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Darwin for Everyone!

Darwin for Everyone!. For the Spokane Secular Society February 11, 2012 Spokane Public Library Dr. Mark Alfino Gonzaga University. Main goals for the talk .

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Darwin for Everyone!

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  1. Darwin for Everyone! For the Spokane Secular Society February 11, 2012 Spokane Public Library Dr. Mark Alfino Gonzaga University

  2. Main goals for the talk • Show how evolutionary theory been a productive theoretical framework outside of biology, especially in philosophy, psychology, and anthropology. • Show how evolutionary thinking can help us think better about practical problems like racism, politics, and religion.

  3. Variation Consequences Heredity Repeat

  4. Biological Evolution is . . . Retrospective Mindless Directionless

  5. 1st Person Perspective Lived experience. Subjective, structured by consciousness, environment, and culture 3rd Person Perspective Objective description and theory.

  6. Variation Consequences Heredity Substrate Neutrality

  7. Three Hypermastigotes (Trichonympha sp.) and a Trichomonas sp. (top left) in the midst of a living soup of other small protists and partly decayed wood.

  8. Trichonympha sp. with many long flagella

  9. “Cultures are defensive constructions against chaos, designed to reduce the impact of randomness on experience. They are adaptive responses, just as feathers are for birds and fur is for mammals. “ “Cultures prescribe norms, evolve goals, build beliefs that help us tackle the challenges of existence. In so doing they must rule out many alternative goals and beliefs, and thereby limit possibilities; but this channeling of attention to a limited set of goals and means is what allows effortless actions within self-erected boundaries. “(Csikszentmihalyi, M. 1990. Flow: The psychology of optimal experience. New York:Harper and Row, 91).

  10. Game Theory – Main Distinction Choices that can be valued apart from what others do or think. (parametric) Choices that can only be valued in light of what other do or think. (non-parametric)

  11. Choosing a bridge to cross under parametric and non-parametric conditions (no Assasin vs. Assasin) Bridge 1 - Normal Bridge 2 – Cobras Bridge 3 – Falling Rocks

  12. Simple Cooperate/Defect Game Rankings of outcomes from each encounter: 4 pts – opponent cooperates you defect 3 pts – both cooperate 2 pts – neither of you cooperate 1 pt – you cooperate and your opponent defects

  13. Bridge example without assasin. Cooperate/Defect Game with memory. Variation Consequences Heredity/Culture Repeats

  14. The Public Goods Game A game theoretic result (and game) that suggests that, in the absence of sanctions, free-riding will defeat public investment.

  15. Applying Evolutionary Algorithms Organism in relation to environment. Organisms in co-evolutionary relationship. Learning – the Baldwin Effect Gene – Culture Coevolution Evolutionary Game Theory

  16. Evolutionary Thinking – Practical Applications Understanding human difference in non-racist ways. Understanding political difference in terms of social epistemology. Understanding the cultural work of religion.

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