Category: human evolution

Does Innovation Require Markets?

Seth Roberts4 Comments

Andrew Gelman's table

Andrew Gelman writes:

The article [about economics professor David Galenson] then quotes art professor Michael Rushton as saying that in science or art, “innovation really requires a market.” Huh? Wha?? Tell that to my friend Seth, who spent 10 years self-experimentation. Heck, tell that to the cave painters. Or check out the American Visionary Art Museum.

I agree. I was able to do self-experimentation for 10 years because I didn’t have to sell, i.e., publish it. Not having to sell — I mean publish — it gave me the freedom to do and think whatever I wanted for as long as I wanted.

Innovation benefits not from markets but from subsidies, which provide time to experiment. In my case, I was a professor at Berkeley — subsidized by the State of California. I had tenure and free time. Sometimes the subsidies aren’t obvious. Part of my theory of human evolution is that gifts, ceremonies, holidays, fashion, and connoisseurs, not to mention love of art, subsidized artists and artisans by providing a desire for work that — in the absence of gifts, etc. — would be much harder to make a living from. Helping artists and artisans make a living helped them advance their technology. Cave paintings may have been part of a holiday observance — the artists took time off from hunting. Before trade, Thorstein Veblen’s Instinct of Workmanship motivated innovation. Andrew himself built the table in the above photo for reasons that had nothing to do with markets.

But at least an economics professor is studying innovation. A few years ago in the Berkeley Public Library I picked up an introductory economics textbook. Six or seven hundred pages. Half a page on innovation!

My Theory of Human Evolution (fixing bike pumps)

Seth Roberts1 Comment

The father of one of my Chinese tutors used to work at a coal mine (in an administrative position) but after his wife went away to care for her sick mother he wanted a job without night shifts to better care for his two children. He decided to make a business of fixing bicycle tire pumps. People who fixed bicycles were common but hardly anyone fixed the pumps.

Was it hard to start such a business? No. There was a tradition in his small town of persons walking through neighborhoods announcing what they had to sell. Like ice cream trucks. Coal, fruit, baked goods, and other things were/are sold that way. (He preferred to buy his coal directly from the mine.) At first, he used his unaided voice, later he got an electric megaphone, now he has a recording.

I believe human language began like this. Language began and grew because it facilitated trade. Facilitating trade facilitated occupational specialization, the essential difference between humans and other animals. Words — single words, repeated many times — were the first advertising, the original Craig’s List. Again and again, you said the word of what you wanted or what you had to offer.

My Theory of Human Evolution (Chinese birthday gift)

Seth Roberts4 Comments

In 1952, following the Soviet model, Tsinghua University was stripped of its humanities and social science departments and became an MIT-like university entirely devoted to engineering and science. Eventually it became clear this was a mistake. Fifteen years ago a School of Humanities and Social Sciences was established to begin to restore things. Two weeks ago, because I am a faculty member in that School, I got a fancy tea set to mark the 15th anniversary of its founding. Here is what the tea set looks like:

I asked a Chinese friend of mine to explain it to me. She pointed to the tools in the box with the cups. “They’re useless,” she said. She pointed to the slatted bamboo box. “I think it’s useless,” she said.

To pour the tea you put the cups on the slats. The box is slatted so that if you spill some tea while pouring the surface will continue to look good. It’s not the total uselessness my friend saw but she is right that the added value of the slats and the tools, in practical terms, is very low.

My theory of human evolution says that the reason for gifts, ceremonies, and special days (such as Christmas) is to provide a demand for hard-to-make stuff. This allows artisans on the cutting edge to make a living and further develop their skills, advancing the start of the art. This is why gifts and ceremonial things are typically hard to make and, were it not for their value as gifts, not worth making. My friend’s reaction illustrates this. My theory predicts that this feature of gifts, ceremonies, and special days has a genetic basis and should be found in all cultures. This example shows it is found in a culture quite different from American culture.

City of Berkeley Economics: The Value of Snobbery

Seth Roberts8 Comments

The City of Berkeley, which Jane Jacobs called a “pretentious suburb,” isn’t doing well economically. There was a Barnes & Noble downtown, a kind of anchor store. It closed. There was a Ross downtown. It closed. Chain stores don’t do well in Berkeley. One downtown corner has gone through several renters, including Gateway Computers, Cody’s Books, and L.L. Bean, in just a few years. The main reason I go to downtown Berkeley is to take BART to San Francisco.

My neighborhood, North Berkeley, is doing much better, although there are two empty storefronts and the Starbucks will close. Elephant Pharmacy, a New-Agey kind of pharmacy (“the drugstore that prescribes yoga”), has been successful and has started opening branches in nearby cities. (It’s a good place to shop, too. Yesterday I bought some whole nutmeg there.) The Cheese Board, a worker’s cooperative, with a great selection of cheese, has done a good job adding pizza sales to cheese sales.

