E. O. Wilson

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On October 1 I watched a really interesting program on PBS.  I believe it was "Of Ants and Men."

(editorial comment -- Come on, E. O., your brain works better than that.  Of Ants and Humanity, perhaps??? !!!)

The program is about E. O. Wilson's life and career.  He has been an observational biologist since childhood, and has had a long and storied career, including being excoriated and persecuted (and physically attacked!) in the 60's for suggesting it was likely that human behavior had at least some biological basis.

He has had MANY really interesting thoughts, in his long life, and I was glad to be exposed to some of them.

I don't remember hearing about him in the past, though it seems impossible to me that he was not mentioned in the Human Behavioral Genetics class I took (in which we learned that basically all human traits, physical *and* behavioral, have at least some genetic basis).

One of the thoughts I took away from what I saw/heard on the 1st was about human cooperation.  I had heard before that humans are the most cooperative of primates.  On the 1st I saw video of a clever experiment that compared the behavior of human children and chimpanzees.  When offered an opportunity to cooperate to retrieve treats, if one individual receives the lions share of the treats, each chimp will eat as many treats as they get, while a child who gets more treats will share with the cooperating child.

The chimp who gets fewer treats will quit cooperating, but the children, who share, will go on and on and on, working together to get the treats, and making sure both get what was described as "a nearly equal" share.

Wilson said "People LOVE to cooperate, and they LOVE to observe cooperation."  This thought really struck me -- it is a common thread I'd never imagined or considered, that runs through so much that humans like to do.  Just think about how much cooperation is required to put on any sort of performance.  How many people need to agree to work on the project, how they agree to do different jobs, how they coordinate their schedules to make the performance possible........  How others love to come to view the performance (and will pay for the privilege)...............

And it's not just performances -- how many people have to cooperate in order that there can be schools.  Churches.  Commerce.  Cities.  Public transit.  On and on and on......



Another thought that was interesting to me is that while many kinds of animals are social (wolves, chimpanzees, English sparrows), only a very few kinds are eusocial.

Wikipedia:  Eusociality (Greek eu: "good/real" + "social"), the highest level of organization of animal sociality, is defined by the following characteristics: cooperative brood care (including brood care of offspring from other individuals), overlapping generations within a colony of adults, and a division of labour into reproductive and non-reproductive groups.

Most of the species that are described as eusocial are ants, bees/wasps, and termites.  Naked mole rats are also in the group.

E. O. Wilson makes a convincing argument that humans are eusocial.

He goes on to argue that a colony of eusocial animals is like a super animal (my words, but his thought).  That colonies of eusocial animals compete with each other for resources, and can evolve.........  He said that eusocial animals have come to dominate the globe, mentioning in particular ants ... and humans..............

He talks about sports as the ultimate example of the way we humans love cooperation, but it seems to me that it is also a very compelling example of the way two "colonies" compete.  No wonder people love sports -- it takes a lot of cooperation to even have a game -- some agreement as to rules, a venue for playing (which may need construction and maintenance), a lot of individuals on each side who have agreed to the work of preparation, and to the division of labor, and to the possibility for injury, etc.

And then there's all that competition (which we also love), too....

Anyway.  If you are interested in animals, or biology, or behavior, or humans and how they interact (with each other, and/or with the rest of the planet), watch the program.

Highly recommended.

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notes from Behavioral Genetics

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The above is from Turkheimer, E. (2000). Three laws of behavior genetics and what they mean. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 9, 160-164.

I like this wording for these concepts. 

Though -- particularly for the third law -- I think that the "effects of genes" are not really well understood at this point, especially the way genes interact with each other...........  And the ways that environment and genes interact is also not well understood..... 


Our teacher has added a fourth law -- complex behavioral traits are the result of many genes (like thousands of genes per trait....)

The truths leading to the fourth law have only been discovered since 2000.  I would guess that if Turkheimer were writing the first three laws now, he might revise that third one.

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us vs. rice

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A quote from Human Behavioral Genetics:

"You've got to believe -- at least *I* believe -- humans are biologically much more complicated than rice, but we have about half as many genes as rice."

lol..........................

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quote from Human Behavioral Genetics

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Here's a quote from a paper we read for Human Behavioral Genetics:

"Population-level sequencing will provide the first truly unbiased look at 20,000 genes that have rarely been sequenced in 'normal' persons, and it will probably reveal that we understand genotype–phenotype correlations even less well than we currently suppose." 

From "Genomic Medicine — An Updated Primer" -- authors:  W. Gregory Feero, M.D., Ph.D., Alan E. Guttmacher, M.D., and Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D.


It would be my own personal contention that we understand pretty much everything about chemical-level biology -- let alone molecular-level biology -- considerably less well than we currently suppose!  Which would indicate an even greater misconception of the way those underpinnings may affect who we are...............

It seems to me that every time we turn around, we discover a whole new set of processes is going on.  Things we never dreamed of................

We humans are so eager to leap to the conclusion that NOW we understand it (whatever "it" may be)!

I'm glad to see these authors recognizing the fact that we surely don't understand genotype-phenotype correlations as well as many currently suppose!

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the Jim twins....

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Here is part of a BBC video about twins who were raised apart, and meet as adults.

"The Jim twins" were the spark that started the Minnesota Study of Twins Raised Apart.........



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quotes from Human Behavioral Genetics

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This week in Human Behavioral Genetics (taught by Matt McGue) we are learning about twin studies.  We have been told that the evidence is clear and convincing that monozygotic ("identical" ) twins are more alike, as adults, than are dizygotic ("fraternal") twins.  Regardless of whether the twins were raised together by the same parents, or separately by different sets of parents.

This is true for physical characteristics, like height and weight, and it is also true for personality characteristics like how likely twins are to both be religious, or both be politically liberal or conservative.  Pretty much across the spectrum of human traits, monozygotic twins are more like each other than dizygotic twins are like each other.  Regardless of who raises them.

The quotes below are from "Sources of Human Psychological Differences:  The Minnesota Study of Twins Reared Apart" -- Thomas J. Bouchard, Jr.,  David T. Lykken, Matthew McGue, Nancy L. Segal, Auke Tellegen.

"Psychologists have been surprised by the evidence that being reared by the same parents in the same physical environment does not make siblings more alike as adults than they would have been if reared separately in adoptive homes."

"The genes sing a prehistoric song that today should sometimes be resisted but which it would be foolish to ignore."



Interestingly, IQ (only about 70% accounted for by genetics) is one of the traits that is most influenced by "nurture"........  We're going to have a whole week on IQ, later in the course.
 

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monozygotic twins....

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Here's a quote from my behavioral genetics class:

"We don't really know why monozygotic twinning comes about.  It does occur in other species, for example, in cats and other mammals.  But it really, as far as we know, only occurs regularly in two species.  Our species, humans, and one other species, armadillos."


Ok, that really struck me as funny.  We have so much in common with armadillos......................

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