The Prager U video Evolution: Bacteria to Beethoven presents two challenges to Beethoven-from-small-variations. It implicitly suggests God-guided evolution, a version of theistic evolution. In another longer conversation the speaker Stephen Meyer of the Discovery Institute engages others.
A God-guided evolution would still be a story of transmutation of species over millions of years, and thus would sustain Hayekian atavism explanations for divergencies in political proclivity, modes of political activism, and attitudes about fairness to political adversaries. To get acquainted with the atavism thesis, read “Econ 101 Morality: The Amiable, the Mundane, and the Market,” by J.R. Clark and Dwight Lee and their citations to Hayek, Paul Rubin, Larry Arnhart, and others.
Clark and Lee bring the atavism thesis to the issue of resistance to economic understanding. Jon Murphy took their advice, applied it to his own classroom teaching, and writes of the success that flowed from explaining to students our natural resistance to economic insights.
For some years now I’ve puzzled over how little attention people give to atavism explanations, even though promulgated by the great Friedrich Hayek. Treatments of Hayek sometimes pay scant attention to that element of his thought, which I think is right up there with his more-touted contributions. In fact, I think the more-touted contributions should be appreciated in light of the atavism thesis.
Perhaps a reluctance has flowed from concern that atavism explanations would not sit well with theistic auditors. If so, the video might represent an overcoming of such reluctance. If there’s no conflict between evolution and theism, then there’s no conflict between atavism explanations and theism. Indeed, atavism explanations represent an interpretation of the idea of fallen man in need of redemption.
There are other reasons for reluctance, but it’s nice to overcome diffidence from apprehensions over theism.
Personally, I’m agnostic and don’t have a strong opinion about the idea that evolution is guided by God. The video challenges the idea that, once the ball got rolling, God has played no role. I’m open to the idea that God has played a role along the way, just as I’m open to the theistic interpretation of the simpler story, that God got the ball rolling and sat back.
In either theistic account, we have transmutation of species and an interesting interpretation of fallen man, with “the fall” being man genetically evolved for the simple society of the small band subsequently finding himself in very different social worlds and often systematically foolish—atavistically—in politics.
READER COMMENTS
Thaomas
Nov 13 2019 at 1:37pm
I guess all sorts of what we find foolish in others can be traced back to Original Sin, it that’s what you believe in. I’ve never found it especially puzzling that people do not understand the case for a progressive consumption tax, free trade, or market friendly ways to discourage net emissions of CO2, so I never wondered too much about what led to the lack of understanding. And if they still don’t after I explain it, maybe my explanation was not good enough. In a way, I’m not sure its “nice” to wonder in public as it’s pretty close to not respecting your interlocutor.
Phil H
Nov 13 2019 at 10:09pm
It can be frustrating how the same theory has different names in different disciplines. So far as I can tell from a shallow reading here, the “atavism” theory is another word for evolutionary psychology.
Evopsych is just nonsense, all the time. Quick argument: For an evopsych argument to be good, it would have to clear at least four hurdles: (a) successfully identify a real psychological phenomenon – the science of psychology regularly fails at this; (b) successfully demonstrate that the psychological phenomenon is the result of heredity, not present environment – I genuinely don’t think it’s ever been done; (c) successfully demonstrate that this psychological phenomenon could be an adaptation to a past evolutionary environment – would require an awful lot of weeding out alternatives, not just a plausible just so story; (d) successfully demonstrate that said evolutionary environment did in fact occur during human evolution – human prehistory is much harder than evopsych guys think it is. If an evopsych (or atavistic) explanation fails to do any one of those things, then there is, at the very least, a lot of space for doubt.
I liked Jon Murphy’s article. It sounds like good pedagogy. But it wasn’t science.
I find “agnostic … about the idea that evolution is guided by God” to be a very bad look as well. It’s more debatable, but failing to get science in this day and age is a problem. (I apply that the other way, too – science & humanities profs should definitely get the basics of economics.)
Trevor Adcock
Nov 14 2019 at 2:28am
Higher sex drive, aggression, variance, promiscuity, and risk-taking in males are all things that fulfill your requirements.
Who cares if their is room for doubt? Theories have to balance explaining lots of information with being encoded by little information. Complex theories that need a lot of information to encode predict worse than simple theories. To call evopsych wrong all the time is just ridiculous.