The overall economic record of the neighborhood is staggering, since it includes the original Peet’s, the inspiration for Starbucks, and Chez Panisse, the most influential restaurant in the world. It also includes the first Papyrus store. I don’t drink coffee, and didn’t start drinking tea until the Shangri-La Diet, so I never shopped at Peet’s until recently. A friend, however, has been going there almost its entire history. He says that when Mr. Peet died, the workers became a lot friendlier. Before that they had a snobbish attitude. Some workers from Peet’s started a similar business in Seattle, which they called Starbucks. It was very successful and they sold out to Howard Schulz, who greatly expanded it.

Was Mr. Peet’s snobbery “bad”? Well, it — plus the corresponding attitudes of Berkeley residents — allowed him to develop a unique business. After that business was developed, that attitude could be shed and the whole thing could be moved to a place (Seattle) where its business potential could be revealed. The shift of ownership allowed the idea to become separated from the “big business is bad” notion (which was helpful at first) and launch a thousand Starbucks. (An excellent company, by the way, that not only provides me a place to work but also produced How Starbucks Saved My Life, a very good and persuasive book.) This is yet another tiny illustration of my theory of human evolution, how it all started with hobbies which eventually became businesses. Peet’s wasn’t a hobby, but it was hobby-like in its expression of the owner’s attitudes. It was far more a labor of love than most businesses. There are other examples. Survivor is to The Real World as Starbucks is to Peet’s. The Omnivore’s Dilemma is to Slow Food as Starbucks is to Peet’s.

My Theory of Human Evolution (Fourth of July)

Seth Roberts2 Comments

Why do holidays exist? For the same reason as festivals, ceremonies, and souvenirs: To increase demand for hard-to-make stuff. This helps artisans at the cutting edge make a living. They are the innovators. Helping them advances technology. Our celebration of Independence Day, for example, creates demand for fireworks, firecrackers, and American flags.

The case of Christmas.

Why Do We Touch Our Mouths So Much? (continued)

Seth Roberts15 Comments

I asked this question in a recent post. If you look at people sitting in an audience, about one-third of them will be touching their mouth.

I had wondered about this for years. Somehow blogging about it helped. A few days ago I was on the subway. Of the persons sitting, the usual fraction were touching their mouth. Nobody standing was touching their mouth with their hands but now and then I noticed them purse or lick their lips.

Which suggested an answer to my question: We get a small amount of pleasure from touching our mouths. The pleasure declines after it is “harvested” and takes several minutes to become available again. This mechanism evolved because it kept our lips moist. At the time it evolved, people spent little time sitting. The pleasure was obtained by pursing or licking your lips, which moistened them. Predictions: 1. if you watch people whose hands are busy, they will purse or lick their lips roughly as often as people in an audience touch their mouths. 2. The more you lick or purse your lips, the less you will touch them with your hands. 3. The more you touch your lips with your hands, the less you will purse or lick them.

Pagophagia (compulsive ice eating) is similar. It is caused by anemia (too little iron). In the Stone Age, there was no ice. An intense desire to crunch something in your mouth would have led you to crunch bones. Bone marrow is high in iron. It’s another mechanism that worked well in the Stone Age but now malfunctions (not that there’s anything wrong with touching your mouth with your hand). My self-experimentation is all about this sort of thing. It’s easy to sit, so we don’t sleep well. It’s easy to be inside in the morning, so we don’t sleep well. It’s easy to eat breakfast, so we don’t sleep well. it’s easy to avoid faces in the morning, so we get depressed. And so on.

More. Andrew Sullivan‘s readers have other ideas: here and here. Thanks to Tyler Cowen.

Why Do We Touch Our Mouths So Much?

Seth Roberts5 Comments

This photo documents something anyone can notice: While we’re sitting, we touch our mouths a lot.

The photo shows the full faces of 22 men; 7 of them are touching their mouths. I have noticed something similar at many faculty meetings. I started to notice this after I read about its observation in a study designed to measure something else.

I’ve known about this for many years but have never read an explanation. Do we enjoy touching our mouths — or is the absence of touch for a long time unpleasant? If so, why?

My Theory of Human Evolution (autism )

Seth Roberts9 Comments

In the journal In Character, Simon Baron-Cohen, the autism expert, writes:

Clinicians describe the deep, narrow interests in autism as “obsessions,” but a more positive description might be “areas of expertise.” Sometimes the area of expertise a person with autism focuses on appears not to be very useful (e.g., geometric shapes, or the texture of different woods). Sometimes the area of expertise is slightly more useful, though of limited interest to others (e.g., train timetables, or flags of the world). But sometimes the area of expertise can make a real social contribution (such as fixing machines, or solving mathematical problems, or debugging computer software).

My guess is that in autism, something is turned off that should be turned on. This allows the rest — in particular, the rest of what motivates us — to be seen more clearly. Everyone has a tendency toward expertise, says my theory of human evolution. Why everyone? Because everyone suffers from procrastination and the tendency toward expertise is the tendency that causes procrastination: It’s harder to do something new than to do what you did yesterday. Back in the Stone Age, this tendency toward expertise caused different people to do different hobbies, and become good at them. This was the beginning of occupational specialization.

