Paleofantasies, abuses of evolutionary psyche, and the “paleo” diet

I am a fan of the evolutionary neurology and psychology, but I have been highly critical of “just so” stories about our current development and the nostalgia for a paleolithic past found in many people who abuse evolutionary psychology to come up with primitivist theories. Greg Downey at Neuroanthropology wrote a very enlightening post on an article by Prof. Marlene Zuk who wrote an article for NY times on the fantasies of the Paleo-diet.

I am going to quote from both Downey and Zuk to get why I think this is important. Downey comments:

Zuk draws on Leslie Aiello’s concept of ‘paleofantasies,’ stories about our past spun from thin evidence, to label the nostalgia some people seem to express for prehistoric conditions that they see as somehow healthier. In my research on sports and masculinity, I frequently see paleofantasies come up around fight sports, the idea that, before civilization hemmed us in and blunted our instincts, we would just punch each other if we got angry, and somehow this was healthier, freer and more natural (the problems with this view being so many that I refuse to even begin to enumerate them). It’s an odd inversion on the usual Myth of Progress, the idea that things always get better and better; instead, paleofantasies are a kind of long range projection of Grumpy Old Man Syndrome (’Things were so much better in MY day…’), spinning fantasies of ‘life before’ everything we have built up around us.

While I am a huge promoter of Enlightenment values, there are two meta-narratives–two myths if you don’t want me sounding post-structuralists–that come out of the Enlightenment philosophy that I find myself arguing against: the teleological myths of inevitable progress (which is different than advocating technologically progressive policies) and the myth of the noble primitive. The romantic imperative.

This romantic imperative has shown up in many people who should know better to abuse evolutionary development theories as justifications of nostaglia about the deep and pre-historical past. Zuk really gets into how this is a myth narrative read into evolutionary biology:

As an evolutionary biologist, I was filled with enthusiasm at first over the idea of a modern mismatch between everyday life and our evolutionary past. But a closer look reveals that not all evolutionary ideas are created equal; even for Darwinians, the devil is in the details. The notion that there was a time of perfect adaptation, from which we’ve now deviated, is a caricature of the way evolution works.

First, when exactly was this age of harmony, and what was it like? Scavenging, or eating the carcasses of dead animals left by (or stolen from) predators like lions, was probably replaced by active hunting and accumulation of wild plants about 55,000 years ago, and agriculture seems to have begun a mere 10,000 years ago. We did a lot of different things during each of these times.

How much of the diet during our idyllic hunter-gatherer past was meat, and what kind of plants and animals were used, varied widely in time and space. Inuits had different diets from Australian aboriginals or Neotropical forest dwellers. And we know little about the details of early family structure and other aspects of behavior. So the argument that we are “meant” to eat a certain proportion of meat, say, is highly questionable. Which of our human ancestors are we using as models?

But the difficulty with using our hunter-gatherer selves as icons of well-being goes much deeper. It is not as if we finally achieved harmony with our environment during the Pleistocene, heaved a sigh of relief and stopped.

As Downey says,

In fact, the idea that our bodies were perfectly suited to a particular environment is an adaptationist fantasy. Processes of evolution, including variation and natural selection, niche creation and co-evolution, even catastrophe and fluctuating rates of evolutionary change, suggest that adaptation is usually imperfect, with abundant glitches that, as long as they don’t constitute abject failures, usually continue to exist unless selection and variation conspire to find a way to get rid of them.

So what does this have to do with the paleo-diet? As Downey says,

I think the biological evidence points to the fact that both of these impressions is incorrect, as Zuk suggests: we are neither so perfectly well adapted to foraging (or scavenging or living in trees or whichever stage we develop paleonostalgia for) nor are we so ill-suited for our own environment (in spite of our health problems, we actually live a long time compared to our ancestors, for example).

So before we start waxing nostalgic about all the health benefits of a Pleistocene diet, perhaps we should remember that our ancestors’ food often came in this nasty packaging which tended to run away, attack them, or just go missing entirely when they were really hungry

One commenter attacked the article for being “fuzzy” while the Paleo-diet was “clear and logical.” But our knowledge of the past is fuzzy, particularly when making claims about longevity caused by a diet in an age would violent death killed most people just out of adolescence.

This gets me to a crucial point: reason, by that I mean formal logic, is necessary, but if not grounded in sound empirical facts is still subject to all sorts of mythic thinking. Something can sounds clear and logical, be perfectly logically argued, but its premises could be founded on any number of biases or unconfirmed narratives.

