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“Trump, the politics of fear and racism: How our brains can be manipulated to tribalism” by Arash Javanbakht [The Conversation]

“Trump, the politics of fear and racism: How our brains can be manipulated to tribalism

by Arash Javanbakht
Associate Professor of Psychiatry, Wayne State University

The Conversation

https://theconversation.com/trump-the-politics-of-fear-and-racism-how-our-brains-can-be-manipulated-to-tribalism-139811

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Fear is arguably as old as life. It is deeply ingrained in the living organisms that have survived extinction through billions of years of evolution. Its roots are deep in our core psychological and biological being, and it is one of our most intimate feelings. Danger and war are as old as human history, and so are politics and religion.

I am a psychiatrist and neuroscientist specializing in fear and trauma, and I have some thoughts on how politics, fear and tribalism are intertwined in the current events.

We learn fear from tribe mates

Like other animals, humans can learn fear from experience, such as being attacked by a predator, or witnessing a predator attacking another human. Furthermore, we learn fear by instructions, such as being told there is a predator nearby.

Learning from our tribe mates is an evolutionary advantage that has prevented us from repeating dangerous experiences of other humans. We have a tendency to trust our tribe mates and authorities, especially when it comes to danger. It is adaptive: Parents and wise old men told us not to eat a special plant, or not to go to an area in the woods, or we would be hurt. By trusting them, we would not die like a great-grandfather who died eating that plant. This way, we accumulated knowledge.

Tribalism has been an inherent part of human history, and is closely linked with fear. There has always been competition between groups of humans in different ways and with different faces, from brutal wartime nationalism to a strong loyalty to a football team. Evidence from cultural neuroscience shows that our brains even respond differently at an unconscious level simply to the view of faces from other races or cultures.

At a tribal level, people are more emotional and consequently less logical: Fans of both teams pray for their team to win, hoping God will take sides in a game. On the other hand, we regress to tribalism when afraid. This is an evolutionary advantage that would lead to the group cohesion and help us fight the other tribes to survive.

Tribalism is the biological loophole that many politicians have banked on for a long time: tapping into our fears and tribal instincts. Abuse of fear has killed in many faces: extreme nationalism, Nazism, the Ku Klux Klan and religious tribalism have all led to heartless killing of millions.

The typical pattern is to give the other humans a different label than us, perceive them as less than us, who are going to harm us or our resources, and to turn the other group into a concept. It does not have to necessarily be race or nationality. It can be any real or imaginary difference: liberals, conservatives, Middle Easterners, white men, the right, the left, Muslims, Jews, Christians, Sikhs. The list goes on and on.

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Fear is uninformed, illogical and often dumb

Very often my patients with phobias start with: “I know it is stupid, but I am afraid of spiders.” Or it may be dogs or cats, or something else. And I always reply: “It is not stupid, it is illogical.” We humans have different functions in the brain, and fear oftentimes bypasses logic. In situations of danger, we ought to be fast: First run or kill, then think.

This human tendency is meat to the politicians who want to exploit fear: If you grew up only around people who look like you, only listened to one media outlet and heard from the old uncle that those who look or think differently hate you and are dangerous, the inherent fear and hatred toward those unseen people is an understandable (but flawed) result.

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By scaring us, the demagogues turn on our aggression toward “the others,” whether in the form of vandalizing their temples, harassing them on the social media, of killing them in cold blood.

When demagogues manage to get hold of our fear circuitry, we often regress to illogical, tribal and aggressive human animals, becoming weapons ourselves—weapons that politicians use for their own agenda.

The irony of evolution is that while those attached to tribal ideologies of racism and nationalism perceive themselves as superior to others, in reality they are acting on a more primitive, less evolved and more animal level.”

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“How Our Ancient Brains Are Coping in the Age of Digital Distraction” [Discover Magazine]

“How Our Ancient Brains Are Coping in the Age of Digital Distraction

Our species invented the internet. Can we handle the consequences?

By Kenneth Miller

April 20, 2020 10:00 AM

https://www.discovermagazine.com/mind/how-our-ancient-brains-are-coping-in-the-age-of-digital-distraction

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In the public arena, online filters generate bubbles that reinforce our preconceptions and amplify our anger. Brandishing tweets like pitchforks, we’re swept into virtual mobs; some of us move on to violence IRL. Our digitally enhanced tribalism upends political norms and sways elections.

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A growing body of research suggests that this conundrum arises from a feature etched into our DNA: our unparalleled hunger to know stuff. “This is an ancient drive that leads to all sorts of complexities in how we interact with the world around us,” says Adam Gazzaley, a neuroscientist at the University of California, San Francisco, and co-author of The Distracted Mind: Ancient Brains in a High-Tech World.

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Yet this wonder’s origins were strikingly humble. About 7 million years ago, hominins — our branch of the primate family tree — began the long transition to walking upright. Bipedalism, or walking on two legs, freed our hands for making and manipulating tools. It also allowed us to walk longer distances, key to our spread beyond Africa’s forests and savannas. “If you look at nonhuman primates, it’s like they have another set of hands down there,” notes Dean Falk, a professor of anthropology at Florida State University and senior scholar at Santa Fe’s School for Advanced Research, who specializes in brain evolution. “When our feet became weight-bearing instruments, that kicked everything off — no pun intended.”

Not that the effects were immediate. More than 3 million years ago, the braincase of Australopithecus afarensis, likely the first fully bipedal hominin, was only slightly larger than a chimpanzee’s. But by the time Homo sapiens emerged at least 300,000 years ago, brain volume had tripled. Our brain-to-body ratio is six times that of other mammals, and the neurons in our cerebral cortex (the brain’s outer layer, responsible for cognition) are more densely packed than those of any other creature on Earth.

In recent years, scientists have identified about two dozen genetic changes that might have helped make our brains not only bigger but incomparably capable. “It’s not just one quantum leap,” says University of Wisconsin-Madison paleoanthropologist John Hawks. “A lot of adaptations are at play, from metabolic regulation to neuron formation to timing of development.” A stretch of gene-regulating DNA called HARE5, for example, differs slightly between chimps and humans; when a team at Duke University introduced both versions into mouse embryos, the ones that got the human type developed brains that were 12 percent larger. Meanwhile, mutations in a gene called NOTCH2 increase our production of neural stem cells and delay their maturation into cortical neurons, which may be part of the reason our brains keep growing far longer than those of other primates. The FOXP2 gene, crucial for verbal communication in many species, diverges by two base pairs in humans and our nearest living ape relatives. Our mutation may explain why we can talk and chimps can’t.

Our brains were also shaped by external forces, which increased the odds of smarter hominins passing on their genes. Experts debate which factors mattered most. Falk, for one, hypothesizes that the loss of grasping feet was crucial: When infants could no longer cling to their mothers, as nonhuman primates do, the need to soothe them from a distance led to the development of language, which revolutionized our neural organization. Other researchers believe that dietary shifts, such as eating meat or cooking food in general, enabled us to get by with a shorter digestive tract, which freed up more energy for a calorie-hogging brain. Still others credit our cerebral evolution to growing social complexity or intensifying environmental challenges.

What’s clear is that our neural hardware took shape under conditions radically different from those it must contend with today. For millennia, we had to be on the alert for dangerous predators, hostile clans, potential sources of food and shelter — and that was about it. As McGill University neuroscientist Daniel J. Levitin put it in his book The Organized Mind: “Our brains evolved to focus on one thing at a time.”

Our digital devices, by design, make that almost impossible.

Tech vs. Brain

The part of the brain that enables us to make elaborate plans and carry them through — the part, arguably, that makes us most human — is the prefrontal cortex. This region is only slightly larger in H. sapiens than in chimps or gorillas, but its connections with other brain regions are more extensive and intricate. Despite this advanced network, our planning ability is far stronger than our ability to remain focused on a given task.

One reason is that, like all animals, we evolved to switch attention instantly when we sense danger: the snapping twig that might signal an approaching predator, the shadow that could indicate an enemy behind a tree. Our goal-directed, or top-down, mental activities stand little chance against these bottom-up forces of novelty and saliency — stimuli that are unexpected, sudden or dramatic, or that evoke memories of important experiences.

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When the animal finds a ripe mango in the jungle — or solves a problem in the lab — brain cells in what’s called the dopaminergic system light up, creating a sensation of pleasure. These cells also build durable connections with the brain circuits that helped earn the reward. By triggering positive feelings whenever these circuits are activated, the system promotes learning.

Humans, of course, forage for data more voraciously than any other animal. And, like most foragers, we follow instinctive strategies for optimizing our search. Behavioral ecologists who study animals seeking nourishment have developed various models to predict their likely course of action. One of these, the marginal value theorem (MVT), applies to foragers in areas where food is found in patches, with resource-poor areas in between. The MVT can predict, for example, when a squirrel will quit gathering acorns in one tree and move on to the next, based on a formula assessing the costs and benefits of staying put — the number of nuts acquired per minute versus the time required for travel, and so on. Gazzaley sees the digital landscape as a similar environment, in which the patches are sources of information — a website, a smartphone, an email program. He believes an MVT-like formula may govern our online foraging: Each data patch provides diminishing returns over time as we use up information available there, or as we start to worry that better data might be available elsewhere.

The call of the next data patch may keep us hopping from Facebook to Twitter to Google to YouTube; it can also interfere with the fulfillment of goals — meeting a work deadline, paying attention in class, connecting face-to-face with a loved one. It does this, Gazzaley says, in two basic ways. One is distraction, which he defines as “pieces of goal-irrelevant information that we either encounter in our external surroundings or generate internally within our own minds.” We try to ignore our phone’s pings and buzzes (or our fear of missing out on the data they signify), only to find our focus undermined by the effort.

The other goal-killer is interruption: We take a break from top-down activity to feed our information munchies. The common term for this is multitasking, which sounds as if we’re accomplishing several things at once — working on the quarterly report, answering client emails, staying on top of the politician’s gaffe count, taking a peek at that aardvark. In truth, it means we’re doing nothing well.

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It also wreaks havoc on working memory, the function that allows us to hold a few key bits of data in our heads just long enough to apply them to a task. Multiple studies have shown that “media multitasking” (the scientific term for toggling between digital data sources) overloads this mental compartment, making us less focused and more prone to mistakes. In 2012, for instance, Canadian researchers found that multitasking on a laptop hindered classroom learning not only for the user but for students sitting nearby. Heavy media multitasking has been associated with diminished cognitive control, higher levels of impulsivity and reduced volume in the anterior cingulate cortex, a brain region linked with error detection and emotional regulation.

