Archaeology for English Majors

One of the most unforgettable courses I took as an undergraduate was an archaeology course on human origins taught by Dr. Birute Galdikas, who announced on the first day, quite peevishly, that any English majors present shouldn't think the course was an easy"A."

I very nearly dropped out, fearing I would be made fun of or made to feel that I shouldn't be there. I was an English major, just not the type Galdikas was addressing. I persevered and am very glad I did.

I had no idea that this rather abrupt and assertive professor was a renowned primatologist, known the world over as one of Leakey's Angels (a term she coined).

Louis Leakey was a world-famous archaeologist, known for his work in Oldavi gorge in Kenya, work in which he found and documented links in human evolution. He appointed three women to carry on some of his work, especially with primates and all three became famous. Dian Fossey lived and eventually died for her work with mountain gorillas. Jane Goodall is a feature on shows about chimpanzees. Birute Galdikas works for the understanding and preservation of orangutans.

Of the three women, Galdikas is probably the least famous as a media star, as she has concentrated her efforts for nearly 40 years on preservation, living in Borneo caring for and studying the orangutans and trying to prevent the demise of both the species and individuals. She is also a professor at Simon Fraser University, my alma mater.

Galdikas's lectures always fascinated me, as she ranged wide in her discussions of evolution, primates, and human ancestors. And my interest was authentic, but only at the most general level.

The textbook had the real nitty-gritty on hominid features through several eons of evolution. Parabolic dental arcades and numbers of bumps (I don't think "bumps" was the official term) on molars were not my cup of tea.

The tutorials were interesting, as we looked at bones of various species. Plus,the TA actually allowed me to write a literary analysis of Darwin's On the Origin of Species. It's surprisingly interesting and engagingly written.

I did what any self-respecting English major would do. I more or less memorized the textbook. Short-term memory stuff. I no longer remember how many molars of what type with how many bumps Australopithecus afarensis has, but am glad I know why such knowledge is important.

Definitely one of the most memorable courses of my undergraduate years.

And Dr. Galdikas, if you ever happen to read this, I got an "A," I was an English major, but it was hard work - and work I don't regret doing.

Hardwiring 101 for Shoppers

I am not a violent person, but do wish from time to time that Charles Darwin would rise from his grave and give some of the "scientists" who pervert his ideas a resounding whack on the head. "YOU ARE WRONG!" Darwin would shout.

I didn't know whether to laugh or to cry when I read Richard Alleyne's article "Shopping styles of men and women all down to evolution, claim scientists" in the Telegraph.co.uk. The "scientist" whose work Alleyne writes about is Daniel Kruger of the University of Michigan: 

"Prof Kruger decided to conduct the study after a winter holiday trip with friends across Europe.

"After exploring sleepy little villages and reaching Prague, the first thing the women wanted to do was shop, Prof Kruger said, and the men could not understand why."

(I swear, I'm not making it up!)

Simply, women like to shop, know about sales and selecting the best quality goods because they were the gatherers in hunter-gatherer societies. When selecting nuts and berries, women had to be discerning and picky and know when the good stuff was available. So today, when shopping for scarves and sweaters, women are driven by the same imperatives. (No, really, I'm not making it up!)

Men, on the other hand, had to be analytical (the laughing/crying response is bubbling up again) and precise. Plan the hunt, which prey. Out and back quickly, no window shopping (maybe it's nausea I'm experiencing).

I am all for academic freedom and Professor Kruger's right to study whatever he wishes to, but I am amazed and angered by the ignorance he displays about Darwin, anthropology, and some obvious objections to his claims. (And I must be fair here. I have read only Alleyne's article about Kruger's work; however, from Kruger's quotes, I find enough material to object to.)

The most obvious is Kruger's use of Darwin. I don't claim to be an expert on Darwin and evolution, but I have read  The Origin of Species and have an interest as a lay person. The whole Galapagos trip made Darwin realize that in isolation, in a particular environment with particular features, species will develop because individuals with certain traits more successful for that environment will be more successful in reproducing. And eventually, the traits are ongoing prominent features which define (in the sense of a biological class definition) a new species.

Kruger makes a sweeping generalization about humans, assuming that in all environments in the very long hunter-gatherer stage of human existence there were no variations in a gendered division of labour regarding subsistence foraging and hunting. In effect, he is saying that all societies, in every geographical environment on the planet were static and homogenous. Sloppy evolutionist thinking here (and very common, too).

Anthropologists know differently. They know that the male hunter/female gatherer divide is not universal. There were many cases in which the roles were often reversed and/or shared, and places in which either hunting or gathering was non-existant because of the geography. The division of food-procuring labour was quite fluid, not the rigid one that Kruger's argument assumes. The variations preclude the universal existence of  hardwired shopping behaviour in women.

