I agree that something being “natural” doesn’t make it “right”. But “natural” is still a force of nature that you have to include in your predictions… unless you are okay with getting your predictions systematically wrong.
Applying this to the examples you mentioned:
Males are more aggressive in most animals; therefore, male humans should be expected to be more aggressive.
Yes, 100% agree. Notice that this doesn’t say anything about aggression being good or otherwise desirable; the statement is positive, not normative.
Do you have an alternative explanation for gender ratios in violent crime statistics?
Females are the natural caregivers in most mammals; therefore, human mothers should primarily raise children.
Okay, we have a “should” here; that is a mistake. But we could make a positive statement out of it, something like “on average, females will be more successful caregivers than males”, especially if they are randomly selected from the population (rather than self-selected).
Of course, “more successful” does not automatically translate to “should”; we need to balance it against other interests.
Hierarchies exist in many animal groups; therefore, human social hierarchies and inequality are natural and acceptable.
Here, I would make a statement like “human social hierarchies are a natural attractor, so if you want to avoid them, you need to think really carefully about how to design your group, because it is very unlikely to happen automatically”.
Alpha males dominate in many mammal groups; therefore, dominant, assertive men should naturally be leaders.
Similarly, something like “there are many dominant men, so you either need to accept that you will have a leader like this (and maybe focus on figuring out how to choose the best one out of multiple candidates) or you need to think really carefully about how to avoid this outcome”.
Animals eat meat; therefore, human meat consumption is natural and morally acceptable.
The positive statement would be something like: “you need to think really carefully about designing a vegetarian diet that will be healthy in long term, because the most likely outcome of ‘just don’t eat meat, duh’ is some kind of nutritional deficiency”.
Metaphorically speaking, opposing the nature is like opposing gravity. Yes, you can build airplanes and tall buildings. But you need to design them carefully, otherwise a disaster will happen. Just saying “I hate gravity, it is such an oppressive concept that it should not be allowed to mention in a polite society” is not going to do it.
Thanks you prodded at a real issue I failed to notice in my post.
I claim the article is about: “natural does not mean good”
Then I go off and seem to try to make a sneaky second claim: “Natural processes can’t be proven/verified easily and should hold no weight”
With the second claim being a lot weaker. But I still stand by it.
If I could try to succinctly rephrase it in the context of your response here:
“Patterns are statistically significant and improbable without some outside force. So if we recognize a pattern, it’s LIKELY that there is some attractor or gravity creating this pattern. BUT, the fact that something is naturally occuring or biological in nature should add absolutely no credence or change the nature of how we normally pattern match.”
So I agree “male humans are on average more aggressive than females.” That is great pattern that needs to be in any social model. But if then someone says “this is because all mammals work that way”, that second statement is usually unverifiable and should add no credence to the pattern or model.
Same with “assertive men are often leaders”. This is a great pattern that should be considered. To then say “this is because pack animals designate an alpha male” is not verifiable and should not add weight to the claim.
Now to me it feels like the biology bit is added to a LOT of arguments. This could be because any good logical thinker want to also pin down causation and upstream effects. I am concerned”it’s biological/natural” is tacked onto arguments in an attempt to artificially strengthen arguments, and this post was my attempt at a response to that.
If you know a fact about humans, then mammals are not important. Humans like stories. Doesn’t matter if mammals in general don’t.
If you don’t know a fact about humans, but somehow you know the fact about mammals, you can use it as evidence (although not as a proof). For example, in a culture with a strong religious taboo against human autopsy they could dissect various mammals, and make probabilistic statements about human anatomy.
Today, a more typical situation is two groups of people, each declaring that they know for a fact that humans are / are not X. In such situation, if you have no way to verify the fact directly, I guess you could use the information about mammals to make a probabilistic estimate about which group is correct.
Also, from a perspective of a scientist, if all mammals are X, then the fact that humans are also X is… not completely guaranteed, but not really surprising. On the other hand, if all other mammals are X but humans don’t… that is definitely possible, but it makes me really curious why. What is the difference, and what was the possible reason evolution made it so?
OP: “Some examples to illustrate the absurdity of this logic: Mammals live outdoors; therefore, homelessness is good.”
A positive statement would be that, it may be an evolutionary ‘good’ even if distasteful. An example might be that homelessness people may have more partners than a high IQ autist that has a mansion. Or we can say, all else being equal, it is healthier for humans to be outside more, much more than in the modern world. Designed housing and modern urban systems need to take this into account.
OP: “Animals are illiterate; therefore, illiteracy is good.”
It may be distasteful, but many studies show that years of education means lower fertility; and that sexual selection TODAY actually does select for genes that are less-intelligent* (ADHD or even bad habits like alcohol and smoking.) Nature works in mysterious ways. A good way is that we need to think quite hard about underlying behaviors. Why are literacy rates so low? And persistently so?
I appreciate this. My phrasing of these is unnecessarily negative.
I was trying to exemplify patterns that human shouldn’t push towards. To backup my claim that “biological does not mean good”
“Animals live outside” is the pattern. If I had one button that keeps everything the same and another that made all people live outside, I wouldn’t push the button. Lots of people would die from exposure.
