Sorry, I don't understand the link between private property and intellectual genes. The phasing out of nomadism, agriculture and civilizations don't mean private property.
Santiago Siri
· 8 months ago
Well.. I'll say your comment wasn't unexpected on this topic.
Property was simply a natural economic strategy to emerge from the new "settled" reality humans had evolved into.
Hunter-gatherer societies were (and still are those existing today) never bigger than 150 persons (you can google de "Dunbar" variable to see the reason for that). That's why under a tight and small community, that needs to be constantly on the move and were you can't tell who'll get lucky hunting each day, tend to have a more egalitarian community as a strategy that guarantees that every member we'll get food regardless of who hunted the animal. The moment these societies grow in number, they split.. were usually members of the same family/kinship stay together.
But when you settled as a specie and do agriculture and get a surplus of whatever you're producing and want to use that for trade among others, you need storage. When you need to produce, store and trade something, you start needing specialization of roles. Property is the framework that enables a society, a very big and complex society (from thousands to millions of members, not 150 naked guys in the savannah), to achieve those goals in a cohesive way. Hierarchies that emerge from the rise of property is what enables the emergence of leaders that will guide a big and complex society and keep it united (here's were religion played a big role).
An interesting story regarding the cognition of property in the human mindset was the domestication of the dog. Apparently wolves that were surrounding human settlements scavenging for leftovers of human food, evolved eventually into the dog. Humans discovered that the less violent wolves could help them to defend their property when nomadic tribes attacked in the nights or at dawn (a very common tactic of hunter gatherers). It's a logical outcome that the investment on defending a property for the prosperity of a community has it's payoff.
Finally, trade was a great tool for peacemaking (and still is). Hunter-gatherer societies are in constant warfare with their neighbouring tribes. Even the !Kung today have almost a 30% of their population die in the constant wars they suffered and still suffer. It's part of their culture, all stone age societies are warriors. Trade is what helps many communities live peacefully within a same society (think of all the ethnical groups in any big city of the world today).
In essence, this is just basic economics. The Bottom-line of my post is: Property enables a lot of strategical thought (land size, resources, location, and many etceteras) that enabled the spread of more thought-related genes in opposition to body-related genes that are required in the survival of hunter-gatherers.
My friend, I know that anarchism is an essential part of your identity. I just want to be logical here.. the fascinating thing for me about genetics, is that many of the claims I used to question (religion, monogamy, property) can start to be explained through a real science.
Marco Mustapic
· 8 months ago
I think you got me wrong. My point was that agriculture and domestication made some traits useful for those tasks (logical reasoning, observation) more valuable than others used for hunting (strength, endurance).
Keep in mind that many of the behaviors we associate with a modern human, like abstract thinking, innovation or planning were present 40-50 thousand years ago. In comparison, agriculture appeared only 10 thousand years ago, and rudimentary trade is probably much much older.
So it was not private property that allowed civilization, but settlement. Your statement that private property allowed people like Einstein or Newton to be born is ridiculously simplistic. In your reasoning you are not only supposing that something like an Einstein or Newton gene exists (your words), but are forgetting something fundamental as human culture. Ten thousand years are too few to have an impact on human genetic evolution, culture has a much bigger impact.
This is not about anarchism or capitalism, just basic logic and genetics.
Santiago Siri
· 8 months ago
You can't blame for making it a capitalism vs. anarchism thing.. do we ever engage on a different sort of conversation lately?
Yes, private property is not settlement and agriculture, it's the outcome as I 've said.
But I'll make my point more clear: The key thing here is that there are very clear benefits for those members in a society that are succesful in acquiring extra property. That's a symbol of status on every single settled society that has existed; And that is a very clear incentive for the genes related to calculus for spreading !!
If the symbol of status on a settled society wasn't property but rather it was kindness, probably we would get more mother theresas instead of scientists.
Where have I said that a Newton gene exists!? I just said that Newtons and Einsteins are less likely to appear in a hunter-gatherer society, thats it. Settled societies, with the incentive of property, helped to spread intellectual genes that weren't historically common.
