that old dude is educated but not intelligent!

>"So all these paintings are the result of genes?" I asked him.
>"Of course," he said curtly, ending the discussion.

What characterises these kind of exchanges ( and they happen all the time) is that 'everyskeptic' finds no creative pleasure or nourishment in the conversation. No appetite for a potentially fascinating exchange of views and where it might lead...

The discussion ends with everyskeptic repeating the mantra of a fixed belief, prisoner of an ego that can brook no alteration.

My dream would be to see some magic...an anecdote in which 'everyskeptic' is eased by love into a more open playful position, his ego defences dissolved, suddenly admitting the sheer unscientific basis of fixed belief, suddenly experiencing the joy of open possibilities and a more fluid future.

I would bet my bottom euro that when James Watson made his nobel prize winning contribution, he tasted some of that creative joy where anything is possible.

And through circumstance and change and the vicissitudes of life he was no longer in touch with it when he stood with Deepak in the Hermitage museum.

As the master chef teaches in 'Ratatouille', anyone can cook.

PS Perhaps Skeptisch is really James Watson...

But, of course, the element of relationship comes into the conversational form twixt you and Watson, Deepak. He would sense/project you were confrontational, as polite as I am sure you were.

The cold intellectual shield of a Watson covers a deprived and embarrassing emotional baby which is ever doing it's best to ego-sabotage and now, with this news, we see it.

Just some home-spin from me,
Ed.

I am reminded of what Carlos Constaneda's mentor told him in the book "A Separate Reality". Carlos expressed pity for a young Mexican boy, in that he would never get educated nor enjoy our taken for granted material comforts. The mentor yelled at Carlos, saying never ever think that way; implying the boy could grow up to be a self-realized master of self, and therefore of benefit to all mankind.
I am also reminded of Catechism class when I was in the 5th or 6th grade. The nun put on the blackboard something about "the whiter man's burden" (being Africans). I knew she was wrong at the time. I am curious as to how I knew she was wrong.

Excuse my typing. That's "white man's burden."

Francis Crick turned all spiritual after becoming famous.

I would guess, the only way to keep the balance,

in James' purview, was for him to hold steady with his materialistic sophistry.

In a fair and balanced approach, one side pairs off with another.

The bandwagon critics usually reinforce the publics outcry.

Constaneda got it right this time.

Ignorance is bliss.

Knowledge is power.

We are not born equal, but unto the eyes of God.

Or is that one eye?

Me2(-)sideways(o)2eM

Dr. Chopra:

Very well articulated! However, I think the reason why Watson said what he said has as much to do with the "missing links" in the evolution theory as with his lack of understanding of the very "gene" he designed for us.

Now, it cannot be debated that the nose (as other body parts) of different races change differently over the ages. So, how can brain escape that evolutionary change?

And every change in body part brings on a different capability or incapacity for that particular race. It is undeniable that the excellence of Kenyans (statistically, at least) in long distance running is higher than the Asians. So, should we - without challenge - accept that brain's changes would not have happened... or if they happened, they did not provide different capabilities to the possessors?

I think this line of thinking is very anti-PC but it is worth debating.

On the other hand, if we could put the definition and role of evolution and genes in proper perspective, then this debate may be obviated.

For example:

- is evolution necessarily a function of "Time"? How much time?
- is evolution in any direction permanent?
- are effects of evolution in any one generation reversible and then reversible again? or can you change your "genes" as you wish?

if a South Asian of 500 BC was looking at an European, he would have had the same conclusions about the White skinned as Watson has done of the Africans.

How wrong that Ram Prasad would have been :-)

Cheers,
Desh
Drishtikone.com

If you trace back the trail, you will end up in Africa.

The unknown and strange instinctively sparks fear, not racism.

1. Yes. All the time.
2. No. It moves, I don't.
3. We don't have a say, as far as mutations are concerned, generally.
If I could change my genes, I'd need a bigger crotch.

Keith:

If competition was the ONLY thing that resulted in evolution (and by evolution, we are assuming that it is movement to "improvement" over the existing), then Watson maybe right! And the reason is pretty simple: The races that moved out of Africa had to devise better ways of survival. They had to use brains and nerves better in order to exist and adapt in newer way!

So, by logic, those who stayed put.... would not have had the same capability on adapting.. which in itself is a detriment to physical and, in time, evolution of brain - for man did not win over the nature by sheer brawn .. but brain!

Therefore, if competition is THE only deciding factor for mutations towards evolution to happen... then Watson is DEAD RIGHT!

Now, if you approach this discussion from the societal angle and the behavioral side.... as well as experiences of educators, one can say that it is nonsense!

The way evolution has been defined.... and approached... I am afraid Watson seems to be VERY RIGHT - looking at history of human existence...

Then who do you believe? The logical - dispassionate - conclusions (however politically incorrect) or evidence from social studies.

Cheers,
desh
drishtikone.com

Dear Deepak,

Excellent article. I only have a quarrel with one part of your post, "Human beings aren't automatons..."

Well perhaps they are not triggered by brain cells and genes, but they are triggered by mechanical habits and manipulated mechanically by leaders, spin doctors and the ruling elite of Brotherhoods using systems theory and repressive desublimation. Not to mention advertising.

Gurdjieff told us as much. Your role and that of anyone who has been awakened is to awaken others from their trance like state in which they are automatons. Sadly, that includes almost everyone.

Desh, perhaps in Asia they didn't have to run so far between villages.

Hello Desh!

Evolution does not assume progress, it assumes continuation, quite rightly.

So we can still call it 'good', or God, whatever.

Nature has ways of separating peoples.

Folks don't always have free-choices concerning their whereabouts.

Certain behaviors kept certain tribes alive.

Instincts have yet to be found in any genes or elsewhere.

The average life-span of a mammalian species is roughly 18,000,000 years.

The truth will win out in the long run, for sure.

No absolutes here. I never doubted James intellect,

I only question his intentions. Merry up! Keith

It's true, Gurdjieff didn't think much of the average man.

Steve

Watson is right. Many people criticize him to be just politically correct.

Genes or nature and nurture are complementary (like seed and its plant).

The story begins from nature, which then creates the complementary nurture, after which both go on creative, corresponding dialogue as one writer put it to finally reach complete correspondence and in the process annihililate each other leaving in its wake what ultimately houses them i.e., the Source.

As to Deepak's observations:

--First because of cycle-within-cycles there will be all sorts of people (poor and rich, more intelligent and less etc) in all races and this means in black and white as well. Yet there will be differences in the poverty and intelligence of the whites and the blacks. (Just consider two families, one really poor the other rich-turned-poor so to say. The povery of the first will mean that they may not be able to have clothes to wear, while the poverty of the second will mean that they will not be able to have good/costly clothes to wear.)

Second, poor and uneducated are so everywhere because they or their nature threw/created/brought the needed/complementary nurture for their further 'evolution' from where they presently were.

--Both nature and nurture, genes and environment/behavior affect each other in creative, corresponding way as already said in para 3 above and not only the latter.

--Yes, brain changes throughout life, but for 1. it is because we move in cycles within cycles throughout and for an other 2. this is the function of 'evolution'. But yet this change is within the parameteres set by one's nature and hence nurture.

Harb

"Ever heard of the word "scientific wisdom"?"

um, that's TWO words.

"the tendency of science is to narrow one's vision."

Did you notice how Science becomes Chopra's enemy when he attacks materialism. But it morphs into his friend when he supports his theories with pseudoscience!

Btw, Many aspects of Evolutionary psychology and difference in cognitive abilities based on skin color is 'pseudoscience' NOT science as Deepak Chopra is trying to convicne you folks!

Pity James Watson had to become his scapegoat this time around in his crusade against science.

Desh Kapoor writes:
"Then who do you believe? The logical - dispassionate - conclusions (however politically incorrect) or evidence from social studies."

Harb writes:
"Watson is right. Many people criticize him to be just politically correct."

Tom writes:
"Another good man apologizes for telling the truth."

I agree one hundred percent.

In todays PC world, you have to pretend, or at least say (in public) the opposite of what the evidence shows, and expert opinion believes, to be true. Tis the truth comrades.

sandy

This a particularly insightful article from an African, which everyone should read and appreciate:

I Agree with Dr Watson

Idang Alibi, Daily Trust (Abuja, Nigeria), October 25, 2007

A few days ago, the Nobel Laureate, Dr James Watson, made a remark that is now generating worldwide uproar, especially among the blacks.

He said what to me looks like a self-evident truth. He told The Sunday Times of London in an interview that in his humble opinion, black people are less intelligent than the White people.

Since then, some of us cannot hear anything else but the outrage of black people who feel demeaned by what Watson has said. So many people have called the man names. To be expected, some have said he is a racist. Some even wonder how a “foolish” man like Watson could have won the Nobel Prize. Even white people who, deep in their heart, agree with Watson want to be politically correct so they condemn the man.

Why are we blacks becoming so reactive, so sensitive to any remarks, no matter how well-meaning, about our failure as a race? Why are we becoming like the Jews who see every accusation as a manifestation of anti-Semitism? I do not know what constitutes intelligence. I leave that to our so-called scholars. But I do know that in terms of organising society for the benefit of the people living in it, we blacks have not shown any intelligence in that direction at all. I am so ashamed of this and sometimes feel that I ought to have belonged to another race.

Nigeria my dear country is a prime example of the inferiority of the black race when compared to other races. Let somebody please tell me whether it is a manifestation of intelligence if a people cannot organise a free, fair and credible election to choose who will lead them. Is it intelligence that we cannot provide simple pipe-borne water for the people? Our public school system has virtually collapsed. Is that a sign of intelligence? Our roads are impassable. In spite of the numerous sources that nature has made available to us to tap for energy to run our industries and homes, we have no steady supply of electricity. Yet electricity is the bedrock of industrialisation. When you agree with the school of Watson, some say you are incorrect because all these failures are a result of poor leadership. Why must it be us blacks who must always suffer poor leadership? Is that not a manifestation of unintelligence?

In the name of international trade, bilateral co-operation, globalisation and other subterfuges, the norm in the world today is for smart people to appropriate the wealth of other people for themselves and their countries. But more among the blacks than any other race, the practice is to steal from their own country and salt away to other people’s country. Is it intelligence that our leaders steal billions of naira and hide in other people’s country?

Anywhere in the world today where you have a concentration of black people among other races, the poorest, the least educated, the least achieving, and the most violent group among those races will be the blacks. When indices of underdevelopment are given, black people and countries are sure to occupy the bottom of the ladder. If we are intelligent, why do we not carry first when statistics of development are given?

Look at the African continent. South Africa is the most developed country because of the presence of whites there. This may be an uncomfortable truth for many of us but it exists nevertheless. If the whites had been driven away after independence, we would have seen a steady decline of that country.

In terms of natural endowment, Africa ought to be the richest of the continents but see the mess we have made of the potential for greatness which God in his infinite wisdom has bestowed upon us. We have proved totally incapable of harnessing the abundant natural resources to become great. Today, there is a renewed scramble for the wealth of Africa. China, our new “friend”, does not bother about the genocide against fellow blacks in the Sudan by the Arabs who control the affairs of that country. They say they do not want to interfere in the internal affairs of any country. All they want is the oil in Sudan to run their industries. Yet, we blacks have not seen the Chinese action as an affront to our sensitivities. Every race takes us for granted because we are so weak and so foolish, if you permit me to say it.

I am really pained by our gross underachievement as a race. Instead of regarding bitter truths expressed by the likes of Watson as a wake-up call for us to engage in sober reflection, we take to the expression of woolly sentiment. For me, this type of reaction is a further evidence of our unintelligence. A man of intelligence recognises genuine criticism against him and takes steps to improve himself in order to prove his critics wrong. But for us blacks, our reaction is to abuse the man who expresses worries about our backwardness.

Other races are deeply worried about us because we are a problem to the world. We suffer from the five Ds: disorderliness, debts, diseases, deaths and disasters. Our disorderliness affects others or else they won’t be too bothered about us. Many are afraid because our diseases could infect them. Polio has been eradicated all over the world yet it is still found in Nigeria here. When they give us money to help us eradicate it, our thieving officials will embezzle the money; the virus will spread and endanger the health of not only our people but other people as well.

Out of a shared sense of humanity, some cannot bear to see how we die in thousands almost every day from clearly preventable diseases and causes. For years now, our people die extremely painful but perfectly preventable deaths from buildings which collapse because they were poorly constructed. How can you tell me we are as intelligent as others when we set traps for ourselves in the name of houses and others do not do so? Some people are extremely frustrated about us. If they have a way of avoiding us, they will be too glad to do so because we are a problem.

As I write this, I do so with great pains in my heart because I know that God has given intelligence in equal measure to all his children irrespective of the colour of their skin. The problem with us black people is that we have refused to use our intelligence to organise ourselves socially and politically.

It should worry us that we do not invent things. We do not go to the moon. Our societies are not well-organised. We have the shortest lifespan of all the races. Something must be wrong with us. Why are we not like others? Our scholars will be quick to say that these are not the only ways of measuring intelligence. They will quote other scholars to adumbrate their point, but the fact remains that we are not showing intelligence. Others are showing it more than we’re doing. If they are not more intelligent than we are, let someone tell me how to put it. God himself must be frustrated with his black children. They must be an embarrassment to him. He has given us everything he has given to other of his children; why are his black children not manifesting their own gift?

A few years ago, the whites used to contemptuously call the Japanese “little Japs”. Today, the Japanese and other Asians have pulled themselves up by the bootstrap and have arrived. No one speaks of the Japanese or Asians with contempt anymore. When people like Watson speak about us in unedifying terms, we should take it as a challenge to prove them wrong by sitting down to plan how we can become world-beaters.

If our political leaders are the reason for our backwardness, we should resolve to get the kind of leaders who will be instrument for our rapid progress. I may not know how intelligence is measured but my limited knowledge of intelligence is that it can also be measured by the kind of leaders a people decide to have. If, for instance, our professors preside over the massive rigging of elections, it means that we do not have very intelligent professors. Such rigged elections will no doubt produce unintelligent leaders. Such unintelligent leaders will do stupid things which will prove that we are not as intelligent as other races. Do I sound confusing or intelligent?

I am ready for some of our ‘patriotic’ intellectuals who will write and abuse me for the ‘outrage’ I have expressed here but I stick to my guns: we lack intelligence and as stated in the Bible, anyone who lacks intelligence should cry unto God who is the custodian of wisdom to bestow some upon him. We should go on our knees today and ask God why we do not appear as intelligent as our other brothers. I am confident God will reveal to us what we must do, and urgently too, to change our terribly unflattering circumstances.

www.amren.com/mtnews/archives/2007/10/i_agree_with_dr.php#

Friend_of_Skeptisch,

#34"Assuming you are correct, does such pretending help anyone in the long run?"

Just the opposite. To effectively deal with reality, you have to, as much as possible, deal with the true. If not, it is like trying to grapple with phantoms. Not only is it useless, it is counterproductive, as it usually exacerbates the situation and makes things worse.

Guys:

All those who think I am trying to say that Africans are - by genetics and evolution - inferior... that is not the track I was really taking.

My point is simple - the way we define Evolution.. Watson is right. But my question is the definition of Evolution itself!

Socially what we see is something different! I have seen that Africans who just arrived do better in the US than American Blacks in terms of education. (no statistical thing.. but my observation). So is that a race thing? NO. Is that an environment thing.. possibly!

Can one generation change? Go "up" or "Down" an evolution ladder? I would tend to think yes - if such a ladder exists! For I have never seen any race or society ever being on top for ever! From 1 AD to almost 1500 AD, Indian society had over 30% share of the world GDP.... but if you ever read the accounts of Indian coolies being transported by the Brits.. you would never come to believe that such people could ever be good enough. Take the Italians.. are they still at the top of Space program? well, once upon a time they were at the forefront of the oceans!

The point is NO race has ever shown complete and PERENNIAL superiority. So, race in my mind cannot be a valid variable. Not logically at least.

So, is the very idea of evolution flawed somewhere? Maybe.

Its clearly a deeper question than we would like to believe.

.... maybe there is a better reaction to all this than the smugness of Watson's remark to Dr. Chopra.... it would take humility and a lot of thought.... combining evidence and observations from multiple sources.

Cheers,
Desh
Drishtikone.com

Hi dpk ji, the number of drinks which you have taken while reading my words and taking exactly the opposite meaning of what I said.

I said: "Watson is right. Many people criticize him to be just politically correct."

Meaning PEOPLE who criticize Watson do so just to be politically correct. You take it as meaning that Watson is being criticised because HE is politically correct.

So much for your soberness

Friend_of Skeptisch
(47)

"So why is it that PC seems to me to be winning..."

Whole books could be written about your questions. If you want to do a lot of online reading, VDARE.com is a tremendous anti-PC site. Go to the archives and it can tell you everything you would want to know on the subject.

The very first thing people need to do to battle PC is to know the truth. In today's world, you will get very little of it in the MSM (mainstream media).

Phil Rushton, the only other scientist who supports Watson?:

Race and Intelligence: Is There a Link?
Farai Chideya, NPR, October 23, 2007

DNA pioneer James Watson caused a furor recently after saying Africans were intellectually inferior to Westerners. Farai Chideya talks about why the conversation of race and intelligence persists with Phil Rushton, a professor of psychology at the University of Western Ontario.

Like Watson, Rushton says people of African descent have a lower IQ and smaller brain size, which he says is “50 percent genetic and 50 percent cultural.”

Rushton is the head of the Pioneer Group [sic], an organization dedicated to the research of intelligence and racial differences.

www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=15560405

*****

Race and Intelligence: Politicizing the Findings
Farai Chideya, NPR, October 23, 2007

What is a good measure of intelligence? And when does the study of intelligence become political? Farai Chideya continues the conversation with Bill Tucker, a professor of psychology at Rutgers University. He’s also the author of The Intelligence Controversy: A Guide to the Debates.

www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=15560402&sc=emaf

Mother Superior is most excellent!

Superior in exactly what category?

White men can't jump, and so...

.

The intelligent are envious of the naturally athletic.

Athletes are envious of the rich and powerful.

The rich and powerful are envious of the intelligent.

.

I'm jealous of my cat, Faith.

She thinks I am God.

Is one of us right?

.

O King of the world,

Why hast Thou opened the floodgates once more?

Rainbows exemplify The Promise of continued diversity through adversity.

To you, O King, I pledge allegiance,

for I know Nothing, and pray but for strength.

Samson's hair would have been a nice gesture, though.

Amen.

In people like Watson the intelligence genes and the ignorance genes work in tandem.

In people like Watson the intelligence genes and the ignorance genes work in tandem.

Janet:

"
No he wouldn't have been. What if those European evolved more intelligence in a span of 1000 years ?

And Indians evolved some stupidity in just about that time?"

maybe you can start reading my words for a change?? I implied the same thing.. but you obviously never understood it.

