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jsbot@mail.com (Johann Sebastian Bot) wrote in message news:<ed90f6ec.0110020534.22e101b9@posting.google.com>...
> THE EVOLUTIONARY FUNCTION OF PREJUDICE
> 
> http://www.mankind.org/
> 
> 
> 
>       ALAN McGREGOR  Institute for the Study of Man
> 
>  The author examines the phenomenon of 'prejudice' and explains the
> possibility that its roots are not purely cultural. The proclivity
> for prejudice appears to be deeply rooted in the human psyche, and
> has been shown to be of distinct utility in furthering the process
> of speciation. 
> 
> The sociobiological nature of 'prejudice' can only be clearly
> understood if we realize that the emotional tensions generated when
> diverse ethnic groups are forced into close geographical contact do
> not derive solely from contrasting cultural systems: they reflect
> deeply ingrained sociobiological mechanisms which serve an essential
> evolutionary function. Indeed, they are by no means of modern or
> even recent origin in the history of our species. 
> 
> Like other animals, man is little more than a pawn on the chessboard
> of evolution. The basic patterns of human behavior and of human
> emotions had already been determined by evolutionary forces long
> before persons of diverse biological and cultural background were
> thrown together within the confines of densely populated modern
> societies. To properly understand the origin, nature and function of
> prejudice it is necessary for us to examine the biological role of
> the emotional tensions associated with "in-group" and "out-group"
> relationships - including racial relationships - in the evolutionary
> history of man. We must identify the evolutionary purpose of ethnic
> consciousness and of the sense of 'racial distance' that has tended
> to keep populations of diverse racial background genetically
> distinct from each other through hundreds of thousands of years of
> evolutionary development. 
> 
> The Evolutionary Process
> 
> What do we mean by "evolutionary development"? Evolution is a
> process of organic change by which new forms of life are constantly
> arising and replacing others less suited to survive in a state of
> competition. The new concept of bio-social studies properly
> emphasizes the close relationship between the biological and social
> sciences, showing how even social behavior evolves under the
> selective guidance of a single arbitrating principle: the survival
> of the species. 
> 
> Evolution reveals two major trends, the first of which is a trend
> from the simplicity of unicellular life forms to the complexity of
> advanced organisms such as are represented by mammals, primates and
> men. The second is the trend from the primitive uniformity of early
> life forms to the rich variety of diverse species, sub-species, or,
> in the case of man, the diverse races which today inhabit the earth.
> Both trends - the trend towards increasing complexity and the trend
> towards increasing diversity of life forms - depend on the genetic
> isolation of discrete populations. In the case of simpler life
> forms, geographical distance by itself may be sufficient to ensure
> genetic isolation, but the higher more mobile forms of life require
> other defenses to prevent the accidental hybridization of evolving
> sub-species. Clearly, the evolutionary process would be frustrated
> if every new biological or evolutionary experiment, each new
> phylogenetic continuum, sub-species or race, were to lose its novel
> and distinctive combination of genes by admixture with sibling
> populations, or by the reabsorption of divergent sibling populations
> into the parental stock. In short, during the period in which
> emerging sub-species are evolving into separate species - so
> different from each other that they no longer have the biological
> ability to crossbreed their genetic identity must be protected from
> crossbreeding by some form of barrier, either geographical or
> psychological, which will effectively prevent the negation of
> nature's experiments before they can even emerge as separate species
> and subspecies. 
> 
> The important role of racial differentiation in the evolutionary
> process was clearly perceived by Dobzhansky as early as 1937, when
> he observed that: 
> 
> If (the) differentiation is allowed to proceed unimpeded, most or
> all of the individuals of one race may come to possess certain genes
> which those of the other race do not. Finally, mechanisms preventing
> interbreeding of races may develop, splitting what used to be a
> single collective genotype into two or more separate ones. When such
> mechanisms have developed and the prevention of interbreeding is
> more or less complete, we are dealing with separate species. A race
> becomes more and more of a "concrete entity" as this process goes
> on; what is essential about races is not their state of being but
> that of becoming. But when the separation of races is complete, we
> are dealing with races no longer, for what have emerged are separate
> species. 
