[lit-ideas] Re: My Friends the Baboons
- From: Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 28 May 2014 14:07:59 +0100 (BST)
Mark Pallen, a Professor of Microbial Genomics at Birmingham University (also
Cambridge graduate but let's not hold that against him, he did teach in Belfast
to atone), offers this on the question of whether "natural selection" operates
at the level of "genes" [a la Dawkins], individuals or "groups" [as per "group
selection"]:-
"[Group selection was] largely discredited after critiques by George Williams,
John Maynard Smith and others. In recent years, interest has re-focused on the
possibility [of] selection at multiple levels (for example, when viewing
genomes as ecosystems of genes), but the orthodox Darwinian view still limits
selection to the level of genes or individual." [The Rough Guide to Evolution,
p.146.]
The Marais' baboon example no more refutes this "orthodox Darwinian view" than
that bees may sting and die to protect the hive: it is an example that can be
explained by Darwinian "natural selection" at an individual or "gene" level.
Therefore it is not an example that proves "group selection".
But is it really even compatible with "group selection"?
My posts tried to explain why it is not an example of "group selection" but
must be, in Darwinian terms, an example of "kin selection". As such it is not a
counter-example to the view that "nothing is 'selected for' via its removal
from the gene-pool": on the contrary, it must be an example of something
'selected for' because - and only because - of how it protects the same "genes"
from removal from the gene-pool.
Anyone who disputes this is disputing that an orthodox Darwinian explanation
applies or is showing that they do not really understand the character of
Darwinian explanation. It would, I suggest, take much more than a single
uncorroborated story of the baboon type to challenge "the orthodox Darwinian
view": just as we would not replace that Darwinian view because a Walt Disney
nature documentary told us that bees sting to protect the hive because they are
selfless like human soldiers sacrificing their lives for the greater good of
the group.
Dnl
ldn
On Wednesday, 28 May 2014, 11:14, "dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx"
<dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Tbanks to L. Helm for the fascinating excerpts from "African Genesis".
I did track down the first recent reference to the baboon. It was Helm's
answer to McEvoy:
> As to the argument,
Helm writes,
> that,
quoting McEvoy,
“we need to reject the idea that behaviour that removes an organism from
the gene-pool will be 'selected for' because it benefits the remaining group
- this simply does not work as a theory, because nothing can be 'selected
for' via its removal from the gene-pool.”
Helm comments:
> That can’t be true. I’ve read several authors refer to organisms doing
> that very thing. One early author, [Marais, b. South Africa], referred
to a
> pair of adult baboon males guarding their tribes passage up through a
> narrow passage where they would be safe for the night. The leopard came
> and they set upon it with precession. The leopard killed both of them,
> but before he did, one of them bit into the leopard’s jugular.
That was an excellent recollection, and Helm has taken the trouble to
quote the secondary source, as it were, as per the author of "African Genesis"
(not Marais himself):
The passage in "African Genesis", I've checked, is preceded by references
to interactions between baboons and humans, and it is in this segment where
Ardrey (the author) refers, if not to suicidal, to 'heroic' and 'altruist'
behaviour (more on this later).
He recollects the baboon's treatment of the wounded in battle, as it were,
and their respect for the corpse, and one instance when a hunter was
counterattacked by the whole pack, which did not recede until the hunter shot
at
one of the baboons.
I'm not sure where Ardrey is coming from but he does make a point that talk
of 'altruism' may be dangerous here. He also notes that one may detect a
bit of 'anthropomorphism' (I think is the term Audrey uses) in some of the
writings by Marais -- but Ardrey is convinced that NO SUCH tendency applies
to the particular incident with the leopard, where Marais keep the
description to the point -- "there's no interpretation" I think is Ardrey's
wording. So let's revise the report, as transcribed by Helm.
Ardrey notes that the primeval (if that's the word) enemy of the baboon is
not man, but the leopard. Man-baboon interactions have been tinted (if
that's the word) with the baboon 'unlawlike' behaviour of consuming crops
which
has gained for the species the title of 'pest'. It's different with the
baboon's attitude to the leopard.
Ardrey reports:
“Marais could always tell when a leopard was in the neighbourhood of his
own band. Protected by nothing but the rocky hollows in the krans and
concealed only by the limbs of the massive wild fig, the troop would begin to
move uneasily. He would sense the restlessness, and then hear a particular
cry of disturbance. Helplessly the troop would wait for unseen death to pass
unseeing. But one night the leopard came early."
“It was still dusk. The troop had only just returned from the feeding
grounds and had barely time to reach its scattered sleeping places in the
high-piled rocks behind the fig tree. Now it shrilled its terror. And Marais
could see the leopard. It appeared from the bush and took its insolent
time. So vulnerable were the baboons that the leopard seemed to recognize no
need for hurry. He crouched just below a little jutting cliff above him."
“The two males moved cautiously. The leopard, if he saw them, ignored
them."
This seems interesting from a Darwinian perspective in that we may assume
that the leopard (qua species) would have acquired some concern for the
potential dangers of a seeming harmless piece of prey. So, perhaps there is a
bit of an 'anthropomorphic' attitude in describing the leopard's 'insolence'
and 'ignorance' (if not scorn) at these pair of avant-garde warriors.
Ardrey goes on:
"[The leopard's] attention was fixed on the swarming, screeching,
defenceless horde scrambling among the rocks."
Ardrey writes, "his" -- and I also wonder, because in big cats, as I think
I read, it's usually females that do the hunting.
