Customer Reviews

The Robot's Rebellion: Finding Meaning in the Age of Darwin

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This book is largely about what psychologist Keith Stanovich sees as the disconnect in the postmodern world between "maximizing genetic fitness and maximizing the satisfaction of human desires." (p. xiii) On the one hand we have the "replicators," the genes that blindly seek only their replication. On the other hand we have the vehicle (the phenotype), i.e., "us," which carries the genes, which Stanovich believes should seek its own happiness. He sees our brain as composed of two overlapping, but sometimes divergent, systems. One, the more primitive, he calls "The Autonomous Set of Systems" (TASS) and the other he calls an "analytic system." He calls this having "two minds in one brain."

The autonomous system is held on a "short leash" by the genes while the analytic system is on a longer leash; that is, TASS reacts to events in the environment almost automatically in close concert with the dictates of the replicators while the analytic system is more removed from innate drives and can analyze situations rationally and can act in terms of what is good for the vehicle rather than what promotes the replication of the genes. Note that these systems usually are in agreement and react to the environment in the same way. Threats to the well-being of the vehicle from predators and other dangers, signal the same avoidance behavior. However, sometimes there is a conflict. The example that Stanovich uses is TASS's need to flirt with the boss's wife, which might increase the replication of the genes, while the analytic system realizes that such behavior probably goes against the best interests of the vehicle (possible loss of job, etc.). Following the counsel of the rational analytic system instead of the urgings of TASS is what Stanovich calls "maximizing goal satisfaction at the level of the whole organism." (p. 64)

The title of the book comes from Richard Dawkins (and indeed this book is written in partial reaction to and in concert with Dawkins's ideas) who called organisms "survival machines" and "gigantic lumbering robots" in his famous opus, The Selfish Gene (1976). Stanovich wants to free us from the dictates of those selfish genes and so has constructed a "robot's rebellion." He believes we can use our rationality (our analytic system) to override the sometimes self-destructive inclinations of the more primitive set of brain systems. Stanovich is preeminently a rationalist and believes that right thought leading to right behavior will lead to a more fulfilling and happier life for the "robots." We need to be on the long leash from the genes, not the short leash, is his idea.

A strong point that Stanovich makes very well is that in the information societies of the modern world many of the talents that served us well in the Environment of Evolutionary Adaptiveness in the Pleistocene are "worthless" when (e.g.) trying to use "an international ATM machine with which you are unfamiliar" or when "arguing with your HMO about a disallowed medical procedure." (p. 124) He argues strongly that corporations and governments, through their advertizing and propaganda, have become very good at exploiting blind spots in our more primitive brain systems and getting us to do what is good for them and not necessarily good for us. I think this is correct, and that those of us who can see how the players in the modern economy are trying to use us for their benefit will avoid most of the more obvious traps and thereby increase our standard of living and presumably our chances for happiness.

Stanovich devotes a chapter to criticizing evolutionary psychologists for failing "to develop the most important implication of potential mismatches between the cognitive requirements of the EEA and those of the modern world," as he carefully phrases it on page 131. Nonetheless the psychology presented here is mainly a synthesis of cognitive psychology, brain science and evolutionary psychology and as such represents the latest in our attempt to understand ourselves.

He also devotes a chapter to the effects that another kind of replicator, the meme, has on our lives. I don't have the space to go into his ideas about memes and their implications, but I want to say that from my point of view the word "meme" is an approximate neologism for the word "idea." However, I think that it is a useful coinage and, like Stanovich's mind dualism, facilitates a new way of looking at and talking about how our brains work.

While I think this is an extremely interesting book that goes a long way toward showing us the sort of thinking that characterizes postmodern psychology, I must point out that Stanovich's mind dualism is a construct that, while based on his interpretation of recent findings, is nonetheless just that: a construct that will be refined as time goes by and eventually overturned for a new construct. As always in science we are increasing our understanding and expanding our knowledge as we move toward a final understanding that will most likely always lie tantalizingly in the distance.

