Correction of spelling: the author of Descarte's Error is Antonio Damasio.

BGC--
Thank you.

Question--
Razib (or anyone):
How do I indicate that the Amazon links are coming from gnxp?

Could you give an example of where you think Damasio is making a pro-HBD points in Descartes' Error? I've always thought he was a bit PC, not of the evangelical variety, but the kind that doesn't want to be impolite. Thought I guess that kind of goes with the territory of being a popular science author.

How do I indicate that the Amazon links are coming from gnxp?

i did it for you. i just look up the book, and cut & paste the appropriate ID into one of the links on the right. they've changed the text link generator multiple times, and i liked the old one....

Kudos for your comments on Richard Lewontin.

Could you give an example of where you think Damasio is making a pro-HBD points in Descartes' Error?

Example (p.76 in the Vintage 2006 printing of Descartes Error):

A recent and especially relevant finding for my argument on the concentration of one of the chemical receptors for serotonin in the ventromedial sector of the prefrontal cortex and in the amygdala...One of the roles of serotonin in primates is the inhibition of aggressive behavior (curiously, it has other roles in other species). In experimental animals, when neurons in which serotonin originates are blocked from delivering it, one consequence is that the animals behave impulsively and aggressively. In general, enhancing serotonin function reduces aggression and favors social behavior.

In this context it is important to note, as shown in the work of Michael Raleigh, that in monkeys whose behavior is socially well tuned (as measured by displays of cooperation, grooming, and proximity to others), the number of serotonin-2 [5HT-2] receptors is extremely high in the ventromedial frontal lobe, the amygdala, and the medial cortices in its vicinity, but not elsewhere in the brain; and that in monkeys exhibiting noncooperative, antagonistic behavior, the opposite is true.

Damasio's "The Feeling of What Happens" is also good.

I also recommend The Embodied Mind" by Rosch, Varela, and Thompson.

This has nothing to do with HBD, I just saw Damasio's name.

Everybody uses Orwell against their enemies, which was the opposite of the effect that Orwell was hoping for.

Human biodiversity remains undefined at Wikipedia, although recently defined there is Human biodiversity institute, a pointer to Steve Sailer. Too bad nobody from gnxp will go over there to Wikipedia and give them the scientific definition of Human biodiversity. Lots of people waste a lot of energy arguing about the definition of the word race, when all they are really interested in is establishing the existence of HDB

Everybody uses Orwell against their enemies, which was the opposite of the effect that Orwell was hoping for.

Emerson's corollary to Godwin's law: If the venue is too savvy or high-brow (or pretentious) for Godwin's law to apply as is, due to the fact that all participants are aware of it and consciously avoid mentioning the Nazis, just replace "the Nazis" with "Big Brother" or some other 1984 reference.

I consider all of these works, as those of Murray, Sailer [...] to be good examples of what George Orwell called "the empirical habit of thought,"

I wasn't aware that reckless data selection was part of "the empirical habit of thought", but maybe my memory is a bit foggy.

What do others think of Vaillant? I just read the reviews of "Spiritual Evolution" on Amazon, and am skeptical -- he sounds like too much of a religious apologist, just going by the reviews.

Everybody uses Orwell against their enemies, which was the opposite of the effect that Orwell was hoping for. [also quoted and elaborated on by "toto."]

True...I think 1984 is as much a self-criticism as a criticism of Orwell's enemies (for example, Orwell considered himself to be a socialist, yet IngSoc, or English Socialism, is the ruling ideology of the evil Party). Remembering the principles of doublethink (or is it undoublethink?), I think both the reading of 1984 as a self-criticism and as a scathing critique of society, and of mindlessly orthodox thinking in general is important to keep in mind.

I wasn't aware that reckless data selection was part of "the empirical habit of thought", but maybe my memory is a bit foggy.

Well, what an orthodox thinker might interpret as "reckless data selection" someone else, like myself, might interpret as willingness to come up with and accept new and/or unorthodox ideas. I have always found the criticism of h-bd, and lines of scientific thought in general, as "too reckless" or "not rigorous" to be irritating; if one had to come up with an elaborate proof for every new, unorthodox, or unpopular idea, scientific and social progress would come to a halt.

This goes for learning in general: I couldn't come up with the proofs for many important scientific and mathematical formulae I have frequently used if I had to save my life (this goes even for ones as simple as the quadratic formula), but this does not make my use of such formulae "reckless." I am not denying the occasional utility of rigorous proofs. In fact, thinking about the nature of formulae, rather than learning and using them by rote, can be critical in understanding them and coming up with new ones.

