NEEPS 2010, Return to New Paltz. What a whirlwind weekend! How amazing to return to where it all started, just four years ago, and see how far we’ve come. We topped the previous conferences in total numbers of attendees, the talks seemed to be even more stellar than in past years, and we saw the first workshop meeting of the Feminist Evolutionary Psychology Society (FEPS). I am sorry to have moved on, but excited to already be co-planning my first conference as President.

One theme to come out of this conference was that of the obstacles we, as evolutionary scholars, have to face. An obvious source of contention comes from Creationists, who believe that evolutionary theory is scientifically disputable – but that is old news. One area about which we might not usually think was addressed by Robert Deaner of Grand Valley State University. He analyzed textbooks from the social sciences not for the authors’ animosity towards evolutionary theory – but the errors presented in the name of evolution. All 17 major textbooks at which he looked misrepresented the facts of evolutionary theory, and some argued against the theory based on these misunderstandings. Not only are we facing dispute from a non-scientific sector, but our own colleagues who are teaching the same students as are we.

Similarly, Kilian Garvey of University of New England, spoke of the existential threat evolutionary theory poses. People don’t question any other scientific theory in the way that they do evolutionary theory – though most people don’t understand all the details of the other theories either (such as relativity, gravity, or geophysics). Most people don’t contest that dinosaurs existed, but for the existence of evolution by natural selection – that is clearly not the case.

Leslie Heywood, from Binghamton University, gave an inspiring talk about evolution and feminism. She contended that evolutionary psychologists are not everywhere accepted, or even understood – and so too is the challenge for academic feminists, who are separate from the political feminists more often portrayed in media (and likewise separate from the political straw-woman against which some EPists apparently stand). She presented the quotes seen on another EvoS Blog, by NEEPS President Glenn Geher – Kramare and Treichler (1996): “Feminism is the radical notion that women are people,” and Geher (2009): “Evolutionary psychology is the radical notion that human behavior is part of the natural world.” These notions are not incompatible, even in a scientific setting.

To these challenges, NEEPS 2010 also offered hope. David Sloan Wilson reported on the Binghamton Project, which employs evolutionary theory to improving the community life of the citizens of Binghamton. If evolutionary theory can be used positively to improve public policy (emphasizing that humans do, indeed, have a rich (pre)history of prosocial behavior!), then we stand to benefit as a field of scholars. Much like the Civil Rights movement, change often comes by first instating behavioral changes, only then does attitude change follow. By the time people realize they are already using evolutionary theory in their everyday lives, it may be too late – they may already accept evolutionary theory!

Likewise, the inaugural meeting of FEPS provides hope to a new generation of scholars. While some people are put off by our use of the F word, our uniting message was clear: we are interested in examining the active role women have played in evolution, not to the exclusion, but in addition to the well-studied roles that men have played. We are a diverse bunch that cannot be pigeonholed, as our forthcoming title and mission statement will present. And if along the way, we help share evolutionary theory with some fields that might initially be unreceptive, then I can’t see the harm in that!

NEEPS has yet again shown that science is collaborative, and highlighted the best of that assertion. We are a tight knit group that is critical in thought, but not in interaction. From this, we produce positive scientific collaborations and research – made richer by the feedback we receive from these meetings.

On a final note, we also raised money for the National Center for Science Education. This organization promotes the accurate teaching of evolutionary theory in our public schools, and certainly, if our incoming students have been presented a fair and truthful representation, we stand against one less obstacle to the lay (and scholarly!) understanding of evolutionary theory.

References

Geher, G. (2006). Evolutionary psychology is not evil! … and here’s why … Psihologijske Teme (Psychological Topics); Special Issue on Evolutionary Psychology, 15, 181-202.

Kramare, C., & Treichler, P. A. (1996).  A Feminist Dictionary. Illinois: University of Illinois Press.

Making Sense of Biology

Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution, Theodosius Dobzhansky (1973). The American Biology Teacher, 35(3), 125-129.

“Sometimes Even the President of the United States Must Stand Naked…”

…Or Be Racially Profiled.  One would think that this should not happen to the President of the United States. However, the Associated Press recently reported that President Barack Obama’s early colon cancer screening was sometimes recommended for high-risk groups such as African Americans¹. From this we can infer that the president’s doctors are counting Mr. Obama as an African American in the biomedical (and not cultural) sense of the word.  Is this reasonable?

