'The Selfish Genes'

Just read about this book, 'The Selfish Genes' by Richard Dawkins. Now, I have to find it and read it fast. This is just for keep on reminding me about this book.

Here, came the conquerors

Agriculture was accompanied by domestication of animals. Animals helped, not only in ploughing but also provided milk, wool, skin and other products which were treated by early humans as luxury. It can be argued that domestication of milk giving animals preceded agriculture as there is no clear differentiation. But this can be pointed out that domestication of milk giving animals started in the areas where agriculture was tough or non-existent. Animals were already been domesticated for their meat but as humans realized that they can also get milk from these animals, they started keeping these animals at one place. Pigs and fowls were the first animals to be domesticated for meat. Goats followed with cows and buffalos. Horses, camels and elephants were late entrants. But before all these, dogs were the first animals which were domesticated for help in hunting. Dogs were the natural partners to humans as hunter. Cats and other pet animals became habitual to living with humans very late. Cats, as one of the best hunters, initially scarred humans as they were competitors in hunting and became part of many legends. Other animals also had their share of mystrey. Small cats became as for their stealthy nature were good at stealing food from human storages. Initial food storage also faces the problems of rats and small pests. It is argued that agriculture evolved rapidly only when humans had discovered to store grains in closed tanks or containers.
Domestication of horses was one of the biggest factors which transformed early human society completely. Before horses, human were dependent on only their legs for transportation. As for biological constraints, it limited human group's movements and thus limited interactions between different societies. In the circumstances, most of the human societies developed independently and had completely distinct beliefs, customs, social structure and culture. Competitions between adjoining societies were common but this struggle never spread to a particular region, limited by geographical boundaries. Natural habitat for horses is grass plains and they lived in herds. Humans most probably also used to hunt them but might have soon realized that they could also ride them. Domestication of horses had taken a long time as these animals are not so tame like pigs or cows. Also, riding a horse requires certain skills which also had taken a long time to develop. Once the humans were on top of horses, they started spreading rapidly. First human society which domesticated horses is known as 'Aryans'.
Aryans were mainly hunters and used to have huge herds of cows with them for food. Cow was considered sacred as they used to drink cow's milk which was compared to mother's milk. They used to do their most of the property transaction in means of either cows or horses. They were wanderers and kept moving. As being good hunters, they were also great warriors. With the added advantage of fast riding horses, 'Aryans' dominated most of the other societies whom they came in contact. At the time of 'Aryans', agriculture had transformed other societies and there were many human settlements. Aryans in their ride trounced these societies and destroyed their settlement. Commonalities between most of the languages of Asia and Europe are evidence of Aryans' dominance in their time. When Aryans started their victory march, there were many well developed societies existing, like in India, Sumer, Egypt and Mesopotamia. Chinese society was guarded by high Himalayan peaks thus didn't come in the influence of Aryan invasion. India was the first one to face Aryan’s onslaught. Aryans pushed aboriginal Indians further in Indian peninsula and destroyed their cities. Aryans then moved to west and slowly reached Mesopotamia and Sumer. Sumer was razed and Mesopotamia survived with little remains. Egyptians also faced Aryan brunt and were pushed westwards. Aryans then moved north and dissipated. Influence of Aryan society was so strong that even after many years; these regions were occupied with wars and brutal destruction.

The mating game

I am going through this book now; "The mating game" by John Gribbin and Jeremy Cherfas. Author explains that why humans have two sexes and why sexual reproduction is advantageous to asexual reproduction. Nature has given us large brains and shared its own power of selection with us. Darwin suggested a theory of sexual selection after his all famous theory of natural selection. Sexual selection theory, appears to be a subset of the grand natural selection process. Sexual selection just give humans little bit more control over their biological destiny. Survivors will be the ones whom people love. I, initially put this last sentance as "survivors will be the ones whom girls love" but then realised that whats true for boys selection its the boys for selecting girls. So, both sexes choose better attributes in opposite sexes and mate to produce offsprings which have desired characterstics. If it has been just one sex, nature would have been only criteria to discard disadvantageous features. Nature built its toys such that these toys filter out any disadvantageous features in themselves and keep on surviving.
Here, this system also have some deficiencies, human mind doesn't always think rationally and true to our ignorance we have hard time in differentiating our natural instincts and fantasies. Giving in to your instincts is submitting to nature but humans are built in such to tough competitor. First time, I think we share the "Nature's Grandeur", if only if..!!!

