Moral Dilemma Explained By Evolutionary Biology. Do You Agree ?

[lucaspa]

Lucaspa, have you addressed this comment to the right person ?

Because I don’t recall ever saying that knowledge should be used carelessly.

 

Yes, I have the right person here. You said "The same applies to human behaviour determined partially by genes. You don’t need to know everything in order to make use of this knowledge. "

 

When you only have a little knowledge, then it becomes VERY easy to use knowledge "carelessly". Simply because you don't understand the situation to be aware of the consequences.

 

You say you didn't say "should be used carelessly". Right, you didn't say that. But by advocating using knowledge when you only have a little bit of it, you increase the risks to the point that you practically guarantee that the knowledge use will be careless -- not from intent, but from ignorance.

 

As you said:

There is an inherent danger on knowledge but there is, perhaps, a far bigger danger on lack of knowledge.

Can't you see that, by using knowledge before you have gained a lot in the area, that you are having the danger of "lack of knowledge". That's what happened to the atomic bomb experiments. They had knowledge of the blast and thermal effects of the bombs. BUT, they had "lack of knowledge" about the radiation. And that lack meant danger.

 

Applying knowledge of "human behavior determined by genes" before we have enough knowledge about how much and which human behavior is determined by genes means danger. Because of the LACK of knowledge.

 

May be you missed my post, but I already said that genes have no mind and nor eyes. They continue blindly to instruct our brains to react as if we were still living in small tribes.

 

Genes do not know that we live in an era of huge cities and super-population.

 

Secondly, genes do not just try to perpetuate themselves, they also try to spread in the entire population.

 

You guys have been reading too much Dawkins. And you are applying too much sentience to genes -- actually, alleles of genes.

 

Alleles do not "try" anything. Alleles perpetuating and spreading thru the population is the RESULT of natural selection and inheritance.

 

Also, alleles are NOT the unit of selection. The INDIVIDUAL is. So you don't select alleles, you select individuals with traits that do better in the struggle for existence. Look at artificial selection by human animal breeders: they don't ever select for genes, they select for traits.

 

Most traits are the product of multiple genes and thus what is being selected are NOT individual alleles, but a package of alleles.

 

That was what I meant by "abrupt".

 

However, besides "punctuated equilibrium" there are some (seemingly) rare cases of Saltationism, where a new species can emerge very abruptly in just one generation like in the case of polyploidy and also by horizontal transfer of genes from one species to other through viruses and other vectors.

 

 

I don't know of any case of a new species arising in one generation. Even in cases polyploidy, it takes several generations before the polyploidy is fixed. Even in cases of hybridization, speciation takes several generations as the genome settles down.

 

Please post a peer-reviewed scientific paper documenting speciation in a single generation.

 

Since a significant portion of our genomes have a viral origin, then perhaps saltationism is not so rare.

This isn't what it seems. Yes, 10% of our genome consists of ALU repeats, BUT these don't affect expressed genes. Some of our genes seem to be "oncogenes" and these MAY have viral origins, but again this does not result in a reproductive isolation within a generation.

 

You must remember that evolution applies to POPULATIONS and species are defined as populations that do not interbreed. So if you have saltation of an individual going polyploidy, who is that individual going to mate with?

 

Well, I am not too familiar to Quantum Theory, but I agree that part of physics looks more philosophy than science ( particularly the String Theory ).

 

I said quantum splitting, not quantum mechanics. Different theories.

 

But thank you for agreeing that there is no hard and fast line between philosophy and science.

 

Regarding to philosophy I did not meant to say that all of it is mental masturbation. But from what I read in the past I have the impression that most of it is.

Then state it as tentative based upon your personal and limited observations, not as "fact". I disagree.

 

Science departs from imaginary assumptions when it tries to elaborate a range of candidate hypotheses to explain a phenomenon. But, to start with, these hypotheses have to be tested by experiments and most of them and sometimes all of them will fail and will be discarded.

And the testing and discarding has happened within the discipline of philosophy, too. Philosophy is littered with discarded theories. Science is not the only discipline that tests hypotheses. That is because the hypothetico-deductive method is not limited to science. It can be used in any situation where people agree on what the "data" is.

