szabo@crg5.UUCP (Nick Szabo) (04/03/91)
In article <1991Apr2.035304.11461@leland.Stanford.EDU> repnomar@leland.Stanford.EDU (Janet M. Lafler) writes: >[Structuralist et. al. schools of anthropology theory] >some still hold to socio-biological explanations, which I find, um, uncon- >vincing. Whoa, that went by a bit fast. Slow down here. "Still"? Sociobiology, at 16 years old, as far newer than Structuralism and most of the other schools you describe. I would bet most anthropologists have not read the works by any of Wilson, Dawkins, Symons, et. al. even by 1991. Also, you failed to describe the sociobiological explanation, which is as follows: The proximate cause of the incest "taboo" (more properly called incest avoidance) is the behavioral development, upon sexual maturity, of sexual avoidance between children who shared proximity and a common caretaker between the ages of 2 and 5. This has been confirmed by observations of various human societies, both where the caretaker and/or children are related by genetics and/or adoption. The ultimate cause is the harm caused by inbreeding, as has been discussed. Genes which produce the above behavioral development tended to perpetuate themselves more often than their alleles through human evolutionary history. Note that evolution does not require the behavior to be perfect, any more than evolution designed bipedal creatures with a perfect back (ouch!). It just has to benefit the encoding genes more than its bad side-effects hurt them. The theory is further confirmed from behavior of other primates, which develop a similar incest "taboo" without the accompanying cultural structures required by the Structuralist, Symbolic, Interpretive, and other pure-culture schools. If sociobiology theory is right, Heinlein is fighting not only human cultural prejudice, but prejudice encoded in our genes. No wonder so many people hate him. :-) Taboos involving cousins, et. al,, are more sophisticated, and the various cultural schools have more relevence for these, though it is not clear that biology is totally out of the picture. (If anybody interested is not up on sociobiology theory, I'll be happy to explain further proximate vs. ultimate causation). -- Nick Szabo szabo@sequent.com "If you want oil, drill lots of wells" -- J. Paul Getty The above opinions are my own and not related to those of any organization I may be affiliated with.
sbishop@desire.wright.edu (04/05/91)
In article <21487@crg5.UUCP>, szabo@crg5.UUCP (Nick Szabo) writes: > In article <1991Apr2.035304.11461@leland.Stanford.EDU> repnomar@leland.Stanford.EDU (Janet M. Lafler) writes: > >>[Structuralist et. al. schools of anthropology theory] >>some still hold to socio-biological explanations, which I find, um, uncon- >>vincing. > > Whoa, that went by a bit fast. Slow down here. > > "Still"? Sociobiology, at 16 years old, as far newer than Structuralism > and most of the other schools you describe. I would bet most anthropologists > have not read the works by any of Wilson, Dawkins, Symons, et. al. > even by 1991. > > Also, you failed to describe the sociobiological explanation, which > is as follows: > > The proximate cause of the incest "taboo" (more properly called > incest avoidance) is the behavioral development, upon sexual > maturity, of sexual avoidance between children who shared proximity > and a common caretaker between the ages of 2 and 5. This has been > confirmed by observations of various human societies, both where the > caretaker and/or children are related by genetics and/or adoption. > > The ultimate cause is the harm caused by inbreeding, as has been > discussed. Genes which produce the above behavioral development > tended to perpetuate themselves more often than their alleles > through human evolutionary history. Note that evolution does not > require the behavior to be perfect, any more than evolution designed > bipedal creatures with a perfect back (ouch!). It just has to benefit > the encoding genes more than its bad side-effects hurt them. > > The theory is further confirmed from behavior of other primates, > which develop a similar incest "taboo" without the accompanying cultural > structures required by the Structuralist, Symbolic, Interpretive, and > other pure-culture schools. > > If sociobiology theory is right, Heinlein is fighting not only > human cultural prejudice, but prejudice encoded in our genes. > No wonder so many people hate him. :-) > > Taboos involving cousins, et. al,, are more sophisticated, and > the various cultural schools have more relevence for these, > though it is not clear that biology is totally out of the picture. > > (If anybody interested is not up on sociobiology theory, I'll be happy to > explain further proximate vs. ultimate causation). > > > -- > Nick Szabo szabo@sequent.com > "If you want oil, drill lots of wells" -- J. Paul Getty > The above opinions are my own and not related to those of any > organization I may be affiliated with. Seems to me that Goodall also observed this taboo in our relatives....