> 
> However, Dobzhansky continued: .... Races and species as discrete
> arrays of individuals may exist only so long as the genetic
> structures of their populations are preserved distinct by some
> mechanisms which prevent their interbreeding. Unlimited
> interbreeding of two or more initially different populations
> unavoidably results in an exchange of genes between them and a
> consequent fusion of the once distinct groups into a single greatly
> variable array. A number of mechanisms encountered in nature
> (ecological isolation, sexual isolation, hybrid sterility, and
> others) guard against such a fusion of the discrete arrays and the
> consequent decay of discontinuous variability. The origin and
> functioning of the isolating mechanisms constitute one of the most
> important problems of the genetics of populations. 
> 
> As Dobzhansky added, genetic isolation becomes "advantageous for
> species whose distributions overlap, provided that each species
> represents a more harmonious genetic system than the hybrids between
> them." 
> 
> Essential Feral Restraints
> 
> To prevent the negation of Nature's work of species-creation, we
> find that all higher more mobile animals living under feral
> (natural) conditions not only evolve a sense of territoriality,
> whereby they become isolated or at least semi-isolated genetically
> on a geographical basis in what are known as demes, but that they
> also develop what zoologists call "feral restraints," that is a
> marked unwillingness - amounting often to a positive refusal - to
> interbreed with members of other sub-species. These "isolating
> mechanisms" may be seen as "agents to ensure the mechanism that
> keeps them (the separate sub-species or races) on their peaks by
> preventing ... hybridizing" (Paterson, 1978). To the extent that
> emerging species involve the selective development of new patterns
> of harmoniously interrelated genetic qualities, hybridization can be
> devolutionary in its impact, creating what S. Wright (1956) has
> referred to as "the formation of unharmonious constellations of
> genes." 
> 
> The geographical isolation of separate sub-species or races, each in
> the process of evolving into disparate species, will often be
> sufficient to protect the evolutionary process from any genetic
> intermingling of the new "experimental" varieties before they have
> become sufficiently differentiated to be biologically incapable of
> miscegenation. But geographical separation is not always effective
> in the case of the more advanced mobile forms of animal life, and
> various "feral restraints" also customarily evolve to discourage
> cross-breeding on those occasions that individuals from divergent
> populations do chance to meet. 
> 
> These feral restraints serve a vital evolutionary process.
> Zoologists have identified two types of such constraints, the first
> of which are called - "built-in" constraints, based upon physical
> sign stimuli. "Built-in" physical constraints may take the form of
> distinctive shape, color, smell, or even patterns of movement,
> common to animals of the same subspecies, but absent from other
> populations. Such distinctive characteristics serve as a warning to
> members of related but disparate subspecies not to attempt sexual
> relationships. They are like a sign that reads "Danger! a new
> biological experiment is in progress. Do not approach!" (Simpson,
> 1964). But in addition to these built-in constraints, the
> distinguished zoologist, Peter Klopfer, (1970) has shown that
> acquired constraints exist among feral animals due to behavioral
> imprinting. These may be equated with the culturally-reinforced
> prejudices associated with "in-group" and "out- group" behavior
> among human beings. 
> 
> Domestication Distorts Innate Behavior Patterns
> 
> Domestication, by breaking down territorial restrictions and
> destroying patterns of feral or natural activity, often results in
> perverted, misdirected, unnatural and anti-evolutionary behavior.
