Of course racism is an evolutionary trait. One that was very useful for many thousands of years.
We are evolved to favor our families and our percieved kinships over others. While race (and religion) are often fictive (sociologic) kinships, they nevertheless call on those ancient tendencies. Tendencies that were less likely to be fictive throughout history on an evolutionary timescale.
We are also evolved to make abstract generalizations from limited experience, in short, to profile. One experience with a member of tribe X that was positive or negative was enough to bias the next experience with someone else who belonged to that tribe. We’d then look for experiences that reinforced the preconception and relatively ignore ones that did not. A few more like experiences were strongly biasing. Not an unreasonable strategy. Of course most experiences are now fictive: stories told by relatives, media images, an experience with one loud-mouthed identified individual, etc. But the call to that ancient wiring is strong.
Whether or not this has to do with lizards of any color, I am not sure, but it behooves us to recognize that these ancient evolutionary responses are maladaptive in today’s changed world, to realize that these percieved kinships are indeed fictive, are granfalloons, and to use our other evolved abilities to recognize these impulses and tendencies within ourselves and to control them.
That’s true, but in this case, the writer of the article perceived altruism in a situation that is similar to racism: a situation in which one lizard has a seemingly irrational drive to support another lizard of the same color (blue), in defense against another lizard of a different color (orange). Note that all three lizards are of the same species, and that the blue lizards are not directly related by blood. Please explain why you think this isn’t racism.
Where do you get that? I see nothing in the quoted text to suggest the blue-, orange-, and yellow-throated lizards are different “breeds”; nor that the females break down along the same lines; nor that the males limit their breeding to females of their own throat color.
Show me that lizards are rational, or that the concept of rationality/irrationality even applies to lizards (or any non-human animal, for that matter). Racism comes down to motivation, not genetics. The relative success rates of different reproductive strategies is a pretty far cry from racism as we humans practice it.
While the blue-throats are not necessarily “blood relatives”, it is not a stretch to suggest that any two blue-throats are more closely related to each other than either are to either the yellows or the oranges. The blues happened upon the strategy whereby there is a greater chance of propegating “blue” genes by helping one another out. The oranges found that bullying their way to a mate is the way to go. The yellows found that being a “back door lizard” works, too. Three different strategies, by three different subgroups.
As BrainGlutton observed, it is not the case that the females show any particular preference toward any given color. They will mate with whomever wins amongst the males. So, I accept this reptillian tale as an example of possible altruism in sexual selection, but not even remotely an example of racism amongst lizards.
You’re right that the article doesn’t have much information about the females. In my opinion, even if “race” in the case of these lizards is a male-only trait, that doesn’t compromise the analogy. Here are pictures of females and males. My limited web search suggests that the females have much different coloring than the males, and that the throat coloring is limited to males, and is most stark in the breeding season.
The blatant anthropomorphism of lizard mating preferences aside, the behavior described here is in no way shape or form racism. Racism isn’t an “irrational preference for [beings] that look similar.” Racism is the irrational demonizing of people who differ from you by gradations in skin color, and a belief in a heirarchy of human “races,” usually backed by violence and the threat of violence and taught hatred to sustain these beliefs. To scientifically project this particular long- discredited human belief system as a viable explanation for behavioral norms in the animal kingdom strikes me as 1) kind of jaw-droppingly dumb and 2) more than a little distasteful, IMHYUCO. This is not the real-life lizard version of WATERSHIP DOWN, folks.
There’s probably already in existence a more precise term covering this kind of like interspecies cooperation than exporting the badly overused and overextended term “racism” and shoe-horning it somewhere it doesn’t belong. Please, somebody, find out what it is.
Irrationality, prejudice, skin color, and violence are elements of the lizard behavior. “Demonizing,” “heirarchy,” and “taught hatred” are not, but you’ll notice that these are also not even remotely in the realm of lizard behavior. Your argument boils down to affirming the consequent. If you define racism in terms of blatantly human-only behaviors, then of course, animals cannot exhibit racism. But that doesn’t mean that there is no tie between this lizard behavior and human racism. Please, make this argument if you can.
No need for personal attacks here.
Call it what you’d like. I’m not really interested in what terminology you use, I’m interested in your opinion on why this lizard behavior is viewed positively, why racism isn’t, and what about this lizard behavior makes it separable from the connotations of human racism.
Skin color and violence I’ll give you. Irrationality and prejudice? Not a chance. I asked you previously to demonstrate that rationality even applies to non-human animals, and you conveniently ignored the post. To put it bluntly, you are anthropomorphizing in the worst way in attempting to link reproductive strategies in lizards to racism in humans.
The blue throats are predisposed towards aiding other blue-throat lizards, and thwarting orange-throat lizards without any previous knowledge. That is prejudice. If the blue throat wasn’t prejudiced, it would have no stake in the conflict between the orange throat and the other blue throat.
