For years I have allowed an elephant in the room to distract me from initiating a blog dedicated to illuminating the foundations of the constant human conflicts that seem impossible to stop. The science is there to explain it. And I believe that only by understanding why we hate and fight can we learn not to.
Back to that elephant, I just read a very good book, “The Ideological Brain – the radical science of flexible thinking”, by Leor Zmigrod, a young Cambridge University professor who defines herself as a “political neuroscientist”. She is making waves worldwide with her new book and her brilliant, even audacious neuroscience research into the biological and environmental processes underlying political behavior.
The New York Times published an interview recently in which she discusses the main points of the book. I encourage you to read it. I am attaching a copy in case the link limits your access.
She has done original research into the neurological mechanisms of inflexible thinking and the rigid, often destructive, ideologies that result. In the book she has combined this with work done by others over the last 80 years to establish that rigid thinking has a strong, scientifically demonstrated genetic factor, and that environmental factors can either curb or exacerbate the behavior. She makes great effort to establish that genes create the predisposition toward embracing rigid beliefs, but for most people their social and informational environments either enhance or attenuate the tendency toward rigid thinking.
For those of you who are struggling to make sense of loved ones who are commitment to MAGA, fundamentalist religion, extreme left-wing dogma, or other rigid ideologies that resist rational facts, she offers a lot of insight and a little hope. For the most strident innate ideologues the brain is not likely to allow them to change. For those who are a little less biologically prone to ideological thinking, there is hope – but she doesn’t really provide a guide. My goal is to expand the context her – and others’ – findings to include the underlying tribal factor is all ideologies, the aggression embodied in defending rigid ideologies, and the evolutionary reasons these behaviors exist. Only then can we develop a comprehensive program for learning to avoid those behaviors.
She does make it clear that rigid ideological thinking exists both on the left and right. It is more prevalent on the right simply because resistance to change is a hallmark of both conservatism and ideological thinking.
The Elephant
We are getting closer to the elephant.
In my years of reading books and papers on human behavior, it has been apparent that academics publishing studies or books are very cognizant of the fact their colleagues on the campus far left will aggressively attack them, usually verbally, but sometimes even physically, if they dare to imply that any human behavior might have a biological component. In my next essay (it is already written), I document and examine the history and reasons behind this phenomenon.
And despite the fact that Ms. Zmigrod’s research has established precisely the biological differences in the brain structure and processes between flexible thinkers and rigid ideological thinkers, she dances around the fact very carefully, particularly in Chapter 12, “The Dogmatic Gene”. She couches every paragraph as a conversation between whispers. Here is just a snippet:
“WHISPER: Is it genetic?
WHISPER BACK: Is what genetic?
WHISPER AGAIN: Rigidity. Is my level of rigidity determined by my genes?
WHISPER SOFTLY: Yes, partially.
[Gasp.]
ANOTHER WHISPER: What does that mean?”
(Zmigrod, Leor. The Ideological Brain: The Radical Science of Flexible Thinking (p. 129). (Function). Kindle Edition.)
She knows her science has broken the extreme lefts’ taboo, hence the whisper voice and “gasp” when she finally says it.
Why is that my elephant in the room?
When a world-renowned researcher and author like Zmigrod is intimidated enough to dance that carefully, it leaves a writer without portfolio, like me, feeling the necessity to give you so much information all at once in order to engage you before you dismiss me as just another crackpot. Hence, I have continually looked for ways to avoid the nature vs nurture argument, for ways to avoid losing an imagined readership that I will forever hope to reach.
It is agony trying to write while looking over one’s shoulder, knowing that the anti-science fringe of the left has really controlled the public perception of human behavior. But somehow Zmigrod’s book and another that came out just last month, “ The Social Genome”, have made me realize it is time to just bite the bullet and address the anti-science academic left head on.
An admittedly liberal sociologist, Conley’s lifelong quest has been to gain an understanding of why some people thrive and others don’t. In his words:
“In short, with a better understanding of how nature and nurture operate as one, we can make sure more people fall into the thriving category.”
(Conley, Dalton. The Social Genome: The New Science of Nature and Nurture (p. 44). Kindle Edition.)
