[Discussion] Why Do People Have To Hate Each Other So Much?

[Narushima]

I would say low IQ. I don't want to prolong this, however, there are various researches out there that show a direct link between lower intelligence and crime, Nationalism, patriotism and religion etc; all factors that are associated with group division one way or another. Only about 2 % of the entire population has an IQ of 130 and above (do double check it). Lower intelligence would also amount to easy dissemination of propaganda to valify another group and peddle an agenda. Call it a banner, an ideology, a belief or an axiom, it doesn't matter. It becomes easy to control such a herd.

Humanity as a whole has never gone through any decent winnowing to allow the survival of the fittest in the past several decades or so. It just has been a steady increase in population and researches show that this factor has lowered the average IQ by a couple of points. Natural selection is almost nonexistent now. I am not even an expert in biology and even I can see this. Biological factors have been put on the backseat for societal ones ... no wonder humanity is where it is at, as everyone is allowed to race.

My two cents.

The correlations between cognitive ability and ethnocentrism – and this is the biological impulse behind both nationalism and religion, as ironic as that might be to the religious – are indeed negative, but they are modest correlations. Further, these things are evolutionary distinct from cognitive ability.

For example, ethnocentrism is probably inseparable from human sociality. Just as, because you share more genes, on average, with close kin, you therefore have genetic interests in protecting your kin – for the propagation of the genes of your close kin is, indirectly, the propagation of your own – for the same reason, we share in aggregate far more genes with co-ethnics than with non-co-ethics. Ethnocentrism is simply kin selection writ large.

Religion is Darwinian evolution in the garb of culture. The genes are replaced with the memes of the religion, the kinsmen with the fellow believers in the one true religion, one’s rivals in one’s hunter gatherer band becomes the infidel. This is why the core of most, especially enduring, religion is self-replication – just as the biological organism exists to spread its genes, a religion, which is really a kind of organismic group akin to ant colonies and such, exists to spread its memes, i.e. its teachings.

High IQ is indeed modestly negatively correlated with tribalism and religiousity because high cognitive ability is the ultimate liberator – the intelligent are able to carve out their own view of the world and are less prone to influence by the herd and the shephards alike. But the simple correlation belies the more complicated real-world picture of the relationship between cognitive ability and those things. IQ most usefully is categorized into verbal, spatial and non-verbal IQ – general cognitive ability, or g, is basically the aggregate of all three, while mathematical ability is a complex combination of spatial and non-verbal ability – and the intellectually gifted (IQ 130+), unlike the general population, tend to show asymmetries in those three domains (a phenomenon known as Spearman’s law of diminishing returns).

Those with a cognitive ability profile significantly favouring verbal ability over spatial and non-verbal – think of lawyers and humanities especially sociology professors etc – are indeed predisposed to leftism/liberalism. This is much less so for different cognitive profiles.

This nuance is nicely illustrated within that field of science in which IQ is studied – psychology. You see, most of psychology is dominated by the high verbal, more mediocre spatial and non-verbal (and therefore mathematical) mental ability profile types. On the other hand, psychometrics, that small sub-field associated with the IQ concept, is an anomaly within psychology – its founding figures were all statisticians and mathematically oriented profile folk continue to dominate IQ research.

Population genetics and her children, this includes the kin-selection concept as well as the cultural group selection model of religion, likewise is dominated by mathematically minded researchers.

Which is why most psychologists – and by extension, liberal academia as well as the largely mathematically illiterate general public – haven’t a clue about (and in many cases, in fact, cannot understand) the IQ concept or genetics whereas you commonly see physicists (e.g. Steve Hsu, Gregory Cochran etc) profoundly well read on the those topics.

 

[shelke]

The correlations between cognitive ability and ethnocentrism – and this is the biological impulse behind both nationalism and religion, as ironic as that might be to the religious – are indeed negative, but they are modest correlations. Further, these things are evolutionary distinct from cognitive ability.

For example, ethnocentrism is probably inseparable from human sociality. Just as, because you share more genes, on average, with close kin, you therefore have genetic interests in protecting your kin – for the propagation of the genes of your close kin is, indirectly, the propagation of your own – for the same reason, we share in aggregate far more genes with co-ethnics than with non-co-ethics. Ethnocentrism is simply kin selection writ large.

Religion is Darwinian evolution in the garb of culture. The genes are replaced with the memes of the religion, the kinsmen with the fellow believers in the one true religion, one’s rivals in one’s hunter gatherer band becomes the infidel. This is why the core of most, especially enduring, religion is self-replication – just as the biological organism exists to spread its genes, a religion, which is really a kind of organismic group akin to ant colonies and such, exists to spread its memes, i.e. its teachings.

