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Mammalian Aggression

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Re: Mammalian Aggression

#31

Post by pjc50 »

ilaksh wrote: post #26
pjc50 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

20th-century eugenics discredited this concept so badly that it is now treated as radioactive waste. There was a lot of bad biology and sociology manufactured to justify supremacism.

Wow, I had not thought of that angle. I was really thinking in terms of drawing parallels between humans in general (as a single group) and different species of animal. The idea of pointing at genes to suggest that certain populations are fundamentally different didn't occur to me when I wrote that. It was really just the basic idea of saying "look at what most mammals do, and why we think they do it - wait, all huma…

> drawing parallels between humans in general (as a single group) and different species of animal

The problem with this comparison is that it's been used a lot in racism to justify some races as being "more animal" and by implication "less human" and less deserving of human rights. It's OK to selectively breed and mass euthanize animals.

> look at what most mammals do, and why we think they do it - wait, all humans do that also!

Do they? Have we checked? We do some things that are similar to animal behavior, but ours is .. considerably more complicated.

I mean, yes obviously we are animals in the sense of being of the same substance and biological processes, and that has theological implications; this is why Darwin pointing that out was so disruptive. However, there's a long tradition of using analogies (not actual research) drawn from the animal kingdom to make wrong and harmful conclusions about humans, usually for the purposes of finding a moral justification for inhuman treatment.

Something that took me a long time to realize about the Scopes Monkey Trial was that, not only was it theologicallly problematic for humans to have derived from animals, it was even more problematic to the public of the time for white humans to share a common ancestor with black humans, since there was demand to make this illegal.

Tennessee 1925: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scopes_Trial

Seven years later: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Jim_Crow_law_examples_... "Classified "Negro" as any person with any Negro blood".

Re: Mammalian Aggression

#32

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

pjc50 wrote: post #31
ilaksh wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, I had not thought of that angle. I was really thinking in terms of drawing parallels between humans in general (as a single group) and different species of animal. The idea of pointing at genes to suggest that certain populations are fundamentally different didn't occur to me when I wrote that. It was really just the basic idea of saying "look at what most mammals do, and why we think they do it - wait, all huma…

> drawing parallels between humans in general (as a single group) and different species of animal The problem with this comparison is that it's been used a lot in racism to justify some races as being "more animal" and by implication "less human" and less deserving of human rights. It's OK to selectively breed and mass euthanize animals. > look at what most mammals do, and why we think they do it - wait, all humans d…

The irony is that eugenics is itself an example of mammalian aggression.

Human aggression rarely has bare fangs. It's obscured and mediated through culture and belief systems.

That doesn't mean it isn't fundamentally animal aggression. It means it's expressed through abstract symbol systems which disguise its true nature. And it only becomes overt and physical some of the time.

Mainstream economics works in the same way. To many on the right, economic failure is proof of low status in the hierarchy, and low status is inherently impure and toxic and deserves to be exploited and abused.

Caste systems are another example.

Re: Mammalian Aggression

#33

Post by cbolton »

sethammons wrote: post #27
cbolton wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would say the exponent of a variable makes (contributes to making) the result large.

What if the base is less than one?

I think the question "does it make it larger or does it describe how it gets large?" implies that the transformation is increasing.

Re: Mammalian Aggression

#34

Post by Haunted_Cabbage »

cbolton wrote: post #33
sethammons wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if the base is less than one?

I think the question "does it make it larger or does it describe how it gets large?" implies that the transformation is increasing.

My intention was to say that the exponent describes the characteristics of a change, not to imply that the effects are only positive.

Re: Mammalian Aggression

#35

Post by TT3351 »

tomerico wrote: post #24
vixen99 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'human behavior should be interpreted as a variant of mammal behavior' is a discredited concept. Is it? Given the closeness of the genetic codes of humans and animals and the proven relationship between genes and certain behavioural characteristics, this is difficult to defend though some do of course. 'New evidence on the link between genes, psychological traits, and political engagement' https://www.cambridge.org/c…

The broader concept of genetics affecting human behavior is a social landmine.

I think the landmine is in looking for some kind of differentiation among humans rooted in the unique genetic patterns of groups of humans (i.e. convicts or members of a given race), not necessarily in understanding how genes shape our behavior generally.

