if Evolutionary Psychology makes you cynical of people

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My point is that the ability to love is not a specific gene(s). The underlying architecture of the brain is what develops, love could be just a capacity we've gained along the way from a brain that developed via other selection mechanisms.

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If the underlying architechure of the brain develops, so does the genes. But that is really besides the point, there is no need to bring genes into the picture at all, but even if you do, it will not change the discussion at all. Genes are just the mechanics of heritage. As the previous poster so well stated, the theory of evolution precedes any theories of genes.

Ofcourse an adaption builds on previously made mechanism. Evolution is a almost exclusively a 'step by step' effect. I think almost everyone who knows anything about evolution knows that. An adaption is developed, with this adaption comes the possibility of a new adaption. If this new adaption makes the being more apt to survive and pass on his genes, then this adaption will have a larger likelyhood of survival than one who don't. It isn't any worse than that.

Humans are a social creature, everybody who thinks about it for two seconds will intuitively know that feeling love increases the chance of relationship, which in turn increases the chance of offspring, which in turn increases the chance of passing on your genes, which in turn increases the chance of offspring with the capacity to love.

And the 'strong&harsh' argument doesn't hold up. Our species are and were weaker than similar species that existed in our dawn, and we survived those species. Not by muscle, but most likely by social traits, the development of language and complex communication. Social adaptions are probably what has been most adament in securing the place our species has in nature, love may very well be one of the most important of those traits.

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Humans are a social creature, everybody who thinks about it for two seconds will intuitively know that feeling love increases the chance of relationship, which in turn increases the chance of offspring, which in turn increases the chance of passing on your genes, which in turn increases the chance of offspring with the capacity to love.

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In our current society of birth control, planned parenthood, a civilised society, this is very true. However, this was not the case in the past. You don't even need to go back in time to see this - just look at any third world country (especially lawless ones) and you'll see that 'love' has very little do with success in breeding and passing on genes (or the number of offspring that make it to adulthood).

[chezlaw]

That gene weren't known about by Darwin is entirely irrelelevent. Firstly this is not a historical conversation but about where we are now, secondly he still had the right idea and realised it wasn't about what's to the advantage of an individual.

I know you like a bit of abstract stuff so let T be a theory that imples R. If someone says that T implies R' and R' -> ~R then they are wrong or T is defeated. The fact that T might also be wrong is irrelevent.

wiki on the theory of evolution

chez

[chezlaw]

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If the underlying architechure of the brain develops, so does the genes. But that is really besides the point, there is no need to bring genes into the picture at all, but even if you do, it will not change the discussion at all. Genes are just the mechanics of heritage. As the previous poster so well stated, the theory of evolution precedes any theories of genes.


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Its true that genes themselves didn't need to be discovered before the theory of evolution but its a strange point. Cosmology existed before the existence of curved space was known about but curved space is now a vital part of cosmology.

Its also true that the basic theory of evolution didn't change much with the discovery of the gene but part of Darwin's (and others) triumph is that it implied some mechanism for passing on successful traits before any such mechanism was discovered.

chez

[PrayingMantis]

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That gene weren't known about by Darwin is entirely irrelelevent. Firstly this is not a historical conversation but about where we are now, secondly he still had the right idea and realised it wasn't about what's to the advantage of an individual.

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You still completely miss the point. Of course it is not a historical conversation. Please read my last post again and tell me what parts of it you don't understand.

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I know you like a bit of abstract stuff so let T be a theory that imples R. If someone says that T implies R' and R' -> ~R then they are wrong or T is defeated. The fact that T might also be wrong is irrelevent.

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Thank you, I do love these, but unfortunately it's completely irrelevant to the point in discussion. Again you try to formalize your claims, and by that you think they will turn meanigful in a way that is relevant. I'm sorry, They don't. The sentence "evolutionary theory is at the gene level not the person level", as other statements you've made on this thread, is simply a confused collection of words. There isn't even any point in "refuting" it, or "agreeing" with it. The whole notion of "gene level" being opposed in some way to "the person level" (without limitations) is absurd. You might want to read some more about "the theory of evolution", "persons", and "genes", not only on wiki.

[PrayingMantis]

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Cosmology existed before the existence of curved space was known about but curved space is now a vital part of cosmology.

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I'm sorry chez, this is another completely irrelevant point. "Cosmology" is not a theory.

[chezlaw]

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That gene weren't known about by Darwin is entirely irrelelevent. Firstly this is not a historical conversation but about where we are now, secondly he still had the right idea and realised it wasn't about what's to the advantage of an individual.

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You still completely miss the point. Of course it is not a historical conversation. Please read my last post again and tell me what parts of it you don't understand.


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Read you post but if you think that any evolutionary advantage exists at a non-gene level then I wonder how you think any physiological trait persists through time.

