Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!bloom-beacon!mit-eddie!ll-xn!ames!pasteur!agate!web8h.berkeley.edu!c60c-5aa From: c60c-5aa@web8h.berkeley.edu Newsgroups: sci.bio Subject: Re: Evolutionary factors in human psychology Message-ID: <8786@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> Date: 15 Apr 88 23:01:25 GMT References: <6107@watdragon.waterloo.edu> <1085@bingvaxu.cc.binghamton.edu> <6169@watdragon.waterloo.edu> Sender: usenet@agate.BERKELEY.EDU Reply-To: c60c-5aa@web8h.berkeley.edu.UUCP () Distribution: sci Organization: University of California, Berkeley Lines: 37 A hidden and, I think, unwarrented assumption in a lot of the postings about genetics, especially the genetics of psychology, lately is that represents a trait in even remotely the same way that, say, blue eyes do. I'm not arguing that a lot of human behavior isn't genetically determined; not at all. My point is more subtle. Is something like "the Oedipus complex" a trait? It seems to be that it may be a side effect of a lot of traits, something built into the design of a pretty complex, interacting system. Maybe what is genetic- ally determined is that (a) a child tends to identify itself with the same-sex parent, and (b) a child learns to recognize that it is not the same person as its parent, and (c) it wants what it sees others enjoying. I'm a geneticist, not a psychologist, and not the person to dissect the psychology involved; rather, my point is that selecting for or against the Oedipus complex may not be at all a meaningful idea. You might have to remodel the whole system to get rid of it. Think of a human's genetic programming as a huge C program. It's pretty easy to fine-tune and tinker. Producing whole chunks of new code by copying and then modifying sections isn't too hard. But some changes require comprehensive rewriting, and just aren't likely to occur (neither the programmer nor the species has the time!). Before speculating on the evolutionary value of an observed phenotype, it is worthwhile, if one can, to make sure that it is not a side effect of some other, obviously selective phenotype. The black hair of Negro humans may be adaptive in some way--but it's much more likely that it is a side effect of selection for black *skin*. This seems like an especial danger in psychological genetics, where we really don't know what is primary and what isn't. Mary Kuhner genetics graduate student, UC Berkeley (but my opinions are my own)