Re: Mammalian Aggression

#36

Post by Leban »

pjc50 wrote: post #31
ilaksh wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, I had not thought of that angle. I was really thinking in terms of drawing parallels between humans in general (as a single group) and different species of animal. The idea of pointing at genes to suggest that certain populations are fundamentally different didn't occur to me when I wrote that. It was really just the basic idea of saying "look at what most mammals do, and why we think they do it - wait, all huma…

> drawing parallels between humans in general (as a single group) and different species of animal The problem with this comparison is that it's been used a lot in racism to justify some races as being "more animal" and by implication "less human" and less deserving of human rights. It's OK to selectively breed and mass euthanize animals. > look at what most mammals do, and why we think they do it - wait, all humans d…

> The problem with this comparison is that it's been used a lot in racism to justify some races as being "more animal" and by implication "less human" and less deserving of human rights. It's OK to selectively breed and mass euthanize animals.

Can't we take a non-racist point of view to analyze the parallels between humans in general (as a single group) and different species of animals?

Re: Mammalian Aggression

#37

Post by [deleted] »

Blikkentrekker wrote: post #16
pjc50 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> gender and race factors in terms of influence on academic achievements The focus of the politics on these factors is because, within living memory, they were grounds for exclusion from academia entirely. There is therefore an effort to make sure the exclusion is not being carried on covertly instead of overtly. Bad ideas take a long time to replace.

> The focus of the politics on these factors is because, within living memory, they were grounds for exclusion from academia entirely. There is therefore an effort to make sure the exclusion is not being carried on covertly instead of overtly. So was poverty, citizenship, family lineage, and many other things they aren't so interested for to demonstrate that they are more significant influences than many other factor…

[deleted]

Re: Mammalian Aggression

#38

Post by belorn »

simonh wrote: post #8
jan_Inkepa wrote: post #6

Fun analysis. I would've assumed maternal aggression would come with vocalizing + threats, but here it says not? It says this: >Maternal aggression in rodents, like predatory aggression and unlike social aggression, is _not _accompanied by a cortisol response, elevated arousal, or social signaling (threats). But I've seen plenty of videos of animals being territorial where people say "oh they're guarding their cubs,…

If you're simply encroaching on their territory and they happen to have young they might respond to it as a territorial threat. I suspect it's direct threats to the actual young that trigger maternal aggression, in which case it's gloves off, you're going down. So while it's still the territorial type you need to back off, because you really don't want it to turn into the other kind.

I don't see much of a distinction between those two during mating season. A female with young has put significant investment into reproduction, and if the young has limited mobility, then female would benefit from lower threshold for threats and more active response in eliminating such threats.

A male that has managed to gain the top of the male hierarchy and claimed a territory has also invested significant in their reproduction, and since the territory and status is fixed, would also benefit from lower threshold for threats and more active response in eliminating such threats.

Its evolution based on passing on as many copies of your genes as possible, and the purpose of lowered threshold for threats and more active response is identical in both. Sex hormones are also a great tool to trigger this, but naturally in different context based on the reproductive method. It would also make a predictable theory that a species where both male and female have similar reproductive behavior and stakes, the relation between hormones and aggression will be similar for both genders.

Re: Mammalian Aggression

#39

Post by kashyapc »

afpx wrote: post #30
kashyapc wrote: post #11

Speaking of aggression, people often suspect the famous hormone testosterone as one of the prime causes. But Robert Sapolsky's (one of his papers is cited in OP's analysis) book, Behave shows something different: "While testosterone is inextricably tied to aggression, it is far less relevant to aggression than usually assumed." Instead of asking "What do individual levels of testosterone have to do with aggression?",…

If I remember the book correctly, Sapolsky goes further and claims that Testosterone regulates pro-social behavior. But, “pro-social” is culturally dependent. For example, in one culture, it may mean being more nurturing. In another, being more aggressive and violent. But, it’s always about “climbing the ladder”.

Your recollection is almost close :-). He does mention how testosterone even promotes—a few notches up from "regulate"—prosocial behaviour, but only in the right setting:

"In one [study], under circumstances where someone's sense of pride rides on honesty, testosterone decreased men's cheating in a game. [...] Engineer social circumstances right, and boosting testosterone levels during a challenge would make people compete like crazy to do the most acts of random kindness. In our world riddled with male violence, the problem isn't that testosterone can increase levels of aggression. The problem is the frequency with which we reward aggression."

Behave piqued my interest enough to make me pick up a robust neuroscience textbook. (For those curious, I went with the fourth edition of this one, by Bear et al—https://openlibrary.org/books/OL27999902M/Neuroscience. I strongly recommend it; it's written with excellent pedagogic skill.)

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