THE SKEPTICS SOCIETY CONFERENCE AT CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

By James A. Murray    


The Fourth Annual Skeptics Society Conference on Evolutionary
Psychology and Humanistic Ethics was held at the California Institute
of Technology in Pasadena on March 30 and 31, 1996, with 200 people
present.  I was particularly intrigued with the topic because I am a
humanist and a professional neuroethologist, that is, I study the
neuronal basis of natural behaviors.  Evolutionary psychology measures
psychological phenomena in evolutionary terms of "fitness."  It asks
such questions as: Do humans think like they do to increase their
reproduction rate?  Do our thoughts and emotions have adaptive
functions?  Perhaps the most widely cited hypothesis of evolutionary
psychology is the incest taboo.  Some scientists believe that the
conscious incest taboo is an evolutionary adaptation that predominated
because individuals without it produced fewer viable offspring than
those with it due to the negative genetic consequences of inbreeding
in our species.  The main issue at the conference was to what extent
our psychology has been shaped by our evolutionary past.

Dr. Michael Shermer, director of the Skeptics Society, and publisher
of Skeptic Magazine, opened the conference by noting that only 9% of
U.S.  citizens (Gallup) believe in evolution without divine
intervention.  Apparently, the belief that our psychology is the
result of evolution is not widely accepted in this country.  This is a
historical fact as well.  Alfred Wallace differed from Charles Darwin
in that he did not believe that the human mind could be the result of
evolution.  Darwin accepted moral evolution.  However, modern
psychology did not develop from evolutionary theory.  Rather, it was
hijacked by the non-scientific theories of Sigmund Freud a century ago
and only now is evolutionary theory challenging Freud's dominance.
Can we determine if psychological phenomena have evolved?  Can a
psychological phenomenon spread in a population like a "brain virus"
(i.e., meme, sensu Dawkins), even if it is maladaptive?

Before these and other questions were addressed, we were treated to
talks by Professors Patricia and Paul Churchland, eminent authors from
the Philosophy Department at the University of California at San Diego
on the subject of "Intelligence and Consciousness."  Dr. Patricia
Churchland claimed that dualism is still a widespread belief, but
suggested that we will make more progress in understanding the mind if
we hypothesize that it is material (as is the body), and thus amenable
to experimental study.  Since we know practically nothing of the
neural mechanisms of cognition, declarative memory, and awareness, we
need to design neural and psychological experiments to elucidate these
cellular and physical mechanisms.  She suggested that understanding
consciousness might require a "recategorization" of our knowledge
about it, such that it may not be at all what we now think it is.  By
analogy, she noted that humans once use the word Afire@ to denote many
things that are quite different physically, such as the sun's nuclear
fusion and the bioluminescence of insects.  She believes the key to
understanding consciousness is seeing the differences between a brain
that receives sensory stimulation and becomes "aware" of the stimulus,
and the same brain that receives the same sensory stimulation and does
not become "aware" of the stimulus.

Dr. Paul Churchland, also an adjunct professor at the Salk Institute,
talked about his work at the Institute for Neural Computation on
"neural networks," a type of computer program that resembles, in some
respects, a neural system.  Such computer programs can change with
experience and learn tasks after being "trained," for instance, to
recognize individual human faces.  He introduced us to the so-called
"Hard Problem," that of "qualia," e.g., of subjective experience.  How
do I know that my subjective experience of redness is similar to
yours?  What is the neural basis of qualia?  A computer might be
programmed to respond to a red stimulus, but can a computer really
know "redness?"  Can a computer have "qualia?"  Does a snail really
feel pain in the same way that humans do?  Does a snail have a
subjective experience?  Hard problems indeed.

Roger Bingham, the creator of the PBS series The Human Quest on
science, evolution, and consciousness, was an energetic and
entertaining speaker.  He believes that the Enlightenment started in
the 17th century is now under attack by romantics, obscurantists,
religionists, and neo-Luddites, and he suggests that we counter with a
second Darwinian revolution, but this time including the toughest
evolutionary trait to understand, the human mind.  We need a new
common sense, since dualism is indefensible.  He cited many examples
of mind traits thought to have evolved, such as our preference for
fats and sweets, and for nepotism.  He emphasized that science is not
an assault on, but rather an expression of, the human spirit.

