What do humans and lobsters have in common? Apart from the fact that both have social hierarchies and serotonin, not all that much really. Last time we checked, we don’t live underwater or have tasty claws.
But despite the differences, esteemed (and often controversial) Canadian psychologist and Harvard Professor, Jordan Peterson, has become rather well known for his theory linking human social hierarchies to lobsters.
He also got noticed in 2016 when he released a series of YouTube videos criticizing the Act to amend the Canadian Human Rights Act and the Criminal Code passed by the Parliament of Canada to introduce "gender identity and expression" as prohibited grounds for discrimination.
A self-proclaimed traditionalist, Peterson has been known to make assertions such as his lobster theory based on evolutionary psychology and sociobiology. People often confuse the two disciplines, so here’s a quick run down… Sociobiology is the study of the biological basis of social behaviour in animals and humans. It examines how evolutionary processes shape behaviour, from mating and parenting to aggression and cooperation etc. Like Peterson’s theory on why women wear blusher… because it attracts men by reminding them of ripe fruit. Obviously.
On the other hand, evolutionary psychology is the study of the biological evolution of physiological structures and processes. An example of this is why most humans are naturally wary of bears and wolves because our ancestors quickly learned the consequences of not avoiding these animals in the wild. Duly noted - stay clear of the beasts with sharp teeth and claws.
In his book, “12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos” Peterson argues that hierarchies are not merely societal constructs but rooted deep in our biology, evidenced by structures and behaviours seen in lobsters. That’s right. Lobsters. He states that there is an unspeakably primordial calculator deep within you at the very foundation of your brain, far below your thoughts and feelings that monitors exactly where you are positioned in society.
The problem with this type of thinking, especially coming from a traditionalist or classical conservatism lens like Peterson's, is that it enables justifications of inequality. It provides a genetic justification of the existing social organisations in humans. Inequality is just biology! It’s not our fault and there’s nothing we can, or should, do about it.
At the base of his theory, lobsters have a nervous system regulated by serotonin, much like humans, which influences their social standing and aggression. Dominant lobsters have more serotonin and defeated lobsters have less, making it harder for them to climb back up the hierarchy. It’s all about getting on top.
The first rule in Peterson’s book is “Stand up straight with your shoulders back." Indeed, aggressive and dominant lobsters stand up to exert their authority. Lobsters also don’t really like each other much on the whole, except when they're trying to mate. Mostly they’re just trying to be macho and make all the other lobsters their subordinates. The males compete for the best territory to win access to most females. So the moral of the story is, just be a dickhead because you’re the same as a lobster?
Well, Peterson's metaphor isn't as solid as he might think. The brain chemistry between lobsters and humans isn't exactly similar. Actually, that’s being kind. It’s completely the opposite. Humans are neurologically far more complicated. Lower levels of serotonin in humans make us more emotional and less able to control anger, whereas it makes lobsters less aggressive.
So if the basis of Peterson’s lobster theory was serotonin levels, what about comparing humans to sea hares? The underwater sea slug with rabbit ears! They’ve been used in many serotonin studies. Apparently, when they hang with each other, they get an improved ability to learn and remember things. And when it comes to sex, everyone gets a go! They’re hermaphrodites. Maybe that’s why Peterson didn’t choose the sea hare. It doesn’t quite suit his conservative views.
And if we’re going back to compare humans to lobsters, shouldn’t we go back to the closest antecedent where we paired off on the evolutionary tree? That would be the acoel - a mostly harmless marine worm no bigger than a grain of rice. They don't have complex displays of aggression like lobsters do, nor do they have obvious social hierarchies.
The bottom line is, that there are many creatures we could choose to compare ourselves to for a plethora of reasons. Peterson’s lobster theory simply serves to illustrate what he already believes about the world, not science.
SOURCES:
Jordan Peterson needs to reconsider the lobster - The Washington Post
Psychologist Jordan Peterson says lobsters help to explain why human hierarchies exist – do they?
The human league: what separates us from other animals? | Science and nature books | The Guardian
Sociobiology and Jordan Peterson – Lobsters, all the way down. | Dead Wild Roses
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[00:00:00] Rod: So you know how people are always, and I mean always, asking us, what's sociobiology? Well, I get tired of hearing the question. Comes to us all the time. I mean, like I filter them so you don't have to hear it all.
