Question: art of series: What Evolution Can Teach Us About Ourselves
Question: Why do humans engage in so many impractical activities?
Richard Dawkins: There are many things that humans do that have nothing to do with contributing to the survival of the individual, at least nothing obvious to do with it. So when we do mathematics and when we do poetry and when we do ballet dancing and all the things that make life worth living, it's very hard to make the case that this contributes to individual survival; it clearly doesn't. What you can make a case for is that the possession of the kind of brain that's capable of doing those things contributed to individual survival in our ancestral past. So it's not the mathematics itself; it's not that doing algebra helps anybody to survive. But having the kind of big brain that incidentally proves itself capable of doing algebra -- having that kind of big brain probably did improve our survival, whether because it literally made us better at -- I don't know -- catching prey or finding nuts or something of that sort. Or whether, in accordance with the sexual selection theory you just mentioned, it's attractive to the opposite sex.
Question: Can you elaborate on the theory of sexual selection?
Richard Dawkins: This is a theory of a man called Geoffrey Miller, who is a very interesting evolutionary psychologist. And he -- we do have a bit of a puzzle as to why the human brain did get so big, really rather suddenly; it's actually one of the more rapid pieces of evolution that we know. Over the last three million years or so the human brain has swelled up enormously. And there are various theories as to why this should be. Geoffrey Miller's theory is that, as you say, the mind is a kind of human peacock's tail, and "being clever is sexy" would be one way to put it. But it would manifest itself in the ability to -- I don't know -- remember epic poetry or something of that sort. I mean, there are all sorts of different ways in which, in particular cultures, it might manifest itself.
Recorded on: October 21, 2009
But why did the human brain take off so suddenly and then stop? Why did nature, so bent on taking baby steps, excuse the analogy, jump so far ahead and give us so much potential that we have yet to master this potential and evolve from it? Why was nature, determined on providing a slight upgrade for survivial, suddenly so gracious as to give us far more than we needed?
JAMES B on January 12, 2011, 11:55 AM
ERICH, I don’t believe evolution stops, the changes are happening but slow enough that we hardly notice!
Human DNA manipulation by Aliens. We now have the compute power (in the way of FPGA based reconfigurable computer) to search for such manipulations. I would like to work with someone to compare the DNA of the Iceman against current DNA. It was interesting to listen to Craig Venter talk about his synthetic life form he created. He encoded website URLs and other information in DNA he built from scratch.
Erich: “nature…give(s) us far more (intelligence) than we needed”?! LOL! What an outrageously smug assertion! I remember a biology prof who said there was some speculation that Intelligence “is a LETHAL MUtation”! I don’t see any certainty at all that humans have enough intelligence to even conclude , after 100 years of vicious warfare about essentially nothing important, that killing people should be made universally illegal. So far, we have not achieved even that much concensus, about a simple minded matter.
@ Richard Dawkins et al
There are obvious problems with evolution that the general public doesn’t know about and that are being glossed over here:
1. Big brain (capable of what human brain’s do)
Actually, there is no correlation between brain size and intelligence yet proven. This should be an obvious connection and yet it has not been made, not with millions of dollars and thousands and thousands of hours of research. This is something that should be relatively easy to discover and yet it has not been established at all. The only area that lends to this thought is the area dealing with speech.
It has been over 150 years since the theory was generally introduced and so much energy has been spent on trying to establish the general precepts that life came about through chance.
Look into the relatively new area of biomimetics, there is no need to search into the origin of the thing that we are studying in order to benefit from it. Theorizing the origin has proven to be one of the biggest wastes of time for scientists in the modern age.
Quantum theory describes and predicts what it should with a about a 3% variance. We’ve come up with nothing that so neatly does this job. AND YET the general public STILL doesn’t think that it is Quantum FACT. Yet evolution is barely called a theory anymore and when it is it is in name only. Get this, it doesn’t describe anything that cannot be described BETTER another way, simply by saying that it was purposefully designed.
The reason no one wants to do that is because of the religious rebellion. Fine. There has been a big rebellion. You’ve all stamped your feet and run around the room for a while…like 150 years.
