the proximate reason for life

The chicken is only an egg's way for making another egg.

- Richard Dawkins

back to hunter-gatherers

We are shedding our agricultural traditions and, in some respects, returning to our nomadic roots.

Few of us still live in the house where we grew up. Rather, many of us have several places we call home—our parent's house, the office, our own residence, and perhaps a vacation spot. We migrate between them. We no longer grow our own food. We now hunt and gather in the grocery store and then carry home our catch—as Homo erectus did over a million years ago. (I am not surprised that we like fast foods either, or eat between meals here and there as we move through the day; our ancestors certainly ate as they marched along.) We commute to work again. And we have a loose network of friends and relatives, many of whom live far away.

These are habits from our past. We are shedding the sexual attitudes of farm life too. In preindustrial Europe, a wedding often marked a merger of property and an alliance between families. So marriages had to be stable and permanent. This necessity is gone. A woman's job was to bear her husband's seed and raise his young; hence our agrarian forerunners required virginity at marriage. This custom is gone. Many of our farming ancestors carefully arranged their marriages. This practice is largely gone. They banned divorce. This is gone. They had a double standard for adultery. This has changed. And they celebrated two marital mottoes: "Honor thy husband" and "Till death us do part." These, too, are disappearing.

For the past several thousand years, most farm women had only three basic options: to be uneducated, subservient housewives; to be cloistered nuns; to be courtesans, prostitutes, or concubines. Men, on the other hand, held the sole responsibility for the family income and welfare of the young.

Now vast numbers of women work outside the home. We have double-income families. We are more nomadic. And we have a growing equality between the sexes. In these respects, we are returning to traditions of love and marriage that are compatible with our ancient human spirit.

Other things:

Women have begun to space their children farther apart as well. In societies where woman gather or garden for a living, they tend to bear their young about every four years. This gives the mother uninterrupted time with her infant before she bears a second child. Today this trait, birth spacing, is returning.

Women will continue to work. Female chimpanzees work. Female gorillas, orangutans, and baboons work. For millenia, hunting-gathering women worked. On the farm women worked. The housewife is more an invention of privileged people in ranked societies than a natural role of the human animal. The double-income family is part of our human hertiage.

Margaret Mead once said: “The first relationship is for sex; the second is for children; the third is for companionship.”

sexual selection drives art

Why we evolved larger brains:

Miller argues that during human evolution, “sexual selection seems to have shifted its primary target from body to mind.” It is sexual selection, therefore, that is responsible for the astonishingly large human brain, an organ whose peculiar capacities wildly exceed survival needs on the African savannahs. And beyond its sheer size, the human brain makes possible a mind that is uniquely good at a long list of features found in all cultures but which are difficult to explain in terms of survival benefits: “humor, story-telling, gossip, art, music, self-consciousness, ornate language, imaginative ideologies, religion, morality.” Miller offers us a new model to understand the evolved mind. It’s not Descartes’s ghost, nor the mental hydraulic system of Freud, nor the computer chip of cognitive science. From the standpoint of sexual selection, the mind is best seen as a gaudy, over-powered home-entertainment system, devised in order that our stone-age ancestors could attract, amuse, and bed each other. Bed, however, was not the only object, since the qualities of mind chosen and thus evolved made for enduring pairings, the rearing of children, and the creation of robust social groups.

Art is whatever that requires skill:

Again, admiration for the ability to do something difficult is not unique to art: we admire athletes, inventors, skillful orators or jugglers. Miller is claiming that this is at least as much intrinsic to art as it is to any other field of human endeavor. He cites Ellen Dissanayake’s much-discussed notion of “making special” as essential to the arts. But whereas she sees making special as something that tends to promote an intense communal sense in a hunter-gatherer group, he interprets the phenomenon as more connected with display: “Indicator theory suggests that making things special means making them hard to do, so that they reveal something special about the maker.” It follows that almost anything can be made artistic by executing it in a manner that would be difficult to imitate. “Art” as an honorific therefore “connotes superiority, exclusiveness, and high achievement.” Cooking as a mundane productive activity is one thing; elevate it to “the art of cooking” and you emphasize its potential to be practiced as a skill and achievement that could be a useful fitness indicator. Miller adds to this a mordant comment: it is because artistic activity is an important fitness display that people will argue so passionately about whether something is or is not a work of art. Thus might the whole philosophical sub-field of aesthetics be understood as an extension of courtship rituals.

