1 00:00:00,120 --> 00:00:01,800 The following content is provided 2 00:00:01,800 --> 00:00:04,030 under a Creative Commons license. 3 00:00:04,030 --> 00:00:06,880 Your support will help MIT OpenCourseWare continue 4 00:00:06,880 --> 00:00:10,740 to offer high quality educational resources for free. 5 00:00:10,740 --> 00:00:13,350 To make a donation or view additional materials 6 00:00:13,350 --> 00:00:17,237 from hundreds of MIT courses, visit MIT OpenCourseWare 7 00:00:17,237 --> 00:00:17,862 at ocw.mit.edu. 8 00:00:22,524 --> 00:00:24,940 PROFESSOR: Maybe a few of you were expecting a quiz today. 9 00:00:24,940 --> 00:00:27,644 But I actually said in class on Friday 10 00:00:27,644 --> 00:00:29,310 that I wouldn't give the quiz this week. 11 00:00:32,870 --> 00:00:37,970 So sticking with that, I'm not giving it. 12 00:00:37,970 --> 00:00:42,140 It was to be on the Wilson notes. 13 00:00:42,140 --> 00:00:44,190 Well, if we can fit it in later, we might. 14 00:00:44,190 --> 00:00:49,220 But I want you to focus on your projects, 15 00:00:49,220 --> 00:00:53,610 because the reading is not very heavy this week. 16 00:00:53,610 --> 00:00:58,260 First is his chapter on cultural determinism. 17 00:00:58,260 --> 00:01:02,130 So we'll talk about that today, and then 18 00:01:02,130 --> 00:01:07,410 the remaining matters on Friday and Monday. 19 00:01:10,190 --> 00:01:15,680 Sorry, that left projector-- the bulb won't come on, 20 00:01:15,680 --> 00:01:16,980 at least not from here. 21 00:01:22,570 --> 00:01:28,720 This is how Alcock starts this chapter 22 00:01:28,720 --> 00:01:30,410 on cultural determinism. 23 00:01:30,410 --> 00:01:35,350 He quotes this sociology book. 24 00:01:35,350 --> 00:01:40,780 "Human biology does nothing to structure human society." 25 00:01:40,780 --> 00:01:46,370 And that's common belief among sociologists 26 00:01:46,370 --> 00:01:50,530 and cultural anthropologist, as we shall see. 27 00:01:50,530 --> 00:01:54,340 They don't like sociobiology. 28 00:01:54,340 --> 00:01:57,810 And some of that is still true. 29 00:01:57,810 --> 00:02:02,930 The arguments, I think, are more against biology 30 00:02:02,930 --> 00:02:06,060 in general, when it concerns evolution 31 00:02:06,060 --> 00:02:07,475 applied to human beings. 32 00:02:10,259 --> 00:02:15,720 Dennett in '95 called it "Darwin's dangerous idea." 33 00:02:15,720 --> 00:02:23,690 [CHUCKLING] It's not just due to interpretations 34 00:02:23,690 --> 00:02:26,360 that are common among followers of religions. 35 00:02:26,360 --> 00:02:33,690 It's also found in academia, in these groups 36 00:02:33,690 --> 00:02:37,210 I mentioned, and educators as well. 37 00:02:37,210 --> 00:02:38,870 But there are certain errors that 38 00:02:38,870 --> 00:02:40,710 are repeated in their statements. 39 00:02:40,710 --> 00:02:44,780 And one is, you could say, the Arab false dichotomy. 40 00:02:47,450 --> 00:02:48,570 So what is the dichotomy? 41 00:02:51,540 --> 00:02:54,820 They're saying they favor one side, not the other side. 42 00:02:54,820 --> 00:02:59,390 It's either culture or biology. 43 00:02:59,390 --> 00:03:01,250 Either learned or innate. 44 00:03:01,250 --> 00:03:03,100 Either nature or nurture. 45 00:03:03,100 --> 00:03:05,550 We've talked about this before. 46 00:03:05,550 --> 00:03:08,170 It's actually always both. 47 00:03:08,170 --> 00:03:13,770 The same is true for culture, evolutionary influences, 48 00:03:13,770 --> 00:03:17,560 and cultural influences on human behavior. 49 00:03:17,560 --> 00:03:21,980 It's just a nature-nurture issue. 50 00:03:21,980 --> 00:03:28,640 They also confuse proximate and evolutionary or ultimate 51 00:03:28,640 --> 00:03:30,500 hypotheses. 52 00:03:30,500 --> 00:03:32,605 That's also very common in their statements. 53 00:03:37,670 --> 00:03:42,660 Alcock tells the story of Frank Boas and his students. 54 00:03:42,660 --> 00:03:46,590 Boas was very well known. 55 00:03:46,590 --> 00:03:50,380 He calls him the first modern cultural anthropologist 56 00:03:50,380 --> 00:03:53,000 of note. 57 00:03:53,000 --> 00:03:58,920 And he asserted his belief in the autonomy of culture 58 00:03:58,920 --> 00:04:03,690 from biology, thereby, according to Alcock, 59 00:04:03,690 --> 00:04:05,560 freeing the study of human behavior 60 00:04:05,560 --> 00:04:10,450 from evolutionary biology, which had become admittedly 61 00:04:10,450 --> 00:04:16,149 tainted by many people who associated it with racism, 62 00:04:16,149 --> 00:04:18,480 social Darwinism, and eugenics. 63 00:04:22,200 --> 00:04:26,330 They were, as you know from reading earlier in the book, 64 00:04:26,330 --> 00:04:28,660 used by critics of sociobiology. 65 00:04:33,110 --> 00:04:41,290 So Boas, at least according to his students, 66 00:04:41,290 --> 00:04:44,070 promoted this idea that the cultural practices 67 00:04:44,070 --> 00:04:48,430 are limitless and essentially arbitrary in nature. 68 00:04:48,430 --> 00:04:51,150 And one of those students became very well known-- 69 00:04:51,150 --> 00:04:52,630 Margaret Mead. 70 00:04:52,630 --> 00:04:56,450 I remember meeting a friend of mine in high school-- 71 00:04:56,450 --> 00:05:00,210 a girl who had mapped out her career based 72 00:05:00,210 --> 00:05:01,700 on the career of Margaret Mead. 73 00:05:01,700 --> 00:05:04,270 She was going to become a cultural anthropologist. 74 00:05:04,270 --> 00:05:06,890 She was going to travel, give lectures, get paid for them, 75 00:05:06,890 --> 00:05:08,931 and so on and so forth-- just like Margaret Mead. 76 00:05:13,030 --> 00:05:15,375 I don't know how that turned out. 77 00:05:15,375 --> 00:05:16,770 [LAUGHTER] 78 00:05:16,770 --> 00:05:21,800 Anyway, this was the book. 79 00:05:21,800 --> 00:05:23,920 Margaret Mead wrote this book entitled, 80 00:05:23,920 --> 00:05:26,110 Coming of Age in Samoa. 81 00:05:26,110 --> 00:05:30,190 It was written '28, or published in '28. 82 00:05:30,190 --> 00:05:32,790 It was very widely quoted. 83 00:05:32,790 --> 00:05:35,940 It certainly was well known up to about 1975. 84 00:05:35,940 --> 00:05:39,710 And I think it's declined somewhat since then. 85 00:05:39,710 --> 00:05:41,990 And there are good reasons for that. 86 00:05:41,990 --> 00:05:47,350 So let's look at why would people be interested in Samoa? 87 00:05:47,350 --> 00:05:49,420 Because she claimed that the society 88 00:05:49,420 --> 00:05:54,210 there was very different from American society. 