Do you think it doesn’t explain why human, chimp and brown bear males are so much larger and more aggressive than females of their respective species?
Phil H
Nov 14 2019 at 3:58am
“To call evopsych wrong all the time is just ridiculous.” No, it’s not. There have been plenty of pseudosciences – Ptolemaic astronomy, alchemy, Freudian psychology, Whorfian linguistic determinism, intelligent design. It is entirely possible that a branch of science could be mainly wrong.
“Do you think it doesn’t explain why human, chimp and brown bear males are so much larger and more aggressive than females of their respective species?”
In primates and mammals generally, females do more of the care and protection of the young. Obviously a better strategy for the protection of younger generations – and the continuation of the genetic line – would be for the females to be larger and more aggressive, as is observed in amphibians and insects, for example. You see? I can make up an evopsych “just so” story for literally any position. That why it’s not science.
This is actually a great example of where evopsych fails. Larger, more aggressive males passes the first and second hurdles I listed: It is real for mammals, and it is genetic. But it fails the third and fourth. You have no idea at what point the genetic coding for larger males was introduced into the genetic line. You have no idea what the evolutionary environment was at that time. And you have no idea how the large aggressive male form developed as a response to that environment. It’s fine to conjecture: this is a real thing, and it certainly seems *likely* that it’s an evolutionary adaptation of some kind. But based on our current knowledge, we cannot say anything more than that, and it is unscientific to do so.
Trevor Adcock
Nov 14 2019 at 4:37am
We have reasons for why amphibians, spiders, some seal species, etc, have bigger females. Your attacks on evopsych are just that it doesn’t explain everything, but it explains somethings with a simple model. Just like basic econ 101 does.
You are an unserious person. *Likely* is all we will ever get on anything that can’t be directly observed repeatedly. Hiding your head in the sand is just cowardly. You still have to accept some model to act in the world. Why not accept the most *likely* one you fool.
artifex
Nov 14 2019 at 3:21pm
Making hypotheses is not unscientific. Evolutionary psychology provides explanations with testable predictions about the design of evolutionary adaptations. Only believing in these explanations before they are empirically verified is unscientific; and what’s more, its being unscientific does not make it wrong to believe. And even then, you cannot in fact make up explanations for any position.
Phil H
Nov 14 2019 at 8:06pm
Hi, artifex.
“Making hypotheses is not unscientific.” That’s a knotty one. Sure, hypotheses are part of science, but not any hypothesis is. Hypothesizing that Pluto is made of green cheese is unscientific; hypothesizing that Jewish people are chosen because a book says so is also unscientific. My argument is that evopsych hypotheses are often of this form: they often seem to just be restatements of sexist/racist prejudices, not informed by real stuff we know.
“Evolutionary psychology provides…testable predictions” Can you name one? I’ve honestly never seen a good one.
Jon Murphy
Nov 14 2019 at 9:47pm
Phil-
Precisely define “scientific.”
If it has no testable predictions, then how do you know it fails to explain anything? Everything I had read up to this point by you indicated that you did indeed test its predictions, but now you say there are none to test…
Phil H
Nov 15 2019 at 12:35am
“Precisely define “scientific.”” Haha – I mean, just give me a few (hundred) years and a philosophy of science research team, and I’ll get right back to you! I’m not trying to be overly precise about it; I think I’m working off the common-or-garden definition of science. Something like: a system of quantitative models and hypotheses about the universe that are believed to have universal application, and are tested by experiment.
“If it has no testable predictions, then how do you know it fails to explain anything?” – Well, precisely because it doesn’t make testable predictions. A theory that doesn’t make predictions can’t explain anything. I mean, I’ve seen lots of silly evopsych predictions: women love shopping, men are more promiscuous, etc. But in reality, those were achieved by positing the conclusion and then making up stories to fit. They didn’t emerge from the data.
Here’s the test I apply: have you ever seen an evopsych claim that didn’t seem to back up some reactionary position? Ever seen an evopsych study that predicts women should be *better* at maths? Or one that suggests the best coding skills will be found among the Bantu? Or that short people are better parents?
Of course it’s possible that I’ve missed the high quality research. I just know for certain that what filters through into the media is nonsense.
Jon Murphy
Nov 15 2019 at 10:35am
Just because something is “reactionary” does not imply it is incorrect or untestable. “reactionary” is subjective.