Modern art may look easy, but it's not. Action painting is not easy to do and modern art is not just about the art object, but more about the originality and the theory behind the art, the narrative and credibility of the artist, the reputation of the gallery/agent/dealer supporting the artist, and so on and so forth. Modern art is not about the painting, but the packaging of the painting.

Miller is aware just how controversial these ideas are. He grants that these days artistic elites may prefer abstraction to representation, but it is in the history of the tastes of hoi polloi that we’re going to find the keys to the origin of the arts. So the vulgar gallery comment, “My kid could paint better than that,” is vindicated as valid from the standpoint of sexual selection, and can be expected to be heard in popular artistic contexts for the rest of human time: people are not going to “learn” from their culture that skill doesn’t count (any more than they will learn that general body symmetry does not indicate fitness). Moreover, even with the elites it’s really not so different: the skill-discriminations of elites are simply accomplished at a more rarefied level. Cy Twombly’s blackboard scribbles, which look to many ordinary folk like, well, children’s blackboard scribbles, are viewed by high-art critics such as Arthur Danto as demonstrating an extremely refined artistic skill. That the works do not obviously show skill to the uninitiated simply demonstrates that they are being produced at a level that the unsophisticated cannot grasp. The esoteric nature of art, and with it status and hierarchy, thus remains in place.

- Denis Dutton

why are people against plastic surgery?

What's wrong with someone getting tasteful plastic surgery? There is something perverse about the worry that such an enhancement might give someone an unfair advantage. What makes this any more unfair than the natural advantage of being born with the right genes? It is true that we have a gut feeling that there is a real difference here. But this might be because we are drawn to value natural gifts, since these are the sorts of capacities that are passed on to one's children. We admire the natural and disdain the enhanced. People prefer natural beauty to hair implants and plastic surgery. These preferences might make good Darwinian sense and are difficult to override. But this doesn't make them fair.

We're genetically programmed to favor the natural over the fake; we have developed sophisticated truth-telling devices to determine whether one has the genuine goods or is faking it by employing the right signals. Having the signal is not important, because one can fake the signal, really possessing the qualities that would display such a signal is what matters, because that's what ultimately gets passed down genetically.

plastic surgery, bodybuilding, diamond rings, and gold-diggers

Sexual selection creates a psychological arms race in which the signaling capacity of one sex is pitted against the critical, discriminating powers of the other. That is why we have elevator shoes and push-up bras. That is what the cosmetic, body-building, and vocabulary-building industries are largely about: accentuating, highlighting, or faking desirable signals.

Sexual selection theory sees these urges to improve or enhance fitness signals by any available means as utterly natural strategies: they are straightforward Pleistocene adaptations. In this, sexual selection theory goes dead against many forms of cultural constructionism that have prevailed in intellectual discourse for the last half century. For instance, it has for years been widely argued that women dye their hair and apply wrinkle creams only through cultural pressure, and that wrinkles and gray hair are "natural." A Darwinian view maintains that, on the contrary, a woman's desire to look younger, like a man's desire to appear stronger, taller, or more wealthy, is adaptive and innate. Such strategies will take different forms in different cultures and epochs, but they are prehistoric in their origins. Contrary to gender theorists who have tried to argue that women's use of creams and dyes makes them dupes of the cosmetic industry, the converse is more the case: industries that produce lipsticks, mascara, and hair colors only exist because the values of youthfulness and "looking good" are products of evolution. Approve of them or not, these values persist because they represent our deeper, innate nature.