But if you want to talk about Einstein or Newton, I just hope I shouldn't remind you in what time of history they appeared. It's always about adaptation.
Marco Mustapic
· 8 months ago
"Where have I said that a Newton gene exists!?" Read your post :)
Maybe private property was very beneficial culturally as a means of growth and societal organization, but as I said earlier, there are no genes involved in this: ten thousand years are not enough for genetic evolution. There's no such thing as a calculus gene!
You are also right when stating that there is a clear benefit for members who can acquire more property, but throughout history this was done by violence (think kings, emperors, conquests). Maybe in the 20th and 21st century you could start to aspire to a substantial amount of property by means of your brain instead of violence or oppression, like the Google founders have found.
Santiago Siri
· 8 months ago
Then again... where did I say that there are private property genes? **I said that private property helped in the natural selection process to spread genes related to mental activities**
Under what scientific arguments can you claim that 10,000 years aren't enough for evolution? I seriously disagree. For starters, the genome project had finished its task on mapping the human genome just a few years ago.. we are very unaware of what most of the genes actually do and we have many years ahead on research to find out just that.
Being that said, there are some very promising discoveries from the last years that pove you wrong.. the lactose tolerance gene (the ability to drink milk as an adult) was recently identified and it seems that this gene had emerged within northern european humans within the last 3000 to 6000 years.
Also, if the tracking back of the mithocondrial DNA and Y chromosome that seem to prove that we all come from an original population of 5000 men in eastern africa some 50K years ago.. every single race that evolved out of Africa, is a clear adaptation to the environment. An interesting case is that of the people in Iceland were they have been living there for only 1000 years and you can easily identify 40 different "races" within that society.. with their DNA you can tell on what part of the island they live. And that's adaptation in just a 1000 year span.
Regarding violence, well.. *now* you're getting into the anarchism vs. capitalism thing.
For starters, the use of property for trade is a very good measure against violence (as I've stated on my previous comment). In proportional terms, the most war-friendly societies are the most primitive ones: they get into battle every week and 30% of their population die in wars. Settlement and property helped (and still helps) humans to achieve agreements under more peaceful terms. An insteresting stat used by Steven Pinker from the UN is that from all the deaths that occured in 2002, only 0.3% were because of war. If we compare modern societies to primitive ones, we can certainly say we are more peaceful in relative terms.
To state that all property was the consequence of violence is an extreme over-simplification that comes in handy for leftists that only study the last 200 years of human history. Property, as a means for trade, was among the first tools that helped settled tribes to understand each other and engage on a friendly exchange of their goods to gurantee their mutual survival. Property tooks us out of violence. Of course, I won't deny the role of kings, imperialists and presidents that used their high status to keep reminding us of our animal origins... but to blame an abstract concept such as property for that, is the equivalent of blaming a fork for the bad taste of your food (hint: it's the cheff).
Marco Mustapic
· 8 months ago
Ok, I'll cite your post:
"It’s very unlikely that the genes for an Einstein or a Newton (...)"
Again, there are NO such genes. But maybe I'm wrong and you actually read a paper about it.
You are right about lactose tolerance, that is evolution happening. What I meant (using very erroneous words) is that you won't see natural selection in a short span of time. Being tolerant to lactose just makes you be able to consume dairy products, a huge percentage of the world population lives just fine without that gene. It's not an obvious advantage (or else there will be no lactose intolerant people).
About violence and property, I completely agree with Pinker, society is much less violent now than at any other point in history, although he doesn't mention private property as a reason. In fact, he doesn't state a reason, just a couple of thoughts.
If you think property took us out of violence, that's ok, nice opinion. But, as Pinker says, 1000 years ago humanity was much more violent, but we already had property and trade. So... we now have more property? I don't know, I don't see the link. I just say that property was usually acquired by means of violence (or oppression), and not peaceful trade, and that is also my opinion, no scientific basis to support it :)
Santiago Siri
· 8 months ago
Well.. when discussions get to the point of analysing sentences, they tend to loose some of their logical constraints.. but here I go:
"the genes FOR an Einstein" is not the same as "the Einstein genes". The genes FOR an Einstein can be those same genes you and I might have for the use of language, calculus, abstraction or simply the growth of some lobes of our brain (already detected in some Europe-asians) or the thinning of our skull to get more size for the brain (common on all modern humans).