Religion and Social Evolution

Religion as defined by many is a strong belief in a supernatural power or powers that control human destiny. Some define it as an institution to express belief in a divine power. One more definition which includes most of the variations is from wikipedia:
"Religion is commonly defined as a group of beliefs concerning the supernatural, sacred, or divine, and the moral codes, practices, values, institutions and rituals associated with such belief. It is sometimes used interchangeably with faith or belief system. In the course of the development of religion, it has taken many forms in various cultures and individuals."
Religion played a major part in uniting diverse small societies and helping in peaceful existence. Initially, faith or worshiping a god or gods was limited in smaller societies and served as to provide some rationality to the existence. As initial societies had a very close relationship with their surrounding nature, their deities were mainly derived from the nature only. Sun, trees, fire, wind, rocks and water were essential part of their religious practices. As the development of language, it became easier to propagate one faith from one group to another. Also with this competition arose rationalization by illusion or fantasies. People, in quest of proving their faith to be superior to others, turned to fantasies and used arguments based on just imagination.
Before, talking more about religion, I should go back on the emergence of human settlements and differentiation between public and private. In apes, there is not much difference between public and private domain. Apes share everything with group and sometimes use force to increase their share. Sometimes, they also show meanness in reserving some new food find for themselves. In terms of relationships, they have strong hierarchy system. This system is mainly decided by force, meaning powerful apes are regarded superior that their weaker counterpart. Females mostly are not part of this system and their social standing is determined by the standing of their male mate. In most of the apes, there is no definite pairing thus all males and females are free to have relation with anyone. In some apes, like baboons, couples have lifelong relationships. The need of pairing can be considered as a solution to provide care for infants. An infant needing more help in its development requires support from its parents and group. Human infants for a long duration are completely dependent on their parents. Group can't provide personal care for this long. Marriage or socially acceptable pairing evolved as a mean of providing more care to the human infants. When settlements started evolving, ownership of land and property became major issue. Society started recognizing private space and boundaries between public and private was introduced. Conflicts between two parties on the ownership of a land or property needed to be resolved in social parameters. This need gave rise to a social structure which had some strict set of rules agreed by all and to be followed by all.

Religion became a tool to solve the conflicts between two parties in initial human settlement. Priest or whoever considered as an authority figure on religious practices, became powerful and was regarded with respect from followers. In earlier towns, priest evolved into a ruling class and they started using religion as a tool for rationalizing their authority over others. These towns were agricultural societies and spread over some specific fertile regions. As the interaction between these societies increased new communities like traders evolved. Wars also became more frequent and a separate warrior class evolved in some societies. People of one faith spread their religion by means of war or trade. Initially, cause of the wars was territorial rights, religion was used only as a mean to provide law and divide labor in the society. It was used as only a managerial concept.

As human groups from different regions started interacting, religion became part of person's identity. Different groups trying to prove their superiority over other started using religion as part of this conflict. With the evolution of modern religions, this difference also became more distinct. In some way, modern religions with their differences from other existing religions, provided people a solution to this confrontation of identity. People realized the similarities between different existing religions and it confused them as which version to believe. Modern religions with their strict rules and differentiated identity gave them a moral solution to their ethnic confusion. Modern religion thus evolved were not based on toleration and accepting of different beliefs but were a strict vision of some few, so called prophets or thinkers. They defined their own doctrines to accommodate every human in their time and region. Popularity of these doctrines served as a common medium which united different people, thus reducing confrontations.
Religion was and is evolving as a set of rules and regulations adhered by a society. Modern religions can be compared to corporates [I have also put a post on this topic on my other blog]. In the same context, religions were and are used unite people similar to nationalism. Nationalism evolved recently in Europe as to unite people from multi-ethnic society. Religion and culture are distinct but as the society is developing this difference is subsiding.

