Foreign Perspectives

Chapter 2, on Evolutionary Psychology, runs to 46 pages and is quite a change in content from the identity chapter. It’s split into four basic sections with two essentially biological and two more psychological in nature. One of the options in the second TMA is based around the final section on altruism so the notes on that will probably be better than those on the other sections initially.

I’ve highlighted the key exam topics.

The chapter begins by looking at the different types of evidence which evolutionary psychologists use. Archaeological evidence includes the relative sizes of males and females, pelvis size, tools, cave paintings and evidence of social groupings from excavations. Genetic evidence looks over a longer time-scale considering the evolutionary split between apes and our human ancestors and any breeding that may have taken place between the various human species in the past. Studies on present day non-human primates and hunter-gathers looks at the social structures but recognising that these populations are not the same as our distant ancestors and that the presence of modern humans may distort the findings. Studies looking at the universality of behaviours and what modern humans actually do consider that if a behaviour is universal these days then it has derived from a common behaviour amongst our ancestors e.g. the male preference for features that indicate fertility in females.

The chapter moves on to consider the various evolutionary processes which generated all the differences that we see in the present day in what feels very much a whistle-stop tour of evolutionary biology. The genes which collectively form the DNA are at the core of this with the mixing of the chromosomes during sex forming a unique individual from the contribution of the genetic content of the egg and sperm. Selection is at the core of this with natural selection relying on 1) variation in individuals 2) part of this variation being due to genetics and 3) there being some competition in terms of resources. This selection process leads to adaptations with the fittest for the particular circumstances out-breeding the less fit. Sexual selection is the process though which reproductive success is improved by passing on physical and behavioural characteristics to one’s descendants; males by having a lower investment in their offspring would generally tend towards having more of them whereas females tend to invest more in each so look for long term mates. This section finishes with a brief overview of the hominine family touching on the super-family of apes from 30 million years ago, to hominoids (apes and humans) 22 million years ago and our human ancestors around 5 to 7 million years ago, noting that up to around 30,000 years ago there were multiple human species around at the same time.

From the biology, we have a bit of a lurch into psychology with the theory of mind, which is the ability to think from the perspective of another and to thereby predict what someone else is likely to do. That it is not fully present in chimpanzees indicates that it evolved after the split some 5-7 million years ago. The Maxi (Sally-Anne) [Wimmer and Perner, 1983] test indicates that we develop a theory of mind by around 6 years old although the false-belief that it tests is not all that encompasses theory of mind and alternatives (e.g. Chandler’s 1989 hide and seek test) have indicated that it is present from around 2 years of age. Although children generally follow the same developmental trajectory, the age at which it arises differs across cultures. As one might expect, it is much less developed in those with autism. Apes exhibit the deception aspect of this. It is illustrated in archaeology in terms of art from 30,000-40,000 years ago but the lack of human evolution for some 200,000 years indicates that it has been around for quite a while despite the lack of concrete evidence for it earlier than the cave paintings.

Finally, the related issues of altruism and reciprocity are covered. Since natural selection is all about reproductive success, you might think that altruism would play no part in the selection process. However, the reproductive success is not about the success of a particular individual but rather about the reproductive success of the genes involved. Therefore, through the process of kin selection one can see that it is advantageous to help individuals with whom we have a lot of genes in common i.e. our relatives and that we would tend to help those with whom we had a greater number of genes in common i.e. the closer the relative, the more the help that would be offered. Outside our relatives we also help complete strangers which is generally on the basis that a helpful act will be repaid later (reciprocal altruism) which brings into play a certain amount of game theory. This is illustrated in psychology by the prisoner’s dilemma where the best strategy is usually to defect (i.e. not to make the initial altruistic act) although in an ongoing relationship, it’s better to be altruistic first then do whatever the other guy did on you; it also has cultural biases and the students that it’s generally tried out on would be expected to be somewhat more clued in than actual criminals. Indirect reciprocity covers the situation where others benefit but there is no direct benefit to the altruist, the assumption here being that the altruist will gain brownie points as their benefit which in turn helps them. Evidence for altruism in animals is mixed with initial studies looking at food sharing indicating that it didn’t happen (but they tend not to share food at all) whereas later studies looking at general helpfulness showed that they were altruistic; there are issues with all of these studies as they were using animals raised in captivity.

For the exam, the key topics for this chapter are highlighted above and are:

Theory of mind
Natural selection
Sexual selection
Reciprocal altruism

The next chapter is on learning which is an exam rather than a TMA topic but I’ll be covering it over the next week anyway.