herbach@informix.com (Martin Herbach) (04/06/91)
Has any discussion appeared about the correlation of incest-avoidance and beauty-perception? I am referring here to the perception of sexual attractiveness in humans. I read recently of a study (sorry, no citation) showing that a "beautiful" feature (e.g. nose) is one with "average" characteristics. Average in size, shape, position, etc., and average with respect to the population of the beholder. Could this be the incest-avoidance mechanism at work. If quail are known to prefer cousins over siblings or strangers, could they be selecting "not-too-familiar but not-too-strange" with respect to whatever characteristics code for quailness? It would seem that a biological explanation of beauty should be a big deal, but no one seems to have connected the two. Anyone seen any such rantings in print? Does this make sense to anyone else? Do I need lithium?
repnomar@leland.Stanford.EDU (Janet M. Lafler) (04/06/91)
In article <21487@crg5.UUCP> szabo@crg5.UUCP (Nick Szabo) writes: >In article <1991Apr2.035304.11461@leland.Stanford.EDU> repnomar@leland.Stanford.EDU (Janet M. Lafler) writes: > >>[Structuralist et. al. schools of anthropology theory] >>some still hold to socio-biological explanations, which I find, um, uncon- >>vincing. > >Whoa, that went by a bit fast. Slow down here. > >"Still"? Sociobiology, at 16 years old, as far newer than Structuralism >and most of the other schools you describe. I would bet most anthropologists >have not read the works by any of Wilson, Dawkins, Symons, et. al. >even by 1991. You're right. I should have phrased it differently. But while the particular theoretical position known as Sociobiology is relatively recent, the general idea that some forms of social behavior can be explained biologically has been around far longer. The explanation you describe below, for instance, is similar to the Westermarck hypothesis; unfortunately, I can't find the ref- erence for this, but Westermarck was pretty early in this century. Please note that I am not trying to present this as an argument against the theory! I'm just pointing out that while Sociobiology as a school is relatively recent, it has its history in older theories, as do Structuralism, etc. > >Also, you failed to describe the sociobiological explanation, which >is as follows: > >The proximate cause of the incest "taboo" (more properly called >incest avoidance) is the behavioral development, upon sexual >maturity, of sexual avoidance between children who shared proximity >and a common caretaker between the ages of 2 and 5. This has been >confirmed by observations of various human societies, both where the >caretaker and/or children are related by genetics and/or adoption. Do you know about the traditional Chinese practice of young men marrying an adopted sister (who was adopted specifically to be his wife? I don't know much about this practice - how young the girls are adopted and so forth. Do you know of any recent research on this? (This question is a request for information, not a challenge.) > >The ultimate cause is the harm caused by inbreeding, as has been >discussed. Genes which produce the above behavioral development >tended to perpetuate themselves more often than their alleles >through human evolutionary history. Note that evolution does not >require the behavior to be perfect, any more than evolution designed >bipedal creatures with a perfect back (ouch!). It just has to benefit >the encoding genes more than its bad side-effects hurt them. > >The theory is further confirmed from behavior of other primates, >which develop a similar incest "taboo" without the accompanying cultural >structures required by the Structuralist, Symbolic, Interpretive, and >other pure-culture schools. Do species of different genuses (or whatever the appropriate taxonomical category is) have similar problems with inbreeding? Has there been any research on incest avoidance behavior among non-primates? Do you know of any results from this? (Again, I'm curious.) > >If sociobiology theory is right, Heinlein is fighting not only >human cultural prejudice, but prejudice encoded in our genes. >No wonder so many people hate him. :-) > >Taboos involving cousins, et. al,, are more sophisticated, and >the various cultural schools have more relevence for these, >though it is not clear that biology is totally out of the picture. Where would you place parent/child incest in this picture? One of my problems with sociobiological explanations for incest is that if there's a biological avoidance mechanism in place, why do we have codified taboos (e.g. as in the Bible)? Would we need to codify something that was instinctive? BTW, I don't hate Heinlein. I have problems with a lot of his views (inso- far as they can be determined), especially regarding women. But I've en- joyed many of his books and find him interesting, if often infuriating. Please note. I'm not, repeat _not_, interested in getting involved in a flame war. I have tried to make it clear in this posting that I'm respect- fully differing with you. If I get flamed, that's the end of my partici- pation in the discussion. /Janet -- send mail to: repnomar@leland.stanford.edu (In answer to your first question, Repnomar is a character in M.J. Engh's The Wheel of the Winds.) ----------------------
