Shunya's Notes

Grist and Mills: On the Cultural Origins of Cultural Learning

In this provocative paper, sure to annoy evolutionary psychologists, Cecilia Hayes argues that the "cognitive processes that comprise cultural learning are themselves culturally inherited; they are cultural adaptations [rather than genetic adaptations]. They are products as well as producers of cultural evolution." Here is the abstract (and my two recent related posts are here and here):

Cumulative cultural evolution is what ‘makes us odd’; our capacity to learn facts and techniques from others, and to refine them over generations, plays a major role in making human minds and lives radically different from those of other animals. In this article I discuss cognitive processes that are known collectively as ‘cultural learning’ because they enable cumulative cultural evolution. These cognitive processes include reading, social learning, imitation, teaching, social motivation, and theory of mind. Taking the first of these three types of cultural learning as examples, I ask whether and to what extent these cognitive processes have been adapted genetically or culturally to enable cumulative cultural evolution. I find that recent empirical work in comparative psychology, developmental psychology and cognitive neuroscience provides surprisingly little evidence of genetic adaptation, and ample evidence of cultural adaptation. This raises the possibility that it is not only ‘grist’ but also ‘mills’ that are culturally inherited; through social interaction in the course of development, we not only acquire facts about the world and how to deal with it (grist), we also build the cognitive processes that make ‘fact inheritance’ possible (mills).

American Rodeo

Anthropologically interesting (depressing?) clips from a rodeo competition I saw in Jackson, Wyoming earlier this week, where rodeo is the official state sport, patriotism and Jesus rule, and the free and the brave gather to make a sport out of dominating frightened animals.

This was my first rodeo and in terms of animal cruelty, it seemed to me much less egregious than what happens in many other rodeo events nationwide. While partly true (is it because, owing to Yellowstone NP, Jackson caters to an audience from all over the country and the world?), I realize now that my ignorance too had led me to this assessment. For instance, I was told at the event that every bucking horse is an "unbroken horse" behaving naturally when a rider gets on. That's not true. These horses buck wildly because a strap is tightened around their flanks and they try to get rid of this irritant. That's why the horse keeps bucking until the strap is released, long after it has thrown off the cowboy. Alongside, spurs are driven into its shoulders and electric prods are often used to aggravate it at the start. Not pretty. Some of the worst abuse though happens to terrified calves.

Global Warming's Terrifying New Math

This article by Bill McKibben is going to scare the pants off you. It pairs quite well with Bartlett's analysis that I blogged about recently.

When we think about global warming at all, the arguments tend to be ideological, theological and economic. But to grasp the seriousness of our predicament, you just need to do a little math. For the past year, an easy and powerful bit of arithmetical analysis first published by financial analysts in the U.K. has been making the rounds of environmental conferences and journals, but it hasn't yet broken through to the larger public. This analysis upends most of the conventional political thinking about climate change. And it allows us to understand our precarious – our almost-but-not-quite-finally hopeless – position with three simple numbers.

Also check out this article on the everyday denial of climate change.

The term "denial" is sometimes used to describe the outright rejection of scientifically accepted information, as in the case of climate skeptics. But for most people, who do genuinely care about the planet, denial takes the form of avoidance rather than rejection. People avoid disturbing information in order to sidestep unpleasant emotions and to maintain positive conceptions of individual and national identity. As a result of this kind of denial, people have a sense of knowing and not knowing about climate change, of having information but not thinking about it in their daily lives. Information from climate science is understood in the abstract but disconnected from social or private life.

Tapped

Check out this multi-award winning documentary "Tapped" and say NO to bottled water, if you haven't already. Blurb and trailer appear below; the full movie can be seen on YouTube for $1.99 (75 mins). A related excellent documentary is Blue Gold: World Water Wars (the full movie is on YouTube for free).

"Tapped" documents how the bottle water industry is wreaking havoc on the environment and examines the role of the bottled water industry and its effects on our health, climate change, pollution, and our reliance on oil. Bottled water doesn't just come from your grocery store. It comes from small towns across America where citizens argue their way of life and ecosystem have been disrupted as a result of corporations coming in and claiming ownership of the public's water supply. With only 20% of bottled water containers recycled in the U.S., every day Americans dump 30 million single-serve plastic water bottles into landfills. Because of America's poor recycling rate, much of our plastic ends up in the Pacific Ocean. Specifically in an area known as Plastic Stew - an area twice the size of Texas where the ratio of plastic to plankton is 46:1. "Tapped" highlights how everyday heroes have taken on the fight for our most precious resource - water.

Peaceable Kingdom

HumaneMyth.org is a site dedicated to exploding the myth of "humane" farming of animals for food. It is run by animal activists who not only recognize factory farming of animals for the massive barbarism that it is (thanks to people like us), but go beyond and argue that it is not "possible to use and kill animals in a manner that can be fairly described as respectful or compassionate or humane." These activists desire a "peaceful transformation of our society that fully respects the inherent dignity and worth of animals and people alike."

Revisiting the site recently, I came across a documentary film, Peaceable Kingdom: The Journey Home. Below is a blurb and the trailer. Also check out the video excerpts of the bonus features on the DVD at the film website (one, two, three, four) and award ceremonies (one, two). It's just out on DVD and I've ordered my copy.