Hawaii is a loooong way from anywhere so the best option for most people from Europe is to include it as part of a round the world trip and, all being well, I’ll be doing that at some point in the next year or two once more.

Last time we stayed at the Waikiki Surf hotel which is a few blocks back from the beach and a teensy bit noisy as it’s on quite a major road. I think next time around it’ll probably be one facing the sea: ’tis much nicer to wake to the sound of the surf than the sound of the traffic. Incidently, be careful of the exact name of your hotel as there are untold numbers of Waikiki X hotel, Surf Y and Outrigger Z hotels!

Waikiki is on Oahu along with Honolulu and is probably the most touristy of the islands. Having said that, this means that there are loads of things to do. Don’t miss the Polynesian Centre which is run by the students of the Mormon university on the island. Fans of Hawaii Five-O won’t want to miss the view from Diamond Head. Pearl Harbour still holds the remains of numerous battleships. I’ve an upcoming trips guide which covers all this in more detail.

For something completely different, Maui offers you much more of an ecological location. Less touristy and much more scenic. More of a vacation rental place I think as that gives you more of a chance to wind down after the long flight.

Anything to do with boating is never cheap but if you want a holiday experience that you’ll really remember then a cruise down a canal in your own boat is hard to beat.

A holiday on a canal boat (“barge” doesn’t really seem the correct term for the boats that you find these days) is at a totally different pace. Normal guidebooks are completely useless as they are aimed at drivers and cover a much greater chunk of the countryside than you’d be able to see at the pace of a canal boat. You’ll see all kinds of cute little villages that you’d have zoomed past without a second glance and as the canals tend to go through the older parts of towns you get to see some quite historic sections of towns that you’d never have seen before even if you were quite familiar with them.

You can do this in lots of countries but with the exchange rate being what it is why not try out a canal boat on the Norfolk Broads?

This is the type of holiday that you really need to do at least once in your life.

Not so long ago, the only IT seminars put on locally were those by the BCS and usually only about once a month over the winter months with very much the same faces seen at every one.

Roll that on a decade or so and there seem to be seminars coming out of the woodwork everywhere. This week there were two quite different but equally good ones.

First off was a very interesting perspective of how agile methods are used in CME. Although broadly aimed at the development community, it had enough background for others in the IT community to pick up on it. This was one of those from the BCS series and oddly, despite there being hundreds if not thousands more IT jobs locally now, the number attending was much the same as it has always been for BCS events. That unchanging number is a bit sad really as some other non-BCS events can have hundreds of people at them these days, so why not the BCS ones?

The next day was something of a marathon ISACA one on COBIT that ran on for around two hours. That’s something of a specialist field so it wasn’t surprising to see just a handful of attendees for what turned out to be a surprisingly comprehensive overview of the COBIT methodology. The ISACA events are quite frequently attended by a hundred or more people but it does vary from topic to topic and speaker to speaker.

Over the course of a year there are quite a number of such talks. By far the best attended are generally the ISACA and BASH ones representing the IT security and IT development communities with a continual stream of niche ones at Farset Labs.

These days there’s really no excuse if you’re using simple wallpaper that everyone else has to decorate your home.

How much better to display a selection of your own photographs instead? You’ve probably not thought about that before as the normal commercial photographic printers just cater for the typical album size prints and don’t have the equipment to produce a trully impressive work of art for your wall from your photographs.

However, you don’t need to limit yourself to the photographic shop round the corner these days as it’s very easy to transfer a photograph to a printer anywhere. Not only does this open up the possibility of much larger prints but you’ve also the option of printing on various types of “paper” from the usual glossy (not really suitable for large scale photos) through to canvas if you’d like an almost painting like quality to your print.

Particularly for the larger sizes, printing photograph on canvas is really the only way to go. If your image is from a compact digital camera more than a year or two old then it’ll go “blocky” on normal photographic paper if you try to run off a print at the larger sizes but on canvas this disappears into the texture of the material you’re getting it printed on.

What about the subject for your photo? That depends on you. I’m quite taken with this photo that I took of Cordoba and I’ve a heap of similar scenic photos from that particular trip. On the other hand, all scenes would make for a dull home I suspect and it’s probably best to mix them up with photos of the kids and so on. One thing to watch on the landscape photos is that if you’re not careful they can date quite quickly if you’ve included people in them as dress styles change surprisingly quickly sometimes (unless the people are in native dress of course).

Last, but not least, don’t forget that you can update the photos now and again too.