RoR: Forum

Interesting stuff.

One alternative explanation not explored in the article (nor within the public comment section) is that the babies were fascinated with "good" -- and wanted to study it. What makes something good?

In nature, there is jungle law and cut-throat behavior. In a sense, man is the source of all of the good in the world. The "good" toy characters which the babies watched were acting uniquely human (expressing benevolent behavior which somewhat relies on conceptual consciousness).

You don't see a mother chimp taking a banana away from a frustrated baby chimp (trying to open the banana), opening it up for them, and then giving it back. Besides, even if they do do this (though I've never personally witnessed it), "kin selection" genetically supports that behavior.

Instead, in nature, your non-'kin-related' goals are your own and no one else's.

Ed

p.s Critics will claim that "social" animals act "in concert" (ants on plants will reach across for the next leaf, only to form a bridge with their body for other ants to walk across) -- but this is not ever a case of having an individualized goal, and then having another take interest in it.

Post 1

Monday, May 10, 2010 - 12:53pm

I believe puppies also have a superior sense of good and evil... ;)

I think this sort of behavior in babies (and puppies) comes from survival instinct.

Post 2

Monday, May 10, 2010 - 8:46pm

'In the end, we found that six- and ten-month-old infants overwhelmingly preferred the helpful individual to the hindering individual,' Prof Bloom told the New York Times.

'This wasn't a subtle statistical trend; just about all the babies reached for the good guy.'

Made me wonder what future career paths will be chosen by the handful of babies that preferred the bad toys ...

Post 3

Monday, May 10, 2010 - 9:02pm

p.s Critics will claim that "social" animals act "in concert" (ants on plants will reach across for the next leaf, only to form a bridge with their body for other ants to walk across) -- but this is not ever a case of having an individualized goal, and then having another take interest in it.

Social insects like ants behave seemingly altruistically because the workers and soldiers are all non-breeding sisters whose only chance at passing on their genes is via helping the queen and the colony survive. Essentially, an ant colony acts like one giant organism broken into a bunch of little parts so as to exploit tiny niches in the ecosystem. So the workers and soldiers are actually acting selfishly (in the Objectivist sense of the word) when promoting the colony's interests.

It's actually an example of the insight that socialistic behavior only works well for closely related individuals, which is why a family can act socialistically and advance group agendas (albeit with lots of sibling rivalry to express the fact that each member is theoretically capable of breeding and thus have conflicting agendas), but that behavior doesn't scale up worth a damn to communities of genetically distantly-related individuals.

For a fascinating peek into this bizarre world of functioning socialism, I highly recommend "The Ants" by Bert H�lldobler and Edward O. Wilson.

Post 4

Tuesday, May 11, 2010 - 4:43pm

The problem I have with this study ( I agree that it's an interesting subject) is that the professor set the experiments up with his own moral expectations and premises, as if they were universal moral truths.

Why would the babies think pushing an object up a hill was any better than knocking the object down? They don't know it's any better, and that's my problem with it. Hell, without a context, even I don't know if it's any better!

A six month old baby will pick up on facial and sound cues, and possibly make an assessment from those, but that's a far cry from declaring the infants were making a moral evaluation of a character's actions, which were completely without a context. I suspect the infants were cued by familiar sounds of frustration, anger, or glee.

Post 5

Tuesday, May 11, 2010 - 9:01pm

Excellent observation Teresa. The guy is just trying to justify biological determinism, that morality comes from genes, and not from man's reasoning mind. The next logical step is for him to claim he's isolated the morality gene, and then claim criminals simply lack that gene so we shouldn't punish them for their actions. And for that matter, why bother teaching children what's right and wrong? According to this quack, they should be born with the knowledge, so educating them is pointless.

Post 6

Wednesday, May 12, 2010 - 9:00pm

If the study purported to show that babies prefer people who feed them versus those who look away when they cry, would ya�ll still be doubting that �Babies prefer "helpful" characters over "non-helpful" ones�?

Post 7

Thursday, May 13, 2010 - 2:29am

The context is pretty clear in that case, Jon.

Post 8

Thursday, May 13, 2010 - 7:11am

Jon,

What you described affects the child directly, whereas the experiments described had a second "person" being affected by a third "person". IMO, the experiment is detecting empathy on the part of the child. According to Wikipedia: "By the age of two, children normally begin to display the fundamental behaviors of empathy by having an emotional response that corresponds with another person. Even earlier, at one year of age, infants have some rudiments of empathy, in the sense that they understand that, just like their own actions, other people's actions have goals."

Also, "The study of the neural underpinnings of empathy has received increased interest following the target paper published by Preston and Frans de Waal, following the discovery of mirror neurons in monkeys that fire both when the creature watches another perform an action as well as when they themselves perform it." So, my take is that the experiments are detecting empathy, which is an emotion, in children.