Here's another interesting case: The domestication of the Fox done by the soviet scientist Belyaev suddenly detected proves of adaptation: in 50 years the domesticated Foxes had more thin skulls (like we do), white spots on the belly (like dogs do) and smaller teeth.. just 50 years or a couple of generations of adaptation.
Yes, property can be acquired by violence, but it's usually more costly and risky to do it that way.
Yes, Pinker is awesome.
Cheers!
manuelaraoz
· 8 months ago
Very interesting indeed... I am also really fond of genetics, since the moment I had a year's course fully dedicated to evolution and genetics at school. The more I learn about this subjects, the more I learn to understand everything by the means of mutation, adaptation, evolution.
The idea that states that if you have variation and a challenging environment of any sort, design MUST happen, is incredibly simple and beautiful. I can see it everywhere... Especially in computers, because that's what I study, but I think it has a much broader range, as you (Santi) comment.
I also highly recommend Juan Enriquez' TED talk. He succedes, in my opinion, in forecasting our destiny: a species that controls - not suffers - evolution.
Saludos! :D
Santiago Siri
· 8 months ago
Hey guys.. I just updated the post, providing a third point of "Religion as a Disruption for Altruism"... and why I picked those topics... but I really recommend the books I mentioned.
Thanks for the Juan Enriquez link, I've seen that talk (just like every single publiished TEDTalk) and yes, it's quite probable we'll go on the path of desigining our species within this century. And we should do it all the way.
Marco Mustapic
· 8 months ago
And sorry, I just couldn't let pass the comment about monogamy.
For starters, most of the bird species and some of the mammal species are monogamous. There are also the bonobos, non-monogamous but very peaceful. There is a theory that states that in species whose male and female individuals have approximately the same body size, individuals with large testes have a better chance of spreading their genes. In contrast, species with big differences in body size tend to be polygamous and only the biggest individuals can reproduce, competing with the others by strength (body size helps, obviously).
My point is that small groups are not a consequence of polygamy.
Santiago Siri
· 8 months ago
Well.. yes, in this one I was more simplistic.. you could simply argue my case mentioning islamic societies.
Regarding birds, that was an old belief I think. Recent research from this decade argues that birds are monogamous from what you see of them, but not when you actually perform a DNA test on them (if you want I can find you the source for this, but it's 2am). Regarding mammals, I'm not really aware of any other mammal.. the only case of a monogamous animal that I can recall now are the penguins.. who use that strategy in a very challenging environment.
Now, back to islamic societies: The man has more to loose in the sexual game. If a woman doesn't carry his offspring, then all his efforts are useless. That's why man tends to impose lots of restrictions on females that go from the castration of their clitoris (in some tribal societies from africa) to the use of the chador or the legal requirement of baptizing a son with the male surname. Islamic societies, are (and I can't avoid saying this from a western point of view) quite harsh on women's rights and it would be interesting to analyze that from evolution's point of view.
Regarding your point on small groups: yes, there are many other factors than polygamy. But monogamy is a very simple rule of thumb to keep quiet very large (millions-of-members) societies.. I think that you agree that the benefits on granting reproduction for everyone are very clear to see. But what is big or small? Are there any other structured societies other than those of the human species of gigantic size? Ants and bees are more of a collective-being rather than individuals in a society..
I need to sleep man..
bilinkis
· 8 months ago
As I mentioned a while ago in one of my posts on atheism, The Selfish Gene is one of my favorite books (if not THE favorite). I am fully with you in that genetics turns the social sciences upside down in many ways.
Just like Manu, I love genetic algorithms as well. I just finished the book Emergence by Steve Johnson an I find it truly fascinating that gentics alone almost always generates "intelligence", not in the form of our brain but in the form of a large number of "dumb" small simple bodies interacting in ways were intelligence "emerges" in the whole.