You say the cognitive abilities maynot have changed much... but I was pointing to a machinery - a body part called brain. If the color of skin and other body part could change in 40,000 years, there is no reason why a brain that now (after moving out of Africa) had to do more complex calculations (of how to avoid danger) - would have remained at the same level as of those in Africa. Of course, now you are getting to another topic which you would hate - Intelligence vs Brain (or mind vs brain).

Again, I am saying our knowledge of these issues is NOT yet complete. You may throw out adjectives at others... but that is the least effective way to debate an issue or make your point!

Patricia:

"Wrong. It is a fallacy to eliminate environmental factors which could give 'superiority' to a race."

I used the words "PERENNIAL superiority".. How perennial has been ANY RACIAL superiority?? Chinese civilization and Indian civilization are over 5000 years old. If you were talking of the Western superiority - that is no more than 500 years old! Do you get the scale?? That was just one dynasty in these two societies!

If a "superiority" is NOT PERENNIAL and unquestionable.... then it is not superiority! It is a temporary adjustment of local people to environment! And that is what I meant. THAT the "better" results from a race are not forever... so they change! How could they once they were ingrained in the very code of the genes??

I imagine, Deepak, that you attribute more wisdom to Watson's abrupt ending to your conversation than to a lot of the picking and choosing here.

For Geinsteinod's's sake guys, I'd rather meet the person Deepak than cast lots for his garments.

I fear that your metaphorical 'hearing aids' have got a little waxed up.
I know.....I don't stand too much chance, either.

It all starts for each one of us in the womb....so what's your excuse? Take a look at the overall context of that coming together of *&&$"&()?, your parents. Are you so sure they made you perfect, or did they just pass the buck or should I say baton. I don't think they gave it to much scientific thought at the time and the wrangle of your indoctrination goes on from the first inrush of air and emotional outcry never to be fully assuaged before hurriedly swept under the lumpy carpet of homogenous schooling.
So round and round now I go and always come back to the primal scream which it suddenly occurs to me, is this thread, among others!

When we limit our thought to Nature vs. Nuture we are excluding other variables. A speck put under the microscope appears very grande indeed and fascinating to the exclusion of all else. I think this is what Mr.Chopra was implying when he mentioned the narrowing of scientific thought.
Understanding is the level where things are defined and delineated, while Wisdom is pure undifferentiated thought. - Sefir Yitzerah (Kabbalah)

Re. 57

Friend_of_Skeptisch:
"Why does one version or another of class warfare continue over and over? Apparently it is something about the basic nature of mankind."

I personally believe that that is part of human nature. Humans, as well as many other species, have a genetically based drive for status. We are never really satisfied with our "station" in life (ambition). There is always that itch for more. Evolutionary Psychology (sociobiology) is profoundly illuminating on this, and many other aspects of human nature.

This drive for status is harnessed by society as the engine of progress. It is one of the reasons that communism won't work, and why capitalism has been so successful.

This is a great thread. Deepak set off a quite intriguing, multifaceted discussion. Lot of stuff here.

Beginning with Deepak's post, there's many things to parse through there. I'll try to hit a couple so as not to be too long.

Deepak: "wisdom isn't the same as science".

Good point. As I said in the earlier thread about Watson, if a person excels in one specialty, it does not somehow automatically make them experts in other subjects. We can look to Watson perhaps to accurately describe DNA to us, but that doesn't make him a philosopher, nor does it qualify him as social scientist, or an anthropologist. Nuff said on that.

Deepak points out that if people could know that their baby might be gay, some would indeed opt to abort, and he points to the practice of female infanticide in India to buttress his point.

Gayness has not been proven to be genetic, so this might be a practical impossibility, but the point is well-taken.

Which brings the point that social conditioning can affect genetic evolution. If a society makes a religious decision that blue eyes indicate the presence of evil spirits in a child, the society might decide to kill all blue eyed infants. Eventually the gene would be eliminated from the population. Thus a social factor would have effected genetic evolution.

We do this all the time with animals and plants. We have bred up dozens of different types of dogs and physically shaped them through selective breeding, as well as plants, corn from teosinte being the obvious example among many. These were genetic results caused by cultural preferences.

Thus is the complexity of nature vs nurture. This can be endlessly argued. I used to play once a week in an Ethiopian club a couple of years ago, and had many conversations with the Ethiopians, who are black, about why they see themselves differently from West Africans, and especially from American Blacks.

The answer was always "slavery". "My ancestors were never enslaved by other Africans, nor were they ever enslaved by Europeans." This was seen as producing a profound basic difference in cultural self-definition. Ethiopians have always seen themselves as free people, whereas the consciousness of slavery with all its traumas, is implanted in every West African and Black American's cultural identity from birth.

I think what we see when one race doesn't do as well in education, or business success, as a whole demographic (there will always be individual exceptions), is more likely due to cultural self-definitions.

What result does it have to be taught from your birth that you are disadvantaged in every way in the white man's world? How much of your achievement will be affected by that belief?

Clearly it has been shown that beliefs and self-definitions can effect results in aptitude testing and school performance.

What hasn't been shown is that the gene for darker skin pigmentation causes someone to not be able to do math.

So I think cultural self-definitions are a big part of it. Someone like me, who is from a southern white cultural heritage, can easily point out examples among our own race of poor backward people who seem unable to become socially adjusted to today's society. These people aren't black, so what's the explanation?

What if a clan makes a philosophical decision that it's OK to marry your first cousins? Surely you will have socially driven physical changes in the population.

So that's the main point for now. There are others. As usual Deepak manages to get in references to many hot topics even in a single post. At least that leaves lots of room for discussions.

Very interesting post. I referenced it on my blog.
I thought readers here may be interested in the following link, providing some evidence for the idea that an organism's environment is connected in some way to changes in the genetic code.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/08/060807154715.htm

Janet:

"Obviously "intelligence" or potential for intelligence(genetic advantage) of a group of population cannot be determined by a one-to-one relationship with "superiority" (wealth, power, military might etc..)"

I am NOT arguing that Intelligence is determined by superiority but in absence of doing IQ tests (which, again aint the best method of measuring overall intelligence), then what is another way to say one RACE is "intelligent" and other is not?

If intelligence is what man has used to subjugate others on the planet (which is THE most natural tendency of man over the ages), then one could use Superiority as one way to say that one race had it better than the others!

brain development should obviously manifest in different ways - some brains (in some environs) may evolve more on the left side and some more on the right side.... at least by SHEER biological/Evolutionary/genetic terms that could stand to reason.... but sociologically, I dont see one race has been supreme in arts for ever! or science for ever!

So, I am arguing, that sociology does not bear what evolutionary and genetic biology may point toward. Where is the disconnect??

Cheers,
Desh
Drishtikone.com

I feel sorry for the Neanderthals! I think the Brights must have eaten most of them in hard times?
(Jung's 'Aryan bird of prey' goes back a long way)

******************************************************
"So why is it that PC seems to me to be winning..." Friend_of_Skeptisch

I think it is because the liberal media has a very big head start over conservatives. Conservatives may own the AM radio dial, but liberals control most cable and broadcast TV networks, newspapers and local news departments.

~Anne 52
******************************************************

No doubt that the socialist media still have a much bigger outlet and a much bigger audience than the conservative media. In fact, it strikes me that perhaps Americans live in two different virtual realities or parallel universes as a function of which media we mainly listen to (too lazy to restructure the sentence to avoid the preposition at the end of it). Class polarization.

If it is simply because the socialists had a head start, do you expect time to correct the problem, i.e., do you expect that conservative media will catch up and overtake?

What generated the ideologies of the MSM-socialists in the first place? Is academia the cause of that? Did academia have a headstart also? How did academia become socialistic? Are conservatives such as Horowitz catching up with academia or is academia/socialism still winning?

These are the kinds of questions that seem to be raised.

*************************************************************
"Why does one version or another of class warfare continue over and over? Apparently it is something about the basic nature of mankind."~ Friend_of_Skeptisch

I personally believe that that is part of human nature. Humans, as well as many other species, have a genetically based drive for status. We are never really satisfied with our "station" in life (ambition). There is always that itch for more. Evolutionary Psychology (sociobiology) is profoundly illuminating on this, and many other aspects of human nature.

This drive for status is harnessed by society as the engine of progress. It is one of the reasons that communism won't work, and why capitalism has been so successful.

~sandy 54
*************************************************************

Yep. I agree with almost all of this, esp. the last paragraph. And that perhaps makes it a two-edged sword.

I don't know that it has been definitively shown to be genetic in origin, but I wouldn't be surprised if it is so.

I wonder that you label the motivating factor "ambition." Suppose that, in humans, maybe even some other primates, one gave it the label "envy"?

Should one see the well-known (I think) phenomenon f "keeping up with the Jones's" as a manifestation of ambition or envy, or both? And how does the role of the feelings/beliefs of the radical egalitarians factor into the equation?

Sandy,

There are numerous factors that have caused Africans by in large to be in the position they are in. As an African American I can tell you personally that I do not feel that I am any less evolved or intelligent than any other human being on this planet.

This theory doesn't seem to hold much water in the face of all the intelligent Africans and African Americans that currently walk on our planet.

-A

Belonging to a farmer community, I used to go to our farm in my school holidays and help family members on various jobs there. One of the jobs was to look after the earthen water-courses used for irrigating the fields because they would begin leaking at any time from anywhere thus wasting precious water. Not very much experienced, when I will see a leakage I will try to plug it from the outside on which my father or any other member of the family would tell me to find the source of the leakage from the inside of the water-course where it will be very very small as compared to that at the outside and to plug it from there, this way it will be far more easy and permanent.

Similarly, there are two ways to see anything in the sphere of knowledge. One way is we see things from outside-in, as usually mainstream science does and the other way is we see things from inside-out as usually intutively inclined people including rare but generally path-breaking scientists like Einstein, Watson do. In the first we can collect huge data but really fail to arrive at a unfied, simple and true picture of anything. In the second we see things differently which generally go against the data led results.

Seen from outside-in evolution seems to be continuous, and explanable by Darwinian and Neo-Darwinians theories. Here huge datas can be collected of anything and everything but cannot be unified into a single comprehensive picture to arrive at the single, simple truth of anything. No wonder with such approach we see numerous major and minor races with all having all sorts of attributes in greater or smaller measure.

Seen from inside-out evolution seems to be and actually is driven by what now-a-days is called intelligent design but which is really a design born out of the universe itself or born out of the evolutionary scheme of things of the universe itself. Here the evolution - change over time - is discontinous, jumps to new paradigms at due intervals and gives a far better unfied picture. Here you find only four basic species/races/classes and all that down to four basic phases of even our individual lives, all thanks to one unified picture on the onset beginning to get divided into four main pictures thanks to one unfied force which is the source and reason of it all getting divided into four basic forces cycle-over-cycles-over cycles right up to the univrse as a whole on the up side and a grain of sand on the down side.

It is only from this later picture that we can find four basic races, all having their strengths according to the basic forces of which they are a product from the very base. Gravity will give race its physical strength (Africans?), electromagnetism will make race emotionally volatile (Mongloids?), strong force will give race its intellectual strenth (Jews?)and the last the weak force will give a race its intelligence or what is also called wisdom (Asians?). Of course because of cycle-within-cycles or cycles-over-cycles all races will have their physical, emotional, intellectual and intutitve quotas but on the whole the picture will be as explained above.

There was a recent PBS documentary on "epigenetics," showing scientifically that nature is vastly altered or expanded upon by nurture. Deepak & Watson would find common ground there.

Science is the intelligent gathering of info available to the senses. It is a great tool, but no substitute for wisdom, which is an intuitive understanding of values. Only through the expansive wisdom of the heart, or Love, can science help humanity achieve what is most worthwhile.

Deepak:" In the case of IQ, to take a specific example, the simplistic connection between genes and intelligence is flat wrong. "

Meaning that there is not a cause and effect relationship between any specific gene activation and IQ test scores.

He did not mean that there is no relation between genetic sequences and intelligence. Clearly there is. Humans are more intelligent than great apes, due to genetic differences.

So between species that line of reasoning works. However, the human genome in all humans is so nearly the same, that genetic differences cannot account for differences in intelligence (other than mutations, or instances where the fetus failed to develop properly, resulting in brain damage or incomplete development).

Remember also that race distinction based on skin color is not due to changes in the human genetic code. All humans have the genes for skin pigmentation to various degrees (just like brown eyed people all have the genetic code for blue eyes as well). And it has been shown that if you move a group of people from say, a northern or southern latitude to an equatorial latitude, over generations the same family will develop different skin pigmentation due to a response to the amount of (or lack of) sunlight.

In other words, no actual difference in the genetic code is needed to cause a change in skin color over many generations (such as thousands of years or longer).

Geneticists realize, therefore, that there is no genetic basis for the concept of different races of humanity.

There are differences in the activation of skin pigmentation as a response to the environment, but NO ACTUAL DEVIANCES IN THE GENETIC CODE.

In other words, the whole idea of "race" may, from a strictly scientific viewpoint, be a fallacy. The idea of "race" may be a social construct, having nothing to do with genetics.

Socially, it is backed up by cultural differences. Fair enough. I'm simply pointing out that it is not genetics causing the differences in the races.

Studies tracing individual genetic histories indicate that a LOT of mixing has been going on throughout the entire time humans have been on earth. In other words, the fact that you are white and live in Norway does not preclude the fact that you can easily have genetic code from black African ancestors. Studies so far indicate in all likelihood you in fact would have genetic ancestors from all over the world, all races, all longitudes and latitudes.

The idea that "it's all genes" is sort of like saying the earth is all molecules. From one viewpoint it is. Genes shape our physical forms, including the structures of our brains, and give us the capability to express ourselves according to our human nature.

However, this does NOT mean that Jimi Hendrix was genetically coded to write "Purple Haze" nor does it mean that any of Van Gogh's or Michaelangelo's work was predetermined by a sequence of their genetic code.

Genes may have given them the brains and the hands with opposable thumbs, but certainly there were a lot of other factors (not to mention inspiration) that contributed to the way they chose to express themselves as artists, some of it cultural, some of it individual responses to cultural conditionings, and viewpoints formed from personal experiences and opinions.

It certainly seems there are differences between cultures, and it is also true that some cultures have evolved in specific locales, resulting in the fact that a culture springs up inside an area where people share the same skin pigmentation activation levels.

But it is not the skin pigmentation levels that are causing the cultural differences.

I think this is the heart of the matter. For Watson to notice there are cultural differences between his Nothern European culture and the Black African cultures is certainly a fair observation.

For him to say that those cultural differences are caused by differences in the genetic code between Northern Europeans and Africans is not only a non-sequitor jump in logic, it is not supported by the studies that have been done on the human genetic code.

I find the comment above that describes the book Genes, Germs, and Steel very interesting, because it shows how the differences in cultures arose due to a wide variety of factors, without the need to introduce the idea of a difference in the human genetic code between the cultures, which the scientific evidence so far indicates does not exist.

SCIENCE vs. wisdom

WISDOM vs. science

2 peas in a pod where less is more.

Is it even possible to be 'wise' without scientific knowledge?

Proper method, proper observation, proper evaluation, rational and logical conclusion...

is that a wise man's way of 'doing' science?

or is that a scientist's way of 'doing' good science?

Wisdom is a BIG word! Well, it's bigger than it looks.

What is wise here is not always wise somewhere else.

WISE

See? Now the word looks even smaller. It's a quantum cut-off.

We do not know exactly what is WISE, or what could be called WISE, until...

we look into the Past, and make a justified conclusion.

Can we make a jump and say,

"Wisdom is action taken--based on one's knowledge of History." (?)

SUCCESS

It just so happens...that sometimes

losing is the wisest thing to do.

Have you ever been in love?

Were you wiser for it?

Or more confused than ever, like me?

Yogi-one: I'm trying to follow along here (I'm not very knowledgeable about genetics). I can see your point on how skin pigmentation is not solely controlled by your genes. But I'm puzzled by your leap from there to your hypothesis that the whole concept of race could be a social construct. What about the other aspects of race, like bone structure, eye shape, etc? Do those admit of non-genetic explanations too?

Interesting the alter ego has some 'real' questions about the genetics of human physiology (not the usual philosphical and theological mumbo jumbo!)

....

anyway...

science is just a tool...

and reason is inherent in wisdom....

Science and Wisdom is a holistic approach than than science vs. wisdom.

You know the cliche...science gave the nukes...

Hey Sandy!

Thanks for posting #29. It is about time.

Idang Alibi is to be commended for his show of courage.

Is wisdom a value or a virtue?

This man is risking his life for telling his truth!

Have you ever taken action

after first having had a hunch?

Action taken, that is, for no good reason.

Just for the hell of it.

Just because you had an itch. An urge.

And then, somewhere down the road, you by chance

come upon an opportunity which requires special skills.

And just by chance, those skills are the exact ones

you learned by following this urge in the first place.

Following an urge for no good reason ends in a happy conclusion. Wow!

Is that what we call intuition? Is it smart or wise

to goof around and experiment with your version of reality?

DISCOVERY

Seldom does it happen, but happen it does.

Re. 60
Friend_of_Deepak

I think that status trumps all. People are obviously envious of those with more things, but they are more envious of those higher up the status hierarchy. And generally, I think that status is more emotionally rewarding. I think it is positive recognition by one's peers that is the primary driver, vs the acquisition of things. But
they generally come paired.

"how does the role of the feelings/beliefs of the radical egalitarians factor into the equation?"

Well, those below will always try to drag down those above. One method is through egalitarian ideologies. Also, those above use egalitarian ideologies to cement their positions by 1) making it harder for those right below to acquire money and position so that they can not effectively challenge, and 2) to mollify the masses so that they are content with their station. The term Machiavellianism is relevant here.

***

Re. 61
atm4328

"There are numerous factors that have caused Africans by in large to be in the position they are in. As an African American I can tell you personally that I do not feel that I am any less evolved or intelligent than any other human being on this planet."

I agree, but the intelligence is somehow not equally manifested as an output, as you say; due to several reasons - among them could be cultural attitudes and human behaviors - more people who are inclined to lead than to follow?(A society can handle many born geniuses but many born leaders? just a thought) - these could have some genetic roots. To succeed as a society, people should work in a 'large group' with a common goal. In the global era, these factors should have lesser and lesser effects to enable nations and cultural minorities to realize their full potential of human intelligence. The potential is immense, much more than anything the world has seen at the peaks of any civilization so far.

***

Re. 64
Yogi-one

Brilliant post. You touch upon many crucial points pertaining to the debate.

Re. 69

Keith, you are welcome!

Idang Alibi article is certainly inspiring for a better future. He "agrees" with Watson's conclusion, but doesn't necessarily agree with his reasons for the continued failure of African societies, which he says is more to do with their inability to elect proper leaders than their ability to do math, or so to speak. He makes perfect sense from a Christian theological point of view in his article. I don't agree with his argument for South Africa's success though. He says it is due to white leaders. South Africa's economic success has many more complex environmental and historical reasons.

