Ancient Skulls Show Civilization Rose As Testosterone Fell

An anonymous reader writes Even though modern humans started appearing around 200,000 years ago, it was only about 50,000 years ago that artistry and tool making became popular. New research shows that society bloomed when testosterone levels in humans started dropping. A paper published in the journal Current Anthropology, suggests that a testosterone deficit facilitated the friendliness and cooperation between humans, which lead to modern society. "Whatever the cause, reduced testosterone levels enabled increasingly social people to better learn from and cooperate with each other, allowing the acceleration of cultural and technological innovation that is the hallmark of modern human success," says University of Utah biology graduate student Robert Cieri.

Comments

correlation, causation

[roc97007]

I have trouble with pronouncements like these, because it's so easy to jump to conclusions about correlation and causation.

It seems like their conclusion might have a Politically Correct component. Could it be instead that civilization caused a general lowering of testosterone, because high testosterone levels were no longer vital to survival?

Re:correlation, causation

[Mr D from 63]

Could it be instead that civilization caused a general lowering of testosterone, because high testosterone levels were no longer vital to survival?

If you follow evolutionary theory, that's the first conclusion one should reach. To assume otherwise is quite scientifically naive. As humans became more proficient at survival and had more time on their hands, being able to sit still and think for a little while was likely a good thing.

Re:correlation, causation

[wisnoskij]

It is also the only reasonable theory form a biological standpoint, as Testosterone has been studied exhaustively and simply does not in anyway reduce cooperation or friendliness. In fact in general testosterone seems to be positively correlated to number of friends and ability to cooperate.

Why should it have the opposite effect in ancient humans?

Re:correlation, causation

[Intrepid imaginaut]

http://www.sciencedaily.com/re...

The study's results, however, contradict this view sharply. Test subjects with an artificially enhanced testosterone level generally made better, fairer offers than those who received placebos, thus reducing the risk of a rejection of their offer to a minimum. "The preconception that testosterone only causes aggressive or egoistic behavior in humans is thus clearly refuted," sums up Eisenegger. Instead, the findings suggest that the hormone increases the sensitivity for status. For animal species with relatively simple social systems, an increased awareness for status may express itself in aggressiveness. "In the socially complex human environment, pro-social behavior secures status, and not aggression," surmises study co-author Michael Naef from Royal Holloway London. "The interplay between testosterone and the socially differentiated environment of humans, and not testosterone itself, probably causes fair or aggressive behavior."

Moreover the study shows that the popular wisdom that the hormone causes aggression is apparently deeply entrenched: those test subjects who believed they had received the testosterone compound and not the placebo stood out with their conspicuously unfair offers. It is possible that these persons exploited the popular wisdom to legitimate their unfair actions. Economist Michael Naef states: "It appears that it is not testosterone itself that induces aggressiveness, but rather the myth surrounding the hormone. In a society where qualities and manners of behavior are increasingly traced to biological causes and thereby partly legitimated, this should make us sit up and take notice." The study clearly demonstrates the influence of both social as well as biological factors on human behavior.

Re:correlation, causation

[a_mari_usque_ad_mare]

... If they continue to use a term as poisoned as "feminist" then you might look to question their actual motive and intent.

This is the problem right here: the term feminist has been poisoned intentionally. Its similar to the right-wing hit job on 'liberal'; the only way to defeat an idea that most people already accept is to reframe and demonize that idea as something objectionable.

You could find me a billion links to nutty, anti-male websites if you like. It doesn't matter. If you think it does matter than I allow me to discredit all right-wing politics by giving you a link to the American Nazi Party, or to discredit any idea of treating animals humanely by linking to PETA.

Feminism is the belief that women are just as capable and deserving of respect as men. Unless you believe women deserve less respect or fewer opportunities, simply for being female, congratulations, you are a feminist. Being anti-male, wanting to feminize men or de-feminize women, denying basic biological differences, or whatever other stupid idea you have been taught feminists believe, these are categorically not feminism.

Feminism is basically a social criticism that in many spheres of our society an elite group of men has taken control for their own benefit, to the exclusion of others. Keep in mind that women only gained the right to vote last century, as late as 1970 in France, and that people are still alive who remember women not being able work after marriage, legalized martial rape, and a whole bunch of other obviously misogynist practices, and its not a huge stretch to imagine that our society might still not be 100% perfect, or that social groups who were severely discriminated against in living memory still are.