At the level of obvious objections, it's hard to know where to start, but a quote from Kruger works well:

Men on the other hand, decided in advance what animal they wanted to kill and then went looking for it. Once it was found - and killed - they returned home.

Does Kruger know that hunter-gatherer societies spanned more than two millions years? His claim is meaningless without details of time and method - like persistence hunting and hunting with weapons - details that are important for evolution. I also dispute the ease Kruger imagines in selecting and finding prey- it is called hunting, after all.

Also, obviously, with tired bodies and carrying a carcass which could spoil or be stolen by other humans or predators, who would stop and pick berries - or browse to look at the attractive yam foliage? Really, do we need evolutionary explanations when simple physical ones will do? Wouldn't similar kinds of limitations exist for gatherers when they had their hands full and were tired?

And, just as with the claims about women and maternal instinct that I discussed earlier this week, Kruger's claims leave out all the people who don't follow his pattern - men who like to shop, browse, and don't know in advance what they want; women who don't like to shop, who want to dash in and get that one specific item; couples who like to shop together; and all the millions of people in the world who neither can, nor want to shop at all. Even shopping isn't universal in the way Kruger understands it.

This steroetyping is insulting to everyone.

Kruger's research begs the question and is unscientific and illogical. I really do wonder whether Kruger has read Darwin. Nonsense like Kruger's is damaging, sometimes funny, but still damaging. More and more I am deeply suspicious of the agenda of some evolutionary psychologists.

And now I'm off to go Christmas shopping; I've planned all the purchases, have a list and just want to dash in, get the stuff and go home! Hmmm.


(man shopping photo credit)

Hardwiring 101 for Women

Evolutionary psychology has been trendy for nearly two decades, finding increasing numbers of human pursuits for which we are supposedly hardwired. Yet it is no coincidence that the field gained in both popularity and influence during a time of retro-conservatism and backlash against feminism.

Increasingly, evolutionary psychologists "find" that our essential nature conforms quite rigidly to a deeply conservative agenda. The religious right should embrace evolutionary psychology as its best and most helpful friend.

Scientists and psychologists in other areas have long questioned the aims and findings of evolutionary psychologists and researchers in related fields. Applying the laws of evolutionary biology to the human psyche has its detractors. Evolutionary psychology is by no means an uncontentious player in the field.

Even so, articles appear again and again, authoritatively telling us ("us" often meaning women) of the newest findings about motherhood and women's roles in society. One such recent article is "Femina Sapiens in the Nursery" by Kay Hymowitz in City Journal (Autumn 2009).

Hymowitz's article is more balanced than many I have seen and brings in reference to neuroscience, primatology, and genetics, but for all its discussion of the complex frontal cortex of women and their rightful place running the state department, Hymowitz leaves the overall impression that women are driven by hormones which are tanatmount to a "maternal instinct." And although she claims that she believes the answer to the question of female identity is a mystery, the article itself leaves far less room for it.

The article's subtitle - "The conflict between parenting and career is hardwired in the female brain" -  doesn't really relay the thrust of Hymowitz's argument. She acknowledges that women have a role to play in society, other than the mothering role, because of the overall development of the frontal cortex in humans generally. Women, like men, have developed the abilities necessary for careers. But a conflict will result because women have an even more primordial hardwiring to be mothers.

Feminists have long questioned the findings of evolutionary psychologists, especially as one of the main areas of investigation has to do with sexuality, mating, and offspring. Hymowitz believes that many findings of evolutionary psychologists will force feminists to admit defeat:.

Especially galling to feminists has been the field of evolutionary psychology, which proposes that evolution has fundamentally shaped human sexual and reproductive behavior—behavior that often seems to conform to the worst stereotypes.

I think that Hymowitz understands neither feminists nor the limits of the data she promotes.

Hymowitz offers two recent stories in the news about mothers who found it difficult to either stop breastfeeding or return to work, leaving a young child. Her first example:

Consider a recent article by Hanna Rosin in The Atlantic. Rosin finds that nursing her infant is holding her back from the work she enjoys, despite her plan for a fully egalitarian marriage... She combs through research on the health benefits of breast-feeding for babies and makes a convincing case that they aren’t as strong as experts have insisted. So does she quit nursing? She does not—even though, she admits, “I’m not really sure why.”

Why does Rosin continue? According to Hymowitz, it is because she has mammary glands. Isn't this begging the question? She has mammary glands which allow her to feed her infant, so she continues to use them because she has them!

The other story is by Katie Roiphe who describes an “'addiction to her newborn baby that left her indifferent to work."