[00:00:12] Will: What is sociobiology?
[00:00:13] Rod: I'm not going to tell you. So it explores the biological basis of social behavior in animals and humans. So that's fine.
[00:00:19] Will: So like hungry might shape society.
[00:00:23] Rod: Yeah. You're hungry. Let's develop a political system. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It looks like evolutionary processes and how they might shape things. Like the way we mate, parent, be aggressive, cooperate, et cetera. Not just us. All meat creatures.
[00:00:36] All meat creatures. It often buddies up with, or is at times confused with evolutionary psychology, which is, you know, champion of disciplines.
[00:00:44] Will: Yeah. What is that one?
[00:00:45] Rod: Let's go into the ground where they blur together. They suggest basic things like this, like things like kin selection. So organisms may behave altruistically towards relatives to promote their survival.
[00:00:55] Will: You look after your kids. And maybe even your nieces and your nephews
[00:00:58] Rod: maybe a cousin or two, how liberal do you wish to be with spreading your love? Reciprocal altruism.
[00:01:05] Will: What's that?
[00:01:05] Rod: Individuals cooperating with unrelated individuals, but in the expectation, there'll be future benefits. So like, I'm going to do something ostensibly for free for you, but you'll probably do something for free for me. There's benefits to that. It makes sense.
[00:01:16] Will: Yeah. It's nice. Pay it forward. And it's exactly what Charles Darwin said, like origin of the species and origin of species to pay it forward,
[00:01:22] Rod: pay it forward. pay it forward. So it's not always been, and still isn't universally accepted, the old sociobiology
[00:01:28] Will: hang on, slow down. So just tell me, who doesn't accept the idea that our need to eat and our need to love and procreate might shape society a little bit. Is there anyone that says that doesn't have an influence on society?
[00:01:42] Rod: That's not the problem. The problem is more, well, you know, we feel the need to mate and then we have this elaborate social system, that's because of genetics and you're like, nah, slow down a tad.
[00:01:54] Will: Oh, so you're saying maybe a little bit of we did this like in the caves and therefore in my spreadsheets, men will hunt.
[00:02:01] Rod: And when women have better peripheral vision because Neanderthals, cave bears. And you're like, calm down, champ. Or we've seen it mimicked in a parakeet and you're like, we're both made of meat.
[00:02:13] Will: Best explanation ever of evolutionary psychology, I think.
[00:02:16] Rod: Well, and sociobiology in our defense, both at once, which is not easy. So some of the concerns. So from the very beginning, so it sort of came about in the seventies.
[00:02:25] It's extremely popular because it enables justifications of inequality. So often be with very little evidence, but very publicly appealing. So things like The quote is the reason for the survival of these recurrent deterministic theories, these socio biological theories. They tend to provide a genetic justification of the status quo, the way the social organizations in humans, for example, already exist.
[00:02:47] Will: We have inequality in society.
[00:02:49] Rod: But that's not our fault. It's just biology and shit. So we privilege, you know, large white heterosexual men, not because we choose to. We have no choice. Biology has determined that for us. Not my fault. Not my fault.
[00:03:02] Will: Sexism is right.
[00:03:03] Rod: No, it's not wrong. It's inevitable. I think inevitable is the calmer version of that argument. And I say is also say things like the theory is it's inadequate to account for human behavior because it ignores contributions of mind and culture. So yeah, here's genetics. We've forgotten that, you know, we think and other cultural matters come into play and also draws a parody between evolution of physical traits and social and personality traits.
[00:03:31] So we see physical traits evolved there for everything else evolves and we can track it
[00:03:34] Will: like what?
[00:03:35] Rod: like how we've chosen to organize ourselves, like sexism, et cetera, et cetera. But the thing is with these socio biological and evolutionary psychology explanations, they're pretty neat. They're pretty logical.