There is nothing inferior, superior or versus in the universe. All things serve one grand Scheme of Things. Just as bone, blood, muscle, nerve and even cancer cells do so in our individual case.

"There is nothing inferior, superior or versus in the universe. All things serve one grand Scheme of Things. Just as bone, blood, muscle, nerve and even cancer cells do so in our individual case."

Right on, Harb. It's just how we choose to see it and thus weaken the spark that lightens the 'dark matter' between us. Now, we can also adapt our customary vision to any bright sparks a-flying!

So, the paradox of superior vision. Help me out my friend!

My right hand is dominant and usually prime mover but works in perfect harmony with my left hand never stopping to make judgement or pull rank. That stuff comes from that stuff only when I am not brave enough to renounce it!

It is a common activity of people from a dominant race to find some innate flaws in the race that they subjugate, openly or otherwise. It makes the activity more acceptable and reasonable. When British empire was at its helm, many important thinkers back home spun theories of how the colonies were inhabited by barbarians and essentially inferior people. Totally disregarding their ancient civilisations, which predated that of Europe by thousands of years and were highly developed in several fields including astronomy, mathematics, philosophy medicine and surgery.
The point made by Desh Kapoor that over several thousand years of known history of human civilisation, the superiority of one race over the other has been ephemeral, is a very valid one. We are living in a small bubble of time. In the next few centuries the balance of power may shift completely and make this debate totally redundant.
The point made by yogi-one that performance is related to self definitions that individuals, cultures and societies make for themselves is very strong. It explains the new phenomenon of the rise of China and India as the new important players on international stage. They seem to be powered more by self belief than anything else.
Africa's time will come. Make no mistake. Then all the so called scientific theories (more opportunistic than anything else) will go flying out of the door.
We are all created with equal potential. Don't believe anyone who says otherwise.

Sandy, overall your post(#49) is interesting to me and seems to make some sense to me at first consideration. I need more time to think about it. 'Status' is not a concept that I think a lot about. Perhaps it is a concept somewhat more familiar to a sociologist than to many biologists.

You brought up the word "ambition" and seemed to consider it the drive to achieve status. Suppose it were suggested that thwarted ambition rather than ambition per se was a causal factor of the socialist mentality? Would you buy that? Does thwarted ambition cause envy?

Is thwarted ambition usually to be understood as being relative to one's goals and one's perceptions of oneself? Could those you describe as being higher up the status hierarchy still self-perceive themselves, perhaps unreasonably, as failures, i.e., could they self-perceive that their status goals have been thwarted, and be envious of those below them out of a sort of delusionally low self-perception?

Or could they believe that they are so superior (God-like) that they can gain status by making a sort of heaven on earth, and by forcing lesser beings to bend to their will to do so?

Is there any role of delusional thinking in this process? Of irrationality? Do you see any irrationality in the socialist mentality?

(more below, by line)

**************************************************

[#49 Sandy]:

I think that status trumps all. People are obviously envious of those with more things, but they are more envious of those higher up the status hierarchy. And generally, I think that status is more emotionally rewarding. I think it is positive recognition by one's peers that is the primary driver, vs the acquisition of things. But they generally come paired.

"how does the role of the feelings/beliefs of the radical egalitarians factor into the equation?"

Well, those below will always try to drag down those above. One method is through egalitarian ideologies. Also, those above use egalitarian ideologies to cement their positions by 1) making it harder for those right below to acquire money and position so that they can not effectively challenge,...
***************************************************

So, those above in the status hierarchy are deliberately/knowingly just using the ideas of radical egalitarianism as a tool of their ambition to maintain their superior status? Is this to say that they do *not really believe* in those ideas; they don't really believe that everyone is, or should be made, equal? It seems to me that many, indeed most, of them, in fact, do. I could be wrong about that.

It would also seem that the most competition for someone of high status would be from those of very similarly high status. In terms of money that might mean the super-rich trying to transfer money away from the less rich (close competition) to the very poor, or perhaps to those in the middle. But, it is not clear to me that a transfer from the merely rich, but NOT from the super-rich and powerful, to those of much lesser status (those who are much less competition) is what Democrats want to do or ever actually accomplish. It is also not clear that there is any practical way to achieve that. How does the government take away from the merely rich and not from the super rich? Or do you see the competition for status as coming most significantly from those of middle status, i.e., as the rich protecting their status by transferring from the middle and giving to the poor/lower class?

In terms of the transfer away of other assets (besides money) that might otherwise help their closest competition to catch them, I am not sure those of highest status could bring about a transfer of such things as education, or inborn talent/abilities, or powerful "connections" with others, away from their closest competitors.

Besides, is the government really made up, are the Democrats or socialists really made up, mainly of those of highest status? Most elected government officials and most Democrats are just useful idoits then?

***
"and 2) to molify the masses so that they are content with their station." [#49 sandy]
***

Here, I suppose affirmative action in education could be seen as an example of trying to transfer a factor other than money to mollify the masses. And especially, giving out grades that are undeserved to mollify some students, of merely pretending that they are getting a good education. And, I suppose there are many other examples of how to mollify the masses, which, perhaps, one could sum up as welfare.

But, if those of highest status are rationally doing this, don't they understand that when mollifying the masses they risk bringing down the whole system, themselves with it?

"The term Machiavellianism is relevant here."[#49 sandy]

Perhaps.

Does Machiavelianism strike you as perfectly rational? Again, what is the role of irrationality in all this? None?

[Anne #52]
********************
"do you expect that conservative media will catch up and overtake?"

There is abundant evidence that we are overtaking the MSM as we speak.
********************

(By "we" I suppose you mean the conservatives.)
I would like to believe that, but I am very skeptical.

*****
Read former National Review publisher Bill Rusher's book The Coming Battle for the Media.
*****

It probably would be interesting. Thanks.

****************
"What generated the ideologies of the MSM-socialists in the first place? Is academia the cause of that?"

Journalism Schools, like most higher educational institutions, remain liberal dominated.
*****************

Certainly seems to be true, yes.

*****
"How did academia become socialistic?"

Government funding and mandates.
*****

Hmm. The government helped to make academics into socialists? Isn't that a bit circular? The academics made the media into socialists, the media caused the government to be socialist, and the socialist government made the academics socialist???

********
Also, the theoretical world is the only environment where where socialism and Marxist-Leninism seem to work.
********

Interesting comment. Is that why academia itself is a tyrannical system? I always viewed it as a dictatorship but not necessarily a communist one. True though, that students are made nearly equal these days by giving out grades like water and dumbing down courses nearly to the lowest level of comprehension.

Friend_of_Deepak:
Re. 55

"'Status' is not a concept that I think a lot about. Perhaps it is a concept somewhat more familiar to a sociologist than to many biologists."

Concerning social species, it is an integral sociobiological concept.

"Suppose it were suggested that thwarted ambition rather than ambition per se was a causal factor of the socialist mentality? Would you buy that?"

It is A causal factor. But there is a fundamental ambition for status/power in and of itself, just like EVERY male chimpanzee craves to be the alpha, and all of the perks it brings. Social classes are simply a pecking order. In general, the higher the better.

"Could those you describe as being higher up the status hierarchy still self-perceive themselves, perhaps unreasonably, as failures"

Of course. It depends on where they started from and their status goals.

"i.e., could they self-perceive that their status goals have been thwarted, and be envious of those below them out of a sort of delusionally low self-perception?"

The delusional can come up with any type of craziness, but in general I would say not likely. They look down on those below them and envy those above.

"Or could they believe that they are so superior (God-like) that they can gain status by making a sort of heaven on earth, and by forcing lesser beings to bend to their will to do so?"

For sure. Power is one of the most intoxicating states one can be in. I'm sure most have heard the phrase DRUNK WITH POWER.

"Do you see any irrationality in the socialist mentality?"

Except for those near the top who use these ideologies to get and keep power, most hardcore socialists ARE delusional. Hence they strive to promote a system that has shown itself to be unworkable and a failure all over the world.

"So, those above in the status hierarchy are deliberately/knowingly just using the ideas of radical egalitarianism as a tool of their ambition to maintain their superior status?"

I would say most at the top do. It is a form of political manipulation. You don't get to the height of power without knowing how to manipulate those you need to. It would almost come as second nature.

"It would also seem that the most competition for someone of high status would be from those of very similarly high status. In terms of money that might mean the super-rich trying to transfer money away from the less rich (close competition) to the very poor, or perhaps to those in the middle."

That is how it is done.

"How does the government take away from the merely rich and not from the super rich?"

The super rich and connected, to a large degree, make the rules. They make sure it benefits themselves. Of course they also compete amongst themselves for power.

"Or do you see the competition for status as coming most significantly from those of middle status, i.e., as the rich protecting their status by transferring from the middle and giving to the poor/lower class?"

No, I would say the upper middle and newly rich.

"Most elected government officials and most Democrats are just useful idiots then?'

At the state and local level, probably. It changes drastically at the federal level, depending on how politically connected they are. The new game in town is world government. Many are trying to position themselves for, to them, the inevitable.

"if those of highest status are rationally doing this, don't they understand that when mollifying the masses they risk bringing down the whole system, themselves with it?"

I'm sure they think they can finesse it. Power brings arrogance, and arrogance can be conducive to making egregious errors in judgment.

"Does Machiavelianism strike you as perfectly rational? Again, what is the role of irrationality in all this? None?"

It is simply the studied ways of power... An attempt to take the irrational out of it.

Sandy,

Interesting position(s)(#57). You are a sociologist or sociobiologist yourself?

I will take more time to think about this and possibly respond more later. Just a comment or two now.

Based on your answers/positions/beliefs, should I conclude that, someone who is lower-middle-class (or at most somewhere in the middle class), not rich, not super-rich, and yet supports conservative positions, is ALSO just a useful idoit for those of highest status, because conservatives promote capitalism and that is what those of highest status *really* want? Those of highest status don't really want socialism? They do want capitalism? And conservatives support capitalism? And therefore conservatives are also, perhaps more, useful idoits to those of highest status than socialists?

Does that mean you are not a conservative? Or that you are of the highest status? Or that you are a useful idoit? It certainly sesm to make me a useful idoit.

More below in a comment to follow shortly.

*******************************
(Sandy's responses {Post #57} with my comments in quotes.)

"'Status' is not a concept that I think a lot about. Perhaps it is a concept somewhat more familiar to a sociologist than to many biologists."

Concerning social species, it is an integral sociobiological concept.

"Suppose it were suggested that thwarted ambition rather than ambition per se was a causal factor of the socialist mentality? Would you buy that?"

It is A causal factor. But there is a fundamental ambition for status/power in and of itself, just like EVERY male chimpanzee craves to be the alpha, and all of the perks it brings. Social classes are simply a pecking order. In general, the higher the better.
********************************

I can accept this, but you capitalized the "A" for a reason. You seem to be tacitly implying/accepting/admitting that there are other causal factors, and that seems evidently correct.

There are other innate factors/drives besides ambition (drive for status), and there are drives that tend to check ambition. One of the most obvious of the latter would seem to be fear. Does fear not act to check ambition? One thinks of those who claim to have "a fear of success." There must be many others, i.e., human behavior is multifactorial.

Further, you seem to be suggesting that the drive for status, ambition, is the most significant causal factor in the socialist mentality. Fear might lead to thwarted ambition. No? If I accept that ambition precedes thwarted ambition, should I also accept that ambition is more primal than fear?

**************************************************
"Could those you describe as being higher up the status hierarchy still self-perceive themselves, perhaps unreasonably, as failures"

Of course. It depends on where they started from and their status goals.

"i.e., could they self-perceive that their status goals have been thwarted, and be envious of those below them out of a sort of delusionally low self-perception?"

The delusional can come up with any type of craziness, but in general I would say not likely. They look down on those below them and envy those above.

"Or could they believe that they are so superior (God-like) that they can gain status by making a sort of heaven on earth, and by forcing lesser beings to bend to their will to do so?"

For sure. Power is one of the most intoxicating states one can be in. I'm sure most have heard the phrase DRUNK WITH POWER.
**************************************************

So, you consider this more likely than the possibility that those of higher status could *envy* those of lower status out of irrationality. In fact, you seem to consider this a real possibility, and yet you don't think that those "near the top" in status act irrationally when they promote socialism, as in your answer to the next question.

*******************************
"Do you see any irrationality in the socialist mentality?"

Except for those near the top who use these ideologies to get and keep power, most hardcore socialists ARE delusional. Hence they strive to promote a system that has shown itself to be unworkable and a failure all over the world.
*******************************

I agree that socialism has been an utter failure and yet many seem to want to keep trying it over and over. Again, some would consider that good evidence of irrationality. But, maybe a few, as you suggest, don't really want to have it succeed and aren't really trying it.

If those near the bottom are delusional for using socialism because it has never worked for them, and those at the top aren't delusional, they just pretend to believe in it and pretend to promote it as a tool to maintain their own status, does it seem to you that those at the top are doing an awfully poor job of just *pretending* to promote it? Do you think they are being careful not to try too hard? Does that apply to Soros? To Kennedy? Should I not be afraid that socialism in America will ever succeed because those of highest status won't really let it?

Are there any of *low* or "middle" status (class) who are not delusional and merely use the socialist ideology rationally to try to reach their own, perhaps more modest, status goals? Can a "rational" Machiavellianism, or something very much like it, be practiced by the lower and middle classes too by also merely *pretending* to believe in and to promote socialism in order to gain/be granted status by those of higher status who have the power/ability to raise the status of others in return for helping them to pretend? What is "brown-nosing"? Are some, in the lower-class, brown-noses who mollify the highest status individuals by pretending to be socialists for them in return for status granting, and are they therefore not useful idoits, and not delusional but rational strategists after all?

And again, those "near the top," who are not delusional: Suppose I offered you a name such as Teddy Kennedy. Is Teddy Kennedy "near the top"? Should I therefore conclude that he is rationally using an ideology (ala Machiavelli), to help him maintain a status, but he is aware that socialist ideology isn't correct? Does Teddy Kennedy merely come from a reasonably wealthy family or should I consider him one of the super-rich? Super-rich = "near the top"? If I suggested that Teddy is a radical egalitarian, and if I further suggested that radical egalitarianism is a delusional belief - am I right or wrong on each count?

**************************************************
"So, those above in the status hierarchy are deliberately/knowingly just using the ideas of radical egalitarianism as a tool of their ambition to maintain their superior status?"

I would say most at the top do. It is a form of political manipulation. You don't get to the height of power without knowing how to manipulate those you need to. It would almost come as second nature.

"It would also seem that the most competition for someone of high status would be from those of very similarly high status. In terms of money that might mean the super-rich trying to transfer money away from the less rich (close competition) to the very poor, or perhaps to those in the middle."

That is how it is done.
**************************************************

So, how does one fit someone like Teddy Kennedy into this scheme? Or Soros?

******************************
"How does the government take away from the merely rich and not from the super rich?"

The super rich and connected, to a large degree, make the rules. They make sure it benefits themselves. Of course they also compete amongst themselves for power.
******************************

But then, again, how do they make rules that benefit themselves *as individuals* but not their nearest competition?

***************************************************
"Or do you see the competition for status as coming most significantly from those of middle status, i.e., as the rich protecting their status by transferring from the middle and giving to the poor/lower class?"

No, I would say the upper middle and newly rich.

"Most elected government officials and most Democrats are just useful idiots then?'

At the state and local level, probably. It changes drastically at the federal level, depending on how politically connected they are. The new game in town is world government. Many are trying to position themselves for, to them, the inevitable.
***************************************************

World government is inevitable because those seeking the highest status want it? They are the ones in control, right? So, they are the ones making it inevitable? They all want to be president of the world? Is that why they want one world government?

*******************************
"if those of highest status are rationally doing this, don't they understand that when mollifying the masses they risk bringing down the whole system, themselves with it?"

I'm sure they think they can finesse it. Power brings arrogance, and arrogance can be conducive to making egregious errors in judgment.
*******************************

Such arrogance is still rational though?

**************************************************
"Does Machiavelianism strike you as perfectly rational? Again, what is the role of irrationality in all this? None?"

It is simply the studied ways of power... An attempt to take the irrational out of it.
**************************************************

Could it be irrational to believe that such an attempt to take the irrational out of gaining power could ever succeed?

No. I am not just playing games. I just think that all this is VERY complex.

Maybe so complex that Sisyphus really will be doomed for eternity.

Maybe Santayana should have said that man will inevitably be unable to understand the past and inevitably be doomed to repeat it.

F.of D. and Sandy:

Your conversation need not distract from the original intention of the author.

You two (or you) seem to be well-informed,

yet you choose to remain anonymous here at IB. Why is that?

Ambition makes you want to post,

yet Fear keeps you from gaining self-recognition?

Maybe you have already attained to a high social status.

Aye, that certainly must call for wringing of hands and gnashing of teeth.

Otherwise, you might probably let us know who you really are.

.

When one has something to lose, fear causes one to take

a stance which secures ones special identity.

You are 'somebody', and this 'somebody' suffers because of this relation to a group.

.

If people were always rational, there would never have been

a story such as the good Samaritan, and charity would only be a vague concept.

The Buddha would have taken the Kingdom instead of leaving it.

Jesus was tempted to take the status, name and power that goes with being

the King Of The World, but what did he do and say instead?

Those at the bottom rung of the ladder have a pretty good view of those above.

They watch those who have gone on before, those who seem to have had a head start.

Although, if we were all created in the beginning as a thought of God,

then that wouldn't make any sense at all.

So why do people choose to stay at such a lowly station?

Why do wise men seek a babe instead of brown-nosing to an already made King?

Excuse me for butting in. I shall ready myself now

to be a grunt in a factory as per usual on a Monday morn.

Peace, Keith

We are all one being (period).
You can analyze to the point of separation.
Todd

Keith:

You can read about me in my profile page.

***

Friend_of_Deepak:

No, I am no pro. Just an eager student.

"Those of highest status don't really want socialism? They do want capitalism? And conservatives support capitalism?"

I would say that those at the top have learned from this century, and are not communists, but they are socialists (which gives them ample control) that want enough capitalism to keep things from grinding to a halt.

I am a conservative that wants everyone to know how the system works so that we can be an effective counter to their power quest, just as the constitution (or what’s left of it) was supposed to do in the USA.

I think that any fear they have is about a substantial portion of the general population discovering what their game is. Without the cover of darkness they lose much of their power.

What would those at the top envy about those at the bottom? They use them as weapons against the middle. They may pretend to be guardians of the poor, but in reality, have mostly contempt for them and just use them as tools.

"I agree that socialism has been an utter failure and yet many seem to want to keep trying it over and over."

Primarily the "useful idoits" from the middle.