Even if you are 100% self-interested, you should recognize that as women have gained more freedom over the last 50 year so have men, particularly in areas of child care and parental leave. Freedom and rights are not zero sum. The fact is that the same 'boys club' attitude that is bad for women is also bad for the vast majority of men.

I'll leave you with a Germaine Greer quote (paraphrasing):

Aspiring to equality with men is a terrible mistake, since men live and work in a frighteningly unfree and tyrannical society, one built on confederacies and conspiracies, on initiation and blooding rituals, on shared antisocial behaviour, on ostracisms and punishments, practical jokes, clannishness and discrimination.

Re:correlation, causation

[epyT-R]

Which is a perfect example why political correctness is such a detriment to the free world. A society that increasingly cannot accept truth eventually succumbs to it, usually violently.

Re:correlation, causation

[a_mari_usque_ad_mare]

I don't care enough to express an opinion on the rest of your post and the debate you're in...

I find it pretty weird that such a logical, clear thinker has no opinion on the question of whether society is unfair to approximately 50% if its members, but fair enough, your choice.

... but this part strikes me as very false. A conspiracy theory is completely unnecessary to explain the "poisoning" of the term feminism. It's entirely believable that, as radical elements of feminism naturally arose (and they did arise naturally; there's no way in hell that's a false flag operation), both non-feminists and those with actively anti-feminist inclinations lumped those radical elements with the less extreme versions of feminism. That's a story as old as time, same has happened with Islam, atheism, race relations, LGBT issues, etc. People are really bad at ignoring threatening extremes. It's a natural impulse, no deliberate poisoning necessary. As far as I know, the only viable means of fighting this trend is for the more moderate (but still similarly aligned) elements to actively, loudly disavow the radicalization of their views.

I wouldn't describe it as a conspiracy, but as a group of people attacking an idea they view as immoral or dangerous, in the most effective way possible. This often involves picking isolated sentences out of context to make a different impression that you would get reading the entire book, or blog post or whatever. Its very effective in our soundbite, 'gotcha' culture. I think the exact same thing happens to the other groups of people you mentioned, usually by the same reactionary people.

People are really bad at ignoring threatening extremes. It's a natural impulse, no deliberate poisoning necessary. As far as I know, the only viable means of fighting this trend is for the more moderate (but still similarly aligned) elements to actively, loudly disavow the radicalization of their views.

This shifts the burden from people who over-generalize to the objects of generalization, to police other people. Trying to control free thinkers and individualists is folly, as is trying to protect the ignorant from their own errors. People who are interested will explore ideas for themselves. Gay people shouldn't need to hide the guy bare-ass in chaps and a cowboy hat, and nothing else, to be respected and have equality before the law. Feminists shouldn't have to hide the bra-burners to have the same rights and opportunities as men.

I also think that for all your example there are plenty of moderates putting their ideas out there, and denouncing extremists, and it doesn't work the way you claim it should. You can't argue people out of positions they were never argued into in the first place. The majority of anti-feminists, anti-gay, anti-whatever people who I have run into have these opinions because of cultural and political identity.

Defensiveness won't get you anywhere, it'll just legitimize the suspicion surrounding the issue further.

I wasn't trying to be defensive, but to defend an idea. I didn't see any good posts defending feminism, and plenty of weak ones attacking it.

Re:Yet more feminist propaganda.

[war4peace]

Females also secrete testosterone.

Oblig: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T...

Let's Define Success

[avgjoe62]

"Whatever the cause, reduced testosterone levels enabled increasingly social people to better learn from and cooperate with each other, allowing the acceleration of cultural and technological innovation that is the hallmark of modern human success," says University of Utah biology graduate student Robert Cieri.

The Peaceful Middle East

The newest country on Earth

Civil society in the West

I am not a pessimist, but I will say that we are a far cry from being a "success".

Nonsense in scientific language

[Futurepower(R)]

This is part of the extreme hostility toward men in the U.S. culture.

The body is extremely complicated. There are maybe a million chemicals? Choosing one supposedly connected with men but actually present in both men and women, testosterone, and talking about its importance is thinly veiled hostility.

The current wave of hostility of women toward men began with the book The Second Sex, by Simone de Beauvoir, a woman who was very confused about life. The book mentioned negative things men do, and avoided mentioning the negative things women do. Part of her viewpoint was influenced by the fact that she was trying to get women to have sex with her.