Sex and society

Sex, as a natural act which all human are inclined to do, serves many purposes in a society. Jared Diamond in his book "Why sex is fun" has given great detail about monkey's sexual behavior and how monkeys use sex to soothe other members of their group. Monkey's language is very limited and thus they use physical touch, massage and sex as to communicate and build trust in a group. Females use is to appease males and tone down their temper, lower ranking males use this as to get favor from their chief. Sex is not limited between male and female but also in male and male. Though, in the book, their was not much said about female and female sex acts but I presume that sex is also used to keep intimacy in female close groups. Sex, here doesn't serve only as a reproduction act but it also suffices for trust building in a group. Sex's main physical reaction is that the level of intimacy it offers ease down the tensions in the mind and make a person more relax. If you don't agree to this then try masturbating. :)
Sex is used as a tool of communication. Physical touch provides a way to showing trust. In human society, this is also true. Though, in past it was more prominent than now. Presently, humans are dependent on oral communication or speaking for trust building, evolved oratory skills has replaced physical intimacy to a certain extent. Still, in few close relationships humans still use physical touch to communicate and build trust. Sex is very important part of husband-wife relationship. Some of the early towns, as I have already mentioned in my previous post, used to have particular custom to control the reproduction period. (E.g. Sumer)
So, sex has moved down the importance through out the history, but still its effect on body remains the same. We have become more accustom to speaking and expressing ourselves through words rather then our body.
Role of religions in controlling human sexual freedom has also been very important. Romans and Greeks used to have physical contact to show submission and pride. Spartans were famous for their sexual prowess & freedom. As, new religions came to existence, they tried to distance from these early practices. Christians made it a rule; virginity and chastity were highlighted as a good thing. Any other type of sex, other then the between male-female was considered unnatural. Even oral and anal sexes were considered taboo. Muslims, though they came in history very late also had hard restriction on sex. Hindus and other religion though don't put so many restriction but they still don't support sex as trust building exercise. Sex as per religion was just a reproduction act, its benefit as a mean of communication was considered redundant.
In apes and monkeys, sex is used by females to soothe other males and keep their temper down. Males are naturally more aggressive than females and sex acts as a deterrent to this aggression from harming the groups balance. Females have more control over their sexual prowess and they use it effectively to gain some advantage against macho males. Macho males due to their incontrollable appetite for sex serve better to females who can effectively keep a check on their aggression using sex.
Human society also, in its evolution, has been largely dependent on sexual preferences of females. Darwin, in one of his books explored this idea of sexual selection and has explained in great detail how current form of society and particular physical features has been controlled by female’s sexual preferences for her mate. White color of Europeans, black Africans, facial features of East Asians, all have come to prominence due to female’s preference for these features in their mates. These features, as per biology don't serve any purpose or give any advantage for their survival. But still girls love them and choose their mates according to these features, so, male with these features leave more children with the same trait and this trait become so common that become to signify that society.
Here, the question may be why the hell, girls like these features? Is there any biological reason for females to like them or just fancy? Darwin explained that this kind of preference is also common in birds. Some birds like peacock have a long tail, which doesn't give any advantage to the males but act as a burden in escaping from the hunter. Still peahens prefer males having long tails. The reason given by Darwin for this was that males having a long tail and still surviving are seen as a sign of having good skills by females. Meaning, that peacocks having this burden (tail) and are still able to escape from predators must be having other good physical skills. It can be considered as same as a person jumping from a high cliff and still surviving is considered as having extraordinary. A person living on the edge must have good skills to keep a balance or survive. No wonder, girls flocked to army soldiers and drug addict rockers.
In a way, human females led young males to dangerous tasks. Young males who were desperate to have sex, had to prove that they can survive these tasks and it was considered a guarantee of good genes. Males used show their prowess by their hunting skills, fighting wars, consuming life threatening drugs and many more ways just to show that they can live on the edge. I can agree on atleast one part of religious teachings that females can be credited for leading a society in danger. But here I should point out that not only females but some other rituals which are mostly made by males were also life threatening. Some religious rituals contained very painful practices for males. In one custom of red Indians, if mate of some male have any sexual relationship with some other male then her husband perform a painful ritual of piercing himself and standing on a pole for some days. By this practice, a male show that he can withstand pain and can live on the edge thus he is having good genes. This can be considered as an advertisement of his genes for other potential female mates. More specifically, females motivate males to take pain and prove their fitness as a mate. It can be considered as an exam or test for potential mates. Wars and battles were effective ways for males to prove their mettle. Though reasons of wars or battles were mostly product of male's imagination, females played their part as preparing other males of group to join the warring parties. So, for a war, you need just to stupid leaders (mostly males only) to ignite the fire and females will use that fire to select their mates which will act as putting oil on that fire.
Though, females propagate risk taking behavior in males, they also acted in keeping the balance and harmony in smaller groups. They bound small groups together but acted as a deterrent for the formation of larger groups. In a larger group, it was difficult for human females to keep harmony just by their sexual prowess. Also, in large groups of early humans, opportunities for males to show their skills were also limited as numbers of opponent reduced.
One common thing about early large society was that their unity was not dependent on sex or physical intimacy. For a large human group, ideology or common things are better binder than sex. Thus, the need to keep a large society united, limited the role of females in the group as a binder. Evolution of language also provided a better communication medium to share common ideas and build trust. All the larger groups tried to limit sexual freedom as it might led to formation of smaller distinct groups which may lead to disintegration of the larger unity. Females were regarded as trouble maker and threat to the unity of society, their social standing took this hit and fell considerably. Their role in the society was limited to just reproduction. All the religions thus formed as to provide a common cause to formation of a larger group, diminished females role and regarded them as secondary to males.

