Book Review: Race, Evolution, and Behavior: A Life History Perspective by J. Philippe Rushton
Rushton has a plausible theory that some human populations are more k-selected than others. He presents lots of marginal-quality evidence, but that’s no substitute for what he should be able to show if his theory is true.
Much of the book is devoted to evidence about IQs and brain sizes, but he fails to provide much of an argument for his belief that k-selected humans ought to have higher intelligence. It’s easy to imagine that it might work that way. But I can come up with an alternative based on the sexual selection theory in Geoffrey Miller’s book The Mating Mind that seems about as plausible: r-selected humans have more of their reproductive fitness determined by success at competition for mates (as opposed to k-selected humans for whom child support has a higher contribution to reproductive fitness). Since The Mating Mind presents a strong argument that human intelligence evolved largely due to such competition for mates, it is easy to imagine that r-selected humans had stronger selection for the kind of social intelligence needed to compete for mates. Note that this theory suggests the intelligence of k-selected humans might be easier to measure via standardized tests than that of r-selected humans.
Rushton’s analysis of the genetic aspects of IQ makes the usual mistake of failing to do much to control for the effects of motivation on IQ scores (see pages 249-251 of Judith Rich Harris’s book The Nurture Assumption for evidence that this matters for Rushton’s goals).
He also devotes a good deal of space to evidence such as crime rates where it’s very hard to distinguish genetic from cultural differences, and there’s no reason to think he has succeeded in controlling for culture here.
Rushton mentions a number of other traits that are more directly connected to degree of k-selection and less likely to be culturally biased. It’s disappointing that he provides little evidence of the quality of the data he uses. The twinning data seem most interesting to me, as the high twin rates of the supposedly r-selected population follow quite clearly from his theory, it’s hard to come up with alternative theories that would explain such twinning rates, and the numbers he gives look surprisingly different from random noise. But Rushton says so little about these data that I can’t have much confidence that they come from representative samples of people. (He failed to detect problems with the widely used UN data on African AIDS rates, which have recently been shown to have been strongly biased by poor sampling methods, so it’s easy to imagine that he uses equally flawed data for more obscure differences). (Aside – the book’s index is poor enough that page 214, which is where he lists most of his references for the twinning data, is not listed under the entry for twins/twinning).
Rushton occasionally produces some interesting but irrelevant tidbits, such as that Darwin “affirmed human unity” by ending the debate over whether all humanity had a common origin, or that there’s evidence that “introverts are more punctual, absent less often, and stay longer at a job”.
Edward M. Miller has a theory that is similar to but slightly more convincing than Rushton’s in a paper titled Paternal Provisioning versus Mate Seeking in Human Populations.
Book Reviews
Book Reviews: Sex Changes: The Politics of Transgenderism (Paperback)
by Pat Califia
and Public Sex: The Culture of Radical Sex by Pat Califia
Sex Changes provides a good history of nonstandard genders. It describes a rather dramatic change in how typical transsexuals see themselves, from a time when sex change operations were considered attempted cures for a somewhat embarrassing disease and strongly desired to fit in to a standard gender stereotype to a time when many celebrate their diversity and see their gender (both before and after any hormones or surgery they may get) as something different from male or female.
I was a bit surprised by some things the book reports, such as that cross-dressing was illegal in parts of the U.S. as recently as the 1980s, or that some people approach sex reassignment with the same mindset as they do when getting tattoos.
The book has fairly good discussions of the problems with access to surgery and hormones that are created by disagreements over whether they are cures for a disease or something closer to cosmetic surgery. It is disturbing how much incentive there is to lie to doctors (and maybe insurers) in order to fit a somewhat arbitrary stereotype of someone with more mental problems than the average transsexual experiences.
I’m disappointed that the book does little to analyze the politics of how gender-segregated restrooms deal with people who don’t consider themselves male or female. It seems likely that this will generate political controversy soon, but few people seem prepared for it.
The book mostly deals with U.S. culture, but one chapter deals unusually-gendered roles in other cultures, mainly Berdaches in Native American cultures, and arguments about whether they should be thought of as transgender roles.
