Have gone back to look at Jasper's argument again. It does interest me, because the general anti-evolution argument is either Paley or the eye, with a little flourish around fossil records. I've never seen the tendency of women's menstrual cycles to synchronise in groups (The McLintock effect) relied on as proof that Evolution doesn't occur.
Here are the steps in Jasper's argument :-
1. The McLintock effect exists
2. The fact that it exists means that groups of women would menstruate at the same time.
3. This would be likely to increase the amount of blood odour in social groups at particular times (in that all the women would menstruate at the same time, rather than in stages)
4. That would be more likely to alert predators rather than if the Effect did not exist.
That all makes perfect sense to me - it is sound, tight reasoning.
5. Evolution can't be true, because if Evolution existed, it would have caused the McLintock effect and we'd have been eaten by predators and our species would have died out.
But, the McLintock effect does exist. And we haven't been.
The issue of whether the McLintock effect has an evolutionary advantage is a SEPARATE one from saying that it doesn't SEEM to have one, therefore evolution is untrue. We survived, despite the McLintock effect.
There are two possibilities here - either my suggestion that it isn't a mutation that is linked to genes and natural selection at all, but just a by-product of human existence - Henry Ford never intended to cause pollution when the engine was put together, it's just something that happens as a cause of burning petrol as a fuel. Or, maybe it is a gene-based adaptation and the McLintock effect gave humans some evolutionary advantage that is not immediately apparent to us today - perhaps the merging of cycles means that women were likely to ovulate, conceive and give birth at the same time if they lived in big groups - organising procreation in large groups around a regular timetable rather than it being sporadic.
It's interesting. I don't see that the existence of the McLintock Effect says that evolution can't exist because we should have been wiped out if the McLintock Effect exists. That's the fallacious link in the chain.
I am deeply suspicious of people who claim they have no prejudices. In my view they lack a true understanding of themselves and thus need to be approached with caution. I try hard at being aware of my prejudices, and thus try and work around them and give people a fair chance. It is possible, but you always have to work at it.
You could say I am prejudiced against people who claim to have no prejudices.
This argument could hold true in a social environment, whereas the subject has made a conscious effort to understand, appreciate and minimialise feelings of prejudice. But you're right, we do live in a world within a world, and instinctively we're, could we say, programmed to defend ourselves. But doesn't civilisation has it's benefits for everyone?
Well having read Saptarshi's very interesting post, I had to conclude that 'apart for its obvious length', much of the arguments hear work fine for a Social and Social biological explanation.
From my point of view I fund this part most interesting.
*Let me go back to the strongly hardwired behavior like a natural instinct: if the individuals developmental rewiring is disadvantageous- cost may be death for an individual. What Annie talks about is the situation where rewiring is inheritable.
It is only when rewiring is inheritable can it be acted upon by natural selection (and the result may be extinction of a wrongly rewiring species, or evolution of another re-rewired species that has an advantage- called adaptation.).
If there is enough intrinsic variation in the hardwiring only then natural situation can select from among the variants and cause a shift in the wiring- a process that may take generations to come about and many more generations before it gets fixed.
So if the initial statement- that prejudice is “hardwired” was true then it would take long to change them. So understanding the meaning conveyed by “hardwired” is important in this context.
Any behavior will have hardwires behind it. But that is not what is “hardwired” hard wired means “pre-programmed” or “blueprinted” by pre-design which is not reversible. Instincts (like hunger or fear) are not easily changeable. They can at max be suppressed.
Some aberrant individuals have rewired or mal developed instincts but they may not pass it on to next generation. Instincts may take many generations to get fixed as inheritable traits. So they are hardwired (or can it be said “written in the system files?
Some one help me here- It’s not under my perview) in the species model and they are part of the identity of the model (here humankind).
On the other hand prejudices are like the packages of soft wares presently installed that identifies an individual of the model (personality traits).
They can be uninstalled or formatted or reloaded. But something equivalent to virus program may happen here too.
If a prejudice keep reminding itself too frequently it is called obsessive thought and that may lead to compulsion of behaving in certain manners.*
I haven't heard anything yest that convinces me conclusively that the so called soft wired behaviors at a social level, may not have a Darwinian 'programed' origin in terms of the mechanisms for instinctive behaviors.
Yes. As Emily has said, Social prejudices can be 'suppressed', you can choose how you express you're self through language weather physical or verbal.
But what about that 'initial' instinct that you are 'suppressing'? Is it purely a socially based mechanism that can be put down to learned behaviors?
or is it equally possible that what we describe as prejudices, may be a mechanism for 'pre judging' and a naturally accruing defensive mechanism that could have had some roll to play in Darwinian fitness?
Remember that Prejudices is just a word that is ineffective in describing a complex range of behaves. But are those behaviors purely of a social origin? I think not. And nothing that I have read so far has convinced me otherwise.
Let me pose this question another way. If the behavior known as prejudice is purely learned behavior, then why is it so hard to un learn it?
Paley! Well yes i suppose it is relevant Emily, but at the moment I'm avoiding asking the question weather the watch must have a creator?
The McLintock effect! Its a good point Jasper but I tend to agree with Emily hear. I will have to give this one more thought though.
I don't belive this is true at all. I have no prejudice in me and if the truth be known i like other cultures much more than my own. The last bit of your argument is a bit crap John. The only prejudice a person should have is the survival of the human race it shouldn't be compartimentalised in to culture and race. A human is a human being. If we spend less time on dividing humanity and more time on building bridges we might see a decent world. Sorry your post is outragous in my book just because you hold prejudice views doesn't mean that everyone else does.
Far, far from it John. Quite the reverse. Perhaps the way you expressed your original argument has skewed this discussion. I took you to mean that prejudice is something hard-wired into us, therefore we're stuck with it.
I am arguing that while that is true to a point and is necessary to understand why prejudice exists, that it is far too simplistic and indeed morally reprehensible to simply excuse prejudice on that basis.
(We get very quickly into Hume's Fork, don't we? If everything I do is a product of my genes, which I'm not responsible for, then I'm not responsible for my actions. If everything I do is a product of my experience and social background, well, I'm not in control of those experiences and background, so I'm not responsible for my actions. I'm sorry, but although I believe that genes, experience and social background play a large part in the way people make decisions, I also believe in Free Will and responsibility for our actions)
And Debashish - it is fairly well established that natural selection can also account for behaviour as well as purely chemical reactions; John's argument here is based on the premise that prejudice is not a result of social conditioning and pressures but something that is hardwired into every human being as part of a natural survival instinct. I don't think we're actually far apart here.
Gerry - I'd agree with you. I have all sorts of prejudices that pop up from time to time, and I don't act upon them because I'm capable of recognising them for what they are. But they are there - to use a ridiculous example, if I were interviewing someone for a job and there was someone with a RP accent and someone with a Brummie accent, I'd have to resist the tendency to equate intelligence and capability with the sound of the voices and try to judge on other, more reliable criteria.
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