The essential requirement of Darwinain fitness indicators is that they function reliably and honestly: they must pose authentic tests. If they can be faked, they are useless as indicators. If unhealthy peacocks can grow massive symmetrical tails, the tail loses its value as an indicator.

Human obsessions with what is fake and what is genuine in skill, eloquence, beauty, and intelligence thus merge into another fitness indicator that is encountered high on the female list of mate-selection indicators and rather lower on the male list: wealth, along with its closely associated feature of social status. Women normally cannot help paying attention to how rich a man is—or how potentially rich, if he has not yet set out on a career—as well as his conscientiousness, social standing, and generosity. As a fitness indicator, wealth is open to dishonest signaling, and women are especially keen to distinguish honest wealth signals from faked or exaggerated ones. From the standpoint of sexual selection, whether that really is a Rolex watch or an authentic Princeton diploma is not trivial. Selective pressures in the Pleistocene seem to have combined with cultural expressions from the Holocene to put in place elaborate systems of resource-demonstration rules that are intuitively recognized by females—and ignored by males at their reproductive peril.

How does resource-demonstration work in courtship? Here is where the spontaneous, universal characteristics of an adaptation make themselves apparent. One of the best ways for the boy to prove he has resources is to give girl something is both expensive and useless. Hence flowers: they wilt, and except to look pretty have no use. They can communicate "I love you," but more important is what they signal: "I have the resources to buy thoughtful and beautiful but completely useless things for you, my dearest. And please also enjoy these fine, expensive Belgian chocolates." Consider the alternative: if natural selection governed courtship, the boy would show up at the girl's apartment clutching, instead of flowers and chocolates, a lovely potato, or perhaps a couple of thick steaks, or, being even more inventive, a new ratchet wrench set for her. After all, natural selection favors practicality and efficiency. (The young couple would then go out to a serve-yourself, all-you-can-eat restaurant, since natural selection also favors economy.)

That we smile at this indicates how counterintuitive it is. The real world, operating according to the imperatives of sexual selection, works very differently. If the male is serious, he will take the female to a lavish, overpriced restaurant serving mere smidgens of food. He will order champagne and make sure she notices his large tip. (The all-you-can-eat cafeteria comes later: after they've married and have to feed the children.) With respect to proving access to resources and commitment, nothing beats the gift of a diamond, particularly as an engagement ring. Diamonds, since they are both expensive and useless, are indeed a girl's best friend. They prove one of two conclusions: either he has the resources he claims—money to waste on useless minerals—or, if he does not, he is so committed that he has gone into debt. Any way a woman looks at it, the gift—not just the promise—of a diamond marks a significant step in a courtship situation. (The De Beers slogan, "A diamond is forever," is widely regarded as the most inspired single advertising statement of all time, and Darwinian theory explains why: it connects serious wealth display with the loving commitment women seek in establishing a household.)

- Denis Dutton

why women want diamond rings

The psychologist Geoffrey Miller has argued that many of the more interesting and ostentatious aspects of human nature have evolved through sexual selection, as a way for people to advertise their worthiness to one another. They are ways in which we reveal our fitness, and Miller would include dance here, and much of sports, art, charitable activities, and humor. For him, the brain is a "magnificent sexual ornament."

I am not going to discuss Miller's grand theory in detail here, but there is one insight that he has about sexual attraction that is worth exploring. The first is costly signaling. The idea is that displays of personal quality are only taken seriously if they involve some cost, some level of difficulty or sacrifice. If anyone can easily do the display, then it is worthless, because it is trivially easy to fake. Costly signaling shows up in the gifts we give to one another, particularly during courtship. Miller asks, rhetorically, "Why should a man give a woman a useless diamond engagement ring, when he could buy her a nice big potato, which she could at least eat?" His answer is that the expense and uselessness of the gift is its very point. A diamond is understood as a sign of love in a way that a potato isn't, because most people would only give one to someone they care about, and so the giving signals some combination of wealth and commitment.

