The Biocultural Basis of Stupidity

The interference of learning with adaptation through further learning is not a uniquely human problem. It is found, for example, among earth worms, which can be trained to turn away from an "Electrode alley" in a T-box—an experimental construct in which the animal reaches a choice-point and must go to one side or the other. Having learned to avoid the side with the electrode, a worm will at first have difficulty learning to turn the other way when the electrode is switched to the previously "Correct" side. In this case, what the animal had learned clearly interfered with its ability to adjust to altered environmental conditions, as it had to overcome the original lesson before it could form a new, effective schema.

Among both insects and birds, mimicry is perpetrated on unwitting hosts which have difficulty learning to discriminate between their own kind and impostors. Limitations on the ability of some social insects to learn make them perfect hosts for inquilines—parasites that are dependent throughout their life cycle on their hosts. These penetrate the alien society by means of physiological and behavioral mechanisms which have developed, through convergent evolution, the identifying traits of the host species. Thus, they are accepted because they provide the few key stimuli their hosts recognize as defining membership in the group.

Of course, the failure of the hosts to reject the invaders might be due more to a genetic limitation on their ability to perceive and learn than to a purely learned inability to learn. Although some animals (and humans) cannot learn certain things, they are not necessarily, ipso facto stupid. The range of their biological programs to react to environmental contingencies is somehow restricted, be it due to genetics, learning or any compounded combination of phylogenetic and ontological factors. Thus, while genetics may limit such organisms' abilities to learn, that does not qualify as stupidity, according to our definition.

Since vertebrates have more streams of information by which they can check phonies than do insects, most do not usually host mimics. However, some birds are victimized by parasitic mimicry of their eggs. For example, cowbird eggs are tailored not only to a particular host species but to the local population with which the cowbirds live. Among host species, there is considerable variation in tolerance to cowbird eggs, with "Discriminator" populations rejecting any cowbird egg that is not closely mimetic and "Nondiscriminator" populations accepting eggs of various sizes, colors and patterns.

In a general sense, the mammalian learning "Strategy", if you will, is more open than the more structured and intrinsically limited learning fields of other classes of organisms. Certainly, the learning process in mammals is directed more by experience with the environment than by a tight genetic program and thus usually promotes adaptation to short-term changes in their immediate surroundings.

Still, this is not always the case. In water-shrews, for example, learning can lead to some bizarre results. These creatures certainly challenge the basic principle that learning is adaptive because their distinctive behavioral characteristic is the inflexible tenacity with which they cling to any habit once formed. Perhaps it might be said that learning would be adaptive if it continued and thus permitted continual adjustments to changing conditions, but in this regard, water-shrews are archetypically stupid. Once one has learned a pathway through its environment, it will persist in its locomotor pattern although the path may have been altered significantly. (E.g., if it learned to jump on a stone at a certain point, it will continue to jump there even if the stone is removed.)

Thus, the shrew disregards its senses when it encounters a change in the environment which cries out for an alteration in behavior. Once a habit is ingrained, it inhibits the acquisition of more and better knowledge. This dominance of an established motor habit over perception is a remarkable peculiarity of the water-shrew, whereas the shaping of percepception by cognitive habit is more common among the more intelligent mammals.

The ability of animals to adapt behavior to perceptions of an environment which exists only in their minds was suggested by B. F. Skinner's "Superstitious pigeons". When reinforced at random, these birds came to make idiosyncratic movements as if by doing so they would elicit a reward. A better example is the "Raindance" of Jane Goodall's chimpanzees, which fairly invites the explanation that they are threatening that son of a baboon in the sky that makes it rain. Of course, they might just be venting their frustrations at being made miserable, but their aggressive displays certainly suggest a mentality capable of creating and acting according to myths.

Hence, there may really be nothing unique about human stupidity. Ac-cording to one view, we are, in this regard, only quantitatively but not qualitatively different from our fellow creatures. That is, we are not just as stupid as other animals but more so.

In fact, we are quantitatively excessive in one basic psychological capacity relating to stupidity, and that is the ability to learn. We have developed this ability we share with so many species to such an extent that we are in this respect biological extremes. With our equally excessive and exceptional imagination apparently the only limit on our capacity to conjure up lessons, we seem to be able to learn anything at all—whether it makes sense or not. Ironically, the power of the human mind to invent supernatural explanations for natural events is matched only by our curious inability to couple the simplest cause-effect relationships. The current worldwide need for birth control is but one handy example of this latter phenomenon: The inability of civilization to face up to this matter officially and do something effective about it is just typical of the stupid way people have failed to deal with problems throughout history.

Thus, we may be something other than just excessively stupid animals. According to a second view of human evolution, the new element in the human equation which makes human stupidity and indeed humans qualitatively unique is language. As we have noted, it is language which intensifies group identification, promotes self-deception and limits our ability to cope with ourselves. History shows a dreary succession of civilizations arising, growing, flowering and dying with each failure being displaced by another while the method of failure apparently remains remarkably constant: Biased value judgments disrupt interaction with the cultural and natural environments until the Establishment collapses and is replaced by a new but equally biased system. Most of the time, leaders could not cope with their most fundamental problems because they did not even recognize them as such. The suggestion here is that they did not do so primarily because of the way language shaped their schemas and defined their perceivable world.

If we owe our general humanity (i.e., our propensity to err) to verbalization, we owe our specific identity to socialization—the learning process which trains us to fit into a particular way of life. In this regard, human societies have two basic problems: 1.) people who fail to fit into the established organization, and 2.) established organizations which fail to reorganize according to changing needs of people in a changing world. In both cases, stupidity usually plays a decisive role.