 

So imaginary assumptions in science do not have the status of “certainties” that foolishly philosophers claim when they build their systems.

Uh, yes they do. First, there are 5 basic assumptions about the universe that are necessary to do science in the first place. Science takes them as "certainties".

 

Second, theories are ALWAYS tested in bundles. And we assume that all the theories in the bundle are true and certain.

 

Secondly these imaginary conjectures in science are not simply random guesses. They are educated guesses based on previous knowledge which is based on real facts and evidence. And even so they have to be tested empirically.

Sorry, but not often. What you have here is the view of science taught in grade school. But remember, grade school teaches simplified concepts. For instance, the view of chemical bonds taught in grade school is not the real thing.

 

Formulating hypotheses (conjectures) is process of imagination and many hypotheses have NO basis in previous knowledge. As Karl Popper noted:

"I thought that scientific theories were not the digest of observations, but that they were inventions -- conjectures boldly put forward for trial, to be eliminated if they clashed with observations, with observations which were rarely accidental but as a rule undertaken with the definite intention of testing a theory by obtaining, if possible, a decisive refutation." Karl Popper, Conjectures and Refutations, 1963 p 38.

 

And, lest you think that Popper missed the mark:

"the experimental results may square with the hypothesis, or they may be inconsistent with it. ... but no matter how often the hypothesis is confirmed -- no matter how many apples fall downward instead of upwards --the hypothesis embodying the Newtonian gravitational scheme cannot be said to have been *proved to be true*. Any hypothesis is still sub judice and may conceivably be supplanted by a different hypothesis later on. ...To my mind the great strength of Karl Popper's conception of the scientific process is that it is realistic -- it gives a pretty fair picture of what actually goes on in real-life laboratories." "The Threat and the Glory", by P.B. Medawar (Nobel Prize winner in medicine), HarperCollins, New York, 1990 (original publication 1959). pp 96-101.

 

Did Aristotle checked the assumption that all objects of the world are made from a combination of air, water, fire and earth ?

To the extent he was able, yes. BTW, Aristotle was supposedly doing science here, not philosophy. After all, saying that all the objects in the world are made of combination of air, water, fire, and earth is fundamentally no different than saying all the objects of the world are made of a combinations of neutrons, protons, and electrons! And that is science, right?

 

So your supposed criticism of philosophy doesn't work, because your example is science, not philosophy.

 

Did Marx checked his assumption that communism is a consequence of “historic determinism” ?

1. That wasn't an "assumption", but a conclusion.

2. Marx said he was doing science, not philosophy.

3. Yes, he did check by looking at historical examples -- data.

 

Marx's problem was that ANY and EVERY historical example could be explained by his theory. There was no way to falsify his theory. Popper was working partly because of Marx (and Freud's) scientific theories. Popper objected to calling these "science" because they explained even contradictory pieces of data.

 

Abstracts ideas are products of a physical brain.

So? The abstract idea is NOT the physical brain, is it? Einstein's thought experiments --abstract ideas -- were not Einstein's brain, were they? Once stated, abstract ideas take on an existence independent of the person or people who advocate them. This has been explored with the theory of "memes".

 

You can still test the validity of abstract ideas by looking at the consequences of those ideas. If you find consequences contrary to those expected by the idea, then the idea is false. Basic deductive logic.

 

"We live with poets and politicians, preachers and philosophers. All have their ways of knowing, and all are valid in their proper domains. The world is too complex and interesting for one way to hold all the answers. Besides, high falutin morality aside, if we continue to overextend the boundaries of science, folks like Bryan will nail us properly for their own insidious ends."

Stephen Jay Gould in the essay "William Jennings Bryan's last campaign" in Bully for Brontosaurus, 1991, pp. 429-430.

 

 

I suggest you read Ian Barbour's Religion and Science. You are going to be astonished by the similarity of methods used by theology and science.

 

Yes, but moral decisions only take place if obviously there is a moral code ( innate or cultural ) that influence them.

 

I think the point is that altruism is not a moral code.

 

Surely, but when you have to react in a split second, if you have not time to think. In these situations it is usually the genetic instructions "engraved" in your brain what will control your actions.