89 00:05:54,210 --> 00:06:00,770 She said they were sexually free. 90 00:06:00,770 --> 00:06:03,500 There was no conflict between kids and parents. 91 00:06:03,500 --> 00:06:05,400 They were allowed to do whatever they wanted. 92 00:06:05,400 --> 00:06:09,040 There was no rape, and so on so forth. 93 00:06:09,040 --> 00:06:11,460 One of these idyllic societies. 94 00:06:14,040 --> 00:06:23,930 Well, she was only there for 12 weeks, 95 00:06:23,930 --> 00:06:27,600 and interviewed a group of young women there. 96 00:06:27,600 --> 00:06:31,150 She quickly learned enough of the language. 97 00:06:31,150 --> 00:06:34,630 She could communicate with them, but that 98 00:06:34,630 --> 00:06:36,800 was the extent of her actual study. 99 00:06:36,800 --> 00:06:41,520 Well, Derek Freeman went there much later. 100 00:06:41,520 --> 00:06:43,830 And it led to a book in 1983. 101 00:06:43,830 --> 00:06:46,340 He spent-- I don't remember how long, 102 00:06:46,340 --> 00:06:49,940 but it was a couple of years, I think. 103 00:06:49,940 --> 00:06:53,380 And he wrote a book in 1983, very critical of Mead. 104 00:06:53,380 --> 00:06:57,120 So let's just go through Margaret Mead's claims 105 00:06:57,120 --> 00:06:59,720 that turned out to be much too extreme. 106 00:06:59,720 --> 00:07:03,160 So we want to know, how did she come to believe those claims? 107 00:07:03,160 --> 00:07:04,310 Why did she make errors? 108 00:07:07,070 --> 00:07:09,200 And we've already talked about Frank Boas 109 00:07:09,200 --> 00:07:10,210 and what he believed. 110 00:07:10,210 --> 00:07:12,980 And she was his student and she promoted those ideas 111 00:07:12,980 --> 00:07:13,760 in this book. 112 00:07:18,180 --> 00:07:23,160 She claimed that Samoan society is very different 113 00:07:23,160 --> 00:07:26,490 from our society, having very relaxed attitudes 114 00:07:26,490 --> 00:07:29,800 towards premarital sex by young women. 115 00:07:29,800 --> 00:07:34,510 And that used to be much stricter at the time 116 00:07:34,510 --> 00:07:37,260 she wrote that book-- far stricter 117 00:07:37,260 --> 00:07:41,250 than it is now in modern American society. 118 00:07:41,250 --> 00:07:44,380 She also claimed an absence of rape, freedom 119 00:07:44,380 --> 00:07:47,760 from emotional turbulence during adolescence. 120 00:07:47,760 --> 00:07:50,000 And remember, these were adolescent girls 121 00:07:50,000 --> 00:07:51,020 she was interviewing. 122 00:07:54,390 --> 00:07:56,570 So this is what she had done. 123 00:07:56,570 --> 00:08:00,870 At age 23, because of being told by 124 00:08:00,870 --> 00:08:04,870 other cultural anthropologists about Samoan society, 125 00:08:04,870 --> 00:08:07,930 she wanted to verify what they were believing. 126 00:08:11,270 --> 00:08:16,450 So she based the study on interviewing 25 young women. 127 00:08:16,450 --> 00:08:19,890 Now those 25 women, many of them-- most of them-- 128 00:08:19,890 --> 00:08:23,810 were still alive when Derek Freeman went there. 129 00:08:23,810 --> 00:08:27,630 So he talked to the very same women 130 00:08:27,630 --> 00:08:28,790 when they were much older. 131 00:08:34,330 --> 00:08:36,720 And as Freeman described, she didn't 132 00:08:36,720 --> 00:08:40,309 stay in Samoa for really extensive observations. 133 00:08:40,309 --> 00:08:43,360 She just believed what the girls told her. 134 00:08:43,360 --> 00:08:46,530 And they were often kidding her. [CHUCKLING] 135 00:08:46,530 --> 00:08:48,340 She heard what she wanted to hear. 136 00:08:48,340 --> 00:08:51,120 She wasn't critical in her method. 137 00:08:54,700 --> 00:08:59,185 And this belief of Boas is what she wanted to promote. 138 00:09:04,570 --> 00:09:06,050 There's certainly the same issues 139 00:09:06,050 --> 00:09:09,090 faced by sociobiologists since then, 140 00:09:09,090 --> 00:09:11,750 when they have applied the ideas and methods to humans. 141 00:09:11,750 --> 00:09:15,605 That's what got E.O. Wilson, we say, in such trouble. 142 00:09:18,470 --> 00:09:22,180 He was in trouble because he put a chapter on human society-- 143 00:09:22,180 --> 00:09:26,220 the very last chapter of the book-- applying 144 00:09:26,220 --> 00:09:32,640 sociobiology ideas to humans. 145 00:09:32,640 --> 00:09:37,290 I mean, the bulk of the book is about animal behavior-- animal 146 00:09:37,290 --> 00:09:40,750 social behavior in particular. 147 00:09:40,750 --> 00:09:42,760 So this is how I would summarize it all. 148 00:09:42,760 --> 00:09:44,850 She tried to do a scientific study. 149 00:09:44,850 --> 00:09:48,060 She was young, inexperienced, 23 years old. 150 00:09:48,060 --> 00:09:50,430 She made big mistakes. 151 00:09:50,430 --> 00:09:53,930 But her book became very popular and had a wide influence 152 00:09:53,930 --> 00:09:56,320 despite those errors. 153 00:09:56,320 --> 00:10:01,101 And the errors didn't really become well known until-- 154 00:10:01,101 --> 00:10:02,600 and I don't think they're well known 155 00:10:02,600 --> 00:10:04,665 now except among academics. 156 00:10:07,780 --> 00:10:08,965 And that took many years. 157 00:10:16,150 --> 00:10:21,540 So they obviously-- these cultural anthropologists-- 158 00:10:21,540 --> 00:10:25,090 had a blank-slate view of human nature. 159 00:10:25,090 --> 00:10:27,800 And we have talked about how that conflicts 160 00:10:27,800 --> 00:10:30,320 with sociobiological views. 161 00:10:30,320 --> 00:10:33,220 But what do blank-slate views of human nature 162 00:10:33,220 --> 00:10:36,235 actually predict about social structure and practices? 163 00:10:40,410 --> 00:10:44,730 And as we summarize that, just note 164 00:10:44,730 --> 00:10:53,260 that it's easy to make these ideas believable about humans, 165 00:10:53,260 --> 00:10:54,790 but not for animals. 166 00:10:54,790 --> 00:10:57,000 It's much more hard to make these predictions 167 00:10:57,000 --> 00:10:57,605 about animals. 168 00:11:02,340 --> 00:11:05,670 There's two new things here about this whole discussion. 169 00:11:05,670 --> 00:11:13,440 One is Gould's claim that-- he was criticized 170 00:11:13,440 --> 00:11:15,310 by sociobiologists for talking so 171 00:11:15,310 --> 00:11:17,510 much about biological determinism 172 00:11:17,510 --> 00:11:21,400 that he changed it to biological potentiality. 173 00:11:21,400 --> 00:11:23,300 So he claimed that a human has a brain 174 00:11:23,300 --> 00:11:26,000 capable of a full range of human behaviors 175 00:11:26,000 --> 00:11:29,910 and predisposed towards none. 176 00:11:29,910 --> 00:11:34,510 He was a biologist-- an evolutionary biologist-- 177 00:11:34,510 --> 00:11:38,840 writing regularly in the magazine Natural History. 