lori-
great points anout "what is natural?" i am on the verging of breaking something really far out to you all about that, i just need to get it straight in my own head first, but i love what you said.

as far as trees go, there are some trees that actually move! they pull themselves by there roots as far a 50 feet from where they started. not to suggest this is free will or choice on the part of the tree but it does blur what we traidtionally considered to be "nature"- this inert, fixed, strictly biological phenom. is culture biological? are we biologically set up to be social? perhaps, but don't let science make its causal claims here, keep science honest and the two (culture and biology) both appear, change and disappear at equal levels. our biology changes rapidly within our own lives and is hardly fixed and under a close look may not even seem "natural" anymore it moves so fast. in a tongue and cheek (though somewhat serious) tone i suggested to a friend tonight that the skeletal anatomy of women is changing to accomodate the wearing of high heels. i was adoring John Travolta's shoes in Saturday Night Fever and he was complaing that men's shoes with heels hurt his lower back. i said two things:

1) welcome to the world that women live in everyday
2) bodies adapt to cultural demands with alarming deftness and rapidity.

gene x physical environment x social environment x choice = sexist

Lori, I question as to how choice plays into this equation or even if choice is a valid component, or if there really is such a thing as choice. Like, I mean, what is making the choice? It seems to me more that our actions are determined by the combination of our phenotypic and environmental programming and chance, the composite producing a response to any given situation - which is both the cause of the response and the response itself. I'd say its more likely that choice can't be measured and accurately factored in because it simply doesn't exist.

thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts. you know this is stuff i am intrigued about and working hard to understand! i'm looking forward to working together with all of you to iron out some of the wrinkles here.

"If we define all human activity as natural, aren't we really saying there is no such thing as natural and unnatural?"

that's right. and i think this kind of rhetorical shift is not just semantic, but an important means to help people see themselves along the continuum of life on earth. culture evolved via natural selection and is a natural extension of human animal practices. of course i think we can retain the distinction as a shorthand among specific natural phenomena, but i just can't see a reason why selection and physicalism and the rest somehow stops at "culture." it seems many people who are evolutionists want to have the evolution only go so far, but i can't see the justification for stopping. this way of looking at things also permits us to see the continuity of culture across species as well.

"Declaring it natural isn't going to suddenly make people happy with their culture. "

oh my goodness, i wouldn't want the concept of natural to be used to justify things! some natural things are bad ideas, cause harm, ineffective, based on false premises, etc.


"A phenotype is simply the physical expression of a genotype in a given environment."

i was using the term in the specific way dawkins uses it in "the extended phenotype." why you don't want to include behavior as phenotypic, at least to a degree? it certainly is selected for genetically to a large degree in other animals. i know that humans are not as simple though, because once you unleashed the use of representation and especially once you evolved the capacity for imitation, you set loose another realm of replication and movement. this is the cultural determinism you point out that can be so against the grain of both human happiness and (other) natural movement.


"Now choice may be, in some ultimate sense beyond our ability to measure at this point"

benjamin libet's work and others have measured decision-making, the timing, as well as the readiness potential on the scalp, and it showed that decisions were made unconsciously *before* conscious awareness occurred. there remained a 100 ms period during which the subject could veto the unconscious impulse, and not all decisions are of the type in the study. also, wegner's work on choice-making and the sense of authoring one's behavior is mind-blowing.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Libet

www.wjh.harvard.edu/~wegner/conscwil.htm


"In other words, even if you define human choice as "determined" it nevertheless adds incredible complexity to understanding the evolution of human culture. "

i totally agree. but this complexity is not of an order that somehow puts it out of the reach of materialism and selection.


"gene x physical environment x social environment x choice = sexist"

we still have accountability in determinism -- after all, they are YOUR causes! -- but it's not the same kind of blaming process as it would be under a free will model. it ends up you judge the act more than the actor, albeit if the actor is damaged, they must be separated from causing harm to others. a secular version of "hate the sin, not the sinner"?


"t's not at all surprising to me that culture has more impact on human behavior than genes or even physical environment. Culture has developed to the point where it not only shapes the social environment but it also shapes the physical environment and is moving towards shaping the genetic environment as well. "

i agree. it's very complex, and i'm resistant to any simplifications. it does seem to be that every layer interacts with the other though. it's not a one-way street even to the genome, as you point out. i feel we need to watch out for the influence of bronze age mythologies on our sense of the world: the immaterial soul, humans as deities above other life forms in a great chain of being, free will, and the like. strong evidence has been gathered against all these notions. i just want us to see humans as part of the tree of life, where we belong.

this sounds good to me chad!