I have a few objections to what the book says:
The roots of prejudice against homosexuals and the hatred and fear of transsexuals are so closely woven together that it is not really all that difficult to educate people simultaneously about both communities.
This seems only half right. There are ways to argue for queer rights that apply to both groups, but I don’t see how they address many of the fears of bigots. Prejudice against gays has little to do with the fears that restrooms will be unsafe for some women if there is no clear boundary between male and female, or the fear that someone will put a lot of time and prestige at risk courting a potential mate only to discover that it won’t be possible to produce children via such a mating. Fear of transsexuals has little to do with the fear that gay men will spread sexually transmitted diseases.
There are many things that could have been done better to advance respect for transsexuals without hindering homosexuals. We could have used the word queer a good deal more often, and we could have tried harder to insure that queer was used in an inclusive way. (The obstacles to that weren’t just conservative tendencies among some homosexuals, but also intolerance among radicals who want to show off their ideological purity by distancing themselves from non-radicals who could be called queer).
Another way would be for gay rights advocates to focus more on disagreements about whether the primary purpose of sex and romance is reproduction. Many leading gay marriage opponents are trying to maintain or recreate a culture in which sex is more strongly connected to reproduction than I think the swing voter is comfortable with. Yet too many gay rights activists prefer to stereotype opponents as simply ignorant rather than having controversial but coherent goals.
These two approaches could have helped transsexuals somewhat without any cost to gays, but much of the reason gays have been accepted faster than transsexuals is that there have been more gays around to demand respect from their friends and neighbors, and no change in queer activist strategies would have much effect on that difference.
despite the fact that SRS has been performed for three decades, most insurance companies and HMOs classify it as an experimental procedure, and will not cover it. This should be compared to the response to organ transplants
Yet there’s much clearer evidence that organ transplants usually accomplish their goals well than there is that sexual reassignment surgery does. Insurers treatment of SRS doesn’t seem significantly more arbitrary than their decision to not cover experimental treatments in general. The main problem is the inadequate innovation in the surgical practices.
Public Sex is a fairly good survey of unconventional sexual practices. Much of it simply reports that people (often the author) are proud to engage in this and that practice. The book occasionally makes arguments that attempt to convince people to approve of those practices, but mostly it will fail to change many minds. People who are unashamed of sex will mostly already agree with the ideas in the book, and prudes will be unwilling to consider them.
The rants against puritanical feminists might convince a few gays that some feminists are their enemies, but mostly they will just reinforce existing beliefs.
Many of the essays were written in the 1980s, and the sometimes tedious descriptions of legal and political details of that time are of little value except to historians.
Some of the older essays include an occasional annoyingly overbroad quasi-marxist class struggle rant, but the more recent essays indicate the author has become more sensible over time.
The rants against puritanical feminists might convince a few gays that some feminists are their enemies, but mostly they will just reinforce existing beliefs.
Many of the essays were written in the 1980s, and the sometimes tedious descriptions of legal and political details of that time are of little value except to historians.
Some of the older essays include an occasional annoyingly overbroad quasi-marxist class struggle rant, but the more recent essays indicate the author has become more sensible over time.
Book Review: When Genius Failed : The Rise and Fall of Long-Term Capital Management by Roger Lowenstein
This is a very readable and mostly convincing account of the rise and fall of Long-Term Capital Management. It makes it clear to me how the fairly common problem of success breeding overconfidence led LTCM to make unreasonable gambles, and why other financial institutions that risked their money by dealing with LTCM failed to require it to exercise a normal degree of caution.
The book occasionally engages in some minor exaggerations that suggest the author is a journalist rather than an expert in finance, but mostly the book appears a good deal more accurate and informed than I expect from a reporter. It is written so that both experts and laymen will enjoy it.
One passage stands out as unusually remarkable. “The traders hadn’t seen a move like that – ever. True, it had happened in 1987 and again in 1992. But Long-Term’s models didn’t go back that far.” This is really peculiar mistake. The people involved appeared to have enough experience to realize the need to backtest their models better than that. I’m disappointed that the book fails to analyze how this misjudgment was possible.
