How we behave

I have often debated this idea with people. I believe that, since we are all products of Darwins great 'evolution/natural selection' (I hope everyone understands at least something about this biological theory) that every single thing we do, all of our behaviour has some evolutionary advantage. In other words, every thing we do is (over some time-scale) calculated subconsciously to be conducive to the replication of our genes. I have never read Dawkings 'the selfish gene) but I understand what its about and Im sure some people out there will provide input from it. Is there anyone that can debunk this theory?

 

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Teen suicide.

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~Raithere

 

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Drug abuse?

 

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We are all products of dysgenics, so its reasonable to assume we have many useless behavioural tendencies.
However, I think we might be able to make assumptions about certain aspects of the lifestyles within our ancestral heritage by analysing our own behavioural traits, particularly those shared by our relatives.
A tendency to drink or do drugs for example could mean that somewhere along the line your ancestors lived in a bleak grim environment, and found thrills where they could in mushrooms and toad licking.
(silly example, but you get the idea)

On a side note, I'd be curious to know the suicide rate of teenage tribal amazonian indians.
If it is similar to say, north american teens, then that is a mystery, similar in scope to the mystery of whale beachings.
If its a far lesser percentage in the indians then its safe to say that suicide is a product of man's artificial world and the pressures it has on natural organisms. Or even possibly the lack of pressures.

 

But is not society the product of human activity that should, according to the theory, have been determined in the same way? However indirect the influence, it is still there. And, it seems that the theory even suggests that the influence should be very indirect in principle.

 

no way is society an evolutionary advantage. it is only man's wit and inventioning that has enabled him to flourish. observe bacteria, they reproduce every half hour or whatnot. allowing them to adapt to their environment much faster than most any other organism. humans are quite the opposite. anyone notice all the stuff you must go through to getting laid?

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Really? Where do you get your food from?

~Raithere

 

OK I guesss u didn't know what I meant. I meant our behaviour has an evolutionary advantage but it may not be the best for us at this present time and if it isn't, then them genes will be weaned out of us.

For example, drug abuse is the result of over-indulging one of our natural 'feel good' systems which kick in when we do something that increases the replication of our genes. Forexample when we eat good food with plenty of calories (for energy) then our body releases endorphins so that we get a pleasurable feeling and we strive to do the same thing again. Evolution has selected this trait because those who had it were more successful. Nowadays the environment has changed and there are substanes which are easily had (such as processed food and drugs) which easily excite this system. It is no longer an evolutionary advantage but evlution is slow and gradually it may be weaned out.

Suicide may be caused by a number of things which trigger some ofour unpleasnat response feelings (I can go into the in more detail in another post if u require) but it is a good example of how rapid evolution can sometimes act. Because as we all know the conditions (mental states) which lead to suicide are definitely no longer adaptive, these will be weaned out from our genetic make-up. because it is So non-adaptive (in fact having those genes will lead to death or zero survival) every time someone commits suicide, there is one less member of the public with those genes (who may not have passed them on to offspring yet). In this way evolution may be able to wean out those people susceptible to evoluton over the course of the next few centuries! Who knows

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The thing is, my OP suggested that ther ARE NO useless behavioural tendencies and that is what I still believe. Everything we do today has obviously been selected for in the past over a couple of million years and whethere they are detrimental or beneficial today depends on how fast our environment is changing. As long as we survive however, evolution may catch up.

(read my previous thread for more info)

 

This statement interests me. Do you believe that evolution itself could "die?" That is, just like everything else, is it feasible that everything itself could cease, that given a long enough period of time, the environment eventually conquers evolution to an ultimate end?

And another thought, what is your opinion of an interaction between evolution and the environment? It seems like there is some recurssion, or at least some what of a feedback loop in this relationship, and that this could become unstable on a very large scale.

 

Well evolution cannot exist without replicating organisms so if the environment were to alter in a very small timescale to such an extent then the annihilation of all life will bring about the end of evolution. By 'evolution' in the last sentence I mean 'our evolutionatry tree' which started some 3 billion years ago. This is not to say that life could not start spontaneously again creating a new evolutionary tree.
I think u might have interpreted it a different way so to clear things up, as long as there ARE replicating organisms (i.e. life) then evolution HAS to happen. This is a much more interesting statement, but u can see that it means that evolution cannot die while life still exists. I hope this answers your question.

 

If this is the case, why are the numbers of people currently being treated for depression and anxiety higher than ever?

Do you have any scientific evidence suggesting that suicidal tendencies are genetic?

 

Basically it does. I just wanted to get your opinion. But you said some other stuff there that I'm going to have to let stew before I accept.