"Then the two males dropped. They dropped on him from a height of twelve
feet. One bit at the leopard’s spine. The other struck at his throat
while clinging to his neck from below."
Indeed co-ordinated attack.
"In an instant the leopard disemboweled with his hind claws the baboon
hanging to his neck and caught in his jaws the baboon on his back. But it was
too late. The dying disemboweled baboon had hung on just long enough and
had reached the leopard’s jugular vein with his canines.
“Marais watched while movement stilled beneath the little jutting cliff.
Night fell. Death, hidden from all but the impartial stars enveloped prey
and predator alike. And in the hollow places in the rocky, looming krans a
society of animals settled down to sleep.”
At this point there is indeed no need for Ardrey to repeat the point about
'self-sacrifice', 'sucidal' or as he prefers 'heroic' and 'altruism'. But
earlier on he had written:
"to describe such behaviour by the anthropomorphic term, altruism, is
dangerous indeed" --
--- (while he grants that 'heroic' behaviour 'no doubt' I think his word
is, occurs).
So it may do to check where Ardrey is coming from that has him saying,
almost alla Wittgenstein:
"to describe such behaviour by the anthropomorphic term, altruism, is
dangerous indeed."
The 'indeed' seems to trigger the conversational implicature: 'in the
deed': SOMEONE has pointed out this before.
In the Stanford Encyclopedia entry on biological altruism, McEvoy and
Speranza (that's me -- but I'm reading Julius Caesar's "Civil War" and he keeps
confusingly using the third person to describe himself and adding, "I
believe", into the bargan -- "Julius Caesar, I believe [credo], was sure he
would win") seem to be disagreeing about the author of the entry in the
treatment of this. The possibilities are:
biological altruism-1
psychological altruism-2
The author notes that 'altruism' is MULTIVOCAL. I, with Grice, would think
is AEQUI-vocal (i.e. has the same ('aequi-') meaning. In any case, if,
contra Grice, we could rephrase Ardrey's passage we would have:
"To describe the baboons' behaviour by the PSYCHOLOGICAL term of
'altruism-2' seems dangerous indeed. We should use 'altruism-1', i.e.
biological
altruism."
Surely a pedantic move!
Ardrey does not, I think, term the baboons 'suicidal'. While psychological
altruism requires the use of 'intention' (unlike 'biological' "altruism",
allegedly), we need not ascribe a sucidal intention to the baboon. A
different strategy (three or four baboons attacking say) and a less insolent
leopard would have provided a different outcome -- a lot of chance involved
here, to echo O. K's words in a different context). "Heroism" Ardrey does not
use either with respect to this case (I think) but the point about it
seeming 'dangerous indeed' to use the homo-sapiens range of altruism (if
that's
how we rephrase Ardrey's caveat, "to describe such behaviour by the
anthropomorphic term, altruism, is dangerous indeed") may remain.
Oddly, there is an online site that reports some Oxford research, pretty
naive, but there are commentary by readers, and one readers makes a reference
to the Marais story (included in "My Friends the Baboons", which should be
read alla Aristotle*). The commentary by the reader prompted the original
reporter to provide a response, that I think goes along McEvoy's lines --
and I bring it to the forum because it was in response to that point by
McEvoy on kin-selection vs. group-selection that prompted Helm to provide the
baboon story.
The writer notes at
http://evoanth.wordpress.com/2013/09/19/selflessness-is-sexy/
"The big problem with group selection is that there’s just no evidence for
it."
"Natural selection only acts on the individual."
"Termite colonies and suicidal baboons are a result of kin selection
(family members have your genes, so helping them benefits you) rather than a
selfless community being selected for."
* My reference to "My Friends the baboons" being Aristotelian refers of
course to Grice's treatment (with Aristotle) of a friend as an alter-ego,
which is perhaps at the root of altruism. The magical phrase, 'alter ego',
seems to combine egoism and altruism 'in one fell swoop', as Shakespeare would
put it.
Same-specific altruism seems one 'animal', cross-specific altruism another:
as a couple of male baboons sacrificing their lives for Marais, say. There
should be a reference (or two) about this.
In any case, the baboon example provided by Helm is genial, and I'm hoping
that anyone who furthers the bibliographical references in the Stanford
Encyclopedia entry on 'biological altruism and evolutionary theory' should be
careful to add it to the literature!
And then there's the bonobo*.
(Oddly, while this may be a stretch, but since we are discussing Locke
versus Wade, the baboon's respect for the tribe's corpses may have a
"religious" side to it -- it may relate to Wade's alleged 'faith instinct' as
rooted
in a cult for ancestry and kin as such as it refers to the afterlife -- or
stuff).
Cheers,
Speranza
*
Neil Smith,
Language, Bananas and Bonobos: Linguistic Problems, Puzzles and Polemics
"These sketches by Neil Smith's deft and expert hands provide a wonderful
sampling of many and diverse paths of inquiry inspired by and informing the
study of language, the unexpected delights one encounters on the way, the
surprising and thought-provoking insights, and the puzzles, paradoxes and
mysteries that offer a persistent challenge to understanding of essential
elements of human nature." "Neil Smith has not only a profound knowledge of
current developments in linguistics but also a talent for explaining the
issues clearly and approachably." "Smith is a thorough linguist with a sense
of
humor. Readers will find interesting linguistic ideas in small delicate
amount enough to induce a linguistic quest for more revealing information.
This book offers quick linguistic treats of fresh ideas and key findings in
linguistics."
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