I believe we may be able to produce super intelligent beings (biologic or not) Kurzweil-style. But I am positive we are going to generate super intelligent systems using genetic algorithms. The funniest thing of all is that when those systems emerge our own intelligence may not be enough to understand why they work or how they came upon being.
I love the World we are living in!
Santiago Siri
· 8 months ago
Emergence by Steven Johnson -> added to wishlist! :)
I remember when I first read about John Conway's Game of Life (back in my days of game designer) and became fascinated by the concept of emergent behaviours (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway's_Game_of_Life)
It's a fascinating time indeed... to talk about genetics today is the equivalent of talking about information theory back in the 30's when only a few like Turing and Von Neumman were talking about it.
Leonardo Falaschini
· 7 months ago
Uuuufff... So much to read! Great debate to had here, my friend! :D
Anyway, and linking this to our recent debate on twitter: I have some reserves about those "authors" writing books with revealed words. I'm not against reading, of course, Haha! but I am for critical reading. These books have an underlying system of ideas, i.e. ideologies. Plain science does not exist. I think science (again, critical thinking!) is the greatest thing that happened to humanity but science books are written by human beens, with their ideas, their failures, their sins.
Santiago Siri
· 7 months ago
Hey buddy.. I know you, just like me, and our good friend Marco, enjoy discussing about anything (we should do a debate club).. but are you wiling to go as far as denying *your* very good friend Richard Dawkins just to get on the ring with me? Come on!!!! :)
Just a silly remark: I think you mean "human beings".. I just wish you wrote beans to make a formidable joke. But you didint.
Regarding your point: That's precisely my point on the article. Just like you, I would never defend religion and I am capable of questioning private property.. but reading on genetics brought me new light on these topics, because it has a deeper foundation for its claims, a closer one to that of science...
In opposition to philosophy, politics or literature.. humans aren't at the center when you use the genetic framework.. we are just one of many species being shaped by the ripples of DNA.. and in that sense, Genetic Theory is a Copernican revolution for every single social science that is out there.
holy shit.. I never thought of genetics that way until this comment..
Magdalena
· 7 months ago
17 comments!? wow! I´m clueless about this but as I see it turned into a very interesting discussion..mm... maybe i´ll start with "Genome for dummies" :)
james Haft
· 7 months ago
One of the most profound thoughts I've read is the concept of language as a virus in Neal Stephenson's SNOW CRASH. The premise is that language is structured to control the brain. Each language has its own methodology for controlling your thoughts. Fr instance, there is no true word for excuse me, or thank you in Russian! In the book, and I believe in life, characters are influenced by the words imposed upon them, in many instances, without the knowing that their brain proceses are being encoded by the spoken words heard and thought processes which are triggered....
all the best,
jh
Santiago Siri
· 7 months ago
That's a fascinating thought James. It reminds me the concept of "meme" detailed by Dawkins on the Selfish Gene. He refers to "memes" as cultural constructs that work in the same way genes do, but they spread faster because they mutate through the use of language (culture). For example, all brands are modern memes ("Starbucks" is a concept that got viralized infecting everyone's conception of coffee).
Linguistics is a topic that I love as well. And I certainly agree that the way we think, is very regulated by the language/s we speak. I wish I have the time to learn an asian language, chinese or japanese, primarily to get a different view and understanding of the world.
Snow Crash is a book that has often been recommended to me. I'm adding it on my wishlist as we speak :)
Swing Trading
· 1 month ago
Interesting post. I have stumbled and twittered this for my friends. Hope others find it as interesting as I did.
All Comments
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/juan_enrique...
Alec Oxenford recently posted it
Property was simply a natural economic strategy to emerge from the new "settled" reality humans had evolved into.
Hunter-gatherer societies were (and still are those existing today) never bigger than 150 persons (you can google de "Dunbar" variable to see the reason for that). That's why under a tight and small community, that needs to be constantly on the move and were you can't tell who'll get lucky hunting each day, tend to have a more egalitarian community as a strategy that guarantees that every member we'll get food regardless of who hunted the animal. The moment these societies grow in number, they split.. were usually members of the same family/kinship stay together.