178 00:11:38,840 --> 00:11:42,610 And he was very well known. 179 00:11:42,610 --> 00:11:45,040 And he sort of becomes a whipping boy in Alcock's book. 180 00:11:48,900 --> 00:11:51,710 The problem is, there was a lack of rigorous tests 181 00:11:51,710 --> 00:11:55,685 of the predictions of cultural determinism. 182 00:11:55,685 --> 00:12:00,710 And Alcock tries to suggest some predictions 183 00:12:00,710 --> 00:12:02,710 that the critic should be testing. 184 00:12:02,710 --> 00:12:06,420 And giving you where he does that, he basically 185 00:12:06,420 --> 00:12:09,630 says human behavior should differ greatly and arbitrarily 186 00:12:09,630 --> 00:12:11,920 from society to society. 187 00:12:11,920 --> 00:12:13,910 And he gives examples of that. 188 00:12:13,910 --> 00:12:15,990 Do you think that's true? 189 00:12:15,990 --> 00:12:19,740 Should societies differ arbitrarily? 190 00:12:19,740 --> 00:12:23,820 Well, there's got to be some constraints, right? 191 00:12:23,820 --> 00:12:29,190 But they claim there's no inheritance of behavior 192 00:12:29,190 --> 00:12:32,470 in humans, only in animals. 193 00:12:32,470 --> 00:12:35,500 Or at least not-- you know, when you start thinking about it, 194 00:12:35,500 --> 00:12:36,970 does that mean they don't believe 195 00:12:36,970 --> 00:12:41,940 that we inherit the ability to walk? 196 00:12:41,940 --> 00:12:44,521 I don't think so. 197 00:12:44,521 --> 00:12:46,770 But actually, most of them do believe we have to learn 198 00:12:46,770 --> 00:12:53,190 to walk, as I pointed out a number of times-- 199 00:12:53,190 --> 00:12:57,890 even though it's actually a fixed-action pattern, 200 00:12:57,890 --> 00:13:00,777 as many other things are in human, as well 201 00:13:00,777 --> 00:13:01,735 as in animal, behavior. 202 00:13:05,770 --> 00:13:08,350 So Alcock tries to apply that. 203 00:13:08,350 --> 00:13:12,490 And I think it's pretty interesting when you actually 204 00:13:12,490 --> 00:13:15,770 make the predictions and you look from society to society. 205 00:13:15,770 --> 00:13:19,750 And we find out that there are wide differences. 206 00:13:19,750 --> 00:13:26,790 But they're not arbitrary, random differences at all. 207 00:13:26,790 --> 00:13:31,680 So read that, and you will see exactly what I'm talking about. 208 00:13:31,680 --> 00:13:33,810 I'm not going to go over them now. 209 00:13:33,810 --> 00:13:35,820 It's very clear in Alcock's book. 210 00:13:35,820 --> 00:13:42,620 And you should be familiar with how difficult those predictions 211 00:13:42,620 --> 00:13:49,150 are to test. 212 00:13:49,150 --> 00:13:51,110 I'm sorry-- they're not difficult to test, 213 00:13:51,110 --> 00:13:53,865 they're difficult to verify, any of them. 214 00:13:53,865 --> 00:13:54,365 OK. 215 00:13:57,040 --> 00:14:00,596 We might not want to say that it's completely arbitrary. 216 00:14:00,596 --> 00:14:02,470 I don't know if any of them would claim that. 217 00:14:02,470 --> 00:14:07,240 But the way they talk-- maybe it's partly in the strength -- 218 00:14:07,240 --> 00:14:11,111 the vehemence-- of their opposition to sociobiology that 219 00:14:11,111 --> 00:14:12,360 they make these strong claims. 220 00:14:17,080 --> 00:14:18,960 All right. 221 00:14:18,960 --> 00:14:22,100 Let's talk about male-female attraction, 222 00:14:22,100 --> 00:14:24,860 because this is something that sociobiologists 223 00:14:24,860 --> 00:14:25,980 have dealt with. 224 00:14:25,980 --> 00:14:29,070 And they have dealt with it, as you know, in many animals. 225 00:14:29,070 --> 00:14:32,620 We talked about sexual selection. 226 00:14:32,620 --> 00:14:36,055 We've shown examples of it from, especially, bird behavior. 227 00:14:38,900 --> 00:14:43,390 There's a whole program on WGBH on love and animals, 228 00:14:43,390 --> 00:14:49,250 and many, many examples, not just from birds, 229 00:14:49,250 --> 00:14:52,900 about things males will do to be chosen by females-- 230 00:14:52,900 --> 00:14:56,200 a little bit on the other side, although often it's 231 00:14:56,200 --> 00:15:00,700 more on that than on the male mate choice. 232 00:15:05,410 --> 00:15:08,260 I just want you to note that when we go over this, 233 00:15:08,260 --> 00:15:13,180 it's not what's fashionable that matches what men actually 234 00:15:13,180 --> 00:15:16,700 prefer in a mate. 235 00:15:16,700 --> 00:15:19,475 And yet, what men actually prefer 236 00:15:19,475 --> 00:15:22,690 is the only thing of real interest to sociobiologists-- 237 00:15:22,690 --> 00:15:25,330 not what they say, not what modern fashion dictates, 238 00:15:25,330 --> 00:15:28,480 and so forth. 239 00:15:28,480 --> 00:15:30,810 There's a very easy example of that. 240 00:15:30,810 --> 00:15:35,390 Look at the difference between women 241 00:15:35,390 --> 00:15:38,370 that are pictured in fashion magazines and women 242 00:15:38,370 --> 00:15:41,580 that are pictured in the male pinup magazines, 243 00:15:41,580 --> 00:15:44,139 or whatever you want to call them. 244 00:15:44,139 --> 00:15:44,805 Big differences. 245 00:15:47,361 --> 00:15:47,860 OK. 246 00:15:50,710 --> 00:15:56,330 Also, we should note that there are societal differences. 247 00:15:56,330 --> 00:15:59,830 For example, in the poorer societies, 248 00:15:59,830 --> 00:16:03,560 women that are heavier-- that is, a higher body mass index, 249 00:16:03,560 --> 00:16:09,690 and we'll talk about that in a minute, 250 00:16:09,690 --> 00:16:12,555 may indicate greater wealth, and therefore be attractive. 251 00:16:15,210 --> 00:16:17,210 When I first went to India, I realized 252 00:16:17,210 --> 00:16:26,400 that it doesn't apply so much to the very wealthy in India. 253 00:16:26,400 --> 00:16:30,420 But if you deal with the bulk of the people, 254 00:16:30,420 --> 00:16:34,870 women that are heavier are often preferred, 255 00:16:34,870 --> 00:16:39,030 because it indicates that they must have more resources. 256 00:16:39,030 --> 00:16:41,260 You think that would apply even more to men-- 257 00:16:41,260 --> 00:16:42,620 men being heavier. 258 00:16:42,620 --> 00:16:46,850 But they always talk about the women. 259 00:16:46,850 --> 00:16:47,450 All right. 260 00:16:52,720 --> 00:16:57,300 In Alcock, and we'll take a look at-- I 261 00:16:57,300 --> 00:17:00,180 didn't actually copy the table for the slides. 