Re: [asa] Darwin and Saving for Retirement

Roger, good point. I guess part of the problem an article like this
illustrates is that there is no clear definition of "Darwinism" and that
concepts such as selection for survival traits spill even into areas such as
retirement planning. (The Wall Street Journal, BTW, regularly runs pieces
of this ilk).

This particular article seems silly to me. To take just one little part of
it, the empirical basis of the evolutionary claim about gorging is weak.
Some organisms, like my dog, will always gorge (spend) if the opportunity
presents itself. But other organisms, like the mice in my attic, often
horde (save) in times of plenty, and some, like the bees under th eaves in
my garage, have developed compex social networks that promote hordeing.
It's the old grasshopper and ant story. Even if social behaviours are
acquired through natural selection, who's to say we wouldn't have mouse or
bee brains just as much as lizard brains?

Now, I guess many social horders are organized in hives, like bees, and the
hordeing activity is designed to ensure that the Queen has what she needs.
So maybe saving also has an evolutionary basis, but it would be for the
purpose of serving the Queen, while the worker bees toil daily only to die
worn out and broke. I'm tempted to draw some further analogy here to my own
life, but I'm related somewhere in the evolutionary chain to at least some
species that eat their mates, and my wife sometimes reads my emails, so my
survival instincts are screaming at me to stop now.

On 10/25/06, Roger G. Olson <rogero@saintjoe.edu> wrote:
>
> David,
>
> Interesting post! First off, I'd like to have your definition of
> "Darwinism". I realize this is off-topic and has been discussed before,
> but I believe it's imperative to have an agreement on this terminology.
>
> Certainly our behaviors are influenced by our wiring --- the hypothalamus
> with its influence on the "four F's", e.g. Our carcasses are animal. For
> the Christian it's clear there's more to being human than being a
> biologically evolved big-brained primate. We're more than animals, but
> our physical nature is animal which is shared by common ancestry with all
> animals. Perhaps Original Sin is just the opportunistic animal nature
> that conflicts with the altruistic divine nature?
>
> Roger
>
>
>
>
> > In today's Wall Street Journal, there's an article titled "Why Your
> > 'Lizard
> > Brain' Makes You a Bad Investor--and How to Battle Back" (no link
> > available
> > without subscription). Here's what the article reports:
> >
> >
> > It's helpful to think of our brains as having two parts, says Boston
> money
> > manager Terry Burnham, author of 'Mean Markets and Lizard Brains' and
> > co-author of "Mean Genes." There's the analytical part, which is the
> part
> > that calculates that we need to save $542 a month for retirement. And
> > then
> > there's what Mr. Burnham calls the 'lizard brain,' which includes the
> > instincts that helped our ancestors survive. And the lizard brain says
> > its'
> > better to consume, so let's take that $542 and go shopping.
> >
> > ...
> >
> > So why do we strive for more? . . . 'There isn't necessarily a stop
> > mecnanism in us that says, Relax, you've got enough,' notes Robert
> > Trivers,
> > an evolutionary biologist at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, NJ.
> > 'We've evolved to be maximizing machines.'
> >
> > ...
> >
> > For our ancestors to survive, they had to be good at spotting patterns,
> > such
> > as figuring out when and where they were likely to find wild animals,
> fish
> > and other foods. But relying on past patterns can be a disaster if
> you're
> > hunting for winners in today's markets.
> >
> >
> > Does Darwinism apply to social behaviours such as spending vs. saving
> > income?
> >
>
>
> --
>
>

To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@calvin.edu with
"unsubscribe asa" (no quotes) as the body of the message.
Received on Wed Oct 25 21:09:35 2006