Let me say flat out, there is no such thing as a moral sense. Human behavior - as with all life - is driven by nothing beyond a natural instinct to take care of one’s survival both personal and genetic. This care includes me and you exploiting anyone who can help assure that survival or killing anyone who threatens it - with the caveat, of course, that we don’t want to take any action with a high risk of retaliation. Now when I say “we” here I am also mindful that, as I said before, women may be less prone to aggression than men - but even that difference is not evolutionary psychology, it is just evolution at the most basic level of competition we share with many organisms.

In the course of this competition, a few of us might unite - only as long as it is mutually beneficial - against others. Typically, this unity is brutal with no compunctions or empathy for the opponent. In-group/out-group moral sense is a fundamental problem with the whole idea of a system for morality that you have so far avoided addressing. That kind of moral sense actually supports wars - both imperialistic and ideological! We may also join, for mutual benefit, under the rules of an economic system. But, again, both of these are deliberate social contracts.

Harsh penalties are meted out to those (often disenfranchised in the system) who violate these contracts. I think you would be hard pressed to find any evidence of moral sense or empathy in the punishments humans have come up with (from prison time to stoning to execution to genocidal sanctions to bombing into dust). Tellingly, such behavior is touted as examples of “good”, rather than “evil”.

Besides no evidence for any kind of “moral sense” in human behavior, I think the final blow to the idea is that “moral sense” is an unscientific term: it cannot be shown to exist because, quite simply, it cannot be measured.

If you read my articles on character education, and delved into the references I linked to, I think you can understand why I would have the same problems with “moral sense” as I do with “character”. Real qualities of things can be measured. Character has long since been disqualified as a legitimate way of thinking about a person by actual psychologists. Try the following quote, replacing the word “character” with “a moral sense”.

“Within professional psychology and the therapeutic establishment, the concept of character was long ago rejected in favor of the concept of personality. The problem with “character” was that it bore ethical and metaphysical implications that professional psychology could not rationally explain or justify. Character, after all, is either good or bad, whereas personality is fascinating or boring, forceful or weak, attractive or unattractive.”

No good or bad to it.

“Noell, you are going to dismiss the entire bulk of my comment by criticizing the link I provided to an EP critique as dated? Moreover, claiming it is dated is your only refutation?”

No. I also said it was inaccurate and it oversimplified processes. I first noted that it was inaccurate before I ever noticed that disclaimer and the date.

“In any case, I stand by my summary and the 90% of my comment which is not based at all on the one article you took aim at as a straw man.”

If the article was a straw man, it was a straw man that you set up. You ended your post with the link, which you said would “jumpstart” the discussion. How can you say that I “took aim at it as a strawman?” You are backtracking.

Besides, when I see a post with links to Wikipedia and an article, I assume that the article is the expert source and the main piece of evidence for me to consider. I have learned from personal experience not to rely on Wikipedia as the source for controversial arguments. I have quoted Wikipedia and later found it to be wrong. I only use it now for inconsequential information (like the bio’s on the scientists above). So when I saw your three sources, I disregarded Wikipedia and went to what I thought was the main one, or the one which you said was supposed to “jumpstart the discussion.”

When I realized that even this article predates almost twenty years of research, I felt no need to address the issues point by point.

Seriously Hifi, this could be an interesting topic for us to debate, and I’d like to soon. But I have to prioritize my limited use of time and I feel no desire nor obligation to answer inaccurate claims of a twenty year old article.

Having now looked at the Wikipedia article, I have no immediate problems with it (it lacks many of the inaccurate claims of the other article). As with any young science, aspects of EP are controversial and still under debate. It is still in a hypothesis stage. Evolution and Galileo’s version of the universe were controversial also. I never said the EP field is infallible. You want to deny EP its time in hypothesis-stage for the very reason that it is still in hypothesis stage. But hypothesis and rigorous debate is the nature of science itself. Don’t cut it off.

