# Darwin's Cathedral **Covers**:: **Source**:: [[Darwin's Cathedral by David Sloan Wilson]] **Creator**:: [[David Sloan Wilson]] # Highlights ### CHURCH AS ORGANISM ##### ^287471877 highlight_tags:: [[blue]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=45 ###### ^287471877q Organisms are a product of natural selection. Through countless generations of variation and selection, they acquire properties that enable them to survive and reproduce in their environments. My purpose is to see if human groups in general, and religious groups in particular, qualify as organismic in this sense. ^287471877 ##### ^287471878 highlight_tags:: [[blue]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=64 The author starts his argument with an acknowledgement of the difficulty of the question, his own biases, and then a definition of his terms. I think this an effective way to approach an issue in a way that both sides cam read on ###### ^287471878q I regard human evolution as a rapid and ongoing process, made possible by mechanisms loosely described as cultural, which means that human nature will never be set in stone, for better or for worse. ^287471878 ##### ^310051121 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=67 ###### ^310051121q Fifty-one billion is how many tons of greenhouse gases the world typically adds to the atmosphere every year. Although the figure may go up or down a bit from year to year, it’s generally increasing. This is where we are today. ^310051121 ##### ^292550146 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=68 This the core inquiry of this book, and does not exclude primarily religious or primarily scientific thinkers. Religious people can aproach it from the view point of the affects of sin and their fight against sin, while scientific people can view from the point of natural selection and reciprocal altruism. Both of these viewpoints deal heavily with human interaction, the social order, and social progress. ###### ^292550146q What is the nature of human society? Is it a collection of self-seeking individuals, or can it be regarded as an organism in its own right? These questions have been pondered by inquiring minds throughout the ages, with no more agreement today than 500 or 2,000 years ago. ^292550146 ##### ^287471879 highlight_tags:: [[blue]], [[pink]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=73 ###### ^287471879q Spirituality is in part a feeling of being connected to something larger than oneself. Religion is in part a collection of beliefs and practices that honor spirituality. ^287471879 ##### ^288175132 highlight_tags:: [[orange]], [[buddhism]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=79 Of course Gods were then pushed into Buddhism despite this ###### ^288175132q The Buddha refused to be associated with any gods. He merely claimed to be awake and to have found a path to enlightenment. ^288175132 ##### ^292550147 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=80 ###### ^292550147q If there is more to religion than belief in supernatural agents, then perhaps science is not as hostile to religion as it is often taken to be. ^292550147 ##### ^287471880 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=81 ###### ^287471880q One reason that I admire some aspects of religion is because I share some of its values. I have not attempted to hide this fact, and I hope that it has not intruded upon my science. Nor have I attempted to conceal my own basic optimism that the world can be a better place in the future than in the past or present—that there can be such a thing as a path to enlightenment. Being a scientist does not require becoming indifferent to human welfare. ^287471880 ### THE VIEW FROM EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY ##### ^288296631 highlight_tags:: [[blue]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=96 ###### ^288296631q There can be no doubt that a tribe including many members who, from possessing in a high degree the spirit of patriotism, fidelity, obedience, courage, and sympathy, were always ready to aid one another, and to sacrifice themselves for the common good would be victorious over most other tribes; and this would be natural selection. —Darwin 1871, 166 ^288296631 ##### ^288296632 highlight_tags:: [[blue]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=108 ###### ^288296632q The term “for the good of the group” was used as freely as “for the good of the individual.” Then, starting in the 1960s, adaptation at the level of groups was rejected so strongly that the ensuing period could be called the age of individualism in evolutionary biology. ^288296632 ##### ^288296633 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=113 ###### ^288296633q Religion returns to center stage, not as a theological explanation of purpose and order, but as itself a product of evolution that enables groups to function as adaptive units—at least to a degree. ^288296633 #### ADAPTATION AND FUNCTIONALIST THINKING ##### ^288296634 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=120 ###### ^288296634q Thinking about an object or an organism as if it has a purpose can be called functionalist thinking. Functionalist thinking can be highly effective when applied to things that actually have a purpose, but in other contexts it can be misleading. ^288296634 ##### ^288296635 highlight_tags:: [[orange]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=123 can a folktale be functional? can it be useful? ###### ^288296635q wondering about the purpose of the moon leads only to a folk tale. ^288296635 ##### ^292550148 highlight_tags:: [[orange]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=125 ###### ^292550148q Functionalist and nonfunctionalist ways of thought are so different from each other, and so useful in some contexts but misleading in others, that they may actually have evolved as separate cognitive skills (Hauser and Carey 1998; Tomasello 1999). ^292550148 ##### ^288296637 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=132 ###### ^288296637q A well-organized attacking army seems more like a single predator than a passing boulder, but the class of beggars has no organ-like function in society, although it may be explained by functionalist thinking at a lower level, such as individual greed resulting in an unequal division of resources. Thus, social groups are a nebulous and heterogeneous category with respect to the concept of adaptation. ^288296637 #### THE FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEM OF SOCIAL LIFE ##### ^288296638 highlight_tags:: [[orange]], [[blue]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=137 ###### ^288296638q A phenotypic trait is anything that can be observed or measured. ^288296638 ##### ^288296639 highlight_tags:: [[blue]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=139 ###### ^288296639q It is important to think of heritability as a correlation between parents and offspring, caused by any mechanism. This definition will enable us to go beyond genes in our analysis of human evolution. ^288296639 ##### ^288296640 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=141 [[fitness consequences]] ###### ^288296640q the fitness of individuals—their propensity to survive and reproduce in their environment—often depends on their phenotypic traits. ^288296640 ##### ^288296641 highlight_tags:: [[blue]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=142 A tendency for fitness or adaptive desing is the result of phenotypic variation, heritability, and fitness consequences ###### ^288296641q a tendency for fitness-enhancing phenotypic traits to increase in frequency over multiple generations. ^288296641 ##### ^292550149 highlight_tags:: [[blue]], [[pink]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=143 The power of explanation as in [[books_The Fabric of Reality]] ###### ^292550149q Darwin’s theory is so simple that it can be explained in a single paragraph, but its implications are so profound that the study of life was transformed, enabling the great geneticist Theodosius Dobzhansky (1973) to say: “Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution.” ^292550149 ##### ^288457438 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=162 ###### ^288457438q This can be called the fundamental problem of social life. Groups function best when their members provide benefits for each other, but it is difficult to convert this kind of social organization into the currency of biological fitness. ^288457438 #### DARWIN’S SOLUTION TO THE FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEM ##### ^288633669 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=179 ###### ^288633669q There can be a population of groups (many tribes of humans, many flocks of birds) that vary in their phenotypic properties (standard of morality, warning cries), with consequences for survival and reproduction (intertribal warfare, avoiding predators). ^288633669 ##### ^288633670 highlight_tags:: [[blue]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=185 ###### ^288633670q First, just because groups can evolve into adaptive units doesn’t mean that they do. The days of axiomatically thinking of groups as adaptive units are gone forever. Special conditions are required that may or may not be satisfied in the real world. ^288633670 ##### ^288633671 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=193 ###### ^288633671q Group selection does not eliminate conflict but rather elevates it up the biological hierarchy, from among individuals within groups to among groups within a larger population. ^288633671 ##### ^288633672 highlight_tags:: [[blue]], [[orange]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=197 ###### ^288633672q I do not mean to imply that the search for a universal morality is hopeless, only that it does not follow automatically from group selection theory. ^288633672 ##### ^288633673 highlight_tags:: [[orange]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=206 ###### ^288633673q At all times throughout the world (to paraphrase Darwin) religious systems have arisen in profusion, competing against each other and against nonreligious social organizations. ^288633673 #### EVOLUTIONARY THEORY’S WRONG TURN ##### ^288838023 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=229 ###### ^288838023q to use Konner’s words—for humans or any other species. Individuals are the organisms and society is merely a convenient word for what individuals do to each other in the course of maximizing their own fitness. ^288838023 ##### How to see group selection ##### ^288878740 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=253 Refering to groups of birds. Callers refering to birds that let out warning cries at the sign of predators ###### ^288878740q When we compare the fitness of callers and noncallers within each group, we see that callers are the losers in both cases. However, the group with more callers fares better than the group with fewer callers. This is the classic group selection scenario that began with Darwin. ^288878740 ##### ^305945983 highlight_tags:: [[qa]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=256 What are the three steps to apply group selection? 1. Identify the relevant groups 2. Compare fitness of individuals within groups 3. Compare fitness of groups in the total population By combining these we can see what evolves. ###### ^305945983q One noncaller has a survival probability of 100 percent and nine have a survival probability of 50 percent for an average of 55 percent. One caller has a survival probability of 25 percent and nine have a survival probability of 75 percent for an average of 70 percent. ... Employing this procedure for our bird flock example, the groups are flocks, callers are less fit than noncallers within flocks, but flocks with more callers are more fit than flocks with fewer callers. When the variation among groups is as extreme as in my example (one caller in the first group and nine callers in the second group) group selection is by far the strongest evolutionary force and the calling behavior evolves despite its selective disadvantage within groups. ^305945983 ##### ^305945982 highlight_tags:: [[qa]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=269 What is "the averaging fallacy" according to Elliot Sober and David Sloan Wilson? ###### ^305945982q If we define “individual selection” in terms of fitness averaged across groups rather than fitness within single groups, we have defined group selection out of existence, making “individual selection” a vacuous term for “whatever evolves.” ^305945982 ##### ^304185840 highlight_tags:: [[blue]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=271 ###### ^304185840q Elliott Sober and I call the practice of first subsuming group selection into the definition of individual selection, and then using this expanded definition to argue against group selection, “the averaging fallacy.” ^304185840 ##### How to define groups ##### ^310051122 highlight_tags:: [[orange]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=288 ###### ^310051122q Greenhouse gases trap heat, causing the average surface temperature of the earth to go up. The more gases there are, the more the temperature rises. And once greenhouse gases are in the atmosphere, they stay there for a very long time; something like one-fifth of the carbon dioxide emitted today will still be there in 10,000 years. ^310051122 ##### ^288878742 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=290 ###### ^288878742q when the trait is a social behavior, the fitness of an individual is determined by its own trait and the traits of the individuals with whom it interacts. ^288878742 ##### ^310051123 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=295 ###### ^310051123q But then we started burning fossil fuels. These fuels are made of carbon that’s stored underground, thanks to plants that died eons ago and got compressed over millions of years into oil, coal, or natural gas. When we dig up those fuels and burn them, we emit extra carbon and add to the total amount in the atmosphere. ^310051123 ##### ^310051124 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=322 ###### ^310051124q During the last ice age, the average temperature was just 6 degrees Celsius lower than it is today. During the age of the dinosaurs, when the average temperature was perhaps 4 degrees Celsius higher than today, there were crocodiles living above the Arctic Circle. ^310051124 ##### ^288936969 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=326 ###### ^288936969q we do not want to return to the days when groups were axiomatically assumed to function as adaptive units. The point is to achieve a middle ground in which the importance of the various levels of natural selection are examined on a case-by-case basis, using a procedure that allows group selection to be seen where it exists. ^288936969 #### MAJOR TRANSITIONS OF LIFE ##### ^310051125 