Incredibly, he also inserts a “Gasp” when suggesting there is a biological factor in addition to cultural/social factors:
“Parents who worked hard, who did well on tests, who were able to delay gratification, were conventionally attractive, or who had whatever else it took in our society to earn a lot of money also tended to be parents who passed on these adaptive traits to their offspring—culturally or even (gasp) biologically.”
(Conley, Dalton. The Social Genome: The New Science of Nature and Nurture (p. 52). Kindle Edition.)
I point that out to emphasize the trepidation that scientists have in the face of academic anti-science vitriol. It is likely that you and most of the public are unaware of how the strides science has made in explaining our behavior have been so muted. We shall see in the next essay that the reasons started out noble but have now become an unjustified rigid, extreme ideology.
Conley’s book illuminates what would have been obvious decades ago if we could have stepped back and looked at our behavior as dispassionate observers: The interaction between our genetic behavioral predispositions and the social environment we are born, raised, and live in is very complex, but understanding those factors will allow us to gain some level of control over those behaviors.
As promised, in the next essay we will delve into some detail why the academic left has had good reason to oppose bad science – divisive theories that pervert and misinterpret good science. Unfortunately, they have also thrown out the good science and tried to destroy the scientists. In some cases, they have even acknowledged that an agenda is more important than the truth.
Subsequent essays will show that gene studies, neuroscience, and behavioral science have established beyond any doubt that homo sapiens is not innately logical but can learn to be with effort, that we don’t learn to hate “others” but we can be taught not to hate those who aren’t perceived as part of our tribe(s), that we are innately aggressive but can learn to control that aggression. Evolution is not a steady march to some imaginary top. It is a messy process, and we are a particularly flawed product of that process. Only by understanding our flaws will it be possible to minimize them and possibly survive as a species.
You will learn that much of the common perception of who we are is not correct, and facts that conflict with our beliefs create discomfort (behaviorists call it cognitive dissonance) and we try to avoid them.
I hope you will overcome that tendency to avoid new facts that may conflict with your established beliefs (behaviorists call it confirmation bias) and find viewing ourselves through the lens of science as fascinating as I do.
We face an uncertain future as a species. By understanding our strengths and maximizing them, and understanding and addressing our weaknesses, we can stride into that future with hope.
The previous essay discussed how two seemingly unrelated books each were written with obvious sensitivity to criticism from academic left-wing ideologues. Each author, separately, felt the need to insert a “gasp” when finally mentioning the key takeaway from their work – genes have a role in our social behavior.
This essay focuses specifically in how this cancel -culture has dampened the flow of scientific information explaining the complex brain processes behind our behavior.
Since this essay was originally written, two excellent articles have been published in Atlantic Magazine:
Please note that the majority, if not all of the writers referenced in this essay are self-described liberals. This essay and the previous one are not arguing for or against traditional liberal values. But they are arguing against smothering the free flow of ideas on our campuses – which is undermining public trust in our institutions. More importantly, it is hindering our ability to understand and address the underlying causes of the endless wars, genocidal actions, and hostile polarization that plague our world.
A bonus parable : The Bill Clinton: Rush Limbaugh paradox
I know many people will be put off by the idea that the left could be a problem in this horrible right wing autocratic environment. So let me share an observation I made years ago.
Back when Bill Clinton was president, Rush Limbaugh was the most obnoxious right wing radio host in America (he would be middle of the pack in today’s media mess), I observed the psychological discomfort both left and right ideologues would feel when the other side would embrace ideas their side supported.
The paradox is that no matter how much you detested one or the other – and very few people were neutral about them – neither one was right all of the time, or wrong all of the time.
Clinton, who got elected by pulling the Democratic Party toward the middle, vexed Limbaugh – who said if Clinton was for it, he was against it – by balancing the budget, implementing welfare reform, and negotiating NAFTA (Republicans used to advocate for freer trade). All of these were right wing talking points, and both right wing Republicans and liberal Democrats struggled with the idea that their leaders might have areas of agreement.
