Rise of the Planet of the Moralists 3: clades and grades 20 Oct 201122 Jun 2018 Rise of the Planet of the Moralists Series1: Introduction2: Chains and Trees 3: Clades and grades4: Predicting traits5: Social dominance and power Note: My researchers readers have inundated provided me with all kinds of interesting references (hi Jeb and Jocelyn). One that is particularly interesting is this book. It appears to make many of the points I’m making here, at least with respect to morality. I should note that there is a considerable debate about whether chimps in particular are prosocial, egoistic or merely mean spirited. I think the evidence remains on the side of the latter. At this point the reader might be a little confused. What does the Great Chain or the Evolutionary Tree have to do with morality, exactly? And, dear reader, you may be right: it has very little to do with it, in particular. But what it does have to do with is the much contested, debated, and rejected notion of Human Nature. If being rational and being moral are features solely of human beings because it is in our nature, the difference between chainism and evolutionary tree thinking is that they will make different claims about whether or not humans do in fact even have a nature, and if they do, what the relations between reason and morals are. Bear with me. If we adopt the chain view of the living world (indeed, of the whole world), then it is clear on that account that there are objective grades of organisation. Simple things are the least cognitive, motive and moral; complex things are the most. This simple view underlies almost all uses of evolution in science fiction, from Bishop John Wilkins in the 17th century to Star Trek and X-Men. I recall, for example, a science fiction short story from the 40s in which the protagonist travelled faster than light, causing him to individual “devolve” back down the “evolutionary scale”, leaving him as a lemur when the space ship arrived (but oddly, not the space ship as a rock of metal ore). Since lemurs have never been seriously proposed as ancestral forms of human beings, the sole justification for this conceit, often found in current science fiction, is that lemurs “represent” a “lower grade” of primate. “Never say lower or higher” Darwin wrote in the margin of a book, although he failed often to take his own advice. For if we evolve not by rising up a scala naturae the way Darwin’s predecessors Erasmus Darwin (his grandfather) and Lamarck had held we did, but by differentiating in ways that are only progressive in the sense that changes enable organisms to live in their present conditions better, “higher” and “lower” have no real meaning. Everything that exists, from the simplest single cell to the most complex ape, dolphin or cnidarian, has exactly the same pedigree length, around 13.78 billion years give or take change. In The Mikado, the Pooh-Bah says “I am, in point of fact, a particularly haughty and exclusive person, of pre-Adamite ancestral descent. You will understand this when I tell you that I can trace my ancestry back to a protoplasmal primordial atomic globule. Consequently, my family pride is something inconceivable.” The joke that Victorian audiences freshly introduced to Darwin would have understood is, so can everyone else. Temporal sequences of change are not, in a Darwinian view, important. Instead, what counts are the branching points, the speciation events. Sometimes these may mean changes in grades, whatever they might be, or sometimes they may mean only something very similar to what they branched from, but it is the branching that matters. The Enlightenment view that humans have attained some kind of pinnacle of grade in the living world rested squarely upon the chain. After we assimilate Darwin, a process we are still undergoing mentally and socially, that is no loner tenable. For this reason, many philosophers, including Russell, Wittgenstein and Moore, rejected the philosophical significance of evolution, because it undercut this notion of grade. What did it replace it with, though? How does a tree undercut a grade? The answer is basically that in a tree structure, there is no “up”, just “out” and sometimes branches of the evolutionary tree will evolve traits that exist elsewhere on the tree, a process called convergent evolution. Now a lot is made of convergence by some: for example, Simon Conway-Morris firmly believes that evolution must traverse some general sequences out of necessity, and that intelligent things will be roughly like human beings. But I believe this is a holdover of gradist thinking, in which there is a scale of achievable states out there in the world independent of what human observers happen to privilege. And there really isn’t, apart from the general properties of physical systems. Instead, the tree is a way of organising shared properties even if some of them might have changed locally. For example, if there is a human nature, on the basis of tree thinking, then it must be mostly like the natures of the nearest species on the tree. In short, it should be like the natures of the apes. Like Caesar. If the natures were in fact radically different, if ancestry made no contribution to the species-typical traits of organisms, then we simply would not be able to arrange species in a tree. The information that permits us to do that would not even be there. Since we can do this, on what basis? The answer has to do with a now-deprecated activity in biology: systematics. We classified organisms in a tree