Source of book: Borrowed from the library
Every so often, I like to read a book on some facet of nature related to evolution and evolutionary pressures. This one seemed interesting, because “lying” is a huge part of nature itself - we humans are not remotely unique in this behavior.
Perhaps “lying” is the wrong word here. “Deception” is better, but Sun uses “cheating” to describe the various traits and behaviors which use deception to gain an evolutionary advantage.
This book seems timely - it was published just last year, which means the author can tie in some of our lie-saturated politics of the Trump Era in the chapters on human behavior.
Particularly interesting to me is the distinction that the author makes between two kinds of cheating: one is by sending false messages - lying. The other is exploiting biases, weaknesses, or deficits in the cognitive system of other animals. (Or plants, for that matter - the book focuses on animals but notes that all kinds of life have their own forms of deception.)
Perhaps a good example of the former is when a raven sends a false “predator approaching” signal so it can eat the carrion the bigger birds are eating. It is a lie - a communication that has its message corrupted so to speak.
The second can be demonstrated by the way a hover fly looks at first glance like a wasp, making it appear dangerous and toxic to eat.
Throughout the book, Sun examines the evolutionary arms race between cheaters and the means of detection of cheating. As the closing chapters note, this is ongoing in human society - we are in a transition period right now where new technology has enabled new ways of exploiting our cognitive loopholes, but for many the immune system has failed to catch up. (The existence of the MAGA movement is very much proof of this - it is based on delusion and exploitation of cognitive loopholes.)
As with any evolutionary biology book, I find that there is a little bit of overreach, which is to be expected. If you are an evolutionary biologist, you seek to explain everything that way. This isn’t wrong, per se - evolution does indeed shed a lot of light on animal and human behaviors - but it can lead to an oversimplification of cultural factors.
As Augustin Fuentes argued, it is all too easy to explain “what is” as simply “human nature,” baked into our genes - and that includes gender stereotypes, racial stereotypes, and so on - rather than seeing “what is” as a cultural phenomenon, one of many possibilities. This is the same problem I have with Determinism generally - it makes no place for free will and thus the possibility of positive change.
I think Sun does his best to avoid this, even noting that he is using extreme oversimplifications when it comes to the battle of the sexes and that even in the animal world, things are a lot more complicated. If you read with this understanding, I think his points will seem more enlightening.
Notwithstanding this reality, Sun does make great arguments for his points, and opens a world of causes, effects, and countereffects that explain a lot of what we see in our world. It’s well worth a read.
One final comment before I get into the book itself: one thing I have noticed over the last few decades is that religious fundamentalists deny the truth of evolution at the same time that they take the most Darwinian positions about human nature. Their obsession with sex is well known, but less noticed is that they have adopted the most extreme (and scientifically dubious) version of Darwinian sexual politics to justify their rules and practices. Likewise, while claiming to reject evolution, they have embraced Social Darwinism as their economic policy, viewing everything from poverty to inequality as survival of the fittest.
It is puzzling to me, to say the least. But perhaps Fundies have found that self-deception is evolutionarily beneficial…
With that in mind, let’s dive in. One of the insights of scientific observation has been that humans are animals. This shouldn’t be controversial, but it is. We are animals - specifically primates - and our behaviors are mostly not unique. Yes, we have some that we alone do - mostly related to our social nature and our larger brains - but we share more than we acknowledge.
This has caused particular problems in how certain religions approach sex: by denying that we are animals, they deny that sexuality is a core part of our nature and that our bodies are who we are. (Again, though, they tend in practice to adopt Darwinistic views of sexuality while denying that they do so…it’s weird.)
Denial in this matter has led to repression of knowledge - for example that many animals engage in homosexual behavior, and show intersex and even transgender traits. (This book examines a few of those, by the way.)
In this book, though, the behaviors of deception are shown to be widespread - indeed endemic to life. By looking at how deception works in the rest of nature, we can gain insight into how it functions in our own society.
Regardless of their prevalence in nature, however, the words cheating, lying, and deception all come with negative connotations due to our moral preference and the premium we place on honesty. Although we value truth and loathe lies, real life often runs counter to what we ideally want. Contrary to the long-held dictum, honesty is not always the best policy in our daily lives.
As we find later in the book, all of us deceive, and do so constantly. Most of our deceptions are pro-social - the white lies necessary to live in peace with our fellow humans. As such, these are not morally bad, but the contrary - they hurt no one, and have a positive effect. The moral valence depends not a bright line, but on real-life effects. (Something Fundies really need to learn about morality - including their own.)