But when you settled as a specie and do agriculture and get a surplus of whatever you're producing and want to use that for trade among others, you need storage. When you need to produce, store and trade something, you start needing specialization of roles. Property is the framework that enables a society, a very big and complex society (from thousands to millions of members, not 150 naked guys in the savannah), to achieve those goals in a cohesive way. Hierarchies that emerge from the rise of property is what enables the emergence of leaders that will guide a big and complex society and keep it united (here's were religion played a big role).
An interesting story regarding the cognition of property in the human mindset was the domestication of the dog. Apparently wolves that were surrounding human settlements scavenging for leftovers of human food, evolved eventually into the dog. Humans discovered that the less violent wolves could help them to defend their property when nomadic tribes attacked in the nights or at dawn (a very common tactic of hunter gatherers). It's a logical outcome that the investment on defending a property for the prosperity of a community has it's payoff.
Finally, trade was a great tool for peacemaking (and still is). Hunter-gatherer societies are in constant warfare with their neighbouring tribes. Even the !Kung today have almost a 30% of their population die in the constant wars they suffered and still suffer. It's part of their culture, all stone age societies are warriors. Trade is what helps many communities live peacefully within a same society (think of all the ethnical groups in any big city of the world today).
In essence, this is just basic economics. The Bottom-line of my post is: Property enables a lot of strategical thought (land size, resources, location, and many etceteras) that enabled the spread of more thought-related genes in opposition to body-related genes that are required in the survival of hunter-gatherers.
My friend, I know that anarchism is an essential part of your identity. I just want to be logical here.. the fascinating thing for me about genetics, is that many of the claims I used to question (religion, monogamy, property) can start to be explained through a real science.
Keep in mind that many of the behaviors we associate with a modern human, like abstract thinking, innovation or planning were present 40-50 thousand years ago. In comparison, agriculture appeared only 10 thousand years ago, and rudimentary trade is probably much much older.
So it was not private property that allowed civilization, but settlement. Your statement that private property allowed people like Einstein or Newton to be born is ridiculously simplistic. In your reasoning you are not only supposing that something like an Einstein or Newton gene exists (your words), but are forgetting something fundamental as human culture. Ten thousand years are too few to have an impact on human genetic evolution, culture has a much bigger impact.
This is not about anarchism or capitalism, just basic logic and genetics.
Yes, private property is not settlement and agriculture, it's the outcome as I 've said.
But I'll make my point more clear: The key thing here is that there are very clear benefits for those members in a society that are succesful in acquiring extra property. That's a symbol of status on every single settled society that has existed; And that is a very clear incentive for the genes related to calculus for spreading !!
If the symbol of status on a settled society wasn't property but rather it was kindness, probably we would get more mother theresas instead of scientists.
Where have I said that a Newton gene exists!? I just said that Newtons and Einsteins are less likely to appear in a hunter-gatherer society, thats it. Settled societies, with the incentive of property, helped to spread intellectual genes that weren't historically common.
But if you want to talk about Einstein or Newton, I just hope I shouldn't remind you in what time of history they appeared. It's always about adaptation.
Maybe private property was very beneficial culturally as a means of growth and societal organization, but as I said earlier, there are no genes involved in this: ten thousand years are not enough for genetic evolution. There's no such thing as a calculus gene!
You are also right when stating that there is a clear benefit for members who can acquire more property, but throughout history this was done by violence (think kings, emperors, conquests). Maybe in the 20th and 21st century you could start to aspire to a substantial amount of property by means of your brain instead of violence or oppression, like the Google founders have found.
Under what scientific arguments can you claim that 10,000 years aren't enough for evolution? I seriously disagree. For starters, the genome project had finished its task on mapping the human genome just a few years ago.. we are very unaware of what most of the genes actually do and we have many years ahead on research to find out just that.
Being that said, there are some very promising discoveries from the last years that pove you wrong.. the lactose tolerance gene (the ability to drink milk as an adult) was recently identified and it seems that this gene had emerged within northern european humans within the last 3000 to 6000 years.