highlight_tags:: [[blue]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=332 ###### ^310051125q Why are some places heating up more than others? In the interior of some continents, the soil is drier, which means the land can’t cool off as much as it did in the past. Basically, continents aren’t sweating as much as they used to. ^310051125 ##### ^310416932 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=339 ###### ^310416932q it has become increasingly certain that evolution also takes place along a different pathway: by social groups becoming so functionally integrated that they become higher-level organisms in their own right. One of the first to propose this radical new theory was Lynn Margulis (1970), who claimed that eukaryotic cells—the nucleated cells of all organisms other than bacteria—are actually symbiotic communities of bacteria whose members led a more autonomous existence in the distant past. Now it appears likely that similar transitions, from groups of organisms to groups as organisms, have occurred throughout the history of life, right down to the origin of life itself as social groups of cooperating molecular reactions ^310416932 ##### ^310051127 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=344 ###### ^310051127q When you use carbon dioxide equivalents, you aren’t fully accounting for this important short-term effect. ^310051127 ##### ^310051207 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=361 ###### ^310051207q Sunlight, for example, passes right through most greenhouse gases without getting absorbed. Most of it reaches the earth and warms up the planet, just as it has been doing for eons. Here’s the problem: The earth doesn’t hold on to all that energy forever; ^310051207 ##### ^310416933 highlight_tags:: [[blue]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=363 ###### ^310416933q Returning to the “selfish gene” that replicates rather than contributing to the common good of the cell, this problem can be solved by linking all the genes together into a chromosome that replicates as a unit. By eliminating the possibility of differential replication within the cell, chromosomes concentrate the process of natural selection at the among-cell level, neatly solving the fundamental problem of social life. ^310416933 ##### ^295076111 highlight_tags:: [[blue]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=367 ###### ^295076111q Social control, rather than highly self-sacrificial altruism, appears to solve the fundamental problem of social life at the individual level. ^295076111 ##### ^310051130 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=368 ###### ^310051130q Only molecules made up of different atoms, the way carbon dioxide and methane are, have the right structure to absorb radiation and start heating up. ^310051130 ##### ^289554236 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=370 ###### ^289554236q The laws of genetics and development, which originally referred merely to general patterns, have acquired an eerie resemblance to the other meaning of the word law—a social contract enforced by punishment. ^289554236 ##### ^289554237 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=378 ###### ^289554237q Then we discover that they are not performed voluntarily because birds that fail to call are severely punished by other birds. Calling no longer qualifies as altruistic, but we still must explain the evolution of the punishing behavior that makes calling selfish. ^289554237 ##### ^289554238 highlight_tags:: [[orange]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=381 ###### ^289554238q second-order public goods problem: causing another to perform a public good is itself a public good ^289554238 ##### ^289554239 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=383 ###### ^289554239q Social control can be regarded as a form of low-cost altruism that evolves to promote behaviors that would qualify as high-cost altruism if they were performed voluntarily. Elliott Sober and I call this “the amplification of altruism” ^289554239 ##### ^310051131 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=391 ###### ^310051131q we can’t with certainty blame climate change for any particular event. For example, when there’s a heat wave, we can’t say whether it was caused by climate change alone. What we can do, though, is say how much climate change increased the odds of that heat wave happening. ^310051131 ##### ^289554240 highlight_tags:: [[pink]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=392 ###### ^289554240q Social control mechanisms are obviously relevant to religious groups, which are based on much more than voluntary altruism. ^289554240 ##### ^310051132 highlight_tags:: [[orange]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=394 ###### ^310051132q there is growing evidence that climate change is making storms wetter and increasing the number of intense ones. ^310051132 #### HUMAN GROUPS AS ADAPTIVE UNITS ##### ^291449823 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=401 This lines up with [[books_The Dawn of Everything]] ###### ^291449823q evolutionary biologists have tended to regard ancestral human groups as mere collections of self-interested individuals, exhibiting nepotism and niceness toward those who can return the favor but by no means qualifying as societal organisms.11 Multilevel selection theory makes it appear more likely that ancestral human groups were potent units of selection ^291449823 ##### ^310051133 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=410 ###### ^310051133q As water vapor condenses into rain, it releases a massive amount of energy, ^310051133 ##### ^291449824 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=417 The author may not be covering the full breadth of early human experience, but that doesnt mean thst his evolutionary analysis cannot be more broadly applied. ###### ^291449824q Hunter-gatherers are egalitarian, not because they lack selfish impulses but because selfish impulses are effectively controlled by other members of the group. This form of guarded egalitarianism has been called “reverse dominance” ^291449824 ##### ^291449825 highlight_tags:: [[orange]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=424 ###### ^291449825q Earlier theories of hunter-gatherer egalitarianism focused on ecological conditions such as dispersed and unpredictable resources. In contrast, Boehm explains egalitarianism in terms of social norms, a shared understanding of do’s and don’ts that are enforced by rewards and punishments. ^291449825 ##### ^310051134 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=427 ###### ^310051134q Wildfires now occur there five times more often than in the 1970s, largely because the fire season is getting longer and the forests there now contain much more dry wood that’s likely to burn. According to the U.S. government, half of this increase is due to climate change, and by mid-century America could experience more than twice as much destruction from wildfires as it does today. ^310051134 ##### ^291449826 highlight_tags:: [[blue]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=429 ###### ^291449826q The concept of human groups as moral communities shows how much has been missed by kin selection theory, which predicts that prosocial behaviors should be directed primarily toward genetic relatives. ^291449826 ##### ^291449827 highlight_tags:: [[blue]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=433 ###### ^291449827q The concept of human groups as moral communities also shows how much has been missed by the concept of reciprocal altruism, which predicts that prosocial behavior should be directed primarily toward those who will return the favor. ^291449827 ##### ^291449828 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=435 Pushback against [[reciprocal altruism]] ###### ^291449828q Consider a group whose members believe that it is right to help others in proportion to need rather than the likelihood of return gains. Individuals who abide by the norm are rewarded, those who violate the norm are punished, and the group (let us say) prospers compared to groups whose members restrict helping to those who will return the favor. ^291449828 ##### ^310051135 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=441 ###### ^310051135q Thanks to cyclones, storm surges, and river floods, it is now common for 20 to 30 percent of Bangladesh to be underwater, wiping out crops and homes and killing people throughout the country. ^310051135 ##### ^291449835 highlight_tags:: [[orange]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=443 ###### ^291449835q The Chewong are a tribe that inhabits the rain forest of the Malay peninsula (Howell 1984).13 They combine hunting and gathering with shifting agriculture, ... The distribution of food and other scarce items is governed by a system of superstitions known as punen, which roughly means “a calamity or misfortune, owing to not having satisfied an urgent desire”: ^291449835 ##### ^310051136 highlight_tags:: [[orange]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=444 ###### ^310051136q a rise of 2 degrees Celsius would cut the geographic range of vertebrates by 8 percent, plants by 16 percent, and insects by 18 percent. ^310051136 ##### ^310051137 highlight_tags:: [[blue]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=461 ###### ^310051137q In many ways, a 2-degree rise wouldn’t simply be 33 percent worse than 1.5; it could be 100 percent worse. Twice as many people would have trouble getting clean water. Corn production in the tropics would go down twice as much. ^310051137 ##### ^292537212 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=481 ###### ^292537212q Immunity from disproof might seem like a weakness from a narrow scientific perspective, but it can be a strength for a social system designed to regulate human behavior. ^292537212 #### INNATE PSYCHOLOGY OF MORAL SYSTEMS ##### ^292537214 highlight_tags:: [[blue]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=500 ###### ^292537214q we need to reconcile two seemingly contradictory facts: the fact that moral systems require innate psychological mechanisms, and the fact that they can rapidly evolve by cultural evolution. ^292537214 ##### ^292537215 highlight_tags:: [[orange]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=505 From Emlen 1975 ###### ^292537215q Migratory birds stare at the night sky as nestlings and learn the center of rotation, which they use as adults to travel north and south ^292537215 ##### ^292537218 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=513 ###### ^292537218q our minds are also packed with specialized circuits that enable us to solve our own problems of survival and reproduction ... Psychologists should be trying to identify and understand these specialized circuits rather than pretending that human behavior can be derived from a few law-like mechanistic principles. ^292537218 ##### ^292550150 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=517 ###### ^292550150q authors have speculated on the design features required for a moral system to work, including conformity (Boyd and Richerson 1985; E. O. Wilson 1998), docility (Simon 1990), detection of cheating (Cosmides and Tooby 1992), punishment of cheating (Boyd and Richerson 1992), symbolic thought (Deacon 1998), explicit consensus decision making (Boehm 1996), ^292550150 #### CULTURAL EVOLUTION OF MORAL SYSTEMS ##### ^292550152 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=547 ###### ^292550152q Our genetically evolved minds make it possible to have a moral system, but the specific contents of moral systems can change within groups and vary widely among groups, with important consequences for survival and reproduction. ^292550152 ##### ^292936687 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=561 ###### ^292936687q In general, the world is so full of stimuli and possible responses to stimuli that a smart machine, or a smart cognitive organ, must be very selective about its perception and use of information. ^292936687 ##### ^310051138 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=567 ###### ^310051138q There are these two young fish swimming along, and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, “Morning, boys, how’s the water?” And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes, “What the hell is water?”* Wallace explained, “The immediate point of the fish story is that the most obvious, ubiquitous, important realities are often the ones that are the hardest to see and talk about.” ^310051138 ##### ^292936697 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=582 this is the traditional model of [[evolutionary psychology]] ###### ^292936697q For any particular feature of human behavior and psychology, try to understand it as a genetically evolved adaptation to a feature of the ancestral environment. Then try to imagine the psychological mechanism as a specialized module. ... My complaint is not that the algorithm is wrong but that it is partial, seeming to exclude the possibility of learning, development, culture, and other aspects of human mentality as open-ended processes. To broaden the horizon, we need to return to the question of whether cognitive processes must be specialized to be smart. ^292936697 ##### ^292936698 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=599 This is termed a "Darwin Machine" ###### ^292936698q the centerpiece of the immune system is an open-ended process of blind variation and selective retention. Antibodies are produced at random and those that successfully fight invading disease organisms are selected. Diseases are so numerous and evolve so fast with their short generation times that the only way to fight them is with another evolutionary process. ... genetic evolution does not invariably lead to the kind of modularity that excludes open-ended processes. Instead, it can create processes that are themselves evolutionary and therefore capable of providing new solutions to new problems. ^292936698 ##### ^292936692 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=619 ###### ^292936692q rational thought is itself a Darwin machine, rapidly generating and selecting symbolic representations inside the head. ^292936692 ##### ^292936699 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=629 ###### ^292936699q cultural evolution requires specialized mechanisms— ... terms such as “trial and error,” “rational thought,” and “imitation” probably don’t even begin to describe the number and sophistication of the mechanisms that actually guide the process of cultural evolution. ^292936699 ##### ^292936700 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=632 ###### ^292936700q many of the mechanisms guiding cultural evolution take place beneath conscious awareness. ... This means that cultures can evolve to be smart in ways that are invisible to their own members. ^292936700 ##### ^293875894 