Extended Phenotypes

• The Adaptive Gap and the Future of Civilization by Mike Hall, 7/3/98
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    • On the Rate of Genetic Adaptation by Mat Huff, 7/30/98
      
      

Hall, once more, reifies a process that, however dynamic, remains an artifact. Culture imposes nothing on us that is not already in our natures. The concept of an "extended phenotype" applies here. Dawkins (1982, Extended Phenotype) argued well that a beaver dam is as much an expression of genes as is the flat tail. A pond with trees interacts with gene structures to create a beaver dam.

Likewise, visit any moderate to large supermarket, nominally engaged in the sale of food. Go to the aisle that carries shampoo and hair colorings. Logic would dictate perhaps 3-6 choices of product; you will find a hundred. Culture does not IMPOSE these choices, they are market-driven. A substantial number of people earn great sums by the study of us, our small habits, our psychological adaptations and then contriving things to sell that are consistent with our adaptations.

Grooming and a healthy pelt have been indicators of reproductive fitness for a very long time. Grooming is one of many payoffs for maintaining alliances, all critters with feathers or fur or fins need groomers and grooming tools.

Take our grooming circuitry and append some receptor and reinforcement mechanisms for supernormal stimuli and obtain the market's shampoo aisle.

Culture imposes nothing; culture offers choices that are themselves developed because of our evolved natures and attractive to us for the same reason. Blaming culture plants little but defeatism. Certainly, Randy Nesse did us a service when he picked up on Haldane's 1932 concept of "mismatch." Unfortunately, stopping the analysis at mismatch makes us feel that we have concluded the analysis at that level. We have not.

Our adaptations get us into difficulty, not our culture. Understand our adaptations -- for moving onward instead of cleaning our nest, for migrating (whether in autos or straw sandals) to find food (whether in a mall or a savanna) or mates (whether in a nightclub or in the next mountain valley). Manipulating our adaptations -- perhaps in the same fashion as the marketing folks -- may yet get us out of trouble; whining further about mismatch will not.

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