Your own celibacy would have to massively benefit others—for instance, if you were going to have 2 children, your celibacy would have to allow your sibling to have 4 extra children.
Of course. I’m not recommending to any genes to have their host go celibate. I just disagree with the deduction “if you’re ceilbate you can’t have children, so there’s no way your genes could benefit from it, QED”.
Well, it works in ants that share 75% of their genetic code with their siblings, but in humans… while its not impossible that celibacy could increase genetic fitness, its highly unlikely.
On average, that’s true. But I’ve started wondering if maybe the standard gene-centered view doesn’t take high variance in reproductive success into account.
Lately I’ve been reading some stuff by Napoleon Chagnon, who did a lot of (massively controversial) ethnography of the Yąnomamö people in the Sixties and Seventies. One of the things he tracked was the parentage of children in his area of study. It turns out there are enormous differences there, especially along the male line—particularly prominent men might have as many as twenty or forty children, balanced out of course by correspondingly lower fertility among others. (The Yąnomamö are polygynous, and sometimes polyandrous, but for obvious reasons a wife with many husbands cannot produce as many children as a husband with many wives.)
If that sort of thing’s typical of the EEA (a hypothesis, again, that’s massively controversial), then it’s not impossible that there could have evolved behavioral adaptations diminishing potential fertility, if they kicked in under conditions of expected low fertility—the downside loss is low enough that aid to your siblings or cousins could make up for it. That’d be consistent with cultural traditions like younger sons going into the clergy.
That’d be consistent with cultural traditions like younger sons going into the clergy.
Do younger sons have extremely low evo fitness?
I think I’d have to see some really strong evidence of celibacy increasing genetic fitness, otherwise I’m just going to assume this is a case of memes overpowering genes. There could of course, for example, be a gene for religiousness that generally increases evo fitness, but occasionally causes someone to take a vow of celibacy. This would on average increase evo fitness.
I don’t know how exactly genes translate into behaviour. But I would guess that its possible for genes to code for religiousness, but coding for or against a religious vow of celibacy is impossible, as this is far too specific a behaviour.
That’s extremely culture-specific. I was talking about cultures like medieval European nobility, where you’d typically want an heir and a spare, both of whom you’d go to some effort to marry off, but where subsequent sons just got in the way and often ended up in the clergy. Other cultures would have their own analogous situations.
At the gene level, what I’m talking about wouldn’t look like something that universally codes for a +kin, -self fertility tradeoff regardless of environment; for more or less the reasons you gave in the grandparent that’s quite unlikely to be selected for. But if you throw environmental interactions into the mix you can do more interesting things. One pathway for example might start by modulating hormone levels in response to mate availability, for example to encourage higher-risk mating strategies in rich environments. That gives the biochemistry something it can work with, and opens up more complicated strategies, some of which might include kin-centric strategies gated by specific hormone levels.
Even that isn’t going to look like a gene coding for a vow of celibacy. But it might translate to a vow of celibacy given a certain cultural context and personal history.
Your own celibacy would have to massively benefit others—for instance, if you were going to have 2 children, your celibacy would have to allow your sibling to have 4 extra children.
Of course. I’m not recommending to any genes to have their host go celibate. I just disagree with the deduction “if you’re ceilbate you can’t have children, so there’s no way your genes could benefit from it, QED”.
Well, it works in ants that share 75% of their genetic code with their siblings, but in humans… while its not impossible that celibacy could increase genetic fitness, its highly unlikely.
On average, that’s true. But I’ve started wondering if maybe the standard gene-centered view doesn’t take high variance in reproductive success into account.
Lately I’ve been reading some stuff by Napoleon Chagnon, who did a lot of (massively controversial) ethnography of the Yąnomamö people in the Sixties and Seventies. One of the things he tracked was the parentage of children in his area of study. It turns out there are enormous differences there, especially along the male line—particularly prominent men might have as many as twenty or forty children, balanced out of course by correspondingly lower fertility among others. (The Yąnomamö are polygynous, and sometimes polyandrous, but for obvious reasons a wife with many husbands cannot produce as many children as a husband with many wives.)
If that sort of thing’s typical of the EEA (a hypothesis, again, that’s massively controversial), then it’s not impossible that there could have evolved behavioral adaptations diminishing potential fertility, if they kicked in under conditions of expected low fertility—the downside loss is low enough that aid to your siblings or cousins could make up for it. That’d be consistent with cultural traditions like younger sons going into the clergy.
Do younger sons have extremely low evo fitness?
I think I’d have to see some really strong evidence of celibacy increasing genetic fitness, otherwise I’m just going to assume this is a case of memes overpowering genes. There could of course, for example, be a gene for religiousness that generally increases evo fitness, but occasionally causes someone to take a vow of celibacy. This would on average increase evo fitness.
I don’t know how exactly genes translate into behaviour. But I would guess that its possible for genes to code for religiousness, but coding for or against a religious vow of celibacy is impossible, as this is far too specific a behaviour.
That’s extremely culture-specific. I was talking about cultures like medieval European nobility, where you’d typically want an heir and a spare, both of whom you’d go to some effort to marry off, but where subsequent sons just got in the way and often ended up in the clergy. Other cultures would have their own analogous situations.
At the gene level, what I’m talking about wouldn’t look like something that universally codes for a +kin, -self fertility tradeoff regardless of environment; for more or less the reasons you gave in the grandparent that’s quite unlikely to be selected for. But if you throw environmental interactions into the mix you can do more interesting things. One pathway for example might start by modulating hormone levels in response to mate availability, for example to encourage higher-risk mating strategies in rich environments. That gives the biochemistry something it can work with, and opens up more complicated strategies, some of which might include kin-centric strategies gated by specific hormone levels.
Even that isn’t going to look like a gene coding for a vow of celibacy. But it might translate to a vow of celibacy given a certain cultural context and personal history.