Roger’s Rules

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July 1st, 2008 6:51 am

Stumbling over stubble, or misusing Darwin, number 456

“Women,” says a story in the London Telegraph , “prefer men with stubble for love, sex and marriage.”

Except, of course, for those who don’t.

But let’s leave aside this “finding” that catapults folks like Geroge Cloony and (let’s not forget) Yassir Arafat to the head of the line marked “romance.” Let’s grant, for the moment, that this is true. What explains it? Here’s what the story says:

The explanation for the preference is not clear, but experts in human evolution say that that facial hair may be a signal of aggression because it boosts the apparent size of the lower jaw, emphasising the teeth as weapons.

Have you ever heard anything as silly? Well, if you trundle through the literature penned by “experts in human evolution” you undoubtedly have. It’s full of things that make the contention that gals prefer chaps like Yassir because he has menacing looking canines look positively tame.

Consider this, from eminent sociobiologist E. O. Wilson, a great man with the ants, but a theorist who also asserted that “an organism is only DNA’s way of making more DNA.”

Now, just sit back and think about that. Think, for example, of your favorite organism–your spouse, for example: is he or she only DNA’s way of making more DNA? Is E. O. Wilson himself only a mechanism for the production of deoxyribonucleic acid?

Or how about Richard “Mr. Selfish-Gene” Dawkins’s claim that “we are . . . robot-vehicle blindly programmed to preserves the selfish molecules known as genes.” We’ve heard something similar, of course, from astrologers, who think people are “robot-vehicles” programmed by the stars, Freudians, who think peoples are “robot-vehicles” directed by the Id, and Marxists who think people are “robot vehicles” programmed by economic forces.

Or how about the claim made by the British evolutionary biologist W. D. Hamilton who said that “we expect to find that no one is prepared to sacrifice his life for any single person, but that everyone will sacrifice it for more than two brothers [or offspring], or four half brothers, or eight first-cousins.” Really? Want to make a bet about that?

What if Hamilton turns out to be wrong? I mean, what if you have a chap who does not sacrifice his life for two brothers, or four half-brothers, or eight first-cousins? What if you have a 100, or a 1000 such chaps? Would it make him or his followers change their theory? Dream on! As Wittgenstein said in another context, a “picture holds them captive” and the automatic response to contrary evidence is to blame the evidence. William Miller, a 19th-century Baptist preacher, predicted that Christ would return to earth on October 22, 1844. When he failed to make the appointment, many of Miller’s followers left, but a hardy band of true believers honed their hermeneutical skills and kept the faith.

No, such details as the 1000 chaps who don’t sacrifice themselves for their eight first-cousins are said to be “difficulties,” or “anomalies,” or perhaps even “problems” for the theory. But one recalls David Hume’s remark about the absurdity of “calling a difficulty what pretends to be a demonstration and endeavouring by that means to elude its force and evidence.” Where’s Hume when we need him?

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10 Comments

1. LSD:

The scientist says; If you believe, you can make it so!

The printed and published word is so neatly packaged and insulated by, not only, the cover and binding, but also the walnut-panelled offices that sell it and the halls of education that endorse it. Private rejection fails to satisfy.

These quotes remind me of how much Steven J. Gould is missed.

Jul 1, 2008 - 11:05 am 2. William Briggs:

The chin gets bigger in appearance, eh? And some people claim that evolutionary biologists make up “just so” stories!

Actually, what the stubble really does is to darken the face so that incidental light does not glint off the chin so easily. This made it easier for our early ancestors to attack others and prey in the dark in the moonlight. There were no lights back then, remember, so they could only hunt at night near a full moon. The proof is self evident. We all know how women go for us night hunters (my stubble is especially manly and I have to beat them off with a stick).

This is as good a point as any to tout David Stove’s book “Darwinian Fairytales”, a work which Mr Kimball has written about many times before. Absolutely essential reading.

Jul 1, 2008 - 2:41 pm 3. vb:

Sorry I couldn’t follow most of this post. Finding Arafat and romance in the same sentence was too much for my poor brain to process.

Jul 1, 2008 - 2:56 pm 4. ricpic:

People need an explanation. That’s why the loss of religious belief is such a catastrophe. With God out the window anything and everything will suffice as a substitute explanation/idol. With all the error and inevitable misery that follows from turning to an idol.

Jul 1, 2008 - 3:57 pm 5. Apple Blossom:

As everyone knows, men grow beards (largely) to stave off the embarrassment of losing their hair (on the head), thereby keeping the illusion of youth and potency.

An interesting twist to this occurs with men who HAVE hair, but shave it off regularly as a sign that they are somehow aligned with neo-punk culture and so on.

This falls right into the hands of men who are BEGINNING to lose their hair. They shave it ALL so as to give the (false) impression that they really do have a full head of hair…so much in fact, that they practically HAVE to shave it off.

The avant garde French “philosopher”, Michael Foucault, is an interesting sub-species of this no-hair phenomenon. He actually had no hair PLUS he didn’t sport a beard. But his sexual potency was never in question, so that explains his appearance.

Men don’t ordinarily shave their legs. Not that it matters to men after the age of 55 or so, because at about that time, the hair falls off naturally from their legs leaving an unattractive shining skin like the underside of an eel or something.

The full story of men and hair has never been told in full. It would make an interesting study.

Jul 1, 2008 - 7:22 pm 6. Alex Reed:

Yassir Arafat catapulted, “to the head of the line marked ‘romance’”???????

That’s just warped! And before my second cup of tea! It’s enough to curdle the lemon.

Jul 3, 2008 - 6:40 am 7. Gagdad Bob:

Yasser Arafat taught us all how to age grossfully.

Jul 3, 2008 - 4:48 pm 8. USS Ben:

Perhaps we should have a study about useless and stupid studies and why people waste their time trying to explain the obvious with pseudo-science, or something that science itself cannot possibly explain, being material based.

Most atheists and more than a few scientists don’t like the fact that there are truth’s they can’t ever deconstruct nor realize beyond their own fundamentalist preconceptions based on Darwinian reductionism.
When they try they just look silly and ridiculous.

They can’t grasp the truth that even science, properly utilized, has limitations in regards to Beauty and Goodness, to name a few of many. Self-evident truth’s are lost on them, because they believe their own manufactured “evidence” cannot be surpassed.

Jul 3, 2008 - 8:42 pm 9. Roy M:

Things don’t have to have a practical benefit to to be driven by natural selection when females, rather then brutal events, are doing the selecting. Quite the reverse in fact.

I am a scientist. I thought Richard Dawkins description of the selfish gene was superb (but I wish he would shut up about religion), the description of an organism as a means of making more copies of DNA is pretty useful for some things. But Roger has a good point about our favorite organisms. But why pick on evolutionary biologists in particular.

When making love, don’t be an evolutionary biologist. Sure. But also don’t be or a marxist historian, or a fund manager, or a conservative columnist. Just be a man.

Jul 6, 2008 - 8:02 am 10. Jim:

And all this time I thought that stuff on Arafish’s chin was scales. Humm guess I’ll have to look at some of the old photos. He is still dead is he not?

Jul 28, 2008 - 9:01 am