I saw your dismissal of Wiki (is that because it described the theory of evolution at the gene level?). Maybe you like to reference some scientific sources that could explain traits like love at the person level. here's the relevent bit; [ QUOTE ]
In the modern synthesis, "evolution" is defined as a change in the frequency of alleles within a population from one generation to the next.

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where
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An allele is any one of a number of viable DNA codings of the same gene (sometimes the term refers to a non-gene sequence) occupying a given locus (position) on a chromosome. Two alleles together comprise a gene.

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chez

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If the underlying architechure of the brain develops, so does the genes. But that is really besides the point, there is no need to bring genes into the picture at all, but even if you do, it will not change the discussion at all. Genes are just the mechanics of heritage. As the previous poster so well stated, the theory of evolution precedes any theories of genes.


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Its true that genes themselves didn't need to be discovered before the theory of evolution but its a strange point. Cosmology existed before the existence of curved space was known about but curved space is now a vital part of cosmology.

Its also true that the basic theory of evolution didn't change much with the discovery of the gene but part of Darwin's (and others) triumph is that it implied some mechanism for passing on successful traits before any such mechanism was discovered.

chez

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I think you misunderstand my point.

In the math-piece 2-0, you don't need to mathematically define 0 (a daunting task), it is enough to know that it exists and have an idea of what it does and does not do to logically conclude the answer to the equation.

This is also the case of genes and heritage. The nature of genes are very complex, but in essence genes contain all heritable information that are bodily passed from parents to offspring. It is usually not necessary to dvelve on the nature or mechanics of genes to discuss evolution, unless you are asking some rather complex question (which noone in this thread has done).

Noone has turned this into a 'historical' discussion of theories. You can however rest assured that the nature of man's emotions are deeply embedded into our genes and they are for the most part explainable with the theory of evolution - with our without the honorable mention of genes.

Emotions are not learned responses to situations. Research has proved that humans feel before the frontal lobes (the centre of higher thinking) have reacted to a situation.

Higher thinking may alter the emotion in retrospect, but the point is still clear.

Emotion precedes higher thinking, and as such must be embedded into our physiology..and hence our born heritage.

[PrayingMantis]

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Read you post but if you think that any evolutionary advantage exists at a non-gene level then I wonder how you think any physiological trait persists through time.

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Of course it does not exist at a "non-gene level". It might very well exist on the "person level" as well as on the "gene level". Such are many if not most "psychological tendencies".

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I saw your dismissal of Wiki (is that because it described the theory of evolution at the gene level?).


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I don't dismiss it at all. Again, there is no necessary contradiction between those two "levels", especially when discussing such a broad pshychological concept as "the ability to love". An "evolutional theory" with regard to the usefulness of love between parents and their children can be given without any need for an explanation at the "level of genes", and it will still be perfectly valid. You assume of course that such tendencies and others are carried on with specific genes, as you can do with regard to any kind of common human behaviour, which you wonder about the "importance" of its existence.

[Rduke55]

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Yes. Animals do just fine without it, including highly social animals. Their genes gets passed on just fine. But that's not my point. My point is that the ability to love is not a specific gene(s). The underlying architecture of the brain is what develops, love could be just a capacity we've gained along the way from a brain that developed via other selection mechanisms.

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Well, Insel and Young's work on the promiscuous montane vole vs. the monogamous prairie vole suggest that the main difference is in the promoter of a single gene. While of course we can't say the prairie vole's lifetime pairbonding is love, behaviorally it can be considered very similar and it does make a huge difference in the prairie vole passing on it's genes.

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I agree, but...at what point did we develop them? The brain's pleasure pathways have presumably been around since the first mammals, and cruder versions exist in reptile brains. Emotions also developed a long time ago in our primitive mammalian brains, at a time when we had no capacity for individual thought or expression. Sexual arousal has been around even longer. So all of the traits and basic neurobiology required for 'love' already existed in a crude form. With an increase in brain size, intelligence, and awareness, the capacity to love could develop automatically without any selection pressure.

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It's not those pathways but what triggers them which is different.

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Looking at the last million years, was there ever a selection pressure that meant that people who experienced 'love' were better at breeding and more likely to pass on their genes? I don't think so. Until a few thousand years ago, life was (my fav quote) "nasty, brutish, and short". The most prolific breeders (those that passed on the most genes) were the strongest and/or smartest males and the healthiest, horniest and cluckiest females (as is the case today). And note that attending to a child's basic needs is not the same as loving.

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Not necessarily. Pairbonding and parental care would often trump the strongest of males or the horniest of females if they weren't proficient at those behaviors.

The main problem in this argument is defining "love"
If you define it as the OED does then it does give a selective advantage if for only helping out with resources, parental care, mate guarding, etc. etc.etc.