Hymowitz ignores much in both stories. First, both Rosin and Roiphe are writers/journalists, and the first rule for a good story is to have conflict. I'm not saying that the stories aren't true, just that they are stories to be published and to compel readers - perhaps not the best examples.

Second, Hymowitz and others who make these arguments ignore the numbers of women who do not feel this conflict, or do not want or have children at all. She also ignores the data regarding women who neglect and/or abuse their children. She assumes the model of the nuclear family also, ignoring other arrangements in which mothers hand off the care of their infants to wet nurses and nannies. She also does not factor in the common social pressure to breastfeed or stay home with young children that many mothers feel, nor does she discuss the fact that many women would be reluctant to be full-time mothers, workers, and homemakers.

Finally, she ignores another compelling argument. While it is true that feminists "consider sexual identity a “social construct,” a human—or, to be more precise, a male—invention," it is not true that they deny that the females of the species carry and give birth to the offspring or have the equipment with which to feed them. Feminists, scientists, philosophers, psychologists, post-modernists, to name a few, do, however, question how much these facts influence identity, sexual or otherwise. So it is not to say that oxytocin has no influence on women, nor is it to deny that oxytocin may be the hormonal name for the "maternal instinct," rather it is to say that this hormone may not shape female behaviour to the extent that some would believe or wish.

The impetus to define women predominantly as mothers has been around for millenia; such a definition serves the patriarchal status quo. It is always interesting to trace the ways in which the claim is argued and supported, changing over centuries as human understanding of what it is to be human changes and as science and technology give us new tools with which to frame the hypothesis.

Women will be mothers; women will love and be connected to their children; women will find it difficult to leave their children and return to work. No argument from me and no judgement about women's choices. Women will also choose not to have children, will choose careers, will have children and regret it, or refuse to breastfeed.

Hymowitz asks "In the struggle for equality between the sexes, it keeps coming down to motherhood, doesn’t it?"  My answer to that is a definite, "No, it doesn't!" My regret is over how many people wish it were so.

Kay S. Hymowitz is a contributing editor of City Journal and the William E. Simon Fellow at the Manhattan Institute. Her latest book is Marriage and Caste in America.



I would like to invite Kay Hymowitz to my soiree.

Why Jerry Coyne is Right

Jerry Coyne's most recent book is Why Evolution is True.

Coyne is an evolutionary biologist and professor at the University of Chicago. Along with other scientists -notably Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Steven Pinker - Coyne takes on those who either deny the validity of scientific method or insist that science and revelation are just two equal, but different ways of viewing the world.

Coyne argues powerfully in his blog, and elsewhere, against the claim that religion and science are compatible in any other than a superficial way: "First of all, nobody doubts that science and religion are compatible in the trivial sense that someone can be a scientist and be religious at the same time. That only shows one’s ability to hold two dissimilar approaches to the world simultaneously in one’s own mind."

Recently in the LATimes, Chris Mooney and Sheril Kirshenbaum argue for what they call the accommodationists - scientists who allow that religion and science may be compatible in more than the superficial way Coyne describes, and they see no need for a "holy war" on religion. According to the pair, the accommodationist way will be more successful in convincing more Americans that science, in general, and evolution, in particular, are reasonable.

I find the LATimes article misleading in a couple of places.

For instance, Mooney and Kirshenbaum use a quote from the National Academy of Sciences which basically says that some religious denominations accept evolutionary biology and that some more fundamentalist denominations believe more literally in the bible. They use the quote to support their claim that the National Academy of Sciences has "the stance that science and religion can be perfectly compatible."

I don't know whether that is true or not, but I do know that the quote used to support this claim simply doesn't. All it says is that some religious denominations find science and religion compatible (and that some don't).

Further on, Mooney and Kirshenbaum claim that the Faith Project of the National Center for Science Education "seeks to spread awareness that between creationism on the one hand and the new atheism on the other lie many more moderate positions." To me, this strongly implies that the Center promotes moderate positions between creationism ( the concept) and evolution (the new atheists' position). I don't think they suggest that at all.

Peter Hess (NCSE Faith Project Director) actually wrote: "...the dichotomous view represented by creationists and antireligious atheists leaves out a large range of more moderate views." Hess writes about the range of views, not about moderate positions between two competing ideas. Quite different.

While Mooney and Kirshenbaum's project is well intended, the slippery arguments make me suspicious. One hopes it's just sloppy writing. But considering their view about science and good communication in their recent book Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens Our Future, the less than precise language and arguments are unfortunate.

I agree that we don't need a holy war against religion, just some rigorous secular reasoning, like that provided by Jerry Coyne.

I would like to invite Jerry Coyne to my soiree.