[00:03:46] Like the Gibbons do a lot of nasty, unconsensual sex, blah, blah, blah. So this guy who did it too, he's really just a Gibbon. It's cool. It's not his fault. There's a neat logic here. Yeah. Terrible. Also they have a lot of straightforward sort of science smelling explanations for why humans have ended up organizing ourselves the way we do, slavery has been accounted for. It parallels nicely with eugenics if you're not paying attention, it's great. So it can be really seductive for people, which is why it's pretty easy to see why Jordan Peterson put forward the theory that we can learn a lot about human hierarchies from the behavior And the biology of lobsters.
[00:04:38] Will: Welcome to the Wholesome Show.
[00:04:41] Rod: A podcast in which two academics knock off work early, grab a couple of beers, dive down the rabbit hole.
[00:04:46] Will: The rabbit hole of lobsters.
[00:04:47] Rod: Down the lobster hole.
[00:04:48] Will: I'm Will Grant.
[00:04:49] Rod: I'm Rod Lamberts. The lobster hole is going to come up again.
[00:04:51] Will: Oh my god. Jordan Peterson. Yeah. You're doing a Jordan Peterson on me.
[00:04:56] Rod: It's a theory.
[00:04:57] Will: Lobsters tell us how to behave?
[00:04:59] Rod: I know. Oh, that's wonderful.
[00:05:01] Will: Walk backwards into your cave and taste delicious. What else can lobsters tell us?
[00:05:06] Rod: The thing with humans is we should be as delicious as lobsters.
[00:05:08] Will: I would say like the evolutionary trick would be to taste disgusting, not to taste delicious. So why follow lobsters?
[00:05:14] Rod: What are you trying to achieve? So let's start with the few people out there. Probably, maybe, I'm hoping a lot of you out there don't know who he is. So just quick background on Jordan, cause it's important. Canadian psychologist, author, and brackets, conservative media commentator. He got a lot of attention in the late 2010s for his, let's say, controversial views on cultural and political matters.
[00:05:36] Will: Such as?
[00:05:38] Rod: Well, we're going to get to that.
[00:05:38] Will: Why don't you tell me now? I want to know now.
[00:05:40] Rod: I want to describe the man. I want you to really know the man. I want you to get inside his skin, you know, like a lobster sheds there as you put it on. So he's described himself as a classic British liberal and a traditionalist.
[00:05:53] Will: But he's Canadian.
[00:05:54] Rod: Yeah. You can't be bicultural?
[00:05:55] Will: Well, no, you can if you want, but I thought he described himself as Canadian first.
[00:05:58] Rod: He didn't describe himself. He was born there. That's not his fault.
[00:06:00] Will: Oh, he became British.
[00:06:01] Rod: It's evolution. No, he's not. What? Stayed in Canada. That's just how he's described himself.
[00:06:06] Will: Oh, okay. So I'm classic Aztec. Am I allowed to do that?
[00:06:09] Rod: Yes, you are. Well, if you truly embrace the culture and the people.
[00:06:12] Will: I haven't truly embraced the people or the culture.
[00:06:14] Rod: Next episode. Well, you like chocolate and beheading people? Fine. And farming ahead of the time. So, just to give us a bit of a flavor. So traditionalist conservatism or classical conservatism tends to emphasize the importance of transcendent moral principles manifested through certain positive natural laws. So society should adhere to certain rules and laws that are, they're just true, man. They're like nature.
[00:06:40] Will: This is the way things are. Okay.
[00:06:42] Rod: So he has that kind of vibe to him, let's say, so you've got a PhD in clinical psych from McGill university, number of years ago, then he become a junior academic at Harvard. He's got academic chops, at least in his background. At Harvard, there was an article in the Harvard Crimson, which is, that's the newspaper. They said he possessed a quote, willingness to take on any research projects, no matter how unconventional. So the dude's an explorer. He's going out there. He's going out there. He did a lot of work with like why people are addicts and this whole list of things I didn't even bother to get into, like a huge list of many diverse, intense kinds of topics.
[00:07:17] Former students at his classes said his lectures were, or they had this vibe, something akin to a cult following. So one student said, I remember students crying on the last day of class because they wouldn't get to hear him anymore.
[00:07:29] Will: Calm down
[00:07:29] Rod: For some, at least he had a strong connection. Well, maybe he's great. I get that all the time.