“Early research in a field may indeed be naive, on the other hand, it only takes an E.O. Wilson or a Lamarck to lead a whole herd of academics straight off a cliff. So I think your criticism of him may be quite telling about the field he helped make up.”

Well, the academics didn’t actually jump off a cliff, though, did they? In fact, Lamarck was the front-runner of evolution. Wilson, while harboring some bad ideas, also had some good ones, which led to the EP field. There is no need to be afraid of of some false hypotheses. Science is self-correcting. This is what ID/Creationists do not understand. They see one false hypothesis and condemn the entire field of science. They do not realize that the exposure of false ideas is part of what makes science so reliable. If a hypothesis, or theory, is inaccurate, it will inevitably come out. The same goes for Evolutionary Psychology.

“The anthropology newletter I quoted and actually did use in support of my opinion was also more recent. In that regard, I wonder if we could get Chris to weigh in here on whether EP has anything more to offer over the conclusions and directions that we already have from current anthropological research? It is a fine line between “interdisciplinary” and simply pilfering and repackaging.”

Having read what I have read, there are many possible conclusions by EP that current anthropological research has not provided. I hope to sometime write a post on some of the examples. It would take a lot of effort to do right now, and this comment is not the time for that. But this whole discussion of a moral sense is one of those unique conclusions.

“Here’s context for the Pinker quote: Pinker is wary of falling into what is called the ‘naturalistic fallacy’ - the idea that because something is natural, it must be right. He therefore proposes that ethics should be separate from the scientific study of behaviour. Science and ethics, he argues, are ‘two self-contained systems played out among the same entities in the world.’ The ’science game treats people as material objects, and its rules are the physical processes that cause behaviour through natural selection and neurophysiology.’ The ‘ethics game’ on the other hand, ‘treats people as equivalent, sentient, rational free-willed agents, and its rules are the calculus that assigns moral value to behaviour through the behaviour’s inherent nature or consequence.’”

I was right to be skeptical that this quote contradicts me. I actually made the very argument of naturalistic fallacy to Ron toward the beginning of the morality discussion (only I wish that I had used that phrase, “naturalistic fallacy!” It would have been so much more effective!).

My point has not been that we look to our natural drives (which seems to have been your argument when it comes to self-interest) for morality. Pinker and I agree on that. My point has only been that evolution has provided us with a moral sense, among many other things. We can use our reason and wisdom to see which of our natural inclinations are helpful to humankind (okay, and to animals too) and which are harmful. While being wise in our pursuit of self-interests may work sometimes, it will not in cases where it hurts others, or ignores the needs of others. Through our reason, we can ask ourselves how our actions will effect overall happiness. We are able to do this because we have a moral sense, which is evolved. We can decide that this very basic moral sense, which advises us not to hurt others if we don’t have to, is a part of our nature that is helpful.

I have attempted to make the same point that Pinker made throughout the morality discussion. In fact, the author of the book I discussed above summarized Pinker’s entire article with this explanation: “Steven Pinker shows how moral sensibility can arise by way of natural selection.”

I am afraid you misunderstand the quote you gave of Pinker. Well, maybe that’s not true. More accurately, you still do not fully understand my statements, based on your re-phrasing of them (Example, you use the phrase, “universal morality”, which is different from what I call a “universal moral sense”). I am preparing a blog entry that I hope will FINALLY clear that up.

“BTW, I think we are all better off if aspersions of character (ie., “jealously motivated?”)are not lobbed about in our discussions. Ideas must stand or fall on their own merits - logical and practical.”

You are absolutely right. I apologize. Thanks for continuing your discussions with me despite my immature remark.

Vitamin and fatty acid supplements may reduce antisocial behaviour in incarcerated young adults

This isn’t quite off-topic. Scientifically intervening in our biological heritage even down to the cellular level is another good example of this 3rd phase of human evolutionary process - the consciously and rationally-directed one. And morality, ethics, law… none of it applies if your biological equipment is dysfunctional.