Us vs. Them

Emotional regulation is central to another of tech’s disruptive effects on our ancient brains: exacerbation of tribal tendencies. Our distant ancestors lived in small nomadic bands, the basic social unit for most of human history. “Groups that were competing for resources and space didn’t always do so peacefully,” says paleoanthropologist Hawks. “We’re a product of that process.”

These days, many analysts see tribalism asserting itself in the resurgence of nationalist movements worldwide and the sharp rise in political polarization in the U.S., with both trends playing out prominently online. A study published in the American Journal of Political Science in 2015 found that party affiliation had become a basic component of identity for Republicans and Democrats. Social media, which spurs us to publicly declare our passions and convictions, helps fuel what the authors call “the gradual encroachment of party preference into nonpolitical and hitherto personal domains.”

And we’re hardwired to excel at telling “us” from “them.” When we interact with in-group members, a release of dopamine gives us a rush of pleasure, while out-group members may trigger a negative response. Getting online “likes” only intensifies the experience.

Our retreat into tribal mode may also be a reaction to the data explosion that the web has ignited. In 2018, in the journal Perspectives on Psychological Science, psychologist Thomas T. Hills reviewed an array of earlier studies on the proliferation of information. He found that the upsurge in digitally mediated extremism and polarization may be a response to cognitive overload. Amid the onslaught, he suggested, we rely on ingrained biases to decide which data deserve our attention (see “Tribal Tech” sidebar). The result: herd thinking, echo chambers and conspiracy theories. “Finding information that’s consistent with what I already believe makes me a better member of my in-group,” Hills says. “I can go to my allies and say, ‘Look, here’s the evidence that we’re right!’ ”

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For example, when Red Sox and Yankees fans watch their rival team fail to score, even against a third team, they show heightened activity in the ventral striatum, a brain region associated with reward response.

It’s surely no coincidence that during the 2016 presidential election, Russian hackers focused largely on convincing various groups of Americans that another group was out to get them. But foreign agents are hardly the top promoters of tribalism online. As anyone who’s spent time on social media knows, there’s plenty of homegrown schadenfreude on the web.

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Faced with tech’s cognitive overload, humans determine what’s worthy of attention by relying on biases shaped by evolution, says Thomas T. Hills, a professor of psychology at England’s University of Warwick. Those tendencies may have helped our ancestors survive, but they’re not always in our best interests today, Hills says. He identifies four types of “cognitive selection” that fuel digital tribalism.

Selection for belief-consistent information. Also called confirmation bias, it inclines us to prefer data that align with what we already think. In prehistoric times, this might have led people to see a rainstorm as proof of a shaman’s power over the weather — an interpretation that strengthened social cohesion, even if it was wrong. Today, confirmation bias can lead to more consequential errors, such as seeing a cold snap as proof that climate change is a hoax.

Selection for negative information. This tendency, also known as negativity bias, primed our ancestors’ brains to prioritize alertness for predators over other, less threatening types of attention. Today, it can lead us to privilege bad news over good — for example, by taking a single horrific crime by an out-group member more seriously than data showing that the group as a whole is law-abiding.

Selection for predictive information. Pattern-recognition bias, as it’s often called, helps us discern order in chaos. Noticing that large prey animals tended to arrive in the savanna after the first summer rains would have given early humans an evolutionary advantage. Today, however, a predilection for patterns can lead us to detect conspiracies where none exist.

Selection for social information. This “herd bias” prompts us, in uncertain environments, to follow the crowd. Back in the day, “if everyone else in your tribe was running toward the river, they probably had a good reason,” says Hills. But if everyone in your Reddit community says a famous politician is running a child-sex ring from the basement of a pizzeria, well, it would be wise to visit a fact-checking website before making up your mind.”

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“Heightened disgust sensitivity is associated with greater fear of sin and fear of God” [PsyPost]

“Heightened disgust sensitivity is associated with greater fear of sin and fear of God

BY ERIC W. DOLAN  

MAY 14, 2020

PsyPost

https://www.psypost.org/2020/05/heightened-disgust-sensitivity-is-associated-with-greater-fear-of-sin-and-fear-of-god-56776

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“This started my interest in politics. As an outsider, I was in a position to see and experience things differently, especially how individuals used religion to increase their personal wealth and power. I was also able to see religion, with its organization of humans and rules regarding correct behavior, as distinct from faith, which is personal and seen in one’s behavior. The questions became: ‘Why is this the case?’ and ‘how does it benefit group members enough to put their self-interest aside?’”

“Studying the adaptive qualities of emotional response, both predispositions and contextual influences, has long been my focus; disgust – which is connected with many discriminatory behaviors – is one of those key emotions for understanding human behavior,” Stewart explained.

Stewart and his colleagues examined the relationship between disgust sensitivity and the fear of God using a scientific survey and an experiment.

The survey assessed religious fear, disgust sensitivity, anger, and anxiety in 523 participants who were recruited from a large southern American university. The researchers found that sexual disgust and pathogen disgust were associated with fear of sin and fear of God, respectively.

In other words, people who reported being more disgusted by the thought of casual sex or hearing strangers having sex were more likely to agree with statements such as “I am afraid of having immoral thoughts.” People who reported being more disgusted by stepping in dog poop or seeing mold were more likely to agree with statements such as “I worry that God is upset with me.”

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Stewart told PsyPost he hopes the findings highlight the importance of the concept of the human behavioral immune system (HBIS), which “refers to a variety of psychological processes that serve to protect us as individuals and society from real or perceived pathogens.”

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“Chief amongst these is the emotion of disgust, which helps to prevent the contact with and ingestion of things that might make us ill. Importantly, the human behavioral immune system influences a variety of social and political behaviors, including – as demonstrated in our paper – religious behaviors.”

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“Religion is behind some of most beneficial actions humans have engaged in to help their fellow human; it is also behind some truly horrific behaviors. Understanding the roots of these behaviors, and what might lead to both the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ of religion is important for those who want individuals to live their best lives.”

“Perhaps most important for right now, we live in a time where, as more people become sick with coronavirus, higher levels of disgust will likely be prevalent; understand the actions through the human behavioral immune system will be important in avoiding political predations such as those occurring in the wake of the Spanish flu in 1918 (e.g., the spread of fascism and communism – both authoritarian governing institutions),” Stewart said.”

***

Frontiers in Psychology

29 January 2020  

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00051/full

https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00051

The Effect of Trait and State Disgust on Fear of God and Sin

Patrick A. Stewart [1], Thomas G. Adams Jr.[2] and Carl Senior [3]

[1] Department of Political Science, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, AR, United States
[2] Department of Psychology, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY, United States
[3] School of Life & Health Sciences, Aston University, Birmingham, United Kingdom

There is a growing literature suggesting disgust plays a major role in religiosity. However, the relationships between specific domains of disgust sensitivity and general religious fundamentalism or religious scrupulosity remains unknown and a lack of experimental data prevents the drawing of causal inferences about the potential effects of disgust on religiosity. Two studies are reported that examined the relationship between specific types of disgust sensitivity (i.e., pathogen, sexual, and moral disgust) and specific religious beliefs (i.e., fear of sin and fear of God). In the first study it was found that sexual disgust and pathogen disgust were significantly correlated with fear of sin and fear of God, respectively. In the second study the experimental induction of disgust led to greater fear of sin but not to the fear of God. These findings suggest that pathogen and sexual disgust sensitivities may serve as effective mechanisms for inflated scrupulosity. Taken together the outcomes from both studies converge on a greater understanding of the ‘Human Behavioral Immune System’ model that can account for social behavior with the evolution of adaptive benefit and perhaps more importantly highlights the possible drivers of specific religious behavior.

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“Hydroxychloroquine and the Political Polarization of Science” by Cailin O’Connor & James Owen Weatherall [Boston Review]

“Hydroxychloroquine and the Political Polarization of Science

How a drug became an object lesson in political tribalism.

CAILIN O’CONNOR, JAMES OWEN WEATHERALL

https://bostonreview.net/science-nature-politics/cailin-oconnor-james-owen-weatherall-hydroxychloroquine-and-political

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In particular, people become misinformed because they tend to trust those they identify with, meaning they are more likely to listen to those who share their social and political identities. When public figures such as Donald Trump and Rush Limbaugh make claims about hydroxychloroquine, Republicans are more likely to be swayed, while Democrats are not. The two groups then start sharing different sorts of information about hydroxychloroquine, and stop trusting what they see from the other side.

People also like to conform with those in their social networks. It is often psychologically uncomfortable to disagree with our closest friends and family members. But different clusters or cliques can end up conforming to different claims. Some people fit in by rolling their eyes about hydroxychloroquine, while others fit in by praising Trump for supporting it.

These social factors can lead to belief factions: groups of people who share a number of polarized beliefs. As philosophers of science, we’ve used models to argue that when these factions form, there need not be any underlying logic to the beliefs that get lumped together. Beliefs about the safety of gun ownership, for example, can start to correlate with beliefs about whether there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. When this happens, beliefs can become signals of group membership—even for something as dangerous as an emerging pandemic. One person might show which tribe they belong to by sewing their own face mask. Another by throwing a barbeque, despite stay at home orders.

And yet another might signal group membership by posting a screed about hydroxychloroquine.  There is nothing about hydroxychloroquine in particular that makes it a natural talking point for Republicans. It could just as easily have been remdesivir, or one of a half dozen other potential miracle drugs, that was picked up by Fox News, and then by Trump. The process by which Trump settled on hydroxychloroquine was essentially random—and yet, once he began touting it, it became associated with political identity in just the way we have described. (That is not to say that Trump and his media defenders were not on the lookout for an easy out from a growing crisis. Political leaders around the world would love to see this all disappear, irrespective of ideology.)

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This bias toward extremes means that once opposing camps have formed, there is a lot of fodder for each side to appeal to as evidence of bias. Furthermore, with COVID-19, it is often the case that the different groups only trust one of the extremes. Extremity bias can thus amplify polarization, especially in an already factionalized environment.

The end result is that even without misinformation, or with relatively little of it, we can end up misinformed. And misinformed decision makers—from patients, to physicians, to public health experts and politicians—will not be able to act judiciously. In the present crisis, this is a matter of life and death.”