262 00:17:00,180 --> 00:17:01,830 But many of you have looked at it. 263 00:17:01,830 --> 00:17:02,930 You've read this chapter. 264 00:17:02,930 --> 00:17:03,740 Table 7-1. 265 00:17:03,740 --> 00:17:05,730 It's on page 138. 266 00:17:05,730 --> 00:17:10,079 He goes through attributes in women that men find attractive. 267 00:17:10,079 --> 00:17:13,339 And what is their meaning? 268 00:17:13,339 --> 00:17:14,800 What is their signal value? 269 00:17:14,800 --> 00:17:19,630 What is that property of a woman's body signal? 270 00:17:19,630 --> 00:17:22,119 And he says all the attributes listed 271 00:17:22,119 --> 00:17:27,000 indicate health, fertility, sexual maturity, and youth? 272 00:17:27,000 --> 00:17:28,890 OK? 273 00:17:28,890 --> 00:17:31,390 They're all, together, predictors 274 00:17:31,390 --> 00:17:33,980 of lifetime reproductive potential. 275 00:17:33,980 --> 00:17:36,820 And you must keep in mind when you look at these things, 276 00:17:36,820 --> 00:17:38,100 that there's always a range. 277 00:17:38,100 --> 00:17:41,280 There's always exceptions to the general rule. 278 00:17:41,280 --> 00:17:44,750 Sociobiological hypotheses are not about "always," 279 00:17:44,750 --> 00:17:51,140 and they're not disproved by "sometimes." 280 00:17:51,140 --> 00:17:56,220 So this first attribute is smooth, unblemished skin, 281 00:17:56,220 --> 00:17:59,870 indicates youthfulness and good health. 282 00:17:59,870 --> 00:18:02,150 And he lists-- he gives references 283 00:18:02,150 --> 00:18:04,030 for studies of that, that have been done. 284 00:18:04,030 --> 00:18:06,870 Symmetrical faces and limbs. 285 00:18:06,870 --> 00:18:10,940 Indicates developmental stability, good genes, 286 00:18:10,940 --> 00:18:15,860 good nutritional experience during development . 287 00:18:15,860 --> 00:18:17,786 Then one he calls facial averageness. 288 00:18:21,080 --> 00:18:26,030 Indicates optimum normal development and resistance 289 00:18:26,030 --> 00:18:26,585 to parasites. 290 00:18:26,585 --> 00:18:28,880 [LAUGHTER] 291 00:18:28,880 --> 00:18:30,700 Prominent-- you know, you don't think 292 00:18:30,700 --> 00:18:33,380 much if you don't have that much trouble with parasites. 293 00:18:33,380 --> 00:18:37,480 But it's big problems for many groups, 294 00:18:37,480 --> 00:18:40,530 and certainly was in our evolution. 295 00:18:40,530 --> 00:18:42,250 Prominent cheekbones. 296 00:18:42,250 --> 00:18:43,970 Indicates sexual maturity. 297 00:18:43,970 --> 00:18:46,390 Cheekbones of mature women are quite 298 00:18:46,390 --> 00:18:49,160 different than when they were younger. 299 00:18:49,160 --> 00:18:52,860 Small chin, small nose, large eyes, full lips. 300 00:18:52,860 --> 00:18:56,490 Indicates high estrogen levels during development 301 00:18:56,490 --> 00:18:58,680 and youthfulness. 302 00:18:58,680 --> 00:19:05,710 Waste-to-hip ratio of 0.7. 303 00:19:05,710 --> 00:19:09,900 Indicates current high estrogen levels, ample fat reserves, 304 00:19:09,900 --> 00:19:12,155 in good health, higher probability 305 00:19:12,155 --> 00:19:15,690 of becoming pregnant, lower probability of early mortality. 306 00:19:19,240 --> 00:19:23,710 There have been many studies of that and arguments about it. 307 00:19:23,710 --> 00:19:26,670 But the average in what men prefer always 308 00:19:26,670 --> 00:19:33,180 comes out to be above 0.7. 309 00:19:33,180 --> 00:19:36,210 I remember reading one of the very early studies of that. 310 00:19:36,210 --> 00:19:39,590 It was done by a woman from India-- 311 00:19:39,590 --> 00:19:43,270 very nice study, where she made this whole science 312 00:19:43,270 --> 00:19:47,250 into a quantitative science. 313 00:19:47,250 --> 00:19:49,530 Large, firm, symmetrical breasts indicates 314 00:19:49,530 --> 00:19:52,730 developmental stability, youthfulness, and immune system 315 00:19:52,730 --> 00:19:53,820 competence. 316 00:19:53,820 --> 00:19:59,180 And a body mass index-- in this table he says 20 to 24, 317 00:19:59,180 --> 00:20:02,500 the preferred range is actually 17 to 24. 318 00:20:02,500 --> 00:20:05,150 Indicates high fertility and low mortality rates. 319 00:20:05,150 --> 00:20:08,210 And you notice, that is a big range-- 17 to 24. 320 00:20:10,900 --> 00:20:15,390 We'll talk a little more about this body mass index. 321 00:20:15,390 --> 00:20:21,680 But right here-- I pulled a table out of Wikipedia. 322 00:20:31,830 --> 00:20:33,700 I'd point out here at the top, there's 323 00:20:33,700 --> 00:20:37,110 variability in measures of the relative importance 324 00:20:37,110 --> 00:20:42,680 of different factors, especially in these two-- body mass 325 00:20:42,680 --> 00:20:44,760 index and the waist-to-hip ratio. 326 00:20:44,760 --> 00:20:46,470 So we'll talk a little more about that. 327 00:20:46,470 --> 00:20:52,480 But these are the usual classifications-- 328 00:20:52,480 --> 00:20:55,851 from severely underweight, and underweight to normal, and then 329 00:20:55,851 --> 00:20:56,350 over. 330 00:20:56,350 --> 00:21:01,540 And notice the normal range is pretty big-- 18 and 1/2 to 25. 331 00:21:01,540 --> 00:21:03,960 How do you compute your body mass index? 332 00:21:03,960 --> 00:21:08,620 You might all be curious what your body mass index is. 333 00:21:08,620 --> 00:21:13,380 Well, notice it's in kilograms per meter 334 00:21:13,380 --> 00:21:18,380 squared-- meter of height. 335 00:21:18,380 --> 00:21:20,740 OK. 336 00:21:20,740 --> 00:21:25,020 So you have to convert your weight in pounds to kilograms 337 00:21:25,020 --> 00:21:26,690 to get this measure. 338 00:21:26,690 --> 00:21:33,650 And you convert your height to meters. 339 00:21:33,650 --> 00:21:36,670 And then you come out with these numbers. 340 00:21:36,670 --> 00:21:39,410 And most of you, I'm sure, will fall in this range. 341 00:21:39,410 --> 00:21:40,645 You can have to 25. 342 00:21:45,000 --> 00:21:47,670 And yes, I'm not underweight. 343 00:21:47,670 --> 00:21:49,580 I'm actually in this range. 344 00:21:49,580 --> 00:21:50,620 I'm at the low end. 345 00:21:50,620 --> 00:21:51,230 [LAUGHTER] 346 00:21:51,230 --> 00:21:52,200 OK. 347 00:21:52,200 --> 00:21:57,470 And then, notice all these categories 348 00:21:57,470 --> 00:21:58,570 for being overweight. 349 00:21:58,570 --> 00:22:01,440 Overweight, obese class one, obese class two, 350 00:22:01,440 --> 00:22:08,284 severely obese, morbidly obese, super obese, and hyper obese. 351 00:22:08,284 --> 00:22:09,700 And notice, these are the weights. 