[00:07:35] Will: I'm just wondering who's telling the story, but anyway, you tell me.
[00:07:38] Rod: Wikipedia, it's got to be true.
[00:07:39] Will: No, who's telling the story about the crying?
[00:07:41] Rod: Students, former students. Not him, he's not Trump. So after Harvard, he goes back to Canada. 1998, becomes a full professor at the Uni of Toronto.
[00:07:49] He's written at least 100 academic papers, co written or authored. Most of his career, he's been a clinical practicing psychologist as well. 20 odd patients a week. 2016, he releases a series of YouTube videos, criticizing to begin with the act to amend the Canadian human rights act and criminal code. This was to be passed by parliament of Canada.
[00:08:12] They wanted to introduce gender identity and expression as prohibited grounds for discrimination. So you can't discriminate on someone cause they've decided they're not traditionally gendered. He argued the bill would make use of certain gender pronouns compulsory.
[00:08:27] Will: So he has said, but I want to
[00:08:28] Rod: but I want to discriminate. Now, what he said is you'll make me do things I don't want to do. You made me do things I don't want to do.
[00:08:34] Will: That's what laws are often about. Making you do things you don't want to do. I mean, that's the thing laws are for.
[00:08:41] Rod: We'll make you not do things you don't want to do.
[00:08:43] Will: We don't have to have laws against
[00:08:46] Rod: being a fuckhead to others. Don't be a fuckhead to others. So he didn't like that. He's grumpy about that. And he generally rails in these videos against political correctness, identity politics, all the classics got him noticed. He got noticed. So 2018, a couple of years later, he pauses his clinical practice and he's teaching duties and he published his second book. I don't care about his first book. Second book, a self help book, promoted it with a world tour. It became a bestseller in many countries, including this one. We'll get to what the book is. 2021. Just giving you his background. He retired from the university of Toronto and became an emeritus professor.
[00:09:23] And in May of 22, he became the chancellor of Ralston college.
[00:09:26] Will: Okay. What does that mean?
[00:09:28] Rod: Haven't heard of it?
[00:09:29] Will: Just tell me what it is.
[00:09:31] Rod: It's a, I love this. And many sources call it this, a private unaccredited liberal arts college in Savannah, Georgia. It describes itself as being dedicated to quote, free speech associated with prominent conservative figures. And so the president, so that's fine.
[00:09:46] Will: I just want to say unaccredited, you know, it could be that a group of people coming together and saying, we don't need no government telling us what to learn. We can learn on our own dime.
[00:09:55] Rod: We can give you a degree from this college because we do. But so the president, so him as vice chancellor is sort of one underneath him, the big guy, a conservative chap who has in the past riled against things like Obamacare, he's very pro private sector, you know, that will fix healthcare because obviously it will.
[00:10:13] He had other assertions that didn't seem terrible. They're just very, the individual, the market, libertarian kind of angles. Jordan has been known to make assertions. This is background. So now we're talking about his current little thing here. He's been known to make assertions based on evolutionary psychology and sociobiology.
[00:10:32] Facts, like this. Women wear blusher on their cheeks because it attracts men by reminding them of ripe fruit. Did you know that? Did you know that?
[00:10:44] Will: Look, because it attracts men, we can probably accept that that heterosexual women are of occasion doing things where they might want to attract men. And this has been established as a thing that has worked in the past because it reminds of ripe fruit.
[00:10:57] Rod: Yeah. It's not cultural at all. No, no ripe fruit.
[00:10:59] Will: Ripe fruit.
[00:11:00] Rod: Surprisingly there are arguments against this.
[00:11:02] Will: Well, look I like ripe fruit. I don't know if it's the thing when I'm ready to dance that I'm thinking I want some ripe fruit.
[00:11:10] Rod: You mean the pants?
[00:11:13] Will: I'm just in the prelude here. Time to dance. I seen a mango on your face. Reminds me of ripe fruit. They are different urges. They are different urges
[00:11:22] Rod: for some, they may coincide.
[00:11:23] Will: I mean, if he were to say, and I don't doubt he has, you know, might wear some makeup because it reminds the person of the opposite sex of sex organs, I'm like, Oh, I can believe that.