"If those near the bottom are delusional for using socialism because it has never worked for them"

Oh it has worked for them. The uppers take from the middle and give it to the bottom. They then can 1) put on a false front of being caring, and 2) throttle their enemies at the same time.

"Should I not be afraid that socialism in America will ever succeed because those of highest status won't really let it?"

I would say that the highers would institute hardcore socialism (not communism) in a minute, but those that have to pay for it (the middle) don't want it and reject it whenever they get the chance.

"Can a "rational" Machiavellianism, or something very much like it, be practiced by the lower and middle classes too by also merely *pretending* to believe in and to promote socialism in order to gain/be granted status by those of higher status who have the power/ability to raise the status of others in return for helping them to pretend?"

Remember that IQ is well correlated with social class. Those at the bottom are too dumb and/or ignorant to know much about anything. Those in the middle are occupied with earning a living, and are ignorant of the ways of power. I am hoping that the internet can give them the necessary knowledge so that they can take back some of their power. They will need to if they are to counter those from above.

It is hard to tell about people like a Kennedy or a Soros. Are they in the power matrix, or are they primarily spear carriers? I don't know, but if I had to guess, I would say the latter. The real players are usually not known nor do they want to be known.

"But then, again, how do they make rules that benefit themselves *as individuals* but not their nearest competition?"

Look it like a corporation. The corporation competes against others for hegemony, but the officers within the corporation compete with each other for power. The players at the top are the "world gov't" corporation.

"World government is inevitable because those seeking the highest status want it?"

I said I think that THEY think it is inevitable, but it isn't necessarily. They are positioning for it, but got a big surprise on the open-borders / amnesty vote a few months ago. Talk radio and the internet are helping the middle to educate itself and gain some power. Decades ago it would have passed without us even knowing about it, like the 1965 IMMIGRATION ACT. How will it turn out in the end? I don't know.

"Such arrogance is still rational though?"

Arrogance is gene based human/animal nature. Intellect/rationality must ride on top of this nature like a bull rider.

Sandy: Thanks for letting me know that you are one of a kind.

Not everyone plays it straight...you may have noticed.

Maybe F. of D. will act in like manner. I doubt it.

The totality of what you said above is very interesting.

In my state, 'talk radio' is aimed at the Republican sports fan.

Hannity, Rush, Prager, O'Reily, etc., are all I hear besides football.
Sometimes I listen in. It depends on my mood.
If it is already a sore one, they tend to make it worse.

I wish there was more balance in it, like that Carvelle(?) dude.

Anyways...thanks for the education! Cheers!

I find this discussion interesting. Just a personal interest on my part, and I doubt that many will read such long posts. Forgive the typos and the sentence structure below. I didn't take much time to proofread this and it IS getting too long, I know.

Keith, as you might have guessed, I am a friend of Deepak. I am your average Biologist from St. Peters, MO.
☺

Sandy, I am not clear about how you see all this. That is why you will likely find so many questions below, line by line:

Post#62, Sandy:
▫—————————————————————————————————►
No, I am no pro. Just an eager student.

"Those of highest status don't really want socialism? They do want capitalism? And conservatives support capitalism?"

I would say that those at the top have learned from this century,
◄—————————————————————————————————▫

You mean from the failure of communism or other forms of socialism in the 20th century?

▫——————————————►
and are not communists, but they are socialists (which gives them ample control) that want enough capitalism to keep things from grinding to a halt.
◄——————————————▫

I am having a problem understanding how one applies your beliefs to current political movements, domestic or world-wide.

You write, that they (those at the top) ARE socialists???? Do you mean rather, that *some* (not all) of those at the top just *pretend* to be socialists/radical egalitarians, using such pretense to gain power from and thereby to control the masses? I can see how the latter would help them to maintain status and control the masses UP TO A POINT ONLY. But I cannot see how those at the top would maintain their status if a true form of socialism really succeeded, unless they see maintainance of their high status as meaning that they become an El Duce, or Stalin, or Castro, or retain some very high position under such a dictator in a pseudosocialist system, such as all forms of socialism to date. Is that what you mean? In true socialism I cannot see how there would be much in the way of status for them. In true socialism I don't see much in the way of status for anyone.

And you write, "..enough capitalism to keep things from grinding to a halt"???? This seems to mean that you believe they don't want a very clear-cut or sincere form of socialism, since it would still involve some capitalism? Perhaps you feel that what they want should not becalled socialism then, and that they ARE NOT (true) socialists?

Are you thinking here of The Third Way, sometimes called "Third Way Socialism"? Is that what you see as a somewhat newer strategy of those at the top for maintaining status? They learned by the failures of communism and now have a synthesis of opposites
(capitalism and socialism) to try next?

Are you thinking that they want something like corporate statism/fascism? And do you equate corporate statism with "enough capitalism..."? Those of the highest status will be the heads of huge corporations that control the world?

Do you, in fact, think of those at the top NOW as being the heads of huge international corporations? Are you focusing on globalism here? Economic globalism? Governmental/one world globalism? Both? Are you thinking of MexAmeriCanada, the Amero, European socialism, the European Union, free trade agreements, etc.?

If so, do you see this as some sort of conspiracy? The super rich or powerful, those of highest status, banding together in a sort of super-corporation to control the rest of us and maintain their super-high status?

I hope you don't mean something like the Trilateral Commission, or Skull and Bones, or the neocons, etc. It's just that I wonder if you are advocating some type of conspiracy theory.

▫—————————————————————————————————►
I am a conservative that wants everyone to know how the system works so that we can be an effective counter to their power quest, just as the constitution (or what’s left of it) was supposed to do in the USA.
◄—————————————————————————————————▫

You seem to think that there is a strategy for maintainance of status on the part of those of highest status, similar to that of an aristocracy or a monarchy. And they are Machiavellian in nature. Is that correct?

▫——————————————►
I think that any fear they have is about a substantial portion of the general population discovering what their game is. Without the cover of darkness they lose much of their power.
◄——————————————▫

Forgive me, but this sounds a bit as if you see it as some sort of conspiracy. Has a drive for status produced a sort of class 'conspiracy' to rule, similar to an aristocracy?

▫—————————————————————————————————► What would those at the top envy about those at the bottom?
◄—————————————————————————————————▫
If those at the top were rational, then those of highest status would *not* envy those at the bottom, no. But, as you previously agreed, delusional or irrational thinking could produce this feeling. One has heard of the concept of a "limousine liberal," and of the idea that some of those of high wealth or status may become radical egalitarians out of guilt feelings. One *might* see Kennedy this way. Or one might see Edwards this way. {I don't actually; I think he has no guilt feelings at all} It is also possible, as far as I can tell, for altruism or even feelings of love in the form of compassion, to produce beliefs in radical egalitarianism, which may then lead to legitimate, not pretended, beliefs in socialism.

And this brings up a related point. Ambition ALONE seems unlikely to me to explain recurrent class warfare, or beliefs in radical egalitarianism, or beliefs in socialism. While I certainly can see ambition as an important consideration in an analysis of class warfare, I don't readily see it as the one and only consideration. If human nature itself is in some way responsible for recurrence of class warfare or for advocation of socialism, or for beliefs in radical egalitarianism, then I suspect one will have to take into account all the other innate aspects of human nature that might apply besides ambition. It seems to me that, in addition to fear, there is also guilt, irrationality, envy, and even love itself - all of which *might* be essential in one way or another to a theory of what causes radical egalitarian beliefs, or socialist ideology, or class warfare. Possibly many other aspects of human nature are involved also.

▫——————————————►
They use them as weapons against the middle. They may pretend to be guardians of the poor, but in reality, have mostly contempt for them and just use them as tools.
◄——————————————▫

Which seems to mean that they do not really believe in socialism. Why then do you write above that those at the top ARE socialists of some sort? You don't seem to mean that, at least not in the sense that they believe in socialism per se.

▫—————————————————————————————————►
"I agree that socialism has been an utter failure and yet many seem to want to keep trying it over and over."
Primarily the "useful idoits" from the middle.
◄—————————————————————————————————▫

This remark seems to be consistent with the idea that some in the middle might *really* believe in socialism, and it seems to me to reinforce the idea that you do not think that those at the top ARE socialists at all, at least not in the sense that they really believe in it.

In any case, who do you see as the useful idoits in the middle? Journalists? ACLU lawyers? Most humanities professors/academicians in liberal arts colleges and universities? Others? If the academy consists of so many useful idoits, then how does that gibe with IQ correlating with status?

▫——————————————►
"If those near the bottom are delusional for using socialism because it has never worked for them"
Oh it has worked for them. The uppers take from the middle and give it to the bottom. They then can 1) put on a false front of being caring, and 2) throttle their enemies at the same time.
◄——————————————▫

Again, this does not seem consistent with the statment above, that those of highest status, or those at the top ARE socialists.

▫—————————————————————————————————►
"Should I not be afraid that socialism in America will ever succeed because those of highest status won't really let it?"
I would say that the highers would institute hardcore socialism (not communism) in a minute,
◄—————————————————————————————————▫
Now you seem to be again saying that those at the top ARE socialists.

Do you mean that they would institute a sort of socialist system, (thereby eliminating most or all of a middle class, thereby mollifying the masses), leaving a core of capitalism to produce, and have themselves still on top somehow ruling the entire society? It sounds most to me like fascism, which I do accept as a form of socialism. Is that what you mean? Is The Third Way a form of fascism? But corporate statism isn't capitalism, so in what sense would there still be just enough capitalism to keep up production?

▫——————————————►
but those that have to pay for it (the middle) don't want it and reject it whenever they get the chance.
"Can a "rational" Machiavellianism, or something very much like it, be practiced by the lower and middle classes too by also merely *pretending* to believe in and to promote socialism in order to gain/be granted status by those of higher status who have the power/ability to raise the status of others in return for helping them to pretend?"
Remember that IQ is well correlated with social class. Those at the bottom are too dumb and/or ignorant to know much about anything. Those in the middle are occupied with earning a living, and are ignorant of the ways of power. I am hoping that the internet can give them the necessary knowledge so that they can take back some of their power. They will need to if they are to counter those from above.
◄——————————————▫
Hmm. I have heard something of that sentiment before, about the Internet becoming a better tool for widespread education than all the other outlets for education have been so far. I doubt it. Was radio? Was TV?

First of all the Internet is mostly becoming a garbage dump, not a school. Secondly, there is no way to ensure that a *large number* of those at the bottom or even those in the middle class will be exposed to muc of any "knowledge" or teaching on the Internet. Even those of the middle class, even if they have the ability to understand the ideas, and even if the ideas are correct, don't go to the Internet mainly seeking education. You can't force them to listen. Thirdly, you yourself characteized them as busy working.

▫—————————————————————————————————►
It is hard to tell about people like a Kennedy or a Soros. Are they in the power matrix, or are they primarily spear carriers? I don't know, but if I had to guess, I would say the latter. The real players are usually not known nor do they want to be known.
◄—————————————————————————————————▫
This again sounds to me like you view the "players" as shady characters in some sort of conspiracy. Please tell me that isn't so.

▫——————————————►
"But then, again, how do they make rules that benefit themselves *as individuals* but not their nearest competition?"
Look it like a corporation. The corporation competes against others for hegemony, but the officers within the corporation compete with each other for power. The players at the top are the "world gov't" corporation.
◄——————————————▫
This makes me think again, as above, that you seem to see the (hard to see, or hard to define, or hard to recognize) highest status individuals as being those with the most corporate power, as perhaps the CEOs of international corporations? Including heads of media corporations as well?

▫—————————————————————————————————►
"World government is inevitable because those seeking the highest status want it?"
I said I think that THEY think it is inevitable,
◄—————————————————————————————————▫

But why would they think it is inevitable?

▫——————————————►
but it isn't necessarily. They are positioning for it, but got a big surprise on the open-borders / amnesty vote a few months ago. Talk radio and the internet are helping the middle to educate itself and gain some power. Decades ago it would have passed without us even knowing about it, like the 1965 IMMIGRATION ACT. How will it turn out in the end? I don't know.
◄——————————————▫

So, perhaps you could offer me a clearer characterization of those you think are on the top of this status hierarchy. Is Bush, because he seems to promote globalization, or CandiMexAmerica, one of those on top, or of the highest status, one who is manipulating the rest of us? Certainly, in some sense the President of the United States would seem to be of the very highest status. Is he part of a conspiracy of an aristocratic-like upper class? Is he just a spear-carrier? Or a useful idoit? Waht about Donald Rumsfeld? (sp?) Cheney? The neocon conspiracy theory that heavily relies on the old and tiresome demonization of Jews? The Clintons? Halliburton executives? Vincente Fox?

Would you say that you see class warfare as a three class struggle, unlike Marx who saw it as a two class struggle? What about other classes/groups? Is class identification always based on "status"? How does Islamofascism or Islamic Jihadism fit into this picture of class warfare? Is the struggle today still between capitalism (the bourgeoisie, middle class) and socialism (the proletariat, lower class), or somehow between elitism (upper class) vs capitalism (middle class) vs socialism (lower class)? Of what class are the Islamic Jihadists? Or don't they count?

Islamic Jihadists have no class.

They are not the latest thing.

They are not cool.

They are not New Age hipsters.

Like Christians, they have yet to come to terms with

Capitalism, which feeds the body secured goods in return for laborious activity.

Socialism: "I am my brother's keeper," with exceptions.

"It's not my job." The Church has always cared for the poor and down-hearted.

Please pay your dues, your 10%, your tax-free tithe that binds.

And do please accept our ideology while you're at it.

.

F. of D., really? How close? Have you a date for the spoon contest?

Economy vs. Biology

A Floridian and a Missouri mule. This could get good, if I assume you're a man.

Carry on! I'm from Sedalia, btw. Peace!

Re. 64, Friend_of_Deepak:
"you mean from the failure of communism or other forms of socialism in the 20th century?"

Yes

"In true socialism I don't see much in the way of status for anyone."

Just look at the communist ruling elite in the old Soviet Union. Human societies will always be hierarchical. That is our nature. Pure communism is as impossible as having everyone treat each other as equal brothers. Fairy tales.

"Perhaps you feel that what they want should not be called socialism then, and that they ARE NOT (true) socialists?" [communists]

There is no such thing. Maybe ants, but not human societies could exist with such a system. Theoretically, the possibilities are: from the extreme right, anarchism, through a continuum to the extreme left, communism. Real human societies MUST exist between these two extremes. Human nature prevents functioning societies at these two extremes.

"Are you thinking that they want something like corporate statism/fascism? And do you equate corporate statism with "enough capitalism..."?"

That would suite them fine. Heavy control with enough freedom to keep things from totally collapsing.

"Governmental/one world globalism? Both? Are you thinking of MexAmeriCanada, the Amero, European socialism, the European Union, free trade agreements, etc.?"

Bingo! The end result is one world globalist gov't. Ultimate power.

Many have a problem with the word "conspiracy". All that this means in two or more individuals organizing to promote their interest (whatever they are) at the expense of everyone else. This is OH SO typical human nature. It occurs at all levels of society all over the world, since the dawn of homo-sapiens...and before. To not understand this is to be politically naive in the extreme.

"there is a strategy for maintenance of status on the part of those of highest status, similar to that of an aristocracy or a monarchy. And they are Machiavellian in nature. Is that correct?"

Of course.

"It is also possible, as far as I can tell, for altruism or even feelings of love in the form of compassion, to produce beliefs in radical egalitarianism, which may then lead to legitimate, not pretended, beliefs in socialism."

I'll buy that. But it a minor factor, and in NO WAY surpasses the drive for power and status.

"I suspect one will have to take into account all the other innate aspects of human nature that might apply besides ambition."

Yes, but these are at best, of a secondary influence (except for fanatical lunatics, and they are out there).

[They use them as weapons against the middle. They may pretend to be guardians of the poor, but in reality, have mostly contempt for them and just use them as tools.]

"Which seems to mean that they do not really believe in socialism.”

I am saying that their PRIME motivation is status, power, and position, regardless of possible minor side motivations. And they are adept at using these humanitarian masks as cloaks to guard their true motives.

"In any case, who do you see as the useful idiots in the middle? Journalists? ACLU lawyers? Most humanities professors/academicians in liberal arts colleges and universities? Others? If the academy consists of so many useful idoits, then how does that gibe with IQ correlating with status?"

All of the above. IQ is correlated with class. It doesn't define it.

"Do you mean that they would institute a sort of socialist system, (thereby eliminating most or all of a middle class, thereby mollifying the masses), leaving a core of capitalism to produce, and have themselves still on top somehow ruling the entire society? It sounds most to me like fascism, which I do accept as a form of socialism. Is that what you mean? Is The Third Way a form of fascism?"

Yes, fascism is of the left, and it would suite them to a tee. But you must keep in mind that they don't necessarily believe these political philosophies as they would, say, a metaphysical philosophy. They use philosophies as tools to their power and advantage, like political chameleons.

"the Internet is mostly becoming a garbage dump, not a school. Secondly, there is no way to ensure that a *large number* of those at the bottom or even those in the middle class will be exposed to muc of any "knowledge" or teaching on the Internet."

It is in its infancy. Plus you only need a knowledgeable and motivated minority to have a powerful effect. An example: the illegal alien amnesty was recently turned back. I credit the new mediums for this. Forty years ago it would have passed and we would have never
even heard about it, just like the 1965 immigration act did. I expect this influence to grow into the future.

"you view the "players" as shady characters in some sort of conspiracy. Please tell me that isn't so."

Think about it for a minute. Haven't you heard the phrase "smoked filled back rooms", where political decisions are made? Do you really think real power politics is primarily played out in the public arena? What do you think Machiavelianism is all about? Do you think they would be that naive and stupid. Would power players voluntarily tip their hand? Politics, even at the local level, is not primarily a public game. What do you think business lobbying is all about? Political machines? Backroom deals? "Organized interests"? Country clubs? Secret societies? ad nauseum.

Sorry, but the world of business and especially politics and power doesn't live by Boy Scout ethics. Come on....

"So, perhaps you could offer me a clearer characterization of those you think are on the top of this status hierarchy."

I tend to think that elected leaders are, in general, spear carriers. I'm sure there are exceptions. But I would have no way of knowing for sure. But socio-political patterns can give clues.

I don't know much about Marx and his particular outlook. I look at social systems from a sociobiological perspective. And yes, I see Islamofacism as a status phenomenon. Not that they don't believe in the Koran etc. But I think they look at the world and see themselves and their system as a primitive backwater and utterly and totally inferior to the modern world, and especially the west. And it enrages them. Their natural reaction is to strike out at it. It is only human nature.

Quick questions.

Would you characterize yourself as a Social Darwinist?

Do you advocate eugenics?

Below you wrote:
> I'll buy that. But it (sic)a minor factor, and in NO WAY surpasses
the
> drive for power and status.