Disbelief and College Majors

So education tends to decrease religious belief, but which majors do so. According a study published in Inside Higher Ed that was done at University of Michigan, that all majors but business and education have negative effects on religiousity, but the exact breakdown even surprised me:

• the odds of going to college increase for high school students who attend religious services more frequently or who view religion as more important in their lives. The researchers speculate that there may be a “nagging theory” in which fellow churchgoers encourage the students to attend college.

• Being a humanities or a social science major has a statistically significant negative effect on religiosity — measured by either religious attendance and how important students consider the importance of religion in their lives. The impact appears to be strongest in the social sciences.

• Students in education and business show an increase in religiosity over their time at college.

• Majoring in the biological or physical sciences does not affect religious attendance of students, but majoring in the physical sciences does negatively relate to the way students view the importance of religion in their lives.

Religious attendance is positively associated with staying in majors in the social sciences, biological sciences and business majors. For most vocational majors, the researchers found a negative relationship between religious attendance and staying in the same major. The researchers compare this finding to their data about how students who attend services are more likely to enroll in college in the first place: “In both cases, religious attendance encourages a shift toward a higher status path.”

This surprised even me because secondary teachers in the humanities are known for being both more religious and more conservative than their science counterparts. It seems like studying culture as much as studying the hard sciences erodes belief in various cultural things. This makes sense.

For once, I completely agree with Sam Harris

I have no problems with the “new atheists,” as a movement, but I rarely agree with Sam Harris. Even though we both have the same reservations about the term “atheist,” even though Harris and I share backgrounds in Buddhism, and even though Harris and I have somewhat similar ethnic ties to Judaism (Harris’s being stronger than mine), I often find myself in strong disagreement with Harris on politics and the meaning of history more than I do with PZ Myers, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennet, Victor Stenger, Jerry Coyne, and company. That is if Harris’s books and articles are a reliable guide.

That said, I find myself COMPLETELY agreeing with Harris on the appointment of Francis Collins to National Institutes of Health. Harris writes in his recent NY Times op-ed:

Francis Collins is an accomplished scientist and a man who is sincere in his beliefs. And that is precisely what makes me so uncomfortable about his nomination. Must we really entrust the future of biomedical research in the United States to a man who sincerely believes that a scientific understanding of human nature is impossible?

I agree. It does not bother me that Collins is a believer, or even a sincere believer. It bothers me that someone involved with biomedical decisions has written off a whole field because of essentially theological reasons. What bothers me the most about this: Collins is an important scientist and his involvement with the human genome puts him squarely in a position to understand how human nature may manifest in genetic history. Collins may not let these issues effect any crucial decisions at the NIH. Still, if his words on the study of things related to divinity or human nature are any real indication, then there is much to worry about until we see Collins in action.

Review: Mooney and Kirshenbaum’s Unscientific America

Chris Mooney and Sheril Kirshenbaum’s book Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy threatens our future is both interesting and odd. The book has generated much controversy, many negative reviews, and actually many themes in the book have been further and more clearly developed in Mooney and Kirshenbaum’s blogging and article writing in the last year. If anything my complaints are that the book is too short and thus several interesting themes are undeveloped, data seems rhetorically mulled, and the best parts of the book where in the areas that involved structural problems with science educated graduate students and post-docs as well as the misunderstanding between the humanities and the sciences (and how little influence that actually has had on popular culture.) Yet, a book on a subject as broad as “scientific illiteracy” and American culture should NOT be only 130 pages. In fact, the book is actually even boarder than the sub-title suggests because the target that Mooney and Kirshenbaum have is not merely “scientific illiteracy’ but scientific miscommunication, misinformation, and denialism.

Mooney and Kirshenbaum do seem to really take on some of the narratives about scientific framing, such as the “post-modern/modernist” science wars which was basically a fight in French sociology and both overblown and expanded as a means of academic turf war. This ALONE could be a good book and have been illuminating if done by someone with experience, understand, and empathy for all factors involved and could rightly have done away with a lot of nonsense, particularly overuse of post-structural semiotics in fields in which semiotics don’t really apply, such as scientific inquiry or the physical nature of the universe. Mooney and/or Kirshenbuam are educated enough in both the humanities and science to do this. Merely mentioning the implied slap to the humanities–all the humanities, not just the post-structuralist influenced ones–in Paul R. Gross and Norman Levitt’s Higher Superstitions , pointing out Bruno Latour’s lament about being abused by religious fundamentalists, and showing the limits of post-structural criticism of science doesn’t really get into the real issues. I could say the same thing for his history of scientific culture relationship to the media, or his mentioning of the structural challenges to science graduate students in an academic setting that, even though scientists are said to be sorely needed, doesn’t seem to have room for them. (This, however, is not unique to science-specialized post-doctorates. I have horror stories about similar things in the social sciences and humanities that I lived through.)