That’s not to say that there isn’t likely abuse of the science. Any science can be used for things that are unseemly. Genetics, statistics, and economics, for example, were used to justify eugenics programs. Even today, some economics and sociology are still used to justify eugenics and segregation.
My point is we should avoid condemning a science based on the loudest proponents of it. “Science” doesn’t give policy prescriptions.
Jon Murphy
Nov 15 2019 at 10:39am
Ok, good, I like that (I’ll quibble about the restrictive “quantitative,” but that’s a conversation for another time). Let’s use that definition.
The hypothesis of “Pluto is made of green cheese” is indeed scientific as it meets your criteria:
-It is a hypothesis and a model
– It is believed to have universal application
-It is testable
By testing it, we can disprove it, but the hypothesis is still scientific according to your criteria.
Phil H
Nov 17 2019 at 9:19am
This has perhaps gone on too long, but just some brief replies to Jon:
“Reactionary” is subjective – yes. And any single single scientific conclusion cannot be judged good/bad because of its political implications. My point is that *all* of the evopsych I’ve seen is reactionary, which makes me believe that evopsych exists to prop up reactionary politics, rather than being a serious attempt to get at truth. In that sense, very similar to the intelligent design project – it is dressed up to look like science, but it isn’t science, because it’s not really interested in allowing any alternative conclusion.
I shouldn’t condemn – well, maybe not. I’ve admitted several times, I don’t read the literature. I may have missed something. But no one in this learned debate has been able to give me a single counterexample. So… I’m sticking with my (perhaps hasty) judgment for now.
Pluto is made of green cheese – looks scientific, perhaps could have been scientific 1000 years ago, but today we know too much. Science is not just form, it’s content, too. Part of that content: it’s just rocks and gas out there. There are no dairy products in space. It doesn’t matter how good your form is, if your content is at odds with known empirical findings (it’s just rocks and gas out there), then you’re not doing science.
Matthias Görgens
Nov 14 2019 at 1:09pm
It’s pretty easy to satisfy your criteria. It’s just that most examples would be considered boring and obvious.
Phil H
Nov 14 2019 at 7:56pm
Hi, Matthias.
I really don’t think it is easy! I’m not sure I’ve ever seen an evopsych theory that cleared all those hurdles. Of course, I don’t read the literature, so mostly what I see is the junk that filters through into the mainstream press, which is almost all bizarre sexist drivel (“primitive man hunting strategies explain why women like shopping”). So perhaps I’ve missed some of the good, careful work that’s been done. But seriously, hurdles 3&4 are tough. No one knows what the evolutionary environment was like. One example that got a lot of press a few years ago was to do with the size of groups that primitive man lived in, and how that affects Facebook usage today – utter nonsense. No one knows how big those groups were, much less whether the size of those groups affected us genetically in any way.
Can you cite a couple of evopsych ideas that you think stand up?
Jon Murphy
Nov 14 2019 at 9:56pm
Phil-
With respect, I think you’ve done a bait and switch. This piece is about atavism, not evolutional psychology.
Atavism is the idea that we tend to revert to some instinctual behavior, or at least it is the foundation of certain beliefs.
One such behavior that Dr. Klein discusses (and I do as well) is the idea of band-man, or an amiable virtue morality. In other words, that humans tend to care more about those closest to us rather than further away, and subsequently that we expect more from them, because we originally were in small bands. As such, as humanity expanded, institutions changed but the basic operating of man’s brain did not. We have a tendency to distrust mercantile and “mere justice” relationships because of this ancestral band.
Now, you may reject atavism as a reason why we have distrust of large “mere justice” groups and interactions. That’s fine. But you cannot dismiss the tendency for humans to act in this manner that we prefer those closest to us; that amiable morality gives us a warmer feeling than mere justice (if you do deny this point, I suggest you watch the forthcoming deluge of Christmas specials that are all about amiable morality).
Phil H
Nov 14 2019 at 11:50pm
Hi, Jon. Yes, you’re completely right, I got carried away with the evopsych discussion. And you’re right that your amiable/justice distinction doesn’t depend on it – I think you just used an evopsych-style story to introduce it, which sounds like a good pedagogical technique.
Jon Murphy
Nov 15 2019 at 10:30am
My larger point, Phil, is I think you are confusing the two concepts. As I understand it, they are distinct. Now, I will admit I am not thoroughly immersed in the evolutionary psych literature. I may be missing something.
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