The Egalitarian Revolution

Posted on October 3, 2008

An interesting article on the evolution of inteligence and it’s impacts on Hierarchy vs. Egalitarianism in early human societies.

… great apes’ societies are very hierarchical with each animal occupying a particular place in the existing dominance hierarchy. A major function of coalitions in apes is to maintain or change the dominance ranking. When an alpha male is well established, he usually can intimidate any hostile coalition or the entire community.

In sharp contrast, most known hunter-gatherer societies are egalitarian. Their weak leaders merely assist a consensus-seeking process when the group needs to make decisions, but otherwise all main political actors behave as equal. Some anthropologists argue that in egalitarian societies the pyramid of power is turned upside down with potential subordinates being able to express dominance over potential alpha-individuals by creating large, group-wide political alliance.

What were the reasons for such a drastic change in the group’s social organization during the origin of our own “uniquely unique” species? Some evolutionary biologists theorize that at some point in the Pleistocene, humans reached a level of ecological dominance that dramatically transformed the natural selection landscape. Instead of traditional “hostile forces of nature”, the competitive interactions among members of the same group became the most dominant evolutionary factor. According to this still controversial view, known as the “social brain” or “Machiavellian intelligence” hypothesis, more intelligent individuals were able to take advantage of other members of their group, achieve higher social status, and leave more offspring who inherited their parent’s genes for larger brain size and intelligence. As a result of this runaway process, the average brain size and intelligence were increasing [sic] across the whole human lineage.

Also increasing were the abilities to keep track of within-group social interactions, to remember friends and their allies and enemies, and to attract and use allies. At some point, physically weaker members of the group started forming successful and stable large coalitions against strong individuals who otherwise would achieve alpha-status and usurp the majority of the crucial resources. Eventually, an egalitarian society was established.

from Eureka Alert

And, for all my poli-sci nerds, here’s the link to the original studfy that the article is about: http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0003293.

As Old as Song

Posted on July 9, 2008

Saw this article and thought it was pretty cool.  check it out.

Ancient hunters painted the sections of their cave dwellings where singing, humming and music sounded best, a new study suggests.

Analyzing the famous, ochre-splashed cave walls of France, the most densely painted areas were also those with the best acoustics, the scientists found. Humming into some bends in the wall even produced sounds mimicking the animals painted there.

…

Because Paleolithic humans had a deep connection with the melodic properties that helped them navigate in a cave, they likely celebrated the unique acoustics by singing in conjunction with their painting sessions.

“Why would the Paleolithic tribes choose preferably resonant locations for painting,” he said, “if it were not for making sounds and singing in some kind of ritual celebrations related with the pictures?”

The phenomenon isn’t limited to the interior of caves, etiher. Studies have been done at some outdoor Paleolithic sites in France and Finland, and the sound-painting connection is also strong, Reznikoff said.

Full article at LiveScience.

Now that’s cool.

Does Race Exist?

Posted on July 1, 2008

My last post prompted a few responses. 2 of those were from ‘national anarchists’ and i marked them as spam because i’ve already made it clear i’m not interested in giving them a voice on my blog. they’ve got their own blogs where they can run on as much as they want. Fact is, while many of the NA’s claim to be anti-racist, the fact that they’re willing to work with white nationalists tells me everything i need to know about just how flimsy their commitment to anti-racism really is. (not nationalists who happen to be white, like say scottish nationalists, but white racists who want to create explicitly and exclusively white “nations” in america, australia, south africa, etc. That’s not an endorsement of scottish nationalists either, I’ve got a completely different set of issues with the SNP, but I’ll save that for another post.) So …. yeah. I’m not down with NA’s and i’m not going to approve their comments or dignify them with further response.

The third response, and the one that prompted this post, was from a right-libertarian who asserts that I am wrong and race does actually exist. He provided a link to an article by Ernst Mayr, a biologist, to support his statement. This is my response to his claim:

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