Det er nesten ikke grenser for hvor mye skrotvitenskap som er der ute; selv profeten–
Because sex and gender politics are so prominent in our lives, some look to evolution for answers to hard questions about the dynamics between men and women, and the social structures that cause us so much ire. Evolutionary psychologists strain to explain our behaviour today by speculating that it relates to an adaptation to Pleistocene life. Frequently these claims are absurd, such as “women wear blusher on their cheeks because it attracts men by reminding them of ripe fruit”.
Purveyors of this kind of pseudoscience are plenty, and most prominent of the contemporary bunch is the clinical psychologist and guru Jordan Peterson, who in lectures asserts this “fact” about blusher and fruit with absolute certainty. Briefly, issues with that idea are pretty straightforward: most fruit is not red; most skin tones are not white; and crucially, the test for evolutionary success is increased reproductive success. Do we have the slightest blip of data that suggests that women who wear blusher have more children than those who don’t? No, we do not.
Peterson is also well known for using the existence of patriarchal dominance hierarchies in a non-specific lobster species as supporting evidence for the natural existence of male hierarchies in humans. Why out of all creation choose the lobster? Because it fits with Peterson’s preconceived political narrative. Unfortunately, it’s a crazily poor choice, and woefully researched. Peterson asserts that, as with humans, lobsters have nervous systems that “run on serotonin” – a phrase that carries virtually no scientific meaning – and that as a result “it’s inevitable that there will be continuity in the way that animals and human beings organise their structures”. Lobsters do have serotonin-based reward systems in their nervous systems that in some way correlate with social hierarchies: higher levels of serotonin relate to increased aggression in males, which is part of establishing mate choice when, as Peterson says, “the most desirable females line up and vie for your attention”.
Sexual selection is one of the driving forces of natural selection in most animals. In general, males compete with each other, and females subsequently have choice over which males they mate with. While this is one of the most studied areas of evolutionary biology, it’s incredibly hard to establish that rules that apply to lobsters (or does and stags, or peacocks and peahens) also apply to humans. There are physical and behavioural differences between men and women in relation to sex, but our cultural evolution has loosened the shackles of natural selection to the extent that we cannot satisfactorily match our behaviour with other beasts, and claims that we can are often poor science.
Peterson believes that the system that is used by lobsters is why social hierarchies exist in humans. The problem with the assertion is this: serotonin is indeed a major part of the neural transmitter network in humans, but the effect of serotonin in relation to aggression is the opposite. Lower levels increase aggression, because it restricts communication between the frontal cortex and amygdala. Lobsters don’t have an amygdala or frontal lobes. Or brains for that matter. Most serotonin in humans is produced to aid digestion. And lobsters also urinate out of their faces. Trying to establish evolutionary precedents that justify or explain away our own behaviour is scientific folly.
If you wanted to make a different but equally specious political argument with a waft of science about how to arrange our society, you could compare us to killer whales. They live in a matriarchal social group, in some cases led by post-menopausal females. Or hyenas, the animal with the greatest jaw strength of any, which are also matriarchal, and engage in clitoral licking, to bond socially and to establish hierarchy. Or the insect order hymenoptera, which includes ants, bees and wasps, and are roughly the same evolutionary distance from us as lobsters. Their social hierarchy involves a single queen and males, whose role is twofold: protecting the colony, and providing sperm on demand – they are literally sex slaves. Or the freshwater small invertebrates called bdelloid rotifers: millions of years ago they abandoned males altogether, and seem to be doing just fine.
Yes, hierarchies assuredly exist in animals as competition is an inherent part of nature, and our sexual biology has common roots with all life on Earth. But we should not presume that understanding the biology of other animals will necessarily illuminate our own, as Peterson does. It’s a strange irony that someone who claims to bow to evolution should simultaneously fail to grasp its concepts. In some ways it’s a less cogent argument to an evolutionary biologist than that of creationists, who simply deny that evolution has happened. Then again, it was Darwin who said that “ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge”. Nowadays, you can buy “lobster dominance” T-shirts.
Kos deg!
/Du fikk den vel ikke med deg første gang…
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/sep/21/human-instinct-why-we-are-unique
Kanskje Ben skulle le av flere!