I wonder - other than the obvious fact that capitalism seems to work
one helluva lot better than socialism and that that seems to depend
on the competition for status (on ambition) that is inherent in a
capitalist economy but not in a socialist one - what other
support/evidence you might offer for the assertion above that seems
to be to the effect that ambition dominates all other human
attributes.

What do you do about the obvious problem that competition for status
could, and might be expected to, result in there being just ONE
winner, so to speak, in the long run, with has most or all of the
power? And that, if and when that happens, effective competition is
stifled? Monopolies in economics? Dictatorships or monarchies in
government? They have to be accepted and eventually are overcome by
other monopolies or dictatorships?

Might one expect that humankind hasn't seen the end of such by a long
shot?

In fact, should I conclude, based on your beliefs/theories that class
wars can/will never end unless or until human nature changes in a way
that eliminates or sublimates ambition? That we are going to be on
the merry-go-round of class warfare for the next thousands, if not
hundreds of thousands of years? If ambition is genetic, would a
eugeneticist advocate breeding it, so to speak, "down" or "out"? Or
breeding it to a higher level?

Should pure socialism be classified as a type of government, a type
of economy, or, as I see it, a societal structure that involves both,
but is antithetical to a capitalist economy?

More, later. That is, if this is not boring you.

Sandy, I read your post(66). I really don't have time to fully reply today, therefore the quick questions. I will be thinking about your position(s). I will not now assert that you are wrong. I think I better understand your position(s) now.

Keith,

Your comments are interesting too, although I am not sure I properly interpret and fully understand all of them. I couldn't respond to your post #60 earlier. It surprises me that anyone else is reading these long posts.

Perhaps, since Sandy is the one defending the idea that ambition is a much more important drive than any other human drive or attribute, including fear, guilt, altruism, irrationality, etc., then Sandy should be the one to answer you. I am still thinking about Sandy's positions and reading a bit.

Post #60 by Keith:
"You two (or you) seem to be well-informed,"

Flattery? Sarcasm?

Obviously, no human being knows all about everything. In fact, I know very little about evolutionary psychology or sociobiology, not to mention a zillion other things. And I doubt that Sandy knows everything about evolutionary theory in biology, or about brain anatomy and physiology.

"yet you choose to remain anonymous here at IB. Why is that?

Ambition makes you want to post,

yet Fear keeps you from gaining self-recognition?"

I can't speak for Sandy, of course, but only give my own response.

Maybe. Maybe ambition is tempered by other considerations, like fear, etc. Still, it may be that ambition more often dominates fear in most people. One would have to have information from a psychological study, which I do not have. Maybe such studies exist, and I am not aware of them.

I post anonymously. I value privacy. If I sought recognition in the form of celebrity I would not do that. Furthermore, if self-recognition is what drives me above all else, then I cannot understand why I wrote an essay in grade school describing my goal in life as wanting to find the answer to the essay question/topic: what should be one's goal in life. Nevertheless, self-examining my own motivations does not tell me what motivates others. And projecting one's own attributes onto others is unwise.

"Maybe you have already attained to a high social status."

I suppose that status could be interpreted in many ways, esp. if it is to be measured by feedback from one's peers as Sandy once seemed to characterize it.

I would probably judge that my own social status is fairly average. Wealth, power, hereditary status, social alliances - Maybe average. Maybe lower than average. Certainly not above average. Education, IQ - probably above average.

"When one has something to lose, fear causes one to take

a stance which secures ones special identity.

You are 'somebody', and this 'somebody' suffers because of this relation to a group."

Maybe.

"If people were always rational, there would never have been

a story such as the good Samaritan, and charity would only be a vague concept."

Not sure that that is true. But all human beings aren't "always rational" in any case. Of that I am as certain as I can be.

"The Buddha would have taken the Kingdom instead of leaving it.

Jesus was tempted to take the status, name and power that goes with being

the King Of The World, but what did he do and say instead?"

If Jesus was the Son of God, then his decision was not one made by merely a human being. In other words one cannot fairly use the behavior of a Divine Being as evidence of human behavior.

If he was a man only, then his actions gained him the historical reputation of being the Son of God. perhaps that was a higher status as he saw it.

In other words, maybe one might interpret such actions in a way consistent either with Jesus being Divine or human.

"Those at the bottom rung of the ladder have a pretty good view of those above.

They watch those who have gone on before, those who seem to have had a head start."

???? Do they? You mean the bottom rung in terms of status? In terms of evolution?

"They watch those who have gone on before,"

In an evolutionary sense???? Or in the sense of those who achieve higher status???

"those who seem to have had a head start."

A "head start"???? In terms of evolutionary generations? In terms of genetics? In terms of the evolution of ideas? In terms of inheritance of status? It is not at all clear to me what you mean here. I suspect you refer to hereditary status - mainly inheritance of money or power.

"Although, if we were all created in the beginning as a thought of God,

then that wouldn't make any sense at all."

If you are talking about evolution:

As Dinesh D'Souza[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinesh_D'Souza], someone far smarter than myself, has pointed out, creation seems to be an antecedent to evolution. If nothing exists, then nothing changes. The theory of evolution does not imply the lack of a creator, either in the sense that a deist or a theist understands a creator.

And this does not prove that Jesus was not the Son of God. It does mean that Genesis might have to be interpreted figuratively. But then much of the Bible should probably be interpreted figuratively. How would God communicate with man except in ways that man could understand? Cannot the Word of God be in metaphorical expression as a means of communicating with a lesser being?

If you are speaking of status then I do not follow your logic. Why that would that make no sense if God created man?

"So why do people choose to stay at such a lowly station?"

Is it clear that they do "choose"? You seem to raise the question of free will. IMHO, it is one of the toughest questions in philosophy.

"Why do wise men seek a babe instead of brown-nosing to an already made King?"

If they thought he was the Son of God, they could be brown-nosing to Him. And God trumps human kings as a patron. One might even regard praying as doing that, i.e., as a status strategy. BTW, there is, I think, such a thing as an agnostic's prayer. I brown-nose frequently. Dear God, if there is a God.... I don't know if it works or not.

In other words, it seems to me that one could argue out of either side of one's mouth, and, in the end, one would still not know the truth.

I am an agnostic in what I regard as the true meaning of the word - without knowledge. Perhaps we are all agnostics in that sense, i.e., that no one *knows* whether there is or was a God. Some theists, fideists I think they are called - those who would state that they do not *know*, but they *believe* on faith (D'Souza is apparently an example) - are still, in one manner of speaking, agnostics (without knowledge). But most theists and deists (and all subcategories thereof) are probably "affirmers" in the sense that they would probably answer affirmatively to the following question:

Is there now or was there ever a God?

In contrast, those who are "deniers," relative to that question seem to me to be those who are sometimes labelled "strong atheists."

It gets confusing to me to consider a deist as an atheist because, while he is an "affirmer" yet he does not agree with the theist and therefore he is not a theist/he is an atheist.

My answer to the question above is that I simply do not know. So, either affirmers or deniers could be right.

Note that a pragmatist, which most of us seem to be also, at least in some sense, might behave AS IF the affirmers were right, even as if the theists were right.

Re. 65: ☺ LOL. I am male(mule). I Would like to visit the contest with or without a date. Not sure on whose'(Deepak/critics-are-also-friends) list though.

"Excuse me for butting in. I shall ready myself now

to be a grunt in a factory as per usual on a Monday morn.

Peace, Keith" #60

Hey, it may be better than cleaning the house, doing the dishes, cutting the grass, shopping, and doing the laundry because your wife still works.

Retirement for us poor folks is slavery. Women persecute men. The government must do something about it. I think that the federal government should do the dishes and clean the house for everybody!!!

LOL

PS: Wish I could participate in the intriguing discussion but I have to clean the house now. (Maybe my wife dominates me in terms of status, huh?)

Friend_of_Deepak
Re. 67

"Would you characterize yourself as a Social Darwinist?"

I would say that that term describes a good measure of how humans behave.

"Do you advocate eugenics?"

Not from any formal or governmental perspective. Only from individual choice. The term merely means improving the genome through differential reproduction. For example, the smart outbreeding the dumb.

"what other support/evidence you might offer for the assertion above that seems to be to the effect that ambition dominates all other human attributes."[?]

The info you seek is in books on evolutionary-psychology / sociobiology.

"Might one expect that humankind hasn't seen the end of such by along shot?"

Of course. That is like speculating about the end of human nature. Human nature won't end until humans do.

"If ambition is genetic, would a eugeneticist advocate breeding it, so to speak, "down" or "out"? Or breeding it to a higher level?"

If that were to happen, I think it would have to be a genetic adaptation (through differential breeding arising from individual choice) to civilization. There is evidence that it, to a degree, has happened and is happening. Individual organisms adapt to their environments, both physical and social.

"Should pure socialism be classified as a type of government, a type of economy, or, as I see it, a societal structure that involves both, but is antithetical to a capitalist economy?"

They are social structures that reside on opposite sides of the continuum I described earlier.

Hi Keith:
[and Craig (Jones)(empyrius) if you are around]:

You "touch me!" TEE HEE! with your comments. As per your posting #65, I think the Scientist James Watson knew all along that he would have to quit over his findings, the same findings were found about ten? years ago, and raised the same HUGE fuss... what his motive was/is only he knows, but I can only surmise that after all the research he had done, he didn't want his work to be in vain, and rather than have his work released AFTER his death, which he could have done to avoid any fuss, at his age I can only imagine he would be curious to see any "fall-out" so he released it and DAMN THE TORPEDOES! Probably ready to put his "feet up" anyway!

As to the other..

My suggestion is not to worry right now so much regarding "class warfare"!... first of all get the right wing "Armies" both Military and "Civilian" strong enough to accommodate the Jihadists with their wishes for an EARLY date with their MOHAMAD and all those VIRGINS "IT" has lined up for them upon their arrival, and then we can get down to business straightening out the PROGRESSIVES and getting them used to living in a DEMOCRACY!

My gut feeling is, that down the road it will end up the JIHADISTS VS INFIDELS, and how the final of that is determined is up to us!

Personally it would not surprise me if, and when the big battle starts, many of the Progressives will don dirty night shirts and burkas, so it could be de je vous with the 1812 Civil war all over again, only instead of the North and the South fighting it will be American vs American who align with the HEADCHOPPERS! AAAND the same with some other Western nations of which many have lost desire to honour a FLAG and will be fighting each other... UNLESS we KILL the head of their SERPENT , and taking out Iran's Nuke Labs and maybe drop a few "calling" cards on the Mullahs would be a start to avoid creating BATTLEFIELDS on our respective homelands!

It's guesstimated that there are at least one hundred MILLION and change of these hypnotised maniacs (I say MORE)and rather than spend our defenders knocking them off a few hundred or more at a time, it would be much simpler to house them in as many internment camps as it would take while we can, otherwise not to, and fight them in the streets we would have to burn the dead with no space to bury them!

Conservative talk show host Savage and I are on the same page on that one!

Thank you for tolerating my RAMBLINGS??? TEE HEE!

Keep up the good fight.... Steve;

PS: Listening to Rusty Humphreys on his re-run, and he caught HITLERY ROBEM CLIPEM (I stole that from one of Ann Coulters crew....I like it TEE HEE!) in a lie, and played the excerpts of what she said in the debate to prove it and went up one side of her and down the other!LOL!

At the same time tuned up the sound on the Jay Leno show....is his whole audience MUSLIM??.. they sound like it the way they gave Ron Paul an ovation when he told Leno that he was going to bring all the troops home NOW! Leno looked like a star struck kid that was watching Santa Claus fill the stockings idolizing Paul while he spoke, and in front of his ignorant PROGRESSIVE audience, he wouldn't debate Paul even if he wanted, to avoid riling his retarded groupies in the audience! Is Leno ready to fight the headchoppers on the streets of Hollywood and Vine?

I don't listen to Leno, fluke I had him on tonite, has he done ANYTHING to show his support for the TROOPS???

S.

Happy Halloween!

.

Hey Friend O.D.,

'Incredible' should be the word for the day.
'Thorough' might be the main attraction point, as you are. Quite!

If I had more time...I'd love to address the issues brought forth
in your lengthy, studious and well-meaning #69.
I had my last cigarette last night, so today
I have to remain focused
on the task at hand, and ready myself for tonight's tiny visitors.

Nice to meet you! Have a fun day!

.

Hello Phil! I will never retire.
Possibly and probably I shall redirect.

Over and over and over....where the transformer?

Peace! Keith

.

Steve:

You do pay attention. Good for you!

We've practically a year to go before...you know.

A lot can and will happen.

This time around it may be the voters

who are changing positions according to the prevailing winds.

See ya's! Me2

# 62
Sandy,
Sorry to butt into your very entertaining discussion with Friend of Deepak but I wanted to make a small point.

"I would say that the highers would institute hardcore socialism (not communism) in a minute, but those that have to pay for it (the middle) don't want it and reject it whenever they get the chance."
The middle class has always been the glue that binds two extreme ends of a society. There are certain burdens of that unenviable role as well as are rewards, culturally and socially. Maybe the middle does lose out more in a socialistic model than the richest and most influential stratum of the society. But the alternative is to leave the weak, old, sick and disabled to their own devices to suffer without apologies. That is unacceptable in an advanced and developed society. All the advanced civilisations through the history have looked after their old and poor and infirm with some form of wealth redistribution.

The rich also need to pay high taxes so they don't go completely scot free in a socialistic model, though middle classes may end up paying proportionately more.
A mature democracy can and should be able to keep a lid on unbridled greed and ambition of the super rich. Greed/ambition is not necessarily the most rampant and dominant force in a society. A more realistic and moderate form of socialism does succeed and makes for a much fairer system as evidenced in much of Europe.
According to several studies, more the division in a society in economic terms with huge disparities in earnings between the top and the bottom end, more psychological illness and higher overall mortality figures result. Typically north european countries fare well in these comparisons.

Human nature is not all bad. Altruistic considerations can win over burgeoning selfishness if there is a political will and intention to do the right thing.
Survival of the fittest and the rule of the jungle belong in, well, a jungle. Not a civilised society.

Re.66
——————————————
►
"you mean from the failure of communism or other forms of socialism in the 20th century?"

SANDY: Yes

"In true socialism I don't see much in the way of status for anyone."

Sandy: Just look at the communist ruling elite in the old Soviet Union. Human societies will always be hierarchical. That is our nature. Pure communism is as impossible as having everyone treat each other as equal brothers. Fairy tales.
◄
——————————————

I agree that pure communism won't ever work, and that no society to date, including the Soviet Union, was a pure socialist state. Pure socialism, as a concept seems to have inherent, insurmountable problems. Human beings are not equal, at least not in a radical egalitarian sense. And there seems to be no practical means for everyone to own everything or for there to be any form of government that really fulfills a socialist ideal. In practice the collective or the community or the society becomes the state, becomes the government. And the government rules. Along the way, the government can never be the community or collective. It has to be a finite group of elitists.

————————————————————————————
►
"Perhaps you feel that what they want should not be called socialism then, and that they ARE NOT (true) socialists?" [communists]

SANDY: There is no such thing. Maybe ants,
◄
————————————————————————————

I wouldn't call ants (or bees) true socialists. They seem to have a caste system and a queen, no radical egalitarianism there.

And, as far as I know, the workers don't compete for status between castes. Perhaps the genetics of ants eliminates some forms of ambition. Perhaps that is in the future of the evolution of mankind? But armies of ants of one species still compete with another. Perhaps ants compete between colonies of the same speices. Not my area.

——————————————
►
SANDY: but not human societies could exist with such a system. Theoretically, the possibilities are: from the extreme right, anarchism, through a continuum to the extreme left, communism. Real human societies MUST exist between these two extremes. Human nature prevents functioning societies at these two extremes.
◄
——————————————

I would pretty much agree with this.

————————————————————————————
►
"Are you thinking that they want something like corporate statism/fascism? And do you equate corporate statism with "enough capitalism..."?"

SANDY: That would suite them fine. Heavy control with enough freedom to keep things from totally collapsing.
◄
————————————————————————————

I don't know that there is a lot of freedom in a fascist system, nor any capitalism. Perhaps you mean something more like France, or a Third Way Socialist system, one in which capitalism isn't entirely eliminated.

——————————————
►
"Governmental/one world globalism? Both? Are you thinking of MexAmeriCanada, the Amero, European socialism, the European Union, free trade agreements, etc.?"

SANDY: Bingo! The end result is one world globalist gov't. Ultimate power.
◄
——————————————

I find this an interesting way of viewing globalism. I have always thought that there were many different versions of globalism, each reached by a different worldview. For example, one might think that socialists want a global (socialist) world. One might think that *some* capitalists want not only a global economy but perhaps a global government to set capitalist rules (you would not be one of those capitalists). On the other hand, your viewpoint seems to understand globalism as an end result of ambition for status that in turn explains both socialist and capitalist versions of it. I take it you would describe globalism as a status strategy being used by both socialists and some captialists (elitists), or perhaps as a status strategy that has been adopted at this point in cultural evolution by both the upper and lower classes, but is being rejected by the middle?

————————————————————————————
►
SANDY: Many have a problem with the word "conspiracy". All that this means in two or more individuals organizing to promote their interest (whatever they are) at the expense of everyone else. This is OH SO typical human nature. It occurs at all levels of society all over the world, since the dawn of homo-sapiens...and before. To not understand this is to be politically naive in the extreme.
◄
————————————————————————————

Maybe, BUT.. How do concepts of morality fit into this? Is morality merely another status strategy as you see it? Do we all just pretend to believe in good and evil? In other words, is there anything whatsoever to be said for playing the status game fairly, not cheating, not using "bad," or "evil" means?

You see, perhaps the difference between a "conspiracy" and an "alliance" for some people is the perception by some of us that there is something wrong, or immoral, or unfair about a conspiracy but not an alliance. Perhaps that is because a conspiracy is viewed by some as a closed or secret strategy, therefore somehow wrong.

Certainly, it is easy to see that individual ambition can lead to alliances and produce group or class ambition. One has to note however, as all American politicians do if they want to be elected, that group interests (status goals?) produce many and diverse groups, and that one individual may belong to a set of groups very unlike those of another individual. As Republicans strive to find a candidate, they are trying to find someone who represents the interests (status goals?) of the most individual voters in the most interest groups.

Is that the way someone who considers ambition as the prime motivator in social interactions analyses politics?

And just how far can one take an analysis based on the idea that most alliances are based on status strategies, which are based on ambition?

How would you respond to the "thesis" below? Does it carry the idea too far?

