Keith said:
> Unfortunately, this turns out to be expected from evolutionary > psychology considerations. > > Rather than repeat it here, put "xenophobic memes" in a search engine > for the concepts.
Isn't evolutionary psychology about *genes* for behaviours common to all humans
The genes and behaviors don't have to be common to *all* humans, just under selection pressure that makes the genes and the behavior they influence more common. Walking and talking are not universal traits (though darn close). They were certainly under selection since our very remote ancestors did neither.
(as compared to behavioural genetics, which is about differences in behaviour linked to differences in genes) and not memes for behaviour?
True, but there is no reason not to have genes predisposing to learning memes. Being good at learning memes can promote the survival of your genes.
Is your view that memes for xenophobia thrive in the environment of human brains because such brains have evolved to think xenophobically?
Memes for xenophobia thrive in an environment of human brains *conditionally.* Human brains effectively have a "gain setting" for circulating (and believing) xenophobic memes. This "gain setting" differs from one person to another, but the population average gets turned up depending on environmental conditions. "Looming privation" is the term I use to describe the main environmental influence on this setting.
This makes sense because the build up of xenophobic memes is part of the mechanism that led (after a delay) to hunter gatherer tribes attacking another tribe when they were facing hard times (i.e., starvation) as a consequence of population build up or a drop in the carrying capacity of their environment.
Attacking another tribe in good times is stupid. Genes favoring stupid behavior don't last long. Genes become more common that favor hunter gatherers spending their efforts hunting game, gathering berries and raising kids.
But when the alternative is the whole tribe starving to death or going on the warpath and trying to take the resources of the tribe next door, genes favoring *that* behavior become more common.
Who knows how many conditionally expressed psychological traits humans have? Mothers bond with their infants depending on chemical switches (their brains are soaked with oxytocin during birth). Capture-bonding or Stockholm Syndrome is switched on by being captured and fear. Zimbardo's prison experiments at Stanford are best explained as being an expression of the evolved counter part to Stockholm Syndrome. I.e., we have a psychological mechanism to mistreat captive to induce fear leading to capture-bonding. That trait is conditionally switched on by the mere presence of captives.
Or are you using "evolutionary psychology" to mean "the theory of memetics"?
No. Memetics just isn't a big enough sandbox for this kind of thinking.
It seems to me that the way we approach these problems depends strongly how much situations depend on differences in memes rather than differences in genes.
Differences in memes and the feedback on human genes is where culture (and large human populations) came from. Someone on another list pointed me to this excellent paper: "The mimetic transition: a simulation study of the evolution of learning by imitation." Higgs PG. Proc R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 2000 Jul 7; 267(1450): 1355-61
http://pmbrowser.info/pmdisplay.cgi?issn=09628452&uids=10972132
But when it comes to wars, the details of the particular memes that sync up one tribe or nation to attack another are not important. Any xenophobic meme or set of them in a general class will do. As can be seen in a very recent example, in leading up to a war people/leaders will seize on any reason and elaborated it to justify an attack. When the Easter Islanders were facing ecological collapse they split into waring camps based on "long ears" vs "short ears." (The whole population was closely related--founding population of perhaps 20 people). They went at each other for generations till the peak population of 20,000 was reduced to perhaps 1000, and the ecosystem started to recover somewhat. Then, with enough to eat, "war mode" switched off.
It is a dire and depressing business to realize that genes optimized in the stone age to cope with periodic privation of hunter gatherers are now pulling strings attached to nukes.
Keith Henson
PS. It is almost as bad to realize that 1) there are not many people who can understand these arguments, 2) the arguments depend on understanding *evolution*, 3) the solutions take decades, 4) . . . . . 5) . . . ..
Rich GCU Genuinely Interested _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
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