[00:11:34] Rod: Like you put red lipstick on the lips to remind one of the woowah.
[00:11:38] Yes.
[00:11:38] Will: I can at least take that.
[00:11:39] Rod: So it's also blusher in particular, but I mean, as you pointed out by talking about mangoes, which are delicious, a lot of fruit ain't red. Blusher is. A lot of people's skin tones, many in fact, aren't white. So the effect of the tone upon them may differ. Also, if you're going to test evolutionary success.
[00:11:58] Will: I feel like critiquing him at this level is,
[00:12:01] Rod: Oh, I'm just the messenger. I'm just the messenger. The test for evolutionary success is for many anyway, increased reproductive success. There doesn't seem to be any data that says the women who wear the right blush Tend to have more of the babies.
[00:12:14] Will: I feel like, well, more of the babies is not necessarily the thing that people might be aiming for.
[00:12:19] Rod: But if you're talking evolutionary biology, et cetera, et cetera.
[00:12:21] Will: In the grand scheme of things, a hundred thousand years ago, maybe more babies is the thing we're aiming for but have babies that are higher up the hierarchy and more likely to have more status babies.
[00:12:32] Rod: Oh, but you're getting complicated.
[00:12:33] Will: That's testable.
[00:12:34] Rod: Yeah. But you're getting complicated. This is before that, just talking in comparisons to biology and the animal kingdom. It's like reproductive success equals babies at all, better yet, more of them.
[00:12:43] Will: So, so what are you saying? We should get some monkeys and put some makeup on monkeys and see if that will,
[00:12:49] Rod: if men want to have intercourse with them,
[00:12:51] Will: Jordan Peterson wants to have intercourse with them.
[00:12:54] Rod: So that's more, yeah. Let's get deep into sociobiology now. Let's Get to the self help book. This is where it all gets excellent. It's called 12 rules for life, an antidote to chaos. You've read it.
[00:13:05] Will: You must've read this to actually do a fair critique of it.
[00:13:08] Rod: I've rummaged through some elements of it, but I haven't read it.
[00:13:12] Will: So you're just going to go out there and do the critique.
[00:13:14] Rod: Cause that's not the issue. This is the setup. This is the setup. The guts is about something else. So this review, each of the 12 chapters is a series of meditations, or as they put it as an aside, digressions, presented as a solution to a problem revealed therein about life and how to make order out of chaos.
[00:13:35] Will: Ah, that's all we do.
[00:13:36] Rod: It's all we do. We fight entropy all the time.
[00:13:38] Will: That is what the universe is doing. The universe wants chaos. We want order.
[00:13:41] Rod: Yep. We're not part of the universe.
[00:13:42] Will: We are we but this is what life is, the resistance against the universe turning to entropy.
[00:13:46] Rod: Fighting entropy. So it goes on, the chaos is in turn presented as a universal, ahistorical fact about the nature of being or human existence. So chaos is the nature of being and
[00:13:56] Will: Are we critiquing that or are we saying that's okay? Because that seems okay. All I'm saying, as the physics did demonstrate, entropy will grow.
[00:14:04] Rod: The reviewer goes on, given all this, it is striking how many of the discussions reduced to advice about how to win at something. Anything or nothing in particular, how to win.
[00:14:13] Will: Yeah, but you've got to sell the positive. I mean, who is writing a book how to lose at something? I don't think that's a good self help, be terrible. There's a good self help book. Maybe we should do that. Be terrible. How shit can you be?
[00:14:23] Rod: We should do a self help book. You're right.
[00:14:25] Will: I feel like it would not sell. You take that to a publisher and they go, what are you doing? How to be shit,
[00:14:32] Rod: how to be shit. Or is it how to not feel bad about it?
[00:14:35] Will: No, I don't want to do either of those things. You do it and I'll watch.
[00:14:39] Rod: So the table of contents, 12 chapters, stand up straight with your shoulders back is chapter one.
[00:14:43] Will: Oh, Jesus. Leave me alone. All right. Fair enough.
[00:14:45] Rod: Treat yourself like someone you are responsible for helping.
[00:14:48] Will: I stopped out at treat yourself. Was there more? Treat yourself.