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=637 ###### ^293875894q the mechanisms guiding cultural evolution can be distributed processes involving many individuals rather than being processes contained within single individuals. ^293875894 ##### ^293875895 highlight_tags:: [[blue]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=677 He goes on to explain this via the difference between a genetic trait (mutation in a gene) to a cultural trait (belief or practice). I see the major frame shift as realizing that cultural traits are not only passed on via reproduction, but through communication. This is a major change I think, but does not mean the evolutionary model can't be applied ###### ^293875895q Cultural evolution is not merely a handmaiden of genetic evolution but changes the parameters of the evolutionary process, favoring traits that would not evolve by genetic evolution alone ^293875895 ##### ^293875896 highlight_tags:: [[blue]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=686 ###### ^293875896q cultural mutation; a new belief or practice that arises in one group by chance, rational thought, or any other process. ^293875896 ##### ^293875897 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=696 ###### ^293875897q Religions appeal to many people in part because they promise transformative change—a path to salvation. ^293875897 ##### ^293875898 highlight_tags:: [[blue]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=697 ###### ^293875898q It is unfortunate that evolution is so often associated with genetic evolution, a slow process that gives the impression of an incapacity for change over the time scales that matter most to living people struggling with their problems. When we expand our view of evolution to include all Darwinian processes, we can begin to see how religions actually can produce transformative change, even from a purely evolutionary perspective. ^293875898 #### MODERN HUMAN GROUPS AS ADAPTIVE UNITS ##### ^293875904 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=708 ###### ^293875904q Superficially, large-scale human societies appear much less egalitarian than hunter-gatherer groups, but the apparent inequities can be interpreted in two very different ways. On the one hand, social control mechanisms are probably strongest in small groups in which everyone knows and depends on everyone else. Many inequities that exist in large-scale societies are therefore exactly what they seem—some individuals profiting at the expense of others within the society. ... On the other hand, purely from the group-level functional standpoint, societies must become differentiated as they increase in size. ... It is therefore an open question whether extreme status differences and other seeming inequalities in large-scale societies represent domination pure and simple or rather design features that enable the society to function at a large scale, ^293875904 #### WHAT CONSTITUTES FITNESS? ##### ^294094923 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=748 ###### ^294094923q moral revulsion ... can itself be explained as part of the innate psychology of moral systems that evolved by group selection to suppress self-serving behaviors in our own species. But alas, ... Those groups of males who do not kill each other’s offspring might well kill the offspring and appropriate the females from other groups ^294094923 ##### ^294094910 highlight_tags:: [[orange]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=765 ###### ^294094910q the metaphor of an adaptive landscape.21 Imagine the English measurement system as a meager hill of low fitness and the metric system as a taller hill of high fitness. Evolution is a hill-climbing process, but if it starts out on the slope of the meager hill, all it can do is climb to the top of that hill. Moving from a short hill to a tall hill requires crossing a valley of low fitness and is actually resisted by the evolutionary process. The more rugged the adaptive landscape, the more an evolving system will reflect its original starting point ^294094910 ##### ^294094911 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=785 ###### ^294094911q Religious experiments that fail are not an argument against evolution, if we are observing the process in addition to the product. The question is whether religious experiments that succeed do so on the basis of their properties, ^294094911 #### THE RELIGIOUS EXPRESSION OF MORALITY ##### ^294094913 highlight_tags:: [[pink]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=799 ###### ^294094913q For many people, the otherworldly nature of religion is more interesting and important to explain than its communal nature. ^294094913 ##### ^294293564 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=803 ###### ^294293564q people in all cultures— ... possess the foundation of scientific thought: a sophisticated factual understanding of their world and the ability to reason on the basis of evidence ^294293564 ##### ^294094924 highlight_tags:: [[blue]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=806 Is this core to the book? Religious beliefs have definitely waned since this study but it may not be because of science ###### ^294094924q there is no evidence that scientific understanding replaces religious belief in modern cultures. America has become more religious over the course of its history, not less, despite the influence of science and engineering (Finke and Stark 1992). ... Clearly, we must think of religious thought as something that coexists with scientific thought, not as an inferior version of it. ^294094924 ##### ^294094918 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=814 This is in contrast to the ability to know true things being adaptive. ###### ^294094918q However, there are many, many other situations in which it can be adaptive to distort reality (Wilson 1990, 1995). Even massively fictitious beliefs can be adaptive, as long as they motivate behaviors that are adaptive in the real world. ^294094918 ##### ^310416935 highlight_tags:: [[psychology]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=819 ###### ^310416935q Emotions are evolved mechanisms for motivating adaptive behavior that are far more ancient than the cognitive processes typically associated with scientific thought. ^310416935 ##### ^301317595 highlight_tags:: [[orange]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=825 ###### ^301317595q A second example of hunter-gatherer morality ... The only such moral consideration ever mentioned was that when the band arrived at a decision, it was considered “good” and that it would “please the forest.” Anyone not associating himself with the decision was, then, likely to displease the forest, and this was considered “bad.” Any individual intent on strengthening his own argument might appeal to the forest on grounds that his point of view was “good” and “pleasing”; only the ultimate general decision, however, would determine the validity of his claim. ^301317595 ##### ^310051141 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=832 ###### ^310051141q the definition of a watt already includes “per second,” so there’s no such thing as watts per second, or watts per hour. It’s just watts.) ^310051141 ##### ^301114706 highlight_tags:: [[orange]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=837 ###### ^301114706q None of them had the slightest authority over the others. Nor was any moral pressure brought to bear in influencing a decision through personal considerations or respect. The only such moral consideration ever mentioned was that when the band arrived at a decision, it was considered “good” and that it would “please the forest.” Anyone not associating himself with the decision was, then, likely to displease the forest, and this was considered “bad.” Any individual intent on strengthening his own argument might appeal to the forest on grounds that his point of view was “good” and “pleasing”; only the ultimate general decision, however, would determine the validity of his claim. ^301114706 ##### ^294094920 highlight_tags:: [[blue]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=844 ###### ^294094920q Their decision about where to hunt almost certainly relied upon practical reasoning on the basis of detailed factual knowledge that we associate with scientific thought. Nevertheless, this mode of thought blended seamlessly with belief in a forest capable of experiencing pleasure, which happens to correspond to the welfare of the group. ^294094920 #### SURVEYING THE VIEW FROM EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY ##### ^310051142 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=854 ###### ^310051142q Whenever you hear “kilowatt,” think “house.” “Gigawatt,” think “city.” A hundred or more gigawatts, think “big country.” ^310051142 ##### ^294293305 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=869 ###### ^294293305q many biological structures are like a spandrel, which is the area created by two adjoining arches. Arches are clearly functional in the design of a building but spandrels are merely the byproducts of arches. These spaces are sometimes used for artistic purposes, but their “function” is secondary at best. ^294293305 ##### ^294293306 highlight_tags:: [[pink]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=872 ###### ^294293306q self-awareness evolved by natural selection for its survival value, with the unfortunate byproduct that self-aware individuals can foresee their own deaths. ^294293306 ##### ^294293307 highlight_tags:: [[blue]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=873 ###### ^294293307q Religion might then have arisen to help allay the fear of death, a secondary adaptation that can be understood only in the context of a more primary adaptation (self-awareness). ^294293307 ##### ^294293308 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=898 ###### ^294293308q Real churches only approach the ideal of true love, but their failures are interpreted as corruptions and aberrations of religion, not as a part of religion itself. ^294293308 ### CHAPTER 2 THE VIEW FROM THE SOCIAL SCIENCES ##### ^294570949 highlight_tags:: [[blue]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=930 ###### ^294570949q rational choice theory. Religion is envisioned as an economic exchange between people and imagined supernatural agents for goods that are scarce (e.g., rain during a drought) or impossible (e.g., immortal life) to obtain in the real world. Religious belief is therefore rational in the sense of employing cost-benefit reasoning. ^294570949 ##### ^310051143 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=938 ###### ^310051143q The premiums give us a different insight from the raw number of emissions, which shows us how far we are from zero but tells us nothing about how hard it will be to get there. What would it cost to use the zero-carbon tools we have now? Which innovations will make the biggest impact on emissions? The Green Premiums answer these questions, measuring the cost of getting to zero, sector by sector, and highlighting where we need to innovate—just ^310051143 ##### ^295428836 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=951 ###### ^295428836q If religion does not actually deliver the scarce resources that supernatural agents are invented to provide, the entire enterprise is a waste of time as far as survival and reproduction are concerned. ^295428836 ##### ^295428837 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=954 ###### ^295428837q Religion is on the cost side of a cost-benefit equation as far as the evolution of human psychology is concerned. ^295428837 ##### DURKHEIM REVISITED ##### ^295428839 highlight_tags:: [[orange]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=966 ###### ^295428839q According to animism, spiritual belief originated from the experience of dreaming, in which a phantom version of oneself appears capable of leaving the body and traveling long distances. Sleep, fainting, madness, and death all lead to the notion of a world of spirits who enter and leave human bodies at will. Once this world is imagined, it can explain anything: ^295428839 ##### ^295428840 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=979 ###### ^295428840q The human capacity for thought is broadly adaptive, but its particular manifestation in the case of religion has no function and can be costly ^295428840 ##### ^295490284 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=982 ###### ^295490284q Durkheim doubted that something as pervasive and influential as religion could be so dysfunctional. Early humankind lived too close to the edge of survival for such idle theorizing. Beliefs that failed to deliver practical benefits would soon be discarded in favor of more adaptive beliefs. ^295490284 ##### ^310051144 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=988 ###### ^310051144q For information on how the Green Premiums in this book were calculated, visit breakthroughenergy.org. ^310051144 ##### ^310051145 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=992 ###### ^310051145q HOW WE PLUG IN 27 percent of 51 billion tons per year ^310051145 ##### ^295490304 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=995 ###### ^295490304q "If the point of religion was to give us a representation of the world that would guide us in our dealings with it, then religion was in no position to carry out its function, and humanity would not have been slow to notice that fact" (Durkheim [1912] 1995, 76–77) ^295490304 ##### ^295490287 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=999 This is both similar to Wilsons point and the central thesis of the functionalist view of religion ###### ^295490287q Durkheim proposed that religion functions as an organizer of social life, both by defining groups and by prescribing the behaviors of its members. For Durkheim, the essence of religion was a distinction between the sacred and the profane: ^295490287 ##### ^295490288 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1008 ###### ^295490288q “In all its aspects and at every moment of history, social life is only possible thanks to a vast symbolism” (233). Religion is therefore a symbolic representation of society. ^295490288 ##### ^303348912 highlight_tags:: [[blue]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1012 ###### ^303348912q Durkheim felt that the symbolic badge of group membership and the aura of sacredness surrounding prescribed behaviors were required for clans to exist as functioning groups. ^303348912 ##### ^295490289 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1013 This lines up with the Dawn of Everything ###### ^295490289q The religious rituals and other festivities held during these gatherings were so emotionally intense that they gave force to group identity when its members were dispersed. ^295490289 ##### ^295490290 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1015 ###### ^295490290q Deacon (1998) has