President Barack Obama is descended from a Kenyan father and a European American mother. Therefore he is does not share the same ancestry as most socially described African Americans who are descended from West and Central Africans with about 18.5% European ancestry². When African Americans were examined using 1327 genetic markers compared to other world populations they were closer to Europeans than they were to Western Africans.  The STRUCTURE analysis with 14 clusters showed Saharan Africa, Western Africa, Central Africa, Eastern Africa, Southern Africa, African Americans, Europe, Middle East, Central Asia, India, Eastern Asia, Oceania, and the Americas³.  On the face of it, the position of African Americans along the genetic continuum of human diversity seems odd.  After all, historical records indicate that the vast majority of African Americans are descended from Western and Central Africa.  Few slave cargoes arrived in the Transatlantic route from Eastern Africa (certainly not Kenya.) The records of the slave trade are available in a searchable database entitled: The Transatlantic Slave Trade Database⁴. There are records of over 34,937 voyages between the years 1514 to 1866.  In this database, the vast majority of slaves originated from West and Central Africa.  There is a significant subset of slaves that originated in Southeastern Africa (today’s Tanzania and Malawi⁵.)  It is possible that some of these slaves may have originated in Kenya; however these voyages ended in Brazil (where the vast majority of African slaves ended up.)  Thus, it is highly unlikely that any slaves of Kenyan origin ended up in either the Caribbean or Southern American states.  Thus it is likely that the admixture of European genes into African Americans explains how STRUCTURE places African Americans in a position closer to Europeans and past Eastern Africans on the genetic continuum of the human species.  This also demonstrates that there really is not a great deal of genetic variation within the human species to begin with, since such a small amount of average admixture (18.5%) moves a population whose African ancestry is mainly western and central, past Eastern Africans towards Europeans.

This means that any African American is as likely to share genes in common with Barack Obama through his mother’s ancestry as they are to through the father’s Kenyan ancestry.  What little information we have about colorectal cancer rates we have from Africa suggest that this disease is rare amongst Africans⁶.  It could be rare because predisposing genetic elements do not give rise to cancer in African environments; or it could be rare there because Africans do not share the same colon cancer predisposing alleles with African Americans. Actually, the etiology of colon cancer strongly suggests that environmental factors are much more responsible for the patterns of incidence we observe than genetic ones.  For example, exposure to heterocyclic amines and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons are known risk factors for colorectal cancer.  The amount of exposure of these compounds an individual gets is related to the amount of red meat uptake in their diet.  The relationship of exposure of these compounds to red meat uptake could explain why colorectal cancers are rare in African populations, who do not eat nearly as much red meat as Europeans or Americans.  One study examined genetic polymorphisms at UGT1A1 and UGT1A9 to determine the degree to which these explain variations in colorectal cancer rates between African- and European-Americans.  UGT1A1 and UGT1A9 detoxify heterocyclic amines and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons.  The study found that when all individuals were examined that there was no significant difference between genetic variants and colorectal cancer incidence; however when stratified by self-identified race, intermediate and low activity genotypes were associated with an increased risk in European Americans, but not African Americans⁷.  The racial profiling conclusion that one would draw from this, is that with regard to this locus, it would be President Obama’s European ancestry that would put him at risk, not his African ancestry.  This is a conclusion rarely arrived at by racially profiling physicians!⁸

Another important environmental risk factor for colorectal cancer is the bacterium Helicobacter pylori.  The role that this bacterium plays in producing disease is complex.  It is an interaction between the bacterium, host, and environment⁹. There are specific genetic variants of H. pylori that are more likely to be associated with intestinal cancers and the frequency of these genetic variants is different around the world¹⁰. Finally, one might try to find a racially profiling mechanism in the relationship between vitamin D receptor variation and intestinal cancer risk.  After all, we know that human populations show clinal variation in vitamin D receptor alleles, associated with solar intensity¹¹.  We also know that lifetime sunlight exposure and dietary history influence tumor incidence and that vitamin D plays an important role in mediating incidence and survival of cancer¹². Again, when applied to Barack Obama this reasoning would not hold up.  VDR frequencies are associated with latitude, not socially constructed racial groups.  In his case, he has ancestry from Northern Europe and tropical Africa.  Strictly speaking we would expect him to show heterozygote advantage with regard to VDR genotype.  With respect to environment, especially dietary composition, President Obama’s education would indicate that he has maintained the sort of diet one would expect from an upper middle class European American.  Thus, none of the features of the African American stereotype that are required for a racially profiled diagnosis to have any relevance to him would be in place.

Indeed, racially profiling really doesn’t work for anyone¹³. Yet despite the excellent scientific reasons to abandon this form of medical practice, it is still rampant.  The fact that even the President of the United States experiences this, illustrates the nature of the problem we face to eliminate it.