Also, if the tracking back of the mithocondrial DNA and Y chromosome that seem to prove that we all come from an original population of 5000 men in eastern africa some 50K years ago.. every single race that evolved out of Africa, is a clear adaptation to the environment. An interesting case is that of the people in Iceland were they have been living there for only 1000 years and you can easily identify 40 different "races" within that society.. with their DNA you can tell on what part of the island they live. And that's adaptation in just a 1000 year span.
Regarding violence, well.. *now* you're getting into the anarchism vs. capitalism thing.
For starters, the use of property for trade is a very good measure against violence (as I've stated on my previous comment). In proportional terms, the most war-friendly societies are the most primitive ones: they get into battle every week and 30% of their population die in wars. Settlement and property helped (and still helps) humans to achieve agreements under more peaceful terms. An insteresting stat used by Steven Pinker from the UN is that from all the deaths that occured in 2002, only 0.3% were because of war. If we compare modern societies to primitive ones, we can certainly say we are more peaceful in relative terms.
To state that all property was the consequence of violence is an extreme over-simplification that comes in handy for leftists that only study the last 200 years of human history. Property, as a means for trade, was among the first tools that helped settled tribes to understand each other and engage on a friendly exchange of their goods to gurantee their mutual survival. Property tooks us out of violence. Of course, I won't deny the role of kings, imperialists and presidents that used their high status to keep reminding us of our animal origins... but to blame an abstract concept such as property for that, is the equivalent of blaming a fork for the bad taste of your food (hint: it's the cheff).
"It’s very unlikely that the genes for an Einstein or a Newton (...)"
Again, there are NO such genes. But maybe I'm wrong and you actually read a paper about it.
You are right about lactose tolerance, that is evolution happening. What I meant (using very erroneous words) is that you won't see natural selection in a short span of time. Being tolerant to lactose just makes you be able to consume dairy products, a huge percentage of the world population lives just fine without that gene. It's not an obvious advantage (or else there will be no lactose intolerant people).
About violence and property, I completely agree with Pinker, society is much less violent now than at any other point in history, although he doesn't mention private property as a reason. In fact, he doesn't state a reason, just a couple of thoughts.
If you think property took us out of violence, that's ok, nice opinion. But, as Pinker says, 1000 years ago humanity was much more violent, but we already had property and trade. So... we now have more property? I don't know, I don't see the link. I just say that property was usually acquired by means of violence (or oppression), and not peaceful trade, and that is also my opinion, no scientific basis to support it :)
"the genes FOR an Einstein" is not the same as "the Einstein genes". The genes FOR an Einstein can be those same genes you and I might have for the use of language, calculus, abstraction or simply the growth of some lobes of our brain (already detected in some Europe-asians) or the thinning of our skull to get more size for the brain (common on all modern humans).
Here's another interesting case: The domestication of the Fox done by the soviet scientist Belyaev suddenly detected proves of adaptation: in 50 years the domesticated Foxes had more thin skulls (like we do), white spots on the belly (like dogs do) and smaller teeth.. just 50 years or a couple of generations of adaptation.
Here's the wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tame_Silver_Fox
Yes, property can be acquired by violence, but it's usually more costly and risky to do it that way.
Yes, Pinker is awesome.
Cheers!
I am also really fond of genetics, since the moment I had a year's course fully dedicated to evolution and genetics at school.
The more I learn about this subjects, the more I learn to understand everything by the means of mutation, adaptation, evolution.
In particular, I am mad about genetic algorithms and any sort of evolutionary computing. I think that many of the
future scientific breakthroughs will not be achieved directly by men but by computers using this sort of heuristics.
A few examples of this are http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/04/newtonai and http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/03/science/03bor...
The idea that states that if you have variation and a challenging environment of any sort, design MUST happen,
is incredibly simple and beautiful. I can see it everywhere... Especially in computers, because that's what I study, but
I think it has a much broader range, as you (Santi) comment.
I also highly recommend Juan Enriquez' TED talk. He succedes, in my opinion, in forecasting our destiny:
a species that controls - not suffers - evolution.