> The innate drives of domesticated animals generally express
> themselves in a confused and evolutionarily useless variety of
> patterns, while the behavior patterns of caged animals may become
> more extensively deranged. Not only do they often refuse to eat, but
> those that do eat may experiment with masturbation and
> homosexuality, or even seek to mate with animals of other breeds
> (Calhoun, 1962) - an activity which, regularly and consistently
> repeated, would necessarily negate any further speciation or racial
> diversification. Culture, particularly in urbanized societies, may
> likewise pervert human instincts by suppressing natural feral
> constraints and encouraging abnormal patterns of behavior, leading
> to similar distortions of normal biological behavior, such as
> homosexuality and the quest for abnormal erotic experiences,
> including those associated with inter-subspecific sexual
> experimentation. No human civilization has to date avoided collapse,
> and it is tempting to enquire whether social conditions which
> diverge too widely from the natural or feral conditions under which
> mankind evolved - and to which humankind is biologically adapted -
> may weaken the survival potential of over-domesticated populations
> by promoting anti-evolutionary life-styles, together with their
> concomitant reproductive abnormalities. 
> 
> The Sociobiological Role of Prejudice
> 
> The sociobiological significance of prejudice becomes even more
> apparent when we realize that evolution arises not solely from
> individual competition. Team spirit and group cohesiveness have a
> high survival value for those mammals and primates which have
> adopted a pattern of group life. Furthermore, the concept of the
> survival of the fittest among social animals such as man refers less
> to individuals than it does to breeding populations and entire
> sub-species. Indeed evolution is concerned not with the individual
> organism but only with breeding populations, with phylogenetic
> continua. Evolution involves populations, sub-species and species.
> Evolution is in no way concerned with the welfare or well-being of
> any one individual organism except to the extent that the death or
> survival of that organism may affect the gene pool of the breeding
> population. 
> 
> Fitness also must not be misunderstood. In the evolutionary context
> - by which we mean the living reality - fitness means only the
> ability of any breeding population, sub-species or race to reproduce
> itself, and, at the more complex mammalian, primate and human
> levels, the ability of adults to protect their offspring until the
> offspring can in turn successfully reproduce themselves.
> Biologically, an individual is little more than a link in the chain
> of generations. The genetic integrity of the gene pool is therefore
> of paramount evolutionary importance. Evolution could not continue
> its work amongst the higher animals if each new experimental
> sub-species were to lose its identity before it had time to evolve
> into a new species. 
> 
> The Importance of the Genetic Isolation of Races
> 
> Evolutionary competition is between rival sub-species. It is
> concerned with breeding populations, not with individuals as the
> Social Darwinists have too often erroneously assumed, overlooking
> the fact that Darwin specifically emphasized this when he chose to
> name his epic work The Origin of Species by Means of Natural
> Selection or the Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for
> Life. Indeed, cooperation at the primate and human level is aimed
> more at group survival than individual survival. Social cooperation
> in the primate troop and in the primitive human band arose as an
> evolutionary necessity to ensure the survival of the group as a
> distinctive phylogenetic breeding population. As G.G. Simpson (1964)
> has explained, the genetic isolation of races as emergent species is
> a matter of "great evolutionary significance." The genetic
> advancement of man arose as a result of ongoing competition for
> survival between genetically different, non-interbreeding hominid
> populations, and was sustained not merely by geographical isolation
> but also by developing bonds of cooperation and love within the
> kindred, and of suspicion, fear, antagonism, and even warfare
> against such alien groups as might become competitors for the
> territorial and material resources necessary to sustain life. 
> 
> That the evolutionary struggle is commonly fiercest between closely
> related species, and particularly between sub- species who are
> dependent on and consequently competing for similar resources, was
> recognized by Dobzhansky, Ayala, Stebbins and Valentine (1977), who
> wrote: 
> 
> Related species compete for resources that both are in need of, and
> one species may outbreed and crowd out another ... 