352 00:22:13,010 --> 00:22:21,570 Someone that's 5' 11", 1.8 meters. 353 00:22:21,570 --> 00:22:31,980 OK, so if they're 5' 11"-- very tall woman, average man-- 354 00:22:31,980 --> 00:22:35,310 these are the weights they have to be to have that body mass 355 00:22:35,310 --> 00:22:36,350 index. 356 00:22:36,350 --> 00:22:42,770 And the males always prefer, as I pointed out before, 17 to 24. 357 00:22:42,770 --> 00:22:47,270 So they prefer women to be from at the top end 358 00:22:47,270 --> 00:22:51,965 of the underweight range to near the top of normal. 359 00:22:58,220 --> 00:23:02,870 So then he cites this British study, 1998, 360 00:23:02,870 --> 00:23:07,260 of preferences shown by British male undergraduates. 361 00:23:07,260 --> 00:23:08,140 This is the title. 362 00:23:08,140 --> 00:23:11,570 Optimum Body Mass Index and Maximum Sexual Attractiveness. 363 00:23:16,490 --> 00:23:19,530 And they claim-- and this shows you the controversy-- 364 00:23:19,530 --> 00:23:23,190 because there have been many studies of waist-to-hip ratio 365 00:23:23,190 --> 00:23:25,930 as the big factor for attractiveness. 366 00:23:25,930 --> 00:23:28,675 They found that the BMI was a much better predictor 367 00:23:28,675 --> 00:23:32,510 than the waist-to-hip ratio, even though other studies 368 00:23:32,510 --> 00:23:34,820 haven't shown such a difference. 369 00:23:34,820 --> 00:23:38,350 In fact, the ratio has often been 370 00:23:38,350 --> 00:23:39,800 reported to be the most important. 371 00:23:39,800 --> 00:23:43,360 So I'm going to go through one of those interesting studies 372 00:23:43,360 --> 00:23:45,260 next. 373 00:23:45,260 --> 00:23:47,360 I think there's plenty of evidence 374 00:23:47,360 --> 00:23:49,770 that both factors are important. 375 00:23:49,770 --> 00:23:54,120 But in their study, the range was 17 to 24. 376 00:23:57,050 --> 00:23:58,590 And I point out the numbers there 377 00:23:58,590 --> 00:24:02,950 for both those type of values. 378 00:24:02,950 --> 00:24:06,000 But there are exceptions. 379 00:24:06,000 --> 00:24:14,350 And one is the group of Yomibato, South American tribe. 380 00:24:14,350 --> 00:24:16,930 It was found that they tend to prefer females 381 00:24:16,930 --> 00:24:20,000 with a figure that's heavier-- with a larger 382 00:24:20,000 --> 00:24:24,360 waist-to-hip ratio than what is preferred 383 00:24:24,360 --> 00:24:33,250 by most men in what we call advanced cultures-- advanced 384 00:24:33,250 --> 00:24:37,550 technically, educationally, so forth. 385 00:24:37,550 --> 00:24:41,610 And I didn't bring the pictures. 386 00:24:41,610 --> 00:24:45,500 They show silhouettes of the kind of women. 387 00:24:45,500 --> 00:24:49,750 Basically these men in the test were shown little drawings 388 00:24:49,750 --> 00:24:54,530 of women, mostly front view, so you can see their shape. 389 00:24:54,530 --> 00:24:57,500 And they chose the slightly heavier 390 00:24:57,500 --> 00:25:03,280 than what people in the USA or Europe would choose. 391 00:25:03,280 --> 00:25:06,650 So he suggests-- I think his argument is a little bit fuzzy, 392 00:25:06,650 --> 00:25:08,775 and it hasn't been fully tested. 393 00:25:08,775 --> 00:25:12,980 But he points out that obesity was 394 00:25:12,980 --> 00:25:17,650 all but impossible in pre-colonial Amerindian groups. 395 00:25:17,650 --> 00:25:20,403 These were American and American Indian groups in South America. 396 00:25:23,190 --> 00:25:25,740 Being underweight was probably more common. 397 00:25:25,740 --> 00:25:28,540 And if a woman was slightly overweight, 398 00:25:28,540 --> 00:25:30,230 he suggests that there was a greater 399 00:25:30,230 --> 00:25:34,320 probability of her being fertile. 400 00:25:34,320 --> 00:25:36,170 And also the probability would be 401 00:25:36,170 --> 00:25:39,270 greater that she doesn't have a problem with parasites, which 402 00:25:39,270 --> 00:25:45,800 are common down in there, with their living style. 403 00:25:45,800 --> 00:25:48,850 And, of course, that suggestion should apply to other groups. 404 00:25:48,850 --> 00:25:50,035 That should be more tested. 405 00:25:56,570 --> 00:25:58,664 And it should at least be true for groups 406 00:25:58,664 --> 00:26:00,580 that have been isolated from modern societies. 407 00:26:04,670 --> 00:26:06,030 We don't know. 408 00:26:06,030 --> 00:26:07,870 He's probably right about this. 409 00:26:07,870 --> 00:26:11,890 But, you know, you need to test any of these ideas. 410 00:26:11,890 --> 00:26:13,940 But you could also just say, well, OK, 411 00:26:13,940 --> 00:26:19,010 one exception doesn't disprove the general finding. 412 00:26:19,010 --> 00:26:20,440 And even though that's true, when 413 00:26:20,440 --> 00:26:23,314 you get a consistent finding like that in one society, 414 00:26:23,314 --> 00:26:24,730 there's got be some reason for it. 415 00:26:24,730 --> 00:26:29,350 And so it's worthy of more investigation. 416 00:26:29,350 --> 00:26:32,290 But not just with the Yomibato, but with other groups where 417 00:26:32,290 --> 00:26:33,835 similar conditions apply. 418 00:26:37,410 --> 00:26:43,060 OK, now this is a study where they paid attention 419 00:26:43,060 --> 00:26:45,900 to both of these measures. 420 00:26:45,900 --> 00:26:47,040 This is the article. 421 00:26:47,040 --> 00:26:50,110 Male Preferences for Female Waist-to-Hip Ratio 422 00:26:50,110 --> 00:26:53,800 and Body Mass Index in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea. 423 00:26:58,830 --> 00:27:00,910 It was published in the American Journal 424 00:27:00,910 --> 00:27:03,510 of Physical Anthropology a few years ago. 425 00:27:08,220 --> 00:27:14,060 They were using 100 men in three villages in this remote region. 426 00:27:14,060 --> 00:27:16,270 They were asked to judge attractiveness 427 00:27:16,270 --> 00:27:21,440 of women who had undergone micrograph surgery to reduce 428 00:27:21,440 --> 00:27:23,350 their waste-to-hip ratio. 429 00:27:23,350 --> 00:27:25,480 They had undergone a kind of plastic surgery. 430 00:27:28,410 --> 00:27:32,060 So what they do is, they take the fatty tissue, 431 00:27:32,060 --> 00:27:34,710 the adipose tissue, from the waist, 432 00:27:34,710 --> 00:27:36,700 and reshape the buttocks with it. 433 00:27:36,700 --> 00:27:40,220 So the weight-- the average weight, anyway-- of these women 434 00:27:40,220 --> 00:27:42,740 doesn't change much. 435 00:27:42,740 --> 00:27:43,785 But their shape changes. 