Thanks,
Glenn

Post 9

Thursday, May 13, 2010 - 8:28am

JIm:

The comparisons with ants and bees and regimented social behaviour is insightful. It emphasizes, to me, the truth that mankind ultimately rails at the thought of becoming like singular ants and bees, subservient to the colony.

That is exactly what makes us humans, plural. The colony is where we live, not why we live. We've advanced up the evolutionary trail, away from the primordial ooze, the jungle, the herd, and even, the tribe. Freedom(from the collective, even as we live in collectives, plural)is a brand, new evolutionary trait.

A progressive trait, I might even assert. It is what makes us humans, and not insects.

When seen in that light, the socialist movement is a throwback, a resistance to change. And yet, it is marketed by its fearful of progress adherents in the modern age as 'change.'

A recurring theme in that conservative movement: left is right, up is down, black is white, and falling back into the herd mentality of the past is 'change.'

regards,
Fred
(Edited by Fred Bartlett on 5/13, 8:30am)

Post 10

Friday, May 14, 2010 - 6:10pm

TSI: A six month old baby will pick up on facial and sound cues, and possibly make an assessment from those, but that's a far cry from declaring the infants were making a moral evaluation of a character's actions, which were completely without a context. I suspect the infants were cued by familiar sounds of frustration, anger, or glee.

Richard Feynman has a great essay, Cargo Cult Science. In that, he examines a supposedly revelatory experiment with rats that simply failed to isolate all of the subtle cues that the rodents used to solve a puzzle.

This has been on CNN for a couple of days:

Study: White and black children biased toward lighter skin

Basically, you have to ask: so, what do kids know? I have to agree with John Armaos's objection, if not all of his spin from it. There is some basic assumption here that whatever babies "naturally" know is valuable or important or even superior to acquired knowledge. Guess what? New study finds: Babies can be wrong.

And said unto him, Hearest thou what these say? And Jesus saith unto them, Yea; have ye never read, Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected praise?
Matthew 21:16 see Psalm 8:2 "From the mouth of infants and nursing babes You have established strength Because of Your adversaries, To make the enemy and the revengeful cease "

Why bother to put warnings on plastic bags or have laws requiring that you remove the door from a refrigerator before abandoning it?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1Mw4iZxQPQ

Post 11

Saturday, May 15, 2010 - 12:53pm

When seen in that light, the socialist movement is a throwback, a resistance to change. And yet, it is marketed by its fearful of progress adherents in the modern age as 'change.'

I think that in the minds of socialists, they regard the entire human race as one big family, and thus want to implement (or, more accurately, inflict) the social structure of an actual biological family upon everyone.

This is both optimistic and thoroughly wrong, a recipe for good intentions producing disastrous results.

The essence of a social insect colony is a form of coercion, where the queen bee uses pheromones and other chemicals to make almost all of her daughters her slaves, albeit willing ones. The net result is that the individuality of these daughters is stripped away. And while, evolutionarily speaking, this ultimate socialism has been an extraordinarily successful adaptation, it doesn't work very well for people because we are not all zombie slaves mindlessly subservient due to chemical processing -- which is the horror of the novel "Brave New World", which posits turning people into such slaves using such chemical conditioning.

Post 12

Saturday, May 15, 2010 - 1:02pm

One of the more chilling symbols of Mormonism is that the podium at general conferences features a beehive carved into it, reflecting the social insect-like behavior the Church extolls.

From Utah.com:

"The Beehive and word "industry" became the official motto and emblem for Utah on March 4, 1959. Industry is associated with the symbol of the beehive. The early pioneers had few material resources at their disposal and therefore had to rely on their own "industry" to survive. The beehive was chosen as the emblem for the provisional State of Deseret in 1848 and was maintained along with the word "industry" on the seal and flag when Utah became a state in 1896."

If current growth rates from high birth rates and conversions don't level off soon, Mormons may be the majority of the population in the U.S. in perhaps 100 years, since their numbers have been doubling every twenty years or so, at which point we'd be at risk of becoming a virtual theocracy.

Post 13

Sunday, May 16, 2010 - 4:39am

JH: One of the more chilling symbols of Mormonism is that the podium at general conferences features a beehive ... Mormons may be the majority of the population in the U.S. in perhaps 100 years, since their numbers have been doubling ... "

I know beehives as symbols on the tokens of merchants from 18th century England -- a symbol of industry, nothing more or less. Symbols are just that: analogs, representations. What they mean depends on context. Granted, that the LDS Mormon meaning of a beehive might be contrary to yours and my preferences.

Also, realize that another group in ascendency remains the Muslims whose population is growing, especially in and relative to Europe.

Perhaps in 200 years, when the real action is the trade and commerce between the Asteroids and the Oort Cloud, there will be a "Latter Day Islam" religion here on Earth... with missionaries out there bothering people as they are wont to do...

The question remains, though, when a newborn is decanted on a station orbiting Titan, will it favor helpful animatons? ... and if so, is that out of natural altruism or natural egoism?