Early towns

Thinking about how agricultural socities obliterated hunter societies, one thing struck which is still going on presently, NUMBERS. Majority always wins. Larger the group, more chances are that it will destroy the smaller human groups surrounding it. Early towns, also had there wars. Better to put it like continuous fighting. Hunter groups had a option of moving out whereas farming societies didn't have this option. Hunter groups also had there wars but they were more of skirmishes. It would have been more like a gorilla wars, one group will attack another another or just members of other groups. Depending on the conditions, if only a member of enemy group was attack, it was fatal, when two complete groups faught, it was either ended with stallmate or one group leaving the field. Group fights were generally avoided as all groups were of similar sizes with no extra advantage of any fighting skills. Early town changed this balance. Towns had large number of humans to fight which was a huge advantage against smaller hunter societies. So, as more area came under cultivation, hunter societies either became part of agricultural towns or were annihilated. Some of them who survived were located in isolated lands where agriculture was not possible or very difficult.
Victorious is always right as the saying goes. It appeared here also. Though, initially agriculture was not having any significant advantages over hunting but numbers favored them. Numbers led to their victory and the losers lost it all. History then was molded in major advancement in farming and its absolute supremacy for food sourcing.
Early towns evolved first on the gates of africa, mainly in river valleys where land was fertile and water was plenty. This area covers Nile river valley, Tigris and Euphrates river vallies and other areas in between Mediterranean, Black and Caspian sea.

Skills for hunting and farming

Evolution of agriculture brought itself with the formation of cities, as human groups grew and stayed together at one place. This facilitated population explosion even more and cities expanded. One thing I also want to point it out here is the difference between the skills required in agriculture and hunting. A new human child learning his/her lessons in hunting can manage just with either looking or using sign language. New hunters learnt by either looking other hunters or by their own experience. Hunting requires great physical strength and spontaneity, good reflexes and keen eyes, good legs and shoulders are must. All this is possible through only rigorous training or practice. So, hunters learnt their leassons running behind other better hunters and facing different problems in their own ways. Information flow required was simple and small.
Farming also requires physical strength but not as of hunting level. Farmers can manage even with some problem in running, slow reflexes and not so keen eyes. Working at a farm still requires great stamina to toil under the sun, strength for ploughing, harvesting, carrying the produce to other places. Early farm still required human effort for tilling, seeding, irrigation and harvesting. These efforts were as cumbersome as involved in hunting. So, initially, there was not much of incentive for a human to spend his/her energy in farming instead of hunting. Informations flow related to farming was also important as it is now. Due to long seasons and harvesting cycle period, it was difficult to learn the skills required for better farming just by watching or using sign language. Selection of more fertile land and better ways of ploughing or watering are crucial but the time gap between the human input and food output is too long. This effectively hampered the learning process of early humans. Prediction of weather was as it is now very crucial to get any harvest from the farm in the regions where irrigation is solely dependent on rains. These prediction can olny come by many years of experience, even with all the sophisticated devices lately, humans still can't predict the weather with complete surity. Transfer of these skills required some other medium of information flow, rather then just sign language.
Two things which were crucial in agriculture revolution were domestication of animals and use of complex verbal language. Domesticated animals were used to toil in farms, instead of humans. This put agriculture in more favorable possible than hunting in terms of human physical effort. Language made possible that skills learnt by one human generation was passed on to next and also skills or new method deviced by a human were passed on the complete group in short time.
Agriculture in turn gave rise to large scale permanent settlement of human groups which are called cities now. Cities, in turn due to increased interaction between sexes and more luxury time led to population explosion. Increased population again led to scarcity of food and proliferation of agriculture as a food source. Also, large farmers groups dominated over smaller hunter groups, thus sending the weaker in oblivion. This is amazing as one part of a system fed the other part and the system just proliferated on its own.

Hunters vs farmers

Just a note, as I came through one study on Tanzania hunters which describes that a man prefers a group of poor hunters, if he is alone (not maried) as it provides him opportunity to show off his hunting skills. He can be a stand out hunter in the company of poor ones. This prestige issue can help him get better chances of getting a desired female. If a man is married and have a responsibility of a family, then he will prefer a group of good hunters so that food availability is secured. For females, its always a group of good hunters as a choice as this secures the food availability for them as well for their children.
Farming here, must have played a role as a first preference from females. Farming make food availability more constant and secured than hunting. Even a company of good hunters can't provide a constant availability of food whereas farming is much better as it removes the sharp differentiation between skill level. For man having responsibility of a family, farming provides a better option as even without great skill he can make sure that food is available for his family. Also, it helps to save his pride as there is less competition. For poor hunters and females, farming must have been a very good alternative.
Hunting also requires extreme physical fitness which degrades with age progression. So, as a hunter grows old, food become scarce. It also forces him to look for other alternatives for food which are less demanding physically. Thus, it was a surity that as population grew, farming turned out to be much better option and subsequently, only solution for early societies.