recently argued that symbolic thought sets humans apart from all other animals and evolved to enable enforced social contracts such as marriage. ^295490290 ##### THE NEXT GENERATION ##### ^295490292 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1031 Evans-Pritchard criticized Durkheim for writing freely and construsting stories about populations he didnt have first hand knowledge of ###### ^295490292q he had an insight into a psychological fundamental of religion: the elimination of the self, the denial of individuality, its having no meaning, or even existence, save as part of something greater, and other, than the self. But I am afraid that we must once more say that it is a just-so story. (64) ^295490292 ##### ^295490293 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1040 ###### ^295490293q it would be wrong to conclude that the general thesis of functionalism was similarly dismantled. ^295490293 ##### ^295490294 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1044 Evans-Pritchards greatest contribution ###### ^295490294q segmentation: the organization of leaderless tribes into a nested hierarchy of groups that can become functionally organized at any level, depending on the scale of the environmental challenge (usually warfare). ^295490294 ##### ^295490295 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1047 ###### ^295490295q one of his most arresting observations is that Nuer religion is similar to the Judaism of the Old Testament—not because of any historical connection but because both were derived from herding cultures whose lives were dominated by their livestock and their own social affairs. ^295490295 ##### ^303348913 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1056 ###### ^303348913q Victor Turner ([1969] 1995) analyzed religious ritual in terms of two key concepts: communitas and structure. Structure is the system of roles related to age, sex, and status that people in a community occupy. Communitas is a conception of the community as an egalitarian unit in which all members, from highest to lowest, have a moral claim. The purpose of structure is to implement the spirit of communitas. ^303348913 ##### ^295490297 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1069 ###### ^295490297q human groups achieve their functional organization not entirely by self-restraint (although this can be an important factor) but by mutual vigilance and social control. ^295490297 ##### ^295490306 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1076 election of a new King in Gabon 1868 ###### ^295490306q [after the death of the former king] he was suddenly set upon by the entire populace, ... They surrounded him in a dense crowd, and then began to heap upon him every manner of abuse that the worst of mobs could imagine. ... for every few minutes some fellow, administering a specially severe blow or kick, would shout out, “You are not our king yet; for a little while we will do what we please with you. By-and-by we will have to do your will.” ... “now we choose you for our king; we engage to listen to you and to obey you.” ^295490306 ##### ^295490302 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1096 Some notes the power of ritual in preserving strong community and how thay curbs selfishness and evildoing. Removing the need for any kind of police force. ###### ^295490302q Malidoma Patrice Somé, a member of the West African Dagara culture, who has attempted to interpret the nature of ritual for an American audience (Somé 1997). According to Some, rituals and social responsibilities are “inseparable” ^295490302 ##### FUNCTIONALISM TODAY ##### ^297089492 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1114 ###### ^297089492q Holism The idea that the whole is somehow more than the sum of its parts is one of the most common and also one of the most vaguely articulated themes associated with functionalism. ^297089492 ##### ^297089493 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1118 ###### ^297089493q methodological individualism, described by Watkins ([1957] 1994, 442) as follows: According to this principle, the ultimate constituents of the social world are individual people who act more or less appropriately in the light of their dispositions and understanding of their situation. ^297089493 ##### ^310416936 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1133 ###### ^310416936q The question “Why do these particular fruit flies have this particular phenotype?” has two answers. First, every phenotype is caused mechanistically by genes that interact with each other and their environment during development. Second, the phenotype exists because of a history of selection for that phenotype, coupled with heritable variation. These two explanations are usually labeled “proximate” and “ultimate” respectively, and there is a sense in which the latter is more fundamental than the former. ^310416936 ##### ^297089495 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1143 ###### ^297089495q heritable variation and selection provide a solid foundation for the holistic claim that the parts permit the properties of the whole but do not cause the properties of the whole. ^297089495 ##### ^297089496 highlight_tags:: [[orange]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1148 ###### ^297089496q Proximate explanation (“the sandy color in this species is caused by chromatin granules, which are coded by genes on the fourth chromosome”) complements ultimate explanation (“the sandy color is caused by a history of selection favoring cryptic coloration”) but never substitutes for it. ^297089496 ##### ^298292964 highlight_tags:: [[h4]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1164 ###### ^298292964q Complexity ^298292964 ##### ^298292965 highlight_tags:: [[orange]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1167 ###### ^298292965q Consider the famous examples of water and salt, whose properties are difficult to predict from their parts (hydrogen and oxygen in the case of water and sodium and chloride in the case of salt). This concept of holism is based on complex interactions rather than functional organization. Salt and water have no purpose; their properties simply reside mostly in the interactions among their parts rather than in the properties of the parts as isolated units. ^298292965 ##### ^298292966 highlight_tags:: [[blue]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1170 ###### ^298292966q In the same way, functionalism in the social sciences often seems to stress complexity and interconnectedness rather than functional organization per se ^298292966 ##### ^298292999 highlight_tags:: [[blue]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1170 ###### ^298292999q functionalism in the social sciences often seems to stress complexity and interconnectedness rather than functional organization per se ... Unfortunately, dysfunction can be as complex and locally stable as function, so the term “functionalism” should be avoided for concepts of holism based on complexity and restricted to the direct or indirect products of natural selection. ^298292999 ##### ^298292969 highlight_tags:: [[h4]], [[orange]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1176 ###### ^298292969q Functionalism and multilevel selection ^298292969 ##### ^297089497 highlight_tags:: [[blue]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1180 ###### ^297089497q The problem with functionalism begins when we attempt to explain the properties of groups in general and especially human groups, for which the influence of natural selection is not so obvious. ^297089497 ##### ^310051147 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1182 ###### ^310051147q Because solar and wind are intermittent, our capacity to generate electricity will need to grow even more. ^310051147 ##### ^298292970 highlight_tags:: [[blue]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1185 ###### ^298292970q Since philosophers and social scientists already acknowledge the legitimacy of functionalism at the individual level in nonhuman species when warranted by natural selection, the developments in evolutionary biology that I outlined in chapter 1 automatically set the stage for the return of group-level functionalism in the social sciences. ^298292970 ##### ^298292971 highlight_tags:: [[blue]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1195 ###### ^298292971q adaptationism enjoys its status in evolutionary biology in part because it is simpler to employ than nonfunctionalist approaches. Often only a little knowledge suffices to make an initial prediction about the properties of organisms that enhance fitness in their environments (e.g., fish in streams with predators should be more timid than fish in streams without predators). ^298292971 ##### ^297089498 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1200 ###### ^297089498q Mature research programs in biology pay equal attention to ultimate and proximate explanation, but they often begin with an adaptationist hypothesis that provides the best and most economical “first guess” about the properties of the organism ^297089498 ##### ^298292972 highlight_tags:: [[blue]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1203 ###### ^298292972q discrepancies between adaptationist predictions and the properties of real organisms often lead to the discovery of nonadaptive factors that would have been missed otherwise. ^298292972 ##### ^297089499 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1216 ###### ^297089499q The more numerous, complex, and interlocking the design features, the more compelling the evidence for their designed nature. William Paley (1805) popularized the argument from design as evidence for God, but in fact it only provides evidence for a designing agent—the hand of God, a human engineer, alien visitors from another planet, or the process of natural selection. ^297089499 ##### ^310051148 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1227 ###### ^310051148q we’ll save money by building renewables in the best locations, building a unified national grid, and shipping zero-emissions electrons wherever they’re needed. ^310051148 ##### ^310051149 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1238 ###### ^310051149q today, burying power lines increases the cost by a factor of 5 to 10. (The problem is heat: Power lines get hot when there’s electricity running through them. That’s no problem when they’re aboveground—the heat just dissipates into the air—but underground there’s no place for the heat to go. If the temperature gets too high, the power lines melt.) ^310051149 ##### ^297089502 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1241 ###### ^297089502q Natural selection was once assumed to be such a slow process that only the products, and not the process, could be directly observed. This view has been shattered by dozens of empirical studies, ... In the case of guppies, downstream fish transplanted to upstream tributaries have evolved the upstream suite of traits within ten generations. ^297089502 ##### ^298292973 highlight_tags:: [[h4]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1261 ###### ^298292973q Intentional behavior ^298292973 ##### ^298292974 highlight_tags:: [[blue]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1262 ###### ^298292974q Human behavior is often goal oriented, and the implements people employ to achieve goals are correspondingly functional. ^298292974 ##### ^298292975 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1277 ###### ^298292975q Many examples of adaptive flexibility (also called “phenotypic plasticity”) have accumulated in the biological literature. Mentality is not required; bacteria and plants can be adaptively flexible. ^298292975 ##### ^298293000 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1280 ###### ^298293000q adaptive flexibility does not change the functional interpretation of phenotypes. ... guppies cannot change their spots as individuals and therefore require the passage of generations to match their background. Flounders, octopi, and many other species can change their color as individuals and can match their background in a few moments. In both cases the function of matching one’s background is to avoid predators. ^298293000 ##### ^298292978 highlight_tags:: [[blue]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1285 ###### ^298292978q what is human intentionality but an elaborate mechanism of environmental assessment, built by natural selection, that culminates on balance in adaptive phenotypes? ^298292978 ##### ^310051150 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1286 ###### ^310051150q Nuclear power kills far, far fewer people than cars do. For that matter, it kills far fewer people than any fossil fuel. ^310051150 ##### ^298292979 highlight_tags:: [[blue]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1294 ###### ^298292979q Human brains may be unique in their ability to process symbolic information (as argued by Deacon 1998), but that does not alter their basic function or the functionality of the activities that are motivated by human thought. ^298292979 ##### ^310051151 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1299 ###### ^310051151q TerraPower’s reactor could run on many different types of fuel, including the waste from other nuclear facilities. The reactor would produce far less waste than today’s plants, would be fully automated—eliminating the possibility of human error—and could be built underground, protecting it from attack. Finally, the design would be inherently safe, using some ingenious features to control the nuclear reaction; for example, the radioactive fuel is contained in pins that expand if they get too hot, which slows the nuclear reaction down and prevents overheating. ^310051151 ##### ^298293001 highlight_tags:: [[orange]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1308 ###### ^298293001q The first and foremost question we must ask is whether an object of study counts as functional: are its properties designed to accomplish a given effect? ... The next question is to determine the designing agent or process. ... It is remarkable how well the first question can be answered without knowledge about the answer to the second question. ... This is one reason to regard intentional thought as one of several possible proximate mechanisms that create function rather than as an alternative to functional explanation. ^298293001 ##### ^310051152 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1313 ###### ^310051152q fusion holds a lot of promise. Because it would run on commonly available elements like hydrogen, the fuel would be cheap and plentiful. The main type of hydrogen that’s usually used in fusion can be extracted from seawater, and there’s enough of it to meet the world’s energy needs for many thousands of years. Fusion’s waste products would be radioactive for hundreds of years, versus hundreds of thousands