With the emergence of modern human intelligence, the arms race between cheating and counter-cheating strategies was not only vastly expanded and intensified but also began to take place at a whole new level - the arena of cultural evolution.
Understanding this is a key, in my opinion, to responding to the most pernicious forms of cheating in human culture. Many of the positive developments that we make are in response to cheating, and when we make them the cheaters are often furious, and work to find new ways of cheating to hold on to their advantages. Understanding the MAGA movement this way is illuminating: our society has permitted certain groups of people to attain undeserved advantages due to skin color, gender, and religion. And now that this systemic cheat is being challenged, they are furious and determined to maintain their unfair advantage. Not all, of course, because some of us with those advantages realize that humanity as a whole will be better with less cheating of this kind.
I won’t get into all of the wonderful and fascinating examples from nature in this book. I have always been a science nerd, and the book is filled with great stuff. But it is best read in context rather than as quotes or blurbs.
I do want to note this passage, though:
It’s wrong to assume that mimicry needs to be perfect, despite the many stunning cases we’ve examined. To exploit the cognitive loopholes of another species, you only need a good enough disguise to fool your target. Often a very crude mimic will suffice.
We see this in real life. Many of us find ourselves frustrated at the scams people fall for. To us, they look obvious. (Nigerian Prince anyone?) And we may also be frustrated at how supposed “christians” fell for an anti-christ orange messiah. But it helps to keep in mind that the mimic doesn’t need to be exact - or even close. It just needs to be good enough to exploit cognitive loopholes and biases. All Trump had to do was use specific cultural signifiers for white Evangelicalism to activate these biases in his favor – he would be “close enough” even though those of us with some distance from Evangelical subculture can’t see any actual resemblance.
I found his discussion of religion and rituals to be very interesting. I think he has some great insights that all of us, whether religious or not, should consider.
On the surface, many religious practices seem enigmatic and maladaptive, including circumcision, fasting, and handling of dangerous animals such as poisonous snakes. But if we see these rituals as handicaps, they immediately make sense: they are ways to show devotion, build trust, forge loyalty, and facilitate cooperation, while deterring free riding among followers. This provides a compelling explanation for an otherwise paradoxical phenomenon: the more onerous and restrictive religious practices are, the more donations and attendance they’ll garner from church members.
Sun ties this in with other seemingly maladaptive traits - think tails in male peafowl. Another fun tie-in was his comparison of the Brown-headed Cowbird (common in my area) to mafia thugs. It fits, by the way.
Also fun is his use of the Wason Selection Task to explain social intelligence. It is no accident that social animals evolve not merely individual intelligence, but especially collective social intelligence.
Changes in a social environment can take place at a moment’s notice, much faster than those in the physical environment. Social animals are therefore doubly challenged by the need to adapt at the same time to the complexity of their peer environment and their physical surroundings. As a result, two kinds of intelligence - individual and collective - are found in animals that live any kind of social life.
This is a whole other level of cheating opportunity and cost as well. Both cooperation and manipulation can be successful strategies, but one can also be victimized by the latter. This also points out the importance of socialization for human development. Those who are too isolated (for example, some religious homeschoolers) can fail to develop the basic social sense - street smarts - that come with a wider exposure to human behavior.
Also fascinating in this particular discussion was the question of when cheating become maladaptive - where it fails to lead to gains and instead damages the person or organism.
Sun mentions the “dark triad” of personality traits: Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy. As he notes, the fact that very few people actually practice Machiavellianism and those who do fail to thrive indicates that it is not a particularly good trait to have as a human. However, occasionally, it works.
That dark triad is present in Trump, for example. Given his wealth and privilege, and the particular cultural moment we are in with the rise of the Religious Right and the authoritarian parenting that went along with it, he lucked out. Had he been born poor, he would be dead or in prison by now.
Also interesting to note is that, while those dark triad traits enabled one of my siblings to cheat within our family culture by exploiting my parents’ cognitive loopholes, it has not done them any favors outside of it.
Humans are unique as to the level of cheating we have developed, even if cheating itself is common in nature.
Cheating in humans is unrivaled in the animal world - whether in scale, variety, intricacy, or novelty. This is due primarily to three factors: the use of language, a high level of intelligence, and the complexity of human societies. Language provides a new powerful tool to lie and deceive; intelligence facilitates the invention and design of schemes; and societal complexity supplies a wellspring of opportunities to defraud.