Keith Stanovich is an accomplished behavioral scientist (psychologist) who applies all his scientific knowledge to answer a single question. We humans are the genetic product of hundreds of thousands of years of evolution, during most of which we lived as menial hunter-gatherers with a 35 year life expectancy. Given this genetic heritage, Stanovich asks, is there any way we can free ourselves from being the captives of our genetic pre-history?

The setting for this analysis is Richard Dawkins' argument in The Selfish Gene that we humans are "giant lumbering robots" who serve only as transient containers for our genes, who are the truly eternal replicators.

Stanovich makes the following arguments. First, there are two decision processes in the human brain. The first is the Autonomous Set of Systems (TASS) which we share with nonhuman animals, is a complete product of our evolutionary history, and only very imperfectly serves our contemporary interests. For instance, the TASS may tell us to overeat, have unsafe sex, or enjoy other forms of immediate gratification. However, there is a second decision center, which Stanovich calls 'analytical' that can override the TASS. This sounds like Freud's Id and Ego, which is one of Freud's unsullied contributions to human understanding. There is much evidence in favor of the TASS/analytical distinction.

Stanovich is to be praised for NEVER descending into the philosopher's morass, in which the question would be posed as one of 'free will.' I do not know if there is free will, but I do know the scientific evidence on which Stanovich's case is built.

The author's second thesis is that the same sociobiology that gave us selfish genes also seriously downgrades the importance of CULTURE in understanding human evolution and dynamics. Boy, is this ever true! His case is built up meticulously from a good knowledge of the contemporary research literature in the area, and is quite persuasive.

Stanovich's point is that the analytic brain can alter culture so as to overcome the biases of the TASS system, allowing humans to realize truly human and emancipatory goals. For instance, even though we all make elementary error in statistical decision-making (the brilliant work of Kahneman, Tversky, et al. shows this), experts can avoid the errors and can instruct others to do so as well.

But now comes Stanovich's third point: we cannot necessarily control culture so that it becomes an instrument of emancipation. According to memetic theory, we are as controlled by our memes (little nodules of culture) as we are by are genes. Stanovich does not manage to solve this problem, and suggests that we all be critically aware of the possibility that we adopt cultural practices that serve only to harm and constrain us. His list of rules for evaluation memes is quite useful and plausible.

I think the answer to Stanovich's problem is that the whole notion of memetics is rubbish. His defense of the notion in the book is uncharacteristically weak, to the point of being pathetic. For instance, he asserts that memetics itself is a meme complex, so if many people accept memetics and memetics is wrong, the memetics must be right! In fact, memetics posits behavior with no evolutionary justification. This is: we accept memes because they force themselves upon us. But, a creature who behaved in this way would be evolutionarily eclipsed by another who did not succumb.

The correct treatment of culture is that it is an epigenetic form of information transfer, and humans evolved to use it to enhance their fitness. The fact that sometimes we adopt harmful memes no more contradicts this than the fact that there are deleterious genetic mutation refutes Darwinism. This analysis is well developed in the research area of gene-culture coevolution, which I urge Stanovich to become (more) familiar with. It will open up vistas for him in pursuing his emancipatory project.

Stanovich introduces the reader to the idea that humans are merely the hosts for two replicators -- genes and memes -- and that these replicators don't care for the interests of their vehicles (us). However, Stanovich also thinks we have reached a point in evolution where we can "rebel" against the interests of these replicators and pursue our own interests.
Much of Stanovich's discussion rides on his concept of "thin" versus "broad" rationality, i.e. simple "wanton" utility maximization vs. utility maximization according to a reflectively acquired value system.
Stanovich can be dramatic at times, constantly repeating his concern that the truths he is revealing will shatter our world-view and depress us. I was not depressed by any of the truths Stanovich revealed to me, and I could have done without the drama, but that may be because I started reading the book already believing in Darwinism, and not clinging to a smug sense of superiourity at being part of the only species on the planet which possesses consciousness.
The book probably could have been about half as long. I appreciate that Stanovich includes many counter-arguments, illustrations, and study-data, but he unnecessarily repeats many of his points several times. By cutting out these redundancies and the drama previously mentioned, the book could have been shortened.
While not ground-breaking to people who are well-read in the relevant fields, this book is a good overview of some of the fundamental ethical concerns that confront humanity in the age of Darwin.