........
Consider the women's power movement. Technology leveled the playing field and allowed individual women to adopt a newer status strategy and to raise their status goals. Women had some common status goals and allied with one another to form strong feminist (status seeking) groups. But feminist groups proliferated and separated on the basis of differing status strategies, among, for example, married women, single women without children, and unwed women with children. One strategy, mainly for the latter group, was to make themselves more status competitive by freeing themselves of the tactical burden of their children, a largely unanticipated consequence of seeking higher status through feminism. Such women had become dependent, and thereby lost status. So, they became advocates of abortion and of government subsidized daycare, to aid them in their power quest. And, in general, they began to turn to government itself as a more
desirable source of status maintenance, than to family, or charity, or other private sector sources . Yet this was consistent with a socialist-like mentality and helped to empower the socialists, esp. female socialists like the Bolshebitch.

........

Would you buy that, or would you consider it nonsense? Does it use the idea that ambition is the primary cause of class struggle in the wrong way?

What I am really asking you is just how far one might take this idea, or how far one might use this particular sociobiological or psychological concept to analyze political movements.

I am also still unclear as to whether you feel that ambition alone is the sole, or perhaps just by far the very most important, or perhaps merely a single, causal factor to use in analyzing a social movement.

I cannot buy that ambition alone explains it.

——————————————
►
"there is a strategy for maintenance of status on the part of those of highest status, similar to that of an aristocracy or a monarchy. And they are Machiavellian in nature. Is that correct?"

SANDY: Of course.

"It is also possible, as far as I can tell, for altruism or even feelings of love in the form of compassion, to produce beliefs in radical egalitarianism, which may then lead to legitimate, not pretended, beliefs in socialism."

SANDY: I'll buy that. But it a minor factor, and in NO WAY surpasses the drive for power and status.
◄
——————————————

I saw your very last post(#71 in response to my qucik questions), and yet I still am not sure if you believe that ambition is the only, the major, or just one of the factors.

————————————————————————————
►
"I suspect one will have to take into account all the other innate aspects of human nature that might apply besides ambition."

SANDY: Yes, but these are at best, of a secondary influence (except for fanatical lunatics, and they are out there).
◄
————————————————————————————

This seems to mean that you view ambition as a major factor, greater than irrationality, but not the only 'significant' factor.

One might wonder if such status strategies (cf. Machiavellianism) are entirely rational. Perhaps history is a record of status strategies that had unintended and unanticipated consequences because such strategies were not entirely rational?

And here, I think I should ask if you do not see an awful lot of apparent irrationality coming from all political sides in America, but esp. from the left, or from Democrats, today. Malkin wrote a whole book, as I am sure you know, called "Unhinged," documenting such irrationality beyond much doubt. One hears a lot of talk about
how insane some leftist groups are (cf. Media Matters, or the DailyKos, or MoveOn.org). One saw Democrats claiming that Bush lied to get us into Iraq, proferring the neocon "conspiracy" theory,
offering up the delusional theory that Bush or the neocons blew up the towers, etc. Are these merely examples of rational status strategies? One hears Krauthammer, trained as a psychiatrist, still speaking of "Bush Derangement Syndrome." Should one interpret all this apparent irrationality as not being irrational after all, but as rational status strategies? Are these just the manifestations of a very small number of hardcore lunatics, or do many or all of us get involved in angry and sometimes paranoid responses? The stats on how many Americans believe Bush either blew up the towers or deliberately allowed it to happen?

In terms of the women's power movement, was depicting men as oppressors, as male chauvinist pigs, merely a rational status seeking strategy? Was that also merely done by a few lunatics on the fringe of a rational political movement?

The campuses of academia today are bastions of political correctness, which mainly (not exclusively) seems to be a product of feminism. Women have become very powerful in education. Witness Larry Summers at Harvard getting kicked out because he dared to suggest that women aren't innately as good at math, which testing clearly shows. Education has been dumbed down to give degrees to many people who do not deserve them, including many women.

Is this all a part of a rational power strategy?

If the drive for women's status or power results in less than 2.2 children per Western woman, which results in decreasing population of European, or white, or Western people, and might eventually be a central factor in the "Death of the West," is that all to be considered a result of rational status strategies? Are strategies rational if they have unanticipated future consequences? Or do the best and the brightest really see those consequences 10 moves ahead?

Lastly, does playing the power game seem to you to result in a lot of paranoid ideation? Is that the nature of the type of irrationality that Malkin documents or Krauthammer labels?

——————————————
►
[SANDY: They use them as weapons against the middle. They may pretend to be guardians of the poor, but in reality, have mostly contempt for them and just use them as tools.]

"Which seems to mean that they do not really believe in socialism.”

SANDY: I am saying that their PRIME motivation is status, power, and position, regardless of possible minor side motivations. And they are adept at using these humanitarian masks as cloaks to guard their true motives.
◄
——————————————

OK. Prime but not sole. But just how major is it? Is ambition so powerful, so major, or so "prime" a drive that one can use it alone to accurately analyze a political movement?

————————————————————————————
►
"In any case, who do you see as the useful idiots in the middle? Journalists? ACLU lawyers? Most humanities professors/academicians in liberal arts colleges and universities? Others? If the academy consists of so many useful idoits, then how does that gibe with IQ correlating with status?"

SANDY: All of the above. IQ is correlated with class. It doesn't define it.
◄
————————————————————————————

Yes, it doesn't define it. But you agree that one might be on shaky grounds to label someone with a high IQ an idoit or a useful idoit.

Perhaps then, the socialists in the groups above are no more useful idiots than the capitalists in the middle class, or the elitists you postulate are taking us to globalism? Perhaps, ala your beliefs, they all are pursuing their own status goals rationally? And perhaps no one is intelligent enough to see or anticipate all the unintended consequences of a movement? Is it possible, ala your beliefs, that socialists in academia could rationally support the elitists if the result would be to eliminate others in the middle class (competition) but leave academica untouched, i.e., if it allows them to maintain
their status goals? Could a similar thing be true for socialist (are pretend-socialist) journalists?

——————————————
►
"Do you mean that they would institute a sort of socialist system, (thereby eliminating most or all of a middle class, thereby mollifying the masses), leaving a core of capitalism to produce, and have themselves still on top somehow ruling the entire society? It sounds most to me like fascism, which I do accept as a form of socialism. Is that what you mean? Is The Third Way a form of fascism?"

SANDY: Yes, fascism is of the left, and it would suite them to a tee. But you must keep in mind that they don't necessarily believe these political philosophies as they would, say, a metaphysical philosophy. They use philosophies as tools to their power and advantage, like political chameleons.

"the Internet is mostly becoming a garbage dump, not a school. Secondly, there is no way to ensure that a *large number* of those at the bottom or even those in the middle class will be exposed to muc of any "knowledge" or teaching on the Internet."

SANDY: It is in its infancy. Plus you only need a knowledgeable and motivated minority to have a powerful effect. An example: the illegal alien amnesty was recently turned back. I credit the new mediums for this.
◄
——————————————

So, TV and radio had nothing to do with it, only the Internet? Rush? Glenn Beck? Hannity? Ingraham? Others on radio and TV? I doubt that the Internet did this alone. Maybe it was a factor. I also doubt that it is really the mass media itself, and the spread of communication, rather than the evolution of ideas.

————————————————————————————
►
SANDY: Forty years ago it would have passed and we would have never even heard about it, just like the 1965 immigration act did. I expect this influence to grow into the future.

"you view the "players" as shady characters in some sort of conspiracy. Please tell me that isn't so."

SANDY: Think about it for a minute. Haven't you heard the phrase "smoked filled back rooms", where political decisions are made? Do you really think real power politics is primarily played out in the public arena? What do you think Machiavelianism is all about? Do you think they would be that naive and stupid. Would power players voluntarily tip their hand? Politics, even at the local level, is not primarily a public game. What do you think business lobbying is all about? Political machines? Backroom deals? "Organized interests"? Country clubs? Secret societies? ad nauseum.

Sorry, but the world of business and especially politics and power doesn't live by Boy Scout ethics. Come on....
◄
————————————————————————————

Sometime ago I did biomedical research for a large corporation. I don't know that I am all that naive about power politics at any level. But, I know of people who have quit lucrative jobs on principle, and I am one of them. I wouldn't fake a biomedical assay, or publish bogus data, even though doing those things might be viewed as status strategies. That doesn't mean that ambition doesn't dominate the scene, but there are some opposing forces.

Nevertheless, I accept that the difference between an alliance and a conspiracy can be paper thin, and that ambition is a powerful force
that very often makes the game very dirty. IMHO The status seeking game among academicians is just as dirty as in any corporation or political venue.

——————————————
►
"So, perhaps you could offer me a clearer characterization of those you think are on the top of this status hierarchy."

SANDY: I tend to think that elected leaders are, in general, spear carriers. I'm sure there are exceptions. But I would have no way of knowing for sure. But socio-political patterns can give clues.

I don't know much about Marx and his particular outlook. I look at social systems from a sociobiological perspective. And yes, I see Islamofacism as a status phenomenon. Not that they don't believe in the Koran etc. But I think they look at the world and see themselves and their system as a primitive backwater and utterly and totally inferior to the modern world, and especially the west. And it enrages them. Their natural reaction is to strike out at it. It is only human nature.
◄
——————————————

Nothing irrational about Islamofascism, though?

Re. 71

Sandy:

>"Would you characterize yourself as a Social >Darwinist?"

>I would say that that term describes a good >measure of how humans behave.

>"Do you advocate eugenics?"

>Not from any formal or governmental perspective. >Only from individual choice. The term merely >means improving the genome through differential >reproduction. For example, the smart outbreeding >the dumb.

How can eugenics be achieved by individual choice? You mean non-random mating as a result of mate selection? But would that not merely result in divergent evolution and not in what might be called "eugenics"? Isn't eugenics always a matter of opinion on the part of the breeder as to what is "eu," so to speak? If there is no breeder to direct selection, only individual choice, how could that happen?

I suspect you would agree that the smart are NOT outbreeding the dumb today. Or do you believe in the Flynn effect?

What about the most ambitious outbreeding the least? Is that happening naturally today? Or is that another example of some sort of dysgenics?

>"what other support/evidence you might offer for >the assertion above that seems to be to the >effect that ambition dominates all other human >attributes."[?]

>The info you seek is in books on evolutionary->psychology / sociobiology.

I must admit that I have never taken a course in sociology in my life, nor read much in that field. I have had a bit of psychology, but not much, and essentially no sociobiology or evolutionary psychology. If we were discussing molecular biology I would be more at home. Or cellular biology. Or microbiology. Or human anatomy and physiology.

So... Can you recommend, without too much trouble, a website or a particular book? I think I might be interested in learning more, esp. if the reference related sociobiological concepts to political movements.

>"Might one expect that humankind hasn't seen the >end of such by along shot?"

>Of course. That is like speculating about the >end of human nature. Human nature won't end >until humans do.

>"If ambition is genetic, would a eugeneticist >advocate breeding it, so to speak, "down" >or "out"? Or breeding it to a higher level?"

>If that were to happen, I think it would have to >be a genetic adaptation (through differential >breeding arising from individual choice) to >civilization. There is evidence that it, to a >degree, has happened and is happening. >Individual organisms adapt to their >environments, both physical and social.

Yes. And environments have a habit of changing and necessitating re-adaptation.

It seems to me that one might worry about a eugeneticist with great ambition using eugenetics as a status strategy, or even about a former corporal doing that.

>"Should pure socialism be classified as a type >of government, a type of economy, or, as I see >it, a societal structure that involves both, but >is antithetical to a capitalist economy?"

>They are social structures that reside on >opposite sides of the continuum I described >earlier.

Yep.

(Formatting didn't work, let me try again)

Re. 71

Sandy:
------------------------------------------------
"Would you characterize yourself as a Social Darwinist?"

SANDY: I would say that that term describes a good measure of how humans behave.

"Do you advocate eugenics?"

SANDY: Not from any formal or governmental perspective. Only from individual choice. The term merely means improving the genome through differential reproduction. For example, the smart outbreeding the dumb.
------------------------------------------------

How can eugenics be achieved by individual choice? You mean non-random mating as a result of mate selection? But would that not merely result in divergent evolution and not in what might be called "eugenics"? Isn't eugenics always a matter of opinion on the part of the breeder as to what is "eu," so to speak? If there is no breeder to direct selection, only individual choice, how could that happen?

I suspect you would agree that the smart are NOT outbreeding the dumb today. Or do you believe in the Flynn effect?

What about the most ambitious outbreeding the least? Is that happening naturally today? Or is that another example of some sort of dysgenics?

****************************
"what other support/evidence you might offer for the assertion above that seems to be to the effect that ambition dominates all other human attributes."[?]

SANDY: The info you seek is in books on evolutionary-psychology / sociobiology.
***************************

I must admit that I have never taken a course in sociology in my life, nor read much in that field. I have had a bit of psychology, but not much, and essentially no sociobiology or evolutionary psychology. If we were discussing molecular biology I would be more at home. Or cellular biology. Or microbiology. Or human anatomy and physiology.

So... Can you recommend, without too much trouble, a website or a particular book? I think I might be interested in learning more, esp. if the reference related sociobiological concepts to political movements.

--------------------------------------------------
"Might one expect that humankind hasn't seen the end of such by along shot?"

SANDY: Of course. That is like speculating about the end of human nature. Human nature won't end until humans do.

"If ambition is genetic, would a eugeneticist advocate breeding it, so to speak, "down" or "out"? Or breeding it to a higher level?"

SANDY: If that were to happen, I think it would have to be a genetic adaptation (through differential breeding arising from individual choice) to civilization. There is evidence that it, to a degree, has happened and is happening. Individual organisms adapt to their environments, both physical and social.
--------------------------------------------------

Yes. And environments have a habit of changing and necessitating re-adaptation.

It seems to me that one might worry about a eugeneticist with great ambition using eugenetics as a status strategy, or even about a former corporal doing that.

**************************
"Should pure socialism be classified as a type of government, a type of economy, or, as I see it, a societal structure that involves both, but is antithetical to a capitalist economy?"

SANDY: They are social structures that reside on opposite sides of the continuum I described earlier.
******************************

Yep.

Re. 75, Friend_of_Deepak

"I take it you would describe globalism as a status strategy being used by both socialists and some captialists (elitists), or perhaps as a status strategy that has been adopted at this point in cultural evolution by both the upper and lower classes, but is being rejected by the middle?"

Globalism takes power away from the middle, so those of the middle who truly understand the score, are or should be against it.

"In other words, is there anything whatsoever to be said for playing the status game fairly, not cheating, not using "bad," or "evil" means?"

I think that most have a concience to one degree or another, some more than others. But the drive for power and status is so powerful it can and does compromise many, if not most. It is kinda like the cartoon where the guy has the devil sitting on one shoulder and an angel on the other, both trying to influence him. That "devilish" influence can be hard to resist.

"Is that the way someone who considers ambition as the prime motivator in social interactions analyses politics?"

I think the selfish orientation is predominant in most, and for those with more of a fair minded attititude, they can rationalise the selfisness so that it doesn't overwhelmingly restrict their behavior.

"How do concepts of morality fit into this? Is morality merely another status strategy as you see it? Do we all just pretend to believe in good and evil? In other words, is there anything
whatsoever to be said for playing the status game fairly, not cheating, not using "bad," or "evil" means?"

Sure, otherwise anarchy prevails and society dies. A degree of "morality" must exist for the society to continue to exist. And since humans must exist in societies, unlike say a wild tiger, it is also in the individual's interest to give up enough of his absolute self-interest to keep anarchy from happening. This tribalistic instinct is also a human attribute. It is part of being a "herd animal".

Your feminism analogy sounds pretty reasonable to me.

"how far one might use this particular sociobiological or psychological concept to analyze political movements."

Pretty far! If you ever get deeply into the literature, I think you would agree. It was a revelation for me when I got into it 15 years ago. It has and is helping me to figure out both human societies and myself. I find it both facinating and indespensable in understanding the human condition.

"I am also still unclear as to whether you feel that ambition alone is the sole, or perhaps just by far the very most important, or perhaps merely a single, causal factor to use in analyzing a social movement."

It is a single variable in the constilation of drives that direct human behavior, but I believe the most powerful one. There is a reason that the phrases "intoxicated with power", and "power
corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely", were formulated. They are most prescient to understanding human behavior.

"One might wonder if such status strategies (cf. Machiavellianism) are entirely rational. Perhaps history is a record of status strategies that had unintended and unanticipated consequences because such strategies were not entirely rational?"

Very insightful! I agree. But you have to understand that the genesis of behvior Is NOT rational (This is the subject matter of sociobiology/evotutionary psychology). It is genetic drives that direct behavior. Since we have developed a large frontal cortex (where rationality resides), we are able to add this ability to the mix. But it isn't an easy mix. It is like riding a wild bull. In many, if not most, cases, the bull bucks that rationality off. Don't overestimate the power and influence of that frontal cortex.

"If the drive for women's status or power results in less than 2.2 children per Western woman, which results in decreasing population of European, or white, or Western people, and might eventually be a central factor in the "Death of the West"

Yes it may. I post about that myself.

On the whole 9-11 thing, I am an agnostic. I've seen evidence that it didn't and couldn't have happened as portrayed. But as to what really happened and those behind it, I don't know, so I remain an agnostic. I generally wouldn't trust "official" explanations about anything. I've seen too MANY "official" historical explanations get blown out of the water by newly discovered facts. I have a visceral distrust of those in power, both currently and historically.

"Is it possible, ala your beliefs, that socialists in academia could rationally support the elitists if the result would be to eliminate others in the middle class (competition) but leave academica untouched, i.e., if it allows them to maintain their status goals? Could a similar thing be true for socialist (are pretend-socialist) journalists?"

I could see this very easily.

"So, TV and radio had nothing to do with it, only the Internet? Rush? Glenn Beck? Hannity? Ingraham? Others on radio and TV? I doubt that the Internet did this alone."

If I didn't, I meant to include talk radio also. But not TV. The networks are in elite hands and push elite propaganda.

"I know of people who have quit lucrative jobs on principle, and I am one of them."

Kudos! I would say you are in the ethical minority on that score.

"Nothing irrational about Islamofascism, though?"

See above (about rationalism). Also, I am not religious, so I look at many aspects of religion as irrational, although I do look at the religious instinct as part of human nature.

Re. 76/77, Friend_of_Deepak

"How can eugenics be achieved by individual choice? You mean non- random mating as a result of mate selection? But would that not merely result in divergent evolution and not in what might be called "eugenics"? Isn't eugenics always a matter of opinion on the part of the breeder as to what is "eu," so to speak? If there is no breeder to direct selection, only individual choice, how could that happen?

I suspect you would agree that the smart are NOT outbreeding the dumb today."

Yes, the dumb ARE outbreeding the smart. I would say there are basically two reasons why.

1)over the last century, the leftist persuaded many that the genetics of human variability either don't exist, or is a minor factor (blank slate theory). Hence, many don't realize the extreme importance of mate selection. "Garbage in garbage out".

2) most important, the modern welfare state has subsidized disgenic breeding. Most breeding throughout human history was eugenic, because the most successful had the most children. In the modern world the opposite is true. The ambitious ARE NOT out-breeding the less.