structure long before Darwin explained that very structure with hypothetical ancestor-descendent historical trees. We still do, and the reason is because of homologies. That is, because we can identify parts of organisms that, no matter how much they have changed in function or appearance, are the very same part. An example: Birds have a greatly modified tetrapod forelimb (that is, of the four-limbed vertebrates, they have changed their “arms”). Where in other tetrapods there are fingers, wrists and a group of bones between the fingers (“phalanges”) and the wrist called the “metacarpals” (through which passes the tendons that get inflamed by too much repetitive motion leading to carpal tunnel syndrome), in birds these are all fused together to form the Carpometacarpus. And yet, based on the position of these bones in the skeleton and the way they develop as foetuses, we can say these are the same bones as the human equivalents. From Darren Naish’s typically erudite and clear discussion. Compare this with the human forelimb: From Wikipedia. Only two digits are left in the bird (here, a chicken), and they are warped beyond recognition, but no anatomist would be unable to identify them as homologous bones, and indeed well before homologies were even named, Pierre Belon did just that in 1555. From Wikipedia. So, by arranging organisms by many homologies, both hard and soft, we get something approaching a natural classification. Does this translate into a classification of behaviours too? Partially. If one member of a branch (the technical term for which is clade, from the Greek word klados for “branch”) has some property then it is highly likely that all members of it have that property (biologists talk about “traits” or “phenotypes”). But some properties of organisms are very plastic, and can be changed rather radically. Some behaviours are like that. It is not easy to make out that, for example, social behaviours are homologies or that because some organisms – apes – have that property, so must all other members of that clade – humans. But a clade is a branch with only one cut, and if you remove some lesser part of the branch (say, by excepting humans) you no longer have an objective group, just something that happens to suit your inclinations and prejudices. In short, a clade with bits missing, or any group that is not a clade, says rather more about the observer than it does about the organisms. Where does all this get us with Caesar? To answer that we have to ask what it might be for a species to have a nature. So far we are looking at how properties are shared between species. If we know all primates are social (and they are, even orangs), then any differences between one primate (us) and the other primates must be due to the specific evolution of that species. However, we humans like very much to assert our differences from other animals. Let us instead consider our homologies. All mammals, and especially all primates, form social groups at some time of their lives. Many organisms do this for the majority or totality of their lives. We should project that humans will have a mammalian, primate, ape social structure. We should predict that humans will have the kinds of social coordination systems that the other related organisms have, and so we do. We have social dominance hierarchies like any primate (more on this later); we punish those who defect and reward those who cooperate. We establish social norms of behaviour, in other words. What is rather interesting with humans, is that we are biased somewhat towards altruism, which I will discuss below. Our shared traits are apelike, but our moral norms are subtly different. That is our own. Would Caesar have adopted them because of his biological differences (and the rest of the apes too) just because of the retrovirus? I doubt it… Ecology and Biodiversity Ethics and Moral Philosophy Evolution History Metaphysics Species and systematics Species concept
Epistemology Bayes, evolutionary clocks, and biogeography 30 Mar 20122 Apr 2012 I just received a review by Gareth Nelson of Michael Heads’ book Molecular Panbiogeography of the Tropics (publishers’ site). I should have blogged this before, since I got a copy, being on the editorial board for this series (the same one I published with at Uni Calif Press), but I have… Read More
Evolution Darwin [quotes] wrong 12 Feb 2009 This doesn’t surprise me in the slightest, but it turns out that a number of widely quoted sayings of Darwin are, in fact, invented. I would not be surprised to find out they are taken from reviews and other authors’ summaries of Darwin. Read More
Evolution Desecration, blasphemy in public, and manners 12 Jul 2008 When does a person’s religious beliefs constrain someone who is not religious? What sorts of redress can a religious person expect in a secular society? These questions arise from the recent to-do about PZ Myers defense of the stealing of a communion wafer from a Catholic church. As a result,… Read More
Sorry subject always excites me. “they are called (simia) in the Latin language because people notice a great similitude to human reason in them” “the deformed image of man; a man of degenerate nature” Its Janson who first noted this 12th century development that the ape was a devolving , degenerate , depraved man as T.E. Dale notes “similar in physical appearance but lacking man’s moral powers of reason” The ape was the prime image of this theme it’s similitude to our species was a source of considerable anxiety. But I will shut up.