High IQ is indeed modestly negatively correlated with tribalism and religiousity because high cognitive ability is the ultimate liberator – the intelligent are able to carve out their own view of the world and are less prone to influence by the herd and the shephards alike. But the simple correlation belies the more complicated real-world picture of the relationship between cognitive ability and those things. IQ most usefully is categorized into verbal, spatial and non-verbal IQ – general cognitive ability, or g, is basically the aggregate of all three, while mathematical ability is a complex combination of spatial and non-verbal ability – and the intellectually gifted (IQ 130+), unlike the general population, tend to show asymmetries in those three domains (a phenomenon known as Spearman’s law of diminishing returns).

Those with a cognitive ability profile significantly favouring verbal ability over spatial and non-verbal – think of lawyers and humanities especially sociology professors etc – are indeed predisposed to leftism/liberalism. This is much less so for different cognitive profiles.

This nuance is nicely illustrated within that field of science in which IQ is studied – psychology. You see, most of psychology is dominated by the high verbal, more mediocre spatial and non-verbal (and therefore mathematical) mental ability profile types. On the other hand, psychometrics, that small sub-field associated with the IQ concept, is an anomaly within psychology – its founding figures were all statisticians and mathematically oriented profile folk continue to dominate IQ research.

Population genetics and her children, this includes the kin-selection concept as well as the cultural group selection model of religion, likewise is dominated by mathematically minded researchers.

Which is why most psychologists – and by extension, liberal academia as well as the largely mathematically illiterate general public – haven’t a clue about (and in many cases, in fact, cannot understand) the IQ concept or genetics whereas you commonly see physicists (e.g. Steve Hsu, Gregory Cochran etc) profoundly well read on the those topics.

You are not wrong on any front. Any type of ability can be ascribed to cognition bar the automatic functions. Intelligence is measured on the basis of tasks an individual can perform. Yes, you are correct; they are not that similar. But intelligence remains undefined and does seem to encompass cognition.

Ethnocentricism, obviously cannot be removed from culture, and in turn, what becomes a part of a larger group called society. Once you craft certain ideologies to lead a group, the formation of culture is inevitable. Your arguments on genetic associations also carry weight. However, religion is mostly spread out on basis of more than just kin selection. It goes to other facets as well; the belief in a higher power to disregard the finality of life, creation of a distinct brand of morality and control of the masses. These are ones I could think of at the moment.

The biological organism (as far as my limited knowledge in the field goes) is mostly concerned with the germ cells surrounding themselves with a new soma as Weismann stated. Their natural instincts are more along the lines of "prolonging" the life in a mock-eternal reproduction sequence. Does it state what you stated? It does. There has been an argument that humans are social constructs rather than biological (albeit a disproven one). But, I digress.

Yes, there is proof that tribal behavior and social instincts are genetically determined and variations are caused by natural selection. However, you see varying patterns where many individuals leave the group and form another or join another. It presents an interesting factor as to how much the cognitive ability played a role in their distancing.

I agree with the other two paragraphs as well. There are indeed complex factors that determine an individual's over all liberation from such ideologies. Cognition and intelligence would grant them the ability to craft their own paths as you put it.

I would say that it's ... difficult to define religion. Is it a product of culture or does it breed it? Does it define a society or does society define it? Does it encompass both or do all of them simple merge under the umbrella of group ideology? For instance, I read about half of a very informative thesis on the simple vocabulary item "Seraph" and its connection with the zoroastrianian religion. That simple word found its way into Christianity, along with the notions of "winged" creatures. Can you really suggest that this would be a matter of genetics and kin selection, when intelligence and the encompassed cognition led to the careful deconstruction of the religion of the "city of gods (Babylon)" to create something anew? A new culture under the wing of a new God?

An entire society functioned around it, especially if you take the near comical maiming of Zarathustra's teachings and their merging into some new brand of dogmas that forever served the temples and the three influencial families, khusru and Behram ... the last name eludes me at the moment. I wouldn't say it was entirely genetic selection. It's an interesting topic to speculate on.

I would like you to recommend me some good books on the people you suggested. New knowledge never hurts anyone.

 

[~Ethereal~]

To balance love.

 

[Оdin]

To balance love.

You changed your avatar. Now I understand OP.

*hates intensely*

 

[HashiraMadara]

Begin starts with an end that's nature

 

[Narushima]

You are not wrong on any front. Any type of ability can be ascribed to cognition bar the automatic functions. Intelligence is measured on the basis of tasks an individual can perform. Yes, you are correct; they are not that similar. But intelligence remains undefined and does seem to encompass cognition.

