Evolution and Sociobiology: Warnings

• Welcome to the BOL Forum on Evolutionary Psychology by John Grohol, 3/19/97
  • Clinical Sociobiology: A Rationale by James Brody, 9/7/97
    
    

There are significant costs to becoming an evolutionist, whether you do so as a Sociobiologist, Clinical Sociobiologist, Darwinian, Neodarwinian, Group Selectionist, Gaiaist, Complexity (NonLinear Dynamic Systems) Theorist, or remain closer to psychology with some speculations about Executive Functions.

The cat piddle annoyances are your breakfast getting cold while you type obscure notions that were hatched at dawn, the trail of books from unusual places, automatic recognition from a bookseller computer that has learned to recognize yours, delays in washing clothes or running the vacuum cleaner, and deterioration in household back-up systems -- the spare roll of paper towels wasn't replaced when the main one ran out before and the spare is now gone. These shifts mark you as a little bizarre but many other obsessions have similar consequences.

The significant cost is that you cross a gorge, winding your way down one side and up the other; however, the path is a cognitive and emotional lobster trap, a psychological diode wherein the thought travels in only one direction. It's the same transition that a young waitress makes when she opts to become a stripper -- life changes and there is no erasure in your memories or how others come to see you. Evolution-the-philosophy and evolution-the-data (and they are not the same) have extensive effects on you. Ridiculous words such as "allopathic speciation" come easily to mind even at 5:30 A.M. And you know what it means. The spell checker in/on your computer has many new things to learn. Your friends at Rotary ask how you are doing and you can't tell them except in less than a sentence or more than a 4 hours monologue. "Godzilla" is an interesting male lizard that lays eggs and destroys cities; the movie is ruined not by the mediocre human acting but by the lizard's kissing its dead offspring ... not typical for an r-selection creature. But, no one else notices.

Your view of children adjusts. They are not "cute little angels" but "manipulative, selfish, predators" who are considerably more sturdy than their parents. Likewise for social issues ... female complaints about men are a manipulative tool, female alliances are as controlling and restrictive as male tempers, that men and women both carry genes for similar behavioral routines although the intensity of expression varies with gender and context, that the variability between the sexes may be less than that between individuals. These are not standard Sunday morning beliefs in our culture. You have left everyone else even without cataloging your thoughts on religion.

Anyhow, you presently have a choice but only for the moment. This trail offers broad vistas, images of our ancestors, and incredible freedoms ... all the possibilities of a new and rich savanna. But, like allospeciation -- the development of two species in association with geographic isolation from one another -- you will become irreversibly different. Now that I've warned you, come on over to my side of the ditch! I have some new stories about the ducks and there's a red tailed hawk in the adjoining field, and ... and ...

• Evolution and the Social Environment by M. B. Coggins, 7/2/98