[ExI] evolution and crazy thinking

[Keith Henson]

On Tue, Jul 17, 2018 at 11:27 AM, "Spike Jones" <spike at rainier66.com>> wrote:

snip

> Billw, cog biases can be explained using evolutionary psychology, but one needs to call upon the controversial notion of group selection.

Spike, "group selection" for humans fails to make logical sense.
"Selection" means changes in gene frequency.  Assume some human group,
tribe, band, etc. managed to accumulate a favorable set of genes.  The
first thing they do is swap women (who carry the favorable set) with
neighbors.  Unless you want to call the whole human race a group,
there can be no group selection with a species that practices exogamy

> Strong arguments have been promoted that evolution only works on the individual level.  I would argue that to explain easily-verifiable observations, such as cognitive biases, we must acknowledge that evolutionary selection does work at the group level, not just families, but particularly there.

There is no reason to invoke group selection.  "Inclusive fitness" as
described by Hamilton and earlier by Haldane is enough to account for
cognitive biases toward relatives.

> Clarification: group selection works in those species which do work as groups.  Alligators and flies and such: not.  Lions, bees, orcas, humans, yes.  Humans compete against other species, against other tribes, against each other and compete at the gene level.  If common cog biases somehow benefit the tribe, or the species, or promotes copulation (even at the expense of the individual) it can explain why they persist in humans.

I disagree.  Gene survival alone is enough when you remember that
copies of a gene for cog biases also exist in relatives.  From the
long term viewpoint of a gene, those copies are just as important as
the local copies.  As Haldane said, he should be willing to die if
doing so would save more than two of his brothers or more than 8 of
his cousins.

Of course, humans don't come with 23andMe kits.  So we make do by
assuming that the people we grow up with are relatives to one degree
or another.