Edward O. Wilson: Marx was right, he had the wrong species

http://www.froes.dds.nl/WILSON.htm

by bootload • 18 years ago

66 40 18 years ago

froes.dds.nl

njharman• 18 years ago

> Because we have reproductive independence, and we get maximum Darwinian fitness by looking after our own survival and having our own offspring.

i.e. we are selfish and greedy.

If everyone recognized and accepted this we'd be able to move past fantasies like the free-market and "our leaders have our best interests in mind"

mlLK• 18 years ago

ya except moving past something like free-markets is a fantasy in itself; power begets greed. imho, given the 2% that control 1/2 the worlds wealth it is that 98% moral objective to destroy that 2% and redistribute the wealth accordingly via the battleground known as the free-market.

nostrademons3• 18 years ago

Selfish, greedy, unrelated, and fertile.

E.O. Wilson's point was that since each worker ant is closely related to the rest of the colony, and they can't reproduce themselves, it's in the best interest of their genes to look out for the colony. We could get a similar effect by sterilizing humans (perhaps this is why monarchies have used eunuchs as their closest advisors and attendants), but I don't think it'd go over well.

Ants are selfish and greedy too, when it comes to warfare between colonies.

mechanical_fish• 18 years ago

Unfortunately for your eunuch idea, the part of your anatomy that makes you think and act like a genetically independent agent is much more problematic to cut off.

The flip side is that human reason and imagination are powerful enough to be able to model socialist societies fairly well. You can actually build an army, or a Shaker community, out of genetically unrelated humans, which is more than you can say for, e.g., cats. But human large-scale social altruism is dependent on culture, law, ethics, and reason, which makes it much more unstable than the ant version.

mseebach2• 18 years ago

The free market is modelled around the fact that we are greedy. Communism assumes that we are (or can be made) purely altruistic ("From each according to his ability, to each according to his need" collapses if there is just a single selfish, greedy actor present).

That's why free markets work remarkably better than communism.

walterk2• 18 years ago

Thankfully, however, we're not actually forced to choose between laissez-faire capitalism and communism.

netcan3• 18 years ago

You know, I never thought that free markets vs Communism made very good polar opposites. They don't cover the same sort of ground. They clash terribly over invisible hand vs command but Communism also covers a 17th- 18th centuryish theory of history at its core. What do free marketeers have to say to that?

The command vs freee hand, particularly for physical goods production has been largely decided. I think very few politicians left that would directly control production in a red sort of a way. They might for micro political reasons, but probably wouldn't try to control the economy some other way.

Marx got moulded into a religious figure. But read in a similar context as Kant, Bentham, or even Ayn Rand, it's definitely interesting.

jacobolus• 18 years ago

Boiling down a complex and varied set of ideologies into one oversimplified exaggerated statement FTW!

antiform• 18 years ago

That was a remarkably well-reasoned and plainspoken summary of some cool facts and trends in "sociobiology." I remember seeing a talk about evolutionary psychology early in my college career and dismissing it as imprecise, speculatory nonsense, but perhaps I judged too quickly. It seems more interesting and credible when the person talking about it doesn't seem like a crackpot. I'll take another look when I get the chance.

Also, on "A scientist would rather use another scientist's toothbrush than his terminology," I think that goes double for mathematicians. For instance, in complex analysis, "analytic," "holomorphic," "regular," "differentiable," and "complex differentiable" all mean the same thing in the context of functions/maps, with various subfields of mathematics adopting one or the other at various times.

wheels• 18 years ago

The worst is mathematicians only seem to have about 20 words, they just constantly redefine them in context. ;-)

eru5• 18 years ago

You're so normal!

ced• 18 years ago

Has anyone read the books by E.O. Wilson? Any good ones?