Science has no need of describing the origin of life in order to develop technologies and understanding of behavior of living systems. NONE WHATSOEVER!
If they wish to continue using this money hole the money should be taken away and given to someone getting something done.
@Erich
You are so right. By subtracting the idea of evolution and working for there a person can develop there reading ability to over a page a second with only a few hours of practice. Seriously. Mental math skills are also not hard to develop and very quickly. After working with a lot of people with emotional issues with the techniques I use I’ve developed the ability to intuitive know things that take the session in the direction that it best should go. Taking almost total control of memory (being able to encode, recall and overwrite data with precision and lightening speed) is a skill that takes all of six months to develop with dedication.
Evolution is such a drag. None of these learned people even tap into these things because most cannot conceive that they exist. Why would they? They are busy trying to figure out why they are even capable of asking the question.
Sorry if I sounds really angry. I can to this website looking for intelligence. Even Professor Kaku goes on about evolution. Its so sad.
@ James B
If the length of time that the fossil record covers was a soccer field you would have to travel 2/3’s of it before seeing most of the life. And then suddenly IN A SINGLE STEP there is an explosion of life. The amount of life popping into the record is staggering. And yet people don’t know this. You are still talking about something that evolutionists have SILENTLY moved on from. Because it is found not true. There are no slow moving changes. None. And in fact, there are no fast and sudden connections proven either. Species pop in and out of the fossil record suddenly.
<shawn disney on January 12, 2011, 11:50 PM
Erich: “nature…give(s) us far more (intelligence) than we needed”?! LOL! What an outrageously smug assertion! I remember a biology prof who said there was some speculation that Intelligence “is a LETHAL MUtation”! I don’t see any certainty at all that humans have enough intelligence to even conclude , after 100 years of vicious warfare about essentially nothing important, that killing people should be made universally illegal. So far, we have not achieved even that much concensus, about a simple minded matter.>
This has nothing to do with rational intelligence. The following is proven AND widely accepted. Humans have the ability to understand such concepts as time (past, present, future), mathematics and have a sense of spirituality. With these skills they are able to make decisions based on a sense of right and wrong. This sense of right and wrong is developed based on the data that is collected through the senses and through analysis of that data. Genetically, there is no right-wrong gene. A baby doesn’t know right-wrong. It develops its own unique understanding.
This right-wrong or MORAL sense that we all have is a different operating system than any other known species. Totally different. They operate according to genetic drives. We operate on genetic drives to a very small extent. Mostly what makes us think and act differently is now proved to be our unique database.
This database is programmed though relationships. In other words, our parents and peers program us in our pre-conscious state (first 6 years of life). Then we begin to take more of a hand in the process. What this means is that the war and the other stupid stuff that we have done is not a result of the hardware. IT IS A RESULT OF THE SOFTWARE!
So the case is even weaker for evolution there. Because one could say that our lack of a relationship with an ultimate Creator/Programmer has left us to grow up as a trouble youth-race.
Yet, again, why the whole evolution-creation thing? It doesn’t aid progress one bit. It is simply a rebellion against the religious order who used to have a death grip on people’s minds.
No progress can be discovered by staying in the reaction mode.
Also, look around. Life doesn’t make mistakes. Our subconscious NEVER makes mistakes. Only our conscious mind does. That which operates based on right-wrong. That is because it has been programmed incorrectly.
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AQK on January 18, 2011, 7:10 AM
@Erich R. Thompson – Just thought I’d weigh in here and point out to you something that is (probably) completely useless-
The human brain – or -eyeball – hasn’t stopped.
Natural selection of it is still currently working, but just not very quickly. When perhaps in a few decades, or a few centuries, another creature, made either meat, silicon or graphene challenges it, the changes i.e. a selected few brains will perhaps be strong enough to fight back.
Perhaps.
Until then, the brain selector is running in slow motion; too slow for you to see.
Well! THIS has been a perfectly useless reply here. But it kept me occupied for 5 minutes or so. Already I feel increased synapse activity! Thank you, Prof. Dawkins.
There are some theories that our use of humor has also helped our evolution and has contributed to our growing intelligence. Cool stuff.
