From The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Altruism: Gene-culture Coevolution, and the Internalization of Norms: Herbert Gintis

An internal norm is a pattern of behavior enforced in part by internal sanctions, such as shame, guilt and loss of self-esteem, as opposed to purely external sanctions, such as material rewards and punishment. The ability to internalize norms is widespread among humans, although in some so-called ‘‘sociopaths’’, this capacity is diminished or lacking. Suppose there is one genetic locus that controls the capacity to internalize norms. This model shows that if an internal norm is fitness enhancing, then for plausible patterns of socialization, the allele for internalization of norms is evolutionarily stable. This framework can be used to model Herbert Simon’s (1990) explanation of altruism, showing that altruistic norms can ‘‘hitchhike’’ on the general tendency of internal norms to be personally fitness-enhancing. A multi-level selection, gene-culture coevolution argument then explains why individually fitness-reducing internal norms are likely to be prosocial as opposed to socially harmful.

In a mailing list discussion Gintis replied to this Steven D'Aprano statement:

The widespread existance of grossly irrational and false, yet somehow plausible, beliefs is an important phenomenum that requires explanation.

Gintis replies, based on his Hitchhiker’s Guide work:

First, two basic cultural transmission mechanism lead humans to accept statements that they do not personally subject to scrutiny for factual validity. One is conformist transmission, whereby people see what the majority are doing, and copy it (Boyd and Richerson, 1985, Henrich and Boyd 2001). When there is much to learn and the cost of testing is high, this is a fitness enhancing strategy for a large fraction of the population, especially when the costs and benefits of different behaviors do not change rapidly over time. The other is the transmission by socialization, through which new members of society are induced to accept norms and values that they choose to follow. Norms and values cannot be scrutinized for truth value, since they have none. But, people can generally believe that those who subscribe to the norms and values of their society have higher fitness and well being than those who violate these norms. Moreover, this believe that "those who do good will do well" is generally true in most societies, so this belief can be personally validated.

Second, there is no guarantee that these two cultural transmission mechanisms will produce fitness enhancing beliefs. People can conform to grossly inaccurate and harmful practices (e.g., blame sickness on an enemy who invoked a hostile spirit to harm you), and they can have beliefs that lead to the very demise of a society. See, for instance, Robert B. Edgerton, Sick Societies (New York: The Free Press, 1992). Norms and values can similarly be deeply fitness reducing for a society---a grim example being the way values have led many nations to respond suboptimally to the AIDS epidemic.

Third, these two cultural transmission mechanisms lead human societies to have a very low within-group variance of behavior, thus enhancing the power of between-group selection. Specifically, groups that have fitness-enhancing cultural forms are likely to expand (through war, imitation, and population growth) at the expense of those that do not. It is this between group selection process that leads cultural forms to be fitness enhancing.

One beautiful example of this is the tendency for the world's great religions (as measured by number of adherents) to embrace prosocial values (e.g., love Thy neighbor, honesty will open the doors of heaven to you) as opposed to the myriad of religions and cults found in small-scale societies, many of which have deeply fitness-reducing aspects).

Fitness enhancing, however, does not always mean true in the scientific sense. Thus, many untrue beliefs have proliferated in even the most advanced societies.

Fourth, advanced intellectual sophistication is not a counterweight to any of the above assertions. Think of our own society, where the most educated classes have believed such things as (a) autism is cause by poor mothering, (b) fat is bad for you and carbohydrates are good for you, (c) colds are caught by sitting in a draft, (d) second hand smoke is so bad for non-smokers that smokers have absolutely no right to smoke in public. And so on. Not to mention whole ideologies, such as Freudian psychology and Marxian political theory.

Fifth, humans, like all other animals, do not maximize fitness, but rather an objective function (which may be called a preference function) based on immediate costs and benefits, that has evolved to correspond to fitness enhancement. For this reason, a mutant human who does not believe the dominant myths and does not accept the dominant norms and values of society need not prosper, unless he can accurately distinguish which among the cultural forms he faces in fact enhances his personal fitness, and which do not. But agents do not choose to maximize fitness, but rather utility, as prescribed by their preference function. There is no way to achieve accuracy in assessing fitness effects , in part because humans (like other animals, although much less so) tend to have preference functions that are excessively present-oriented, and so undervalue behaviors with long-term payoffs (Google Ainslie, Laibson, and Loewenstein for documentation). Cultural beliefs and values that counter this tendency (e.g., be slow to anger, invest in good hunting skills) are fitness enhancing but will be judged to be welfare reducing by the sociopath who assesses them according to his own preference function.

It follows that the widespread existence of false beliefs and personally harmful values, despite producing major maladaptions in many cases, nevertheless contributes to the success of Homo sapiens. In particular, the above-outlined mechanism allow for the evolutionary stability of altruistic cooperation and punishment, which are the basic underpinnings of social cooperation in humans

I've always wondered about that. I was behind the door when that allele was passed out and still have trouble believing fashionable nonsense though I know it can be a social good. Perhaps a little grit helps the machine too, helps the rings and valves seat or something. It's hard on the grit though.