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“Covid-19, and Our Tribal Identities | When Our Moral Psychology Turns on Itself” by Hector Garcia [Psychology Today]

“Covid-19, and Our Tribal Identities

When Our Moral Psychology Turns on Itself

Hector A Garcia Psy.D.
Hector Garcia, Ph.D., is a professor of psychiatry at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. [Alpha God: The Psychology of Religious Violence and Oppression; Sex, Power, and Partisanship: How Evolutionary Science Makes Sense of Our Political Divide]

Posted Apr 27, 2020

https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/alpha-god/202004/covid-19-and-our-tribal-identities

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As examples, golf courses around the nation were allowed to remain open, along with beaches in Florida. Texas Republican Governor Greg Abbot decreed that religious services are allowable, despite the obvious risks (churches were already defying previous restrictions). With emboldening tweets from Donald Trump, anti-lockdown rallies have proliferated, touting the pandemic as a liberal media conspiracy, and containment efforts as anti-freedom—one protestor’s sign read “Social Distancing is Communism!,” another, “Liberate America!”. Notably, these are gatherings of potentially infectious people in close contact with one another, and perhaps unsurprisingly the virus has begun to kill protestors. While the common thread of churches, Trump, Texas governance, and even golf courses may be political conservatism, how do we make sense of this dangerously irrational behavior?

It is ironic that our sensible, science-based efforts to remove ourselves from corona’s onslaught push against ancient instincts designed to help us survive infectious disease. In other words, our pathogen-survival instincts may have outlived their utility, and today may be helping to actually spread COVID-19 rather than contain it. It may be surprising to learn that these very instincts drive our political behaviors. Given that our strategic responses to infectious disease are utterly dependent on political processes, understanding our evolved responses to germs is now literally a matter of life and death. To ensure our future, we may start with a look to our past.

Our hunter-gatherer ancestors knew nothing about what diseases really were. The microbiologic world was invisible to them. They had no vaccines. They had no antibiotics. But they were (as we are now) equipped with what is known in the evolutionary sciences as a behavioral immune system—a set of emotional responses such as disgust, fear, and hostility that helped them withdraw from potential pathogens. Given that humans were the biggest vectors of disease, that immune system included a prejudicial psychology against outsiders; strangers potentially carried pathogens for which the tribe had no immunity. We already know the devastating impact that contact between distal peoples has had on human populations—that is, before the advent of vaccines, and an understanding of physical distancing. As one crushing example, diseases brought by the European invasion of the “New World” sent up to 90% of Native Americans to their graves.

Fear of germs, like so many other traits, falls on the natural curve. Just as there were advantages to xenophobia in our ancestral environments, there were advantages to xenophilia (an attraction to outsiders), which afforded our ancestors greater access to new technologies, and mates outside their gene pool.  One of the most robust findings in the science of our political psychology is that those who are more germ-and-xenophobic tend to be more politically conservative. It makes sense, then, that today those with greater xenophobia would be drawn to politics that are hawkish in their foreign policy, take tough stances on border security, and posture against affirmative action (which helps people who may be seen as outsiders).

Interestingly, those on the conservative end (on average) tend to be not only more fearful of germs and outsiders, but to be generally more fearful. Imaging studies even find conservatives tend to have larger amygdalae, a brain structure that generates our fear responses.2 Yet, those protesting on the streets, violating isolation orders, putting not only others but also themselves in mortal danger, tend to be overwhelmingly far right. The explanation to this stunning contradiction—tribalism.

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Sometimes the signals are visual. Think of aboriginal tribes that wear similar regalia to signify belonging—similar headdresses, similar colors, or even tribal scarring or tattoos. Today’s maga-hats, protest signs, political bumper stickers, and T-shirts, tell other members of the group that you’re with them. At other times the signal is showing agreement, and an alarming degree of this kind of conformity happens below the level of conscious awareness.  There is important research on this tendency worth pondering.

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Indeed, that tendency to mentally suppress information that runs contrary to group consensus appears to be related to the fact that humans are exquisitely talented at detecting liars, cheaters, or even insincerity. And so, the capacity to self-deceive may have developed to conceal our true beliefs. Indeed, if Wrangham is right, this ability to self-deceive may have kept our ancestors from getting murdered by their peers.

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One revealing study examined how highly partisan liberals and conservatives respond to fabricated newspaper stories on welfare programs.5 One program was exorbitantly generous, the other inflexibly stingy. The researchers then queried which program subjects supported. Given what everyone already knows about our political stances, you might guess which side supported which policy. However, before subjects rated their support, they were told that House Democrats (or Republicans) strongly endorsed each of the two welfare policies, and that the rival partly strongly rejected them. If conservatives believed their party supported the lavish welfare policy, they too supported it, and vice-versa for liberals. This shows us that the impulse to go with the tribe can override our own strongly held principles. Tellingly, subjects reported that their own policy perspectives influenced them most, and that the stances of lawmakers least, despite going with the flow in a way that so blatantly contradicted their own values. In other words, they were blind to their own tribalistic blinders.  And therein lies the problem.

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When protestors see each other in their tribal regalia, when they chant in unison, they feel an ancient, emotionally intuitive sense of belonging. And that they’ve identified an outside force (represented by the liberal media, science, etc.) it draws their emotional ties to each other even tighter. Moreover, by cohering to the preposterous idea that the need for physical distancing is a liberal conspiracy, they reaffirm each other of their commitment to the tribe. But this puts everyone, including themselves, at grave risk. It’s antisocial. It’s dangerous. It’s asinine. But it is explainable. We are social animals operating in groups inclined to show commitment to one another through agreement. What we agree on can be like a virus itself. And critical thinking gets swallowed up by our ancients fears of rejection.”

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“Pandemics and the great evolutionary mismatch” by Guillaume Dezecache, Chris D. Frith and Ophelia Deroy [Current Biology]

“Pandemics and the great evolutionary mismatch

Guillaume Dezecache, Chris D. Frith and Ophelia Deroy

Current Biology Magazine 30, R1–R3, May 18, 2020

https://www.cell.com/pb-assets/products/coronavirus/CURBIO_16385.pdf

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What increases in times of anxiety and threat is not a drive to help the self at all costs, but an intuitive drive to help others. The unfortunate consequence is that, in response to the current threat of infection, we desire social contact, particularly with the loved and the vulnerable.

Pandemics and the ‘breakdown of social order’ narrative

When describing the behaviour of people living in countries affected by the spread of covid-19, the media has rapidly adopted a ‘Hobbesian’ view of human nature [4]. This is the expectation that exposure to threat makes people abandon social niceties and, being naturally rivals, fall back into ‘brutishness and misery’. Major newspapers report panic, with people running to shops to collect masks, hand sanitizers and food. Those behaviours are routinely qualified as irrational: why rush to buy food when we are told that there will be no shortages? We do not doubt that humans can be irrational (we misevaluate large magnitudes; underestimate risks and value shortterm gain [7]). At the individual level, however, it is rational to hoard food and toilet paper when we are told that we will have to stay at home for an indefinite amount of time. It’s not that we do not trust politicians, but we are right to be uncertain about the resilience of institutions, and the social contract in general, in the face of an unprecedented, unknown, and growing threat. Similarly, it is perfectly rational, at the individual level, to run for the exits when the building is on fire. However, these self-oriented rational decisions are the ones on which we have to consciously reflect [8]. Our initial, intuitive responses are, on the contrary, to be cooperative [9].

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The coming of covid-19 is being met with inertia and placidity, rather than mass panic. The French population was (and is still being) criticized by their own authorities for their laxity and nonchalance. Some weeks ago, the French continued to gather in bar terraces and break the obvious rules of social distancing. The German state of Bavaria took stricter confinement measures on March 21st, after finding that many individuals, despite the explicit instruction to stay away from others, were still gathering in groups as if nothing had changed. Similar violations of official advice are occurring everywhere.

An alternative to the accusation that people are irrational and irresponsible is the suggestion that people are ignorant of the threat. We are not suggesting that these effects are not in play (more below), but we want to suggest that knowing the threat is perfectly compatible with seeking company of friends and loved ones. Being with others and getting but also providing social support is how we cope with stress [10]. Increasing threat is only likely to reinforce this social inclination.

(…)

Contactseeking may be a ‘natural’ drive which is embedded in our physiology. Social touch contributes to the physiological regulation of the body’s responses to acute stressors and other short-term challenges. Close social support is not an extra for getting additional rewards. It constitutes our baseline [15]. Our brains do not respond positively to its presence, but negatively to its loss. People can crave for social cues just like they crave for food [16]. The policy implications of decades of research in social neuroscience are clear, but widely ignored: asking people to renounce social contact is not just asking them to abstain from pleasurable activities; it is asking them to diverge from a point of equilibrium, toward which they normally all gravitate.

(…)

One major issue is that diseases are largely invisible, particularly diseases (like covid-19) which remain asymptomatic in a large part of the population. This imperceptibility means that it is not even detected, let alone recognized as a collective threat. Hence, the defensive avoidance mechanisms associated with fear and disgust will not operate. Similarly, our social tendencies simply continue as, in the absence of symptoms, we don’t perceive that we may carry the infection. Even if we believe that the threat is widespread within our own group, the implications for oneself are challenging. Recognizing that one is likely to become a deadly threat to others is incongruent with our self-image, leading to dissonance and denial of the danger.

There is, however, a second issue: a threat stemming from infection, in societies with optimally functioning health systems, may be detected and yet recognized to be severe only for a small fraction of the population. Unless we feel we belong to that fraction, the threat may not be construed as collective: it is them, not us. A threat that remains invisible, and is thought to apply only to some individuals, is unlike other threats (such as predators, enemies or hurricanes) which are clearly menacing everyone in a given location. More than physical proximity and covulnerability is needed for a threat to be recognised as collective. Some actual or potential understanding of aspects of the threat as shared by us all, in a collective ‘we’ [2,19], is also required.

(…)

In all likelihood, the mismatch between our misperception of the severity of the threat and its consequences is likely to become even more destructive in dense urban areas in which social isolation is a costly good.

(…)

So why don’t we avoid each other in times of infections? It is because our infection-avoidance mechanisms are overwhelmed by a much stronger drive to affiliate and seek close contact.”

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“Political attitudes vary with detection of androstenone” [Politics and the Life Sciences]

“Political attitudes vary with detection of androstenone

Amanda Friesen, Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis
Mike Gruszczynski , Indiana University Bloomington
Kevin B. Smith, University of Nebraska–Lincoln
John R. Alford, Rice University

Politics and the Life Sciences

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/politics-and-the-life-sciences/article/political-attitudes-vary-with-detection-of-androstenone/AE5D552DAD0EAB987CA711FE5DB190AE

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/pls.2019.18

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 January 2020

ABSTRACT.

