Eyes, Bunnies, Neanderthal Extinction

Every week scientists seem to change their mind regarding the cause of the extinction of neanderthals. This week it was their big dreamy eyes, the other day it was rabbits, a while back it was their rubbish childhoods.

In truth, I'm sure most researchers aren't radically changing their minds so much so often, but adding nuances to complex theories. The problem is almost certainly down to hyperbolic science journalism. 

Silent killer.

 From what I understand, there are still a few key competing theories regarding neanderthal extinction: interbreeding, disease, genocide or some general competitive advantage possessed by humans. It's this last factor that causes trouble. As soon as we begin to speculate about the details of a plausible but vague competitive advantage, we open the doors to any hypothesis that sounds feasible. Superior communication? Diverse tools? More effective hunting strategies? Surely any and all of these are possible, but how would we come to any sort of sensible and testable comparison?

Giant eyes, killer bunnies; these guys had a hard time.

This a problem that frequents evolutionary psychology. In evolutionary psychology we look for evolutionary reasons for often highly specific and complex psychological traits and behaviour. But in doing so we run the danger of hysterical hypothesising- rapidly drawing conclusions that are frequently unverifiable. That's not to say there isn't an evolutionary explanation for those traits, but rather that our conclusions need to be moderate and uncertain. Likewise, I don't doubt the possibility of human competitive advantages over neanderthals- as a lay person who am I to dispute this? I also don't doubt the possibility and utility of comparing the plausibility of different adaptations as an explanation for human survival to some extent. However, I find the range of such assured headlines suspicious. I'm sure most scientists in the field take a nuanced approach that avoids such certainty.

Animal Experiments and Laboratory Conditions: Some Initial Thoughts

I stumbled upon this paragraph on the website for the Medical Research Modernization Committee,

“the highly unnatural laboratory environment invariably stresses the animals, and stress affects the entire organism by altering pulse, blood pressure, hormone levels, immunological activities and a myriad of other functions. Indeed, many laboratory "discoveries" reflect mere laboratory artefact”

The article goes on to list and reference several examples where they believe artificial laboratory conditions aided in misleading researchers. For example, they take it that “unnaturally induced strokes in animals has repeatedly misled researchers”. I am in no position to evaluate such medical cases, and the authors of the article insufficiently explicate their examples for a lay person to draw reasonable conclusions. I hope at some point in the future to be able to comment more on this topic. However, their general point is one I have often considered albeit within the arena of animal behaviour and cognition.

An intense mouse.
 Can an artificial environment affect the physiology of an animal in such a way that it bears on medical and other research?  

The rough idea is that the artificial laboratory conditions may affect the results of experiments in important ways.

Scientists researching social cognition in chimpanzees, say, need to be aware that a laboratory environment may affect the animal’s normal psychology. For example, long time interaction with humans may make an animal more susceptible to certain human oriented behaviour, another factor which might affect generalisation from results. Experiments involving tasks in which chimps must assist humans need to take into account whether the subjects have prior history with experimenters. And indeed this is discussed and taken into account in many good experiments.

There is nothing necessarily wrong with experiments into social cognition in chimps within a laboratory setting. It would be foolish of us to disregard all laboratory based research. In most cases it is the only possible environment.

In one of my favourite studies, designed explicitly to compare human infants and young chimpanzee altruistic tendencies, human and infant chimps were tested on similar tasks (Warneken and Tomasello, 2006: 1). A human experimenter confronted a problem and needed assistance (e.g. reaching for an out-of-reach-marker, bumping into object that needs removal), with no reward given for help. Whilst the human infant intervened in more tasks than the chimp, the latter did reliably assist in the tasks involving reaching (incidentally also the task in which the children most reliably helped). These results, I believe, provide good support for a natural capacity, in both human and chimps, for non-selfish helping behaviour and tendencies beyond near kin, . It is hard to fault this study for taking place in laboratory settings.

In addition to possessing theory of mind, this guy can actually possess your mind.

Nevertheless the setting and history of all subjects must be taken into account as a potentially relevant variable. In short we need be aware of the possibility that a laboratory setting might affect the psychology and thus behaviour of animal subjects.

Warneken F, Hare B, Melis AP, Hanus D, Tomasello M (2007) Spontaneous Altruism by Chimpanzees and Young Children. PLoS Biol 5(7): e184. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.0050184

Memes vs Genes

(by Joe)

The term "meme" was introduced by Richard Dawkins in The Selfish Gene (1976: 191-201), to refer to a proposed unit of cultural information analogous to the standard unit of genetic information: the gene. He suggested that evolutionary analysis of memes could cast light on cultural oddities that evolutionary genetics sometimes struggle to explain, such as religion. His original introduction of memes was a somewhat off-hand way of illustrating that evolution by natural selection need not only apply to DNA and biology, but almost by accident he invented an entirely new field. Memetics now refers to the study of evolutionary models of cultural information transfer, although whether or not this is something worthy of study is somewhat controversial. A Journal of Memetics was published online from 1997 to 2004 (and is still available), but probably the most famous account of memetics is Susan Blackmore's The Meme Machine (1999).

Everything looked a bit like this in the 90s.

The basic idea behind memetics is extremely simple. Just as we can understand biological evolution in terms of competition between genes, we can understand cultural evolution as competition between memes. A gene will survive not because it is necessarily useful to its host, but because it is useful to itself, driving the kind of adaptation that allows it to be passed on. So the genes of a (non-fertile) worker ant that sacrifices itself for the hive will be passed on through that ant's close genetic relatives.  A meme will survive not because it is necessarily useful to its host, but because it is useful to itself, perhaps by being memorable or easily passed on. An annoying song that you can't get out of your head might not derive any pleasure for you, the host, but it will survive. Analysing behaviour in terms of the benefit for the cultural meme allows us to provide explanations that might not be available at either the genetic or organism level.

Memetics has been criticised for failing to identify a discrete unit of transmission (a meme might be anything from a few notes to a whole philosophical theory), but as Blackmore points out the same can, in a sense, be said about genetics (1999: 53-6). The study of memes more generally is accused of being too vague, even pseudoscientific, and I agree that there is a genuine risk of failing to make any meaningful claims. However I think what matters is whether memetics is able to provide a useful account of phenomena where other fields have failed - and this will only become clear with time. Daniel Dennett's account of consciousness and the self includes a memetic element (1991: 199-226) and Blackmore hopes that memetics might cast light on everything from altruism (1999: 147-74) to the development of agriculture (ibid: 26-7). Whether or not memes actually exists (whatever "existing" means) is not really important - memetics as a discipline can still be provide a useful heuristic, reminding us that cultural practices might propagate themselves simply because that's what they do, not because they are in any way useful to us.


Blackmore, S. 1999. The Meme Machine. Oxford: OUP.

Dawkins, R. 1976 (2006). The Selfish Gene: 30th Anniversary Edition. Oxford: OUP

Dennett, D. 1991. Consciousness Explained. Little, Brown and Company.