I will start from the bad, because in the case of this book, they are insignificant and easy to formulate. To be brief -- this book is in need of some heavy editing for redundant repetition. Some sections are just unacceptable in this regard, making it incredibly boring to keep reading. But for those whom patiently read on, there awaits a chest of pure gold!

If I could go back in time to when I was a kid and give myself advice on reading, I would unquestionably hand myself this book, and make sure that I understand that it would change my life drastically towards a much more rational and lucid being. In fact, if I had enough money along with a time machine, I would hand it to every individual in history capable of reading. Why? Because this book singlehandedly, although indirectly, would be and is capable of changing the history of humanity for an alternative, that would not be as shameful and incredibly irrational in introspect. Just think of Hitler or Stalin and enough is said.

This book targets a very fundamental problem of individuals and humanity in general, namely -- our dreadful and enormously powerful potential for irrationality. A reaction to reading history is often of shock and disbelief -- and rightly so -- of the degree of human pitfalls of judgment and thinking. If only there was a way for people to step aside from their meme-plexes and genetic predispositions, and analyze their behavior -- surely much, if not most of human problems would be solved indirectly, by undermining them at their root. This book undertakes just such an endeavor! It is a manual for recognizing, understanding and recovering from the parasites and modules in our brain that make irrationality possible. In short -- it is a missing manual that should have come with our brain that would start something like "A useful thing we gave you here (the brain), but beware of..."

What this books will do for you:

1. It will erase any oversimplified models of rationality and intelligence that you may have, and replace it with a much more comprehensive and instrumental version.

2. It will make you think about parts of your mind you want to identify with, and parts you would want to ignore like a noisy roommate.

3. It will explain why high achieving and acclaimed doctors can be so terrible at making rational decisions about treatments. And a closely related problem of how someone like Francis Crick could be a scientist and a religion zealot at the same time.

4. It will awaken you to the degree of irrationality that prevails in our society.

5. It will explain why judging people for their intelligence (computing power) is far from adequate criteria for putting them in power.

6. It will teach you to analyze and detect processes in the brain that could be potentially detrimental to your goals, namely -- the irrational and automatic modules, most of which are echoes from the past of our evolution that are potentially harmful in the current environment.

7. It will make it clear that the environment that we merrily inhabit right now, is much different from what we evolved to cognitively understand, thus creating a number of niches for irrationality that must be recognized.

8. It will awaken you to the rude reality of the existence of the two replicators and their selfish motives, namely -- genes and memes.

9. It will help you distinguish goals that are truly yours and those that only appear to be yours, and why this illusion exists and persists.

10. And finally it will encourage you to rebel from the selfish replicators, while also give you tools to make the rebellion possible.

My Rating: 5/5

This was a hard book to rate. Stanovich covers some fascinating ground, and has much to say that is worthwhile. Unfortunately he takes way too many pages to make his points, which all could have been clearly conveyed in a third the number of pages. It's not that he goes into more depth than necessary, but rather that so much of the same material is repeated over and over again, in a somewhat rambling and confusing manner.

Much good previous work is built upon, but in some cases the work is not adequately represented. For example, the book is largely about dual process theory and about rationality, and Stanovich frequently cites Evans and Over's work (e.g., Rationality and Reasoning, 1996), yet nowhere does he mention their dual process theory of rationality, which is central to their work and differs from and is more fundamentally "dual process" than Stanovich's own less developed theory of thin and broad rationality.

Nevertheless, there are some very good ideas and integrations of evolutionary and cognitive science ideas to be found, as long as one is willing to dig for them.

Robot's Rebellion is an excellent book. I'll spare the details, as the other reviewers have written very complete summaries of the text. But Stanovich's thesis, that humans are uniquely adapted to take greater control over their lives if they will learn how to use their higher cognitive abilities, resonated very strongly with me. We can do much to have happy, fulfilling lives if will start to assess our actions and our biological limitaitions critically. Stanovich weaves a very convincing argument that we make our lives better by overriding our genetically and "memetically" programmed intellectual reflexes. But we need to start using logic and accept the hard realities behind much of our mental processes.

I hope Stanovich continues to write on this subject. I would like to see more discussion of how we fall into traps and how we can develop a program to build more meaningful lives.

