LAMARCK REVIVED

For a long time it was thought that evolution was not effected by learned behavior. But, in Steven Pinker’s HOW THE MIND WORKS, the “Baldwin effect” is discussed which states that the quicker an animal can learn a behavior, the better its chances of survival. Thus learning capacity enhances genetic evolution and procreation. This “Baldwin effect” does show that adaptive, learned behavior can roughly be passed on.


ALBERTO GONZALES

Look... whether or not Alberto Gonzales, Bush’s nominee for Attorney General, is too torture prone in the head is a very important issue which we need to think about very clearly. We can’t allow ourselves to be diverted by the fact that he was talking about torturing non-American, global citizens. The chief point to focus on is the psychology of a man who can calmly discuss torturing anyone, for if a person can torture anyone, he literally “can justify torturing anyone”, even you, dear reader. Once a man has justified the use of torture and becomes psychological accepting of torture by the state, then he can make a case for the state torturing you if the state decides that you are a big enough threat to it to deserve torture.

Legalities must be put aside and we must ask what are we to think of a man whose emotional life can justify torturing anyone he thinks is his enemy. Once we’ve given the state the right to use torture, it will not be long before you will be the tortured.


GOOD NEWS FROM THE ISLAMIC WORLD

Fareed Zakaria’s column in the Dec. 27, 2004 NEWSWEEK is full of hopeful thinking about the breakdown of Pan-Arabian thinking:

“In those places in the Muslim world where political life is open, the evidence is overwhelming. The 2004 elections in Malaysia and Indonesia saw secular parties trounce Islamic ones.”

“Jordan has begun serious economic reforms. Egypt, which remains the most tragic case of lost potential in the Arab world, could be rousing from its slumber.”

“... progress, at least economic progress, is coming from the gulf, while countries like Syria appear to be stuck in the Stone Age.”

You know... on this issue of spreading democracy around the world, I can agree with the goals of the Bush administration but to back Bush is too costly to almost every other American value which I cherish. If only Bush didn’t have to cater to his religious base, we could all get behind his international goal, even though we might argue about his methods.


SOME HUMAN VICE IS NON-ADAPTIVE AND SELF-DESTRUCTIVE

From page 207 of HOW THE MIND WORKS:

“Human vice is proof that biological adaptation is, speaking literally, a thing of the past.” Instead of mate seeking, we have pornography; heroin is preferred over food, and some people now eat themselves into the grave.

Of course, I think Pinker doesn’t deal with the sort of sexual vices that lead men to fuck anything that wears a skirt which is adaptive behavior. So I don’t think we ought to expand his findings too far into the realm of morality. For morality is relative, sorry to say.


THINKING WAS ADAPTED TO ENVIRONMENT

I know I’ve brought this up from other reading too, but here’s Pinker’s take on the matter from page 208 of HOW THE MIND WORKS: “... genes give [us] thoughts and feelings that were adaptive in the environment in which the genes were selected for.”

Again... the conclusion is that our modern cultural mores expressed in our thoughts and feelings do not match our genetic adaptations. Our bodies are out of sync with our environment. This conclusion is so common in the literature of evolutionary psychology that I’m stunned it’s not more common in our modern cultural mythology.
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"Be yourself is the worst knowledge you can give to some people." —Tom Masson [Who?]