

Richard Dawkins interviews Steven Pinker - ssp
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yIMReUsxTt4

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hugh3
Having got two brilliant and interesting people like Dawkins and Pinker into
one room at the same time, it's a pity they couldn't rustle up anything other
than a single, handheld camera. I don't think I'm likely to watch the full 68
minutes, it's making me seasick. Oddly the fact that they're both standing up
for the entire video also makes me a bit uncomfortable... why don't you take a
seat, guys?

The other problem is that I really get the idea that Dawkins aren't _really_
having a discussion as such, they're just talking back and forth about things
they both know perfectly well.

I'm starting to appreciate the traditional style of interview, where the
interviewer is ignorant, and thus a better stand-in for the audience.

~~~
dmix
"What you see here is the full extended interview, which includes a lot of
rough camera transitions that were edited out of the final program (along with
a lot of content)."

This still doesn't explain why the camera transitions mid-sentence.

~~~
jasonkeene
Yes these are the raw interviews filmed for the making of "The Genius of
Charles Darwin" by the BBC. Not really just a hand-held camera, more the style
of the production. I find it very interesting, giving a behind the scenes view
of the documentary. Exposes a lot of the personal exchanges that normally get
left on the cutting room floor. Check out the Dannett interview for some good
bits around 37:00

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5lfTPTFN94o#t=37m10s>

Also I would recommend checking out Craig Venter's interview, was probably the
best out of the bunch.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3E25jgPgmzk>

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aptsurdist
In this interview they speculate about whether our attraction to music might
be a by-product of the fact that we have evolved other specialized skills that
aid our individual survival. For example, our survival is aided by our rhythm
analysis which helps us walk upright, and our speech analyzing mechanisms
which help us in many obvious ways - the idea is that we enjoy music because
we are obsessively attuned to these survival-aiding perceptions.

I've always enjoyed contemplating the inverse of this theory; what if we
gained appreciation for music and other collective rituals because by acting
out these rituals (as individuals), our collective tribe benefited. These
rituals cause us individuals to 'tune' ourselves as a collective and as a
result, the tribe has increased chances of survival.

If this were the case, it would be more appropriate to say that our collective
tribes evolved music and rituals for the tribe's sake - it doesn't directly
help an individual survive and the individual might not even understand their
compulsion to participate. For example, a drum beat might compel a soldier
into battle. A religious ritual might compel an individual to supersede their
allegiance in order to serve a king. If you look at other species like bees
and ants that function as a collective, you see that their 'dance' is not an
individual's language but one that evolved because it enabled the collective
to survive. Again, the individuals might not understand their dance - they
just wanna dance!

So actually, I like the idea that maybe speech, language, and what we call
intelligence are all byproducts of adaptations like music and rhythm that
appear worthless to individual survival, but in fact are crucial to the
survival of the collective. What do you all think?

~~~
goodside
"I've always enjoyed contemplating the inverse of this theory; what if we
gained appreciation for music and other collective rituals because by acting
out these rituals (as individuals), our collective tribe benefited. These
rituals cause us individuals to 'tune' ourselves as a collective and as a
result, the tribe has increased chances of survival."

This is called group selection. It's ironic that you mention it in response to
this interview; Dawkins became famous by explaining the fact that group
selection doesn't exist, and why theories like the one you've just suggested
violate very fundamental principles of evolution. More:
<http://amzn.com/0199291152>

~~~
Jach
Well said. Even more (no need to get a book out):
[http://lesswrong.com/lw/kw/the_tragedy_of_group_selectionism...](http://lesswrong.com/lw/kw/the_tragedy_of_group_selectionism/)

~~~
aptsurdist
thanks for the tips - I've been meaning to check out 'The Selfish Gene'. I
checked out the lesswrong.com article - I'm not sure that my argument is the
same as what they are trying to disprove - it sounds like their models are
based on individuals that collude or act altruistically in order to benefit
collectively. I don't think that 'intention' is a good concept for
understanding evolution in the first place. Also, from checking out the
Wikipedia article on group selection, it doesn't sound like there is
scientific agreement that this concept is disproved:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_selection>

I'll go and read The selfish Gene before I write more, but one more pesky
comment about the experiment in the lesswrong.com article: I am suspicious of
their conclusion that their case study disproves group selection. This does
not seem to respect the vast scope of evolutionary time scale. Maybe group
selection is like quantum tunneling - with large clusters of individuals, the
chances of it happening are infinitesimal - you won't see it in the
laboratory. But on an evolutionary time scale, infinitesimal chances do happen
occasionally - and if they yield advantageous results, they will shape life's
future. Maybe our love for music came about from freak genetic mutations that
in fact didn't serve much purpose for individual survival, but this collective
activity caused individuals to synchronize their behavior. Maybe this
synchronization helps low-advantage/individual traits 'tunnel'
probabilistically and exist long afterward because the same traits are high-
advantage/collective traits. (?)

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crux
I think this is a very worthwhile video to watch. Dawkins and Pinker (Dawkins
in particular, of course) are part of a demimonde with something of a
reputation for being uncompromising hardliners—no doubt because in their
handling of theological questions they are uncompromising hardliners—but much
of what Pinker's talking about here is teasing apart and deflecting the many
superficial understandings of adaptationist and EvPsych-oriented thought that
give it such a bad name. The fact is that many people who find EvPsych to be
very attractive nevertheless have a pretty shallow notion of it and end up
using it as a club, and offering cheaply Objectivist rationales for rape and
looking at boobs at the like.

Pinker establishes two things within the first ten minutes that make his
perspective a lot more reasonable and considered: any adaptationist account of
a behavior MUST begin with an a priori appraisal of that behavior on its own
merits. As an 'engineering problem', he puts it. So it's not enough to look at
some human behavior and then explain that it occurs because it is a natural
function of some basic need, if there would be no half-way reasonable way for
that function to emerge as useful without already existing.

The second thing is that if you _do_ establish or argue for some feature as an
adaptation, you have only provided a possible account of its origin as an
evolved behavior, and said nothing at all about its worth or appropriateness
in the world.

I think that questions of behavior as adaptive would encounter less immediate
resistance—and explanations of behavior as adaptive would lose much of their
unsavory panacean appeal—if these factors were better understood.

~~~
berntb
>>Pinker establishes two things within the first ten minutes that make his
perspective a lot more reasonable and considered

This isn't new. Go back and check what Pinker/Dawkins et al have been writing
for a long time.

>>I think that questions of behavior as adaptive would encounter less
immediate resistance—and explanations of behavior as adaptive would lose much
of their unsavory panacean appeal—if these factors were better understood.

You shouldn't just trust other people's description of the position they argue
against, if they argue from political/religious standpoints.

(I don't know why the extreme left have problems with some behaviors being
strongly influenced genetically. Frankly, I have better things to do than care
what some idealists "know" are true.)

That said, you will find bad research in all areas.

Edit: I might add this reference from an old Gould discussion, to show that
side of the coin...

<http://cogweb.ucla.edu/Debate/CEP_Gould.html>

Or this fun review of a "classic" book:

[http://dba.fc.ul.pt/evo/textos/dawkins_review_not_in_our_gen...](http://dba.fc.ul.pt/evo/textos/dawkins_review_not_in_our_genes.pdf)

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stuaxo
Banned from your country on copyright grounds... ffs... channel 4 is from my
country ... arg !

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csallen
If you're interesting in reading a very long, very engaging interview of
Steven Pinker, check this out: <http://www.cosmoetica.com/DSI4.htm>