1. Thinking takes place VERY rapidly.

2. If you have thought about the situation beforehand, then the action is still the result of thinking. This is the basis of all training, especially in the military. Think about what you should do in a combat situation before it happens, then train again and again until you automatically do the action.

 

So, in the situation, you would think the soldier acts without thinking. But in reality, much thought has gone into that action before the situation arose.

 

And, in fact, military training is designed to overcome genetic instructions -- which are to save your genome by fleeing.

[blue_cristal]

Yes, I have the right person here. You said "The same applies to human behaviour determined partially by genes. You don’t need to know everything in order to make use of this knowledge. "

 

Can you mention just one area of science where they know everything ?

 

Can’t you realise about the absurdity of your proposal ( total knowledge ) ?

 

When you only have a little knowledge, then it becomes VERY easy to use knowledge "carelessly". Simply because you don't understand the situation to be aware of the consequences.

 

But what is “little” knowledge or a “lot” of knowledge can be highly subjective.

 

And since potentially what we don’t know is probably always far bigger than what we know then we probably always have “little” knowledge.

 

So by following your criterion we should never use any knowledge at all because of the potential danger coming from what we do not know.

 

You say you didn't say "should be used carelessly". Right, you didn't say that. But by advocating using knowledge when you only have a little bit of it, you increase the risks to the point that you practically guarantee that the knowledge use will be careless -- not from intent, but from ignorance.

 

This is a flawed interpretation, Lucasa.

 

What I really meant is this: Most of psychology until few decades ago was unreliable and very little scientific. And yet there are thousands of “shrinks” messing with people heads and earning money with it. With the advent of evolutionary psychology there is a possibility of psychology becoming really scientific.

 

Therefore, although evolutionary psychology is still in its infancy, this little solid knowledge is better than the previous “fortune-teller” kind of psychology.

 

But since it is still an “embryonic” knowledge it cannot be applied socially like psychiatrists do ( actually they should not be messing with people's heads even now ).

 

However, in individual terms, in my case, it helped me to understand human behaviour a lot. It allows me to predict correctly most of the time how people would behave under some circumstances. And this helped me a lot in my social strategies.

 

Can't you see that, by using knowledge before you have gained a lot in the area, that you are having the danger of "lack of knowledge". That's what happened to the atomic bomb experiments. They had knowledge of the blast and thermal effects of the bombs. BUT, they had "lack of knowledge" about the radiation. And that lack meant danger.

 

You still do not see the elephant in the room.

 

They made the atomic bomb experiments precisely because they thought that they “knew a lot”.

 

You see ? “little and a lot of knowledge” is highly subjective.

 

What seemingly you are not grasping is that no matter the amount of knowledge accumulated we still have an inherent risk on using it.

 

For instance, people think that the aviation technology is very advanced yet airplanes still fall down.

 

Applying knowledge of "human behavior determined by genes" before we have enough knowledge about how much and which human behavior is determined by genes means danger. Because of the LACK of knowledge.

 

It depends on who applies this knowledge and how. In my particular case, it was immensely helpful.

 

In wrong hands however ANY KNOWLEDGE can be dangerous regardless how developed it is.

[blue_cristal]

You guys have been reading too much Dawkins.

 

Well, Lucaspa, I am just one guy and therefore I can only respond for myself.

 

Actually, I would say the opposite. I would say that I did not read Dawkins enough since my last reading of some of his books was more than 20 years ago.

 

 

And you are applying too much sentience to genes -- actually, alleles of genes.

 

Alleles do not "try" anything. Alleles perpetuating and spreading thru the population is the RESULT of natural selection and inheritance.

 

I thought that a person with rich knowledge like you would not need to hear a caveat from me warning that some of my terms are metaphorical and that they are used just for the sake of economy of language or as analogy. Dawkins and others do this a lot, so I presumed that you would correctly detect my metaphors.

 

Also, alleles are NOT the unit of selection. The INDIVIDUAL is. So you don't select alleles, you select individuals with traits that do better in the struggle for existence.

 

How the unit of selection can be the individual if the uniqueness of his genome is destroyed during the reproductive process through random recombination and transmission of just the half of his chromosomes ?