gerry@zds-ux.UUCP (Gerry Gleason) (04/09/91)
In article <21487@crg5.UUCP> szabo@crg5.UUCP (Nick Szabo) writes: >Taboos involving cousins, et. al,, are more sophisticated, and >the various cultural schools have more relevence for these, >though it is not clear that biology is totally out of the picture. I read somewhere of a study of "attraction" (sorry don't remember any details), that showed a preference for cousins (I'm pretty sure it was first cousins, but it may have been second cousins). The evolutionary force involved here is that cousins are likely to share genes, so the behavior would benifit a gene pool, not an individual. If I've got my facts right, this would fit with the "incest avoidence". That is, since there is are definite (potential) problems with siblings, and a selection pressure for relatives, there is even more reason for evolution to select for some type of incest avoidence. Gerry Gleason
mvp@hsv3.UUCP (Mike Van Pelt) (04/09/91)
In article <1991Apr5.102746.3111@desire.wright.edu> sbishop@desire.wright.edu writes: >> The proximate cause of the incest "taboo" (more properly called >> incest avoidance) is the behavioral development, upon sexual >> maturity, of sexual avoidance between children who shared proximity >> and a common caretaker between the ages of 2 and 5. >Seems to me that Goodall also observed this taboo in our relatives.... Also, the woman who was teaching two gorillas sign language (the female was named Koko -- she has appeared in National Geographic a couple of times) discovered this. She was hoping to breed the gorillas and see if they would teach sign language to their offspring. But the gorillas apparantly consider themselves siblings, and show no interest in mating with each other. Oops. -- Mike Van Pelt "I hate trolls. Maybe I could metamorph it into Headland Technology something else -- like a ravenous, two-headed, (Was: Video Seven) fire-breathing dragon." -- Willow. ...ames!vsi1!v7fs1!mvp
cl@lgc.com (Cameron Laird) (04/09/91)
In article <1991Apr5.213834.13967@informix.com> herbach@informix.com (Martin Herbach) writes: >Has any discussion appeared about the correlation of incest-avoidance >and beauty-perception? I am referring here to the perception of sexual >attractiveness in humans. I read recently of a study (sorry, no citation) >showing that a "beautiful" feature (e.g. nose) is one with "average" >characteristics. Average in size, shape, position, etc., and average >with respect to the population of the beholder. > >Could this be the incest-avoidance mechanism at work. If quail are >known to prefer cousins over siblings or strangers, could they be >selecting "not-too-familiar but not-too-strange" with respect to >whatever characteristics code for quailness? > >It would seem that a biological explanation of beauty should be a big >deal, but no one seems to have connected the two. Anyone seen any >such rantings in print? Does this make sense to anyone else? Do >I need lithium? Sexual selection is arguably the single most chal- lenging topic in evolutionary biology. Naturalists incessantly dispute what it takes for a male echino- derm (for example) to look good to a female echinoderm. I'll recommend three approaches to the literature: a. start reading anything on "sexual selection" at a professional level. It's an unusual week in which at least one of *Nature* and *Science* fails to touch on the topic, and there are now a number of synthetic books available; b. pick up one of Desmond Morris's popularizations. He has a photograph book (*The Human Body*?) that's particular fun; c. G. Evelyn Hutchinson has written astutely and sparely on the subject, although he's probably considered dated. I remember one wry observa- tion that, (in my paraphrase) "as beauty becomes more behavioral, its nexus shifts from male to female." That's to be understood as a comment on the human condition. Incest and its avoidance is one subtopic that appears throughout the literature on sexual selection. -- Cameron Laird USA 713-579-4613 cl@lgc.com (cl%lgc.com@uunet.uu.net) USA 713-996-8546