After lunch, we received an update from the Amazing Randi who is
ceaselessly active in debunking frauds and cheats and has recently
troubled dowsers and a Japanese "psychic."  However, his big news was
the announcement of the new James Randi Educational Foundation, which
an anonymous benefactor has funded.  (See the related article
elsewhere in this newsletter.)  He plans to build a reference and
lending library of skeptical sources, and will put many on the
Internet (see his web page accessible from the SDARI homepage).  He
encourages us all to maintain hope in fighting the exploitive
practices of psychics and pseudo scientists.

Dr. Donald Symons, professor of anthropology at the University of
California at Santa Barbara, presented his research on the
evolutionary psychology of female sexual attractiveness, "Beauty is in
the Adaptations of the Beholder."  How does a man determine the mate
value of a woman, and what are reliable and unfakable cues to her
value?  One aspect of this is the perception of beauty.  "Beauty" is
highly intersubjective, such that many men agree on the beauty
rankings of photographs of female faces.  Using computers to create
synthetic face images, he exaggerated the differences between those
faces rated less and those rated more attractive, and created
superattractive faces that were highly symmetrical, had smaller jaws,
and larger lips.  One interesting universal found in human populations
was that the preferred skin color is lighter than the local average in
each population studied.

Dr. Nancy Seagal, professor of developmental psychology, is the
director of the Twin Studies Center at the California State
University, Fullerton.  Twins allow us to study the genetics of human
behavior because sometimes the effects of environment and genetics can
be separated.  Even when identical twins are separated at birth and
raised apart, they are more similar to each other than are fraternal
twins raised apart, and siblings raised apart are more similar than
are unrelated people.  This shows that genetics significantly affect
many traits, including I.Q., sexual orientation, religiosity, and
personality.

Dr. Napoleon Chagnon, professor of anthropology at the University of
California, Santa Barbara, presented his work of 32 years on the
Yanomamo people of the Amazon, the last stone-age people left on
earth.  He claimed that warfare and homicide are common in primitive
societies, that most killing is done by men over access to women, and
that men who have killed more acquire more wives and children.  He
also told an interesting story of how the Yanomamo people, having been
introduced to bananas within the last several generations, have
synthesized a creation story of how bananas have been with them since
the beginning of time.  Similar creation stories have been espoused by
the local Institute for Creation Research, e.g., that dinosaurs were
created along with humans at the beginning of the universe.

Saturday evening was a social hour followed by a banquet (which I did
not attend) and the Skeptic Magazine Awards ceremony, headlined by
Steve Allen.  The awards were The Dumbth Award, The Randi Award, The
Media Skeptic, The Skeptical Essayist, and The Skeptical Scholar.

Dr. John Hartung, professor of anesthesiology at the State University
of New York, has published many papers on evolutionary psychology.  He
began by describing some violent episodes portrayed in the Old
Testament, and questioned its validity as a source of morals.  He then
laid out his complex theory of human meaning and purpose, which
somehow depends on humans existing "forever."  If humans were to one
day become extinct, he believes that all prior human existence would
become meaningless.  This was received by a skeptical audience.  He
suggested one "objective morality" as behaviors that increase the
probability of continued human existence.

The last talk by Dr. Michael Shermer, professor of cultural studies at
Occidental College, was on evolutionary ethics and humanistic morals.
He reviewed some elements of a secular and scientific approach to
morality.  He said that morals should be provisional like scientific
hypotheses, if an action is supported as "right" by data, then it
should be accepted as moral, provisionally.  He suggested that a good
test to decide if an action (e.g., infidelity) is moral is to ask the
person it would affect (e.g., spouse).

The conference concluded with an open forum with all speakers fielding
questions from the attendees.  One conclusion was that evolutionary
psychology is not the science of morals (i.e., how we should behave),
but rather a way of making explicit and conscious the psychological
rules we sometimes apply implicitly.

To learn more about the Skeptics Society, write to skepticmag@aol.com
or see their web page via the SDARI home page.


----------------

James A. Murray is a Postdoctoral Fellow at UCSD and a member of the
San Diego Association for Rational Inquiry.  He can be reached in care
of SDARI or by email: jamurray@ucsd.edu.

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