First, it was ew, then we figured out that there were also rational reasons against it.
Well, actually, it’s the other way around. Evolutionary speaking, there was a disavantage to inbreeding, so the “ew” evolved because of that. We think inbreeding is wrong because evolution taught us that it lowers the chance of survival for our offspring.
While surely there is some genetic component at play there it appears to be primarily motivated by the primate social adaptation system.
This seems like a strange argument, because “the primate social adaptation system” is also ultimately governed by evolution. Obviously a primate group with a social tendency towards incest would have worse survival rates than a primate group with a social aversion to incest, and that social fabric definitely is tied to evolution (unless you mean to imply that our social fabric did not arise from evolution, but I don’t think that’s what you’re saying).
Also, I don’t see how this can have anything in particular to do with primates and their social constructs as incest is avoided by all animals, as far as I am aware. It is not a purely human or primate thing, incest is bad for all animals and so they have all evolved via evolution to avoid it. I’d say the Westermarck effect is just the result of that evolution - obviously humans can’t directly read genetic code, so the mind assumes that whoever you grew up with must be your close relatives, and that’s good enough of a signal in 99% of cases, so that’s what evolution went with.
We don’t eat wood chips and don’t like the way they taste, not because they are bad for us, but rather because we would rather eat potato chips.
I’m sorry but I find this premise completely ridiculous - obviously we don’t like how they taste because they are bad for us. Evolution isn’t only about preference, it’s also about avoiding stuff, like poison or rotten food or woodchips or whatever. I don’t think we can come to an agreement on such a premise.
Evolution did not code us to avoid wood chips. There’s no “wood chip aversion” gene. It coded us to seek out potato chips.
Again, I just think this is completely wrong. Evolution definitely does not only code us to go towards things we want, it also codes us to avoid harmful things. Evolution optimizes on all fronts at once.
We risk mischaracterizing the nature of evolutionary forces by assigning to it a level of forethought it does not have.
Evolution is a concept so obviously it doesn’t have forethought, but it doesn’t need that forethought to still evolve in a given direction. Natural selection drives evolution to whatever is preferable - if that includes an aversion to incest, then natural selection will select for that trait, given enough time.
So the whole point I am making is that aversion towards incest is not rooted in primary drives but rather in the socio-primate drives.
What evidence or arguments do you have for this? Aside from what you’ve presented already, as that has not been convincing. My explanation seems consistent and simpler and occams razor would prefer it.
You can’t really definitively prove a theory like that I think. I’m no biologist so I’m not an expert by any means, but we can’t go back in time to see why evolution did what it did. We can only guess from what we have right now.
That said, such an “ew” response to incest surely is not just coincidence. It must have arose for a reason, just like all of our emotions evolved for a reason. For example, we also experience disgust when smelling or tasting rotten milk, because drinking rotten stuff is bad for survival too, so evolution made us have that response, because it would lower the chance of us drinking spoiled milk. There’s nothing “inherently disgusting” about incest or spoiled milk. We only find those things disgusting because they are bad, evolutionarily speaking.
And btw this isn’t restricted to humans obviously, all animals avoid having offspring with their close family, so this is a very deep-rooted behavior.
Well, actually, it’s the other way around. Evolutionary speaking, there was a disavantage to inbreeding, so the “ew” evolved because of that. We think inbreeding is wrong because evolution taught us that it lowers the chance of survival for our offspring.
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This seems like a strange argument, because “the primate social adaptation system” is also ultimately governed by evolution. Obviously a primate group with a social tendency towards incest would have worse survival rates than a primate group with a social aversion to incest, and that social fabric definitely is tied to evolution (unless you mean to imply that our social fabric did not arise from evolution, but I don’t think that’s what you’re saying).
Also, I don’t see how this can have anything in particular to do with primates and their social constructs as incest is avoided by all animals, as far as I am aware. It is not a purely human or primate thing, incest is bad for all animals and so they have all evolved via evolution to avoid it. I’d say the Westermarck effect is just the result of that evolution - obviously humans can’t directly read genetic code, so the mind assumes that whoever you grew up with must be your close relatives, and that’s good enough of a signal in 99% of cases, so that’s what evolution went with.
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I’m sorry but I find this premise completely ridiculous - obviously we don’t like how they taste because they are bad for us. Evolution isn’t only about preference, it’s also about avoiding stuff, like poison or rotten food or woodchips or whatever. I don’t think we can come to an agreement on such a premise.
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Again, I just think this is completely wrong. Evolution definitely does not only code us to go towards things we want, it also codes us to avoid harmful things. Evolution optimizes on all fronts at once.
Evolution is a concept so obviously it doesn’t have forethought, but it doesn’t need that forethought to still evolve in a given direction. Natural selection drives evolution to whatever is preferable - if that includes an aversion to incest, then natural selection will select for that trait, given enough time.
What evidence or arguments do you have for this? Aside from what you’ve presented already, as that has not been convincing. My explanation seems consistent and simpler and occams razor would prefer it.
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i don’t know how you could possibly prove this, but i would love to see you try.
You can’t really definitively prove a theory like that I think. I’m no biologist so I’m not an expert by any means, but we can’t go back in time to see why evolution did what it did. We can only guess from what we have right now.
That said, such an “ew” response to incest surely is not just coincidence. It must have arose for a reason, just like all of our emotions evolved for a reason. For example, we also experience disgust when smelling or tasting rotten milk, because drinking rotten stuff is bad for survival too, so evolution made us have that response, because it would lower the chance of us drinking spoiled milk. There’s nothing “inherently disgusting” about incest or spoiled milk. We only find those things disgusting because they are bad, evolutionarily speaking.
And btw this isn’t restricted to humans obviously, all animals avoid having offspring with their close family, so this is a very deep-rooted behavior.