[ExI] evolutionary puzzle

William Flynn Wallace foozler83 at gmail.com
Tue Oct 10 13:51:26 UTC 2017


On Mon, Oct 9, 2017 at 7:10 PM, Dylan Distasio <interzone at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi Bill-
>
> I'd be interested in your thoughts, but I had in mind something like the
> reciprocity principle as an example of one of those psychological
> heuerstics:
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reciprocity_(social_psychology)
>
> or as another example, the contrast principle :  Two different things
> presented together or sequentially will feel more different than they
> really are. Hence sell the expensive item first, as the other items will
> seem cheap after that.
>
> I've been reading the book Influence by Cialadini which looks at how sales
> folks exploit a number of these heuristics.
>
> I would imagine there are others.  It's hard to believe we have escaped
> the general concept of fixed action patterns that impact a large number of
> species that use them to exploit the fact that they are almost always a
> good behavioral shortcut.   Of course, throughout nature, mimics and others
> have found various ways to exploit these same hard coded behaviors:
>
>
​But I still don't know what you mean by 'psychological'.  Do you mean
learned?  Or mental as opposed to physical?

FAPs are not found in people.  The closest thing we have is walking!  No,
not learned.​

The fact is that human behavior is widely varied, not extremely strict, as
FAPs are.  And that's a good thing, as FAPs are very limiting - gives us no
options if they don't work.

Cialdini's book is a good one.

bill w

> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixed_action_pattern
>
> On Mon, Oct 9, 2017 at 7:10 PM, William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com
> > wrote:
>
>> There are likely a large number of heuristic short cuts programmed into
>> all animals including us, but most of ours are probably* psychological *at
>> this point.  dylan
>>
>> Yeah?  And just what do you mean by that?  Please explain.
>>
>> bill w
>>
>> On Mon, Oct 9, 2017 at 3:38 PM, Dylan Distasio <interzone at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Symmetry is another tell for good genes and attractive in potential
>>> mates.
>>>
>>> Another example of preprogrammed behaviors can be found in birds.
>>> Mother turkeys are great moms as long as their babies chirp.  If a
>>> non-chirping baby is born, they will generally peck them to death as the
>>> chirping is a tell for a healthy baby.
>>>
>>> In robins, males will attack just the right shade of red feathers when
>>> it is presented to them.  They don't even need a whole stuffed bird to be
>>> triggered.
>>>
>>> There are likely a large number of heuristic short cuts programmed into
>>> all animals including us, but most of ours are probably psychological at
>>> this point.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Mon, Oct 9, 2017 at 4:30 PM, John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> On Sun, Oct 8, 2017 at 12:43 PM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> ​> ​
>>>>>  how would the instinct to not mess with the skunk get encoded into
>>>>> the genes?  The skunk’s non-lethal defense would not seriously impact the
>>>>> unwise dog’s reproductive capacity (temporary delay only.)
>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> The lifetime of all animals is temporary. For several hours after an
>>>> animal has been sprayed by a skunk its going to be visually blind, have no
>>>> sense of smell and is going to be stumbling around distracted by pain;
>>>> during that time its going to be more vulnerable to predators.
>>>> ​ ​
>>>> I don't know exactly how much that will decrease it's chances of
>>>> passing along its
>>>> ​ ​
>>>> genes
>>>> ​ ​
>>>> into the next generation but it would certainly be greater than zero
>>>> and over thousands of generations it would add up, animals that didn't like
>>>> the look of skunks would have an advantage over animals that had no such
>>>> aversion.
>>>>
>>>> Of course this couldn't work if a predator didn't have a quick and easy
>>>> way to tell a skunk from a squirrel or some other small harmless animal,
>>>> and that's why
>>>> ​the​
>>>>  skunk evolved its distinctive white stripe. That's also why extremely
>>>> poisonous small frogs and insects have super bright day-glow colors, but
>>>> its a constant arms race, some species don't bother making the poison and
>>>> would be good to eat but they mimic the bright coloration of the poisonous
>>>> animal, so that animal must evolve a even more conspicuous marker.
>>>>>>>>
>>>> It
>>>> ​ ​
>>>> reminds me a bit of sexual selection. Why do male peacocks have such a
>>>> ridiculously large tail when a cumbersome thing
>>>> ​like that makes them very poor flyers and ​
>>>> must greatly reduce
>>>> ​their​
>>>>  chances of having a long life? Because female peacocks like large
>>>> tails.
>>>> ​Why do females like long tails? Because to
>>>> mate with the healthiest males
>>>> ​ they needed a marker that could quickly let them tell a healthy male
>>>> from a unhealthy one, and long ago Evolution must have decided large tails
>>>> were a pretty good rule of thumb for that. But Evolution is not perfect and
>>>> things can get out of hand.
>>>>
>>>> In the population there is going to be genes for producing tails of
>>>> various sizes and genes for liking tails of various sizes​
>>>> ​,​
>>>> birds with midsize tail
>>>> ​s​
>>>> would make the best flyers and have the longest life but from peacock's
>>>> genes point of view this was obviously not the most important
>>>> consideration. So females who have genes for liking the long
>>>> ​est​
>>>> tails would mate with males with genes for making the longest tails
>>>> producing offspring that have both types of genes. This will lead to a
>>>> disastrous positive feedback loop ending only when the advantage of
>>>> superior flight performance
>>>> ​and longer life ​
>>>> of birds with midsize
>>>> ​tails ​
>>>> outweighs the greater difficulty
>>>> ​ in​
>>>> finding a mate.
>>>>
>>>>  John K Clark
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
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