If gov't were out of the situation people would not have children that they were incapable of supporting. The gov't is subsidizing and expanding the incompetent portion of the population.

"Or do you believe in the Flynn effect?"

I think it is mostly that general test taking savvy has increased, not real (g).

"Can you recommend, without too much trouble, a website or a particular book? I think I might be interested in learning more, esp. if the reference related sociobiological concepts to political movements."

Wikipedia has a nice layout and lists some good reference suggestions:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_psychology

Also, you might want to look on Amazon for "evolutionary psychology" and "sociobiology". I'm sure there are many.

sandy

Ref. 74, Neetu

So you are a socialist?

sandy

#80
Sandy,
No, I don't believe in labels. They tend to blind people to some obvious truths outside their favourite 'ism'. I just believe in social justice.

Interestingly there were two articles in the latest issue of New Scientist that touch upon some of the points here.
First, titled 'America's lost children', gives the shocking statistics of rising infant mortality in some southern states in the US, especially Mississippi where it rose by 17% in 2005. Experts believe one of the causes to be poverty! Current government has vetoed expansion of national health insurance programme for children. In Mississippi specifically the governer kept his campaign promise to cut welfare costs making it harder to qualify for social services including those for mother and children.
According to Luxembourg Income study, 'the US is the 'worst performer' among 31 developed countries in terms of the percentage of children and families living in poverty'.
'This, in a nation that prides itself on being the richest on earth, home to 482 billionaires and one that has poured $400 billion into war in Iraq'.
Is this what Americans really want?

Second article 'Survival of the selfless' turns some of the traditional evolutionary thinking on its head. 'Altruism has proved to be an incredibly successful evolutionary strategy, from cells sacrificing themselves for the good of the body to worker bees' devotion to their colony. It has been found that altruistic groups outcompete selfish groups, even though selfish individuals beat altruistic ones within a group. Evolutionary selection can be seen to act for greater good of groups, spieces and even entire ecosystems rather than being only about individuals or the genes they carry'.

Neetu

@Neetu. Post 81

Well, since this is a scientific publication, who cares what the article says about unnamed "experts" personal beliefs? If it a belief they cite, they it is obvious that have no scientific proof of any cause and effect, let alone a correlation.

Then it bleeds from citing alleged stats from Mississippi to a national "children's" health care bill. Do you know what this entailed? Are people in your mother nation. I am guessing India, also considered "children" at 25? Are households of 4 making $85,000 (U.S.) considered underprivileged?

I think it would be helpful if you defined what you labled "social justice". For most Americans, this meaning includes a sense of rugged individualism, where people take personal responsibility for their life and circumstances, and a sense of charity that makes most any other nation on the planet look miserly in comparison.

You see, our concepts in giving charity, is that charity by its very definition means a voluntary expression of giving and helping our fellows by individuals or organizations dedicated to this purpose, not monies seized from citizens pocketbooks. Mandated redistribution of wealth is immoral and a socialist ideal, which is void of justice or morality. -Matt

Re. 81, Neetu

"Second article 'Survival of the selfless' turns some of the traditional evolutionary thinking on its head. 'Altruism has proved to be an incredibly successful evolutionary strategy, from cells sacrificing themselves for the good of the body to worker bees' devotion to their colony. It has been found that altruistic groups outcompete selfish groups, even though selfish individuals beat altruistic ones within a group. Evolutionary selection can be seen to act for greater good of groups, spieces and even entire ecosystems rather than being only about individuals or the genes they carry'."

Yes, but the key is what degree of genetic relatedness exists in the groups. The less relatedness, the less altruism. That is why communism doesn't work. Generally, people sacrifice for relatives, not strangers.

As to your other views, are you a conservative? If not, why are you interested in that aspect of this discussion?

Sandy:

Well..... I don't know where to start. I thought I should reply though(Ref. 78, 79). I read the Wikipedia article on evolutionary psychology and the one on sociobiology. I also read the discussion page/tab under the topic of evol. psy. I found myself agreeing with some of the criticisms one finds there. I followed some links and read additional material available on the Internet. Of course, I haven't had time to read whole books specifically on these topics. Nor do I know that I want to take that time.

I have been thinking about this for a few days. I have no insights. Since I haven't read deeply, it is possible, perhaps likely, that some of the things that occurred to me have already been widely aired and discussed. It has also occurred to me that those who have read deeper or have thought about this longer may very well be bored with my questions. Nevertheless...

I don't think I can take a strong position on any of the issues and defend it. The topic of evol. psych. seems to get one into many realms, including philosophy and religion, and the whole issue seems to be very complex to me. Thinking about various issues simply raised more questions in my mind. You are possibly tired of fielding questions, and, certainly no one is compelling you to do so. But you did opine that the Internet is a place for you to teach people. So...

How does the concept that ambition is the most important drive lead you to your conclusions about class struggle, esp. as regards the current politics in America or the world? Or to the idea that elites have devised a new strategy to keep their status? And what that strategy is?

At another level, how does ev-psy or sociobiology lead you to the conclusion that ambition is the most important drive in explaining human behavior? A status drive would be at the level of sociobiology, I presume. Is that in the literature? Because it wasn't obvious how to get to that conclusion from the little I have read so far.

In other words, how does one go from: (The mind adapts to its environment) to (ambition is the most powerful behavioral drive in man) to (elitists have a status strategy to maintain power by shifting power from their nearest competitors - the middle class - to those less powerful)?

Is the first step in your logic, from mind adapts, to ambition is primary, made because ev-psy is gene-centric and seems to ascribe aspects of animal behavioral drives (selfishness, and maybe ambition, possibly aggressiveness, possibly competitiveness) to an inanimate molecule (DNA, the gene)?

Is it that characterizing a gene as "selfish," and somehow believing that the gene has behavioral characteristics and is in control, leads one to conclude that all life will be selfish in some sense?

If so, isn't there an element of circular reasoning here? The gene is somehow selfish or self-centered, and so the primary psychological or mental trait of man is ambition, which reflects the "will" of genes? And ambition in mankind selects for selfish (ambitious?) genes?

Should one not be careful, in evolutionary terms, of understanding who or what is doing the "selecting"? Isn't that a matter of opinion or perspective? The very word - selection - seems to invoke free will or choice. Yet one uses it with the idea that the environment "selects" genes. The environment, cf. the concept of an ecosystem, has both living and non-living components. Presumably the living part also takes part in the environment's supposed ability to "select" genes. Animal behavior is one part of the living part of an ecosystem. And human behavior, even social behavior, is a part of that. So then, human behavior, as part of the environment, is partly responsible for selecting genes, esp. reproductive behavior, but also all behaviors that favor reproductive success.

What happens when human behavior can "select" genes for the future by genetic engineering that bypasses conventional ideas of reproductive success? Is the gene "selfishly driving" man to "reproduce" the gene then? Might one then be "behavior-centric," and focus on the role which behaviors play in gene selection instead? Might one consider genes a pawn in the game then, a pawn of human behavior?

And what about being "environment centric"? The gene-centric perspective, the focus on genes and gene selection, seems to be merely a perspective, or a point of view. It seems to ignore some obvious facts. First of all, in classical evolutionary theory, it is the environment (including animal behavior, and the behavior of all life forms/organisms, as one aspect of it) that "selects" genes. In anthropomorphic or in human behavioral terms this makes the gene not the controller but the pawn of the environment. Certainly when an environment changes, the genes will be changed too. So, maybe, without too much trouble, one could devise a theory that is "environment-centric," and speak of the "selfish environment."

If there is a God, does He control the environment?

It does not seem to me that any part of this theory proves that there is no God.

One can analyze something from many perspectives. It is still the same thing.

In thinking about all this, it seems that one should recognize and take into account the circularity of the evolutionary process itself. One could argue that genes influence cells, which influence tissues, then organs, organ systems, organisms, populations, communities, ecosystems, the biosphere (all part of the hierarchy of nature). But the biosphere is "environment," more or less, is it not? At least for us? And, the biosphere/environment influences genes, which brings one back to the start in a circular process. In a circular process, causality may be difficult to determine.

Focusing on the gene, while describing the organism as merely a "vehicle" for replication of the gene, may be too anthropomorphic for me.

I do not understand the focus on modularity of the brain or the mind, as some important aspect of the way evolution works, unless a module is somehow analogous to a "trait" and can therefore more easily be understood to be inheritable. Why all this emphasis on modularity in the functioning of brain, or of mind? Any "module" of the brain or mind would have to be very polygenically controlled anyway. So what does modularity have to do with anything? It doesn't seem to me to be necessary in accepting the idea that the mind is a function of the brain and that both are a result of an evolutionary process (at least in some sense, and with some understanding of what evolution is all about).

On another tact. You seemed to believe that we are currently witnessing a "selection" for human beings at the lower end of the status structure, a sort of dysgenics. I think that, at least in some sense, this is so.

But, isn't this in conflict with the idea that: status implies increased reproductive success implies selection for the genes that enhance status? In other words, there seems to be little or no evidence today that status is being selected for in general, nor the genes that might code for it. You might invoke the ideas of mismatching (stone-age brain/mind in a changed/modern world), or of spandrels (accidental by-product of some other function), but they are not really consistent with a gene-centered view of the process, are they? Who is in the driver's seat? In this case, isn't it the environment, or maybe chance, or maybe human behavior, or maybe even God? You might respond that it is the status of elites that is increasing. But I know of no evidence of that either. Besides this would not be likely to favor selection genes for status. What seems to be happening, if this continues, would be the development of two very disparate groups of humans, perhaps even two species ala The Time Machine. Unless, of course, the elites, those of highest status, kill off the lower and middle classes. Then, only one species might remain, and it might not be Homo-sapiens any longer. How do you see this? Why do you bother to spread the word about the mechanism? Is that driven by status seeking on your part?

DNA is sometimes analogized to software in a machine, the cell, which is hardware. Unlike a computer this machine is self-reproducing. But that brings up another point, about the idea of inheritance. Neither DNA (genes in the conventional sense), nor the various forms of RNA, which carry more or less the same information as does DNA, nor proteins, which are produced by some of that information (and also carry much of the information in DNA), if inherited ALONE give one both the machine and the software. In other words, inheritance involves, as least in some sense, more than DNA or genes alone. Replicating DNA in a test tube using a DNA polymerase gives more DNA. But that does not give life. Even adding amino acids, or proteins, or lipids, or other molecules doesn't mean that a ribosome will be made quickly, or a mitochondrion, or a cell.

Without belaboring this idea, a life form must inherit more than the software, the DNA, the genes. Unless the life form, as I understand one, also inherits some cellular structure with it, it is not a life form (viruses and prions, non-cellular, are at the boundaries of life vs non-life). The point is that inheritance involves in some way more than genes.

Of course it is possible that in evolutionary terms there was a time on this planet and in the universe as we know it, when there were no life forms. It is possible that the process of evolution started somehow before it involved life forms. It doesn't change the fact that inheritance as we know it today at minimum requires a cell to give rise to (an)other cell(s).

It is possible that cellular structure itself evolved, including the software for it, one step at a time. In that regard, RNA (probably), and certainly catalysis by biologic enzymes (both protein enzymes and RNA enzymes), must necessarily have evolved before DNA could replicate or organisms could reproduce.

The point is this. It all seems to me like a "circle in a spiral." That is, in terms of causation, A implies B implies C implies A is cyclic or circular. And yet A and B and C may change in some direction over time. Like evolution itself. Perhaps evolution is a cyclic process which spirals in some direction. Analyzing it by starting at or focusing on some point in the spiral can possibly be very misleading.

There are other questions that I might throw out, but this is long enough already and is probably just an exercise in "bloviating." I don't think it likely that it is going to change my mind much on anything.

Re. 85, Friend_of_Deepak

"How does the concept that ambition is the most important drive lead you to your conclusions"

Because it deducible from sociobiological principles.

"In other words, how does one go from: (The mind adapts to its environment) to (ambition is the most powerful behavioral drive in man) to (elitists have a status strategy to maintain power by shifting power from their nearest competitors - the middle class - to those less powerful)? ."

I have studied this material for 10 years, as well as a voracious reader of many other subjects that are oriented around the human condition. My current opinions, of course, are the based on all of this study. I think they are reasonable based on this accumulated knowledge. To me, subjectively speaking of course, it is "common sense".

"Is the first step in your logic, from mind adapts, to ambition is primary, made because ev-psy is gene-centric and seems to ascribe aspects of animal behavioral drives (selfishness, and maybe ambition, possibly aggressiveness, possibly competitiveness) to an inanimate molecule (DNA, the gene)?"

It is based on both evolutionary theory, and empirical observation as revealed through the appropriate subject matter.

"Is it that characterizing a gene as "selfish," and somehow believing that the gene has behavioral characteristics and is in control, leads one to conclude that all life will be selfish in some sense?"

Of course. That is one of the central concepts of sociobiology.

"If so, isn't there an element of circular reasoning here? The gene is somehow selfish or self-centered, and so the primary psychological or mental trait of man is ambition, which reflects the "will" of genes? And ambition in mankind selects for selfish (ambitious?) genes?"

No, because it is corroborated with extensive sociological and animal behavior studies.

"Should one not be careful, in evolutionary terms, of understanding who or what is doing the "selecting"?"

Selection is a process with many causal inputs. It creates a "vehicle" (body) that operates with the concern of itself and the species. We operate obediently (usually) to its directives.

"What happens when human behavior can "select" genes for the future by genetic engineering that bypasses conventional ideas of reproductive success?"

Who knows?

"And what about being "environment centric"?"

Environmental input is part and parcel of the process. Genes and environment have always operated together. The question "genes or environment?" is nonsensical. It is "genes and environment" operating together.

"If there is a God, does He control the environment? It does not seem to me that any part of this theory proves that there is no God."

That is a metaphysical question. It isn't provable one way or another. I happen to believe there is, but it doesn't detract from the evidence sociobiology adduces to support its thesis.

"Focusing on the gene, while describing the organism as merely a "vehicle" for replication of the gene,"

I don't believe that, although some do. Primarily atheists like Dawkins.

"the idea that the mind is a function of the brain"

I don't believe that the mind is merely a function of the brain, but as long as we inhabit these bodies, the brain has a tremendously powerful effect on the consciousness we experience.

"Why do you bother to spread the word about the mechanism? Is that driven by status seeking on your part?"

I didn't even understand the whole last paragraph.

The whole last part of your letter is beyond me. You are the expert in biomechanics. And the bio-metaphysical speculations are also beyond me. I am simply interested in the behavioral aspects of biology and how they can shed some light on ourselves and our species. It has been SPECTACULARLY beneficial to my understanding of myself, and the human condition in general. I heartily recommend it for anyone that has the interest.

I think we have come to the productive end of our exchange here, without "getting your feet wet" so to speak, with the sociobiological literature. If you are really interested in human behavior, I can assure you that you would find it interesting.

#82, 83,
You both clearly don't agree with the cited article. That is fair enough. Lot of people do agree however, including some of the experts. It does finally come down to our individual opinions.

#84
Sandy,
Social groups don't consist only of relatives. If one defines them in terms of genetic relatedness I think all humans would qualify. The article compares groups (presumably similar in their subscription) that use different strategies for survival. The groups that use cooperation over and above their selfish drives do better as a whole group than the groups that have members that behave selfishly within their own group.

To reiterate, I don't believe in labels. I certainly don't label myself as a socialist or a conservative etc. I think that there is a lot of merit in most systems of thought. Conservatism rightly assumes that societies are inherently heirarchical in nature, but it does not follow however that they cannot cooperate across the divides for the good of everybody.The rich and powerful don't have to give up all their previliges and wealth to ensure basic standards of care for those on the bottom rung. It is unrealistic to be an uncompromising socialist as it is to be an uncompromising conservative. Most societies utilise a mixture of these two ideologies. The proportions differ. I was pointing out that some European countries seem to have got their sums right, based on health statistics at least. If we are only talking about economic criteria and military might then yes, I agree with you that I should not really be interested in that aspect of this discussion.

#85,
Friend of Deepak,
I have followed your arguements carefully over pretty much this entire blog, impossible as it may seem (they are a tad lengthy). And I have to say that it is a brilliant critique of gene-centric thinking. I think that this 'selfish gene' philosophy has a lot to amswer for.Our understanding of genes is incomplete and giving almost god like power and prominence to genes is a bit premature. As we learn more about how genes express, switch on and off the picture will become clearer.
Liked the last paragraph about 'circle in a spiral.' Causation does appear to be cyclical. However, focusing on one point of a cycle or a whole seems to be a common practice.

Neetu writes:
"Social groups don't consist only of relatives. If one defines them in terms of genetic relatedness I think all humans would qualify."

Social groups of animals like ants and bees are bonded in terms of genetic relatedness.

Colonies of ants for example, compete when they are genetically much different. For example, the Argentine ants have colonized much of Europe replacing all local varieties of ants. These ants co-operate with each other because there is very little genetic difference among themselves than the other 'genetically related' ants. They have now formed a giant ant colony(with sub colonies across Europe), with perhaps most number of individual members than any other social animal alive.

What Sandy says is crucial:

"the key is what degree of genetic relatedness exists in the groups. The less relatedness, the less altruism."

"Generally, people sacrifice for relatives, not strangers."

It has been observed scientifically that human instinct is to sacrifice 'more' for closer genetic relatedness in an emergency scenario. Of course rationally too, humans sacrifice more for blood relations. (In a single bee colony, the genetic relatedness is that of siblings and common parent. A bee from one colony fits well in a neighboring colony because of genetic relatedness. The same cannot be expected from a African bee getting along with say a south American bee colony. In a failed experiment, a 20 or so African killer bees escaped from a laboratory to replace completely much of indigenous south Amercan bee population. Kind of like the conquistadors exterminating the American Indians - estimated 95 % of them by disease alone, like small pox for which they didn't have genetic resistance.

post 88,
The point here is not who sacrifices for whom. We are talking about groups of like creatures against group of other like creatures. They can consist members of the same clan, same subspieces, same extended family etc. You can compare two families if you wish or two countries or two corporations, whichever affiliation you think is likely to be strong. The inference here is that between two groups of closely affiliated members the one that does better is the one that cooperates, putting greater good of the group before its own interest.

The Evolution of Cooperation is a 1984 book and a 1981 article of the same title by political science professor Robert Axelrod. The nine-page article, cowritten with the late evolutionary biologist William D. Hamilton, is currently one of the most cited articles ever to be published in the journal Science.

In it, Axelrod explores the conditions under which fundamentally selfish agents will spontaneously cooperate. To perform this study, Axelrod developed a variation of prisoner's dilemma (PD), involving repeated PD interactions between two players (i.e., strategies written as computer programs) in a computerised tournament. This iterated prisoner's dilemma (IPD) format, he found, tends to offer a long-term incentive for cooperation, even though there is a short-term incentive for defection (the opposite of cooperation).