But since my thought dreams have been seen, they’d scheduled my head for the guillotine…

It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)

Darkness at the break of noon
Shadows even the silver spoon
The handmade blade, the child’s balloon
Eclipses both the sun and moon
To understand you know too soon
There is no sense in trying.

Pointed threats, they bluff with scorn
Suicide remarks are torn
From the fool’s gold mouthpiece the hollow horn
Plays wasted words, proves to warn
That he not busy being born is busy dying.

Temptation’s page flies out the door
You follow, find yourself at war
Watch waterfalls of pity roar
You feel to moan but unlike before
You discover that you’d just be one more
Person crying.

So don’t fear if you hear
A foreign sound to your ear
It’s alright, Ma, I’m only sighing.

As some warn victory, some downfall
Private reasons great or small
Can be seen in the eyes of those that call
To make all that should be killed to crawl
While others say don’t hate nothing at all
Except hatred.

Disillusioned words like bullets bark
As human gods aim for their mark
Make everything from toy guns that spark
To flesh-colored Christs that glow in the dark
It’s easy to see without looking too far
That not much is really sacred.

While preachers preach of evil fates
Teachers teach that knowledge waits
Can lead to hundred-dollar plates
Goodness hides behind its gates
But even the president of the United States
Sometimes must have to stand naked.

An’ though the rules of the road have been lodged
It’s only people’s games that you got to dodge
And it’s alright, Ma, I can make it.

Advertising signs they con
You into thinking you’re the one
That can do what’s never been done
That can win what’s never been won
Meantime life outside goes on
All around you.

You lose yourself, you reappear
You suddenly find you got nothing to fear
Alone you stand with nobody near
When a trembling distant voice, unclear
Startles your sleeping ears to hear
That somebody thinks they really found you.

A question in your nerves is lit
Yet you know there is no answer fit
To satisfy, insure you not to quit
To keep it in your mind and not forget
That it is not he or she or them or it
That you belong to.

Although the masters make the rules
For the wise men and the fools
I got nothing, Ma, to live up to.

For them that must obey authority
That they do not respect in any degree
Who despise their jobs, their destinies
Speak jealously of them that are free
Cultivate their flowers to be
Nothing more than something they invest in.

While some on principles baptized
To strict party platform ties
Social clubs in drag disguise
Outsiders they can freely criticize
Tell nothing except who to idolize
And then say God bless him.

While one who sings with his tongue on fire
Gargles in the rat race choir
Bent out of shape from society’s pliers
Cares not to come up any higher
But rather get you down in the hole
That he’s in.

But I mean no harm nor put fault
On anyone that lives in a vault
But it’s alright, Ma, if I can’t please him.

Old lady judges watch people in pairs
Limited in sex, they dare
To push fake morals, insult and stare
While money doesn’t talk, it swears
Obscenity, who really cares
Propaganda, all is phony.

While them that defend what they cannot see
With a killer’s pride, security
It blows the minds most bitterly
For them that think death’s honesty
Won’t fall upon them naturally
Life sometimes must get lonely.

My eyes collide head-on with stuffed
Graveyards, false gods, I scuff
At pettiness which plays so rough
Walk upside-down inside handcuffs
Kick my legs to crash it off
Say okay, I have had enough
What else can you show me?

And if my thought-dreams could be seen
They’d probably put my head in a guillotine
But it’s alright, Ma, it’s life, and life only.

Copyright © 1965 by Warner Bros. Inc.; renewed 1993 by Special Rider Music

Notes

1. Associated Press, Doctors overtesting, reports say, Greensboro News & Record, March 13, 2010.
2. K. Bryc,  A. Auton,M.R. Nelson, et al. (2010)  Genome-wide patterns of population structure and admixture in West Africans and African Americans, Proc. Nat. Academy of Sciences, 107(2): 786-791. www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.0909559107.
3. S.A. Tishkoff, F.A. Reed, F.R. Friedlaender, et al., The genetic structure and history of Africans and African Americans, Science May 22,  324: 1035-1044 (2009).
4. http://wilson.library.emory.edu:9090/tast/database/search.faces.  T
5. Hine, D, Hine W.C, and Harrold, S, African Americans: A Concise History, (New York, NY: Pearson), 2010; see map pg. 29.
6. Saidi H, Nyaim EO, Githaiga JW, Karuri D, CRC surgery trends in Kenya, 1993-2005, World J Surg. 32(2):217-23, 2008.
7. Girard, H et al, UGT1A1 and UGT1A9 functional variants, meat intake, and colon cancer, among Caucasians and African Americans, Mutation Research 644 (1-2): 56-63; 2008.
8. Dorer, M.S, Talarico, S, and Salama, N.R, Helicobacter pylori’s unconventional role in health and disease, PLoS Pathogens 5(10): 1-6, 2009.
9. Graves, J.L., Biological V. Social Definitions of Race: Implications for Modern Biomedical Research, Review of Black Political Economy, DOI: 10.1007/s12114-009-9053-3, 2009.