Saludos! :D
Thanks for the Juan Enriquez link, I've seen that talk (just like every single publiished TEDTalk) and yes, it's quite probable we'll go on the path of desigining our species within this century. And we should do it all the way.
For starters, most of the bird species and some of the mammal species are monogamous. There are also the bonobos, non-monogamous but very peaceful. There is a theory that states that in species whose male and female individuals have approximately the same body size, individuals with large testes have a better chance of spreading their genes. In contrast, species with big differences in body size tend to be polygamous and only the biggest individuals can reproduce, competing with the others by strength (body size helps, obviously).
My point is that small groups are not a consequence of polygamy.
Regarding birds, that was an old belief I think. Recent research from this decade argues that birds are monogamous from what you see of them, but not when you actually perform a DNA test on them (if you want I can find you the source for this, but it's 2am). Regarding mammals, I'm not really aware of any other mammal.. the only case of a monogamous animal that I can recall now are the penguins.. who use that strategy in a very challenging environment.
Now, back to islamic societies: The man has more to loose in the sexual game. If a woman doesn't carry his offspring, then all his efforts are useless. That's why man tends to impose lots of restrictions on females that go from the castration of their clitoris (in some tribal societies from africa) to the use of the chador or the legal requirement of baptizing a son with the male surname. Islamic societies, are (and I can't avoid saying this from a western point of view) quite harsh on women's rights and it would be interesting to analyze that from evolution's point of view.
Regarding your point on small groups: yes, there are many other factors than polygamy. But monogamy is a very simple rule of thumb to keep quiet very large (millions-of-members) societies.. I think that you agree that the benefits on granting reproduction for everyone are very clear to see. But what is big or small? Are there any other structured societies other than those of the human species of gigantic size? Ants and bees are more of a collective-being rather than individuals in a society..
I need to sleep man..
Just like Manu, I love genetic algorithms as well. I just finished the book Emergence by Steve Johnson an I find it truly fascinating that gentics alone almost always generates "intelligence", not in the form of our brain but in the form of a large number of "dumb" small simple bodies interacting in ways were intelligence "emerges" in the whole.
I believe we may be able to produce super intelligent beings (biologic or not) Kurzweil-style. But I am positive we are going to generate super intelligent systems using genetic algorithms. The funniest thing of all is that when those systems emerge our own intelligence may not be enough to understand why they work or how they came upon being.
I love the World we are living in!
I remember when I first read about John Conway's Game of Life (back in my days of game designer) and became fascinated by the concept of emergent behaviours (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway's_Game_of_Life)
It's a fascinating time indeed... to talk about genetics today is the equivalent of talking about information theory back in the 30's when only a few like Turing and Von Neumman were talking about it.
Anyway, and linking this to our recent debate on twitter:
I have some reserves about those "authors" writing books with revealed words. I'm not against reading, of course, Haha! but I am for critical reading. These books have an underlying system of ideas, i.e. ideologies. Plain science does not exist. I think science (again, critical thinking!) is the greatest thing that happened to humanity but science books are written by human beens, with their ideas, their failures, their sins.
Just a silly remark: I think you mean "human beings".. I just wish you wrote beans to make a formidable joke. But you didint.
Regarding your point: That's precisely my point on the article. Just like you, I would never defend religion and I am capable of questioning private property.. but reading on genetics brought me new light on these topics, because it has a deeper foundation for its claims, a closer one to that of science...
In opposition to philosophy, politics or literature.. humans aren't at the center when you use the genetic framework.. we are just one of many species being shaped by the ripples of DNA.. and in that sense, Genetic Theory is a Copernican revolution for every single social science that is out there.
holy shit.. I never thought of genetics that way until this comment..
:)
all the best,
jh
Linguistics is a topic that I love as well. And I certainly agree that the way we think, is very regulated by the language/s we speak. I wish I have the time to learn an asian language, chinese or japanese, primarily to get a different view and understanding of the world.
Snow Crash is a book that has often been recommended to me. I'm adding it on my wishlist as we speak :)