As you point out, the fact that animals live outside does contain some biological truth. Outside is healthy in a lot of ways. But living outside isn’t “good” for humans because it’s what our biological similars do.
I agree that something being “natural” doesn’t make it “right”. But “natural” is still a force of nature that you have to include in your predictions… unless you are okay with getting your predictions systematically wrong.
Applying this to the examples you mentioned:
Yes, 100% agree. Notice that this doesn’t say anything about aggression being good or otherwise desirable; the statement is positive, not normative.
Do you have an alternative explanation for gender ratios in violent crime statistics?
Okay, we have a “should” here; that is a mistake. But we could make a positive statement out of it, something like “on average, females will be more successful caregivers than males”, especially if they are randomly selected from the population (rather than self-selected).
Of course, “more successful” does not automatically translate to “should”; we need to balance it against other interests.
Here, I would make a statement like “human social hierarchies are a natural attractor, so if you want to avoid them, you need to think really carefully about how to design your group, because it is very unlikely to happen automatically”.
Similarly, something like “there are many dominant men, so you either need to accept that you will have a leader like this (and maybe focus on figuring out how to choose the best one out of multiple candidates) or you need to think really carefully about how to avoid this outcome”.
The positive statement would be something like: “you need to think really carefully about designing a vegetarian diet that will be healthy in long term, because the most likely outcome of ‘just don’t eat meat, duh’ is some kind of nutritional deficiency”.
Metaphorically speaking, opposing the nature is like opposing gravity. Yes, you can build airplanes and tall buildings. But you need to design them carefully, otherwise a disaster will happen. Just saying “I hate gravity, it is such an oppressive concept that it should not be allowed to mention in a polite society” is not going to do it.
Thanks you prodded at a real issue I failed to notice in my post.
I claim the article is about: “natural does not mean good” Then I go off and seem to try to make a sneaky second claim: “Natural processes can’t be proven/verified easily and should hold no weight”
With the second claim being a lot weaker. But I still stand by it.
If I could try to succinctly rephrase it in the context of your response here:
“Patterns are statistically significant and improbable without some outside force. So if we recognize a pattern, it’s LIKELY that there is some attractor or gravity creating this pattern. BUT, the fact that something is naturally occuring or biological in nature should add absolutely no credence or change the nature of how we normally pattern match.”
So I agree “male humans are on average more aggressive than females.” That is great pattern that needs to be in any social model. But if then someone says “this is because all mammals work that way”, that second statement is usually unverifiable and should add no credence to the pattern or model.
Same with “assertive men are often leaders”. This is a great pattern that should be considered. To then say “this is because pack animals designate an alpha male” is not verifiable and should not add weight to the claim.
Now to me it feels like the biology bit is added to a LOT of arguments. This could be because any good logical thinker want to also pin down causation and upstream effects. I am concerned”it’s biological/natural” is tacked onto arguments in an attempt to artificially strengthen arguments, and this post was my attempt at a response to that.
If you know a fact about humans, then mammals are not important. Humans like stories. Doesn’t matter if mammals in general don’t.
If you don’t know a fact about humans, but somehow you know the fact about mammals, you can use it as evidence (although not as a proof). For example, in a culture with a strong religious taboo against human autopsy they could dissect various mammals, and make probabilistic statements about human anatomy.
Today, a more typical situation is two groups of people, each declaring that they know for a fact that humans are / are not X. In such situation, if you have no way to verify the fact directly, I guess you could use the information about mammals to make a probabilistic estimate about which group is correct.
Also, from a perspective of a scientist, if all mammals are X, then the fact that humans are also X is… not completely guaranteed, but not really surprising. On the other hand, if all other mammals are X but humans don’t… that is definitely possible, but it makes me really curious why. What is the difference, and what was the possible reason evolution made it so?
Well-said.
To add to comment:
OP: “Some examples to illustrate the absurdity of this logic: Mammals live outdoors; therefore, homelessness is good.”
A positive statement would be that, it may be an evolutionary ‘good’ even if distasteful. An example might be that homelessness people may have more partners than a high IQ autist that has a mansion. Or we can say, all else being equal, it is healthier for humans to be outside more, much more than in the modern world. Designed housing and modern urban systems need to take this into account.
OP: “Animals are illiterate; therefore, illiteracy is good.”
It may be distasteful, but many studies show that years of education means lower fertility; and that sexual selection TODAY actually does select for genes that are less-intelligent* (ADHD or even bad habits like alcohol and smoking.) Nature works in mysterious ways. A good way is that we need to think quite hard about underlying behaviors. Why are literacy rates so low? And persistently so?
*See: Life without sex: Large-scale study links sexlessness to physical, cognitive, and personality traits, socioecological factors, and DNA: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.07.24.24310943v1.full
I appreciate this. My phrasing of these is unnecessarily negative.
I was trying to exemplify patterns that human shouldn’t push towards. To backup my claim that “biological does not mean good”
“Animals live outside” is the pattern. If I had one button that keeps everything the same and another that made all people live outside, I wouldn’t push the button. Lots of people would die from exposure.
As you point out, the fact that animals live outside does contain some biological truth. Outside is healthy in a lot of ways. But living outside isn’t “good” for humans because it’s what our biological similars do.