436 00:27:46,570 --> 00:27:48,880 They get more of an hour-glass figure. 437 00:27:48,880 --> 00:27:52,610 And the men consistently chose post-operative photographs 438 00:27:52,610 --> 00:27:56,370 as being more attractive than pre-operative photographs 439 00:27:56,370 --> 00:27:57,160 of the same women. 440 00:28:00,030 --> 00:28:01,980 And it didn't seem to be the body mass 441 00:28:01,980 --> 00:28:03,270 index that made a difference. 442 00:28:03,270 --> 00:28:06,980 These are the actual numbers from the study. 443 00:28:06,980 --> 00:28:11,650 And they did it twice. 444 00:28:11,650 --> 00:28:17,110 These are the two groups of women undergoing the surgery. 445 00:28:17,110 --> 00:28:22,955 This gives the patients' ethnicity. 446 00:28:22,955 --> 00:28:24,740 And you can see that varied. 447 00:28:28,410 --> 00:28:36,420 And in this group, you can see that the body mass index was 448 00:28:36,420 --> 00:28:42,831 not-- one group actually went up a little bit, 449 00:28:42,831 --> 00:28:45,080 the other group went down a little bit-- the body mass 450 00:28:45,080 --> 00:28:45,940 index. 451 00:28:45,940 --> 00:28:48,450 But the waist- to-hip ratios that you can see, 452 00:28:48,450 --> 00:28:51,293 were consistently reduced. 453 00:28:59,520 --> 00:29:00,020 All right. 454 00:29:00,020 --> 00:29:03,170 So that was the data they had. 455 00:29:03,170 --> 00:29:05,720 And the men were tested on photographs. 456 00:29:05,720 --> 00:29:07,760 These are the nature of the photographs. 457 00:29:07,760 --> 00:29:09,740 So here's pre-op. 458 00:29:09,740 --> 00:29:12,080 Here's post-op. 459 00:29:12,080 --> 00:29:16,850 And this is the oblique view-- pre-op and post-op. 460 00:29:16,850 --> 00:29:19,295 So it shows what the surgeons were doing. 461 00:29:19,295 --> 00:29:20,545 And these are the preferences. 462 00:29:23,130 --> 00:29:28,600 Much greater preference for the post-operative-- similarly 463 00:29:28,600 --> 00:29:31,310 for that view. 464 00:29:31,310 --> 00:29:33,710 So that was one study that, because they 465 00:29:33,710 --> 00:29:35,940 were the very same women involved-- 466 00:29:35,940 --> 00:29:39,500 the only thing that was changing in an obvious way 467 00:29:39,500 --> 00:29:43,970 was simply that shape that affected 468 00:29:43,970 --> 00:29:46,090 their waste-to-hip ratio. 469 00:29:46,090 --> 00:29:50,064 The body mass index, when it did go down, 470 00:29:50,064 --> 00:29:51,480 didn't seem to make any difference 471 00:29:51,480 --> 00:29:52,780 in that particular study. 472 00:29:56,770 --> 00:30:00,520 So what about preferences shown by females choosing mates. 473 00:30:00,520 --> 00:30:02,330 This has been studied also. 474 00:30:02,330 --> 00:30:09,040 And as we know from when we were talking about Scott's chapters, 475 00:30:09,040 --> 00:30:11,450 that females tend to make their decisions 476 00:30:11,450 --> 00:30:12,870 by different kinds of means. 477 00:30:16,000 --> 00:30:18,615 It doesn't mean that physical attractiveness does not 478 00:30:18,615 --> 00:30:19,490 make some difference. 479 00:30:19,490 --> 00:30:22,710 But it is often not nearly as important for women 480 00:30:22,710 --> 00:30:24,760 as it is for a man. 481 00:30:24,760 --> 00:30:26,830 And there's reasons-- evolutionary reasons-- 482 00:30:26,830 --> 00:30:27,800 for that. 483 00:30:27,800 --> 00:30:31,375 Women prefer resource potential. 484 00:30:34,010 --> 00:30:36,140 And so you'd predict that, well, they 485 00:30:36,140 --> 00:30:38,457 might prefer slightly older men, more likely 486 00:30:38,457 --> 00:30:40,165 to have more resources. 487 00:30:42,875 --> 00:30:49,360 They are more likely to prefer rich men, and so forth-- men 488 00:30:49,360 --> 00:30:51,820 with property. 489 00:30:51,820 --> 00:30:54,602 Most men at the age when these choices are made 490 00:30:54,602 --> 00:30:56,435 don't actually have property in our society. 491 00:30:59,180 --> 00:31:01,960 But anyway, that's how I would expect them to differ. 492 00:31:01,960 --> 00:31:10,780 And if you look at the term "maximum reproductive 493 00:31:10,780 --> 00:31:13,940 potential," it just has a different meaning 494 00:31:13,940 --> 00:31:15,820 for women and men. 495 00:31:15,820 --> 00:31:22,650 And this is the difference in age preferences-- the mean age. 496 00:31:22,650 --> 00:31:30,380 This is the age difference-- male greater than female. 497 00:31:30,380 --> 00:31:33,090 It's only these to the left of that vertical line 498 00:31:33,090 --> 00:31:37,480 there, where in actual marriages, 499 00:31:37,480 --> 00:31:41,210 the male is younger than the female. 500 00:31:41,210 --> 00:31:43,700 These are all the ones where the male is older. 501 00:31:43,700 --> 00:31:48,850 And note that the peak is roughly three years. 502 00:31:48,850 --> 00:31:51,410 That's a consistent finding in these studies. 503 00:31:51,410 --> 00:31:53,640 But notice also a huge range. 504 00:31:57,220 --> 00:31:59,130 It goes up, of course. 505 00:31:59,130 --> 00:32:02,230 Some women will marry a man that's 506 00:32:02,230 --> 00:32:03,630 more than twice their age. 507 00:32:03,630 --> 00:32:06,490 And this does occur, so all that kind of data 508 00:32:06,490 --> 00:32:08,870 is on this type of curve. 509 00:32:08,870 --> 00:32:13,970 But you can see, it's a small, small percentage there. 510 00:32:13,970 --> 00:32:19,660 So it's explained-- it's predicted-- by this expectation 511 00:32:19,660 --> 00:32:25,500 that women are looking more for potential or actual resources. 512 00:32:25,500 --> 00:32:26,030 All right. 513 00:32:29,130 --> 00:32:36,470 Humans also have this tendency to stay and act within groups. 514 00:32:36,470 --> 00:32:38,660 And different groups may compete with each other, 515 00:32:38,660 --> 00:32:39,525 sometimes violently. 516 00:32:45,330 --> 00:32:49,250 Remember the story of Romeo and Juliet. 517 00:32:49,250 --> 00:32:57,500 So I want to try to specify a list of evolutionary fitness 518 00:32:57,500 --> 00:33:01,320 benefits of these groupism feelings. 519 00:33:01,320 --> 00:33:05,590 Why do we like to measure-- to choose someone 520 00:33:05,590 --> 00:33:08,780 within our group-- especially if you think 521 00:33:08,780 --> 00:33:12,090 of earlier society during our evolution. 522 00:33:12,090 --> 00:33:13,090 OK. 523 00:33:13,090 --> 00:33:16,530 And these are the things I could come up with. 524 00:33:16,530 --> 00:33:18,796 Higher probability of finding a mate. 525 00:33:21,320 --> 00:33:26,380 Higher probability of rescue and survival 526 00:33:26,380 --> 00:33:29,630 if you stay within that group. 