> 
> In their earlier more feral existence at the level of the primate
> troop, the human band, and the human tribe, man's forebears
> consequently developed a capacity to distrust and repel those they
> perceived of as alien, as well as to love and to assist those whom
> they identified as allies. Every member of every human group has
> ever since experienced two different sets of reactions when dealing
> with others: one of loyalty towards members of the in-group, the
> other of caution and competitiveness towards members of the
> out-group. Ludwig Gumplowitz referred to these two separate sets of
> behavior as syngenism (attachment and loyalty) and ethnocentrism
> (suspicion of aliens). He further suggested that the pressure of
> competition from other groups tended to reinforce the feelings of
> loyalty and cooperation, heightening the consciousness of
> ethnocentrism and prejudice against "outsiders." These forces
> enhance the competitive viability of the group in its struggle to
> survive and to outbreed rival groups, and also serve to protect the
> ongoing process of homogenization within the group's own gene pool -
> a process which is itself dependent upon a high degree of genetic
> isolation. 
> 
> Conclusion
> 
> These attitudes of in-group loyalty and out-group suspicion, which
> appear to have evolved long before the evolution of primitive human
> bands and to have developed more consciously identifiable forms at
> the level of tribal and national societies, reflect a clear-cut
> evolutionary purpose. Patterns of racial and ethnic prejudice, of
> in-group loyalty and out-group suspicion, have served an effective
> evolutionary purpose over the long history of primate and human
> biological evolution, both in enhancing the competitiveness of the
> individual breeding population and also in preserving the uniqueness
> of its distinctive genetic heritage by discouraging interbreeding
> with the members of disparate sub-species. The evolutionary message
> is clear. Human groups which lose their internal sense of identity
> and cohesion in respect of other groups eventually cease to exist as
> discrete realities. Amongst the higher more mobile forms of animal
> life, isolating mechanisms such as prejudice are necessary to
> preserve the genetic identity of races and sub-species (as emergent
> species) by inhibiting miscegenation. A human population which
> practices endogamous marriage and strives to preserve the integrity
> of its gene pool should not be criticized as immoral. Such behavior
> implies that it is adhering to deeply rooted instincts essential to
> the evolutionary process, which process - from the point of view of
> purely logical, naturalistic thought - provides the only basis for
> any scientifically sound system of ethical philosophy. 


Difficult for the PC types to accept. They still demand one biology
for humans, another for the rest of the animal kingdom!

Phil
> 
>          REFERENCES
> 
> Calhoun,J.B. 1962 Population Density and Social Pathology,
> Scientific American 206, 2: 139ff.
> 
> Dobzhansky, T. 1937 Genetics and the Origin of Species. (Reprint ed.
> New York: Columbia University Press, 1982). 1951 Genetics and the
> Origin of Species. Third ed. New York: Columbia University Press. 
> 
> Dobzhansky, T., F.J. Ayala, G.L. Stebbins, and J.W. Valentine 1977
> Evolution. San Francisco: W.H. Freeman. 
> 
> Klopfer, Peter M. 1965 Imprinting: a reassessment, Science 7:
> 302-303. 1970 Behavioral Ecology. Belmont: Dickenson Publishing Co.
> 
> Lorenz, Konrad E. 1967 Evolution and Modification of Behavior.
> Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 
> 
> Mayr, E. 1963 Animal Species and Evolution. Cambridge,
> Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. 1982 The Growth of
> Biological Thought: Diversity, Evolution, Inheritance, Cambridge:
> Belknap (Harvard University Press). .Morris, L.N. 1971 Human
> Populations, Genetic Variation and Evolution. San Francisco:
> Chandler Publishing Co. 
> 
> Paterson, H.E.H. 1978 More evidence against speciation by
> reinforcement. S. Afr. J. Sci. 74: 369-371. 
> 
> Simpson, G.G. 1953 The Major Features of Evolution. New York:
> Columbia University Press. 1964 This View of Life. New York:
> Harcourt Brace & Co. 
> 
> Wilson, E.O. 1975 Sociobiology: The New Synthesis. Cambridge:
> Harvard University Press. 
> 
> Wright, S. 1956 Modes of selection. Amer. Naturalist 90: 5-24.