a second-order, option-consideration box in which to work out the approach most likely to be most beneficial. I learned recently from a programme dealing with the career of a female academic who had spent her life studying them, that amongst birds the Corvus (crow) family are (a) some of the most intelligent and (b), in proportion to their cerebral capacity, brilliant at problem-solving. Last night, on the TV quiz cum comedy show, QI, they made the same point and showed a clip of a crow said never to have seen the artefacts to which it was being experimentally exposed. Having rapidly investigated its new surroundings, it used its beak to pick up a piece of hooked wire and then used that to hook out a small pot with a handle that had been put deep in a larger container that precluded direct access by the crow. The smaller pot contained food. And what else did the female academic have to say about crows? To everybody's surprise, they had recently been shown to display some of the behaviours taken in primates to be indicative of self-awareness. Again this suggest to me that seeing this kind of thing as some kind of ineffable mystery is no more than intellectual snobbery operating, superficially at least, at the species level. I say superficially,because it seems to me that those most likely to beat the drum about it already believe it to be a characteristic with which they are particularlywell-endowed. To finish on a lighter note, if my prose won't convince, perhaps my poetry will. Here is smething I wrote a few years ago: O May NoSome Pow'r the Giftie gie us............ I think old Rabbie got it wrong, Our world would not last very long If we could see with steely eye The self that's seen by passers-by. The human brain's perhaps the best But in one way it fails the test. In planning all our clever acts We need a mind which faces facts. Yet one such fact we deeply fear: There ain't much point in being here. As billions of us come and go, From whence and whither we don't know, Our egos need stout walls and roof To shield them from this dreadful truth. So, whilst outwardly there's no sign, Inside ourselves we build a shrine. There, raised upon a noble plinth, Which stands within a labyrinth, There dwells the sacred sense of self So crucial to our mental health. These gods, who hold us all in thrall, Demand delusions shared by all, Which serve to fool the human race That everyone's a special case. So when your mind to ego turns Forget about old Rabbie Burns. As of yourself you take a view, Wear spectacles of rosy hue. MikeWaller

You might be right; perhaps it is all impossibly complicated and we will never get a handle on it. However, it's not a story I buy. It seems to me that if you took a piece of battery driven electronic technology back to the twelfth century and then showed folks what it could do, they would first rip it a part and say that these seemingly inert pieces simply could not produce what they had just heard and they would then burn you as being in league with the devil! In short, our lack of understanding does not mean that things cannot eventually be understood. Yes, of course it is hard for single cell organisms to start coalescing and then move on, over the generations, into ever increasing complexity; but at each step all they have to attain is a tiny edge over what had previously been conspecifics or make a successful niche shift. No doubt in most cases they failed, but complexity is built on the very rare exceptions that succeed + almost unimaginable periods of time. When complexity starts to produced large brained creatures in response to turbulent environments, it is heading for an existential crisis. As I have already suggested, fully to exploit such environments an organism needs a capacity to review its options in advance of acting. And, in my mind at least, that essential capacity is what we know as conscious. The problem is that once consciousness develops to the level at which we possess it, it starts throwing up annoying questions such as, "What's it all about?". The difficulty is, if the account I have given is to be relied upon, the answer to that is, "Nothing". You then have three choices: share with others a belief in a deity; take it on the chin; or find solace in the conclusion that the whole thing is ineffably complex. In terms of my theory, the first and last carry a major adaptive advantage that the evolved desire to be well regarded is met in part by a god considering us important or a sense that one is an integral part of that ineffable mystery. I should perhaps say that if it works for you, I should stop trying to fix it!

Natural variability is one of the bedrocks of evolution. A re-occuring mutation which might once have been an actual disadvantage or a disadvantage in terms of acceptability in the context of sexual selection, suddenly becomes something positive. There does not have to have been an environmental factor that favoured it previously. Which is not, of course, to say that there wasn't something that did so favoured it.

It might perhaps be considered a matter of good list etiquette. I have no strong views either way but was very annoyed on the occasion on which I first hear the idea aired to see the guy who had the imagination to put it forward simply given, as we say, a good kicking for his troubles. This has never seemed to me a good way to progress the scientific debate. There may, of course, be incontravertible evidence of some kind that proves the two events were wholey unrelated; but failing that it seems to me obvious that the interplay between proto-humanity and fire would be a lot subtler that that of the more hairy individuals simply getting burned to death. Off the top of my head I would say that fire confers at least four major advantages: the cooking of food stuffs which, I think, aids digestion; the giving of illumination at night so that work can be done at a time when it would otherwise be impossible; providing some protection against predators who either fear the fire itself or the lighted brands that can be taken from it; and land clearance. Assuming as you say, that hairier individuals, having be burned by it, chose to avoid it altogether, the adaptive advantage on those who decided to stick with it would be substantial, And it would seem to me obvious that the less hairy would be prominent amongst the stickers. Incidental years ago I read a folk tale from China which gave an account of how the Chinese came to eat pork. It turned upon a pre-pork eating society (but why would they have pigs?) in which a particular peasant's pig house burned down. Experimentally trying the meat, he found it so delicious that he had to have more and thus the world received the gift of sweet and sour pork! . Whatever the truth of that, it does seem to me pretty likely that groups of hominids coming across burned corpses following forest fires would find meat not entirely charred very much to their taste and would seek out way of producing this to order. Certainly I have never know a dog turn its nose up at cooked meat.

Thank you for your detailed contribution to the scientific debate!!!!!!

A controversial idea put out about 20 years ago was that the use of fire was the key event; the point being that hairy creatures playing with fire are quite likely to incinerate themselves. Many on the the list I was then on were very strongly opposed to this (to a degree that was well beyond the merits or otherwise of the suggestion) but when I experimentally put a match to the hair on my forearm I was surprised at how much it flared up. I should say that I suffered no permanent harm!