INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATIONIN SOCIOBIOLOGY AND

EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY

Wayne M. Lawton

Department of Mathematics

National University of Singapore

2 Science Drive 2

Singapore 117543

Email matwml@nus.edu.sgTel (65) 874-2749

COSMIC QUESTIONS

Human nature ? If natural selection governs evolution, why do people behave so crazy ?

How did life start ? Did metabolism or replicating molecules come first ? Why so much diversity ?

What came first ? ‘The chicken is only an egg’sway of making another egg’ - Samuel Butler.

Tutorial Question 1. Give 12 examples of crazy ?

EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY

EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY

and

The merger of these two sciences has ‘transformed psychology from a vague set of unclear ideas into a true science’ – [4, page 4]

COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY

Tutorial Question 2. Define the two bold words.

PSYCHOLOGY

Folk Psychology – beliefs and desires explain human behaviorsSigmund Freud (1856-1939)

TUTORIAL PROBLEM 3. What’s bigger 7/13 or 8/15 ?How is thinking = computing ? How has modern neural science closed the gap between mind and brain ?

Behaviorism – external stimuli cause response behaviorJ. B. Watson (1878-1958) and B. F. Skinner (1904-1990)

Computer Science – software for information processingAlan Turing (1912-1954)

Cognitive Psychology – mind = software that runs on brain hardware

BIOLOGY

Folk Biology – creation myths, life exhibits ordered complexity that requires design – clearly the work of higher conciousness

TUTORIAL PROBLEM 5. How much evolution happened in the last 100 thousand years ? What supports the ‘out of Africa’ theory ?

Evolution – all life descended from a common ancestor [2], [3]

that lived 4 billion years ago

first cells 3.5 years ago

multicellular organisms 600 million ya

land-dwelling organisms 500 million ya

primates 55 million ya

humans split from chimpanzees 6 million ya

humans migrate out of Africa 100 thousand ya

EVOLUTION PRINCIPLES

Heredity and Mutation – both explained genes and provides

TUTORIAL PROBLEM 7. What is the computer method called ‘genetic algorithms’ and how is it being applied ?

Adaptation and Natural Selection – that appears like design

but which operates

‘simply by accumulating a series of random arguments’ – [4, p 30]

Example: evolution of the human eye [4, p 27-29]

Example: early evolution and the origin of life [3]

MENTAL MODULESNoam Chomsky’s work on language acquisition andDavid Marr’s work in vision showed complex mentalstructures or modules that required evolutionary development

Adaptation is required to respond to the social as well as the physical environment since reproductive success requires

avoiding predators eating the right food

forming alliances and friends

providing help to children and other relatives

reading other peoples minds

selecting mates

communicating with other peoples

DETECTING PREDATORS

An organism can not spread its genes if it is eaten

TUTORIAL PROBLEM 8. Accurate detection requires a large quantity of information to be communicated between the senses, within the brain (where it is processed) and to the muscles. Biological channels have small bandwidth and large noise. Use Hartley’s formula to explain why fast detection gives many false alarms.

There is a trade off between false alarm and slow detection

The American neuroscientist Joseph LeDoux showed that the emotion of fear has two neural mechanisms – one quick and not very accurate and the other accurate and slower [4, p 55]

LYING AND TACTICAL DECEPTION

‘Any fool can tell the truth, but it requires a man of sense to know how to lie’ – Samuel Butler

TUTORIAL PROBLEM 9. How do children < 4.5 years answer ? Why are children < 4.5 years incapable of lying ?

The Sally Ann Test [4, page 93]

A child is shown a short scene featuring two dolls – Sally and Ann

Sally puts sweets under a cushion and leaves the room

Ann takes the sweets and puts them in her pocket

Sally comes back into the room

The psychologist asks the child ‘where does Sally look for the sweets’

REFERENCES

[6] Edward Wilson, “Sociobiology, The New Synthesis”, Harvard University Press, 1975.

[4] Dylan Evans and Oscar Zarate, “Introducing Evolutionary Psychology”, ICON Books, UK, 1999.

[2] Charles Darwin, “The Origin of Species”, Penguin, UK, 1968

[3] Freeman Dyson, “Origins of Life,” 2nd edition, Cambridge University Press, 1999.

[5] Angus Gellatlyand Oscar Zarate, “Introducing Mind & Brain”, ICON Books, UK, 1999.

[1] Luca Cavalli-Sforza, Paolo Menozzi,, and Alberta Piazza, “The History and Geography of Human Genes”, Princeton University Press, 1994.