When biologist Edward O. Wilson published his landmark megabook, Sociobiology, in 1975, it was at once a catalyst for a new discipline focused on the study of social behavior, including human behavior, from an evolutionary perspective and a challenge (a thrown gauntlet) which sparked a raging debate among social scientists (and some other biologists).
The heart of the matter was Wilson’s claim that we should “biologize” the study of human behavior and recognize that “human nature” is tightly controlled by an “epigenetic leash” that, he implied, had a neo-Darwinian foundation. Humans, like all other species, are fundamentally driven by reproductive competition, and cooperation is an exception that arises only in contexts where there is genetic relatedness (and thus inclusive fitness, or “kin selection”), or where there are opportunities for “reciprocal altruism” (in Robert Trivers’ formulation).
Wilson was faithfully reflecting the state-of-the-art in evolutionary theory at that time, but as I and others soon pointed out, this theoretical formulation was seriously deficient. In fact, cooperative behaviors are widespread in the natural world and are not at all confined to genetically-related actors. To the contrary, the primary driver for cooperation – at all levels in living systems – is the functional synergies (the adaptive benefits) that are produced. It is the “bioeconomic” payoffs from cooperation which explain why unrelated birds nest jointly, or collectively mob potential predators, and why unrelated humans engage in a myriad of cooperative activities. (This crucial point is discussed at length in my recent books, Nature’s Magic and Holistic Darwinism.)
Among other implications, this shifts the locus of causation from the “ultimate” genetic level – and the machinations of selfish genes -- to the economic calculus of the phenotypes at the “proximate” level. It also makes what the social sciences have been learning about human behavior relevant to an understanding of our mode of adaptation as a species – our “survival strategy.” As I discuss in detail in various writings, close cooperation and synergies of various kinds have been of central importance in our evolutionary trajectory, perhaps for several million years. We are quintessentially “the synergistic ape.”
However, this important element of our human nature does not negate the competitive aspect that is inescapable in nature, and evolution. Rather, cooperation and competition form a complex duality in humankind. Both of these behavioral modalities have played a vitally important role in our evolutionary success as a species and in our ongoing survival enterprise. Often, in fact, they are inextricably linked. Call it competition via cooperation. (Indeed, our many team sports represent a microcosm of this distinctive, though hardly unique, behavioral pattern.)
So, rather than having sociobiology “reformulate the foundations of the social sciences,” as Wilson put it in the preface to his 1975 volume, it may well be that the social sciences will reformulate the foundations of sociobiology.
Thought for the day: I see that the loan sharks are back, only now they’re called credit card companies. And so are the pool hall hustlers, though we now refer to them as sub-prime mortgage lenders. Funny how words like “usury” and “fraud” have all-but vanished from our political dialogue.
An Introduction
In his path-breaking book, Beyond Reductionism (1969), the famed novelist and polymath Arthur Koestler remarked that "true innovation occurs when things are put together for the first time that had been separate." He was talking about synergy, of course, a phenomenon that is still greatly underrated and vastly more important even than Koestler imagined. I call it "nature's magic."
Synergy is in fact one of the great governing principles of the natural world; it ranks right up there with such heavyweight concepts as gravity, energy, information and entropy as one of the keys to understanding how the world works. It has been a wellspring of creativity in the evolution of the universe; it has greatly influenced the overall trajectory of life on Earth; it played a decisive role in the emergence of humankind; it is vital to the workings of every modern society; and it is no exaggeration to say that our ultimate fate depends on it. Indeed, every day, in a thousand different ways, our lives are shaped, and re-shaped, by synergy.
All of these grandiose-sounding claims are discussed in detail, with many hundreds of examples, in three of my books: The Synergism Hypothesis (McGraw-Hill, 1983), Nature's Magic (Cambridge University Press, 2003), and Holistic Darwinism (University of Chicago Press, 2005), as well as in many of my articles for professional journals. Some of these publications are available at my website: http://www.complexsystems.org/
The purpose of this blog is to provide a continuing update on synergy and an opportunity for some dialogue on this important and still underappreciated phenomenon, along with commentaries on various topics - political, economic, and social -- from a synergy-monger's perspective. The tag-lines for each entry, with a "thought for the day," are the unregulated firecrackers that go off in my mind from time to time.
Peter Corning pacorning@complexsystems.org
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Synergy is in fact one of the great governing principles of the natural world; it ranks right up there with such heavyweight concepts as gravity, energy, information and entropy as one of the keys to understanding how the world works. It has been a wellspring of creativity in the evolution of the universe; it has greatly influenced the overall trajectory of life on Earth; it played a decisive role in the emergence of humankind; it is vital to the workings of every modern society; and it is no exaggeration to say that our ultimate fate depends on it. Indeed, every day, in a thousand different ways, our lives are shaped, and re-shaped, by synergy.
All of these grandiose-sounding claims are discussed in detail, with many hundreds of examples, in three of my books: The Synergism Hypothesis (McGraw-Hill, 1983), Nature's Magic (Cambridge University Press, 2003), and Holistic Darwinism (University of Chicago Press, 2005), as well as in many of my articles for professional journals. Some of these publications are available at my website: http://www.complexsystems.org/
The purpose of this blog is to provide a continuing update on synergy and an opportunity for some dialogue on this important and still underappreciated phenomenon, along with commentaries on various topics - political, economic, and social -- from a synergy-monger's perspective. The tag-lines for each entry, with a "thought for the day," are the unregulated firecrackers that go off in my mind from time to time.
Peter Corning pacorning@complexsystems.org
__________________________________________________
Thursday, November 29, 2007
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