Financial value is not the only signal of commitment. The economist Tyler Cowen points out that the best gifts for someone you live with are those that you, yourself, wouldn't want. He points out that even if his wife would enjoy the complete DVD set of Battlestar Galactica, it would be a lousy gift, because he would also get pleasure from it, and so the giving doesn't signal any particular love for her.

Other signals include changing your name, moving, and getting a large tattoo with your lover's name on it (and it can't be one of those stick-on tattoos that you rub off with hot water!). Marriage is obviously a commitment, and it becomes more costly (and more of a sign of love) if it is difficult to get divorced. Prenuptial agreements, however rational they might be, have the opposite effect, as you are explicitly signaling your worry that the relationship might end and shielding yourself from the costs. A man getting a vasectomy after his wife is no longer fertile is signaling that he won't leave her and have children with a younger woman (but, again, if the vasectomy is reversible, it's not as romantic.)

These are all signs of commitment, of love, though it should go without saying that this sort of costly signaling is not always welcome. Cutting off one's ear, for instance, is typically excessive, as is tattooing or self-mutilation after a first date. While these successfully signal interest and devotion, they also convey desperation and madness.

- Paul Bloom

god doesn't care whether you're virgin or not, man does

The central notion of virginity almost always applies to women, not men (the English word "virgin" is derived from the Latin, meaning "young woman"). Female virginity matters more than male virginity because females are virtually always certain of who their children are, while men are often in doubt. It is an evolutionary disaster for a man to raise a genetically unrelated child, and so it matters hugely to him whom his partner has had sex with in her immediate past, with the best answer being: nobody.

- Paul Bloom

level of parental investment --> level of sexual equality

A good way to predict the degree to which sexual equality exists or not in a given species is to look at the level of parental investment from each sex. If the investment is equal, either because the male and female work together to protect extremely fragile offspring (penguins) or because they just spray their sperm and eggs into the sea and offspring don't need more care after that (species of fish), you get physical and seductive equality of the sexes. If you have a species in which the males take care of the children, and the females are anonymous egg donors, you get choosy males and bigger, aggressive females with showy plumage. In this case, the males can’t screw around because they need to make sure their offspring are taken care of.

- Paul Bloom

why male and female sex drives differ

Sperm are tiny, multitudinous things, just barely genes and a motor to help them move toward the egg. Eggs are relatively enormous and contain all the machinery for growing a human. Further, in the standard mammalian plan, fertilization takes place inside the female and then, after birth, the baby is fed through the female's body. For a male mammal, then, the minimum investment required to create a baby, and thus pass on the genes, is a few moments of insertion and ejaculation. For a female it is months or years.

This makes a big difference, because while the female is growing and feeding a baby, she can't have another baby. As a result, one male can have children with many females at once, but not vice versa.

This discrepancy then entails a male-female difference in optimal reproductive strategy. Females should be prone to invest more in their offspring than males, because they can have fewer, and so each one matters more. This predicts that females should tend to be choosier when selecting mates, with an eye out for mates with the right genes and, in species in which this is an option, with the inclination to stick around and protect them and their offspring. Because males benefit from being chosen by females, there should be a corresponding trend for males to compete with one another for access to females, so they tend to be bigger and stronger, and often have evolved special weapons. They also advertise themselves to females, and so have evolved traits such as elaborate tails and markings. This is why the flamboyant tail belongs to the peacock, not the peahen.

- Paul Bloom

why humans tend to be religious, it's innate

A tribe including many members who, from possessing in high degree the spirit of patriotism, fidelity, obedience, courage, and sympathy, were always ready to aid one another, and to sacrifice themselves for the common good, would be victorious over most of other tribes; and this would be natural selection.

- Charles Darwin