Evolutionary Fundamentalism

I generally like what Digby has to say, but when I read this I knew he had stepped in it. I also knew my wife the evolutionary biologist would have some choice words. Here they are:

Yesterday, Digby wrote about an article called "The Fundamentalist
Agenda", which uses an evolutionary psychology argument to explain fundamentalist religions. I am an evolutionary biologist, and evolutionary psychology makes me mad. It makes me madder that reasonably intelligent people like Digby fall for this pseudoscience.

One more time: "Alpha Male" doesn't mean what people think it means. In some species (but NOT ALL), males and females form dominance hierarchies. These dominance hierarchies are simply to gain priority of access to resources. These resources are different for males and females. In females, the resources that matter are food. In order to reproduce, females need enough food during pregnancy and lactation, and enough food for their weaned offspring to survive. For males, the necessary resource for reproduction is... females!

The alpha male, then, is concerned with protecting his mates from other males - a strategy that may or may not work depending on the species. In some species, females are seasonal breeders, so all females are mating at the same time, so there is no way that males can prevent others from mating. The alpha male is dominant only to other males. Males and females have separate dominance hierarchies.

Who protects the territory? Well, who is concerned with protecting the food supply? That's right, FEMALES. And females have their own dominance hierarchy, so that higher-ranking females can take resources away from lower-ranking females. And it is females who are often most concerned with chasing away other groups from their territory.

Males do not "set the rules", and females do not "obey the males". Most of this mistaken ideology about animals comes from 1) wishful thinking and 2) 1950s studies of hamadryas baboons. In hamadryas baboons, they have a "harem" social structure, in which a male controls 1-4 females. He keeps them in line through violence, with behaviors such as neck-biting to make sure they stay with him and do not mate with other males. In this way, hamadryas baboons are completely UNLIKE any of the other 250 species of primates. Except for perhaps humans.

Also, there is not necessarily a "clear separation between the in-group and the out-group." How do you think groups get new members? In many species, one sex is philopatric, meaning that they stay in the group they are born into, and the other disperses, or moves away from home once they reach maturity. They're not out there forming new groups - they're joining pre-existing ones. In most mammals, females are
philopatric. And females are often on the lookout for new mates - novelty is sexy. So then the males in the group might get a bit territorial to keep these new males out - but this is not as effective as human males might hope.

Alpha males do NOT define territorial boundaries. They do NOT set norms and behaviors. These are anthropomorphized ideals trying to justify what humans think that a leader should do. To make a list of what human males and females do and then claim it is biology is exactly what is wrong with evolutionary psychology. Scientists test hypotheses by looking at a set of data. Evolutionary psychologists look for anecdotes that support their point of view.

You want to use animal behavior to explain human behavior? Fine. But learn something about animal behavior first.

Isn't she cool?

Anyway, I think that Digby's general point is still worthwhile: that religious fundamentalism taps into some basic human desires. But the desire is to dominate females, not defend territory. Maybe the "security moms" vote for Bush stems from the female desire to defend territory.

And as for the argument that liberals should go aggressively after religious fundamentalism, tying the islamic variant to our own christian one and labelling it as fundmantally un-American? I can only say yes yes yes yes yes.