Also, the author spends a bit too much analysis on LTCM’s overconfidence in their models, when his reporting suggests that a good deal of the problem was due to trading that wasn’t supported by any model.
Book Review: The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason by Sam Harris
This book is an eloquent but not entirely convincing diatribe against tolerating religious faith.
He correctly points out that Christian and Muslim beliefs, when taken to their logical conclusion, are both dangerous and illogical in ways that would provoke appropriate contempt in almost any other context. He concludes that it is unwise to leave the irrationalities of moderate religious people unchallenged.
But he fails to convince me because his argument depends on the assumption that religious moderates have enough desire for logical consistency about their religious beliefs to make their illogic dangerous. I suspect that dividing the moderates from the religious extremists is a more productive strategy than Harris expects, because moderates are more willing to be inconsistent about their religious beliefs than Harris realizes.
Harris claims that suicide terrorists are strong evidence of the dangers of religious faith. But he seems unfamiliar with the strong arguments by Robert Pape that similar terrorism comes from secular groups (e.g. the Marxist Tamils), and that the common denominator for such terrorists is a dispute over territory.
His view of the average citizen of Iran as a brainwashed hostage is potentially quite dangerous.
The author occasionally sounds like he has beliefs that are based on faith rather than reason. For instance, he says “you will definitely die at some moment in the future” and then repeats that that “is not open to any doubt at all”, but provides no hint of a scientific argument that would justify this unusual degree of certainty.
The books contains a number of interesting tidbits, such as the theory that the Koran’s alleged promise of many virgins in the afterlife really meant a promise of white raisins. But he also spends too much verbiage on some rather unoriginal diatribes against a rather arbitrary collection of Republican policies.
Book Review: The Ethical Slut: A Guide to Infinite Sexual Possibilities by Dossie Easton and Catherine Liszt
This eloquent book is mostly fun to read. It provides a good alternative to the standard view of sluts: “A slut shares his sexuality the way a philanthropist shares her money”.
But much of the book seems designed mainly to reassure sluts that they aren’t alone and shouldn’t be ashamed of themselves. I didn’t get much out of those parts.
They say a number of things that don’t seem quite right, such as defining consent to refer only to “active collaboration”, or suggesting that people schedule fights (a rather strange way of describing how to ensure communication).
Their claims about how desirable polyamory is seem exaggerated. One of their more appropriate analogies is “having a second child doesn’t usually mean that a parent loves the first child less”. The people who think parents have an unlimited supply of love but love between spouses is a zero-sum game appear to be hypocrites, but I suspect the first child doesn’t fare as well as the optimistic view suggests.
I think a more instructive analogy would be supply side economics. The zero-sum thinking that leads some people to think that tax cuts/polyamory simply shift a fixed amount of wealth/love assume an unrealistically static human nature that overlooks the ability of people to be more creative when constraints on income/love are weakened, and that can easily make the average person better off. But there will be plenty of shifting of income/love that makes it hard to predict which individuals will be better off.
Lest my comments be interpreted as being overly critical of polyamory, I should mention that this book was recommended to me by a very polyamorous boyfriend (who has by his example taught me more than a book like this could), not to help with our relationship, but to help me look for an additional boyfriend. Our relationship is sufficiently atypical that I’m still wondering how well a typical polyamorous relationship works.
People interested in this subject might also get something out of Polyamory: The New Love Without Limits : Secrets of Sustainable Intimate Relationships by Deborah M. Anapol, which is written more carefully but in a less entertaining style.
Book Review: Fantastic Voyage : Live Long Enough to Live Forever by Ray Kurzweil, Terry Grossman
This book provides a lot of interesting ideas for improving your health, but it is a bit too ambitious and I’m often left wondering whether they researched a particular idea well even that I should respect their opinion. They often seem to be more interested in showing off how many different topics they know something about than they are on focusing on the most important steps that a typical reader should be taking.
They are somewhat biased toward technological solutions, but occasionally surprise me with other approaches, such as pointing out some clear evidence that some kinds of meditation improve longevity.