527 00:33:29,630 --> 00:33:34,060 Higher probability of better defense against predators. 528 00:33:34,060 --> 00:33:38,700 If there's a predator-- people in the same group get together, 529 00:33:38,700 --> 00:33:44,480 help each other-- not as likely to help the outsider. 530 00:33:44,480 --> 00:33:46,950 Higher probability of a better defense 531 00:33:46,950 --> 00:33:50,840 against hostile human groups. 532 00:33:50,840 --> 00:33:55,790 Advantages in food acquisition, gathering, hunting, sharing 533 00:33:55,790 --> 00:33:57,330 and specialization. 534 00:33:57,330 --> 00:33:59,880 These are all advantages of being in a group. 535 00:33:59,880 --> 00:34:02,090 Help in child-rearing and education. 536 00:34:05,330 --> 00:34:08,650 And advantages in learning from older, more experienced group 537 00:34:08,650 --> 00:34:10,960 members. 538 00:34:10,960 --> 00:34:14,609 It's much easier within your group than for someone 539 00:34:14,609 --> 00:34:15,400 from another group. 540 00:34:18,250 --> 00:34:20,780 Of course, now we've formalized education so much. 541 00:34:20,780 --> 00:34:23,854 We cross these boundaries all the time. 542 00:34:23,854 --> 00:34:29,239 At least during our evolution, these probably all 543 00:34:29,239 --> 00:34:32,510 would be true-- which would simply 544 00:34:32,510 --> 00:34:35,525 explain why we've evolved these kinds of feelings. 545 00:34:39,581 --> 00:34:40,080 OK. 546 00:34:40,080 --> 00:34:46,929 Then we get to his appendix questions 547 00:34:46,929 --> 00:34:52,330 about the biological basis for reciprocity among humans. 548 00:34:52,330 --> 00:34:53,735 The claim is it remains unproven. 549 00:34:57,200 --> 00:35:00,350 Here the statement is that general self interest 550 00:35:00,350 --> 00:35:02,750 and an ability to see beyond the short term, 551 00:35:02,750 --> 00:35:06,170 may be all that's required to generate such behavior. 552 00:35:06,170 --> 00:35:09,590 So what's the misunderstanding in that kind of statement? 553 00:35:09,590 --> 00:35:11,090 It's very simple. 554 00:35:11,090 --> 00:35:15,410 They confuse proximate and ultimate issues. 555 00:35:15,410 --> 00:35:19,530 As we know from before, you have to deal with those things 556 00:35:19,530 --> 00:35:20,500 separately. 557 00:35:20,500 --> 00:35:23,940 Understand that they're separate kinds of issues. 558 00:35:28,860 --> 00:35:30,680 What about the idea of languages? 559 00:35:30,680 --> 00:35:33,420 Languages vary greatly among human societies. 560 00:35:33,420 --> 00:35:35,690 So if someone claims that this fact clearly 561 00:35:35,690 --> 00:35:38,260 demonstrates the greater importance of culture 562 00:35:38,260 --> 00:35:40,910 than biology in the control of human behavior, 563 00:35:40,910 --> 00:35:43,740 how does a sociobiologist deal with that? 564 00:35:43,740 --> 00:35:45,610 Very simply. 565 00:35:45,610 --> 00:35:49,390 The important issue is language versus no language, 566 00:35:49,390 --> 00:35:52,390 not the details of a particular language. 567 00:35:52,390 --> 00:35:55,110 That's where Chomsky made a great contribution, 568 00:35:55,110 --> 00:36:01,880 pointing out the form of grammar that's the same in one language 569 00:36:01,880 --> 00:36:03,200 after another after another. 570 00:36:08,860 --> 00:36:13,010 So we're born with an innate ability to learn any language. 571 00:36:13,010 --> 00:36:14,400 That's what we inherit. 572 00:36:19,380 --> 00:36:25,770 And here's one of Stephen Jay Gould's statements. 573 00:36:25,770 --> 00:36:29,090 "Men are not programmed by genes to maximize matings, 574 00:36:29,090 --> 00:36:34,110 nor are women devoted to monogamy by inalterable nature. 575 00:36:34,110 --> 00:36:37,460 We can speak only of capacities, not requirements 576 00:36:37,460 --> 00:36:40,050 or even determining propensities. 577 00:36:40,050 --> 00:36:44,540 Therefore, our biology does not make us do it." 578 00:36:44,540 --> 00:36:46,100 So how do you deal with that kind 579 00:36:46,100 --> 00:36:47,450 of criticism of sociobiology? 580 00:36:53,520 --> 00:36:55,640 He's pitting culture against biology. 581 00:36:55,640 --> 00:36:57,380 Culture versus biology. 582 00:36:57,380 --> 00:37:02,570 It's not an either/or matter at all. 583 00:37:02,570 --> 00:37:04,710 As we pointed out, both are always involved. 584 00:37:15,120 --> 00:37:17,800 OK, now this is interesting. 585 00:37:17,800 --> 00:37:20,340 This is a critique of Alcock. 586 00:37:20,340 --> 00:37:22,260 In the final paragraph of chapter seven, 587 00:37:22,260 --> 00:37:25,570 he sums up his conclusions about the unlikely philosophy 588 00:37:25,570 --> 00:37:29,570 that Gould, Mead and many social scientists and some feminists 589 00:37:29,570 --> 00:37:33,690 would have us accept, largely on ideological grounds. 590 00:37:33,690 --> 00:37:35,860 But then he suddenly shifts the argument. 591 00:37:35,860 --> 00:37:38,930 And listen to what he says. 592 00:37:38,930 --> 00:37:41,970 "That this position has any residual credibility 593 00:37:41,970 --> 00:37:45,660 can be attributed largely to the power of wishful thinking 594 00:37:45,660 --> 00:37:50,430 that some special meaning accrues to human existence." 595 00:37:50,430 --> 00:37:52,780 And this is a quote now. "It is not 596 00:37:52,780 --> 00:37:56,150 easy to accept that evolution is a meaningless tale told 597 00:37:56,150 --> 00:37:57,830 by an idiot." 598 00:37:57,830 --> 00:38:00,590 His conclusion is then stated. "Indeed most people 599 00:38:00,590 --> 00:38:04,830 find it hard to believe the blind evolutionary processes 600 00:38:04,830 --> 00:38:07,850 have created us, a creature whose unconscious ultimate 601 00:38:07,850 --> 00:38:10,710 goal is no different from that of the slime 602 00:38:10,710 --> 00:38:14,630 mold, the aardvark, the pine tree, and the earthworm. 603 00:38:14,630 --> 00:38:19,780 Although this point is evidently unpalatable, 604 00:38:19,780 --> 00:38:22,670 it is true nevertheless." 605 00:38:22,670 --> 00:38:26,330 So my criticism of Alcock here is just 606 00:38:26,330 --> 00:38:28,850 his very narrow definition of what 607 00:38:28,850 --> 00:38:30,590 you mean by an ultimate goal. 608 00:38:33,530 --> 00:38:36,480 There's the ultimate reason we evolved 609 00:38:36,480 --> 00:38:38,870 this way-- certainly this very simple rule 610 00:38:38,870 --> 00:38:43,510 of maximizing genetic fitness. 