Considering the evolutionary pressure in favor of success, bright people and efficient organizations should have survival advantages over others. If this is true (and perhaps it is not, as the standards for measuring brilliance and efficiency are not at all clearly defined), the question that must be asked is: How is it that we still have as much stupidity in the world as we do today? There are two obvious and easy answers: Nature and nurture. That is, we both breed and cultivate stupidity.

Genetically and culturally, there has always been a tendency of groups to sacrifice quality and even genius in favor of the cooperative spirit and group cohesion. As humans evolved in social groups rather than as individuals, cooperation of members within a group and of groups with each other was (and remains) essential. If intellectual life was compromised in the cause of cooperation, then it was because the net effect was advantageous for society.

There are two amazing things about the evolution of civilizations. One is the great variety of them which have developed, if not flourished: Almost any kind of cultural system can exist at least for a while if it can maintain a minimal level of internal consistency. The other is that the vast majority of these failed from internal malaise or external competition. Ironically, failure from both causes can be attributed to the fact that culture is a positive feedback system, with each specific civilization lacking internal checks on its own development. Thus, collapse occurs when a culture becomes 1.) fatally inconsistent with itself, 2.) consistent to the point of rigidity or 3.) eliminated through dire conflict with competing systems.

On the other hand, a cultural movement may flourish if such competition is balanced. For example, in the United States, big labor checked big business, and both prospered and promoted Americanism. Nationalistic ambitions in turn are usually checked by those of other countries. Thus, biocultural life seems to follow its own version of Newton's Third Law— every force begetting an equal but opposite force. If this is true of human affairs, a certain amount of confrontation if not conflict is inherent, necessary and perhaps (if non-violent) even good.

In fact, we are biological anomalies in that we have largely replaced interspecific competition with intraspecific (i.e., cultural) competition. As a result, there is no other species we need fear as much as ourselves. The major question facing us today is whether the pattern of replacing one human cultural variation with another will continue. If it does, we might despair over the passing of a particular cultural group, especially if it is our own. However, if it does not, it will not for one of two reasons: Either we will eliminate all cultural life completely, or we will find a way to live with ourselves.

There has long been a hope that scholarly research would help us learn about ourselves so that we could find a way to live together. Indeed there have been many efforts made to identify a definitive form of behavior—a uniquely human universal—which would provide a basis for understanding human nature, but so far, the best we have come up with is language, which we define as the way humans communicate. Piles of amassed data show no simple, non-lingual, behavioral constant across cultures. If anything, humans display endless variations in the ways they deal with and discuss basic biological problems (e.g., raising young, gathering energy, etc.) according to environmental contingencies and linguistic constraints.

Although stupidity is not uniquely human, understanding our verbally based brand of it might help us cope with ourselves and perhaps avoid some of the psychological and philosophical pitfalls which have plagued us in the past. Certainly, we can begin by acknowledging that stupidity has been our constant companion throughout history. Thus, anyone studying it in a historical context should learn something fundamental about the human experience and gain some insight into the human mind.

The first thing the student of stupidity learns is that, along with our purely biological needs—food, water, etc., we need a schema which provides a program for behavior. The second is that we also need an ideology which explains the nature of the universe and our relation to it. The ideology is a conscious, organized expression of the verbal facet of the schema and forms a cognitive bridge between religious beliefs about the supernatural world and secular ideas derived from coping with the mundane problems of life. These beliefs and ideas need not necessarily be factually based; nor need they be logically consistent with each other, and indeed they seldom are. Their function is to promote group cooperation as people interact with their natural and cultural environments.

The problem with and for the ideology is that it is not experience per se but the schema that comes to define life by shaping perceptions according to its own irrational nature. This often means that unpleasant facts are not treated as information but as sins—breaches of faith in the belief system. In real life, most political/economic systems do not have to make sense nor even be systematic: The important thing is that they function. Surely, any objective, outside observer committed to a logical analysis of events could not help but be bewildered by the development of modern governments and economies, for example. Nonetheless, as long as the people living with them believe in them, they (both the people and their nonsystematic systems) may survive and even flourish, at least for a while.

During their existence, "Establishments" are usually quite anti-empirical and unscientific in their adherence to obsolete or even incorrect theories about what they are doing. Those in power tend to be conservative —meaning they honor the ideas with which they grew up and perceive the world in terms of the values which took them to the top. Basically, leaders want to retain their power and are loath to acknowledge the existence of any problems they cannot solve without changing. Thus, their own continued predominance defines the context in which problems are considered. Throughout the ages, the eternal, ultimate political problem has been and remains that of controlling those in control, and the perennial abuse of power has invariably rested on the resistance of the mighty to any change in their point of view.

The failure of anyone to modify perceptions according to new combinations of developing environmental variables often leads to the extreme imbalanced condition everyone else recognizes as stupidity. This would happen even more often than it does except that most "Perceptual systems" are checked by conflicting systems. Thus, youthful enthusiasm is checked by parental guidance; corporations are checked by government, which is checked by the people or other governments, etc. On the other hand, stupidity is induced when systems which should check each other become mutually reinforcing. The arms race was a striking example of this process, as two systems, which would have confronted each other in ages past, stimulated each other to excesses in the development of their military establishments. Only as recently as December, 1987, did the signing of an arms control treaty designed to restrict our capacity to annihilate ourselves interject an element of sanity into this double helix of inspired madness which had its origins in our common past.

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