The other side of the coin of that is I remember reading science fiction - fast becoming science - about treating everyone who isn’t conforming to the going work and behavior ethic to get them in line. Hate your job - take the anti-depression drug or work without sleep drug. Worried about the political state of the world - got some Prozac right here for you. The street drug trade has got nothing on the Big Pharma in terms of addict recruiting and escalation into ever more and harder drugs.

My kids are definitely on a healthy food and vitamin supplement program. In my opinion, it is reckless endangerment for any parent to think that food alone is going to cover a child’s nutritional needs. Especially with all the crap that most families consider is food these days. Even at schoo, the candy pushing is incredible! There is some evidence that vitamins increase IQ in kids, supposedly a trait fixed at birth. For undernourished kids, repeated studies have shown that supplementation will increase IQ almost 10%.

To restate the objection from anthropology, it is that culture long-ago took over the job of evolution in modifying human behavior - eliminating almost any commonality to that behavior - so that even basic survival and reproduction drives come in a vast arrary of packages that are so different as to be barely relatable.

In addition, humans evolved the instinct to adoptin childhood the rules of the socio-economic system. So “knowing” you are right and that others are wrong, that even your own alternative ideas are to be suspect, has been the other universal of human social behavior. Ironically, frequently this common human trait will even over-ride commonality in survival and reproductive biological imperatives.

Yet, there is one more evolutionary phase that I would add to the human social development timeline of biological instinct, culture overlay. That would be rationality. Rationalists are able to set aside even culture to rationally and consciously direct their own social behavior as well as to renew the collective behavior of the group by their influence at the level of culture (which has led to generational differences as children come up in new iterations of the culture). That trait increasingly important the faster the world changes. That’s us folks!

The rest of the “dated” criticism remains problematic for EP, with no arguments yet offered by anyone here as to how they may be wrong. In fact, there is no reason to believe that the wikipedia link about EP which I also included and quoted is not absolutely up-to-date. It restates all most all of the arguments that the 1988 article did.

Early research in a field may indeed be naive, on the other hand, it only takes an E.O. Wilson or a Lamarck to lead a whole herd of academics straight off a cliff. So I think your criticism of him may be quite telling about the field he helped make up.

Back to EPMs, most everyone acknowledges that social EPMs are the most controversial. Therefore, there is no reason to disagree with Ron that if some kind of natural morality is being proposed, EP is lost.

The anthropology newletter I quoted and actually did use in support of my opinion was also more recent. In that regard, I wonder if we could get Chris to weigh in here on whether EP has anything more to offer over the conclusions and directions that we already have from current anthropological research? It is a fine line between “interdisciplinary” and simply pilfering and repackaging.

In any case, I stand by my summary and the 90% of my comment which is not based at all on the one article you took aim at as a straw man.

To restate the objection from anthropology, it is that culture (”agency” is not part of my argument), long-ago took over the job of evolution in modifying human behavior - eliminating almost any commonality outside of survival and reproduction that you can think of. In the process of doing that though, physical evolution in humans required that as children we adopt the rules of the socio-economic system.

Here’s context for the Pinker quote: Pinker is wary of falling into what is called the ‘naturalistic fallacy’ - the idea that because something is natural, it must be right. He therefore proposes that ethics should be separate from the scientific study of behaviour. Science and ethics, he argues, are ‘two self-contained systems played out among the same entities in the world.’ The ’science game treats people as material objects, and its rules are the physical processes that cause behaviour through natural selection and neurophysiology.’ The ‘ethics game’ on the other hand, ‘treats people as equivalent, sentient, rational free-willed agents, and its rules are the calculus that assigns moral value to behaviour through the behaviour’s inherent nature or consequence.’

BTW, I think we are all better off if aspersions of character (ie., “jealously motivated?”)are not lobbed about in our discussions. Ideas must stand or fall on their own merits - logical and practical.