There is a movie that shows Simone de Beauvoir was treated as an equal by Jean-Paul Sartre, a French philosopher and friend. She was not second.

Both Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre had terrible childhoods and both did things in their adult lives that demonstrated their confusion.

The Washington Post article linked in the Slashdot summary says, "No, this isnâ(TM)t some jab at dudes." Yes it is, and extremely stupid about biochemistry and civilization, also.

Re:Nonsense in scientific language

[serviscope_minor]

This is part of the extreme hostility toward men in the U.S. culture.

I know, right? I mean when will the US ever get a male president?

Re:Nonsense in scientific language

[Intrepid imaginaut]

I'm directly saying that people, men and women, who are mature adults vote in their own best interests rather than pandering to some sort of juvenile playground instinct as feminists would prefer them to. They vote for the person they believe will best represent those interests. Now if you want to talk about why more women don't stand for election, go for it, but that's a different conversation. There is, after all, nothing stopping them.

Re:Men are obsolete

[Anonymous Coward]

The amount of hate-speech against men in society today is rather alarming. In the days before feminism, I'm not sure men ever suggested that women be exterminated as a gender. And yet today, the war on men grows increasingly loud and hate-filled by the day.

Re:Coincidence

[ColdWetDog]

I seriously don't understand how they can measure the level of testosterone from 50,000 years ago. Was it recorded with fine detail? Hell, did they know it existed?

Anyway. The lower testosterone levels could be a coincidence that arose at the same time humans discovered the benefits of empathy, which is essential in group negotiations and community support.

They didn't. Here is their logic train:

- They measured facial characteristics, some of these characteristics have been associated with aggression (not testosterone levels).
- There are studies that link aggression with testosterone.
- Therefore, early humans had large degrees of aggression and therefore testosterone.
- Modern human skulls have fewer / less of the linked facial features, therefore our testosterone levels are lower.

- Therefore early human testosterone levels were higher and further, this was selected for in some way, shape for fashion.

Total BS. Two speculative leaps and a nice large jump to a conclusion. It is trivial to create other equally valid hypotheses from this data.

Social Engineering?

[Anonymous Coward]

'Necessary' doesn't mean they had more babies, though.

What's more likely is that with the advent of agriculture, more people spent their lives living in one place, with a number of consequences. One is that women and their children were more likely to live their lives alongside their other children, so having more cooperative, less violent children became advantageous. Another is that women were more likely to be impregnated by one of the local farmers, rather than the hot wandering barbarian hunter or the gang of rapists.

Furthermore, there is a theory that the primary purpose of developing agriculture was not for food but for alcohol. It may have been that the peaceful farmers' access to stuff that could get women drunk was conducive to them having more babies.

Re:Makes sense

[Riddler Sensei]

Testosterone isn't some Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde concoction like you seem to think it is.

As long as we're dealing with anecdotes I will throw mine into the ring. I've engaged in powerlifting as a hobby for the past two years, during which I have met some very impressive, and dedicated, individuals. These men are strong. Really strong. Functionally strong. They're not just pounding out hammer curls and shrugs to get a pump. They are training for strength, the kind of strength where elevated testosterone just comes with the territory. And they've all been pussycats. After benching just shy of 400lbs they aren't grunting and scowling, they're grinning ear-to-ear and are practically giggling. They're considerate with the equipment and readily share when the weight room is busy. They don't scoff at the 110lbs new guy, rather they're begging the new guy to take before-and-after shots because, "...if you keep this up you are going to be AWESOME in a year!"

Testosterone does not cause assholish-ness, per se, so much as it exacerbates it. If you are a kind, decent, person then becoming strong (and thus achieving higher levels of testosterone) will not change that. But if you are dick...well now you are a dick who is strong and you likely no longer feel the need to restrain your jackass behavior because you feel as though you can physically overwhelm any challengers to your supreme phallus.

You are on crack

[Intrepid imaginaut]

http://www.sciencedaily.com/re...

The study's results, however, contradict this view sharply. Test subjects with an artificially enhanced testosterone level generally made better, fairer offers than those who received placebos, thus reducing the risk of a rejection of their offer to a minimum. "The preconception that testosterone only causes aggressive or egoistic behavior in humans is thus clearly refuted," sums up Eisenegger. Instead, the findings suggest that the hormone increases the sensitivity for status. For animal species with relatively simple social systems, an increased awareness for status may express itself in aggressiveness. "In the socially complex human environment, pro-social behavior secures status, and not aggression," surmises study co-author Michael Naef from Royal Holloway London. "The interplay between testosterone and the socially differentiated environment of humans, and not testosterone itself, probably causes fair or aggressive behavior."