The assumption of the research seems to be that babies like helpers, therefore let us all help each other. Perhaps we are born with the tendency (or ability) to detect an easy touch, a free ride, what the carnies call a mark. Humans are natural born con artists... maybe... (or maybe not)... and if so, then should we all revel in our innate tendency to grift?

From the close of the newspaper article cited:
'This wasn't a subtle statistical trend; just about all the babies reached for the good guy.'

Well, OK, what about the ones for whom that was not true?

(Edited by Michael E. Marotta on 5/16, 4:47am)

Post 14

Sunday, May 16, 2010 - 5:18am

About the researcher:
Paul Bloom is the author of Descartes' Baby: How The Science Of Child Development Explains What Makes Us Human.

From Publishers Weekly (via Amazon)
Erudite cognitive scientist Bloom (How Children Learn the Meaning of Words) deftly reconciles notions of human mental life�in art, religious belief and morality�with the latest in child development research. Bloom's central thesis is that what makes us uniquely human is our dualism: our understanding that there are material objects, or bodies, and people, or souls.

Bloom also wrote these journal articles:

"Subjectless Sentences in Child Language," Paul Bloom, Linguistic Inquiry, Vol. 21, No. 4 (Autumn, 1990), pp. 491-504
"Grammatical Continuity in Language Development: The Case of Subjectless Sentences." Paul Bloom, Linguistic Inquiry, Vol. 24, No. 4 (Autumn, 1993), pp. 721-734 I
"Children's Knowledge of Binding and Coreference: Evidence from Spontaneous Speech," Paul Bloom, Andrew Barss, Janet Nicol, Laura Conway ,Language, Vol. 70, No. 1 (Mar., 1994), pp. 53-71
"Intention and Analogy in Children's Naming of Pictorial Representations." Paul Bloom, Lori Markson Psychological Science, Vol. 9, No. 3 (May, 1998), pp. 200-204
"How Special Are Objects? Children's Reasoning about Objects, Parts, and Holes," Nuria Giralt, Paul Bloom Psychological Science, Vol. 11, No. 6 (Nov., 2000), pp. 497-501
"Preschoolers Are Sensitive to the Speaker's Knowledge When Learning Proper Names," Susan A. J. Birch, Paul Bloom Child Development, Vol. 73, No. 2 (Mar. - Apr., 2002), pp. 434-444
"How Specific Is the Shape Bias?" Gil Diesendruck, Paul Bloom, Child Development, Vol. 74, No. 1 (Jan. - Feb., 2003), pp. 168-178
"Children's Reliance on Creator's Intent in Extending Names for Artifacts," Gil Diesendruck, Lori Markson, Paul Bloom, Psychological Science, Vol. 14, No. 2 (Mar., 2003), pp. 164-168
"Children Are Cursed: An Asymmetric Bias in Mental-State Attribution," Susan A. J. Birch, Paul Bloom Psychological Science, Vol. 14, No. 3 (May, 2003), pp. 283-286
"Attribution of Dispositional States by 12-Month-Olds," Valerie Kuhlmeier, Karen Wynn, Paul Bloom Psychological Science, Vol. 14, No. 5 (Sep., 2003), pp. 402-408
"Can a Dog Learn a Word? Can a Dog Learn a Word?" Paul Bloom Science, New Series, Vol. 304, No. 5677 (Jun. 11, 2004), pp. 1605-1606
"Childhood Origins of Adult Resistance to Science," Paul Bloom, Deena Skolnick Weisberg ,Science, New Series, Vol. 316, No. 5827 (May 18, 2007), pp. 996-997.

I would not dismiss his work on ideological grounds. Ayn Rand was acute about accepting -- and mostly rejecting -- scientific research for moral reasons. However, to the extent that the work is science, it is objectively true, and must be included in "Objectivism." I am not saying that babies are natural altruists or that even if they are we must remain so politically. I am saying that Paul Bloom has given hard and serious thought and effort to what we start out as.

(Edited by Michael E. Marotta on 5/16, 5:21am)

Post 15

Monday, May 17, 2010 - 10:28am

Is it science-enough that we should base the choosing of our national leaders on the reactions to their pictures by a roomfull of crumb-crunchers?

The clear scientific assertion is that they will 'always choose the good-guy.' Always.

Don't even have to make it the sole criteria. Just, part of the debate process. "The Kid Test." A data point. Folks would be free to consider it or ignore it. Is it at least that science-enough?

And, if it is not, if that would be ridiculous, then ... what is it science-enough to demonstrate?

Lie detector tests are apparently not science-enough. Is this science more science than lie detectors, or less? Can someone be trained to read a kids reaction to a higher degree of certainty than a lie detector?

If not, then this is what is called 'interesting,' and we should all be encouraged that we live in age of such abundance and affluence that we can subsidize such interesting studies.

regards,
Fred

Post 16

Tuesday, May 18, 2010 - 4:24am