Transcript EvolPsych - Department of Mathematics

INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION
IN SOCIOBIOLOGY AND
EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY
Wayne M. Lawton
Department of Mathematics
National University of Singapore
2 Science Drive 2
Singapore 117543
Email [email protected]
Tel (65) 874-2749
COSMIC QUESTIONS
How did life start ? Did metabolism or replicating
molecules come first ? Why so much diversity ?
What came first ? ‘The chicken is only an egg’s
way of making another egg’ - Samuel Butler.
Human nature ? If natural selection governs
evolution, why do people behave so crazy ?
Tutorial Question 1. Give 12 examples of crazy ?
EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY
EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY
and
COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY
The merger of these two sciences has ‘transformed psychology
from a vague set of unclear ideas into a true science’ – [4, page 4]
Tutorial Question 2. Define the two bold words.
PSYCHOLOGY
Folk Psychology – beliefs and desires explain human behaviors
Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)
Behaviorism – external stimuli cause response behavior
J. B. Watson (1878-1958) and B. F. Skinner (1904-1990)
Computer Science – software for information processing
Alan Turing (1912-1954)
Cognitive Psychology – mind = software that runs on brain hardware
TUTORIAL PROBLEM 3. What’s bigger 7/13 or 8/15 ?
How is thinking = computing ? How has modern neural
science closed the gap between mind and brain ?
BIOLOGY
Folk Biology – creation myths, life exhibits ordered complexity
that requires design – clearly the work of higher conciousness
Evolution – all life descended from a common ancestor [2], [3]
that lived 4 billion years ago
first cells 3.5 years ago
multicellular organisms 600 million ya
land-dwelling organisms 500 million ya
primates 55 million ya
humans split from chimpanzees 6 million ya
humans migrate out of Africa 100 thousand ya
TUTORIAL PROBLEM 5. How much evolution happened in the
last 100 thousand years ? What supports the ‘out of Africa’ theory ?
EVOLUTION PRINCIPLES
Heredity and Mutation – both explained genes and provides
Adaptation and Natural Selection – that appears like design
but which operates
‘simply by accumulating a series of random arguments’ – [4, p 30]
Example: evolution of the human eye [4, p 27-29]
Example: early evolution and the origin of life [3]
TUTORIAL PROBLEM 7. What is the computer method called
‘genetic algorithms’ and how is it being applied ?
MENTAL MODULES
Noam Chomsky’s work on language acquisition and
David Marr’s work in vision showed complex mental
structures or modules that required evolutionary development
Adaptation is required to respond to the social as well as the
physical environment since reproductive success requires
communicating with other peoples
avoiding predators
eating the right food
forming alliances and friends
selecting mates
reading other peoples minds
providing help to children and other relatives
DETECTING PREDATORS
An organism can not spread its genes if it is eaten
There is a trade off between false alarm and slow detection
The American neuroscientist Joseph LeDoux showed that the
emotion of fear has two neural mechanisms – one quick and
not very accurate and the other accurate and slower [4, p 55]
TUTORIAL PROBLEM 8. Accurate detection requires a large
quantity of information to be communicated between the senses,
within the brain (where it is processed) and to the muscles.
Biological channels have small bandwidth and large noise. Use
Hartley’s formula to explain why fast detection gives many false
alarms.
LYING AND TACTICAL DECEPTION
‘Any fool can tell the truth, but it requires a man of sense to
know how to lie’ – Samuel Butler
The Sally Ann Test [4, page 93]
A child is shown a short scene featuring two dolls – Sally and Ann
Sally puts sweets under a cushion and leaves the room
Ann takes the sweets and puts them in her pocket
Sally comes back into the room
The psychologist asks the child ‘where does Sally look for the sweets’
TUTORIAL PROBLEM 9. How do children < 4.5 years answer ?
Why are children < 4.5 years incapable of lying ?
REFERENCES
[1] Luca Cavalli-Sforza, Paolo Menozzi,, and Alberta Piazza,
“The History and Geography of Human Genes”,
Princeton University Press, 1994.
[2] Charles Darwin, “The Origin of Species”,
Penguin, UK, 1968
[3] Freeman Dyson, “Origins of Life,” 2nd edition,
Cambridge University Press, 1999.
[4] Dylan Evans and Oscar Zarate, “Introducing Evolutionary
Psychology”, ICON Books, UK, 1999.
[5] Angus Gellatlyand Oscar Zarate, “Introducing Mind & Brain”,
ICON Books, UK, 1999.
[6] Edward Wilson, “Sociobiology, The New Synthesis”,
Harvard University Press, 1975.