Gift giving and fashion statements from the viewpoint of human evolution

In his new book, The Evolutionary Bases of Consumption (2007), Gad Saad serves as a tour guide, draws connections from human biology to the purchasing decisions of human consumers.  He strongly advocates that no explanation of consumer behavior is complete unless that explanation considers human evolution–we always need to consider “ultimate” explanations as well as “proximate” explanations.  Saad has me sold, and I’m only halfway through his book.  I don’t buy $40 books every day, but this book delves into a topic that fascinates me.  Also, I must’ve felt deep in my bones that buying this book would make me more attractive to potential mates (or something like that). Bottom line: I bought the book, I’m reading every word of it and I’m marking up the margins ferociously.  It is a terrific collection of ideas, collected and presented by Saad, who is a talented writer and thinker.

One section of the book is titled “Gift giving As a Means of Creating and/or Solidifying Bonds.”  I wanted to share some of the ideas from that chapter.

Saad begins by recognizing that the “economic repercussions of the giftgiving ritual are enormous.”  That people are so willing to participate in store sponsored events (Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, secretary of state, etc.) “is a testament to our innate drive to engage in a reciprocal exchanges.”  Very few gifts are given without an expectation that something will be coming back in return, someday, courtesy of today’s beneficiary.  Saad gives the example of friends who treat …

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Eating Cakes That Can’t Be Kept

I sometimes shake my head at the futility of debating the dedicated faithful.  By that I do not mean those who are serious about their religion and think it through, but those who attached themselves, limpet-like, to a movement and then abandon all introspection and attack all dissent aimed at…

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Killer High Heels

Today’s topic is high heeled shoes.  Why do women wear the damned things, I sometimes wonder.  Those women wobble around, they take longer to get from here to there, they often trip on small sidewalk imperfections, and they regularly fall and get hurt.

I will confess: my gut reaction is that a woman’s IQ relates inversely to whether that woman tends to wear accident-inducing high heeled shoes.  I think of women who flock to such shoes as women who aspire to become Barbies or Princesses.  Before you write a comment to protest, I realize that my gut feeling is a gross over-simplification.  I also have an analogous gut feeling with regard to men who aspire to higher forms of masculinity by rushing to engage in dangerous activities such as motocross or hang-gliding . . .

I never understood high heels.  Contrary to conventional wisdom, I don’t think that women who wear high heels are “hotter” than those who don’t.  To the contrary, I’m annoyed by high heels.  Most woman who wear them look uncomfortable, so uncomfortable that they become objects of my pity, not lust.  But many other men (and women) disagree with me.  For proof, take a look at almost any advertising (and see here and here and here (for 8” heels!)).

Because I appear to be obtuse regarding this particular slice of human sexual responsiveness (and a tad bit concerned about my lack of responsiveness!), I have chosen this subject of high heels as yet another port of …

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Pope concludes that “evolution is not a complete, scientifically proven theory.”

I don't know why the Pope constantly gets such intense press coverage. I know he is the leader of a large church, but he most often speaks in platitudes, double-speak or with dark-ages insight.  Here's a good example--his recent muddled pronoucement on evolution.    According to the Associated Press, Pope Benedict…

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Gentle “Miranda Warning” cards for religious moderates

 At this site we have often debated the extent to which non-Believers are harmed by the beliefs of religious moderates.  The main idea is that moderates are serving as human shields for whacked-out literalist fundamentalists.  Society would be hammering fundamentalists with enough widespread ridicule to make them political untouchables, except that religious moderates continue clinging to “lite” versions of fundamentalist beliefs.

This concern has been well-articulated by Sam Harris:

Religious moderates are giving cover to fundamentalists because of the respect that moderates demand of faith-based talk. Religious moderation doesn’t allow us to say the really critical things we must say about the abject stupidity of religious fundamentalism.

This issue raises a serious question: Should non-Believers actively challenge the ubiquitous “mild,” religious pronouncements made by religious moderates? Until recently, I usually remained silent when my kind and decent relatives, acquaintances and neighbors, uttered things like this:

  • At least I know that my dead aunt is now in heaven; or
  • I prayed that my son would get that new job and God answered my prayer; or
  • Jesus loves us. 

Assertions like this don’t imminently threaten me.  The religious moderates who utter such things are not power-mongerers who dream of taking the reins of government to impose literalist versions of their sacred literature on people like me.  These assertions certainly don’t pack the poisonous wallop of the commonly uttered fundamentalist accusations that non-Believers like me are morally unfit to participate in society.  Rather, statements of faith uttered by religious moderates are usually …

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