I read The Insect Societies, and while I'm sure it was very useful for biologists, the ratio of detail to intellectual insight was much too large for me. I didn't dare to tackle the other ones.

nostrademons3• 18 years ago

I read Consilience and had a similar impression. Useful for entomologists, not a terribly great read otherwise.

bdr• 18 years ago

I remember loving On Human Nature when I read it, but I can't respond to your specific question.

manny• 18 years ago

For all those who are hating on the free-market and greed and selfishness, I advise you to check out Ayn Rand's collection of essays compiled into a book called The Virtue of Selfishness.

http://www.atlassociety.org/cth--406-FAQ_Virtue_Selfishness....

walterk2• 18 years ago

The very article you link to carefully distinguishes Rand's definition of selfishness from the common understanding of the word. Rand was herself against the base selfishness that most people are against.

The problem is that pure free markets allow those operating from base selfishness to prosper. You need a credible threat to keep these people in line. Rand perhaps hoped that an Atlas Shrugged style revolt of "prime movers" could provide that threat, but (1) it's much too blunt, (2) relies on Rand's simplistic view that humans are either ethical and productive or looters (which allows her to justify the consequences of that revolt), and (3) has very little chance of actually happening. Which means turning to the state to provide the necessary threat, compromising the cherished ideal of completely free markets. The state may operate imperfectly, and require an ever-vigilant electorate to ensure that it does not overstep its bounds and is constantly improving its methods in accordance with a well-specified set of metrics (which is true of just about any government function), but it's better than letting businesspeople run amok in the name of purity.

Prrometheus• 18 years ago

Rand's fiction is better than her non-fiction. She makes a good artistic case that selfishness is not a priori evil and is often good. However, if you are looking for rigorous philosophy or social analysis to support such viewpoints, then I would suggest one look elsewhere.

eru5• 18 years ago

How about Adam Smith's works? They are very readable.

gojomo• 18 years ago

Reminds me of a great quote Len Sassaman has in his Orkut profile:

"Some day, I will invent a machine that turns all marxists into ants. Then, we will all be happy."

andrewbaron• 18 years ago

Speaking on behalf of empirical data, many humans are not content to have just enough. They always want more. Give someone a million dollars and they want more. Give them a comfortable house, and they will dream of having a better one. It's all relative, but by nature, I think humans will never be content with what they have or know. They will always seek out something more. To elaborate on the comment above about greed, agreed: This is why Communism, one form of Marxism, in favor of a single class, will never work.

nirmal• 18 years ago

Great interview with him from RadioLab

http://blogs.wnyc.org/radiolab/2008/09/23/chasing-bugs/

helveticaman• 18 years ago

Sure, ants can work harmoniously because of genetic incentives, but how is that really different from the way cells work together in a human body? Selfishness is inescapable and constant, like the speed of light. Justice and individuality are illusions, like time and space, that become meaningful when determined in terms of selfishness. That which is selfish is an individual; that which is an altruist member of a greater being is like a cell in an individual.

eru5• 18 years ago

Nice definition. Only works in a context of evolutionary stable strategies, though

muriithi• 18 years ago

This article debunks the myth that us humans are a "unique" species far removed from "other" animals. Plus now I know who a myrmecologist is! Thanks Google.

lst2• 18 years ago

99.99% of humanity has been religious so far (from its early beginnings until now, being atheism a very rare phenomenon in the past).

If you want to really understand humans, why ignore that fact?

a-priori2• 18 years ago

Don't forget that persecution of a thing tends to drive it underground but not eliminate it. There is no way of knowing how many people in centuries past were non-religious because they would have hidden this fact to avoid persecution.

lst2• 18 years ago

And if we substitute religion with faith?

We all know (from daily experience) that we need to trust / have faith / etc. in someone or something. No single human is able to start from 0 and to do it all by himself.

Now, the current faith of 'modern' (non religious) people seems to be one of: Science, Politics, Evolution (in the sense of: Nature will solve it all for us).

But: if the solution to a human problem can't really be found inside himself, that fact already excludes any possibility of being the human itself something similar to God (Batteries AKA All Solutions To All Problems Already Included).

Concluding: it's much more reasonable to actually believe in some God than the opposite. (And I really appreciate the intelligence/knowledge/wisdom of past generations.)

Edward O. Wilson: Marx was right, he had the wrong species

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