for waste plutonium and other elements from fission, and at a much lower level—about as dangerous as radioactive hospital waste. There’s no chain reaction to run out of control, because the fusion ceases as soon as you stop supplying fuel or switch off the device that’s containing the plasma. ^310051152 ##### ^298292984 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1326 ###### ^298292984q Functionality in human life can be attributed to at least three proximate mechanisms beyond the conscious intentional mechanisms emphasized by Elster: (1) psychological processes at the individual level that lie beneath conscious awareness; (2) group-level processes that individuals partake in without conscious knowledge of their roles; and (3) ongoing processes of cultural evolution. ^298292984 ##### ^298292985 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1343 ###### ^298292985q the more individuals act as participants in a group mental process, the less likely they are to be consciously aware of the process. ^298292985 ##### ^298292986 highlight_tags:: [[blue]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1371 ###### ^298292986q Cultural evolution may be fast in comparison to genetic evolution, but it can still require many human lifetimes. In addition, cultural variation does not always result in cultural evolution. Majority effects, spatial effects, and other factors complicate the concept of fitness for cultural and biological evolution alike, ^298292986 ##### ^298292987 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1375 ###### ^298292987q Putnam (1993) pessimistically concludes that the deep structure of many contemporary human societies might prevent them from achieving the social goals for which they are intentionally striving. ^298292987 ##### RATIONAL CHOICE THEORY REVISITED ##### ^298292989 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1392 ###### ^298292989q There are a number of ways to bring religion under the umbrella of rational choice theory. One is to explain religion as the economic mind spinning its wheels to get what it can’t have (a byproduct). Another is to explain religion as more genuinely utilitarian, producing resources that can be had but only through the beliefs and social organization provided by religion or a comparable system (an adaptation). ^298292989 ##### ^310051208 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1396 ###### ^310051208q hydrogen serves as a key ingredient in fuel cell batteries. Fuel cells get their energy from a chemical reaction between two gases—usually hydrogen and oxygen—and their only by-product is water. We could use electricity from a solar or wind farm to create hydrogen, store the hydrogen as compressed gas or in another form, and then put it in a fuel cell to generate electricity on demand. ... Here’s the problem: Right now, it’s expensive to produce hydrogen without emitting carbon. ... Hydrogen is also a very lightweight gas, which makes it hard to store within a reasonably sized container. ... Finally, the process of making hydrogen (called electrolysis) also requires various materials (known as electrolyzers) that are quite costly. In California, where cars that run on fuel cells are now available, the cost of hydrogen is equivalent to paying $5.60 a gallon for gasoline. ^310051208 ##### ^298292990 highlight_tags:: [[pink]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1400 ###### ^298292990q Mother Teresa poses no problem for economic theory because she employs cost-benefit reasoning to maximize her own peculiar utility of helping others (Kwilecki and Wilson 1998). ^298292990 ##### ^298292991 highlight_tags:: [[blue]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1421 ###### ^298292991q consider Iannaccone’s own work. In two influential articles, he shows how seemingly inefficient and bizarre features of religion such as distinctive dress, dietary restrictions, and costly sacrifice can be adaptive (he uses the word “rational”) by turning the religion into an exclusive club that excludes free-riders ^298292991 ##### THE FUTURE OF FUNCTIONALISM ##### ^310051157 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1448 ###### ^310051157q Some of the ideas overlap each other. If we get a breakthrough in cheap hydrogen, for example, we might not need to worry as much about getting a magic battery. ^310051157 ##### ^298292993 highlight_tags:: [[blue]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1476 ###### ^298292993q All subdisciplines of the social sciences need to appreciate that functional explanations must be handled with care, and that group-level functional explanations require the greatest care of all. Human groups cannot lightly be described as adaptive units, but if they can be rigorously shown to function as adaptive units, that will be a major scientific accomplishment. ^298292993 ##### ^310051158 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1478 ###### ^310051158q HOW WE MAKE THINGS 31 percent of 51 billion tons per year ^310051158 ##### ^298292994 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1480 ###### ^298292994q rational choice theory is often presented as a psychological theory that attempts to explain the length and breadth of human nature with a few axioms about how people think. Alas, physics might be reducible to a few fundamental laws but not psychology. ^298292994 ##### ^298292995 highlight_tags:: [[orange]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1482 ###### ^298292995q The human mind is a melange of adaptations and spandrels that have accumulated over millions of years, during which both culture and life in groups have been integral parts of the evolutionary process. ^298292995 ### CHAPTER 3 CALVINISM An Argument from Design ##### ^310051159 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1498 ###### ^310051159q Thomas Edison tried to create entire homes built out of the stuff. He dreamed of making concrete furniture, like bedroom sets, and even tried to design a concrete record player. ^310051159 ##### ^302856334 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1501 ###### ^302856334q Organisms do not maintain themselves and respond in just the right way to the challenges of their environment by chance. Mechanisms are required that are often awesome in their sophistication when sufficiently understood. ^302856334 ##### ^302856335 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1506 ###### ^302856335q There are countless ways to be nonadaptively complex and only a few ways to be adaptively complex. ^302856335 ##### ^302856336 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1515 ###### ^302856336q Evolutionary science often heads in this direction, but its core is a detailed understanding of organisms in relation to their environments. The foundation of this knowledge was provided by eighteenth- and nineteenth-century naturalists, most of whom believed that they were studying God’s handiwork. ^302856336 ##### ^302856337 highlight_tags:: [[orange]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1538 ###### ^302856337q The early Reformation was marked by many efforts to reform the Catholic Church from within, in addition to Luther’s more daring break. At the time, it was difficult for individuals to predict whether their position would be regarded as an acceptable internal reform or a heresy worthy of banishment or death. ^302856337 ##### ^302856338 highlight_tags:: [[orange]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1549 ###### ^302856338q Anabaptists were far more radical than either Luther or the French reformers. To be labeled an Anabaptist was to be accused of treason, punishable by death. ^302856338 ##### ^302856339 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1551 Calvinism was founded on a grudge. A result of a small maladptation in the larger species, allowing for a new branch to take prominence ###### ^302856339q Calvin himself had written a treatise against the Anabaptists. Stung as much by the poor scholarship of the accusation as by its implications, Calvin wrote a book describing the foundations of his religious faith that became his greatest work, The Institutes of the Christian Religion. ^302856339 ##### ^310051160 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1554 ###### ^310051160q Making 1 ton of steel produces about 1.8 tons of carbon dioxide. ^310051160 ##### ^303892906 highlight_tags:: [[blue]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1557 ###### ^303892906q Calvin was converted from a bookish scholar to a religious activist by Geneva’s two leading reformers, Guillaume Farel and Pierre Viret. ^303892906 ##### ^310051161 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1563 ###### ^310051161q To make cement, you need calcium. To get calcium, you start with limestone—which contains calcium plus carbon and oxygen—and burn it in a furnace along with some other materials. ^310051161 ##### ^303892907 highlight_tags:: [[blue]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1571 ###### ^303892907q Calvin’s scholarship and formidable writing skills became powerful tools in his new role as social reformer. ^303892907 ##### ^310051162 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1573 ###### ^310051162q Today there are more than two dozen types of plastics, and they range from the kind of thing you might expect—the polypropylene in yogurt containers, for example—to more surprising uses like the acrylic in paint, floor polish, and laundry detergent, or the microplastics in soap and shampoo, or the nylon in your waterproof jacket, or the polyester in all those regrettable clothes I wore in the 1970s. All these different types of plastics have one thing in common: They contain carbon. Carbon, it turns out, is useful in creating all sorts of different materials because it bonds easily with a wide variety of different elements; in the case of plastics, it’s usually clustered with hydrogen and oxygen. ^310051162 ##### ^303892908 highlight_tags:: [[blue]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1578 ###### ^303892908q Calvin did not even rule his own church with an iron fist. He shared the status of pastor with several others who made decisions on a consensus basis. ^303892908 ##### ^303892909 highlight_tags:: [[blue]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1579 ###### ^303892909q Calvin’s influence on Geneva cannot be attributed to his personal power or charisma, although the moral example that he set for others may have been a factor. Instead, we must look to the belief system and the social organization that he established, which caused a city of roughly 13,000 souls to function more effectively than it did before. ^303892909 ##### ^303892910 highlight_tags:: [[orange]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1593 ###### ^303892910q Calvinism also changed after Calvin’s death. According to McGrath (1990, 209–11), the emphasis on predestination that is often associated with Calvinism did not become prominent until after Calvin’s death and served a specific purpose: to demarcate so-called “Calvinists” from rival Protestant groups ^303892910 ##### ^303892911 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1613 ###### ^303892911q Adaptations at a given spatial and temporal scale become invisible when studied at a larger spatial and temporal scale. ^303892911 ##### ^303892933 highlight_tags:: [[favorite]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1620 ###### ^303892933q one reason that religious belief often appears senseless to outsiders may be because it is being approached at too coarse a scale ... Adaptive pattern may emerge with more fine-grained analysis. ^303892933 ##### ^303892914 highlight_tags:: [[blue]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1637 ###### ^303892914q How would a person who learned and believed Calvin’s catechism be motivated to behave? What are the specific design features of the catechism that accomplish its effect on behavior? ^303892914 #### Calvin’s catechism ##### ^303892916 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1640 ###### ^303892916q Calvin’s catechism places equal emphasis on peoples’ relationship with God and their relationship with other people. ^303892916 ##### ^303892917 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1650 ###### ^303892917q Calvin’s catechism is shown in table 3.1. It includes the familiar injunctions of the Ten Commandments, which, like live birth in guppies, are not expected to vary within the Judaeo-Christian tradition. It also includes the organism metaphor that forms the inspiration for this book. Finally, the list includes behaviors that appear tailored to the local social and political environment. ^303892917 ##### ^310051163 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1652 ###### ^310051163q One approach is to take recycled carbon dioxide—possibly captured during the process of making cement—and inject it back into the cement before it’s used at the construction site. The company that’s pursuing this idea has several dozen customers already, including Microsoft and McDonald’s; so far it’s only able to reduce emissions by around 10 percent, though it hopes to get to 33 percent eventually. Another, more theoretical approach involves making cement out of seawater and the carbon dioxide captured from power plants. The inventors behind this idea think it could ultimately cut emissions by more than 70 percent. ^310051163 ##### ^304185841 highlight_tags:: [[orange]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1656 from Calvin ###### ^304185841q it is fitting to endure those who insolently abuse their power, until freed from their yoke by a lawful order. For as a good prince is proof of divine beneficence for the preservation of human welfare, so a bad and wicked ruler is his whip to chastise the peoples’ transgressions. ^304185841 ##### ^310051164 highlight_tags:: [[orange]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1662 ###### ^310051164q electrification, which is the technique of using electricity instead of fossil fuels for some industrial processes. ^310051164 ##### ^310051165 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1669 ###### ^310051165q Clean electricity would help us solve another problem too: making plastics. If enough pieces come together, plastics could one day become a carbon sink—a way to remove carbon rather than emit ^310051165 ##### ^310051166 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1675 ###### ^310051166q In effect, we’d find a way to take carbon out of the air (using plants or some other method) and put it into a bottle or other plastic product, where it would stay for decades or centuries, with no additional emissions. ^310051166 ##### ^304185842 highlight_tags:: [[blue]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1682 ###### ^304185842q One of the hallmarks of Calvinism, well-recognized by Calvin scholars, is that it sanctifies the mundane