Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id WAA00821 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Thu, 17 Jan 2002 22:51:00 GMT Message-Id: <5.1.0.14.0.20020117160319.02c37100@pop.cogeco.ca> X-Sender: hkhenson@pop.cogeco.ca (Unverified) X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 5.1 Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2002 17:48:18 -0500 To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk From: Keith Henson <hkhenson@cogeco.ca> Subject: Re: Scientology In-Reply-To: <171.74f7d90.297883f8@aol.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
At 02:46 PM 17/01/02 -0500, <AaronLynch@aol.com>
wrote:
>As for the Yanamano, having "several times the number of children" sounds
>quite high. It might help to view the original study and any followup and
>replication studies.
>
>--Aaron Lynch
First thing which came up was this hostile article:
http://www.anth.uconn.edu/gradstudents/dhume/darkness_in_el_dorado/documents/0246.htm
"One might say that Chagnon made a scientific value of the belligerence in
which he was entangled, elevating it to the status of the sociobiological
theory that human social evolution positively selects for homicidal
violence. Whatever the other consolations of this theory, it brought
Chagnon the massive support of prominent sociobiologists. The support
remained constant right through the fiasco that attended his attempt in
1988 to prove the reproductive (hence genetic) advantages of killing in the
pages of Science.
"The truth claims of the argument presented by Chagnon in Science may have
had the shortest half-life of any study ever published in that august journal.
"*Chagnon set out to demonstrate statistically that known killers among the
Yanomami had more than twice as many wives and three times as many children
as non-killers.*
"This would prove that humans (i.e., men) do indeed compete for
reproductive advantages, as sociobiologists claimed, and homicidal violence
is a main means of the competition. Allowing the further (and fatuous)
assumption that the Yanomami represent a primitive stage of human
evolution, Chagnon's findings would support the theory that violence has
been progressively inscribed in our genes.
"But Chagnon's statistics were hardly out before Yanomami specialists
dismembered them by showing, among other things, that designated killers
among this people have not necessarily killed, nor have designated fathers
necessarily fathered. Many more Yanomami are known as killers than there
are people killed because the Yanomami accord the ritual status of
man-slayer to sorcerers who do death magic and warriors who shoot arrows
into already wounded or dead enemies. Anyhow, it is a wise father who knows
his own child (or vice versa) in a society that practices wife-sharing and
adultery as much as the Yanomami do. Archkillers, besides, are likely to
father fewer children inasmuch as they are prime targets for vengeance, a
possibility Chagnon conveniently omitted from his statistics by not
including dead fathers of living children. Nor did his calculations allow
for the effects of age, shamanistic attainments, headship, hunting ability
or trading skill--all of which are known on ethnographic grounds to confer
marital advantages for Yanomami men. "
A copy of the table out of the original Science article is here:
http://www.sfu.ca/faculty/crawford/Research_Scholarship/Counting%20Babies/sld011.htm
Thinking about this in the mode of Dawkins ESS, (and assuming this has gone
on long enough to have reached the ESS point) the argument would go that
being a killer among the Yanamani is one way to get a lot of sex and kids,
but the number of fathers we are looking at is the *survivors* because it
is also a way to get killed. (As pointed out in above.)
The other factor (as implied in the chunk of article above) is that while
you are out on long trips trying to enhance your social status, your wife
(or wives) are making time with the smooth talking lovers who stayed at
home. The net effect (if it is at an ESS point) is that taking the high
risk warrior road or the low risk stay at home road would result in about
the same number of kids over a lifetime.
But the genetic rewards seem to be there if you are among the lucky, don't
get your ass shot off, and your women don't mess around while you are gone.
Keith Henson
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