Building on a growing body of research suggesting that political attitudes are part of broader individual and biological orientations, we test whether the detection of the hormone androstenone is predictive of political attitudes. The particular social chemical analyzed in this study is androstenone, a nonandrogenic steroid found in the sweat and saliva of many mammals, including humans. A primary reason for scholarly interest in odor detection is that it varies so dramatically from person to person. Using participants’self-reported perceptions of androstenone intensity, together with a battery of survey items testing social and political preferences and orientations, this research supports the idea that perceptions of androstenone intensity relate to political orientations—most notably, preferences for social order—lending further support to theories positing the influence of underlying biological traits on sociopolitical attitudes and behaviors.

Our understanding of the origins of public opinion has expanded from elite messaging, socialization, and group membership to include the possibility that attitudes toward group life may have some basis in our biology. That is, the social signals humans have generated and interpreted throughout the history of our species may continue to influence complex social behaviors like politics.

(…)

The odor of politics? Given the central role that olfaction plays in disgust detection and disgust’s link to politics (Aarøe, Petersen, & Arceneaux, 2017; Balzer & Jacobs, 2011; Inbar et al., 2009; Smith et al., 2011a), we have borrowed its theoretical organizational scheme to think about how olfaction may also connect to political opinions. Recent research has identified three primary functions of disgust: pathogen avoidance, mate choice, and social interaction— sometimes labeled microbes, mating, and morality (Neuberg et al., 2011; Tybur et al., 2009; Tybur et al., 2010). As mentioned, the precursor to olfaction originated as a mechanism for identifying substances that singlecelled organisms should approach or avoid.

(…)

Results

We first investigate androstenone detection and political orientations using the aforementioned personality, psychological, and political batteries. In addition to the three measures of political ideology, the survey also tapped cognitive and personality patterns, including the Big Five personality inventory (conscientiousness, emotional stability, openness, agreeableness, and extroversion), the BIS/BAS (behavioral inhibition and activation, respectively) scales, preference for literalism, and tendencies to be both disgust and threat sensitive. We have no strong expectations for the nature of the relationship between androstenone detection and these concepts, but we do expect positive relationships for all three of our political batteries and particularly for the “preferences for social order” battery, a finding that would indicate that those with politically conservative and “authority-attuned” positions tend to be more sensitive to androstenone.

(…)

Discussion

In our sample, variations in androstenone detection appear to be relevant to variations in political orientations—specifically, preferences for order—but not psychological orientations. Economic and sexual morality issues appear to be unconnected to sensitivity to androstenone. As we noted earlier, the absence of a relationship with sex items is particularly interesting given that other research has demonstrated that sensitivity to pathogen-relevant disgust is indeed related to issue stances on sexual matters. Sensitivity to the human odorant androstenone appears to manifest itself politically in quite a different fashion than sensitivity to pathogen-indicating odors (e.g., human excrement, vomit, or spoiled food). Certain individuals are sensitive to the odor of androstenone, and they also tend to be the people who are attuuned to and eager to squelch threats to the social order

(…)

Psychologists, biologists, and geneticists have demonstrated human variation in every sensory system just as social scientists have been examining differences in social and political orientations and attitudes. Our work seeks to bridge these worlds in the hope of contributing to the understanding of the nature and origins of human political behavior and, broadly, public opinion. Few, if any, disciplines treat biological and behavioral variation as completely unrelated, yet much of the political science research does just that. This is a matter of empiricism. Just as parents, schools, peers, culture, and time periods may influence sociopolitical attitudes and behavior, we posit that the manner in which individuals process these environmental inputs may be just as important as the inputs themselves (Gonzalez et al., 2015). Combined with the growing body of work connecting politics to behavioral genetics and physiology, we demonstrate olfaction should not be ignored in the examination of political attitudes and orientations.”

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“How Neuroscience Helps Us to Understand Human Nature” By Antonio Damasio [Brain World Magazine]

“How Neuroscience Helps Us to Understand Human Nature

April 14, 2020

Antonio Damasio

https://brainworldmagazine.com/neuroscience-helps-us-understand-human-nature

[This article was originally a lecture given at the Fourth International Brain Education Conference held at the United Nations. It has been edited for length.]

The area that I come from is that of neurology and neuroscience. My work is about trying to understand how the brain works. My hope is that some of the neuroscience that is taking place right now will help those of you who teach, and those of you who want to make each individual and the world as a whole better than they are today.

(…)

What has only been happening quite recently is that neuroscience can have a role in our culture. Neuroscience also talks about the fields of economics, moral behavior, politics, aesthetics, and education.

(…)

Most of what we know now from neuroscience that has an impact on society and culture actually comes from understanding human emotions, decision-making, and processes of consciousness.

(…)

Why such an interest in neuroscience now? Well, Largely for two reasons. One, there is a revolution going on in biology and two, there is an enormous rise in cognitive neuroscience.

The revolution in biology goes all the way back to 150 years ago and what has been learned since the days of Darwin. We now have a very clear idea of the structure of DNA. DNA is a fundamental element in the transmission of traits through genes. We know about the genetic code. We even know how it operates through molecular genetics and we have a fairly good idea of how the human genome is organized.

At the same time we have something very interesting happening in neuroscience: a hybrid of psychology and of large-scale systems neuroscience. New disciplines with funny names like experimental neuroanatomy, neurophysiology, neuropsychology, and last but not least, human neuroimaging, which has allowed us to have a clear view of the human brain in living individuals.

(…)

Living a life that has reduced stress and a great amount of happiness and harmony is also related. This is not just my desire to whistle in the dark and tell myself that because I’m active and I’m reasonably happy, I’m not going to have Alzheimer’s disease. Stress is inevitable if you live in a large urban center and have to cope with the reality of life. When you are under stress, you’re engaging a number of brain mechanisms that release certain hormones that are anything but helpful to us in our current cultural and historical situation.

They are the hormones that are connected with fear and with anger and they not only damage, for example, your arteries and the heart — bringing the possibility of hypertension — they also damage receptors that are on the surface of cells — nerve cells, neurons — in this region in particular.

(…)

The brain, the source of our memory, our mind, our behavior, and what we consider our self, is nonetheless an organ system that exists within the body. Because we pay so much attention to the brain and the mind, we start talking about brain and mind and behavior as if they were disembodied — as if they existed on some kind of vat and not inside the body. But from the point of view of evolution and biology, we have brains because we have bodies that the brains need to maintain.

(…)

The social structure in which the individual is inserted depends on the life of others. There is no such thing as leading an independent, individual life. From the get-go, we are born and are dependent on our parents. We clearly cannot walk out and run our lives, go to school and get to the university. It’s perfectly obvious that dependence is a state for human beings. They depend throughout life on others.

Spinoza was a major philosopher of the 17th century who I believe was one of the great forerunners of modern thinking in biology. The man could not know anything about the brain. Yet in the 1650s he was honing in on ideas that we now find perfectly sensible in terms of our modern understanding of life and of the brain in particular. He clearly identified, as a source of happiness and more importantly as a source of moral systems, the fact that you cannot be happy by yourself if you do not contribute to the happiness of others.

Here’s a man who was writing all this between Amsterdam and the Hague in the 17th century, and he has very interesting philosophies that were not at all connected with the Christian and Jewish roots that were his education. It is much more connected to other parts of the world where such thinking is more accepted. He had an interesting spiritual view of the world in which there was a God that was nature. He actually talked about God or nature as if they were virtually interchangeable.

How one leads one’s life, and the lives of others that surround one, can influence many diseases of the brain, all the way from stroke to Alzheimer’s disease.

I also wanted to say something specifically about emotions and feelings. Emotions and feelings are two different things.  Emotions turn out to be programs in our brain that we inherited through evolution that are devoted to the management of our life. They’re devoted to a process that is known as “homeostasis.”

Emotions are action programs. When you have fear, your face becomes startled, your body posture changes, your heart races, your gut contracts, your pulse races as well, your respiration changes and on and on. All of that is an action program that exists not just in our brain, but in the brains of many other species. Some of these programs go all the way down to invertebrates, to little creatures like a snail that do not even have a skeleton.

These programs achieve something very important. For example, fear allows you to take action, even without thinking, so that you can remove yourself from harm’s way. There are emotion programs that are negative on the surface, such as fear or anger, but that nonetheless are very positive in the outcome that they produced for us. Probably fear has saved more lives than any other emotion.

(…)

The very important thing to remember is that feelings are not those action programs. Feelings are what you perceive in your mind as a result of being in a state of emotion. Although in everyday language, we confuse one with the other, it’s important — and you have no idea how important this is for research strategy — it’s important to distinguish between an action program that does not even need to be conscious, that animals as have, from feelings. Feelings are conscious and feed this enormously beautiful edifice that we call culture.

(…)

The important thing for you to remember is that emotions are biological processes that are fundamentally about governing life, and administer either punishment or reward. If you’re happy, if you’re leading a great life, then you are administering rewards to yourself.”

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“Political Beliefs affect Compliance with COVID-19 Social Distancing Orders” By Marcus Painter & Tian Qiu

“Political Beliefs affect Compliance with COVID-19 Social Distancing Orders

Marcus Painter
Saint Louis University – Department of Finance

Tian Qiu
University of Kentucky – Gatton College of Business and Economics

Date Written: April 8, 2020

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3569098

Abstract

Social distancing is vital to mitigate the spread of the novel coronavirus. We use geolocation data to document that political beliefs present a significant limitation to the effectiveness of state-level social distancing orders. Residents in Republican counties are less likely to completely stay at home after a state order has been implemented relative to those in Democratic counties. We also find that Democrats are less likely to respond to a state-level order when it is issued by a Republican governor relative to one issued by a Democratic governor. These results are robust to controlling for other factors including time, geography, local COVID-19 cases and deaths, and other social distancing orders. We conclude that bipartisan support is essential to maximize the effectiveness of social distancing orders.

(…)

Potentially due to the recent increase in political polarization in the US (Boxell, Gentzkow, and Shapiro, 2020), there are concerns regarding how political beliefs would heterogeneously affect compliance with social distancing orders. For instance, a pastor from Arkansas told the Washington Post that “in your more politically conservative regions, closing is not interpreted as caring for you. It’s interpreted as liberalism, or buying into the hype.” The same report also documents that people from more liberal areas show more distrust in President Trump’s initial message and are more proactive about social distancing.1 The press has also highlighted that President Trump initially downplayed the severity of the coronavirus pandemic, suggesting that Republicans may not take social distancing orders seriously.