If we have an hypothesis of relationship based on comparison and analysis of one set of characters. I think the test of how good it is is how well it predicts the relationship of other characters. Say we make a tree based on ribosomal RNA, and another based on skull bone characters. If they are quite similar, we may, in fact, have found out something. If they are not, we still have found out something. Hypothesis testing is win, win! 😉
As always, your historical musings are very enjoyable and insightful. The Great Chain of Being seems to be a ubiquitous archetype found in various forms in every belief system from Social Darwinism to New Age Gnosticism (e.g. Ken Wilbur). Humans tend to create essentialist hierarchies as well as vitalistic dualism. However, I have to quibble on: I should note that there is a considerable debate about whether chimps in particular are prosocial, egoistic or merely mean spirited. I think the evidence remains on the side of the latter. (Note that what follows is aimed only at elaborating the state of primate research. As this series of posts is incomplete, it is not clear whether or not the above statement is any way crucial to the argument being advanced.) In your first post, you mentioned evidence for the “selfish” nature of chimps. Animal cognition experts are being surprised daily by the range of cognitive and emotional capacities and are reassessing our assumptions about culture, attachment, memory, level of self-awareness, and cooperation (see e.g. Kappeler & Schaik, Cooperation in Primates and Humans). You link to a letter from Skoyles responding to a study by Horner, Carter, Suchak, and de Waal. I’m not sure how much weight you place on the argument in Skoyles’s letter, but the response by the study authors makes a fairly compelling case that Skoyles is uninformed with regards to the empirical background of human studies against which primate researchers define terms like “prosocial”: Fehr et al. (3) found that 7- to 8-y-old children selected the prosocial option 78% of the time. … Kümmerli et al. (5) presented adults with a public goods game in which participants could maximize their rewards by behaving prosocially. However, despite the advantage attached to the prosocial option (which the children and chimpanzees did not have), participants failed to reach 100% prosociality, because they kept the option open to sample alternative choices. […] The chimpanzees in our study were prosocial in two-thirds of their choices, … this result makes them the imperfect altruists that humans also are. Expecting 100% scores in behavioral studies with any species is unrealistic. The opinion of an evolutionary psychologist/neuroscientist responding to a study outside his field of expertise is very bounded. Skoyles is an interesting scientist, but he is not a primatologist who works directly with animals with varied “personalities” and a range of complex behaviors. Scientists, such as Frans de Waal (at Yerkes Primate Center), and Jane Goodall, etc. have spent decades observing behavior in natural environments. It is clear that chimp behavior ranges from exceptional empathy and cooperation to murderous violence. Assuming that all that complexity can be subsumed under a single emotive human term like “mean spirited” seems as absurd as simplifying human behavior in that way. Demonstrating that a trait defined for empirical purposes like “prosociality” can be observed under the circumstances of a study does not serve to hypostatize chimpanzee character the way Skoyles’s argument does. It provides a link between the range of observed behavior and the categories researchers use to understand behavior. If researchers could not, by means of methodological refinements such as Horner et al.’s or otherwise, demonstrate “prosociality” in chimps, it would not make the need for an explanation of observed empathy in chimps disappear. For moral cognition, it appears almost inevitable that behavioral categories be defined against a background of human models. And that is the foundation of my intent in sending papers on the latest interdisciplinary neuroscience, psychology and development research on social and moral cognition and its relation to: brain wiring over the lifespan, empathy, theory of mind, mirror neurons, perspective-taking, imitation, interoception, situationalism and problems with acquired and innate deficits such as psychopathology, autism, alexithymia, etc. As your own argument suggests, the “tree” paradigm implies that many of these components of human morality will be built upon the scaffolding we share with other animals. The debates and critiques from philosophers and others help to clarify terminology and assumptions. They are necessary, but, as a rule, in order to be helpful, the critics must possess a thorough understanding of the science. * As I mentioned privately to you, Jane Goodall noted differences in prosocial behaviors of individual chimps depending on their varied developmental and nurturing experiences. Over decades she witnessed and recorded a full range of behaviors: affiliative, nurturing, cooperative, antisocial, playful, selfish, unselfish, altruistic, and cruel and also noticed the effect of the type of parenting on this behavior. The chimps all had distinct personalities and intricate family dynamics. For example, some chimps rejected by mothers became “psychopathic”, while some chimps with strong oxytocin attachments were highly empathic. These findings led her to an interest in comparative human development and its impact on social problems, and, having witnessed suffering of children around the world, she became involved in many outreach and humanitarian programs. In 1997-98, she chaired a project called “The Whole Child Initiative” (I was on the organizing committee for this) which brought together experts in developmental psychology, neuroscience, neonatology, ethology, and education as well as hands-on child