[00:14:51] Rod: Like someone you are responsible for helping. Treat yourself like you would treat your alzheimer's
[00:14:56] Will: like someone you're a spot. Oh yeah, you gotta look after yourself in the way that you're responsible for a kid or something like that. Okay. All right. But I got stuck on treat yourself. Stand up straight and treat yourself. Okay. I'm down with that.
[00:15:07] Rod: Shoulders back. Make friends with people who want the best for you.
[00:15:11] Will: Yeah, that's not bad.
[00:15:12] Rod: Sounds fine. Yeah. They all sound good. Like the title sound fine. I mean, others pursue what is meaningful, not what is expedient.
[00:15:18] Will: Yeah. Well definitely.
[00:15:19] Rod: Tell the truth or at least don't lie. Be precise in your speech.
[00:15:27] Will: I mean, I mean, at all times, what if you what if you're trying to make friends with kids. I don't know.
[00:15:31] Rod: It needs to be precise. A goo ga. But all the chapters have these, you know, like kind of calls to action, feel good sort of headings. The last one is pet a cat when you encounter one on the street.
[00:15:44] Will: Ah, it's just smell the roses.
[00:15:45] Rod: I don't know if it is though. This is the thing.
[00:15:47] Will: Are you saying it's a euphemism? Is this a big euphemism on the street
[00:15:52] Rod: whenever you encounter one? No. But we're going to talk about rule one, just rule one because there are heaps of them. Stand up straight with your shoulders back.
[00:16:00] Will: That's the one you're focusing on?
[00:16:02] Rod: There's a reason for that.
[00:16:03] Will: Oh my God.
[00:16:03] Rod: Sociobiology. Hierarchies are everywhere and it's often argued that there are, they are a social construct invented to allow certain people to have power over others. And this is, I don't have a beef with that. It's not untrue. Hierarchies are often social constructs.
[00:16:17] Will: I can't see how they can't be social construct.
[00:16:19] Rod: No, you can't. And neither can I.
[00:16:21] Will: That's what it is.
[00:16:22] Rod: But Jordan, he says there's an unspeakably primordial calculator deep within you at the very foundation of your brain, far below your thoughts and feelings that monitors exactly where you are positioned in society. What do you reckon?
[00:16:38] Will: Do people monitor hierarchy and status? People absolutely do.
[00:16:42] Rod: Foundationally in our brain.
[00:16:43] Will: Look, I am not a cognitive or scientist or a neuroscientist, but you know, I think foundationally in your brain is not a technical term. So, I don't know what we're meaning here by foundationally in your brain. Is it in reptilian? Oh, is he saying like that it's in the old bits of your brain
[00:17:01] Rod: more crustacean
[00:17:02] Will: it's in your crustacean bits of your brain. I don't think that exists.
[00:17:04] Rod: More crustacean than reptilian.
[00:17:06] Will: Look, I would say I can accept that somewhere below our ability to appreciate complex physics is potentially an ability to interpret hierarchy. And here I'm going to go with our friend Peterson and go into, or not friend, but and go into probably has existed for a long time that social animals recognize hierarchies.
[00:17:30] Going back to, I mean, I don't know if ants are the same thing, you know, they do have a hierarchy, but I don't think they think in the same way but clearly packs of dogs packs of monkeys packs of kangaroos. They have the boss kangaroo and the boss monkey. I don't doubt that's probably pre human.
[00:17:48] Rod: Unspeakably primordial calculator.
[00:17:50] Will: Again, not a scientific term.
[00:17:51] Rod: Monitors exactly where you are positioned in society. Monitors exactly.
[00:17:54] Will: Ah, okay. Leave him. Yeah, I mean, he's being an idiot, but again
[00:17:58] Rod: no, but he justifies it. He's not an idiot. He's a scholar. He's a scholar. Cause he exemplifies this in the obvious way by lobsters. You didn't know this?
[00:18:06] Will: Whereabouts do we share on the evolutionary tree with like , when do we split off from lobsters?
[00:18:11] Rod: I cannot wait to tell you.
[00:18:12] Will: Tell me now. Oh Jesus.
