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From: jason@harlequin.co.uk (Jason Trenouth)
Subject: Darwinian selection for intelligence (was Re: Computers--Next stage in evolution?)
In-Reply-To: jhopson@reed.edu's message of 3 May 1995 01:54:18 GMT
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Date: Wed, 3 May 1995 12:47:36 GMT
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In article <3o6noa$9k3@remus.reed.edu> jhopson@reed.edu (John Hopson) writes:

John>   Hmmm.  Anybody have any ideas for introducing evolutionary pressures?
John> (Predators, etc.) :)

How about organised warfare? (only 10% :-J)

		WAR LEADS TO INTELLIGENCE?		

It satisfies some simple-minded criteria for creating evolutionary
pressure:

	intellectual competition between organisms within same gene
	pool (to avoid fighting in a war)
	
	if organisms fail to avoid fighting then they increase the
	risk of dying

	the organisms that fight in a war are generally younger and
	fitter, and they usually have not reproduced

	Humans been doing it for a very long time

I guess that there are a variety of ways to avoid fighting directly in
a war. Here are some that I thought of:

	convince other organisms to go instead (oratory, psychology)
	demonstrate rare skill (non-physical?) 
	demonstrate generalship skills (oratory, logistics, psychology)
	convince opposing organisms not to fight (oratory, psychology)
	make other organisms think it is not worth fighting (oratory, logistics, psychology)
	...

So planning, communication, and psychological modelling skills are
perhaps under evolutionary pressure. The enforced modelling of the
mental state of another organism (including its model of the other
organism etc) sounds like the right kind of positive feedback.

Probably there are some physical and mental skills being selected for
within the war itself, but I conjecture that they are less
significant: direct involvement in a war is a risky business.

There is an alledged "fact" that Humans are the only species on the
planet that practices large scale warfare against itself. Is this
really true? If so it would seem to correlate with the other alledged
"fact" that Humans are the only intelligent species on the planet.
What are animals are even vaguely warlike towards their own species?
Ant colonies?

What roles would gender play if all this were true? Generally young
men do the direct fighting, but their early education would be from
their mothers, so probably both genders have to get smarter (about
avoiding war) together. However, in the distant past women have been
part of the booty of war (for the winning soldiers, ie less
intelligent organisms). How might that have affected things? Did the
evolution of intelligence accelerate when this stopped happening? Why
did it stop?

Would large-scale very-long-term persecution have similar Darwinian
effects on intelligence. E.g. If Jewish people are smarter on average,
are they smarter because of pogroms/holocausts?

If organised warfare has been a Darwinian selector for Humans how did
warfare itself get started? Environmental change? Why does it
continue? Are the genes for intelligence also ensuring that Humans
continue to be warlike so as to stifle competition from less
intelligent genes?

If other intelligence organisms ("aliens") exist in the Universe, will
they necessarily also be very warlike?!!!

Has any of this been said before?

__Jason

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