Darwinism: A Satisfactory Delusion

• Welcome to the BOL Forum on Evolutionary Psychology by John Grohol, 3/19/97
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This stuff really permeates my awareness. I'm using similar concepts to describe the behavior of traffic, siblings, or trees. I think about it in the car where I keep a stack of colored PostIts for scribbling notes as I do on the interstate or on my way for a bowl of black bean soup. I've driven through a light fog and rain on a November through Hartford traffic while thinking of speciation, jotting the high points on a napkin. Courtroom scene and the judge asks: "Why did you fail to stop when Granny Bluehair did?" "I was thinking about what Tom Henry said to Wilberforce and which of them was the more bipolar, your Honor." Or, "I was thinking about the lack of incest avoidance in Drosophila as a possible factor in the inability of 90% of the males to mate and, in turn, incest avoidance as a means to promote heterozygosity in the rest of us."

Sure.

If it were just Darwinism, but it's not. I've got fractal meme infections from Goodwin, Margulis, and, more lately, Stu Kauffman. Is traffic congestion better understood as an expression of fixed-interval behavior discouraged somewhat by variable ratio/variable interval accidents? Or as an outcome of K-Selection pressures for greater cooperation (not Altruism, however!) secondary to high population density? Or, as showing competition feeds uniformity unless there are alternative niches (a different car for the interstate vs. sneaking through neighborhood streets?). And, what about automobile characteristics? Obviously another extended phenotype of our sensory mechanisms for responding preferentially to supernormal stimuli. Cars get bigger (the recreational vehicles) or more elaborate (mom's van for hauling bratkins) with each generation, an orthoselection perhaps led by our sensory systems.

The system becomes delusional on two bases: comprehensiveness and exclusivity of belief. First, Natural Selection, Excitable Fields, K/r Selection, and a bit of fractal awareness (in two senses!) quickly merge into a Grand Theory of Everything. The concepts lock into each other and defy invasion by alternative models. It's possible to gather relevant, coherent data in malls, fields, and stadiums and on any dimension that you choose. I've just spent 4 days trying to install a different computer, one that will let me talk instead of type. Unfortunately (?) it had file allocation errors and I rebuilt the Leggo software matrix 4 times, starting with formatting the drive and installing DOS through Windows 95. I learned a lot about some obscure computer tactics; I also learned about supernormal stimuli, elicited stereotyped behaviors, speciation, and competitive pressure.

Exclusivity of belief ... I'm likely the only guy in town thinking these things. The church on the corner has people speaking in Tongues (which can be manipulated by positive reinforcement and extinction. More at another time.) and hearing voices in some clinically interesting ways even if it's called a religion. Because there are 400 of these people doing about the same thing, it is viewed as normal. Even the illuminated sign proclaiming "Truth Through the Bible" is seen as normal. Fantasy: a sign outside my home/office proclaiming, "Truth Through Darwin." Try picturing next the ensuing hearing with the Zoning Board.

Because of whatever laws exist, my thinking takes bits from here and there and the bits start to cohere as if organic bits in a soup. Structures emerge relating to super normal stimuli, to speciation, and even to moral choices. And how do I discuss these things with the waitress, the guys at Rotary, or friends at lunch. Instead, I get glimmers of a mutating idea and drift into a preoccupied smile while perhaps confiscating a section of napkin for some scrawled notes.

Thus, I've become bizarre according to local standards. I'm still running loose, however, despite my delusions and preoccupations and bizarre statements. Gordon Paul in the 70s noted that craziness does not lead to hospitalization. The causative factors are family abandonment, lack of self care skills, and annoying other people. Good grief, I'm starting to qualify on these things, too. Thank you Chuck D, Thomas Henry, Loren E, Carl and Ann (and Lynn!), Leda-John-Jerry and of course good old Rich Dawkins for helping me go nuts marveling about Life.

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