@ Seig: Can you provide some links to the techniques or methodologies used for what you mention here:
“You are so right. By subtracting the idea of evolution and working for there a person can develop there reading ability to over a page a second with only a few hours of practice. Seriously. Mental math skills are also not hard to develop and very quickly. After working with a lot of people with emotional issues with the techniques I use I’ve developed the ability to intuitive know things that take the session in the direction that it best should go. Taking almost total control of memory (being able to encode, recall and overwrite data with precision and lightening speed) is a skill that takes all of six months to develop with dedication.”
I have always had a very high reading level and retention of information, but I read at a very slow speed and any techniques that I can use to increase this would be most welcome. Same goes with mathematics, which has always been a problem area for me ever since I was a child.
Being clever – today, survival is not only about brawls, but about brains; people with brains can get better jobs, get married and support a family properly.
Poetry – part of the cultural element of wooing; sexual selection.
Ballet – physical fitness, keeping fit; also part of the sexual selection.
Maths – many, many applications in engineering, computer science and almost all fields of life.
In other words, all those activities that seem unrelated to survival are simply part of a complex, modern survival mechanism. Almost any activity nowadays can be attributed to some need for survival. What I am wondering about, though, is what is the survival potential of sitcoms? Maybe they are used to filter out the people with lower survival capabilities :-P
Nope… the easy answer is the brain has of course evolved and is still evolving.
It does supposed useless things because it is capable of anything. It is something like why people climb mountains… because they are there.
Also, if you can do a lot of useless things and you are good at them it means you are talented. You are either talented or not, if you are choosing a mate which would you rather have?
The brain already has a way of extracting every available piece of information from the environment…
We can hear movement in the air molecules.
We can see the electromagnetic spectrum.
We can taste and smell different molecules of atoms (food)
We also have tactile ability and there might be more we are becoming aware of now?
If you are evolving shouldn’t you be ready for anything?
And since it (the brain) doesn’t know what “anything” might be, it has to cover every base.
We are all using a spoken language of words. That didn’t necessarily have to happen. We might have had a language based on musical notes. That would absolutely change the importance of musical ability.
I really agree with James B. Evolution is everywhere. We may not feel it or even see it that much but the change is constant. Everything changes. Even people have certain changes in their own little ways. We simply evolve in a matter of time.
“…when we do mathematics and when we do poetry and when we do ballet dancing and all the things that make life worth living, it’s very hard to make the case that this contributes to individual survival; it clearly doesn’t.”
Wow. I’d expect a little more thoughtful answer from a shining light like Dawkins.
Dissanayake has been leading the development of Darwinian aesthetics since the 1950’s. There’s a lot more meat here than Dawkins suggests.
The evolutionary significance of such aspects of human behavior is examined at greater length in chapters 15 – 19 of my latest book “The Goldilocks Effect” ,which is a free download from the “Unusual Perspectives” website.
Unfortunately, in these later times, Dawkins has become seriously “paradigm bound” and fails to appreciate the on-going evolutionary implications of these phenomena.
The comments by AQK, Gravity Boy and others show a growing realization of what is happening, As, I am sure, would have Dawkins as his younger self.
James B, I’m not sure if you are correcting a presumption that you believe I believe evolution “stopped” or if you are adding to the comment, but I agree. “Evolution” is probably the long term adaptation that happens generation from generation. If generation after generation of humans crammed physics and mathematics in their heads, even the people not good at it, then there, one day, may be a genetic mutation in favor of this life choice. In psychology, plasticity is the ability of the human mind to adapt and learn even when the brain is damaged or it is old. OUR thoughts throughout our lifetime mold our brain. Think about something often, those synapses strengthen. Leave an idea to oblivion, those synapses fade away. With every generation of man, the choices of life effect the heriditary coding of the DNA. Exempli Gratia, I would put all my money on it, a multi-generation family of physicists will yield a better physicist down the road. Mankind is evolving at a pace so quickly that evolutionary biologists haven’t even noticed. Unfortunately, people lead their own lives so without life and death situations to forces us to do something for survival, we will never see a 20th generational physicist unless someone forced each and every generation to be that profession. Consequently, if our brains adapt to our choices, then this may be the key to evolution and it may be a matter of time until we have this key to unlock the door to control OUR evolution.