Peaceable Kingdom: The Journey Home explores the powerful struggle of conscience experienced by several people from traditional farming backgrounds who come to question the basic assumptions of their way of life. A riveting story of transformation and healing, the documentary portrays the farmers' sometimes amazing connections with the animals under their care, while also providing insight into the complex web of social, psychological and economic forces that have led to their inner conflict. Interwoven with the farmers' stories is the dramatic animal rescue work of a newly-trained humane police officer whose sense of justice puts her at odds with the law she is charged to uphold. With strikingly honest interviews and rare footage demonstrating the emotional lives and intense family bonds of animals most often viewed as living commodities, this groundbreaking documentary shatters stereotypical notions of farmers, farm life, and perhaps most surprisingly, farm animals themselves. Directed by Jenny Stein. Produced by James LaVeck.

Is the Web Driving Us Mad?

"Tweets, texts, emails, posts. New research says the Internet can make us lonely and depressed—and may even create more extreme forms of mental illness." If you habitually spend hours a day on the Web, as I do, this Newsweek article is definitely worth a look (via The Browser).

Questions about the Internet’s deleterious effects on the mind are at least as old as hyperlinks. But even among Web skeptics, the idea that a new technology might influence how we think and feel—let alone contribute to a great American crack-up—was considered silly and naive, like waving a cane at electric light or blaming the television for kids these days. Instead, the Internet was seen as just another medium, a delivery system, not a diabolical machine. It made people happier and more productive. And where was the proof otherwise?

Now, however, the proof is starting to pile up. The first good, peer-reviewed research is emerging, and the picture is much gloomier than the trumpet blasts of Web utopians have allowed. The current incarnation of the Internet—portable, social, accelerated, and all-pervasive—may be making us not just dumber or lonelier but more depressed and anxious, prone to obsessive-compulsive and attention-deficit disorders, even outright psychotic. Our digitized minds can scan like those of drug addicts, and normal people are breaking down in sad and seemingly new ways.

More here.

Arithmetic, Population and Energy

A brilliant lecture by Dr. Albert A. Bartlett, professor of physics, that looks at population growth, energy use, and sustainability in light of basic arithmetic. Insightful and alarming, Bartlett shows why "sustainable growth" is an oxymoron and how many "experts" do not get this. According to Bartlett, a person in the U.S. on average consumes ~30 times the resources than a person in an underdeveloped country. One encouraging trend I found elsewhere is that per capita energy use in the U.S. has fallen in the last three decades though more than offset by population growth in the U.S., and by growth in population and per capita energy use in developing countries. Hardly a better case can be made for zero population growth and massive investments in renewable energy than the one made by Bartlett (from 2002, via 3QD).

The "Busy" Trap

Here is a perceptive essay by Tim Kreider on an aspect of modern life and work: being "busy".

If you live in America in the 21st century you’ve probably had to listen to a lot of people tell you how busy they are. It’s become the default response when you ask anyone how they’re doing: “Busy!” “So busy.” “Crazy busy.” It is, pretty obviously, a boast disguised as a complaint. And the stock response is a kind of congratulation: “That’s a good problem to have,” or “Better than the opposite.”

Notice it isn’t generally people pulling back-to-back shifts in the I.C.U. or commuting by bus to three minimum-wage jobs  who tell you how busy they are; what those people are is not busy but tired. Exhausted. Dead on their feet. It’s almost always people whose lamented busyness is purely self-imposed: work and obligations they’ve taken on voluntarily, classes and activities they’ve “encouraged” their kids to participate in. They’re busy because of their own ambition or drive or anxiety, because they’re addicted to busyness and dread what they might have to face in its absence.

Read more.

The Social Conquest of Earth

EO Wilson's new book, The Social Conquest of Earth, has reignited an old debate about natural evolution, i.e., the level at which it occurs. In the dominant camp are folks like Richard Dawkins and Steven Pinker who hold that evolution occurs via gene selection. In the other camp, folks like Wilson and Jonathan Haidt claim that evolution occurs at multiple levels, including via both gene and group selection. Notably, Charles Darwin himself supported the latter view in Descent of Man.

Not surprisingly, Dawkins and Pinker wrote hostile reviews. Dawkins lamented Wilson's "erroneous and downright perverse misunderstandings of evolutionary theory" and called Darwin's own support of group selection "anomalous". Other reviewers I've read include David Sloan Wilson, Steven Mithen, Jerry Coyne, and Leonard Finkelman. Wilson responded with a vigorous defense of his thesis in a NYT's Stone column. At least to me—a general reader, not a specialist in the field—Wilson's account seems entirely plausible and more than likely. What empirical observations might settle this dispute however seems less than clear.

Whatever the truth, what concerns me more about both camps is their penchant for, in the words of H Allen Orr, Darwinian storytelling. Evolutionary psychologists, who abound in both camps, often try to explain too much of human behavior, including our current morality, through evolutionary selection. While it is undeniable that our basic moral instincts come out of millions of years of evolution, it also seems to me that to explain the prolific range of our behavior, we should look more at the cultural edifice that our humanoid ancestors have developed relatively recently through symbolic language and the resulting explosion of speech, concept formation, and social learning.