[00:18:15] Rod: So Peterson, basically this is sociobiology on steroids as far as I can tell with my deep expertise of the last week or so is a research, he says it's inevitable that there will be continuity in the way that animals and human beings organize their structures. AKA humans like lobsters exist in hierarchies, which is fine, but so do other creatures.
[00:18:36] Will: And look, in fairness whilst we may have additional desires beyond lobsters, we share some desires that lobsters have.
[00:18:43] Rod: Absolutely. But so do a lot of other animals.
[00:18:45] Will: Yeah, sure. Yeah, no, but we also probably share those same some things with those animals too.
[00:18:50] Rod: Absolutely. Anyway, let's get sciencey now. Lobsters have a nervous system, this is a quote, attuned to a status which runs on serotonin runs on is doing a lot of heavy lifting here.
[00:19:01] Will: Just one hormone?
[00:19:02] Rod: Serotonin. So it goes on to say the higher up a hierarchy a lobster climbs, they have mechanisms within them, biological that help make more serotonin available. Claws and serotonin. So serotonin becomes available for the uptake in their systems. The more defeat they suffer, the more restricted the serotonin supply. Lower serotonin is in turn associated with more negative emotions. This is in lobsters.
[00:19:27] Will: How are they testing this?
[00:19:28] Rod: Well, with science.
[00:19:29] Will: Yeah, but did like a scientist beat up a lobster and then test its serotonin?
[00:19:33] Rod: There's a little bit in there. We'll get to that. I There's a little bit of science. Is there science on lobsters and serotonin? Yes, absolutely. And quite a bit of it.
[00:19:40] Will: Did the scientist beat up the lobster?
[00:19:42] Rod: No, they just humiliated them. They claw shamed them. You call that a penis? No, I don't, I don't have one. So apparently the argument then lower serotonin associated with negative emotions makes it harder to climb back up, you know, dust yourself off and go back up the hierarchy. So lower serotonin begets difficulties.
[00:19:57] Will: It's a self fulfilling prophecy.
[00:19:58] Rod: Exactly. Now this is lobsters. Now let's not forget humans also have serotonin and it matters to our happiness. So basically we hierarchy like lobsters. You can see it. It writes itself. The logic is a hundred percent clear.
[00:20:14] If this is your first episode, sometimes I'm sarcastic. So no matter how sophisticated we humans believe ourselves to be deep down, apparently we're motivated by the same drive for dominance as lobsters.
[00:20:26] Will: Tell me how lobsters live.
[00:20:27] Rod: underwater.
[00:20:28] Will: I know that. What else do they do?
[00:20:30] Rod: They hang out. They don't really like each other much on the whole, except when they're trying to mate. Do you know, they're going to turn out to be some more differences.
[00:20:37] Will: Do they rear their young, like in the same way we do?
[00:20:41] Rod: Yeah. They school them. So Jordan Peterson asks, do you want to embark on the voyage of your life? Let your light shine so to speak on the heavenly hill
[00:20:48] Will: euphemism
[00:20:50] Rod: for bending over?
[00:20:52] Will: It's either. It could be either. Like definitely let your light shine is front or back.
[00:20:57] Rod: That's good. That's inclusive. Shine whatever light you want, people. So if you want to embark on the voyage of your life, let your light shine, so to speak, on the heavenly hill and pursue your rightful destiny. Do you want that? Of course you do. The answer is yes, of course you do.
[00:21:11] Will: I am not big on destiny, but anyway.
[00:21:12] Rod: But if you were, and you are.
[00:21:14] Will: I said, I'm not.
[00:21:15] Rod: So you said, yes.
[00:21:15] Will: I said not.
[00:21:16] Rod: Look for your inspiration to the victorious lobster with its 350 million years of practical wisdom. Stand up straight with your shoulders back.
[00:21:24] Will: Do they do that?
[00:21:25] Rod: Yeah. Apparently the dominant and aggressive lobster will kind of rear up a bit.
[00:21:29] Will: Being taller.
[00:21:30] Rod: Being taller and shouldery. He continues to stand up straight with your shoulders back means building the ark that protects the world from the flood.
[00:21:38] Will: What?
