Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!cs.utexas.edu!turpin
From: turpin@cs.utexas.edu (Russell Turpin)
Newsgroups: sci.bio
Subject: Re: Are Humans Naturally Monogamous?
Summary: The slipperiness of "natural" predispositions.
Message-ID: <15028@cs.utexas.edu>
Date: 24 Nov 90 16:26:20 GMT
References: <1990Oct24.175532.9407@pmafire.UUCP> <15490@netcom.UUCP> <1990Oct26.000754.24765@odin.corp.sgi.com> <4836@lure.latrobe.edu.au> <1990Nov22.191009.20772@watserv1.waterloo.edu> <1990Nov23.015509.14871@massey.ac.nz> <14977@cs.utexas.edu> <1990Nov23.172523.157
Organization: U. Texas CS Dept., Austin, Texas
Lines: 71

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In article <1990Nov23.172523.15769@watserv1.waterloo.edu> alternat@watserv1.waterloo.edu (Ann Hodgins) writes:
> ... I think that most people realize that all our behaviours
> from early in childhood are a mixture of hereditary predispositions
> and tendencies on the one hand and on the other learned behavior. 
> To me it is fair enough to call a behaviour 'instinctive' is if we 
> have evidence of an inherited pre-disposition towards the behaviour, 
> ie.if we tend towards it and find it easier or more rewarding to do
> than not do the instinctive behaviour. ...

It depends on how you mean this.  The problem with much talk
about predispositions is that people are quick to think
themselves predisposed to their own behavior, and then to follow
the chain from this to labeling other kinds of behavior
"unnatural", and then "bad".  To take the subject that started
this thread, there are cultures that encourage monogamy, and
others that encourage some form of polygamy.  As the recent
postings in this newsgroup show, some individuals feel themselves
"predisposed" to one, and others feel themselves "predisposed" to
the other. 

This sense of predisposition has nothing to do with our
biological nature.  To describe this, one has to look at the
*range* of human behavior.  Biologically, one might well argue that
humans are predisposed to embedding rules about inheritance (of
property, status, and names), relationships, and sexual behavior
into their cultural fabric.  These rules work together in certain
ways, and the kinds of rules are undoubtedly constrained, but
overall there is a good deal of natural flexibility, as the broad
range of human cultures attests.  It is ridiculous to talk about
some of these as being more "instinctive" or "natural" than
others.  All such behavior in individuals is culturally
influenced, so that there is little basis for saying that the X
sexual behavior as reflected in one set of cultures is "more
natural" than Y sexual behavior as reflected in another set of
cultures.  Such claims almost always reflect the provencalism of
the speaker.  (Even conclusions about what is "natural" that are
drawn from the relative number of practicing cultures are often
naive, because the landscape of cultures visible today is
determined by historical success, which is a much more narrow
filter than what is biologically natural.)

I am not sure what kinds of predispositions Ms Hodgins considers
natural, so none of the above is necessarily a critique of what
she wrote.  (Her writing would not have triggered these comments
if instead of writing about labeling "a behavior 'instinctive'"
she had written about labeling a *range* of behaviors
'instinctive'".) I think many biologists restrict the use of
instinct to mean specific behaviors that are only minimally
influenced by culture, for example, mating rituals that do not
need to be taught.  It is silly to argue over what definitions
are "correct".  I do not mean to say that it is incorrect to talk
about the biologically determined constraints on human culture as
instincts or predispositions, only that one should realize
several important aspects of this.

   (1)	Such constraints are quite broad.

   (2)	We have only a partial picture of them.

   (3)	Within these broad constraints, talking about more
	narrow kinds of behavior as "instinctive" or "natural"
	has no biological justification.  

Labeling more narrow behavior as "instinctive" or "natural" is
frequently used by people as a way to sneak their preferences,
moral beliefs, or religion into biological or anthropological
discussion, and thereby misappropriate the label "natural" or
"scientific" for these things.  Recent postings in this thread
exhibit precisely this fallacy. 

Russell