611 00:38:46,200 --> 00:38:50,550 So is it really a meaningless tale told by an idiot? 612 00:38:50,550 --> 00:38:54,020 In my view, what is really incredible and amazing 613 00:38:54,020 --> 00:38:58,250 is that the simple and repeated process of genetic spread 614 00:38:58,250 --> 00:39:01,005 and change, following the biological law 615 00:39:01,005 --> 00:39:04,670 of natural selection, has led to such complex creatures 616 00:39:04,670 --> 00:39:08,410 with such cognitive capacities, and with such an ability 617 00:39:08,410 --> 00:39:10,910 to ponder the nature of the world and its beings. 618 00:39:10,910 --> 00:39:16,700 And beyond that, I would add that conscious beings-- 619 00:39:16,700 --> 00:39:19,030 the sociobiologist, the evolutionist, 620 00:39:19,030 --> 00:39:22,890 they have no explanation for even the existence 621 00:39:22,890 --> 00:39:25,260 of consciousness. 622 00:39:25,260 --> 00:39:30,170 It's outside their realm, as I pointed out before. 623 00:39:30,170 --> 00:39:32,710 OK, here's a final topic. 624 00:39:32,710 --> 00:39:35,300 We have four minutes. 625 00:39:35,300 --> 00:39:38,860 Romantic love. 626 00:39:38,860 --> 00:39:41,230 Is the phenomenon of romantic love-- 627 00:39:41,230 --> 00:39:43,740 the falling-in-love experience-- an invention 628 00:39:43,740 --> 00:39:49,570 of medieval court life, as has been repeatedly asserted 629 00:39:49,570 --> 00:39:51,410 in literature? 630 00:39:51,410 --> 00:39:58,500 And it's a very popular belief after it was first proposed. 631 00:39:58,500 --> 00:40:02,280 Does it only occur in certain cultures? 632 00:40:02,280 --> 00:40:06,860 So I want to state a sociobiological hypothesis 633 00:40:06,860 --> 00:40:09,010 concerning its origins. 634 00:40:09,010 --> 00:40:10,810 Because you're working on another homework, 635 00:40:10,810 --> 00:40:14,420 on your topics, I'm not going to give this as a homework. 636 00:40:14,420 --> 00:40:17,510 I'm going to give you what I would say about it. 637 00:40:20,250 --> 00:40:26,810 First of all, I would say that the idea was invented 638 00:40:26,810 --> 00:40:30,790 by people who could not accept the role of innate motivations 639 00:40:30,790 --> 00:40:31,900 in humans at all. 640 00:40:31,900 --> 00:40:34,910 And there are many people like that. 641 00:40:34,910 --> 00:40:36,170 OK. 642 00:40:36,170 --> 00:40:38,660 Does it occur only in certain cultures? 643 00:40:38,660 --> 00:40:41,480 It appears to occur in all cultures to some degree. 644 00:40:41,480 --> 00:40:46,770 And there are many cultures that have marriages 645 00:40:46,770 --> 00:40:53,630 that are made by the-- basically all the decisions are 646 00:40:53,630 --> 00:40:56,550 by the parents and the relatives. 647 00:40:56,550 --> 00:41:00,360 But even in those cultures, they end up 648 00:41:00,360 --> 00:41:03,940 having to separate-- well, this was an arranged marriage 649 00:41:03,940 --> 00:41:06,190 and that is a love marriage. 650 00:41:06,190 --> 00:41:08,540 They separate them. 651 00:41:08,540 --> 00:41:13,837 And you find that in all these cultures, 652 00:41:13,837 --> 00:41:15,420 because falling in love still happens. 653 00:41:18,430 --> 00:41:21,990 Fortunately, in societies where the marriages are decided 654 00:41:21,990 --> 00:41:26,050 by parents, they often work out better than marriages here, 655 00:41:26,050 --> 00:41:29,700 where the rate of divorce is now greater than 50%. 656 00:41:32,950 --> 00:41:36,150 But let's state a sociobiological hypothesis 657 00:41:36,150 --> 00:41:40,210 about the origins of that feeling. 658 00:41:40,210 --> 00:41:43,720 It's clearly instinctive. 659 00:41:43,720 --> 00:41:47,430 If you haven't experienced it, you 660 00:41:47,430 --> 00:41:50,930 will realize when it does occur, that it's 661 00:41:50,930 --> 00:41:53,820 an innate-- something's happening to you. 662 00:41:56,460 --> 00:41:59,030 Does it occur only in young people? 663 00:41:59,030 --> 00:42:00,320 No. 664 00:42:00,320 --> 00:42:03,100 Are prominent leaders in the community exempt? 665 00:42:03,100 --> 00:42:06,030 There's plenty of examples in the news where that's not true. 666 00:42:08,660 --> 00:42:11,610 If it has evolved as a human fixed-action pattern, 667 00:42:11,610 --> 00:42:16,730 it's got to be adaptive in a sociobiological sense. 668 00:42:16,730 --> 00:42:20,510 Like many evolved tendencies, it can produce conflicts, 669 00:42:20,510 --> 00:42:23,200 not only in the society but within the individual. 670 00:42:23,200 --> 00:42:26,920 And this can cause what we call cognitive dissonance which 671 00:42:26,920 --> 00:42:28,960 the individual will struggle to resolve 672 00:42:28,960 --> 00:42:32,180 in one way or the other. 673 00:42:32,180 --> 00:42:35,540 So consider why it must have had to evolve 674 00:42:35,540 --> 00:42:37,930 in early human groups. 675 00:42:37,930 --> 00:42:40,910 Think of the close bonds acquired 676 00:42:40,910 --> 00:42:44,590 in growing up in an extended family, 677 00:42:44,590 --> 00:42:51,060 within which there were very bad consequences of inbreeding. 678 00:42:51,060 --> 00:42:53,560 It was necessary for genetic fitness 679 00:42:53,560 --> 00:42:56,780 to have a motivation that could occur 680 00:42:56,780 --> 00:43:00,120 in strength after sexual maturity-- strong enough 681 00:43:00,120 --> 00:43:05,050 to cause a young person to leave his natal group. 682 00:43:05,050 --> 00:43:09,480 And the result was what they often 683 00:43:09,480 --> 00:43:11,450 call "roaming in search of a mate"-- 684 00:43:11,450 --> 00:43:13,280 a very common tradition. 685 00:43:13,280 --> 00:43:16,650 Usually the male-- but not always just the male-- 686 00:43:16,650 --> 00:43:18,090 will go off in search of a mate. 687 00:43:18,090 --> 00:43:24,650 He leaves home till he finds a woman he can fall for. 688 00:43:24,650 --> 00:43:28,680 You also have secret liaisons, eloping, 689 00:43:28,680 --> 00:43:31,500 all the other characteristics of the falling-in-love phenomena, 690 00:43:31,500 --> 00:43:34,170 including behaving stupidly, irrationally, 691 00:43:34,170 --> 00:43:37,510 disregarding long-established habits, and everything. 692 00:43:37,510 --> 00:43:39,650 It has a biological reason. 693 00:43:42,350 --> 00:43:44,310 And then I'll let you just read these. 694 00:43:44,310 --> 00:43:48,540 I've put a few summaries of recent research, 695 00:43:48,540 --> 00:43:51,320 and they're very easy to find.