Currently, many of the horrible things being done in Washington, DC, are bad responses to real problems. Unregulated immigration has been an acknowledged problem for 50 years, lack of defense support by the European nations has been a thorn in our side for a similar period, and there really is an anti-science, intolerant ideological problem on our campuses.
The moral of the story is, don’t let disgust with the cruel, rigid ideology of the right make you mindlessly embrace the cruel, rigid ideology of the left or vice versa. Both ideological extreme are scientifically wrong. You can be an empathetic liberal while, at the same time, decrying the behavior of left-wing campus ideologues, just as you can be a card carrying economic conservative while decrying the behavior of the theocratic/autocratic right.
Nature vs Nurture: Modern Science vs Cancel Culture
The right-wing assault on science and critical thinking is blunt and unashamed. The unambiguous intent is to mute anything that might undermine their religious ideological beliefs. This ideological mindset can be seen among conservative fundamentalists of many religions and sects worldwide, ranging from the Islamic Taliban to the US Christian nationalists.
At the same time, a smaller group of left-wing academics have waged an assault on scientific thought that has had great impact, yet for the most part has remained under the general public’s radar.
This is a short history of how that ideological assault grew out of a well-intended, but inflexible, refusal to adapt to our constantly changing body of knowledge. In the previous essay we showed examples of how the result has dampened the free flow of knowledge on our campuses.
Nature vs Nurture: A very brief history
How do we know what we know? Are all of our thinking processes learned or are we born with innate knowledge?
These questions have been pondered for thousands of years. Up until the last 100 years or so, those questions were only answered by philosophers and based solely on observation and opinion, often crafted in support of religious doctrine.
Enlightenment – 17th and 18th centuries
During the Enlightenment in the 17th and 18th centuries John Locke proposed the concept of the mind as a blank slate that is filled in by experience. He proposed there are “no innate principles”.
The blank slate concept was met with considerable opposition at the time but grew to be a major influence by the 19th century particularly on the budding sciences of psychology, anthropology, and sociology.
Post Darwin 19th century: Eugenics
Twenty four years after Charles Darwin’s revolutionary book “On the Origin of Species” was published, English ethnologist, Francis Galton, coined the term “eugenics”. It is basically a misguided movement based on the idea that our useful human abilities are innate, and the human race can be improved by selective breeding. It is a cornerstone of nazi and white supremacist ideology as well as others. It continues to have adherents today.
Academic reaction to the threat of Eugenics to cooperative society
The modern academic sciences of psychology, anthropology, and sociology all had their birth in the 19th century. By the beginning of the 20th century, the intellectual leaders of those disciplines had all embraced the blank slate concept, based primarily on observation.
These disciplines constituted a primary line of defense against the growing enthusiasm for eugenic theory that was gripping much of Europe and the US. In the decades prior to the Nazis using eugenics to justify their atrocities, the US sterilized an estimated 64,000 people deemed unfit by authorities in 32 states. (The Social Genome, p 32)
In opposition to this disturbing trend, the prevailing academic view going into the second half of the 20th century was summed up by anthropologist Ashley Montagu:
“Man is man because he has no instincts, because everything he is and has become he has learned, acquired, from his culture … with the exception of the instinctoid reactions in infants to sudden withdrawals of support and to sudden loud noises, the human being is entirely instinctless.”
This view, though incorrect, countered the equally misguided pseudoscientific eugenics and economic Darwinism movements. The blank slate approach played a large part in the significant strides made in women’s and minority rights.
The effect has been to allow both women and minorities to contribute to the economic and social well-being of the societies that have embraced allowing opportunities for all their citizens.
Unfortunately, While the gains of the last 75 years are truly earthshaking, the battle for rights and respect for women and minorities still goes on in all societies.
Also during the last 75 years, there has been an explosion of objective, data driven knowledge about ourselves. Neuroscientists, geneticists, behavioral psychologists and others have created a steadily increasing picture of the complex interaction between our innate brain wiring and our cultural environment. While much is yet to be learned, it has become scientifically clear that our behavior is a product of complex interactions between both our genes and our environment.