Ethnocentricism, obviously cannot be removed from culture, and in turn, what becomes a part of a larger group called society. Once you craft certain ideologies to lead a group, the formation of culture is inevitable. Your arguments on genetic associations also carry weight. However, religion is mostly spread out on basis of more than just kin selection. It goes to other facets as well; the belief in a higher power to disregard the finality of life, creation of a distinct brand of morality and control of the masses. These are ones I could think of at the moment.

The biological organism (as far as my limited knowledge in the field goes) is mostly concerned with the germ cells surrounding themselves with a new soma as Weismann stated. Their natural instincts are more along the lines of "prolonging" the life in a mock-eternal reproduction sequence. Does it state what you stated? It does. There has been an argument that humans are social constructs rather than biological (albeit a disproven one). But, I digress.

Yes, there is proof that tribal behavior and social instincts are genetically determined and variations are caused by natural selection. However, you see varying patterns where many individuals leave the group and form another or join another. It presents an interesting factor as to how much the cognitive ability played a role in their distancing.

I agree with the other two paragraphs as well. There are indeed complex factors that determine an individual's over all liberation from such ideologies. Cognition and intelligence would grant them the ability to craft their own paths as you put it.

I would say that it's ... difficult to define religion. Is it a product of culture or does it breed it? Does it define a society or does society define it? Does it encompass both or do all of them simple merge under the umbrella of group ideology? For instance, I read about half of a very informative thesis on the simple vocabulary item "Seraph" and its connection with the zoroastrianian religion. That simple word found its way into Christianity, along with the notions of "winged" creatures. Can you really suggest that this would be a matter of genetics and kin selection, when intelligence and the encompassed cognition led to the careful deconstruction of the religion of the "city of gods (Babylon)" to create something anew? A new culture under the wing of a new God?

An entire society functioned around it, especially if you take the near comical maiming of Zarathustra's teachings and their merging into some new brand of dogmas that forever served the temples and the three influencial families, khusru and Behram ... the last name eludes me at the moment. I wouldn't say it was entirely genetic selection. It's an interesting topic to speculate on.

I would like you to recommend me some good books on the people you suggested. New knowledge never hurts anyone.

You are also correct on many accounts, and you are right that religion is not simple kin-selection, although religion does co-opt impulses associated with kin-selection – even the grammar and language of religion has strong kin-selection undertones, for the believers are brothers and sisters in faith, the prophet of the tribal God is a father to the believers, and so on.

Religion is more usefully framed as a form of group-selection. Now I subscribe to the view that kin/group selection are mathematically identical formulations of different approaches to the same thing (akin to how there are different formulations of classical mechanics in physics), but I forget that these are obscure subjects even within biology so forgive me for the vagueness of that previous post.

More specifically religion is what in dual-inheritance theory we call ‘cultural group-selection.’ To put that as simply as possible, religion can be thought of as a set of beliefs and behaviours that unite a population into a functional group. Within the eusocial insects functional groups – say a colony – are united by an unusual proportion of shared genes. For example, in the typical ant colony workers share at least 50% of their genes with fellow worker ants (you can get as much as 75% of the genome shared between workers in certain species of ants). If there was a human version of an ant colony, all the commoners within that human population would be biological siblings or even more closely related.

The problem is that humans are not eusocial insects – random members of a population of even a small hunter gatherer ant are much less genetically related than worker ants. Thus, in the human species, selfishness and cheating pay-off in terms of Darwinian fitness. This was the lethal criticism originally levelled against the group-selection concept back in the 1960s. Genetic group-selection is a dead model.

However, sapience endows a species such as ours something that no other species has, namely the ability to regulate behaviour via non-biological means. Yes, evolution would tend to favour cheating – but humans have a means to solve that problem that no other species has: punish cheaters. And this is exactly what religion does – in virtually all religion, the hypocrite (munafiq or whatever) is not simply hated – but actively sought out and destroyed. Thus all the social controls that religion chains its members with suddenly gains an ultimate purpose: it is the glue of the functional group, the closest human analogue to the ant-colony or the beehive.

I could not hope to do this subject any justice with this space and I never intended to do so but since you asked for recommendations, I thought I’d try to introduce the works which I will prescribe for your interest.

A very accessible introduction to this subject is Nicholas Wade’s “The Faith Instinct: How Religion Evolved and Why it Endures.” If you are willing to do a tiny bit of background reading in biology, a step-up but still accessible text is David Sloan Wilson’s “Darwin’s Cathedral: Evolution, Religion and the Nature of Society.” Finally if have any mathematical background, an excellent introduction to this entire field would be Boyd and Richerson’s “The Origin and Evolution of Cultures” but be warned that this a very mathematically dense book.