(…)

Next, analyzing differential responses to state policies, we find that Republican counties respond less to social distancing orders relative to Democratic counties. A one standard deviation increase in the county-level share of votes for Donald Trump in the 2016 election is associated with a 3pps lower percentage of people who stay at home after a state social distancing order relative to the average county. This finding is robust to subsample tests designed to adjust for county population and density.

Our final tests focus on whether the political affiliation of the governor announcing a state-level social distancing order affects compliance. If Republican’s lower response to social distancing orders is due to President Trump’s early dismissal of the pandemic, we may likewise find that Democrats’ response to orders may vary based on the political affiliation of who gives the order. We identify “aligned” counties as those with the same political affiliation as the governor and “misaligned” counties as those with conflicting political identities. We find that misaligned counties have a 2.9pps lower response to state policy social distancing orders relative to aligned counties. This difference is driven by misaligned democratic counties. These results suggest that the difference in compliance to social distancing orders based on partisanship is likely due to how credible residents find government officials and not an information transmission channel. Taken together, our results suggest that political polarization is a major roadblock on the path to full compliance with social distance measures. Republicans and misaligned Democrats are less likely to adhere to these orders, suggesting that bipartisan support for social distancing measures is a key factor in how quickly we can mitigate the spread of the novel coronavirus.”

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“Explaining the Emergence of Coronavirus Rituals” By Dimitris Xygalatas [Sapiens]

“Explaining the Emergence of Coronavirus Rituals

An anthropologist illuminates how both old and new rituals can provide a sense of comfort during times of uncertainty.

Dimitris Xygalatas is an anthropologist at the University of Connecticut.

https://www.sapiens.org/culture/coronavirus-rituals/

Responding to the coronavirus pandemic, most American universities have suspended all campus activities. Like millions of people all around the world, the lives of students all over the U.S. has changed overnight.

When I met my students for what was going to be our last in-class meeting of the academic year, I explained the situation and asked whether there were any questions. The first thing my students wanted to know was, “Will we be able to have a graduation ceremony?”

The fact that the answer was no was the most disappointing news for them.

As an anthropologist who studies ritual, hearing that question from so many students did not come as a surprise. The most important moments of our lives—from birthdays and weddings to college graduations and holiday traditions are marked by ceremony.

Rituals provide meaning and make those experiences memorable.

RITUAL AS A RESPONSE TO ANXIETY

Anthropologists have long observed that people across cultures tend to perform more rituals in times of uncertainty. Stressful events such as warfare, environmental threat, and material insecurity are often linked with spikes in ritual activity.

In a laboratory study in 2015, my colleagues and I found that under conditions of stress people’s behavior tends to become more rigid and repetitive—in other words, more ritualized.

The reason behind this propensity lies in our cognitive makeup. Our brain is wired to make predictions about the state of the world. It uses past knowledge to make sense of current situations. But when everything around us is changing, the ability to make predictions is limited. This causes many of us to experience anxiety.

That is where ritual comes in.

Rituals are highly structured. They require rigidity and must always be performed the “right” way. And they involve repetitition: The same actions are done again and again. In other words, they are predictable.

So even if they have no direct influence over the physical world, rituals provide a sense of control by imposing order on the chaos of everyday life.

It is of little importance whether this sense of control is illusory. What matters is that it is an efficient way of relieving anxiety.

(…)

By aligning behavior and creating shared experiences, rituals forge a sense of belonging and common identity that transforms individuals into cohesive communities. As field experiments show, participating in collective rituals increases generosity and even makes people’s heart rates synchronize.

TOOLS FOR RESILIENCE

It is not surprising, then, that people around the world are responding to the novel coronavirus crisis by creating new rituals.

Some of those rituals are meant to provide a sense of structure and reclaim the sense of control. For example, comedian Jimmy Kimmel and his wife encouraged those in quarantine to hold formal Fridays, dressing up for dinner even if they were alone.

(…)

People are coming up with a host of rituals to maintain a broader sense of human connection. In various European cities, people have started to go to their balconies at the same time every day to applaud health care workers for their tireless service.”

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“Why Social Distancing Feels So Strange” By George M. Leader [Sapiens]

“Why Social Distancing Feels So Strange

Humans are wired through millions of years of evolution to be social creatures. Faced with the COVID-19 virus, can we stay connected at a distance?

George M. Leader is a visiting assistant professor of anthropology at The College of New Jersey.

https://www.sapiens.org/evolution/covid-19-social-distancing/

Why does intentionally avoiding physical interaction with other humans during our daily routine feel so strange? The answer may lie in millions of years of behavioral and cultural evolution.

Since our evolutionary split from chimpanzees around 7 million years ago, humans have become increasingly dependent on complex social cooperation to survive and thrive. People sometimes think of humans as fundamentally selfish or violent, but anthropological research shows that we have evolved to work cooperatively and live in supportive communities.

Some of the earliest evidence for the importance of cooperative behavior in our species comes from a surprising event: the evolution of walking on two legs. Among the earliest evidence of bipedalism in the hominid linage is Sahelanthropus tchadensis, an upright ape-like primate from Chad dating to about 7 million years ago.

There are plenty of possible reasons for why our ancestors began to stand upright: It might have helped them regulate their body temperature, decrease their exposure to natural radiation from the sun, or increase their range of sight to watch for predators, among other reasons. But one hypothesis proposed by American biological anthropologist C. Owen Lovejoy in 1981 suggests that our ancestors freed up their hands for food sharing, specifically so that a male could carry food back to a female raising their young. This type of social cooperation is much more difficult for quadruped knuckle-walkers like chimpanzees.

(…)

By about 1.9 million years ago, around the time of the appearance of Homo erectus, cooperative behavior may have greatly increased again. By this time, females were facing significant challenges giving birth: Their upright bodies had a hard time delivering big-brained babies. This physical burden might have prompted dramatic shifts in hominin social structures, with a bigger division of labor between males and females, and additional collaboration between childrearing females.

Along with this change in society seems to have come stronger social supports within these communities. Physical evidence for this can be found in the femur of an 800,000-year-old H. erectus from Java. The femur was badly broken—an injury that almost certainly means a quick death for someone trying to live alone. But, incredibly, this fracture healed. That means the injured hominin received an enormous amount of support from their social group. Our ancestors really took care of one another.

(…)

As a result of humanity’s evolution for social tendencies, we have a problem: loneliness. This feeling may act as a driver to pull people back together, much as thirst makes people drink and hunger makes people eat. But it has negative consequences too.

People who perceive themselves as being without social support, living in a world without beneficial social interaction, can become irritable and depressed. Lonely people—and animals—tend to adopt more selfish behaviors, putting their own needs first. The more a human thinks there is a lack of beneficial social interaction around them—in other words, the lonelier they feel—the more they adopt these behaviors.

The consequences of isolation and the ensuing selfish behaviors can be high. Persistent loneliness can reduce our capacity to look after ourselves and even harm our physical health. According to one 2018 study, loneliness in people is associated with a 26 percent increase in the chance of premature death.

(…)

But can we entirely override our long-programmed interactive cooperation and replace it with distant cooperation? Will virtual interaction be a suitable replacement in fulfilling the need for physical interaction? It remains to be seen.”

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“Isabel Behncke: “El pánico al contagio, a lo infeccioso, es uno de nuestros miedos más atávicos” [La Tercera]

“Isabel Behncke: “El pánico al contagio, a lo infeccioso, es uno de nuestros miedos más atávicos”

https://www.latercera.com/la-tercera-domingo/noticia/isabel-behncke-el-panico-al-contagio-a-lo-infeccioso-es-uno-de-nuestros-miedos-mas-atavicos/CR5VVF4IKZG5DKGK5CD4OXJBNM/

La primatóloga chilena, eminente por sus investigaciones en el Congo acerca del comportamiento social de los bonobos, afirma que la biología evolutiva puede ayudarnos a comprender tanto las causas de la pandemia como la manera en que reaccionamos a ella. Doctorada en Oxford y hoy miembro del Centro de Investigación de la Complejidad Social de la UDD, Behncke propone enfrentar la crisis con “ojo de ecólogo”. Nos serviría para pensar mejor -y moralizar menos- sobre los sacrificios que debemos elegir para mitigar distintas fuentes de sufrimiento.

(…)

La discusión actual sobre las zoonosis −las enfermedades que pasan de animales a humanos−, y que si el virus provino de un murciélago o de un pangolín, y que no puede haber mercados de fauna silvestre como el de Wuhan, tiene que ver con advertencias que se venían haciendo hace rato sobre el consumo de biodiversidad y la salud de los ecosistemas. Y si seguimos destruyendo los hábitats naturales, hay muchos animales más para futuras zoonosis. Esta pandemia, ciertamente, no va a ser la última.

(…)

La cuenta gigantesca que vamos a pagar ahora es el precio de no entender cómo funcionan esas barreras. Quizás porque ya no nos sentíamos parte de la red de la vida que compartimos con otros seres. Como dice Harari en el título de su libro, nos veíamos pasando de animales a dioses. Ya estábamos pensando en Marte, nos íbamos de acá. De algún modo, perdimos el respeto por nuestra casa. Y ha sido muy impresionante que un simple virus nos devuelva a la naturaleza en tan pocas semanas. Gastamos trillones de dólares en sistemas de defensa y nos tiene de rodillas una hebra de ARN.

(…)

Es que ahí hay una ironía profundísima: el virus nos obliga a ir en contra de lo que somos para poder protegernos de él. En ese sentido, uno podría decir que este es un virus brillante. A mí me tocó vivir en el Congo lo del ébola, que era mucho más mortífero, pero no tan contagioso, por su método de transmisión. El Covid-19, al matar poco y no tan rápido, se aprovecha muy bien de nuestro comportamiento social. Es como si dijera: “Yo sé que estos animales son incapaces de no interactuar entre ellos durante 14 días, están hechos para eso, así que me voy a quedar aquí piola y dejarlos hacer lo que siempre hacen para pasarme de un humano a otro”. Es un gran estratega, por lo menos. Y otro aspecto que la biología evolutiva puede ayudar a entender son los fenómenos de contagio a través de redes de interacciones. No solo de contagio biológico, también de ideas y de emociones. Como el pánico.

(…)

¿Dirías que la competencia entre la razón y el pánico pone a prueba qué tan sapiens somos en estas circunstancias?