The Aquatic Ape Hypothesis

Seth Roberts35 Comments

Recently I visited some friends whom I hadn’t seen for a while. You’re more talkative, they said. I attribute this to flaxseed oil.

I became interested in the effects of flaxseed oil partly because of the aquatic ape hypothesis, the idea that living near water had a big effect on human evolution. During a long period of human prehistory, the theory says, we swam a lot, presumably to catch fish. If we ate lots of fish (high in omega-3) at the same time our brains grew large, it was quite possible that our brains need large amounts of omega-3 to function properly. Flaxseed oil is high in omega-3.

Elaine Morgan, the theory’s main proponent, has written several books about it, “each more po-faced [= academically correct] than the last,” she has said. I have finally read two of them and was pleased to find more scrutiny made the theory more plausible.

Background to the idea that humans were once aquatic is that several mammals have obviously become aquatic — starting on land they shifted to water. Sea lions, whales, and so on. Birds have become aquatic — for example, ducks. Insects have become aquatic. Elephants appear to have become aquatic and then terrestrial again — note how well they can swim. There is ample precedent, in other words.

Humans differ in all sorts of anatomical and physiological ways from other primates and the aquatic ape theory has straightforward explanations for many of them:

1. Humans have subcutaneous fat, other primates don’t. Other aquatic mammals do. Explanation: The fat serves as insulation.

2. Humans have almost no fur, other primates do. Other aquatic mammals don’t. Explanation: Fur creates drag in the water. In the air, fur insulates.

3. Humans are bipedal. Explanation: Walking upright keeps the head out of the water, allowing breathing.

My Theory of Human Evolution (micropygmies)

Seth Roberts4 Comments

In 2004, anthropologists discovered fossils of tiny human ancestors on an Indonesian island. Called micropygmies, they were about three feet tall. Their brains were smaller than chimpanzee brains. They appeared to be descended from Homo erectus rather than Homo sapiens.

They survived until about 20,000 years ago — which was impressive, since Homo sapiens reached nearby islands about 50,000 years ago. Why didn’t the Homo sapiens kill off the micropygmies? Jared Diamond was puzzled by this:

The discoverers of the Flores micropygmies conclude that they survived on Flores until at least 18,000 years ago (1, 2). To me, that is the most astonishing finding, even more astonishing than the micropygmies’ existence. We know that full-sized H. sapiens reached Australia and New Guinea through Indonesia by 46,000 years ago, that most of the large mammals of Australia then promptly went extinct (probably in part exterminated by H. sapiens), and that the first arrival of behaviorally modern H. sapiens on all other islands and continents in the world was accompanied by similar waves of extinction/extermination. We also know that humans have exterminated competing humans even more assiduously than they have exterminated large nonhuman mammals. How could the micropygmies have survived the onslaught of H. sapiens?

One could perhaps seek a parallel in the peaceful modern coexistence of full-sized sapiens and pygmy sapiens in the Congo and Philippines, based on complementary economies, with pygmy hunter-gatherers trading forest products to full-sized sapiens farmers. But full-sized sapiens hunter-gatherers 18,000 years ago would have been much too similar economically to micropygmy hunter-gatherers to permit coexistence based on complementary economies and trade. One could also invoke the continued coexistence of chimpanzees and humans in Africa, based on chimps being economically too different from us to compete (very doubtful for micropygmies), and on chimps being too dangerous to be worth hunting (probably true for micropygmies). Then, one could point to the reported survival of the pygmy stegodont elephants on Flores until 12,000 years ago (1, 2): If stegodonts survived so long in the presence of H. sapiens, why not micropygmies as well? Finally, one might suggest that all of the recent dates for stegodonts and micropygmies on Flores are in error [despite the evidence presented in (1) and (2)], and that both stegodonts and micropygmies became extinct 46,000 years ago within a century of H. sapiens‘ arrival on Flores. All of these analogies and suggestions strike me as implausible: I just can’t conceive of a long temporal overlap of sapiens and erectus, and I am reluctant to believe that all of the dates in (1) and (2) are wrong. Hence I don’t know what to make of the reported coexistence.

Yes, I know, when you have a hammer everything looks like a nail. But I think Diamond is quite wrong about the nature of Homo sapiens economies 50,000 years ago. To Diamond, the big change was the invention of agriculture. Before that, hunter-gatherer; after that, farmer and occupational specialization. I believe there were vast economic changes long before agriculture — it took a long time to evolve language, and that didn’t start until there was already plenty of trading. By 50,000 years ago, I’m sure there was lots of specialization (Person A makes/knows X, Person B makes/knows Y), giving the Homo sapiens all sorts of tools and other useful expertise that the micropygmies didn’t have. They both hunted and gathered but much larger brains and a vast amount of expertise would have been for naught if they didn’t hunt and gather different foods. Homo erectus did not have anything like human language, as far as I can tell; therefore they didn’t have lots of trading or expertise. The two groups could co-exist because their foods were different. I suspect the H. sapiens, able to hunt really large animals, thought small animals, which supported the micropygmies, a waste of time.