Hifi-One of my readers, Chris from the Northstate Science blog is “an Adjunct Professor of Anthropology at California State University, Chico and Adjunct Faculty at Lassen Community College, Susanville. His day job is as the Forest Archaeologist for Lassen National Forest in northern California. He received his BS in Anthropology from the University of California-Davis and a MA and PhD in Anthropology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is currently working on the zooarchaeology of several cave and rockshelter sites in northern California, and the historical ecology of several species. He has also been directing archaeological excavations in western Tanzania since 2002.”

(That was his bio).

On a different note…I posted up a flier on school campus that I printed out from the centerofinquiry.com website. It lasted about a full 3 weeks before someone finally took it down. Well I don’t know exactly why it was taken down but I guess I have to go print out another copy and post it up again…here’s the quote:

“Question with boldness even the existence of a God” -Thomas Jefferson

I read the article you linked to and I was really surprised because many of the negative claims against Evolutionary Psychology were inaccurate or were not up to date with current thought in the field. I couldn’t believe Malik, the author and critic, was referring to Wilson, who was on the front end of Evolutionary Psychology. Everybody knows that Wilson was off the mark. It’s like going way back to the earliest theories of Evolutionary Biology and judging current understanding by what the earliest scientists proposed.

It all made sense when I saw that the article was written back in 1988! I am sure we can find a more current and accurate critique of Evolutionary Psychology than 1988.

Even more curious was this disclaimer of the article on the very same webpage:

“This essay was first published in Prospect (December 1998) under the unfortunate title of ‘The Darwinian Fallacy’.

This was an early critique of evolutionary psychology and, in retrospect, some of the criticism (especially of modularity) feels somewhat naive and uninflected. Nevertheless, the main lines of criticism - of the problems of naturalism, of the methodological weaknesses of evolutionary psychology, of the failure to understand human agency - remain highly pertinent.”

The only remaining “pertinent” parts of the article were simplistic characterizations of the field’s methodology. The subject of “human agency” is under debate and various scientists credit various amounts of agency to humans. It is no reason to throw out the whole field, nor to claim that they are all in agreement on that issue. Most especially these scientists are usually talking of tendencies rather than determinism. (BTW, I’d have to read Pinker’s quote in context. I am suspicious. It is true, though, that most of what I have read with regard to morality and the science is from other writers).

Fran said:
“The point I’m trying to make is there is a need to combine the sciences if we are ever going to be successful in the development of our species so that someday we can live healthy fruitful live beyond 200 even. It will have to be a combined effort.”

Fran is right. Pinker, Dennett, and Dawkins are part of The Edge and what they call the Third Culture. It is the goal of the Third Culture to combine the various schools of thought; to open the lines of communication. As Gloria Origgi explained, “Thus, the third culture can be seen as a multidimensional culture, where explanations originating in different disciplines combine together without cancelling one another.”

John Brockman stated that: “the “naturalistic” scientists — those who are engaged in a realistic biology of mind — are gaining sway over the scientists and others in disciplines that rely on studying social actions and human cultures independent from their biological foundation.

Recognition of this development can cause pain to those not participating in the conversation.”

“Anthropology, linguistics, and sociology,” Origgi writes, “disciplines that have based their autonomy on the claim that the system of social actions and human cultures is largely independent from their biological foundation, today make way for naturalistic research programs and the methods of the natural sciences.”

I think what we have here is an unwillingness to understand the field of Evolutionary Psychology, and even a (jealously motivated?) desire to prematurely quash the science by mistaking its hypotheses for established answers.

I can’t help commenting on Noell’s wink to Evolutionary Psychology. In my view, it is unfortunate that the two terms are even associated. Psychology is hardly a science. In theory and practice it is more of a social art - interesting philosophical material, at best. My background is in anthropology. As such I am prepared to contend with any speculations offered by the EP crowd that is not supported by actual data from anthropology.

Anthropology is well suited to test the claims of EP in it’s quest its quest to identify universality. “Most evolutionary psychologists argue that EPMs are universal in a species.” As applied to social behavior, this goal is quite at odds with the common findings of cultural anthropology of wide, nearly unrelatable, divergence found between human cultural groups. Universals have been shown to be few and far between. Instead, learned behavior, responsive to local conditions and unique histories are the rule.

