Probably not the most significant updates, but tracking all changes to beliefs creates significant overhead, so I don’t remember the most important one. Often, I’m unsure whether something counts as a proper update versus learning something new or refining a view, but whatever, here’s two examples:
Reading the excellent blog Traditions of Conflict, I have become more confused about how egalitarian hunter-gatherer societies really are. The blog describes instances of male cults controlling resources in tribes, high prevalence of arranged polygynous marriage, the absence of matriarchies—which doesn’t fit well with my previously believed degree of egalitarianism in those societies. Confusing, perhaps due to the sampling bias of the writer (who is mostly interested in this phenomenon of male dominance, neglecting more egalitarian societies). However, checking Wikipedia confirms the suspicious absence of matriarchies (and if hunter-gatherers were basically egalitarian, we should (by random error) see as many matriarchal as patriarchal societies).
Odd.
Another decent update is on the importance of selection in evolution, reading Gillespie on population genetics has updated me towards believing that random mutation and drift are much more important than selection.
I think the idea of hunter-gatherers being egalitarian is just a subtrope of the “noble savage”. (The ancient people were perfect in all applause lights: perfectly spiritual, perfectly ecological, perfectly free and egalitarian, but also perfectly knowing their place in society, perfectly peaceful, but also having a perfect warrior ethics, etc.)
Probably with some Marxist-ish use of wealth as a proxy for inequality in general; so if you have no capital, then by definition everyone must be perfectly equal, right? Haha, no. A strong person and their buddies can bully the weaker ones, regardless of whether the money was already invented.
Sometimes we get an evidence that some specific form of hierarchy is opposed, for example the successful hunters are not allowed to boast about their skills. From my perspective, a more plausible interpretation of this norm is that there is an established hierarchy (based on interpersonal violence and coalition-organizing skills) which opposes any attempt to create parallel hierarchies.
I am curious about the second part of your comment. What exactly makes you think that random mutation and drift are much more important than natural selection? The bit I have problems with is the “much more”.
Looking over some of my notes from the book, I should perhaps have written “much more than I previously thought”—just learning that there is a pretty hefty debate in the theory of molecular evolution about whether selection plays a role at all made me update towards placing less importance on selection (the existence of an academic debate on the topic makes it at least not a shut-and-close case).
But I’m still quite much working with the book, so this belief might be overturned quickly or refined once I re-read the chapter.
Probably not the most significant updates, but tracking all changes to beliefs creates significant overhead, so I don’t remember the most important one. Often, I’m unsure whether something counts as a proper update versus learning something new or refining a view, but whatever, here’s two examples:
Reading the excellent blog Traditions of Conflict, I have become more confused about how egalitarian hunter-gatherer societies really are. The blog describes instances of male cults controlling resources in tribes, high prevalence of arranged polygynous marriage, the absence of matriarchies—which doesn’t fit well with my previously believed degree of egalitarianism in those societies. Confusing, perhaps due to the sampling bias of the writer (who is mostly interested in this phenomenon of male dominance, neglecting more egalitarian societies). However, checking Wikipedia confirms the suspicious absence of matriarchies (and if hunter-gatherers were basically egalitarian, we should (by random error) see as many matriarchal as patriarchal societies).
Odd.
Another decent update is on the importance of selection in evolution, reading Gillespie on population genetics has updated me towards believing that random mutation and drift are much more important than selection.
I think the idea of hunter-gatherers being egalitarian is just a subtrope of the “noble savage”. (The ancient people were perfect in all applause lights: perfectly spiritual, perfectly ecological, perfectly free and egalitarian, but also perfectly knowing their place in society, perfectly peaceful, but also having a perfect warrior ethics, etc.)
Probably with some Marxist-ish use of wealth as a proxy for inequality in general; so if you have no capital, then by definition everyone must be perfectly equal, right? Haha, no. A strong person and their buddies can bully the weaker ones, regardless of whether the money was already invented.
Sometimes we get an evidence that some specific form of hierarchy is opposed, for example the successful hunters are not allowed to boast about their skills. From my perspective, a more plausible interpretation of this norm is that there is an established hierarchy (based on interpersonal violence and coalition-organizing skills) which opposes any attempt to create parallel hierarchies.
I am curious about the second part of your comment. What exactly makes you think that random mutation and drift are much more important than natural selection? The bit I have problems with is the “much more”.
Looking over some of my notes from the book, I should perhaps have written “much more than I previously thought”—just learning that there is a pretty hefty debate in the theory of molecular evolution about whether selection plays a role at all made me update towards placing less importance on selection (the existence of an academic debate on the topic makes it at least not a shut-and-close case).
But I’m still quite much working with the book, so this belief might be overturned quickly or refined once I re-read the chapter.