 

Individual genes are what have permanence, not the entire organism. Evolution is measured mainly on how different allele genes “compete” for hegemony ( actually this is a metaphor for specific genes being selected by natural selection ) in a given population and influence their distribution in it. Therefore genes are the units of selection.

 

By the way, this concept of unit of selection based on gene was not created by Dawkins. It was formulated first by William Hamilton and George C. Williams.

 

Look at artificial selection by human animal breeders: they don't ever select for genes, they select for traits.

 

Humans may select for traits but they end up selecting genes.

 

Most traits are the product of multiple genes and thus what is being selected are NOT individual alleles, but a package of alleles.

 

But this “package of alleles” can be destroyed at anytime by recombination and meiosis if artificial inbreeding is interrupted. Only genes have a lasting permanence, not the phenotype.

[foodchain]

Well, Lucaspa, I am just one guy and therefore I can only respond for myself.

 

Actually, I would say the opposite. I would say that I did not read Dawkins enough since my last reading of some of his books was more than 20 years ago.

 

 

 

 

I thought that a person with rich knowledge like you would not need to hear a caveat from me warning that some of my terms are metaphorical and that they are used just for the sake of economy of language or as analogy. Dawkins and others do this a lot, so I presumed that you would correctly detect my metaphors.

 

 

 

How the unit of selection can be the individual if the uniqueness of his genome is destroyed during the reproductive process through random recombination and transmission of just the half of his chromosomes ?

 

Individual genes are what have permanence, not the entire organism. Evolution is measured mainly on how different allele genes “compete” for hegemony ( actually this is a metaphor for specific genes being selected by natural selection ) in a given population and influence their distribution in it. Therefore genes are the units of selection.

 

By the way, this concept of unit of selection based on gene was not created by Dawkins. It was formulated first by William Hamilton and George C. Williams.

 

 

 

Humans may select for traits but they end up selecting genes.

 

 

 

But this “package of alleles” can be destroyed at anytime by recombination and meioses if inbreeding is interrupted. Only genes have a lasting permanence not the phenotype.

 

Yes, but if genes were just needed by themselves it does not on its own account for biology as a whole. I am not trying to subtract that place of genes or importance of such, but bacteria on its own has a higher degree of survivability save for one the sun goes nova, but on that note does that really say anything that does not require giving some kind of intelligence to genes not bacteria? Maybe its just because life wanted to be able to eat pizza!

 

Lastly how do you directly view the consequence of biology in a giving population on any level as to reduce to a high degree of confidence any possible fallacy or severe ignorance when making say a hypothesis and working towards theory. I mean basically from the most simple to the most complex biological systems on earth, I don’t think fully relationship in terms of phylogeny has been solved yet, let alone attempting to fully explain the impact such has on human behavior. Right now to act on evolution in terms of applied for psychological purposes rather then research is simply bound to fail like sociobiology eventually did. It cannot cover enough to a level of depth that is required. Now you can use evolution to tell people why they need to eat vitamin C, why they have some vestigial structures to produce such internally and not so much directly from diet, but to instruct a single person on say a behavior they hold? I just don’t see it yet really. Maybe at more large scale social issues, such as populations, but even then I don’t think it will get to discrete at this point. Its simply from the idea that evolution is rather vast, complex, and well requires so much time to make a good deal of progress. I mean there exist human professions in biology to study specific species even, and that has not fully reveled everything, and then what about mapping evolutionary relationships of such.

 

I still keep my vote that humans do not posses enough understanding of everything considered to take evolutionary biology to applied psychology fully.

 

Lastly on the topic of total understanding, well i think it depends on what you mean, such as the placement of every card instantly when a deck of cards is folded, or the ability to understand the role and function of a gene in a organism, or the effect a certain star has on a solar system.

[immortal]

When the person has children. Period. Number of mates has nothing to do with it. It's all about preserving alleles to the next generation, and that depends on having children, not on number of mates.

 

So ... in this society (with common birth control) the best evolutionary strategy is to have one mate with whom you agree to have children vs lots of mates, all of whom use birth control and will never get pregnant.