It is not fair, however, to review the books I wish Mooney and Kirshenbuam had written instead of the one they did. Mooney and Kirshenbaum start by critiquing the Pluto situation as about semantics, but seem to play down that the semantics about an ill-defined term always NEED to get more specific. Yes, this is not a case of “objective fact” and, yes, we should criticize how poorly the change in semantics and the controversy surrounding the issue was explained, but it does not make the case to say that because planet definition was complicated and semantic, that the definition should not be made more precise.

While Mooney and Kirshenbaum did talk about structural problems in both the media and the academy, they seemed a little too eager to blame it all on Reagan, missing the cynical use of science during the Cold War may have actually been part of the massive public relations problem in the first place. In fact, aren’t MANY of the fiscal problems in academia, not just in science related to those Cold War policies? My studies of US history indicate that the Cold War distorted things–in science policy for the better—but that it may have been somewhat untenable. Furthermore, even if we were producing an army of Sagans and Goulds, Mooney and Kirshenbaum’s discussion of the fragmentation of the media market actually illustrate that it wouldn’t have the same effect.

The discussion of Hollywood was somewhat useful, but needed to be expanded or re-contextualized. The topic has been written about several times before and the “archetypes” (or stereotypes) of scientists are well-known. Hollywood’s abuse of archetypes, stereotypes, and tropes are not even remotely limited to scientists, yet those stereotypes do not stick equally to all fields. So what else is going on here?

Furthermore, this book did not really address problems about scientific education in primary schools. Not just the lack of knowledge of scientific facts, theories, and/or models that is endemic to the general populace (and as Mooney and Kirshenbaum rightly point out, not just in the United States). While Mooney and Kirshenbaum are correct about the media role in science education outside of learning institituions, harping so much on this seems to be missing the point.

For a book that appears aimed at a general audience, it does chastise scientists quite a bit. I sometimes feel like I didn’t know if Mooney and Kirshenbaum where writing for the public or for the science bloggers they criticize. Whose this aimed at? CEO’s? The Daily Kos? The Nation? Skeptic Magazine? I see things that would please all of these audiences, but not developed to the point that it would really start more than an initial conservation.

The discussion of Hollywood was somewhat useful, but needed to be expanded or re-contextualized. The topic has been written about several times before and the “archetypes” (or stereotypes) of scientists are well-known. If the audience is general, I understand this chapter, but if the audience are the kind of people who follow Discover Magazine or know who PZ Myer’s even is, well, I don’t think I get it whole angle here.

Towards the end, Mooney and Kirshenbaum write:

We must rally toward a single goal: Without sacrificing the growth of knowledge or scientific innovation, we must invest in a sweeping project to make science relevant to the whole of American’s citizenry. … [W]hat we need — and currently lack — is the systematic acceptance of the idea that these actions are integral parts of the job description of scientists themselves. Not just their delegates, or surrogates, in the media or the classrooms. (130)

I love the idea, but the skill set is not necessarily something that ALL scientist need. Yes we need popularizing scientists who are still engaged in research and who are charismatic, but part of the above could be a field in and of itself. Science journalist and science writers do some of this role, and aiding communicators could still do this. Scientists would just have to work with them. Still, most research and professional types in the scientific community are pushed for time. We’ve seen great models here that are still alive and well: DeGrasse Tyson, Steven Novella, Jonah Lehrer, Oliver Sachs, and even Richard Dawkins comes to mind.

So why was I harping on the books I wish this had been? Why is all the above criticism negative? Why did I not mention the controversy over blogs and religion?
I found the first third of the book fascinating and while I did have some critiques that I pointed out above, I learned much from that section of the book. The last section of the book was too short even by the standards of concision that Mooney and Kirshenbaum placed on themselves, but those ideas have promise too. I admire Mooney and Kirshenbaum’s defense of the general public as basically well-meaning; yet, I don’t think we can really give a lot of ground to faith-claims. There are certain types of religious, political, and philosophical l ideas that not only ignore facts and reason, but actively deny those elements of the world. I don’t think we can respect those and push for scientific understanding: why Mooney seems to understand that in the realm of politics, but gives more concessions to religious ideas seems more tactical than principled. I think there is a quote in the very beginning of the book that gets to this point:

It’s a stunning contradiction when you think about it. The United States features a massive infrastructure for science, supported by well over $100 billion annually in federal funding and sporting a vast network of government laboratories and agencies, the finest universities in the world, and innovative corporations that conduct extensive research…. And yet today this country is also home to a populace that, to an alarming extent, ignores scientific advances or outright rejects scientific principles. A distressingly large number of Americans refuse to accept either the fact or the theory of evolution, the scientifically undisputed explanation of the origin of our species and the diversity of life on Earth. An influential sector of the populace is in dangerous retreat from the standard use of childhood vaccinations, one of medicine’s greatest and most successful advances… The nation itself has become politically divided over the nature of reality, such that college-educated Democrats are now more than twice as likely as college-educated Republicans to believe that global warming is real and is caused by human activities. (p. 3)

Note that Mooney and Kirshenbaum hit at the root of some problems with partisan discussions of global warming and the economic nature of denialism. Yet the don’t really hit at the heart of the denial about evolution. It is NOT contradictory that people can have trust and respect for scientists but believe ultimately that on some issues there is no real consensus. That’s a niche confirmation bias tied to an ideological view of the world. It is NOT scientific illiteracy or even poor communication on the parts of scientists.

Ultimately, I am glad I read this book, and so I recommend it with some major reservations. I wish that Mooney and Kirshenbaum would have sacrificed some concision for some thoroughness, and, honestly, I not only think the book would have been improved, but the more policy would come out of it, and less arguing would be made on blogs. Perhaps Mooney and Kirshenbaum will continue their working partnership and I will see these arguments expanded out in future books as I am already beginning to see in articles.

Interview with Brad Fusilier

Living in Georgia, I have been interested in the Skeptical movement in the South for a long time. So the development of the Southern Skeptical Society has brought me much joy. So I did a brief interview with Brad Fusilier, founder and president of the Southern Skeptical Society.

Skepoet:When did you become the President of the Skeptical society?

Brad Fusilier: The Society was founded in February of 2009 and, surprised at the amount of interest, we decided to assign titles shortly thereafter.

Skepoet: Why do you think there has been an increase of Skeptical related activism in the South East?

Brad Fusilier: I find that people in general are realizing there is a skeptical support system. Previously, as I did, most people feel they may be alone in their world view. The internet has had a tremendous impact on the public’s perception and recognition of all the ways they can be active in the movement. The south isn’t exactly overrun with rationality. It is very inspiring to see so many getting interested and connected.

Skepoet: What projects do you see in the immediate future for the Southern Skeptical Society?

Brad Fusilier: We are currently working on a podcast. Still in the format/content stage but we have some pretty good ideas on the table and we are really excited about that. Outside of that it depends on funding. There are, several members working on a ‘Truth About ALT/MED’ publication that we plan to distribute far and wide focusing on Pharmacies and Private Medical Practices. We also selected and prioritized a few things that we would like to do from the “What Do I Do Next” publication in eSkeptic from the Skeptics Society. Anyone who is interested in being active in the cause should definitely go to the essay and check it out. Lots of really good information. We have compiled quite a few “To-Dos” so it is difficult to say what is coming next. Once we complete the “corporate” steps toward NPO status it will enable us to focus on some of the other projects we would like to do.

Skepoet: What cities do you see as the hubs of “skeptical activity” in the South East?

Brad Fusilier: I am not sure if there are any “hubs” there are quite a few skeptical organizations popping up throughout the south. We have several State Reps for the SSS that belong to some of these groups and one of the plans for the SSS is to establish, based on the location of the reps, groups where none currently exist in hopes of creating “hubs”. We also hope to be able to help support some activities for these groups with the help of donations to the SSS. I would have to say that is one of the main goals I (we) hope to accomplish through the SSS – Networking.

Skepoet: What events are planned in the near future for SSS?

Brad Fusilier:We do not currently have any events planned but we do have a few ideas on the table. I would like to do a Southern Skeptic*CON in the Spring of 2010. Still in the idea stage, though.

Skepoet: Do you feel like that American society is becoming more skeptical as a whole?

Brad Fusilier: I don’t know about American Society. I think we, as skeptics, seem to be doing a better job at reaching the non-skeptical. But it is 2 steps forward 3 steps back. People in general should want more evidence for the things they “believe”. If one of them were told that their child was on drugs or they had a terminal illness, they would want to see evidence. But you tell them that because they heard a noise in their house it is haunted or Jesus on a tortilla chip is a message from God and that is all they need. I can’t wrap my mind around that.