Es que la dicotomía entre emoción y razón no nos ha servido de mucho, porque ser sapiens también es tener emoción, no las puedes disociar. Y si bien hay que decir con mucho énfasis que, por favor ,no cedamos al pánico, porque nos cierra cognitivamente y trae consecuencias graves, reconocer el rol del miedo en nuestra historia es útil para entender lo que nos está pasando. El miedo existe porque ha servido para algo. Y el pánico al contagio, a lo infeccioso, es uno de nuestros miedos más atávicos. En parte, estamos vivos porque tenemos ancestros que alguna vez vieron a alguien muy enfermo y dijeron “uy, qué horror”, y se alejaron. O sea, es muy comprensible que el coronavirus nos aterre más allá del cálculo racional. Porque si fuéramos tan sapiens, tendríamos una planilla Excel en la cabeza que nos diría que es mucho más probable morir de enfermedades cardiovasculares. Y les tendríamos terror a las hamburguesas. Pero como arrastramos miedos atávicos, no tenemos los miedos bien calibrados. Les tenemos más terror a los aviones que a los autos, lo que estadísticamente es absurdo. Y le tenemos miedo a la sangre, a las arañas, a las culebras, mucho más que a un auto. Así que sentir este pánico al contagio es un poco inevitable. Pero tenemos que ser conscientes de él y regularlo, porque darle rienda suelta es peligroso.

(…)

La experiencia, al menos, dice que las épocas de desastres muestran lo mejor y lo peor de la naturaleza humana. Lo que pasa es que la dicotomía entre cooperación y conflicto también es un poco engañosa. Las sociedades operan en muchos niveles de organización −el individuo, la familia, el barrio, la empresa, la nación, la sociedad global, etc.− y los ecólogos te van a decir que, para observar los fenómenos de la naturaleza es clave entender que en todos esos niveles hay cooperación y conflicto al mismo tiempo. Tú mismo eres un ecosistema -en tu cuerpo hay más bacterias que células humanas− dentro del cual hay muchos conflictos. Ahora, lo que sí tiende a ocurrir ante amenazas graves es que aumenta la cooperación en los niveles altos, los grandes bandos se agrupan. Y en las últimas semanas han surgido ejemplos de cooperación a gran escala, de coordinación colectiva, bastante interesantes. ¿Cuándo fue la última vez que la humanidad se agrupó bajo un mismo propósito, con la mayor parte de los humanos al tanto de eso? Pero también han saltado a la vista los conflictos de interés. Y la polarización política, por supuesto. Yo creo que nos serviría mucho, para tener una conversación más amigable, observar lo que está pasando con ojo de ecólogo, viendo sistemas complejos en acción.

(…)

Jonathan Haidt, un psicólogo social al que es muy interesante seguir, cree que ahora vamos a cooperar más porque en los desastres aparece lo mejor de las personas, pero también está diciendo que estas situaciones incrementan el moral disgusto, el asco moral. Así como los miedos atávicos, la emoción del asco es parte de nuestro repertorio evolutivo. Y existe el asco físico ante lo que percibimos como cochinada, como las fecas, pero también tenemos asco moral, y eso es lo que está aflorando en muchas de estas peleas. Hay gente que dice “usted es un asco, quiere salvar la economía y no le importa la vida”, o al revés, “usted piensa en los enfermos, pero no le importa la cantidad de gente que va a quedar sin sustento, qué aberración”. Ese sentimiento de repulsión moral es muy humano.”

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“Why Republicans Are Less Likely to View the Coronavirus as a Serious Threat” By Nigel Barber [The Human Beast/Psychology Today]

“Why Republicans Are Less Likely to View the Coronavirus as a Serious Threat

Survey results demonstrate that the two parties view the pandemic differently.

Nigel Barber Ph.D.
The Human Beast

https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/the-human-beast/202003/why-republicans-are-less-likely-view-the-coronavirus-serious-threat

Political conservatives fear disease as more of a threat and are more fearful of dirt and contamination in a variety of contexts from using public restrooms to eating unfamiliar foods (1). They have greater disgust sensitivity. This phenomenon is interestingly demonstrated by the fact that conservatives are four times more likely to have a mudroom in their homes compared to liberals (2).

Conservatives manifest a high degree of submission to authority figures such as the head of state. They are deferential towards authoritarian leaders who tell them what they want to hear (according to research on Right Wing Authoritarianism, a personality trait very correlated with political conservatism (1). Perhaps the tendency to credit the views of authority figures in this instance is stronger than fear of infection.

The fact that this is a new threat may also be significant because conservatives are more closed to new experiences as they adhere to long-established social conventions (1).

The coronavirus may be interpreted differently by Republicans and Democrats because they belong to different demographic groups. Republicans tend to be rural, older, groups that may be less receptive to information on novel threats. The coronavirus is also more likely to strike in cities because they are travel hubs and reservoirs of infection.

But it is hard to avoid two probable explanations. The first is that liberals and conservatives are exposed to differing information pools. This is often because their social media news feeds, particularly those on popular sites such as Facebook, or Twitter, feed them with the sort of news that they enjoy reading.”

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Learning from Animals by Antoine Doré & Jérôme Michalon | About: Dominique Guillo, Les Fondements oubliés de la culture. Une approche écologique, Seuil, 2019 [La Vie des Idées]

“Learning from Animals

About: Dominique Guillo, Les Fondements oubliés de la culture. Une approche écologique, Seuil

________________________________

by Antoine Doré & Jérôme Michalon, 19 March

translated by Michael C. Behrent

https://booksandideas.net/Learning-from-Animals.html

https://www.amazon.fr/fondements-oubli%C3%A9s-culture-Dominique-Guillo/dp/2021383555

Neither the social sciences nor the natural sciences are currently invested in studying the cultural relations between humans and animals. If we are to understand them, we must reconsider all our categories, and free ourselves once and for all from the nature-culture divide.

To use the relationship between humans and animals to rethink culture: this is the goal of Dominique Guillo’s book. A sociologist and research director at the CNRS, Guillo offers a structured and thorough synthesis of more than a decade of research. A specialist in the history and epistemology of social sciences as they relate to life sciences, Guillo maintains that the way in which these two disciplinary domains have approached culture suffers from an identity bias, which prevents them from conceiving of the existence of cultures constructed by and between different animal species.

The identity bias diagnosis

Guillo devotes the book’s first three chapters to establishing this epistemological diagnosis. He gets the ball rolling with the natural sciences (behavioral ecology, ethology, and neo-Darwinian biology), in a first chapter that proposes a highly pedagogical synthesis of research from the past forty years on animal sociability and culture. First, we encounter the neo-Darwinians’ unusual definition of the social (i.e., behavior that seeks to perpetuate the genes of individuals other than their producers); then, an ethological definition of culture understood as a set of traits transmitted by social learning, rather than by the genetic mechanisms of natural selection.

(…)

Guillo thus calls for a better connection between the social and the natural sciences, as they seem to suffer from the same problem: their inability of studying culture except in terms of animal groups belonging to the same species (whether human or non-human). They suffer from a tropism or identity bias, apparent both in their research’s focus (intraspecific and intragroup relationships) and results (culture takes place solely between similar entities and accentuates their similarities to one another). Thus, according to Guillo, these “classic” approaches to culture proceed from (i.e., postulate) and produce (i.e., accentuate) shared identity. In a world in which understanding the interdependence of creatures as different as earthworms, whales, and molecules is becoming more and more crucial, identity bias constitutes a major epistemological obstacle.

(…)

This diagnosis of a forgetting of culture’s foundations, which is itself based on several omissions, is accompanied by over-adherence to the epistemology of the behavioral sciences. The sole definition of culture used and discussed in this book is borrowed from this discipline, as is Guillo’s key concept (social learning) and the regular appeal to “parsimony.” Furthermore, it is the social sciences rather than the behavioral sciences that the author holds responsible for the impossibility of a synthesis in the study of interspecific cultures. In contrast to what they assert, the social sciences are most inclined to validate the nature-culture dualism and the boundaries between disciplines, whether because of ideology or disciplinary loyalty. Conversely, sociobiology, behavioral ecology, and evolutionary psychology, by considering humans as one living being among others, abolish the frontiers between these dualisms and appear, in Guillo’s account, as progressive theories, while the social sciences are noticeable only for their conservatism. He notes, for example, that by restricting cultural phenomena to identity, the social sciences risk fueling the rise of “’identitarian’ political discourses” (p. 302).”

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“3 Reasons for the Rise of Fake News | Cailin O’Connor explains the shift in American politics By Walter Veit [Science and Philosophy, Psychology Today]

“3 Reasons for the Rise of Fake News

Cailin O’Connor explains the shift in American politics.

By Walter Veit

https://medium.com/science-and-philosophy/3-reasons-for-the-rise-of-fake-news-f0095c652533

Walter Veit: You recently published The Misinformation Age together with your husband and fellow philosopher James Owen Weatherall. What motivated you to write this book?

Cailin O’Connor: Around the time of the Brexit vote and the 2016 election in the US, I was working on several projects in formal social epistemology — using models to represent scientific communities. Social epistemology puts a big emphasis on the importance of social connections to knowledge creation. At the same time, we were seeing some serious issues related to public misinformation through social media. Many responses to this misinformation seemed to focus on the role of individual psychology and reasoning in the spread of false belief. For instance, confirmation bias, where individuals trust evidence that supports an already-held belief, is obviously relevant. But we think that understanding social ties and behavior is even more important to understanding false belief. For that reason, we wanted to bring some of the most important lessons from social epistemology, and from models of scientific knowledge, to bear on these social problems.

Walter Veit: How do you explain that despite all the evidence, demonstrably false beliefs are able to spread and persist?

Cailin O’Connor: There are many reasons that false beliefs spread, often in spite of good evidence refuting them. One reason is that we all are used to trusting other humans as sources of information. This is, to some degree, a necessity. We certainly cannot go do the work ourselves to guarantee that all our beliefs are good ones. Even when we look to scientific journals for evidence supporting our beliefs, we are ultimately trusting others (the scientists who share their data). And sometimes even these good sources lead us astray. The social sharing of data is powerful, but always opens the possibility that falsity can spread. In addition, there are various social biases that can make us more or less likely to share false beliefs. For example, in our book, we talk about the role of conformity bias — when individuals want to conform their actions or beliefs to their peers — in sometimes preventing the spread of useful or accurate knowledge. Our heuristics for social trust, such as placing more trust in those who are more similar to ourselves, or who share our beliefs, can mislead.

(…)

This interview originally appeared in Psychology Today [Apr 17, 2019]”

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“A Global Health Crisis and the Storytelling Brain; the brain may have evolved for entertainment” by Michael Karson [Feeling Our Way | Psychology Today]

“A Global Health Crisis and the Storytelling Brain

The brain may have evolved for entertainment.