Seig, I saw your comment on big brains and intelligence and was thinking on the article I read today. In it, it was shown that the average human brain of 30,000 years ago was slightly larger than the one today. I’m a pretty firm believer that, on average, humans are smarter than then. And so are most of the evolutionary biologists that were in this article. According to one of the good doctors, our brains have compacted down to increase efficacy of our minds.
Richard Dawkins: There are many things that humans do that have nothing to do with contributing to the survival of the individual, at least nothing obvious to do with it. So when we do mathematics and when we do poetry and when we do ballet dancing and all the things that make life worth living, it's very hard to make the case that this contributes to individual survival; it clearly doesn't. What you can make a case for is that the possession of the kind of brain that's capable of doing those things contributed to individual survival in our ancestral past. So it's not the mathematics itself; it's not that doing algebra helps anybody to survive. But having the kind of big brain that incidentally proves itself capable of doing algebra -- having that kind of big brain probably did improve our survival, whether because it literally made us better at -- I don't know -- catching prey or finding nuts or something of that sort. Or whether, in accordance with the sexual selection theory you just mentioned, it's attractive to the opposite sex.
Question: Can you elaborate on the theory of sexual selection?
Richard Dawkins: This is a theory of a man called Geoffrey Miller, who is a very interesting evolutionary psychologist. And he -- we do have a bit of a puzzle as to why the human brain did get so big, really rather suddenly; it's actually one of the more rapid pieces of evolution that we know. Over the last three million years or so the human brain has swelled up enormously. And there are various theories as to why this should be. Geoffrey Miller's theory is that, as you say, the mind is a kind of human peacock's tail, and "being clever is sexy" would be one way to put it. But it would manifest itself in the ability to -- I don't know -- remember epic poetry or something of that sort. I mean, there are all sorts of different ways in which, in particular cultures, it might manifest itself.
Recorded on: October 21, 2009
But why did the human brain take off so suddenly and then stop? Why did nature, so bent on taking baby steps, excuse the analogy, jump so far ahead and give us so much potential that we have yet to master this potential and evolve from it? Why was nature, determined on providing a slight upgrade for survivial, suddenly so gracious as to give us far more than we needed?
JAMES B on January 12, 2011, 11:55 AM
ERICH, I don’t believe evolution stops, the changes are happening but slow enough that we hardly notice!
Human DNA manipulation by Aliens. We now have the compute power (in the way of FPGA based reconfigurable computer) to search for such manipulations. I would like to work with someone to compare the DNA of the Iceman against current DNA. It was interesting to listen to Craig Venter talk about his synthetic life form he created. He encoded website URLs and other information in DNA he built from scratch.
Erich: “nature…give(s) us far more (intelligence) than we needed”?! LOL! What an outrageously smug assertion! I remember a biology prof who said there was some speculation that Intelligence “is a LETHAL MUtation”! I don’t see any certainty at all that humans have enough intelligence to even conclude , after 100 years of vicious warfare about essentially nothing important, that killing people should be made universally illegal. So far, we have not achieved even that much concensus, about a simple minded matter.
@ Richard Dawkins et al
There are obvious problems with evolution that the general public doesn’t know about and that are being glossed over here:
1. Big brain (capable of what human brain’s do)
Actually, there is no correlation between brain size and intelligence yet proven. This should be an obvious connection and yet it has not been made, not with millions of dollars and thousands and thousands of hours of research. This is something that should be relatively easy to discover and yet it has not been established at all. The only area that lends to this thought is the area dealing with speech.
It has been over 150 years since the theory was generally introduced and so much energy has been spent on trying to establish the general precepts that life came about through chance.
Look into the relatively new area of biomimetics, there is no need to search into the origin of the thing that we are studying in order to benefit from it. Theorizing the origin has proven to be one of the biggest wastes of time for scientists in the modern age.
Quantum theory describes and predicts what it should with a about a 3% variance. We’ve come up with nothing that so neatly does this job. AND YET the general public STILL doesn’t think that it is Quantum FACT. Yet evolution is barely called a theory anymore and when it is it is in name only. Get this, it doesn’t describe an