Unfortunately, there are large, very vocal, swathes of academia who believe these truths about ourselves will be used to justify marginalizing (or worse) minorities and women. As you will see in the examples below, they have made academic life difficult, if not impossible, for those colleagues who dare to speak publicly about the innate aspects of human behavior.
This opposition is rarely stated in terms of what it really is – A fear justified by history that scientific truths will be misconstrued to justify marginalizing women and minorities, just as it was (and continues to be in quiet corners of right wing thought) in the Eugenics movement.
As well-meaning as this disregard for scientific facts may be, it is hindering our ability to develop ways to curb our aggressive, xenophobic instincts and innately flawed reasoning abilities. As the world continues to ignore the economic and quality of life benefits of cooperation in favor of wars, genocides, and violent nationalism, only by understanding the true roots of these behaviors can we hope to decrease them.
Unfortunately, many of these academics, have resorted to attacking the scientists personally rather than the science.
Alice Dreger, a bioethicist who has worked tirelessly on behalf of intersex people, wrote an excellent book, “Galileo’s Middle Finger” which details some of the abuse of science in the name of ideology that has occurred in academia during the last 50 years or so.
Below is an overview of the misguided anger that has continued since the 1975 publication of Sociobiology, a concept that continues to be the focal point of academic anger to this day.
In 1975, Harvard professor Edward O Wilson published “Sociobiology”. The first 25 chapters deal with the biological basis for social behavior among animals from insects to non-human primates. The 26th chapter suggested that human social behavior might have biological underpinnings. This set off a fire storm that continues today.
First Marxists all over the world were outraged at the possibility there might be innate predispositions that ran counter to the selfless commitment to the state they viewed as humanity’s salvation.
Feminist activists quickly and vehemently followed, including physical attacks that were more symbolic than harmful– but indicated a visceral anger rather than rational disagreement.
Here is one of many commentaries by Edward O. Wilson, who was clearly unprepared for the level of vitriol opposed to scientific discussion:
Edward O. Wilson: Science and Ideology: “I had been blindsided by the attack. Having expected some frontal fire from social scientists on primarily evidential grounds, I had received instead a political enfilade from the flank. A few observers were surprised that I was surprised. John Maynard Smith, a senior British evolutionary biologist and former Marxist, said that he disliked the last chapter of Sociobiology himself and “it was also absolutely obvious to me —I cannot believe Wilson didn’t know— that this was going to provoke great hostility from American Marxists, and Marxists everywhere.” But it was true that I didn’t know. I was unprepared perhaps because, as Maynard Smith further observed, I am an American rather than a European. In 1975 I was a political naive: I knew almost nothing about Marxism as either a political belief or a mode of analysis; I had paid little attention to the dynamism of the activist Left, and I had never heard of Science for the People. I was not an intellectual in the European or New York/Cambridge sense. …
After the Sociobiology Study Group exposed me as a counterrevolutionary adventurist, and as they intensified their attacks in articles and teach-ins, other radical activists in the Boston area, including the violence-prone International Committee against Racism, conducted a campaign of leaflets and teach-ins of their own to oppose human sociobiology. As this activity spread through
the winter and spring of 1975-76, I grew fearful that it might reach a level embarrassing to my family and the university. I briefly considered offers of professorships from three universities — in case, their representatives said, I wished to leave the physical center of the controversy. But the pressure was tolerable, since I was a senior professor with tenure, with a reputation based on
other discoveries, and in any case could not bear to leave Harvard’s ant collection, the world’s largest and best.
For a few days a protester in Harvard Square used a bullhorn to call for my dismissal. Two students from the University of Michigan invaded my class on evolutionary biology one day to shout slogans and deliver anti- sociobiology monologues. I withdrew from department meetings for a year to avoid embarrassment arising from my notoriety, especially with key members of Science for the People present at these meetings.
In 1979 I was doused with water by a group of protestors at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, possibly the only incident in recent history that a scientist was physically attacked, however mildly, for the expression of an idea.
In 1982 I went to the Science Center at Harvard University under police escort to deliver a public lecture, because of the gathering of a crowd of protestors around the entrance, angered because of the title of my talk: The coevolution of biology
and culture.”