10.  Wu, I et al, Association between Helicobacter pylori seropositivity and digestive tract cancers, World J. Gastroenterol 15(43): 5465-5471, 2009.

11.  Roychoudhury, A and Nei, M, Human Polymorphic Genes: World Distribution, (New York, NY: Oxford University Press), 1988.’

12.  Campbell, F.C. et al, The Yin and Yang of vitamin D receptor (VDR) signaling in neoplastic progression: Operational networks and tissue-specific growth control, Biochemical Pharmocology 79:1-9, 2010.

13. Graves, J.L. and Rose, M.R. (2006) Against Racial Medicine, Patterns of Prejudice vol. 40 (4-5): 481-493, Sander Gilman editor.

It seems a pregnant women is a magnet for unsolicited advice – most often tips for parenting, but even tips regarding how she should give birth. In my own experience, these tips came only from males or childless females, but I’ve not done the research to see whether my anecdotal evidence holds water. In this post, I will explore whether these birthing tips are more likely fact or fiction.

The first tip I encountered at a conference during my first trimester. I was informed that I absolutely MUST give birth in water. Our ancestors did it, and it offers a smooth transition for the baby from the amniotic fluid filled womb to our waterless world. Being no novice to childbirth, I was immediately repelled by the idea, in no small part because women in childbirth frequently lose control of their voluntary organs (to put it lightly). There is variation in how women deliver babies in traditional cultures, such as who is allowed to be present (from no one to female relatives or midwives, typically) to how removed the mother must make herself from the rest of the group, some having to find an isolated hiding spot among the trees (Hrdy, 2009). Despite the variation, in the traditional cultures studied, women give birth on land (e.g. dirt outside, dirt floor in a home) most often while in a squatting or kneeling position. But as to the location of these mythical places where women give birth in water, my searches have been fruitless. And for at least two good reasons – how could that possibly be hygienic in most “traditional” places, lacking chlorine and filtration?, and the faulty assumption this approach implies, that naturally flowing water is as warm and cozy as the amniotic fluid from which the baby emerges.

The second birthing question I received was whether I was going to eat the placenta. I experienced a second eww factor here, but my well-meaning friend was only trying to explain that some women eat the placenta because we’ve been designed to do so to provide us with extra calories after giving birth. When you actually look into this practice, however, it begins to attain mythic proportions as well. In no traditional societies do women regularly engage in the practice of eating the placenta after giving birth (Hrdy, 2009). In fact humans, as well as our great ape relatives, engage in this practice so little that we actually stand out from many other mammalian species. As Hrdy puts it, the people practicing placenta ingestion are New Age women who believe it to be tradition.

The third question is such a personal, but common one for a pregnant woman: epidural or no epidural? My response was pretty unwavering – I was going “natural” with this one. And truly, in cultures without medicinal anesthetics, women do have to give birth without any painkillers. It’s no stroll through the park, but it is doable. However, as I just learned from the book Mothers and Others, the practice of licking the amniotic fluid off of newborns and eating the placenta that many mammals engage in (e.g. dogs, cats) actually serves as a natural anesthetic!

Had I known of the natural anesthetic properties of afterbirth, would I have changed my response to number 2? Not likely. Had water birthing and placenta eating been common practice in traditional societies, that still doesn’t make them best practices (also a valid argument for getting an epidural!) – the infant mortality rate in the U.S. has dropped drastically in no small part due to modern medicinal practices, especially the adoption of sterility. Giving birth is such a personal experience. I am happy to live in a country where I get to make my own choices for how to give birth, and leave the decisions of other expecting mothers to their own discretion.

[Do you have any outlandish labor advice stories to share? Add a comment!]

**Please check back in April for a post about the meetings of the Feminist Evolutionary Psychology Society (FEPS; http://fepsociety.org) and the NorthEastern Evolutionary Psychology Society (NEEPS; http://neepsociety.com).**

References:

Hrdy, S. B. (2009). Mothers and others: The evolutionary origins of mutual understanding. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University