Note: If you’d like to help the Southern Skeptical Society, please spread the word, join, and buy stuff from the Cafepress store.

A “skeptics” testimony

I was born in a religiously complicated situation: my mother was a lapsed Catholic and my father a crypto-Jew in the deep South whose parents converted to Christianity and who converted to Theravada Buddhism shortly before my birth. When I was five, I asked my step-father why “everyone went to hell” because it sure seems like it was avoidable according to the standards set out. By ten years old, I read the bible and upon going through Leviticus realized that no morals that I thought I knew were from that book. “Why was it okay to stone rape victims if no one heard them scream?” I kept asking myself. By middle school, I realized that many of the Gods of the past where doubted and why was the Christian God any different? By fifteen, I was reading all books on the comparison between Christ and Dionysus and Mithras. My parents, as we lived in a small town in the Deep South, encouraged me to go to a Baptist church so we’d be alone, but I bit my tongue and kept my unbelief secret.

I am not a de-convert from Christianity, but from traditional Buddhism. I kept these beliefs for much longer. I was first taught Buddhism by my father and then by the Asian immigrants in the community my father lived in. When I was eighteen I begin traveling to a Vihara in Atlanta and talking to the local ajahn. I also began to study Pali, the liturgical language of the Theravada scriptures. I took the first set of vows on the path to becoming a monk just before I entered college. I, however, could not handle the discipline of monastic life and decided to continue as a lay Buddhist. I maintained my connection with the Buddhist community and then something happened. I was dealing with the Sinhalese buddhists and learned of there feelings for the Tamils and I befriended a former Peace Corp worker who told me the Tamils side. I saw Buddhism, the religion most linked to peace by many, as tied to ethnic tension in Sri Lanka. Studying this deeply, I discovered sectarian violence in Japan and Tibet were regular. I discovered that different forms of Buddhism, forms different from Theravada, which I was familiar, or the loose Mahayana Buddhism of Zen and Tibetan were vastly different: in fact, in some ways they had less in common than Islam and Christianity. Then the way I first questioned Christian beliefs came to focus in on Buddha: what evidence was there outside of the Pali cannon and the other early texts? Why did he share so many traits with Krishna that his mythology and Krishna merged? Why did he and Jesus share a virgin birth? And the spiritual versus religious savior mythology? Why did I give Buddha the benefit of the doubt when the texts about him were written at least 400 years later while I have given Christians a hard time about the gospels being less than a century or two after Jesus?

Then the last question came down: while I still feel that meditation is helpful and do it even now, had it ever led to anyone I knew being “Enlightened” that I knew of empirically? I answered no. I have tried to save this section of my life through a variety of different rationalizations, but ultimately I found this liberating. I still feel strong cultural ties to Buddhism, but even the dharma needed to be doubted. I couldn’t be intellectually honest and carve out a niche for something that I was attached to. I still keep many of the ethical teachings and the basic psychology of Buddhism in my life, but at the end of the day I think many things considered necessary to the Buddhist “right view” to be questionable at best.

Skepticism and Health Care reform: An excerise

I don’t normally cover political issues outside of education or religion. I have definite political values but those don’t really fit necessarily into my art or my skeptical activism in fields of woo and education. So, before I start, I will give my caveat: I am marginally left-wing, although I have never belonged to a political party formally. I do not have any loyalty to the Democratic platform or to Obama’s agenda, although I voted for him and don’t regret that choice.

Health Care reform has a TON of criticism and advocacy both left and right. Many arguments from both sides have so many unstated assumptions–both about facts and values–that the whole issue is hard to approach. I, however, am skeptical about the reach of current reform and encourage people to have the same sort of skepticism regardless of their political alignment.

One, the numbers involved don’t really add up. The Congressional Budget office seems to believe that it won’t curve the amount of GDP health care consumes and will increase the current financing deficit. At current its hard to tell what the spending controls are. However, without fairly high subsidies to the low income for private plans and a completely different view of the public option, it appears that the affects may be largely punitive on those without coverage. Massachusetts’ plan, which this is largely based on, has had several problems.

It is clear, however, that there is little in the plan to change this internally. There seems to be some real issues about has caused cost to go up. The ability to kill repeat visions seems somewhat slim.

Classical Values, which has a conservative slant, has several reasonable criticism of the current plan. Other cost-cutting structural changes, such as making doctors employees and playing for results don’t seem to stem from all that.

Now, I still believe that health care reform is necessary, but I picked this because its in the media and can be easily showed to be problematic. I would be skeptical of any reform regardless of how much I want it work.