As an aside, one thing I like about Vaillant's writing is his willingness to come up with new ideas, and support them by "metaphor" rather than hard proof, to be refreshing. It is true that such thinking can lead to many false positives, especially when used by someone who is not as smart or informed as they think they are, but in the end one must realize that the need to avoid false positives must be balanced with the utility of finding true positives.

See also: the persistent skeptic, solipsism

Along sort of the same line of thought, I did find some amusing similarities between Ingsoc and Cognitive Elitism (the supposed ideology of gnxp’ers like myself) or, in Newspeak, CogElite.

For example, membership in IngSoc is "by examination," presumably an IQ-type test. IngSoc, while highly xenophobic and warlike (I say unlike CogElite and more like Bush-McCainism), is also aracial: "Jews, [blacks],--note: the Latin word for black used in the book seems to trip off something in Haloscan-- and South Americans of pure Indian descent" could be found in the highest ranks of the Party. Ingsoc, while hierarchal, is also in principle non-hereditary, willing to draw itself anew from the low classes if necessary. (see in Goldstein’s book, Chapter One: Ignorance is Strength). Hmm, sounds very much like the CogElite ideal of a deracinated, high-IQ elite.

I could even think of three slogans for a future twisted CogElite Party, a hodgepodge amalgamation of Cognitive Elitism and futurism as advocated by myself, and limousine liberalism, "bourgeois bohemianism," multiculturalism, neoconservativism, religious fanaticism, and good old-style totalitarianism, Marxism, and Nazism.

Proposed CogElite Slogans, circa 2086:

INTELLIGENCE IS STUPIDITY
Origins: my (and society’s) obsession with intelligence; contrarily, the tendency of the orthodox mutli-culti Left to deny the importance of intelligence; the tendency of both intelligent and stupid people to be politically stupid (see Derbyshire’s law), the necessity of intelligent people to create and maintain the ultimate evil: a totalitarian, unchangeable, 1984-like society.
DIVISION IS STENGTH
Origins: The slogan "diversity is strength," the old militarist slogan "divide and conquer"; contrarily, the need for division of labor in economics, the enrichment that other cultures can bring (even if all too often the reverse is the case).
UGLINESS IS BEAUTY
Origins: Naomi Wolf’s "The Beauty Myth," perhaps the stupidest and most irritating book ever written and the quite authoritarian feminist movement’s hatred of beauty; contrarily, the utter lack of taste of nerds like myself (see the writings of Udolpho); the barrenness of the modern "concrete jungle" that pervades much of the world today and is always pervasive in dystopian visions; the concepts of goodsex and sexcrime from 1984, my concept, borrowed from the examples of substance use in 1984 of crimedrugging (drug use for personal enjoyment, for alleged spiritual or mind-expanding purposes) and gooddrugging (drug use that advances the interest of the State, i.e. that is mind control purposes).

Also, speaking of the evil in good and the good in evil: for all the evil of Communism and Nazism, I believe there is an important grain of truth in both ideologies' view of history: that is, history as a history of class struggle (Marxism), or of race struggle (Nazism).

Think about it: what is class struggle? It is a struggle about access to money, that is, access to resources. This seems like a fairly fundamental struggle in life; it is hard to survive, much less reproduce without food, a place to live, and a mate, preferably all of high quality. I think even a reptile would understand these things at some level; certainly any mammal would. These things all activate the reward system in higher vertebrates, and activation of the reward system typically is important in creating memories as well as motivation.

Same goes for race struggle: race stuggle, or in more ancient terms, clan or tribe stuggle, is the struggle of one's genetic relatives against another's genetic relatives. Ultimately, race/tribe/clan struggle is about the survival and reproduction of one's own genome, a struggle for all of life. This, I believe, is also a struggle that any higher vertebrate would "understand." For example, even mother snakes, for example, have been observed caring for their young. Family, clan, and tribe are much more clearly important for mammals and their "mammal-like reptile" ancestors who lived about 250-300 million years ago.

So, in spite of the gross oversimplification and often ill motives of Nazis and Communists alike, their view of life and history is not *completely* off-kilter. They speak of struggles that are probably, at some level, 250-350 million years old, and at an even broader level, as old as life itself.