After Wilson died in late 2021, it was scant months before at least 2 articles accusing him of being a racist, one an op-ed in Scientific American. Both were personal attacks. Neither addressed his scientific work.
Steven Pinker: Evolution and Behavior
While the geneticists and neuroscientists that are finding new structural underpinnings for our behavioral predispositions every day seem to be somewhat insulated from attack, evolutionary psychologists like Steven Pinker are not so lucky. Pinker is a Harvard professor who has written numerous popular books including “How the Mind Works”, “The Blank Slate”, and “The Better Angels of Our Nature”.
Among many other things in his books, he shares the science indicating that men and women evolved differently while in no way indicating or even implying that should define their roles. Yet there seems to be a cottage industry in attacks on him personally. One graduate student at the American Museum of Natural History suggested that his acquaintance with Jeffery Epstein meant “Jeffrey Epstein loved evolutionary psychology And … evolutionary psychologists loved him right back.”
Unfortunately, Epstein was a very bright individual who managed to impress and become friends with quite a number of academics. But whatever his view of evolutionary psychology, it is an irrelevant factor in assessing its accuracy.
Character assassination continues to be the academic left’s primary tool.
Like so many of the attacks on Pinker, it has nothing to do with the science. It is written in anger and with the intent to inflame passion in others – not logic.
Napoleon Chagnon : objective anthropology
Since its birth in the 19th century anthropology has tended to be more focused on advocating for the groups it studies than in data driven, objective study. Notable and influential anthropologists like Margaret Mead and Ashely Montagu strongly supported the blank slate approach to explaining human behavior.
The result has been to actively squelch academic work that portrays primitive tribes as having the same behavioral predispositions as the rest of humanity.
Nowhere has this been more evident than in the assault against Napoleon Chagnon. See Alice Dreger’s Darkness’s Descent on the American Anthropological Association – she has done extensive research on Chagnon because as she says, “I had decided to carefully investigate Chagnon’s story because his was said by scientists I now trusted to illuminate like no other the dangerous intellectual rot occurring within certain branches of academe—the privileging of politics over evidence.” (emphasis mine) (Dreger, Alice. Galileo’s Middle Finger: Heretics, Activists, and One Scholar’s Search for Justice (p. 139). ).
Dreger goes on to say the reason that the American Anthropological Association allowed Chagnon’s career to be destroyed was because:
“Chagnon’s growing public fame had been steadily matched by growing infamy within his own field. That was in part because Chagnon had been an early and boisterous defender of sociobiology, the science of understanding the evolutionary bases for behaviors and cultures. (emphasis mine) Even so, by Chagnon’s time, all anthropologists believed in human evolution, and so his interest in studying humans as evolved animals might never have gotten him in so much trouble were it not for a couple of other things. First, Chagnon saw and represented in the Yanomamö a somewhat shocking image of evolved “human nature”—one featuring males fighting violently over fertile females, domestic brutality, ritualized drug use, and ecological indifference. Not your standard liberal image of the unjustly oppressed, naturally peaceful, environmentally gentle rain-forest Indian family. Not the kind of image that will win you friends among those cultural anthropologists who see themselves primarily as defenders of the oppressed subjects they study, especially if you’re suggesting, as Chagnon was, that the Yanomamö showed us our human nature.” (my emphasis).
The attacks on Chagnon, like the attacks on Wilson and Pinker were focused on the individual – not the science – with the intent to undermine the science.
Character assassination has become the anti-science weapon of the academic left. It is so much easier to wield than the complicated world of scientific facts.
Conclusion
It is clear that those who continue to attack scientist believe they are protecting the rights of women and minorities. It is also clear that their anger is a classic tribal xenophobic response to a perceived threat.
Most importantly, insisting that we are blank slates corrupted by modern society has not proven to be a successful path to changing our destructive xenophobic behavior. Societies and cultures all over the world, from highly developed to primitive, continue to attempt to destroy each other – despite clearly being to their detriment.
Our only hope is to acknowledge the science and design solutions based on that knowledge.
Human Behavior: an evolutionary perspective 