I’m fairly suspicious of their advice about aluminum. It’s unclear why we should consider aluminum dangerous enough to be worth worrying about, but if it is then choosing the right baking powder and antacids are at least as important as the aluminum sources the book mentions (minor gripe: the index doesn’t have entries for aluminum or metals). Parts of the book leaves me wondering whether a close examination would reveal similar questionable aspects to their advice.
Book Review: Adapting Minds : Evolutionary Psychology and the Persistent Quest for Human Nature by David J. Buller
This book makes a strong case that there are problems with claims put forth by leading Evolutionary Psychologists, but the problems are somewhat less important than the book tries to imply.
This is the most serious and careful attack on Evolutionary Psychologists so far. But it is often hard to tell to what extent the theoretical claims he attacks are reflect bad theories or whether some of them are just careless misstatements by people who are too focused on attacking the tabula rasa worldview to worry about criticisms from other viewpoints. For instance, it’s hard to believe that the Evolutionary Psychologists mean the word “universal” in the phrase universal human nature as literally as Buller takes it.
He presents strong arguments that Evolutionary Psychologists have overstated the extent to which dna encodes specialized mental modules, and presents detailed arguments that their empirical results have been sloppy and at least slightly biased against the idea of a general-purpose mind. But if Evolutionary Psychologists are willing to modify their theory to refer to somewhat less specialized modules whose features are influenced by dna in less direct and more subtle ways, then the features of their theories that they seem to consider most important will survive.
His analogy with the immune system illustrates how a system that looks at first glance like it requires some fairly detailed genetic blueprints can actually be caused by a general purpose system that learns most of its specializations by reacting to the environment.
This is not in any way an attack on the idea of using evolutionary theory to understand the mind. In fact, he even points out that Evolutionary Psychologists have been overly interested in questions asked by creationists rather than those that evolutionary theory suggests are important.
Ironically for a philosophy professor, his weakest arguments are the most philosophical ones. He correctly points out the problems with using an essentialist notion of species that is based on universal phenotypic characteristics, but then proposes a definition of species based on continuity and spatiotemporal localization that seems as essentialist and as far from what people actually mean by the word as the definition he criticizes. If I understand his definition correctly, it implies that recreating a Dodo from dna would produce a new species. He should study the philosophy of concepts a bit more (e.g. Lakoff or the neural net literature) and decide that the concept of species doesn’t need either type of essence, but can instead be a more probabilistic combination of several kinds of attributes.
Book Review: The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century by Thomas L. Friedman
It’s subtitle is almost accurate, but it would be more accurate to say it’s a verbose history of a brief part of the 21st century.
I didn’t learn very much from this book, but people who haven’t been paying much attention to the news might. I normally expect reporters to be much more superficial than authors with more substantive specialties who write about what they know, and this book only weakens that expectation a tiny bit.
He does an eloquent job of disputing the notion that offshoring means sweatshops by reporting evidence that Asian workers are doing well enough that Americans should be worried more about being outcompeted on skill and motivation than on low wages. “[Bill] Gates is recognized everywhere he goes in China. Young people there hang from the rafters and scalp tickets just to hear him speak.”
He’s less eloquent at describing how offshoring affects the U.S. For a good, concise analysis, I recommend The Armchair Economist‘s chapter on the Iowa car crop (how farmers grow cars by sending food to Japan).
He doesn’t do much to anticipate new effects of globalization. For instance, his advice on what jobs won’t be outsourced suggests specialized lawyers, brain surgeons, robot operators, nurses, etc. Many of those only require modest advances in communications infrastructure to be offshorable, the rest would require some improvements in robotics to be offshorable. And he ignores the possibility that most offshorable jobs will be replaced by more intelligent software in a decade or two.
His descriptions of the large companies that are playing interesting roles in flattening the world tends toward acting as their PR agents. For example, he reports that Google has had an equalizing effect (e.g. Colin Powell used to rely on aides to do better research than I could afford, now he uses Google routinely for research that typical users can do just as easily), but neglects to notice the risks of having so much of the world’s access to information go through one company in one political jurisdiction.