A further problem with evolutionary psychology is that, “it is not a discipline, but merely a paradigm. And, if there is one thing which this paradigm generally lacks, it is a rich understanding of the importance of culture.”
-
Anthropology Newsletter 37(9):7

As EP is mainly a conjecture (or group of conjectures)in search of evidence, it would be surprising to me if EP came up with any good, new hypothesis that hadn’t already emerged, inductively, in the collected data we already have.

Interestingly, for our discussion of evolved morality, Pinker, himself, in “How the Mind Works”, proposes that ethics should be separate from EP’s study of behaviour. It simply isn’t capable of addressing that kind of culturally specific behavior, so it should never have come up here - except that the whole field suffers from being able to check itself, so almost anything goes.

——

I’m curious, how many here have ever taken a course in cultural anthropology?

Forget evolution or it’s psychology, this educational gap alone can explain the lack of any insight whatsoever by most people into what it means to be alive and human on earth. You mean you don’t know the Zuni creation myth, the Navaho matrilineal property system, the Australian aborigine’s circular view of time and kin, how the way psychosis expresses is uniqe in each culture, why it takes anthropologists several months of immersion before they can understand how a joke is funny?

Anyway, to jumpstart the discussion, sorry Noell, here is a lovely critique of EP which reinforces my point made elsewhere that it mostly hot air, devoid of substance.

Kevin

Ken Miller is a biology prof at Brown U. and was the lead expert witness for the plaintiffs at Dover. He’s one of the most knowledgeable and articulate speakers for evolution and always gives entertaining talks. The following talk he gave after Dover was really informative and serves in part, I guess, as a Cliff notes version of Judge Jones’s written decision. Commenters at PT loved it.

Ken Miller (Case Western, Jan. 3, 2006)
1 hr. presentation and 1 hr. Q&A session
video link
(also on youtube somewhere)

I’ve written up the following rough outline of his talk for your viewing pleasure.

Georgia: warning stickers
Dover: evolution disclaimer
Kansas: redefining science
ID vs. science
1. fossil record
2. human genome
3. irreducible complexity
Lemon test
Teach the controversy
Pandas and People
What’s at stake?

(1:09)
Q&A session
Why do scientists like Behe support ID?
Anti-science political left?
Theocratic science?
What happened? why now?
Mixing religion and science?
Fascism?
Is satire useful?
What’s the next step for Ohio?
Why did the Dover School Board not get re-elected?
Were there any difficult moments during cross-examination?
What’s the next step for creationism?
False dichotomy between evolution and religion?
Does evolution consider the time required?
Can parents or citizens legally challenge in Ohio?
Judge Jones?

Their director Eugenie Scott is very knowledgable and frequently gives talks and makes appearances on this topic (e.g., she has appeared twice at Point of Inquiry), and she recently wrote the book Evolution Vs. Creationism. A few other NCSE affiliates also contribute at Panda’s Thumb.

NCSE keeps track of evolution cases around the country. For the recent Dover case, for example, NCSE supported the parents by locating a legal team, advising the legal team, and also helped round up expert witnesses for evolution.

Panda’s Thumb, as Noell mentioned in her post, has the best expert discussion on current evolution news and research.

NCSE, focuses on the teaching of evolution in schools and has many resources for parents, teachers, and the general public.

The most recent court case, Kitzmiller v. Dover, also provides a good source of information. This case came about when the Dover School Board ordered their science teachers to read a 4-paragraph “evolution disclaimer” in class.

Judge Jones’s 139-page decision is a good read. It’s a fast read (double-spaced and big font! =), well-written, and free!! It contains the legal background, science vs. ID arguments, and about 30 pages describing the 2-year runup to the eventual court case. Don’t forget to read the conclusion.

Dec. 20, 2005
Kitzmiller v. Dover decision

Actually, the transcripts for all the witnesses, both plaintiff and defendant, are interesting to read. The arguments are directed at an intelligent, but not necessarily scientific, audience.

transcripts