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Sociobiology
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The Fallacy of Fitness Maximization
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(December 12, 1996, revised June 3, 1998)
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Sociobiology originated with the work of W.D. Hamilton, Robert Trivers,
Edward O. Wilson, and Richard Alexander in the late 1960s (cf. bibliography).
Their work solved certain long-standing problems in evolutionary theory;
for instance, Hamilton's brilliant work on kin selection finally made the
altruistic behavior of the eusocial insects comprehensible in terms of
natural selection. The application of the novel theoretical framework to
human behavior, however, ran into some serious and theoretically illuminating
difficulties.
In political terms, the proposal that human behavior can reductively
be explained by the molecular logic of genes caused a furore; the history
of the controversy is a fascinating topic in itself (cf. Caplan
1978). The outcome was rather damaging; the passionate rejection of
the implications of the early claims of sociobiology has made the debate
about the relation between nature and culture more problematic. In the
following, I critique the theoretically powerful central thesis of early
sociobiology - that humans behave the way they do because such behavior
maximizes their reproductive fitness - as illuminatingly flawed.
The page also suggests some key differences between sociobiology and
evolutionary psychology. It was prepared as a series of overheads for an
informal talk.
A. The Frame Problem
The First Cognitive Revolution
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Descartes maps naïve physics (rigid object mechanics)
onto living kinds, but leaves the cognitive domain intact in folk psychology
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Locke posits a tabula rasa to clear the slate
of rationalist baggage and folk-psychology notions and attempts to explain
cognition as a product of experience
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Hume formulates an early version of the
frame problem: how can we attain knowledge without making assumptions that
order our observations? He concludes cognition is not possible without
prior assumptions, and such assumptions cannot be derived from experience.
He suggests they are due to "custom".
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Kant provides major elements of a solution
to the frame problem by providing evidence cognitive categories must be
inherent in the mind rather than culturally transmitted. He cannot, however,
explain how cognitive structures happen to be in the mind; he calls them
"transcendent".
The Second Cognitive Revolution
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Darwin develops a theory of the origin of biological structures;
this also provides a way of explaining how cognitive structures come to
be there. Lorenz
(1977)makes the connection to Kant explicit.
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Chomsky and Fodor posit that the frame problem has a multiplicity
of distinct solutions:
"It seems that the brain is like any other known biological
systems: modular, constituted of highly specialized subsystems that have
their particular character and domains of operation, interacting in all
sorts of ways."
B. Framing Life
The First Intentionalist Trap
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The orderly organization of life was initially attributed
to the act of an intentional agent, God: "Let the earth bring forth grass"
and "Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind"
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Paley argues in 1802 that from the apprehension that living
kinds are well designed we can infer that an intelligent intentional being
made them (Natural
Theology)
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The perception of order and design is common to creationist
and evolutionary accounts
The
Second Intentionalist Trap
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Hobbes argued in 1689 that humans are driven by "selfishness"
- the term is used as a conceptual primitive
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Dawkins argues in 1976 that from the apprehension that living
kinds are well designed we can infer that intelligent intentional beings
are continually creating them (I am mostly jesting; Dawkins uses this as
a metaphor - but he is reputed to have said, "Genes really are selfish!")
"We are survival machines, robot vehicles blindly programmed
to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes" (The
Selfish Gene)
The notion of selfishness suggests the ability to make
optimal decisions in all circumstances - a domain-general device reminiscent
of the notion of God
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Richard Alexander argues in
1979 that "culture is a product of the efforts of all of the individuals
of history, in the different environments of history, to maximize their
separate inclusive fitness" (Darwinism
and Human Affairs, p. 131)
"The capacity for culture is really the capacity to use
a wide array of experiences to adjust one's personal outcomes in the interest
of maximizing reproductive success" (131)
However, to maximize reproductive success, you need infinite
information and infinite ways to process it; clearly there is no principled
maximum
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The Lumsden-Wilson
thesis of 1981 states that "social behaviors are shaped by natural selection";
specifically, all altruistic behavior is genetically selfish (Genes,
Mind, and Culture)
They claim that what natural selection acts on is behavior,
which is fitness maximizing
However, this leaves out the intervening level of structure:
cognitive adaptations
The sociobiological mistake is to attempt to deduce behavior
from genetics without taking psychology into consideration
The Adaptationist Model: Disjunctions
with respect to Intentionalism
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The developmental (ontogenetic) lag: there is no feedback
mechanism for conveying infomation back to the genes to regulate behavior
on the fly
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The phylogenetic lag: since natural selection in sexually
reproducing organisms must act slowly, the present environment of an organism
may make it impossible to solve the frame problem in any manner that ensures
reproduction; yet in this situation, the genes are functioning as designed
Intentional systems do not escape the necessity of seeking
a framed target
Example: an account of the adaptive design in female mate
selection (genetic fitness, resource investment) does not constitute a
theory of "what women really want"
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Third disjunction: in intentional systems, the adaptive account
does not coincide with the intentional account because the cognitive processes
designed to correlate with the adaptive target may be cognitively impenetrable
Only a subset of the consequences of the output of cognitive
modules reaches the site of phenomenological awareness
Example: the vomeronasal organ may gather information
about biochemistry that affect mate choice; at the most, this is subjectively
experienced as like or dislike
Conclusion
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Evolution cannot bring about systems that are fitness maximizers;
since all information gathering and utilization is subject to the frame
problem, it can only bring about systems that solve specific and limited
problems
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Cosmides and Tooby: Humans are adaptation executors rather
than fitness maximizers (the central tenet of evolutionary psychology)
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The formation, performance, and transmission of culture cannot
be understood in terms of selfish genes, or in terms of individuals maximizing
their inclusive fitness
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Culture must be understood in terms of adapted structures
© 1998 Francis
F. Steen, Communication Studies, University of California, Los Angeles