Michael Karson, Ph.D., is a professor of psychology at the University of Denver.

(…)

The brain is thus like the peacock’s tail, which evolved for its appeal to peahens, who presumably evolved increasingly discriminatory preferences for tails. But with brains, both sexes put selection pressures on each other to tell better stories. The brain being built for storytelling and story-appreciating rather than for rational thought or for remembering solutions to geographical problems explains a lot of our difficulties with rational thought and memory and turns our cognitive biases on their heads from geographical pathologies to reproductive strategies. Our poor memories, in this view, are not deficits in brain functioning any more than creative license in rewriting history is a deficit of Shakespeare’s in his Richard III or Henry V. It’s not a problem reproductively that we sacrifice accuracy for the story we are telling ourselves; the story is all.

(…)

 We are not animals built for truth-seeking but for face-saving and entertaining. To deploy critical thinking during a story is like interrupting a comedian and asking whether she is really married when she is trying to tell a joke about husbands. Also, of course, we were built to live in small groups, and in a social sphere of 90 people, you can just all agree on whom to take with a grain of salt when they are making claims about reality. Learning to read strangers was largely irrelevant.

This whole truth-seeking enterprise called science has been a remarkable success, responsible for living past forty in large measure, and for creating the kind of intellectual environment that gave rise to Netflix (which, I note, capitalizes on how our brains are built to appreciate stories). But science is an unexpected benefit of big brains, not their purpose. Brains were not built to do math any more than backs were built to sit all day at a computer or arms were built for throwing sliders. You can sit or throw baseballs until you injure yourself, but you can only forego storytelling for about a day before you fall asleep and start dreaming. Dreaming is the primary outlet of the storytelling brain, like having your own blog every night.”

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“The Problem with the Way Scientists Study Reason” by Sacha Altay [Nautilus]

“The Problem with the Way Scientists Study Reason

Psychologists studying reasoning extensively rely on logic and philosophy, and neglect psychology’s more natural ally: biology.

Sacha Altay is a Ph.D. student in cognitive science at École Normale Supérieure in Paris. He works on argumentation, misinformation, and how we evaluate communicated information. Follow him on Twitter @Sacha_Altay.

http://nautil.us/blog/-the-problem-with-the-way-scientists-study-reason

(…)

Ethologists evaluate their experimental paradigm, or set-up, in light of its ecological validity, or how well it matches natural surroundings. An animal’s true habitat, and its evolutionary history, have always centered the discussion. In contrast, most experimental paradigms in human reasoning, such as the Cognitive Reflexion Test (CRT) or syllogisms, are based on logic or mathematics.

(…)

Psychologists studying reasoning extensively rely on logic and philosophy, and neglect psychology’s more natural ally: biology. The neglect stems in part from the ease with which humans can seem to understand one another. Our psychology is equipped with specialized cognitive systems, like theory of mind, that help us negotiate social life. We spontaneously attribute intentions, reasons, and beliefs to others. These heuristics help us to predict behavior, but they also parasitize our scientific understanding of the mind, blinding us to the necessity of using biology when studying ourselves.

(…)

Humans are, in other words, too familiar with one another. Fundamental laws of biology, like evolution by natural selection, are falsely believed to have weak constraints on human psychology—particularly for high-level cognitive functions, like reasoning. But the human brain, just like the turtle brain, has been shaped by millions of years of evolution. Reason is unlikely to have escaped its influence.

(…)

Our big brains likely evolved to solve tasks related to social interactions, not abstract logical problems. The Cosmides-Tooby selection task was ecologically valid; the first one wasn’t. Using the wrong experimental design, whether it’s the task itself or the stimuli, exposes researchers to many problems—the main one being that the results become hard to interpret. You don’t know if what you found reveals an interesting feature of the human mind—such as that human deductive reasoning is biased in the classical Wason selection task—or if it’s just a methodological artifact because the stimuli were not ecological.

(…)

But Hugo Mercier, who I work with at École Normale Supérieure, and Dan Sperber recently ventured there in their 2017 book, The Enigma of Reason. According to them, reasoning is not a capacity to correct false intuitions or solve problems. Nature is full of problems that organisms have to solve (like finding a mate, or food for dinner) and they constantly update their priors, or beliefs, about their environment in a broadly rational fashion.”

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“Does Science Lead to Atheism? Alex Rosenberg discusses his views on atheism, science, and Bas van Fraassen By Walter Veit [Science and Philosophy | Psychology Today]

“Does Science Lead to Atheism?

Alex Rosenberg discusses his views on atheism, science, and Bas van Fraassen.

Walter Veit

https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/blog/science-and-philosophy/202003/does-science-lead-atheism

(…)

Walter Veit: In your book The Atheist’s Guide to Reality, you argue that there is not much reason to provide arguments against God’s existence. Nevertheless, you don’t shy away from debating creationists. Did you regret your discussion with William Lane Craig? I imagine that you might have received a lot of reactions from committed theists. Did you get any positive reactions or were you able to convince anyone of a naturalist worldview?

Alex Rosenberg: I said I didn’t need to provide arguments against god’s existence because there were already so many good ones, and lots of evidence against god’s existence too. The aim of the book was to sketch out what else we atheists should endorse, if we endorse atheism owing to scientific considerations. I debated Craig for the money and the chance to plug my book. I only wish I had taken a more mocking tone and had a lighter touch. There were some non-theists in the crowd, and I think I did move one or two people who reached me afterward by email.”

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Ernst Haeckel’s ‘Kant Problem’: metaphysics, science, and art” by Stefan Forrester [Biology & Philosophy, 2020]

“Ernst Haeckel’s ‘Kant Problem’: metaphysics, science, and art

Stefan Forrester

Biology & Philosophy volume 35, Article number: 27 (2020)

Published: 05 March 2020

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10539-020-09744-4

Abstract

Ernst Haeckel (1834–1919) has become famous, and perhaps infamous, for many reasons. Presently, he is probably most widely-known for his paintings of plants and animals in his very popular book, Art Forms in Nature, originally collected and published in 1904. However, in addition to Haeckel’s art, he is also well-known for his advocacy of Darwinism and Social Darwinism, for first coining the term ‘ecology,’ for having his work utilized by Nazi pseudo-scientists (Dombrowksi in Tech Commun Q 12:303–319, 2003), and for famously (perhaps fraudulently) producing drawings of animal and human embryos so as to confirm his biogenetic law (Gould in Nat Hist 109:44–45, 2000). Something Haeckel is not as well-known for today is the fact that he seemed to be both a strenuous critic of the metaphysical and moral philosophies of Immanuel Kant and yet also something of an adherent to Kant’s aesthetic views. In terms of metaphysics and morality, Haeckel sought to exorcise Kant’s ideas as much as possible from twentieth century views on science, humanity, and nature; however, in terms of aesthetic theory, Haeckel seemed to embrace a distinctly Kantian approach to art and artworks. This essay proposes to: (1) carefully examine Haeckel’s refutations of some of Kant’s central metaphysical concepts, (2) explore some of the, arguably Kantian, assumptions underlying Haeckel’s approach to aesthetics and his artistic practice, and (3) combine these two lines of inquiry into a portrait of Haeckel’s mind as one that is conflicted about the role Kantian philosophy, and more specifically Kantian noumena, should play in twentieth century science and art. This unresolved tension in Haeckel’s mind regarding Kant’s noumenal realm is what I propose to call his ‘Kant Problem’.

(…)

Haeckel’s refutations of Kantian metaphysics and morality

Ernst Haeckel had a complex relationship with the philosophy of Immanuel Kant. While Haeckel respected Kant’s thinking and his position as a highly important figure in the history of ideas, he also wanted very much to dispute several of Kant’s central philosophical claims. Haeckel wanted to do away with much of Kant’s epistemology and metaphysics, and most of his ethical theory as well. It is clear that Haeckel studied Kant during his beginning years as a professor at Jena in the early 1860s. Robert Richards in his book The Tragic Sense of Life: Ernst Haeckel and the Struggle Over Evolutionary Thought cites reliable evidence that Haeckel read Kant’s works with Kuno Fischer (1824–1907), the then rector of the University at Jena, and that Haeckel was also reading the works of Alexander von Humboldt (1769–1859), a renowned Kant and Schelling scholar who worked to suffuse the sciences with philosophical ideals, much like Haeckel himself would do later in his career (2008). The important difference being that Humboldt sought to conjoin modern science with Kantian-style metaphysical concepts, whereas Haeckel thought that Kant’s views were incompatible with the progress of scientific knowledge and with a scientific worldview.

In his own philosophical works some 35 years later, such as The Wonders of Life: A Popular Study in Philosophical Biology (1905), and The Riddle of the Universe at the Close of the Nineteenth Century (1901), Haeckel advocated vehemently for a kind of philosophical monism. A monism which set nature, i.e., scientifically-analyzable nature, as the one and only component of existence that encompasses and expresses all the properties of the universe, both physical and mental. Haeckel says clearly in Riddle of the Universe, “We adhere firmly to the pure, unequivocal monism of Spinoza: Matter, or infinitely extended substance, and spirit (or energy), or sensitive and thinking substance, are the two fundamental attributes or principal properties of the all-embracing divine essence of the world, the universal substance” (pp. 33–34).Footnote3 The main idea of monism is generally that there is only one substance that has properties: nature. Moreover, for philosophers like Spinoza, this substance is also identical to God, they are one in the same thing, the substance in which all the properties of the universe inhere. Haeckel, interestingly, also refers to his version of monism as a thoroughgoing ‘practical materialism.’Footnote4 The most controversial consequence of this view is that it eradicates the metaphysical possibility for the supernatural. If we are to conceive of God, souls, angels, the afterlife, etc., as essentially a different kind of substance than nature, then they are all rendered philosophically impossible by Haeckel’s monism; partly because God et al. are defined as being non-natural, which means that by definition they cannot exist apart from nature, and also because non-natural entities are not subject to scientific analysis. On the other hand, the philosophical benefits of monism, Haeckel believed, were many. First, scientific monism finally rids the world of all forms of superstition and supernatural religious beliefs. Haeckel thought that this result would be a great boon to humanity, he says quite bluntly in The Wonders of Life, “For my part, I hold that superstition [here he is discussing the belief in miracles] and unreason are the worst enemies of the human race, while science and reason are its greatest friends” (p. 56). Second, Haeckel saw monism as laying the philosophical groundwork for a fully scientized understanding of both the external world we explore with our senses and the internal world we explore with our minds, both of which are, simply, nature. Furthermore, Haeckel claims that all of nature is governed by rigid, universal laws, and that only science and the scientific method allow us to discover these laws. Finally, Haeckel contends that non-Monist philosophical systems, like dualism, only serve to confuse and conflate the true nature of reality and lead us to make distinctions, e.g. between the body and the mind, where none actually exist.