Axelrod invited academic colleagues all over the world to devise strategies to compete in an IPD tournament. The results ranged in many variables: algorithmic complexity, initial hostility, capacity for forgiveness, etc. After an initial tournament that simply compared pairs of strategies for success when paired in an IPD, Axelrod arranged a meta-tournament where strategies represented sub-populations in a large population of agents, and an agent could switch to another strategy if it noticed that one of its neighbors was using that strategy with greater success than its own. It should also be noted the simplest system, Tit for Tat, won the tournament.

Tit-for-tat had a number of important features as a strategy - it was "NICE" (it didn't defect first), and it was "provocable" (it fought back if it were attacked). Tit-for-tat never did better than its immediate opponent, but was able to cooperate very well with itself and with other "NICE" strategies - thereby harvesting the substantial benefits of mutual cooperation. Ironically, more fierce strategies tended to "cannibalize" each other leading to fewer gains. They also could not take excessive advantage of Tit-for-Tat other than in their initial surprise defection - because Tit-for-Tat retaliated. (Tit-for-tat has been described as the "silver rule"). When Tit-for-tat represented a large enough proportion of the population, other "NICE" strategies could also effectively co-habitate.

The book included two chapters comparing Axelrod's findings to surprising findings in seemingly unrelated fields. In one of these, Axelrod examined spontaneous instances of cooperation during trench warfare in World War I, often called Live and Let Live. Troops of one side would shell the other side with mortars, but would often do so on a rigid schedule, and aim for a specific point in the other side's trenches, allowing the other side to minimize casualties. The other side would reciprocate in kind. The generals on both sides were satisfied that shelling was occurring and therefore the war was progressing satisfactorily, while the men in the trenches found a way to cooperatively protect themselves.

Considerable additional work has been done in this area. Repeated/Iterated prisoner's dilemma is one of the most important areas of game theory with implications for all the social sciences and for practical government policy. One of the key research findings in this area is the folk theorem.

His next book is called The Complexity of Cooperation: Agent-Based Models of Competition and Collaboration. Axelrod calls it a "sequel" to this book.

The Evolution of Cooperation
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Evolution_of_Cooperation

********

See 'Nash Equilibrium' applicable in economics, scoiology and Evolutionary Biology

Real-life examples of 'Prisoner's Dilemma(PD in Game theory) from wikipedia:

These particular examples, involving prisoners and bag switching and so forth, may seem contrived, but there are in fact many examples in human interaction as well as interactions in nature that have the same payoff matrix. The prisoner's dilemma is therefore of interest to the social sciences such as economics, politics and sociology, as well as to the biological sciences such as ethology and evolutionary biology. Many natural processes have been abstracted into models in which living beings are engaged in endless games of Prisoner's Dilemma (PD). This wide applicability of the PD gives the game its substantial importance.

In political science, for instance, the PD scenario is often used to illustrate the problem of two states engaged in an arms race. Both will reason that they have two options, either to increase military expenditure or to make an agreement to reduce weapons. Neither state can be certain that the other one will keep to such an agreement; therefore, they both incline towards military expansion. The paradox is that both states are acting rationally, but producing an apparently irrational result. This could be considered a corollary to deterrence theory.

In sociology or criminology, the PD may be applied to an actual dilemma facing two inmates. The game theorist Marek Kaminski, a former political prisoner, analysed the factors contributing to payoffs in the game set up by a prosecutor for arrested defendants (cf. References). He concluded that while the PD is the ideal game of a prosecutor, numerous factors may strongly affect the payoffs and potentially change the properties of the game.

In program management and technology development, the PD applies to the relationship between the customer and the developer. Capt Dan Ward, an officer in the US Air Force, examined The Program Manager's Dilemma in an article published in Defense AT&L, a defense technology journal.[8]

Another example concerns a well-known concept in cycling races, for instance in the Tour de France. Consider two cyclists halfway in a race, with the peloton (larger group) at great distance behind them. The two cyclists often work together (mutual cooperation) by sharing the tough load of the front position, where there is no shelter from the wind. If neither of the cyclists makes an effort to stay ahead, the peloton will soon catch up (mutual defection). An often-seen scenario is one cyclist doing the hard work alone (cooperating), keeping the two ahead of the peloton. In the end, this will likely lead to a victory for the second cyclist (defecting) who has an easy ride in the first cyclist's slipstream.

Also in athletics, there is a widespread practice in high school wrestling where the participants intentionally lose unnaturally large amounts of weight so as to compete against lighter opponents. In doing so, the participants are clearly not at their top level of physical and athletic fitness and yet often end up competing against the same opponents anyway, who have also followed this practice (mutual defection). The result is a reduction in the level of competition. Yet if a participant maintains their natural weight (cooperating), they will most likely compete against a stronger opponent who has lost considerable weight.

Advertising is sometimes cited as a real life example of the prisoner’s dilemma. When cigarette advertising was legal in the United States, competing cigarette manufacturers had to decide how much money to spend on advertising. The effectiveness of Firm A’s advertising was partially determined by the advertising conducted by Firm B. Likewise, the profit derived from advertising for Firm B is affected by the advertising conducted by Firm A. If both Firm A and Firm B chose to advertise during a given period the advertising cancels out, receipts remain constant, and expenses increase due to the cost of advertising. Both firms would benefit from a reduction in advertising. However, should Firm B choose not to advertise, Firm A could benefit greatly by advertising. Nevertheless, the optimal amount of advertising by one firm depends on how much advertising the other undertakes. As the best strategy is dependent of what the other firm chooses there is no dominant strategy and this is not a prisoner's dilemma. The outcome is though similar in that both firms would be better off were they to advertise less than in the equilibrium. Sometimes cooperative behaviours do emerge in business situations. For instance, cigarette manufacturers endorsed the creation of laws banning cigarette advertising, understanding that this would reduce costs and increase profits across the industry.[7] This analysis is likely to be pertinent in many other business situations involving advertising.

Large software projects under the GPL (such as Linux) can force cooperation in an otherwise standard PD situation. Given a piece of Free Software, you can study the (modifiable) source code and make improvements. Then you can keep secret the improved version, i.e. keep the modified source code to yourself and distribute it in an unmodifiable binary form (defect). Alternatively, you could share the improved version in a modifiable source code form (cooperate). If everyone defects, then many are probably making exactly the same improvements. For any software that is under the GPL, it is illegal to distribute only the unmodifiable form, including any changes made, thus forcing cooperation. Hence, rival parties can all work on it and know that none will defect, and all share in the improvements made by the others.

William Poundstone, in a book about the Prisoner's Dilemma (see References below), describes a situation in New Zealand where newspaper boxes are left unlocked. It is possible for someone to take a paper without paying (defecting) but very few do (and those who do take only one), apparently recognising the resultant harm if everybody often stole newspapers (mutual defection). The key insight is that taking two newspapers does not generate significantly more utility than taking only one, which explains why newspaper vending machines are relatively simpler (and less secure) than food/drink vending machines (or indeed cash machines!).

Since the pure PD is simultaneous for all players (with no way for any player's action to have an effect on another's strategy) this widespread line of reasoning is called "magical thinking".[9]

The theoretical conclusion of PD is one reason why, in many countries, plea bargaining is forbidden. Often, precisely the PD scenario applies: it is in the interest of both suspects to confess and testify against the other prisoner/suspect, even if each is innocent of the alleged crime. Arguably, the worst case is when only one party is guilty — here, the innocent one is unlikely to confess, while the guilty one is likely to confess and testify against the innocent.

Many real-life dilemmas involve multiple players. Although metaphorical, Hardin's tragedy of the commons may be viewed as an example of a multi-player generalization of the PD: Each villager makes a choice for personal gain or restraint. The collective reward for unanimous (or even frequent) defection is very low payoffs (representing the destruction of the "commons"). However, such multi-player PDs are not formal as they can always be decomposed into a set of classical two-player games.

Prisoner's dilemma
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Many points in this article may be difficult to understand without a background in the elementary concepts of game theory.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner's_dilemma

The Evolution of Cooperation is a 1984 book and a 1981 article of the same title by political science professor Robert Axelrod. The nine-page article, cowritten with the late evolutionary biologist William D. Hamilton, is currently one of the most cited articles ever to be published in the journal Science.

In it, Axelrod explores the conditions under which fundamentally selfish agents will spontaneously cooperate. To perform this study, Axelrod developed a variation of prisoner's dilemma (PD), involving repeated PD interactions between two players (i.e., strategies written as computer programs) in a computerised tournament. This iterated prisoner's dilemma (IPD) format, he found, tends to offer a long-term incentive for cooperation, even though there is a short-term incentive for defection (the opposite of cooperation).

Axelrod invited academic colleagues all over the world to devise strategies to compete in an IPD tournament. The results ranged in many variables: algorithmic complexity, initial hostility, capacity for forgiveness, etc. After an initial tournament that simply compared pairs of strategies for success when paired in an IPD, Axelrod arranged a meta-tournament where strategies represented sub-populations in a large population of agents, and an agent could switch to another strategy if it noticed that one of its neighbors was using that strategy with greater success than its own. It should also be noted the simplest system, Tit for Tat, won the tournament.

Tit-for-tat had a number of important features as a strategy - it was "NICE" (it didn't defect first), and it was "provocable" (it fought back if it were attacked). Tit-for-tat never did better than its immediate opponent, but was able to cooperate very well with itself and with other "NICE" strategies - thereby harvesting the substantial benefits of mutual cooperation. Ironically, more fierce strategies tended to "cannibalize" each other leading to fewer gains. They also could not take excessive advantage of Tit-for-Tat other than in their initial surprise defection - because Tit-for-Tat retaliated. (Tit-for-tat has been described as the "silver rule"). When Tit-for-tat represented a large enough proportion of the population, other "NICE" strategies could also effectively co-habitate.

The book included two chapters comparing Axelrod's findings to surprising findings in seemingly unrelated fields. In one of these, Axelrod examined spontaneous instances of cooperation during trench warfare in World War I, often called Live and Let Live. Troops of one side would shell the other side with mortars, but would often do so on a rigid schedule, and aim for a specific point in the other side's trenches, allowing the other side to minimize casualties. The other side would reciprocate in kind. The generals on both sides were satisfied that shelling was occurring and therefore the war was progressing satisfactorily, while the men in the trenches found a way to cooperatively protect themselves.

Considerable additional work has been done in this area. Repeated/Iterated prisoner's dilemma is one of the most important areas of game theory with implications for all the social sciences and for practical government policy. One of the key research findings in this area is the folk theorem.

His next book is called The Complexity of Cooperation: Agent-Based Models of Competition and Collaboration. Axelrod calls it a "sequel" to this book.

The Evolution of Cooperation
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Evolution_of_Cooperation

********

See 'Nash Equilibrium' applicable in economics, scoiology and Evolutionary Biology

Real-life examples of 'Prisoner's Dilemma(PD in Game theory) from wikipedia:

These particular examples, involving prisoners and bag switching and so forth, may seem contrived, but there are in fact many examples in human interaction as well as interactions in nature that have the same payoff matrix. The prisoner's dilemma is therefore of interest to the social sciences such as economics, politics and sociology, as well as to the biological sciences such as ethology and evolutionary biology. Many natural processes have been abstracted into models in which living beings are engaged in endless games of Prisoner's Dilemma (PD). This wide applicability of the PD gives the game its substantial importance.

In political science, for instance, the PD scenario is often used to illustrate the problem of two states engaged in an arms race. Both will reason that they have two options, either to increase military expenditure or to make an agreement to reduce weapons. Neither state can be certain that the other one will keep to such an agreement; therefore, they both incline towards military expansion. The paradox is that both states are acting rationally, but producing an apparently irrational result. This could be considered a corollary to deterrence theory.

In sociology or criminology, the PD may be applied to an actual dilemma facing two inmates. The game theorist Marek Kaminski, a former political prisoner, analysed the factors contributing to payoffs in the game set up by a prosecutor for arrested defendants (cf. References). He concluded that while the PD is the ideal game of a prosecutor, numerous factors may strongly affect the payoffs and potentially change the properties of the game.

In program management and technology development, the PD applies to the relationship between the customer and the developer. Capt Dan Ward, an officer in the US Air Force, examined The Program Manager's Dilemma in an article published in Defense AT&L, a defense technology journal.[8]

Another example concerns a well-known concept in cycling races, for instance in the Tour de France. Consider two cyclists halfway in a race, with the peloton (larger group) at great distance behind them. The two cyclists often work together (mutual cooperation) by sharing the tough load of the front position, where there is no shelter from the wind. If neither of the cyclists makes an effort to stay ahead, the peloton will soon catch up (mutual defection). An often-seen scenario is one cyclist doing the hard work alone (cooperating), keeping the two ahead of the peloton. In the end, this will likely lead to a victory for the second cyclist (defecting) who has an easy ride in the first cyclist's slipstream.

Also in athletics, there is a widespread practice in high school wrestling where the participants intentionally lose unnaturally large amounts of weight so as to compete against lighter opponents. In doing so, the participants are clearly not at their top level of physical and athletic fitness and yet often end up competing against the same opponents anyway, who have also followed this practice (mutual defection). The result is a reduction in the level of competition. Yet if a participant maintains their natural weight (cooperating), they will most likely compete against a stronger opponent who has lost considerable weight.

Advertising is sometimes cited as a real life example of the prisoner’s dilemma. When cigarette advertising was legal in the United States, competing cigarette manufacturers had to decide how much money to spend on advertising. The effectiveness of Firm A’s advertising was partially determined by the advertising conducted by Firm B. Likewise, the profit derived from advertising for Firm B is affected by the advertising conducted by Firm A. If both Firm A and Firm B chose to advertise during a given period the advertising cancels out, receipts remain constant, and expenses increase due to the cost of advertising. Both firms would benefit from a reduction in advertising. However, should Firm B choose not to advertise, Firm A could benefit greatly by advertising. Nevertheless, the optimal amount of advertising by one firm depends on how much advertising the other undertakes. As the best strategy is dependent of what the other firm chooses there is no dominant strategy and this is not a prisoner's dilemma. The outcome is though similar in that both firms would be better off were they to advertise less than in the equilibrium. Sometimes cooperative behaviours do emerge in business situations. For instance, cigarette manufacturers endorsed the creation of laws banning cigarette advertising, understanding that this would reduce costs and increase profits across the industry.[7] This analysis is likely to be pertinent in many other business situations involving advertising.

Large software projects under the GPL (such as Linux) can force cooperation in an otherwise standard PD situation. Given a piece of Free Software, you can study the (modifiable) source code and make improvements. Then you can keep secret the improved version, i.e. keep the modified source code to yourself and distribute it in an unmodifiable binary form (defect). Alternatively, you could share the improved version in a modifiable source code form (cooperate). If everyone defects, then many are probably making exactly the same improvements. For any software that is under the GPL, it is illegal to distribute only the unmodifiable form, including any changes made, thus forcing cooperation. Hence, rival parties can all work on it and know that none will defect, and all share in the improvements made by the others.

William Poundstone, in a book about the Prisoner's Dilemma (see References below), describes a situation in New Zealand where newspaper boxes are left unlocked. It is possible for someone to take a paper without paying (defecting) but very few do (and those who do take only one), apparently recognising the resultant harm if everybody often stole newspapers (mutual defection). The key insight is that taking two newspapers does not generate significantly more utility than taking only one, which explains why newspaper vending machines are relatively simpler (and less secure) than food/drink vending machines (or indeed cash machines!).

Since the pure PD is simultaneous for all players (with no way for any player's action to have an effect on another's strategy) this widespread line of reasoning is called "magical thinking".[9]

The theoretical conclusion of PD is one reason why, in many countries, plea bargaining is forbidden. Often, precisely the PD scenario applies: it is in the interest of both suspects to confess and testify against the other prisoner/suspect, even if each is innocent of the alleged crime. Arguably, the worst case is when only one party is guilty — here, the innocent one is unlikely to confess, while the guilty one is likely to confess and testify against the innocent.

Many real-life dilemmas involve multiple players. Although metaphorical, Hardin's tragedy of the commons may be viewed as an example of a multi-player generalization of the PD: Each villager makes a choice for personal gain or restraint. The collective reward for unanimous (or even frequent) defection is very low payoffs (representing the destruction of the "commons"). However, such multi-player PDs are not formal as they can always be decomposed into a set of classical two-player games.

Prisoner's dilemma
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Many points in this article may be difficult to understand without a background in the elementary concepts of game theory.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner's_dilemma

Post 90 and 91,
Thanks. That was quite informative.
The article in New Scientist that I quoted (by David Wilson and Edward Wilson) is an abridged version of a review that is to appear in the December issue of 'The Quarterly review of Biology'. It makes an important point that 'group selection' which was discarded as a concept in 1960s as plain wrong, is making a comeback. This is based on some compelling lab experiments with colonies of bacteria, as well as field studies involving prides of female lions and colonies of ants etc. Selection appears to be 'multilevel'. Adaptations can evolve at any level, from genes to ecosystems. When group selection becomes stronger than individual selection in a given population, a major transition occurs and the group becomes a higher level organism in its own right.
Pretty exciting stuff!

Re. 87

Neetu:

Friend of Deepak,
I have followed your arguements carefully over pretty much this entire blog, impossible as it may seem (they are a tad lengthy). And I have to say that it is a brilliant critique of gene-centric thinking. I think that this 'selfish gene' philosophy has a lot to amswer for. Our understanding of genes is incomplete and giving almost god like power and prominence to genes is a bit premature. As we learn more about how genes express, switch on and off the picture will become clearer.

Liked the last paragraph about 'circle in a spiral.' Causation does appear to be cyclical. However, focusing on one point of a cycle or a whole seems to be a common practice.
*************************************************

LOL As O'Reilly would say, I bloviate, yes.

I read your discussion with SANDY also. You seem to know much more about sociology than I do. Is that your field?

You seem to be disputing Sandy's assertion that ambition trumps other attributes, at least at the group level. And you seem to be disputing this based on evidence from sociology, not sociobiology or evolutionary psychology. That would be where I would go to find data, if I were so inclined, i.e. to sociological studies themselves.

I actually agree with Sandy about many things, but I reach such positions from a different perspective. I don't buy much of what I have read about evolutionary psychology or sociobiology, certainly not the selfish gene stuff, nor much of the stuff about modularity of the mind or brain.

You may be aware that a good definition of a gene isn't getting any easier.

Re. 87, Neetu

"Social groups don't consist only of relatives. If one defines them in terms of genetic relatedness I think all humans would qualify."

The point I was making concerning altruism is that groups that practice altruism usually must be reasonably related. A "tower of babel" society would be the least likely to have altruistic tendencies. I would say close to none. And governmental coercion doesn't count.

More Diversity = Less Welfare?
By Steve Sailer

http://www.vdare.com/sailer/diverse.htm