 

This is to paralith also.

 

I don't think always the stable strategy works what if the person whom you agree with cheats you. The number of these cases are increasing day by day. Then you look for new strategies and by the time you look for new strategy you will run out of time. I know that misunderstanding prevails if you have multiple mates but alongside one more thing which has evovled is 'language'. I know people who have multiple mates and also live in a single home.

[Paralith]

This is to paralith also.

 

I don't think always the stable strategy works what if the person whom you agree with cheats you. The number of these cases are increasing day by day. Then you look for new strategies and by the time you look for new strategy you will run out of time. I know that misunderstanding prevails if you have multiple mates but alongside one more thing which has evovled is 'language'. I know people who have multiple mates and also live in a single home.

 

In the animal world, "cheating," also called extra-pair copulations, or EPCs, can be common, even in species traditionally considered monogamous, especially birds. A female can gain multiple benefits from a mate - genetic quality for her children, and direct aid in raising them, receiving food, etc. But, not every female can have the male of best genetic quality for her mate. So, she will pair with a male that can help her raise her offspring, but then sneak off to mate with the male of high genetic quality. And that male won't turn down a chance to have offspring that he doesn't even have to take care of. It's very possible that a similar situation occurred when humans were evolving.

 

But notice lucaspa said in this society, as in modern humans today. Things are different now then they used to be, I think that much has been easily established in this thread. But, as has also been stated in this thread, many of the mechanisms that worked thousands of years ago have yet to change, to catch up to this change in environment. Today, if the people participating in EPC are smart, they use birth control, and no offspring result. So, in reproductive terms, better to stick with one mate with whom you agree to have children. Obviously, there are complexities and situations in which things are a little different, but generally, this is the case (I think) lucaspa is talking about.

[lucaspa]

I don't think always the stable strategy works what if the person whom you agree with cheats you.

 

That's beside the point. In terms of evolution, the goal is to have children. You get no evolutionary advantage by having them with multiple mates or single mates.

 

Now, there are always exceptions that would deny you children. Obviously if your mate has sex with other people, then there is the possibility that the kids will have another parent.

 

BUT, that is possible even when you have multiple mates. After all, they probably ALSO have multiple mates, which means that they are "cheating" on you!

 

Can you mention just one area of science where they know everything ?

 

Can’t you realise about the absurdity of your proposal ( total knowledge ) ?

 

I'm not proposing "total knowledge". That's a different poster. I'm proposing "adequate" knowledge.

 

However, how about the structure of DNA? Don't we know everything about the triple helix?

 

 

But what is “little” knowledge or a “lot” of knowledge can be highly subjective.

Yes, it can. BUT, we ask some questions and see what knowledge we have of the answers. For instance, we can ask:

1. How many parameters are involved in the phenomenon?

2. What are the short term consequences?

3. What are the long term consequences?

 

If the answer to any of these is "I have no idea whatsoever", then we don't have adequate knowledge to begin using the knowledge.

 

What I really meant is this: Most of psychology until few decades ago was unreliable and very little scientific. And yet there are thousands of “shrinks” messing with people heads and earning money with it. With the advent of evolutionary psychology there is a possibility of psychology becoming really scientific.

1. "shrinks" are psychiatrists. Which you say is part of science! "But since it is still an “embryonic” knowledge it cannot be applied socially like psychiatrists do"

 

2. This isn't true. Remember, much of our behavior is NOT directly a result of evolution. In fact, nature gives us "predispositions" to behavior, but not individual acts. I think you need to study psychology some more. Although those of us in the "hard" sciences (like me with biochemistry) often make fun of psychologists, psychology is a recognized part of science.

 

Therefore, although evolutionary psychology is still in its infancy, this little solid knowledge is better than the previous “fortune-teller” kind of psychology.

Two problems:

1. Evolutionary psychology is NOT "solid". It is a hypothesis to explain some behaviors, such as altruism. It makes sense as a hypothesis, BUT, we don't have the genes and alleles of genes to show that the explanation is actually correct.

 

2. Much of psychology has a mathematical basis, which makes it more "solid" that much of evolutionary psychology.

 

It seems that you have a bias against psychology. You need to tell us what you consider "fortune-teller kind of psychology".