I found much of Stanovich's thesis to be very consistent with Erich Fromm's works: Escape From Freedom, The Sane Soceity, and Man for Himself. Although written long before the biophysical studies underlying Stanovich's work, Fromm very intuitively undestood the challenges that we face in modern, market-oriented society. I think Fromm's works are a great booken to Stanovich.

This is a rare book that created a paradigm shift in the way I think about human evolution. After reading it, I was impacted for months by its simple yet compelling idea. I would have loved to give this book 5 stars. I didn't because it was a heavy read. I was compelled to keep reading by the revolutionary ideas not by the writing style. If easy writing style is important to you, you may not like this book. If earth shattering ideas are important, then get it and see if it doesn't create a new paradigm in your mind about the course and future of human evolution.

Dr. Darrel Ray, author of The God Virus: How Religion Infects Our Lives and CultureThe God Virus: How religion infects our lives and culture

The Robot's Rebellion is about the effects of replicators and evolution, specifically genes and memes. As a result of the genes there is the "vehicle" (the individual) built by the replicators with a two sided inter-influential mind, the automatic unconscious side and the conscious analytic side. The automatic side has goals that aren't always in line with the vehicles, like a bee giving up its life by stinging. The conscious side can use tools to override or alter the automatic side. The memes' (an idea held by more than one person) effect is culture. Ideas can spread just for the fact that they are good at spreading. Therefore a spreading idea doesn't have to be helpful to us but just needs to have properties that make it good at spreading.

Therefore the goal is working on becoming properly rational, understanding the tendencies and effects of genes and memes and critiquing them as well as our values and desires with the tools we have, though those tools (e.g. logic) are also memes and are subject to critique as well. There are also cultural products that make it difficult to act out accordingly, an example Stanovich gives is our market system. Also cultural products become so infused with our way of thinking that they create thinking boxes (paradigms) and thus we rarely think outside of them.

some strengths
○ a subject index
○ a hearty appendix of notes
○ nice thought experiments
○ immensely referenced
○ interesting parallels with Buddhist thought.

some weaknesses
○ a little cluttered
○ Stanovich's thinking might also be boxed by his approach of helping us to satisfy desires better vs. not even playing the game of desire satisfaction and dropping them.

Would be nicer if it was more practically organized or contain a practical summary chapter, listing the genetic and memetic traps and tools for deliverance from the restrictive clutches of the mighty replicators.

This book asks us to notice the conflicts between the goals our genes created us to serve and the goals that we as individuals benefit from achieving. Its viewpoint is somewhat new and unique. Little of the substance of the book seemed new, but there were a number of places where the book provides better ways of communicating ideas than I had previously seen.
The title led me to hope that the book would present a very ambitious vision of how we might completely free ourselves from genes and Darwinian evolution, but his advice focuses on modest nearer term benefits we can get from knowledge produced by studying heuristics and biases. The advice consists mainly of elaborations on the ideas of being rational and using scientific methods instead of using gut reactions when those approaches give conflicting results.
He does a good job of describing the conflicts between first order desires (e.g. eating sugar) and higher order desires (e.g. the desire not to desire unhealthy amounts of sugar), and why there's no easy rule to decide which of those desires deserves priority.
He isn't entirely fair to groups of people that he disagrees with. I was particularly annoyed by his claim that "economics vehemently resists the notion that first-order desires are subject to critique". What economics resists is the idea that person X is a better authority than person Y about what Y's desires are or ought to be. Economics mostly avoids saying anything about whether a person should want to alter his desires, and I expect those issues to be dealt with better by other disciplines.
One of the better ideas in the book was to compare the effort put into testing peoples' intelligence to the effort devoted to testing their rationality. He mentions many tests that would provide information about how well a person has overcome biases, and points out that such information might be valuable to schools deciding which students to admit and employers deciding whom to hire. I wish he had provided a good analysis of how well those tests would work if people trained to do well on them. I'd expect some wide variations - tests for overconfidence can be made to work fairly well, but I'm concerned that people would learn to pass tests such as the Wason test without changing their behavior under conditions when they're not alert to these problems.