 

There are lots of little things we rarely think about that this rings true for.
Like how children tend to climb trees for example.
They think it's fun, but really its a safety measure against predators. Also seen in cheetahs and grizzly bears. For these three species tree climbing is rare in adulthood, but the youngsters can't stay out of the trees. Unlike most play, it is not a form of training for adulthood but rather an evolved defensive behaviour.
Many young animals die falling out of trees while playing, and yet the behaviour remains because obviously at some stage the threat that accompanied staying on the ground was far greater.
If you've ever been a kid thrilled to climb a tree you've experienced vestigal instinct in its rawest form.
Its interesting how dishonest nature is. Tricking you into behaviour by rewarding you with happiness. Not that these behaviours are things we'd be opposed to necessarrily, but we don't get the message straight, its trickery, its brilliant really. Same could be said for sex, only recently have some organisms started consciously deciding to have children. All used to be, and most still are, tricked into reproducing.
Even the people deciding to have children are being tricked really, by their instincts, unless they're doing it to rip off the government or something. Just wanting children and not being sure why are you're instincts romanticising the concept in your mind.
People rarely have children for logical reasons.

Errandir you busted me on the society thing.
I'm not really sure what the deal is with suicide. Its an odd behaviour to be sure, I think if someone acknowledged the sneaky nature of nature I just mentioned and then came to the conclusion they won't be natures slave and committed suicide. They would be displaying behaviour that can only be described as transcending that of traditional living organisms. They might be the first people to have an argument when saying they are "above" animals.
But I'm not aware of any suicide notes explaining these motives, usually its trivial crap, indicating they are still animals, not fighting their instincts but rather cooperating with them.
So really nature tells some people to die, in the same way it tells kids to get up trees, why I don't know.

 

There are higher numbers now because, as I've said, our environment is changing more rapidly than ever.
I have not yet looked into 'hard' evidence for genetic suicide but most of our behaviour is genetic anyway. Only a small proportion is through acquired experience in my mind.
Anyway the whole point of the thread is to examine this THEORY and decide if it is valid or not. There is no reason in my mind to suggest otherwise.

 

Actually I can't remember why I posted this in the general philosophy section! I guess it should be in a science forum somewhere (biology maybe). I might get a better response there too. Anyway.....

 

sonic. yeah, you being funny, but what is your point? having food readily available only makes me fatter and lazier, not particularly advantageous nor healthy in the long term.

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no one is predisposed toward suicide as a direct result of their evolution (speaking strictly of evolution in the genetic sense, and not in some social or intellectual "evolution"). There can be no direct advantage in a predisposition to remove permanently one's gene from the pool. However, considering that suicide is the ultimate response to one's failure to adapt to some sort of social stress (environmental factors) or to one's preexisting nature (genetic factors), then there is an evolutionary advantage to having a genetic "urge" to kill oneself. For example, suicide rates are very high among schizophrenics. Since it seems as though there is a genetic component to schizophrenia, its is to the advantage of the species to have these people carry genes favouring them to suicide. This is most directly relevant to teenage suicide, as there is a better chance that they have not yet reproduced. There is no advantage to having a grandfather predisposed to suicide. It would be interesting to see how many teenage suicides are fathers or mothers to get a better look at this.

 

No, that is indeed true. That wouldn't be evolution at all would it? That would be selection of the most unfit or even no selection at all, just self destruction! But indirectly, evolution does lead to feelings of unhappiness. Unhappy feelings are there for a reason just as happy ones are but just like we have learned to exploit what evolution has given us in the feel good dept., sometimes the unhappy trigger mechanisms over-react as such and do their job 'too properly'! The unhappy feelings have evolved to deter us from whatever caused them but they might get so strong as to end ones life. This is when evolution has gone too far in one directionso what does it do??? It weans out these genes through many generations (as long as our environment has stabled somewhat, which it hasn't).

 

It is in unlikely, to me, that unhappy feelings are a product of evolution, especially that intense unhappiness called depression which leads to suicide. Although homo sapiens has been around X million years (is it even that long??), we have only lived as "human beings" for I would say a maximum of 10000 years or so. By that I mean as a society that could exist above the substitence level; before that, homo sapiens were just self-aware (maybe) animals. The everyday struggle for survival until the emergence of an agriculture-based society allowed some leisure prevented people from becoming depressed or comitting suicide. Its more likely that they what they felt was more toward a mental distraction which, considering the harshness of their environment and their inability to control it, would result in death by accident or attack of some predator. The 10000-20000 years between then and now is so small on an evolutionary scale that it has had essentially no effect on the worldwide population. Becoming unhappy or depressed is just part of the complexity of our brain chemistry, a side effect of the selective advantage to becoming self-aware or conscious.