 

However, in individual terms, in my case, it helped me to understand human behaviour a lot. It allows me to predict correctly most of the time how people would behave under some circumstances. And this helped me a lot in my social strategies.

You need to be more specific.

 

They made the atomic bomb experiments precisely because they thought that they “knew a lot”.

 

You see ? “little and a lot of knowledge” is highly subjective.

And they were wrong! That's the elephant in the room. You want to use evolutionary psychology even tho we know we have a lot LESS knowledge about it than they did about atomic reactions. Remember my list of questions above? The one "what are the long term consequences?" Their answer was "we have no idea whatsoever". That should have caused them to stop until they had some data.

 

What seemingly you are not grasping is that no matter the amount of knowledge accumulated we still have an inherent risk on using it.

Oh no, I grasp that. There is always going to be risk and there are going to be mistakes by individuals in using technology -- such as the knife slipping or having a fire get out of control.

 

But what you are failing to grasp is that we must have

1) a fairly good grasp of the knowledge in order to start using it as technology. In the case of evolutionary psychology -- to "start messing with people's minds" to use your term. We don't in the case of EP. We are not even sure it is REAL at this point, much less have any solid data on which behaviors are due to evolution.

 

2) a good grasp of the consequences of using the knowledge. Again, with EP we haven't even studied possible consequences.

 

For instance, people think that the aviation technology is very advanced yet airplanes still fall down.

And that's an individual failure of the technology -- a mistake. You don't seem to grasp the difference between an individual mistake and not knowing what the consequences of the technology will be.

 

In my particular case, it was immensely helpful.

Bare assertion. We need data on how it was "immensely helpful" and data on whether EP was actuallly ACCURATE.

 

Actually, I would say the opposite. I would say that I did not read Dawkins enough since my last reading of some of his books was more than 20 years ago.

 

Irrelevant. You are still applying Dawkins' "selfish gene" theory without looking to see whether it is valid or not. It is not.

 

I thought that a person with rich knowledge like you would not need to hear a caveat from me warning that some of my terms are metaphorical and that they are used just for the sake of economy of language or as analogy.

Not when your other statements are in error. And saying that genes "try to spread themselves thru the population" is in error whether you are using metaphor or the correct language. Instead, take the time in a discussion about evolutionary biology to use the correct terminology.

 

Dawkins and others do this a lot,

Actually, they don't. They use the correct terminology or at least state the metaphor up front so that everyone knows that they are using it.

 

How the unit of selection can be the individual if the uniqueness of his genome is destroyed during the reproductive process through random recombination and transmission of just the half of his chromosomes ?

1. Because it is the individual that must compete in the struggle for existence, not the genes.

2. Most traits are polygenic, which means that you need several genes to make the trait. Thus, it is the trait that is the unit of selection.

 

Individual genes are what have permanence, not the entire organism.

Wrong terminology. You mean "alleles". The forms of genes.

 

Let me have Ernst Mayr explain it. You should read this book.

 

"Much confusion about this problem can be avoided by considering two separate aspects of the question: 'selection of' and 'selection for'. Let us illustrate this with the sickle cell gene. For the question 'selection of' the answer is the individual who either does or does not carry the sickle cell gene. In a malalrial region the answer to 'selection for' is the sickle cell gene, owing to the protection it gives to its heterogenous carriers. When one makes the distinction between the two questions, it becomes quite clear that a gene as such can never be the object of selection. It is only part of a geneotype, whereas the phenotypes of the individual as a whole (based upon the genotype) is the actual object of selection (Mayr 1997). ...

"The reductionist [Dawkins'] thesis that the gene is the object of selection is also invalid for another reason. It is based on the assumption that each gene acts independently of all other genes when making its contribution of genes to the properties of the phenotype. If this were true, the total contribution of genes to the making of the phenotype would be accounted for by the addition of the action of all individual genes. This assumption is referred to as teh 'additive gene action' assumption. Indeed, some genes, perhaps even many genes, seem to act in such a direct and independent manner. If you are a male with the hemophiliac gene, you will be a bleeder. Many other genes, however, interact with each other. Gene B may enhance or reduce the effects of gene A. Or else the effects of gene A will not occur unless gene B is also present. Such interactions among genes are calle epistatic interactions." Ernst Mayr What Evolution Is, pgs 126-127

 

By the way, this concept of unit of selection based on gene was not created by Dawkins. It was formulated first by William Hamilton and George C. Williams.