Moreover the study shows that the popular wisdom that the hormone causes aggression is apparently deeply entrenched: those test subjects who believed they had received the testosterone compound and not the placebo stood out with their conspicuously unfair offers. It is possible that these persons exploited the popular wisdom to legitimate their unfair actions. Economist Michael Naef states: "It appears that it is not testosterone itself that induces aggressiveness, but rather the myth surrounding the hormone. In a society where qualities and manners of behavior are increasingly traced to biological causes and thereby partly legitimated, this should make us sit up and take notice." The study clearly demonstrates the influence of both social as well as biological factors on human behavior.

Makes total sense

[LihTox]

You can't build a civilization with *alpha* males; they have to *at least* be in beta.

(Preferably release versions, but you take what you can get.)

Re:Men are obsolete

[ganjadude]

yet for some reason those are the ones that get all the coverage. Try going to a feminism blog and reading for yourself. I had someone try and equate telling a woman she has nice eyes to rape just earlier today. apparently chivalry is dead, and it was killed by women

Re:Men are obsolete

[Intrepid imaginaut]

Perhaps because that is not practical.

Or perhaps because only something as demented as feminism could come up with such a lunatic idea in the first place.

The human species cannot continue to exist without women. Men, on the other hand, could be replaced with a sperm bank. Long before the sperm bank is depleted, female scientists should be able to perfect human ova-fusion, which is already working in mice.

I am not saying men should be exterminated. I am just saying that there are no significant technical barriers.

Completely unneccessary. Assuming a world where feminists (not women mind you, women tend to like men quite a lot) reign supreme, why not just keep a minimum breeding stock of boys and off them after they hit age 20? After all that's what leading feminists Mary Daly and Sally Miller Gearhart wanted, reduce the population of men to 10% or so, frothing nazis that they were.

Happily however the general population is starting to go very sour indeed on feminism, and I would hope to see the final end of the religion within my lifetime.

Re:Men are obsolete

[epyT-R]

mmmm... no. That is a no true scotsman fallacy.

At best, a 'coffeeshop' style feminist wants men around as ATM machines and 'tough job' handlers.. These are the ones who think feminism is nothing more than equality between the two sexes, and think that men are or really should be women with penises...except when equality gets too hard for them, then they want their white knight to save the day.

In the past, the militant kind wanted men reduced in population, made subservient to women, or just outright used as slaves or eliminated. Today, they express that same misandry by pushing policies supporting that mentality in education, media programming, civil law, criminal law, and, are now making/funding their presence in subcultures, like technology and gaming. You have to be careful with this kind of thing, as the poison is in the implied, 'unintended' outcomes of said policies: Schools focus on girls because supposedly they're such victims, and, now, boys are left behind and/or are made to comply effeminately, at the college level, 2/3 graduates are women as male populations continue their decline, media/entertainment has been softened and made more about relationships and feelings (everything is now a 'reality' soap opera), employers must meet quotas and build office policy around feminine imperatives as defaults (destroying male psychoaccoustic spaces and making them female), product design and advertising now also focuses almost exclusively on feminine imperatives.

It is NOT about anyone's liberation. It uses women's desire for protection and provision to help bootstrap tyrannical power. Like those stories about people making deals with the devil, initially it's great for the recipient, but in the end, everyone gets burned.

Re:Men are obsolete

[DivineKnight]

Oh damn, got so off track replying to parent / grandparent, I didn't have a chance to make the post I wanted.

http://www.nature.com/nature/j...

Testosterone is the hormone which is responsible for aggressiveness and individuality, right? Except when it's not. It's the 'everybody knows' kind of wisdom that is bunk -> I've been studying this off and on for a while, and the hormone in both males and females that is responsible for aggression, IMHO, is progesterone; think of your wife / gf who gets PMS, this hormone is in play, and men have some of it in their systems as well. Testosterone seems to get a bad rap, with half the research saying this, and half saying that. Read up on it...the scary thought is, if one half is right, then chemical castration of sex offendors actually makes things worse, rather than better.

Re:Men are obsolete

[lisaparratt]

It seemed like a step too far, but then they read the slashdot comments, and suddenly spermbanks seemed the more rational option.