advocates, and directors of successful social service programs. Taken from that project, the statement by Jane quoted below was inspired by her direct observations of various forms of “moral” behavior in chimps (full version): I would like to share with you details of an initiative in which I am personally involved in my capacity as co-chair of the State of the World Forum. It concerns an issue which I believe is one of the most critical and challenging that we face today — parenting and child-hood in a changing world. During my 37 years studying the social behaviour of our closest living relatives, the chimpanzees, we have collected data that demonstrates the importance of early experience — especially the type of mothering and family structure–in the moulding of adult behaviour. Those individuals with affectionate, supportive and playful mothers are those who are best able to form relaxed relationships with other members of the group throughout life. Those with more punitive and rejecting mothers tend to be tense and nervous in their adult interactions. Those who are orphaned or go through some kind of trauma in early infancy are likely to develop a variety of behavioral disorders that may persist throughout life. There is overwhelming evidence from studies of human infant interaction, including new research in the development of the brain, that points to the vital importance of early child-hood experience in our own species also. Women in ever-increasing numbers are now managing the double burden of mothering and worklife without even the support of an extended family. In a world in which societal change is rapid and widespread, where there is political instability, increasing urban violence and above all, continuing population growth, more of our children are at risk than ever before. These children are the ingredients that will shape the 21st century world. What can be done, knowing the nature of the problem, to help them? …
“Everything that exists, from the simplest single cell to the most complex ape, dolphin or cnidarian, has exactly the same pedigree length, around 13.78 billion years give or take change.” I would argue that the relevant measure is not absolute time, but the number of cell divisions undergone in the germline. In that sense, most bacteria are far more highly evolved than I am…
I don’t think number of cell divisions is a raw measure, but cell generations is at least important evolutionarily (the likelihood of mutation is going to depend crucially upon each division and the error rate). However, it seems to me this is offset somewhat by the elimination of deleterious variants, so it may not mean much. In short, the parameters are too complex to say anything meaningful across the board. Also, single celled organisms have a much higher rate of lateral transfer, but even metazoans get genes via endogenous retroviral insertion and the occasional intracellular parasite. Genes are permeable…
A good point. We certainly seem to see something like that with retroviruses, who replicate and mutate even faster than bacteria, yet don’t seem to have changed all that much over the past few million years, because of purifying selection. I do think number of generations (and population size, and mutation rates…yeah, you’re right, it’s complicated…) give a better idea of the adaptational space, so to speak, that a lineage has explored than time does. More generations and individuals means more iterations of the evolutionary algorithm (I suppose heuristic would be more accurate). But sometimes more generations doesn’t mean more change, if you’re already at a local maximum. To go back to retroviruses, they evolve so fast they’re already damn near perfectly adapted -without an environmental change, any more change in themselves would only hurt, not improve. Thanks for name checking endogenous retroviruses. ERVs are where it’s at. Or at least, I’m betting my career on that…
“They are necessary, but, as a rule, in order to be helpful, the critics must possess a thorough understanding of the science.” Just as scientists need a full understanding of the history and cultural tradition of this subject alongside the philosophy . Particularly when faced with the vexing challenge of communicating a fast moving research subject to a wider public well versed in tradition and traditional forms of presentation. But given the traditional antipathy towards the ‘soft’ subjects we in the arts study and the tendency for scientists to excuse themselves from any part in these communication issues by blaming bad science journalists I am not holding my breath with regard to change and would expect contributions made from philosophy or history to be more or less ignored.
It really does have to go both ways. To promote interdisciplinary dialogue among thoughtful thinkers is a check and balance for blind spots and recognizing the limitations of any field of inquiry. Unfortunately, we are all vulnerable to being caught up in semantic and [interminable] terminological debates, as well as esthetic preferences masquerading as essential truths, not to mention turf wars and ego games.
“It really does have to go both ways” That’s what I was trying to suggest but I somewhat over inflected. Just reviewing a contemporary scientist with a dislike of ‘soft subjects’ who’s conclusion on the use of sign language in apes is one that stretches back to the classical era and is the subject of repeated philosophical debate in Europe from the 6th century onwards. To reject philosophy as a soft and unimportant subject in this sphere does strike me as a remarkable odd way to think.
Oliver Sacks calls it “scotoma”: Forgotten knowledge, evidence, and debates that got lost along the wayside . . . This happens all the time in both science and philosophy. Sacks, Oliver. Scotoma: Forgetting and Neglect in Science, pp. 141-187 from: Silvers, Robert B., ed. Hidden Histories of Science. New York: New York Review Books, 1995.