Unsurprisingly, the Ashley Madison website gets a mention, including the huge gender imbalance and the use of bots to impersonate women. (Another form of modern cheating!) But another statistic stood out:
Many biological and cultural factors - such as hormones, genetic makeup, intelligence, and tradition - affect cheating for sex. There is even a role played by religiosity. Statistics show that extremely religious people and unreligious people are more likely to cheat than those who are moderately religious.
I’ll also note the discussion of Dunning Kruger Syndrome - where incompetent people overrate their abilities (or knowledge) while competent people underrate themselves. Actually, the whole chapter on self-delusion (and its evolutionary origin and benefits) was fascinating.
Another passage talks extensively about placebos and their effects. His analysis of acupuncture is particularly perceptive:
Looking back from our modern perspective, acupuncture may be the best placebo ever invented to trick human psychology: it is invasive enough for people to put their faith in its magic without risking any unwanted side effect.
This chapter also looks at social media and misinformation. Research bears out my own experience in one particular:
Nearly 80% of the total shares of fake news originated from a mere 0.1% of people - largely old, conservative men who were interested in politics. More amazingly, a 2021 analysis of Twitter and Facebook by the Center for Countering Digital Hate shows that 65% of disinformation about COVID-19 vaccines came from a mere 12 antivaxxers.
Including, of course, charlatans and hucksters like Joseph Mercola, who has made millions from selling snake oil. Sun, like myself, finds it frustrating that combatting misinformation is such a hopeless task. People ultimately prefer delusion, even in times when truth and solutions are highly necessary - such as a pandemic.
Even during times of crisis when citizens are more motivated to seek information that will lead to real solutions, they may still choose information that supports their own preconceived ideas and ignore information that doesn’t. Apparently, denying reality is a coping mechanism to protect people’s psychological well-being during times of stress, terror, and tragedy.
This then ties in with Dunning-Kruger as well. He notes that in practice, those with uninflated views of their abilities tend to thrive.
That is, modesty and humbleness will make us better, whereas pride and vainglorious perceptions do nothing but make us retreat into narcissistic fantasies and self-constructed shells. So, the wise become wiser because they remain humble and self-critical. That’s why sages such as Confucius, Socrates, Darwin, Einstein, and many others are famous for their modesty, which motivates them to learn from mistakes and overcome their weaknesses.
Sun quotes a bunch of these, with the authors’ names in an endnote. I particularly like Alexander Pope’s version:
“A man should never be ashamed to own that he has been in the wrong, which is but saying in other words that he is wiser today than he was yesterday.”
The ending of the book is so good that I want to quote it at length. I think it contains wisdom for today that we all need to internalize.
In this book, we have explored in depth the two laws all cheaters use: alter truthful information in communication (the biological essence of lying) and exploit cognitive loopholes (the biological foundation of deception.) Those laws apply equally in the biological world as well as in our social and cultural realms. Understanding these fundamental principles can help us design effective ways to fight antisocial cheating. This is quite like girding ourselves against destructive biological agents: germs, disease, and pests. Both are examples of evolutionary arms races. Instead of attempting to eliminate them from the face of the earth, a goal that has been proven impossible time and again, it’s more feasible to contain them.
As we’ve seen, one of the most surprising ideas in this book is that cheating - contrary to popular belief - is a powerful catalyst in creating diversity, complexity, and even beauty in nature. Cheating has led to novel behavioral tactics, physiological adaptions, and morphological structures. It has paved the way for the emergence and sophistication of intelligence and art. However, cheating has been so profoundly maligned in our culture that we tend to forget its important role in driving biological and cultural diversity.
If, before you read this book, you did hold a pessimistic view of cheating, based on the prevalence of malicious lies and deceptive tricks in our society, I hope you feel somewhat relieved at this point. In this regard, we should appreciate the German philosopher Hegel’s take: “What is rational is real; and what is real is rational.” Certainly we shouldn’t embrace antisocial cheating as good, but we can make the best of it. By containing it, we will not only lessen its harmful impacts but also harvest its catalytic power for innovation and the advancement of science, technology, economics, education, law, and many other aspects of our culture. Cheating and anti-cheating will continue to be odd bedfellows whose arms race will go on to stimulate new, positive developments. Therefore, we should not only take the Daoist stance of accepting cheating without fear or despair, but also have the audacity to rise above it and thrive amid its existence.
In that sense, this is an optimistic book. There is nothing new under the sun. Every cheat eventually is countered by an anti-cheat. As social animals, we actually have proven to respond fairly quickly to changes, and even in the worst environments, find ways to work around the bad.
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