(…)

Haeckel’s rejection of Kant’s metaphysical views comes from two directions: (1) Since the knowledge of noumena must be a priori and since there is no way for science, which is based solely on knowledge from sensation, i.e., a posteriori knowledge, to prove the existence of a priori knowledge, we must reject noumena if we are to maintain a scientific worldview. (2) If we were to accept the existence of noumena, that would amount to a kind of dualism about the mind and external reality, which is tantamount to just another form of spiritual superstition; a superstition that is philosophically grounded instead of faith-based, but a superstition nonetheless. Haeckel’s argument for his first thrust against Kant is basically that what Kant understood as reason, or the pure a priori faculty of the mind, is in fact something that physiological studies of the brain in Haeckel’s era has explained in purely scientific terms. Namely, that the vast collection of neurons in the brain are the physical basis for consciousness, and that the uniquely human faculty for understanding what appear to be a priori truths and concepts actually has an a posteriori basis in terms of how the human brain evolved. If we understand the a posteriori history of the human brain’s development, Haeckel argues, we will then be able to dispense with the idea that our perceived faculty for a priori truths (i.e., reason) is anything more than a scientifically measurable, a posteriori, phenomenon:

Kant regarded this highest faculty of the human mind as innate, and made no inquiry into its development, its physiological mechanism, and its anatomic organ, the brain….it was impossible to have at that time a correct idea of its physiological function. What seems to us to-day to be an innate capacity, or an a priori quality, of our phronema, is really a phylogenetic result of a long series of brain-adaptations, formed by a posteriori sense-perceptions and experiences (1905, p. 69).

Haeckel argues for the second prong of his attack by stating simply that any appeal to a reality beyond what can be perceived by the senses amounts to superstition regardless of whether it comes from a religion or a powerful philosophical thinker like Kant, “The sense world (mundus sensibilis) lies open to our senses and our intellect, and is empirically knowable within certain limits. But behind it [according to Kant] there is the spiritual world (mundus intelligibilis) of which we know, and can know, nothing; its existence (as the thing in itself) is, however, assured by our emotional needs. In this transcendental world dwells the power of mysticism” (1905, p. 68). In this quote I think we see Haeckel distilling down his frustrations with Kant’s metaphysics quite sharply. Haeckel implies here that Kant’s arguments for the noumenal realm amount to some sort of emotional appeal, or the idea that it is only as a result of our psychological need for a deeper level of reality beyond the phenomenal, that we are tempted to believe in a ‘mystical’ transcendental world at all. Nevertheless, since this emotional need is very strong, it manifests itself as very powerful religious, spiritual, and mystical beliefs and practices, all of which I think Haeckel would classify as forms of superstition. Kant’s views leave the door open for a spiritual realm that is distinct from the phenomenal world that comes to us through the senses and is thereby impenetrable to the methods and modalities of science. Accepting this “mundus intelligibilis” as an integral part of reality is, I think for Haeckel, a basic philosophical mistake that is tantamount to embracing superstition.

Moving now to Haeckel’s criticisms of Kant’s moral theory, those objections emerge directly from his criticisms of Kant’s metaphysics. Haeckel argues that once Kant left open the door to the “mundus intelligibilis” in his metaphysical theory, it was easier for him to import some traditional ethical assumptions through that door to function as the basis for his moral views, namely the notions of God, free will, and the immortality of the soul, i.e., Kant’s three archetypal ideas of reason. Thus the foundations of Kant’s moral theory, says Haeckel, rest on that same fundamental mistake of affirming the existence of the noumenal realm in addition to the phenomenal realm (the realm of science). Haeckel bemoaned the fact that most other philosophers and theologians in his day were still in Kant’s camp when it came to morals, stating, “They affirm, with Kant, that the moral world is quite independent of the physical, and is subject to very different laws; hence a man’s conscience, as the basis for his moral life, must also be quite independent of our scientific knowledge of the world, and must be based rather on his religious faith” (1901, p. 348). In this passage we begin to see a kind of crystallization of Haeckel’s fears about Kant’s decision to accept the noumena as real. As a result of these fears Haeckel’s purely philosophical objections to the phenomena-noumena distinction were not altogether well-formed. He objected to the noumena mostly on the grounds that they conflicted with his preferred worldview of monism. Haeckel did not necessarily attack the noumena on logical grounds as being self-contradictory or incoherent, thus he could not advocate for their elimination from metaphysics based only on reasoning. But now we see Haeckel showing us the damaging results of allowing the noumenal level of reality into the world. Basically, all of what Haeckel saw as the destructive impact of religion and religious belief was facilitated by the noumena. The most important areas of human experience: knowledge, morality, truth, and reality all become different sorts of divine mysteries because of the noumena. Moreover, the scientific study of nature (the phenomena) becomes inherently secondary and limited compared to the conceptual understanding of the noumena. In other words, with the noumena allowed into our worldview, science can play no role in some important areas of human experience, like morality. Instead, science must remain silent, and clearly, Haeckel wishes to argue that this result is detrimental to humanity.

Lastly, while still addressing Kantian morality, Haeckel repeats his strategy of attacking Kant’s views both philosophically and scientifically. In The Wonders of Life Haeckel claims that modern science has understood the human brain to such a degree that Kant’s appeal to the unique human faculty of reason no longer holds any weight. By studying the brain, science has rendered what Kant thought was a noumenal entity (reason) into a phenomenal entity (the brain). Therefore, there is no longer any need for noumena. Likewise, in Riddle of the Universe, Haeckel asserts that various modern sciences have either explained or dispelled all of Kant’s noumenal ethical concepts. Haeckel says that modern anthropology has “…dissipated [the] pretty dream…” (1901, p. 349) that all humans have an identical set of ethical faculties because they are based on the universality of reason. The study of other cultures has told us clearly, Haeckel argues, that peoples and cultures differ widely on what constitutes a good ethical person, and what constitutes good ethical judgment. He also claims that “comparative and genetic psychology” has shown that there cannot be a soul and that modern physiology has proven the impossibility of free will (Haeckel 1901, p. 349). Although Haeckel does not fill in much scientific detail about these claims, he clearly sees them as decisive arguments against Kant’s moral theory. The final blow from modern science that Haeckel deals to Kantian morality is that its central tenet, namely Kant’s much vaunted categorical imperative,Footnote5 has been replaced by the biological understanding of human beings as social creatures. Without going into too much detail, Kant thought that the categorical imperative could be proven using a “transcendental deduction of pure reason (see especially Part I, Book I, Chapter I of the Critique of Practical Reason). This deduction, being transcendental and not empirical, involves several noumenal ideas, such as the notion of the “good will”, “autonomy”, and “freedom of the will” to name a few. Hence, when Haeckel says, “[This]…shows that the feeling of [moral] duty does not rest on an illusory ‘categorical imperative,’ but on the solid ground of social instinct, as we find in the case of all social animals” (1901, p. 350), he is casting serious doubt on Kant’s use of noumenal ideas, going so far as to call them “illusory” in this context. So here, just as Haeckel earlier dispensed with Kant’s notion of the noumenal mind with neurology, he dispenses with Kant’s noumenal ethical notions with anthropology.”

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“The Taxonomy of Human Evolved Psychological Adaptations” By Niruban Balachandran, Daniel Glass [The Evolution Institute]

“The Taxonomy of Human Evolved Psychological Adaptations

By Niruban Balachandran, Daniel Glass

https://evolution-institute.org/the-taxonomy-of-human-evolved-psychological-adaptations/

This article accompanies a This View of Life Podcast with PsychTable co-founders Niruban Balachandran and Daniel Glass. Listen here: https://pod.link/1484281813

In 1992, the evolutionary psychologists Leda Cosmides and John Tooby predicted, “Just as one can now flip open Gray’s Anatomy to any page and find an intricately detailed depiction of some part of our evolved species-typical morphology, we anticipate that in 50 or 100 years one will be able to pick up an equivalent reference work for psychology and find in it detailed information-processing descriptions of the multitude of evolved species-typical adaptations of the human mind, including how they are mapped onto the corresponding neuroanatomy and how they are constructed by developmental programs.”

Classification systems like the one Cosmides and Tooby envisaged indicate the maturity of a scientific discipline because they enable the organization and labeling of entities under observation (i.e., taxa). Like chemistry’s Periodic Table of Elements, zoology’s Linnean classification system, and psychiatry’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the evolutionary behavioral sciences were still in need of a taxonomy of evolved psychological adaptations (EPAs)—which are defined as cognitive, emotional, behavioral, or perceptual traits that were functionally designed by the process of evolution by selection—such as the eyeblink, thirst, and startle responses.

However, by the start of the 21st century, evolutionary behavioral scientists had already proposed and amassed an international stock of hundreds of EPAs. Furthermore, other factors signaled that the timing was right for establishing a classification system for EPAs: an abundance of affordable global computing power, the explosion in web-based scientific collaboration and social networking, increasingly testable hypotheses, exciting new research methods from advanced neuroimaging to behavioral genetics, and the international emergence of a core of young, transdisciplinary researchers. Therefore, finding it unnecessary to wait until 2042 or 2092, Niruban proposed and published a taxonomy of human EPAs in 2011. We then teamed up in 2012, co-founding and announcing the launch of PsychTable.org together. It was a terrific moment.

(…)

As E.O. Wilson wrote, “To maintain the species indefinitely, we are compelled to drive toward total knowledge, right down to the levels of the neuron and the gene. When we have progressed enough to explain ourselves in these mechanistic terms, and the social sciences come to full flower, the result might be hard to accept.” Therefore, to address this imperative, our goals are fourfold:

1 – Increase awareness of the role evolution has played in shaping our minds, brain, and behavior.

2 – Create a simple and intuitive taxonomy of proposed and supported EPAs.

3 – Help identify gaps in current EPA research.

4 – Provide a reference tool for scientists, students, and laypeople studying human behavior.

(…)

https://www.psychtable.org/ is, therefore, an open-science taxonomy devoted to uncovering the richness and complexity of our evolved human behavior. We hope it will help contribute to a fuller understanding of ourselves and our world. As W.D. Hamilton put it, “The tabula of human nature was never rasa, and is now being read.”