occupations of life. A baker or farmer can feel an element of holiness similar to that of a priest because all are ministers, performing organ-like functions to sustain the body of the church. ^304185842 ##### ^310051167 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1692 ###### ^310051167q HOW WE GROW THINGS 19 percent of 51 billion tons a year ^310051167 ##### ^304185843 highlight_tags:: [[blue]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1699 ###### ^304185843q Language can be used for deception and exploitation as well as for cooperation. Honest communication, like any other form of prosocial behavior, is vulnerable to the fundamental problem of social life and requires special conditions to evolve. ^304185843 ##### ^304185844 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1702 ###### ^304185844q “Turn the other cheek” is often interpreted as an invitation for exploitation, but at least in the case of Calvinism nothing could be further from the truth. In the first place, Calvin’s catechism discusses forgiveness far more in the context of the God-people relationship (described below) than of the people-people relationship. In the second place, it provides a detailed procedure for punishing transgressions in which forgiveness is highly conditional upon repentance ^304185844 ##### ^310051168 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1704 ###### ^310051168q With agriculture, the main culprit isn’t carbon dioxide but methane—which causes 28 times more warming per molecule than carbon dioxide over the course of a century—and nitrous oxide, which causes 265 times more warming. All told, each year’s emissions of methane and nitrous oxide are the equivalent of more than 7 billion tons of carbon dioxide, or more than 80 percent of all the greenhouse gases in this ag/forestry/land use sector. ^310051168 ##### ^304185845 highlight_tags:: [[blue]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1715 ###### ^304185845q In the absence of a strong church or comparable social organization, individuals must maintain their own social order, which leads to a limited amount of cooperation at a small scale but also to feuds and rivalries that are dysfunctional at a larger scale. ^304185845 ##### ^304185846 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1717 ###### ^304185846q A church that attempts to build a unified society at a large scale must suppress the self-help mechanisms that come all too naturally to its members. Members must forgive each other’s trespasses, which will be punished at a higher level. ^304185846 ##### ^304185847 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1732 ###### ^304185847q An adaptive belief system cannot simply provide a list of behaviors but must also justify them. ^304185847 ##### ^310051169 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1735 ###### ^310051169q As Borlaug’s semi-dwarf wheat spread around the world, and as other breeders did similar work on corn and rice, yields tripled in most areas. Starvation plummeted, and today Borlaug is widely credited with saving a billion lives. ^310051169 ##### ^304185848 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1737 ###### ^304185848q An adaptive belief system must cope with ignorance in its justification of behaviors. ^304185848 ##### ^304185849 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1745 ###### ^304185849q an adaptive belief system must be economical. The beliefs that justify the behaviors must be easily learned and employed in the real world. ^304185849 ##### ^304185850 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1747 ###### ^304185850q a fictional belief system can be more motivating than a realistic belief system. ^304185850 ##### ^310051170 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1749 ###### ^310051170q We need to produce much more food than we do today, but if we keep producing it with the same methods we use now, it will be a disaster for the climate. Assuming we don’t make any improvements in the amount of food we get per acre of pasture or cropland, growing enough to feed 10 billion people will drive up food-related emissions by two-thirds. ^310051170 ##### ^304185851 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1750 ###### ^304185851q a fictional belief system can perform the same functions as externally imposed rewards and punishments, often at a much lower cost. ^304185851 ##### ^304185852 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1754 ###### ^304185852q Groups governed by belief systems that internalize social control can be much more successful than groups that must rely on external forms of social control. ^304185852 ##### ^304185853 highlight_tags:: [[blue]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1763 ###### ^304185853q Major elements of the God-person relationship in Calvin’s catechism are listed in table 3.2. God is portrayed as an all-powerful being who created man in his own image. Instead of worshiping God with fitting gratitude, man arrogantly placed himself above God and had to be deprived of all glory to recognize its true source. All people share this original sin and are born thoroughly depraved. By themselves they have no free will to choose between good and evil; they are bent on evil. Their only path to redemption is to become convinced of their corrupt nature and the certain horrible fate that awaits them if they do not earnestly seek God. Then, however, they have opened “the first door into his Kingdom” by overthrowing “the two most harmful plagues of all, carefree disregard of his vengeance and false confidence in our own capacity.” ^304185853 ##### ^310051171 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1768 ###### ^310051171q enteric fermentation, bacteria inside the cow’s stomach break down the cellulose in the plant, fermenting it and producing methane as a result. The cow belches away most of the methane, though a little comes out the other end ^310051171 ##### ^304185854 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1776 ###### ^304185854q God is described not only as a father who has our best interest at heart but also as a powerful and just Lord who is quick to punish those who do not earnestly try to seek him. To feel secure within this belief system, one must strive for perfection with all one’s heart and soul, even though it is impossible to achieve. ^304185854 ##### ^310051172 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1777 ###### ^310051172q When poop decomposes, it releases a mix of powerful greenhouse gases—mostly nitrous oxide, plus some methane, sulfur, and ammonia. About half of poop-related emissions come from pig manure, and the rest from cow manure. There’s so much animal poop that it’s actually the second-biggest cause of emissions in agriculture, behind enteric fermentation. ^310051172 ##### ^304185871 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1782 ###### ^304185871q Calvinism uses elements of human psychology that exist apart from religion as building blocks to build a new structure. ... Most people who violate a social norm feel apologetic and eager to make amends, while most people whose norms have been violated are willing to forgive after an appropriate period of repentance. ^304185871 ##### ^310051173 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1789 ###### ^310051173q better veterinary care and higher-quality feed, which means it’ll produce less methane. ^310051173 ##### ^304185857 highlight_tags:: [[orange]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1790 ###### ^304185857q faith is “confidence, reliance, belief, especially without evidence or proof.” Faith is required for action in an uncertain world, but usually it is designed to be modified by experience. ^304185857 ##### ^310051174 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1791 ###### ^310051174q The same is true for handling manure; rich-world farmers have access to various techniques that get rid of the manure while producing fewer emissions. As these techniques become more affordable, they’ll spread to poor farmers, and we’ll improve our odds of driving emissions down. ^310051174 ##### ^304185858 highlight_tags:: [[blue]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1793 ###### ^304185858q Calvin’s catechism turns faith from a belief designed to be modified by experience into a fortress designed to protect the belief system from experience. ^304185858 ##### ^304449635 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1817 ###### ^304449635q Another pillar of the God-people relationship in Calvin’s catechism is the internalization of the belief system. The ideal is a complete replacement of self-will with God’s will, which becomes second nature. ... Internalization is encouraged by prayer, ... Calvin recognizes that the ideal of internalization is as unattainable as the ideals of behavior, and he even describes temptation as a kind of exercise that keeps us spiritually strong: ^304449635 ##### ^304449611 highlight_tags:: [[blue]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1827 ###### ^304449611q Despite his own intellectual talents, Calvin scorned “bare knowledge of God or understanding of Scripture which rattles around the brain and affects the heart not at all” (18). Similarly, exemplary behavior by itself is nothing without an underlying “purity of conscience” (20). Of course, purity of conscience cannot fail to produce exemplary behavior, so the emphasis on faith rather than works is not a license for selfishness. ^304449611 ##### ^304449614 highlight_tags:: [[blue]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1853 ###### ^304449614q Calvin believed (along with many others of his time) that the final struggle was at hand between God and the Antichrist, whom Calvin firmly believed was the Pope. However, Christ wanted his church to be rebuilt and restored before his return. This imparted not only a sense of urgency but also a sense that the past and present did not predict what is possible in the future. According to Wallace ^304449614 ##### ^310051175 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1865 ###### ^310051175q For millennia, humans fed their crops extra nitrogen by applying natural fertilizers like manure and bat guano. The big breakthrough came in 1908, when two German chemists named Fritz Haber and Carl Bosch figured out how to make ammonia from nitrogen and hydrogen in a factory. ^310051175 ##### ^304449615 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1867 ###### ^304449615q When it comes to turning a group into a societal organism, scarcely a word of Calvin’s catechism is out of place. ^304449615 #### Social organization ##### ^304449617 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1869 Contrasts imagined reality ###### ^304449617q No matter how powerful, a belief system by itself is probably insufficient to turn a group into a societal organism. A social organization is also required to enforce the norms and to coordinate the activities of those who abide by the norms. ^304449617 ##### ^310051176 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1881 ###### ^310051176q fertilizers were responsible for roughly 1.3 billion tons of greenhouse gas emissions in 2010, ^310051176 ##### ^305405754 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1883 ###### ^305405754q Calvinism was structured to control the leadership as effectively as the average member of the church. Pastors were not only selected with care but also were carefully supervised, with weekly meetings to insure purity of doctrine and quarterly meetings whose express purpose was for the pastors to criticize each other. ^305405754 ##### ^310051177 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1884 ###### ^310051177q we could get rid of the emissions involved in making fertilizer by using clean electricity instead of fossil fuels to synthesize ammonia, but that’s an expensive process that would raise the price of fertilizer considerably. In the United States, for example, using this process to make the nitrogen-based fertilizer urea would raise its cost by more than 20 percent. ^310051177 ##### ^310051178 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1897 ###### ^310051178q one company has developed genetically modified microbes that fix nitrogen; in effect, instead of adding nitrogen via fertilizer, you add bacteria to the soil that always produce nitrogen even when it’s already present. ^310051178 ##### ^305930679 highlight_tags:: [[blue]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1903 In early Calvinism in a Geneva ###### ^305930679q Elders, like pastors, were chosen by a procedure insuring that they were acceptable to the city government in addition to those who were to be overseen. In fact, all of the elders were also members of the city government. ^305930679 ##### ^310051179 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1938 ###### ^310051179q On balance, trees in snowy areas cause more warming than cooling, because they’re darker than the snow and ice beneath them and dark things absorb more heat than light things do. On the other hand, trees in tropical forests cause more cooling than warming, because they release a lot of moisture, which becomes clouds, which reflect sunlight. Trees in the midlatitudes—between the tropics and the polar circles—are more or less a wash. ^310051179 ##### ^306962097 highlight_tags:: [[blue]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1939 ###### ^306962097q In contrast to what the phrase “turn the other cheek” implies when taken out of context, Calvin’s church was elaborately protected by a system of social controls designed to eliminate deviant behavior. It was highly resistant to exploitation, even by its own most powerful members. ^306962097 ##### ^306962126 highlight_tags:: [[blue]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1945 ###### ^306962126q Geneva also had an infrastructure, and the burden of supporting it was probably greater for the average citizen then than now. ... God’s will for citizens of Geneva was to shoulder the burden of the city’s infrastructure. ^306962126 ##### ^306962100 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1953 ###### ^306962100q Decisions were made by consensus among the pastors during weekly meetings without any formal status differences. For disagreements that could not be resolved, the decision-making circle was widened to include first the elders and ultimately the city council. This structure realized the benefits of group-level decision making (reviewed by Wilson 1997) and also made it difficult for any single individual to impose his will on the community. ^306962100 ##### ^310051180 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1963 ###### ^310051180q HOW WE GET AROUND 16 percent of 51 billion tons a year ^310051180 ##### ^306962101 highlight_tags:: [[blue]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1965 ###### ^306962101q Money was raised