It's still wrong. See above.

 

Humans may select for traits but they end up selecting genes.

Notice you changed the terms here. As Mayr said, above you had genes as the "unit of selection". Now you are talking "select for" as in "selecting [for] genes".

 

So go back and read Mayr about the difference of "selection of" and "selection for".

 

And yes, terminology is important. This isn't just a semantic game we are playing. There are biological consequences of the different terminology, and the consequences of some of the terminologies -- such as genes are the unit OF selection -- are false.

 

I don't think always the stable strategy works

 

Immortal, when dealing with evolution or society, there is rarely an "always". Intelligence is not "always" advantageous. In fact, evolution emphasizes that what is a good trait in one environment will be a bad trait in a different environment.

 

As Paralith stated, we are talking about this society, where birth control is prevalent. Thus, having multiple partners will not likely result in children, because the partners will be practicing birth control. You are more likely to have children if you have one partner that agrees to have children and thus goes off birth control. (Notice that many forms of birth control are designed to work on individual sexual encounters, so that the mate can "cheat" in having sex but still use birth control during that sex.)

 

Change the society (environment) and the successful reproductive strategy will change.

[immortal]

Change the society (environment) and the successful reproductive strategy will change.

 

 

According to John Maynard Smith, an evolutionary stable strategy is one which is adopted by a group of populations and which can not be altered or changed but if a better strategy develops then that will eventually win.

Its very hard to change the minds of the people (in a world where 3 out of 4 people does'nt know to read and write). If a small group of population (in this society) develops a better strategy then they will eventually win.

[lucaspa]

According to John Maynard Smith, an evolutionary stable strategy is one which is adopted by a group of populations and which can not be altered or changed but if a better strategy develops then that will eventually win.

Its very hard to change the minds of the people (in a world where 3 out of 4 people does'nt know to read and write). If a small group of population (in this society) develops a better strategy then they will eventually win.

 

You are mixing evolution and sociology/politics. They are not comparable and it is VERY dangerous to try to mix them.

 

Remember, evolution happens to populations over generations and involves inheritance. You are talking about "change the minds of people", which means you are talking changes WITHIN an individual (not a population) and does not involve our genes or inheritance.

 

So yes, a group that develops a better form of propaganda (how to change people's attitudes) will get their particular political agenda across and "win" in terms of elections and/or political power. The Nazis did that with Goebbels in the 1930s-40s. The Democrats did it in the 1930s with Roosevelt and radio to sell the New Deal. The conservative Republicans did it in the 1990s with Newt Gingerich, Rush Limbaugh, etc. and the use of talk radio.

 

But in terms of evolution, this does not change H. sapiens.

[immortal]

You are mixing evolution and sociology/politics. They are not comparable and it is VERY dangerous to try to mix them.

 

Remember, evolution happens to populations over generations and involves inheritance. You are talking about "change the minds of people", which means you are talking changes WITHIN an individual (not a population) and does not involve our genes or inheritance.

 

So yes, a group that develops a better form of propaganda (how to change people's attitudes) will get their particular political agenda across and "win" in terms of elections and/or political power. The Nazis did that with Goebbels in the 1930s-40s. The Democrats did it in the 1930s with Roosevelt and radio to sell the New Deal. The conservative Republicans did it in the 1990s with Newt Gingerich, Rush Limbaugh, etc. and the use of talk radio.

 

But in terms of evolution, this does not change H. sapiens.

 

I was arguing that it is very difficult to change the successful reproductive strategy which has been adopted by most people in the society. If I want to change this strategy I can't do it on my own I need a group of people who adopt my strategy. As you said natural selection acts on populations so if our strategy is better then we will eventually win. I did not compared it instead I applied evolutionary thinking to social issues and I know that If I take a biological view of the society I will be in an ugly place.