Note that they do this, even though there is no guarantee that the blue throat they are defending is more closely related to them than the orange throat they are thwarting. In fact, the orange throat could be as close as a half-brother based on the lack of information in the article, where as the blue throat could be almost genetically unrelated.
You are right that the term “irrational” might not apply so well to an animal incapable of rationality, but it does fit the behavior, which seems to be dictated by instinct derived from a genetic trait. Many instinctive human behaviors are classified as irrational, and should a human discriminate against another human based solely on an instinctive response to that human’s skin color, I’d hope you would classify that as irrational.
If you want to argue that the human impulse to discriminate based on arbitrary (and superficial) attributes is motivated primarily by rational thought, that’s one thing, but I don’t think it makes any sense to argue that the lizard’s behavior isn’t irrational. I’m willing to grant that it doesn’t make any sense to argue that the lizard’s behavior is irrational.
Either way, I still think there is a parallel between the instinctive response of this lizard, and the irrational prejudices of humans.
I think it’s fair to say there could be a parallel. There’s a clear assumption among some in this thread that with cognitive sophistication comes some kind of commensurate nobility separating us in some distinct way from “animals”. It’s at least as bold an assertion as positing the primacy of some limbic compulsion. I tend to think the interconnectedness of brain function makes the supposed cortical-limbic dichotomy look more paradoxical than anything. We have delusions of supra-natural morality and rationality, but in action brain functional studies appear to indicate our innate responses may be anything but.
Except the blue-throat that valiantly jumps to the aid of a fellow blue-throat has no means to determine that he is, in fact, a blue-throat himself (lacking, as they do, mirrors, and, quite likely, the ability to decipher their own reflection anyway). He cannot make the distinction that the other blue-throat is like himself. Perhaps blue-throats just have a defensive instinct and will jump to the aid of any lizard of the same species, and the blue-throats are most commonly put upon by the orange-throats. There simply isn’t enough information in the article in this regard to jump to conclusions about the motivation of this defensive behavior (indeed, it is mentioned that the behavior is something of a mystery). Outside of mating behavior, no information is given regarding the interactions between the variously-colored males, or the defensive instincts of any given male towards an imperiled female.
I agree that I’m merely hypothesizing, but it seems extremely likely that given that the throat coloration is brighter (or only visible during) mating, that it provides a visual cue for mating-related behavior. It would be extremely unlikely that the lizards had evolved this coloration without being able to interpret it. (Perhaps they evolved that way merely for the benefit of human scientists? )
It is extremely common in nature for animals to evolve different coloring schemes to communicate evolutionarily significant information. (e.g. yellow warning colors, octopus emotion colors, red sexual displays, etc.) In absense of further information, I think we can assume that the lizards are yet another example of this.
You might have a point if the scientists had not keyed the colors to behavior so readily.
The article also implied that the means of identification is not known (“The mechanism of self identification could be smell, or possibly body language. The lizards have a head-bobbing action that might be signaling genetic simpatico.”). The colors themselves could very likely be meaningless to other male lizards. The blue-throats are not helping each other because they have blue throats, but because they know the proverbial secret handshake.
Seems most likely that it is a combination of several things, like a code. You don’t want to defend just any blue throat; got to make sure he’s the real deal. Prediction: scientists are currently painting the throats of lizards blue and then releasing them into the wild.
I just found this article. Apparently, the blue lizards do share a set of genes that lead them to cooperate; however, not all blue lizards have the complete set of genes, and they wind up as loners. Also, interesting is that there are cycles in which the dominant color varies. During times when there are fewer orange males, both blue lizards on a team benefit.
In many cases yes, I’m sure. For example many Americans are concerned about the effect of Mexican immigration on the economic prospects for America’s working poor. Furthermore, if it could be clearly demonstrated that the white population of America was heading for extinction through miscegenation then you would probably see racism ramped up exponentially to protect the white race.
Why? A scientist studying racism in America would not have to be a racist.
It doesn’t. I didn’t react emotionally at all to the article
Lizard behavior is most likely purely genetic, while to a very large degree human behavior results from cultural influences.
If you want to introduce racism as a result of this scientific study, I find a far more disturbing concept. That is the clear connection of specific behaviors linked to genetically expressed colour. I might add that I have never come across this connection in any other species.
I think it’s really, seriously, a rediculous stretch to point to this as the “origin of racism”.
The benefits of human racism are immediate and obvious- you get to take the other guy’s stuff, and maybe make him work for you. You really don’t need to look any farther than that. On a social level, it keeps your society from being diluted. When that is no longer a concern, racism and race based marriage restrictions disappear (look at, say, the marriage choices of first generation immigrants versus those of third generation immigrants).
There is plenty stuff hardwired in to us, but society is big and history is long and the ways those things get expressed is so twisted and distant that you really can’t just trace it to behavoir in one animal. You can find anything in some animal’s behavoir if you are looking for it, and you can really draw any conclusions you want from tht. Doesn’t make it true or relevent.
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