for charity and distributed on a case-by-case basis according to need. Both the raising and spending of money were monitored by accounting procedures that made it difficult to cheat, ^306962101 ##### ^306962102 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1968 ###### ^306962102q The duty of attending to dying plague victims provides a good illustration of how the pastors solved problems in an egalitarian fashion using mechanisms that are difficult to subvert from within. This life-threatening task was decided by lottery. ^306962102 #### THE DARK SIDE OF CALVINISM ##### ^306962104 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1985 ###### ^306962104q Calvin attempted to implement a high degree of social control in Geneva. Families were visited once a year to have their spiritual health examined. Church attendance was required, and playing a game of skittles on Easter Sunday was sufficient to send the son of a prominent family to prison. ^306962104 ##### ^310051181 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=1990 ###### ^310051181q Although transportation isn’t the biggest cause of emissions worldwide, it is number one in the United States, ^310051181 ##### ^306962105 highlight_tags:: [[blue]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=2013 ###### ^306962105q We have seen that Calvinism fostered a degree of mutual criticism, differences of opinion, and the internal checks and balances that are required for a group to make intelligent decisions and to prevent subversion from within. However, dissension from outside the church elicited another kind of reaction altogether. A menacing placard placed in the pulpit of St. Peter’s cathedral led to the arrest of one Jacques Gruet, a friend of the powerful Favre family. Gruet confessed under torture, and a search of his house revealed more incriminating evidence. ^306962105 ##### ^306962106 highlight_tags:: [[orange]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=2020 ###### ^306962106q Gruet, says Roget, was a free thinker and a liberal in the modern sense. He distinguished between offences against God, with which the magistrate need not concern himself, and offences against society, which ought to be repressed. As Choisy has pointed out, Calvin could not understand the distinction. ^306962106 ##### ^306962107 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=2058 ###### ^306962107q Calvin was not a paragon of virtue, but his moral failings occurred in exactly the contexts predicted by multilevel selection theory: social control within groups and conduct toward members of other groups. ^306962107 ##### ^306962108 highlight_tags:: [[blue]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=2082 ###### ^306962108q The design features that identify the object as a can opener provide such a strong argument that we don’t even call it an argument; we call it self-evident. ^306962108 ##### ^310051182 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=2083 ###### ^310051182q Corn-based ethanol isn’t zero carbon, and depending on how it’s made, it may not even be low carbon. ^310051182 ##### ^306962109 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=2085 ###### ^306962109q The more we know about the various parts of the object in relation to each other and their environment (the can), the more obvious their functional nature becomes. Similarly, the absence of function becomes more obvious with every new detail for objects that truly have no function. ^306962109 ##### ^310051183 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=2139 ###### ^310051183q Medium-duty vehicles, like garbage trucks and city buses, are generally lightweight enough that electricity is a viable option for them. They also have the advantage of running relatively short routes and parking in the same place every night, so it’s easy to set up charging stations for them. ^310051183 #### Innate psychology and cultural evolution ##### ^306962111 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=2144 ###### ^306962111q An innate psychological architecture is required to have a moral system, but the specific contents can vary and therefore adapt to recent environments. ^306962111 ##### ^310051184 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=2151 ###### ^310051184q According to a 2017 study by two mechanical engineers at Carnegie Mellon University, an electric cargo truck capable of going 600 miles on a single charge would need so many batteries that it would have to carry 25 percent less cargo. And a truck with a 900-mile range is out of the question: It would need so many batteries that it could hardly carry any cargo at all. ^310051184 ##### ^306962112 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=2153 ###### ^306962112q Calvinism shares with hunter-gatherer morality a fundamental distrust of human nature, a distrust that expects and guards against exploitation at all levels of the social hierarchy it creates. ^306962112 ##### ^310051185 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=2154 ###### ^310051185q a typical truck running on diesel can go more than 1,000 miles without refueling. ^310051185 ##### ^306962113 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=2160 ###### ^306962113q Forgiveness and faith are two examples of capacities that are part of the psychological toolkit of all normal humans and that have obvious functions outside the context of religion, which are put to new use by a culturally constructed religious belief system. ^306962113 ##### ^306962114 highlight_tags:: [[blue]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=2164 ###### ^306962114q Max Weber (1930), who famously proposed that Calvinism gave rise to the Protestant work ethic and the spirit of capitalism that now pervades modern life. Weber’s thesis illustrates the other side of the tinkerer metaphor—not the old parts, but the new structure that can be explained only in terms of modern history and by no means as an adaptation to ancestral environments. ^306962114 ##### ^306962115 highlight_tags:: [[blue]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=2172 ###### ^306962115q It is important to separate the question of design from the question of the designing agent(s), which is why I think that Elster’s concept of intentional explanation should be regarded as a type of functional explanation. ^306962115 ##### ^306962116 highlight_tags:: [[blue]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=2177 ###### ^306962116q Calvin and his contemporaries were in part hard-headed realists who talked explicitly about the ingredients required to hold a community together. However, it is unlikely that conscious intentionality can explain all of the functionality of Calvinism or other religions. ^306962116 ##### ^306962129 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=2179 ###### ^306962129q Calvin evidently believed to the depth of his soul that Christ’s return to earth was imminent, requiring urgent preparation on the part of the church. Similar beliefs in imminent events have arisen repeatedly in religions around the world and have a clear latent function (motivating action) that differs from their manifest function. ... The beliefs that motivate religious people to behave as they do in their own minds (the manifest functions) often depart from the adaptive consequences that ultimately sustain the beliefs (the latent functions). ^306962129 ##### ^306962119 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=2194 ###### ^306962119q Barring theological explanations, all designing agents must ultimately be traced back to a process of blind variation and selective retention ^306962119 ##### ^306962120 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=2205 ###### ^306962120q people who stand outside of religion often regard its seemingly irrational nature as more interesting and important to explain than its communal nature. Rational thought is treated as the gold standard against which religious belief is found so wanting that it becomes well-nigh inexplicable. Evolution causes us to think about the subject in a completely different way. Adaptation becomes the gold standard against which rational thought must be measured alongside other modes of thought. In a single stroke, rational thought becomes necessary but not sufficient to explain the length and breadth of human mentality, and the so-called irrational features of religion can be studied respectfully as potential adaptations in their own right rather than as idiot relatives of rational thought. ^306962120 ##### ^306962121 highlight_tags:: [[blue]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=2221 ###### ^306962121q a strong and shared sense of morality is required to galvanize and orient a human community toward a common purpose—for modern societies no less than for hunter-gatherer groups. ^306962121 ##### ^306962122 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=2239 ###### ^306962122q When a scientific hypothesis is on the right track, it is strengthened rather than weakened by additional information, even if minor amendments are required along the way. ^306962122 #### EXAMPLE 1: THE WATER TEMPLE SYSTEM OF BALI ##### ^307812355 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=2264 ###### ^307812355q At the summit of a volcano on the island of Bali stands an immense temple for the worship of Dewi Danu, goddess of the waters that are thought to emanate from the volcano’s crater lake. The temple is inhabited by twenty-four priests, chosen as children by a virgin priestess to be lifelong servants of the goddess. The high priest is called the Jero Gde and is thought to be an earthly representative of the goddess herself. The Jero Gde is always dressed in white and wears his hair long. By day he offers sacrifices on behalf of the farmers who rely on water to irrigate their rice crops. By night he receives guidance from the goddess in his dreams. ... The rain that falls on the mountain tumbles down to the sea in rivers that cut deeply into the soft volcanic rock. To use the water for irrigation, the Balinese have created a vast system of aqueducts, often running through tunnels a kilometer or more in length, that shunt the water from the rivers to the rice terraces, also sculpted by human labor from the steep mountain slopes. Below the grand temple of the crater lake stand smaller temples at every branch of the irrigation system, ending with the smallest temples where the channels empty onto the fields. ... In addition to the water temples there are other temples, large and small; in houses, market places, villages, palaces, throughout the island of Bali, whose deities are drawn from the original indigenous religion and from the more recent religions that arrived by trade, migration, and invasion. ^307812355 ##### ^307812356 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=2282 ###### ^307812356q The smallest social unit responsible for this miracle of pre-industrial engineering is the subak, an association of farmers that shares the water emerging from a terminal branch of the irrigation system. ... its members operate in a democratic fashion, making decisions by consensus and electing their leader from among their own ranks. ^307812356 ##### ^310051186 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=2300 ###### ^310051186q We should also be exploring nuclear-powered container ships. The risks here are real (for example, you have to make sure the nuclear fuel doesn’t get released if the ship sinks), but many of the technical challenges have already been solved. After all, military submarines and aircraft carriers run on nuclear power already. ^310051186 ##### ^307812350 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=2317 ###### ^307812350q There are fourteen of these temples, fourteen subaks all of which meet together as one here. They meet at the Temple Er Jeruk. Every decision, every rule concerning planting seasons and so forth, is always discussed here. Then, after the meeting here, decisions are carried down to each subak. The subaks each call all their members together: “In accord with the meetings we held at the Temple Er Jeruk, we must fix our planting dates, beginning on day one through day ten.” ^307812350 ##### ^310051187 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=2326 ###### ^310051187q HOW WE KEEP COOL AND STAY WARM 7 percent of 51 billion tons a year ^310051187 ##### ^307812351 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=2328 ###### ^307812351q the Jero Gde resolved a dispute between a downstream Subak that destroyed the dam of an upstream subak to increase their share of water. Another example involved a village that wanted to start a new subak by building a channel from a newly discovered spring (80–81). The temple priests inspected the spring before granting permission to see if the project was feasible and if it would reduce water flow to the existing subaks. They then provided practical advice for the construction of the new irrigation system and fields. ^307812351 ##### ^310051188 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=2351 ###### ^310051188q although A/C units demand the most electricity, they’re not the largest consumers of energy in American homes and businesses. That honor goes to our furnaces and water heaters. ^310051188 ##### ^307812352 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=2353 ###### ^307812352q these metaphysical elements are not a veneer but evidently are required for the system to work in a practical sense. Religious belief gives an authority to the system that it would not have as a purely secular institution (Rappaport 1979). In general terms, this authority is stated in a manuscript kept at the temple of the crater lake: “Because the Goddess makes the waters flow, those who do not follow her laws may not possess her rice terraces” (Lansing 1991, 73). The same principle is used in more specific ways to collect taxes from each village.3 In the minds of Balinese farmers, the authority of religion appears to be experienced as sincere belief, ^307812352 ##### ^307812353 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=2374 ###### ^307812353q Stark assumed that multiple gods compete with each other by offering the same service to a group of religious consumers, which should drive down prices according to the laws of supply and demand. This assumption is violated for the water temple system because each deity provides a separate service. Thus, the water temple system does not violate rational choice and economic theory in any general sense, but it does show how they go wrong when they ignore group-level functionalism. ^307812353 ##### ^310051189 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=2385 ###### ^310051189q their demand for electricity isn’t the only thing that makes air conditioners a problem. They also contain refrigerants—known as F-gases, because they contain fluorine—that leak out little by little over time