Trevor Blake: Biology and Behavior
I have an amateur interest in the connection between biology and behavior. This is often called the ‘nature versus nurture’ debate, described by wikipedia as “the relative importance of an individual’s innate qualities (‘nature,’ i.e. nativism, or innatism) versus personal experiences (‘nurture,’ i.e. empiricism or behaviorism) in determining or causing individual differences in physical and behavioral traits.” I think this is a false dilemma, or what we in the Church of the SubGenius call a nontroversy. On the nature side, there are behaviors influenced or controlled by our biology. On the nurture side, there are our behaviors influenced or controlled by other people’s biology. Unless there is a mind / soul / ghost / phantom captain in us that is not biological, our behavior is influenced or controlled by biology (sometimes once removed). Biology in turn is influenced or controlled by the natural universe, its chemistry and physics. I claim all behavior is biology, and all biology is chemistry and physics. I refer less to the nature versus nurture debate and more to the connection between biology and behavior. I could be wrong in my claims or in how my claims are formulated. Here are some recent examples of biology influencing or controlling behavior…
- Why Anorexic Patients Cling To Their Eating Disorder: Processes in brain metabolism that explain this disturbed eating behavior.
- Women are getting more beautiful: Beautiful women have more children than their plainer counterparts and that a higher proportion of those children are female. Those daughters, once adult, also tend to be attractive and so repeat the pattern.
- Are We What Our Mothers Ate?: Mothers’ health in the days and weeks prior to becoming pregnant may determine the health of offspring much later in life.
- Babies Understand Dogs, Bark-matching Study Finds: Six-month-old babies can match the sounds of happy and angry barks to pictures of happy and angry dogs.
- Parts Of Brain Involved In Social Cognition May Be In Place By Age Six: A group of regions has been discovered in the human brain that are specifically used for social cognition.
- Rush Of Blood To The Head: Anger Increases Blood Flow: Mental stress causes carotid artery dilation and increases brain blood flow. A series of ultrasound experiments also found that this dilatory reflex was absent in people with high blood pressure.
- Brain Differences Reinforce Preferences For Those In Same Social Group: Unconscious prejudices against outside groups exist at a basic level.
- A biomarker for anorexia?: A new study shows that the levels of a brain protein differ between healthy and anorexic women.
- Mechanisms Of Self-control Pinpointed In Brain: Scientists from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have uncovered differences in the brains of people who are able to exercise self-control versus those who find it almost impossible.
- Child abuse ‘alters stress gene’: Chemical changes which reduced the activity of the gene for glucocorticoid receptor in those who suffered child abuse.
- Hormones affect men’s sense of fair play: Men with high levels of testosterone are more likely to turn down low [business] offers, even if they stand to gain money by accepting them.
- Delinquency In Children Now Linked To Biology: A highly reactive autonomic nervous system, which regulates our cardiovascular, digestive and respiratory functions, paired with a stressful family environment leads to increased instances of maladaptive personality change.
… not a one of which proves my claim, nor do they prove my claim as a whole, but they lend some support. My claim that behavior is biology could be refuted by demonstrating the existence of a mind / soul / ghost / phantom captain in us that is not biological, or the existence of a God that is somehow ‘outside’ of the natural Universe. If behavior is biology then interesting and disturbing possibilities arise. The non-existence of some concepts of free will and personal accountability must be considered. Statistical regularities in behavior are explained (the overwhelming amount of violent behavior being carried out by men and not by women is explained by having biological roots, for example) but that can be cold comfort. The line between the individual and the species is blurred. The possibility of an ‘afterlife’ is lessened, but the possibility one might nudge the lives of future generations is confirmed. Natural rights may be shown to have a firm foundation, or be shown to have no foundation at all. How would your day-to-day life be different if you thought you were part of the natural universe?