He says “If President Bush made energy independence his moon shot, in one fell swoop he would dry up revenue for terrorism”. It’s somewhat unlikely that jihadists would otherwise get much money from oil. It’s wildly implausible that the U.S. government is as good at affordable mass production as it was at solving a prestigious problem by throwing money at it. And the amount of money that investors have poured into photovoltaics companies in the past few months leaves me wondering why we should think there are opportunities that will be overlooked if the government fails to throw money at energy problems.
But he makes up for that with occasional gems such as this quote from Bill Gates: “Someone estimated that the cost of saving a life in the U.S. is $5 or $6 million – that is how much our society is willing to spend. You can save a life outside the U.S. for less than $100.” I suspect that $100 is a bit misleading because it ignores the time needed to inform yourself about whether the money is going to be spend productively, but the double standard is quite real.
Book Review: The Armchair Economist: Economics And Everyday Experience by Steven Landsburg
This short and eloquent book does a mostly excellent job of explaining to non-economists how economic reasoning works in a wide variety of mostly non-financial areas. But it’s frustrating how he can get so much right but still demonstrate many annoying oversimplifications that economists’ biases make them prone to.
For example, on page 145 he claims that a trash collection company could cheaply prohibit Styrofoam peanuts in the trash by checking everyone’s trash once a year and fining violators $100,000. But anyone who thinks about the economics of such fines will be able to imagine massive costs from people disputing who is responsible for peanuts in the trash. Maybe there are cultures in which such fines would ensure negligible violations, but there are probably as many cultures in which disputes over people putting peanuts in someone else’s trash cans would produce more waste than the peanuts do.
His suggestion of applying antitrust laws to politicians is almost right, but ignores the public choice problems of ensuring that laws marketed as antitrust laws do anything to prevent monopoly. The details of antitrust laws are complex and boring enough that few people other than special interests pay attention to them, so special interests are able to twist the details to turn the laws into forces that protect monopolies.
On page 183 he says “Flood the economy with money and the nominal interest rate goes up in lockstep with inflation”. Given a sufficiently long-term perspective, this is an arguably decent approximation. But he’s disputing the common sense of a typical reporter who is more interested in a short-term perspective under which those changes clearly do not happen in lockstep (on page 216 he provides hints at a theory of why there’s a delayed reaction).
He makes some good points about the similarities between environmentalism and religion, but it seems these points blind him to non-religious motives behind environmentalism. He says on page 227 about relocating polluting industries: “To most economists, this is a self-evident opportunity to make not just Americans but everybody better off.” Maybe if he included a payoff to the U.S. workers whose jobs went overseas, this conclusion would be plausible. But it’s hard enough to figure out how such a payoff should be determined that I suspect he simply ignored that problem.
Book Review: An Underground Education : The Unauthorized and Outrageous Supplement to Everything You Thought You Knew About Art, Sex, Business, Crime, Science, Medicine, and Other Fields of Human Knowledge by Richard Zacks
This book is an irreverent collection of interesting but mostly unimportant historical anecdotes.
A sampling of stories that I enjoyed:
The fork (at least as used for eating) was initially condemned as “the devil’s pitchfork” by priests who thought people ought to eat with their hands.
Witchcraft prosecutions were motivated at least in part by the desire of churches and civil authorities to get the property of the accused, until a legal change in 1630 prevented them from getting such property. Similar motivations for the inquisition, where property could be confiscated decades after the death of an alleged heretic how had owned it.
He describes mail order porn in 1863.
He has a photo of George Washington’s dentures, made from human teeth (presumably taken from dead soldiers).
The medieval church forbade doctors from dissecting human corpses to learn about anatomy and forbade surgery. Some of the other medical anecdotes suggest that there have been many times when patients would have been better off if the prohibition on surgery had lasted longer.
Don’t expect too much wisdom from these stories. One isolated place where he attempts a non-shallow analysis is when he asks “How did child labor start in America, and why was it widely tolerated”? Unfortunately, his attempts to analyze this merely consist of finding reports of child labor earlier than he thinks his readers expect. It doesn’t occur to him to ask whether people could even afford to do without child labor before the industrial revolution.