when the unit ages and breaks down, as you’ve no doubt noticed if you’ve ever had to replace the coolant in your car’s air conditioner. F-gases are extremely powerful contributors to climate change: Over the course of a century, they cause thousands of times more warming than an equivalent amount of carbon dioxide. If you don’t hear much about them, it’s because they’re not a huge percentage of greenhouse gases; in the United States, they represent about 3 percent of emissions. ^310051189 ##### ^310051190 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=2401 ###### ^310051190q furnaces and water heaters account for a third of all emissions that come from the world’s buildings. ^310051190 ##### ^311801497 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=2408 ###### ^311801497q the Ten Commandments and the Golden Rule are clearly adaptive at the group level. It is almost embarrassingly obvious that groups who obey these rules will function well as adaptive units, compared to groups that do not. ^311801497 ##### ^310051191 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=2415 ###### ^310051191q You already have a heat pump in your home, and it’s probably operating right now. It’s called a refrigerator. The warm air that you feel blowing from the bottom of your fridge is what carries the heat away from your food and keeps it cool. ^310051191 ##### ^311801502 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=2444 ###### ^311801502q There is a widespread tendency to regard in-group morality as hypocritical, ... After all, isn’t it the ultimate in hypocrisy for a religion to simultaneously preach the Golden Rule and instruct its members to commit genocide? ^311801502 ##### ^311801500 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=2451 ###### ^311801500q Multilevel selection theory accounts for the double standard of the Hebrew Bible rather than merely reacting to it as hypocritical. ^311801500 ##### ^313029660 highlight_tags:: [[blue]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=2474 ###### ^313029660q the strictest and strongest versions of Judaism can accurately be described as cultural fortresses that kept outsiders out and insiders in. ^313029660 ##### ^313029661 highlight_tags:: [[blue]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=2487 ###### ^313029661q Even a weak flow of genes is sufficient to eliminate genetic differences among groups when compounded over many generations. The fact that Jewish populations around the world are genetically more similar to each other than to the populations among which they reside therefore demonstrates an extraordinary degree of isolation achieved by cultural mechanisms. ^313029661 ##### ^313029662 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=2492 ###### ^313029662q It has always been possible to convert to Judaism (the Hebrew Bible provides numerous examples) but only with great difficulty. In a sense, this is exactly what Iannaccone would predict for a church that wants to remain strong by forcing its new members to demonstrate their commitment. ^313029662 ##### ^313029663 highlight_tags:: [[blue]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=2500 ###### ^313029663q Converts ranked below the offspring of illegitimate relatives (mamzerin) and individuals from foreign ethnic groups that lived as servants among the Israelites (Nethinim). These kinds of disincentives to become Jewish, often combined with even stronger disincentives from anti-Semitic gentile communities, make it unsurprising that outsiders usually remained such. ^313029663 ##### ^310051192 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=2508 ###### ^310051192q smart glass, which automatically turns darker when the room needs to be cooler and lighter when it needs to be warmer. ^310051192 ##### ^313029664 highlight_tags:: [[orange]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=2511 ###### ^313029664q The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which supposedly outlines a program of world domination, was proven to be a forgery in 1921, but this did not prevent millions of copies from being printed and distributed by anti-Semites ranging from Henry Ford, to Adolf Hitler, to modern Arabic leaders (Cohn 1966; Prager and Telushkin 1983). ^313029664 ### CHAPTER 9 ADAPTING TO A WARMER WORLD ##### ^310051194 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=2604 ###### ^310051194q The best way we can help the poor adapt to climate change is to make sure they’re healthy enough to survive it. And to thrive despite it.” ^310051194 ##### ^310051195 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=2637 ###### ^310051195q CGIAR isn’t just focused on new seeds. Its scientists have also created a smartphone app that allows farmers to use the camera on their phones to identify specific pests and diseases attacking cassava, an important cash crop in Africa. It’s also created programs for using drones and ground sensors to help farmers determine how much water and fertilizer their crops need. ^310051195 ##### ^310051196 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=2644 ###### ^310051196q Every dollar invested in CGIAR’s research generates about $6 in benefits. ^310051196 ##### ^310051197 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=2688 ###### ^310051197q Today, many city leaders in the developing world don’t have even basic maps to indicate which areas of town are most prone to floods.) ^310051197 ##### ^310051198 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=2699 ###### ^310051198q We should shore up our natural defenses. Forests store and regulate water. Wetlands prevent floods and provide water for farmers and cities. Coral reefs are home to the fish that coastal communities depend on for food. But these and other natural defenses against climate change are rapidly disappearing. ^310051198 ##### ^310051199 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=2703 ###### ^310051199q the world’s largest cities could save $890 million a year by restoring forests and watersheds. ^310051199 ##### ^310051200 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=2721 ###### ^310051200q With enough cheap, clean energy, we can make all the potable water we’ll ever need.) ^310051200 ##### ^310051201 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=2741 ###### ^310051201q There’s no way to put a price tag on everything the world needs to do to adapt to climate change. But the commission I’m involved with priced out spending in five key areas (creating early-warning systems, building climate-resilient infrastructure, raising crop yields, managing water, and protecting mangroves) and found that investing $1.8 trillion between 2020 and 2030 would return more than $7 trillion in benefits. ^310051201 ##### ^310051202 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=2765 ###### ^310051202q Most approaches to geoengineering are based on the idea that to compensate for all the warming caused by greenhouse gases we’ve added to the atmosphere, we need to reduce the amount of sunlight hitting the earth by around 1 percent. ^310051202 ### CHAPTER 10 WHY GOVERNMENT POLICIES MATTER ##### ^310051204 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=2855 ###### ^310051204q National leaders around the world will need to articulate a vision for how the global economy will make the transition to zero carbon. That vision can, in turn, guide the actions of people and businesses around the world. ^310051204 ##### ^310051205 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=3045 ###### ^310051205q Science tells us that in order to avoid a climate catastrophe, rich countries should reach net-zero emissions by 2050. ^310051205 ##### ^310051206 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=3049 ###### ^310051206q What we can do—and need to do—in the next 10 years is adopt the policies that will put us on a path to deep decarbonization by 2050. ^310051206 ##### ^304171996 highlight_tags:: [[blue]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=3487 ###### ^304171996q Since pairs of TFT behave nicely toward each other and take over the population, altruism becomes the only behavior expressed even though the capacity for retaliatory selfishness is latent in every individual. ^304171996 ##### ^318474114 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=3489 ###### ^318474114q After all, TFT wins the tournament, so how can it be called altruistic? This reasoning, which confuses selfishness with success, commits the fallacy of averaging across groups ... we must define altruism and selfishness on the basis of fitness differences within and between groups. ... TFT is constitutionally unable to beat its partner within its own group. It can only lose or tie. The reason that TFT wins the tournament is because pairs of TFT are more fit than pairs in which selfishness is expressed. TFT evolves by between-pair selection, not within-pair selection. ^318474114 ##### ^304185860 highlight_tags:: [[orange]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=3497 ###### ^304185860q TFT is often described as having three properties: It is nice (by beginning as an altruist), quick to retaliate (by immediately becoming selfish in response to selfishness), and equally quick to forgive (by immediately becoming altruistic in response to altruism). ^304185860 ##### ^304185861 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=3500 ###### ^304185861q forgiveness succeeds only because it is tightly linked with retaliation. ^304185861 ##### ^304185862 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=3515 ###### ^304185862q Generous Tit-for-Tat (GTFT), which forgives selfish acts without retaliating a certain proportion of the time that depends on the frequency of mistakes. If it is too generous it risks being exploited by selfish partners. It if isn’t generous enough it suffers from sour relationships with potentially altruistic partners. The equilibrium degree of generosity represents a balance between these two opposing forces ^304185862 ##### ^304185863 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=3532 ###### ^304185863q the most fit rules for social behavior are primarily altruistic. They succeed by doing well as groups (pairs) rather than by exploiting their partners within groups. ^304185863 ##### ^304185864 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=3533 ###### ^304185864q the most successful forms of altruism are usually (although not always) protected from selfishness through the capacity to retaliate. ^304185864 ##### ^304185865 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=3545 ###### ^304185865q Our big brains might allow us to play the social game better than other creatures, but we are playing the same game. ^304185865 ##### ^304185872 highlight_tags:: [[blue]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=3548 ###### ^304185872q I find it highly plausible that we are endowed with an innate psychology that is crudely approximated by the adaptive rules of the evolutionary models ... We have an innate capacity for altruism, selfishness, retaliation, forgiveness, contrition, generosity, commitment, saintliness, and vengefulness.2 More, we are endowed with a set of if-then rules for when to employ these traits. ^304185872 ##### ^304185868 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=3556 ###### ^304185868q Forgiveness is often valued and retaliation devalued in everyday thought, especially Christian thought. For the moment, we need to suspend these value judgments. In the context of evolutionary models, retaliation is absolutely essential to keep the wolves of selfishness at bay. To retaliate can be divine. ^304185868 ##### ^304185873 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=4045 ###### ^304185873q Cultures are defensive constructions against chaos, designed to reduce the impact of randomness on experience. ... Cultures prescribe norms, evolve goals, build beliefs that help us tackle the challenges of existence. ^304185873 ##### ^288838024 highlight_tags:: [[orange]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=4325 ###### ^288838024q A behavior is selfish when it increases the fitness of the actor, relative to other members of its group. A behavior is altruistic when it increases the fitness of the group, relative to other groups, and decreases the relative fitness of the actor within the group. ^288838024 ##### ^292550153 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=4389 [[Evolutionary Psychology]] ###### ^292550153q The term “evolutionary psychology” should refer broadly to the study of psychology from an evolutionary perspective. Unfortunately, the term has become associated with a rather narrow school of thought that is controversial even among evolutionary biologists interested in psychology. ^292550153 ##### ^298293002 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=4432 #TO/EXPLORE/READ ###### ^298293002q complexity can have profound effects on variation and heritability, the two prerequisites for natural selection. ... See Wilson (1992), Swenson, Arendt, and Wilson (2000), and Swenson, Wilson, and Elias (2000) for fuller discussions of the issues in the context of selection at the level of biological communities and ecosystems. ^298293002 ##### ^303892934 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=4445 ###### ^303892934q Idealized religion is close to what one expects on the basis of pure group selection, or so I claim. Religion as practiced often deviates from the ideal, but these deviations tend to be regarded as “corruptions” rather than as a part of the religion itself. It is useful to retain this distinction ... The idealized form was designed to establish an organismic community, and the realized form partially succeeded. ^303892934 ##### ^307812354 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=4497 I feel the only explanation is that the highly functional system of today is survivor of many less functional systems of the past. In the past non religous groups of farmers where outcompeted by religious groups untilt he the religious system over took the whole mountain. Judt as the religous system dealt with pests it could have dealt with other groups that ran against its interests and eventually out survive them ###### ^307812354q The process of selection that gave rise to the water temple system of Bali is currently less well understood than the functionality of the system itself. ^307812354 ##### ^311801501 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DQMWSUY&location=4501 ###### ^311801501q Based on immigration alone, Judaism is at a large disadvantage compared to proselytizing Christian and Islamic religions, which accounts in part for its minority status. Despite its disadvantage with respect to immigration, however, Judaism has persisted on the strength of the other factors that contribute to demographic growth (high birth rate, low death rate, and low emigration). ^311801501