[00:21:40] Rod: Guiding your people through the desert after they have escaped tyranny.
[00:21:44] Will: Oh, so that's what Moses did. He stood up straight. He lobstered the shit out of that. He went up the mountain. God was like, I have 12 commandments for you. First stand up straight. Jesus, calm down.
[00:21:57] Rod: And why did you only bring one unicorn? You idiot. Yeah. Guide your people through the desert after they've escaped tyranny and making your way away from a comfortable home and country. It means you have to shoulder the cross.
[00:22:09] Will: Oh, that was a bit of a pivot. Cause I think just to clarify the Jews in Egypt were not in a comfortable home and country. He did shift topic very quickly. Lead them through the desert to escape tyranny that was also a comfortable home. Fair enough. Where is the lobster?
[00:22:25] Rod: Because they stand up with their shoulders straightened back when they're booming, they have serotonin.
[00:22:29] Will: Yeah. You know what I love here? Like it's this very willful blending. He's like, okay, I'll throw the Christianity here in with some pseudo science, like, like why not lean into one of them
[00:22:40] Rod: you know, why? Because if someone objects on one front, you can go, Oh, but the other one.
[00:22:47] Will: Like, there is no moment where lobster Jesus, although you can get the good pictures of lobster Jesus, but there is no moment where lobster Moses led the lobsters through the underwater desert. I don't know what an underwater desert is, but there is no moment like,
[00:23:03] Rod: No, there isn't. Well, as far as we're aware, you've got to read all the Bible. You can't stop in the middle
[00:23:07] Will: or the lobster Bible.
[00:23:09] Rod: It's a lot clackier. So apparently Jordan believes that the system that is used by lobsters also explains why social hierarchies exist in humans and also how you win those hierarchies.
[00:23:19] Will: Standing up straight.
[00:23:20] Rod: Yeah. Shoulders back. Okay. So let's get into the science cause it's part of what we do. It's true that serotonin is present in many crustaceans, including the lobsters. It's highly connected to dominance and aggressive behavior. Is it really? For example, the study you're asking.
[00:23:41] Free moving lobsters cruising around, they're given injections of serotonin, they apparently adopt more aggressive postures.
[00:23:48] Will: Who thought this is what I want to do with my science.
[00:23:52] Rod: It was all I could do to not go down that path.
[00:23:54] Will: Who was like, you know, I want to know what happens when you give lobsters more serotonin. Good on science.
[00:24:00] Rod: So when they're given these injections, they get into more aggressive postures, you know, stand up straight with your shoulders back. Similar to the ones displayed by dominant animals when they approach subordinates. So that's cool. But, the structures on which serotonin act in humans way more diverse and complicated than they are in lobsters. For example, like we have a brain, they kind of don't.
[00:24:20] Will: Don't they?
[00:24:21] Rod: Not really. They got bits.
[00:24:22] Will: Bit judgy. What do they have? You said bits.
[00:24:26] Rod: They have less.
[00:24:26] Will: Sure, less. A lot of things got less than us. We're pretty good on the brains. They must have something.
[00:24:29] Rod: Yeah. They got claws and delicious tails. So, we are far more complicated is the bottom line, neurologically far more complicated. So lower levels of serotonin associated with decreased levels of aggression in lobsters, we're the opposite. So we get lower levels of serotonin and apparently they make the communication between our amygdala and our frontal lobes weak and makes it more difficult to control emotional responses to anger.
[00:24:53] Will: So we get aggressive with less serotonin.
[00:24:56] Rod: Yeah, we get more emotional.
[00:24:56] Will: Like when you get on the ecstasy, like that makes you huggy.
[00:24:58] Rod: Yep. It's like eating a lobster.
[00:25:00] Will: So they gave the ecstasy to the lobster.
[00:25:02] Rod: So basically here's the bottom line. The systems. The opposite. The effect on them versus us is opposite.
[00:25:08] Will: So you're saying his analogy was not right based on science but what he's saying.
[00:25:13] Rod: Not right is unkind. Opposite.
[00:25:14] Will: Okay. So chemicals different. Chemicals. but still stand up straight.
[00:25:19] Rod: He's definitely saying that. So it's very different. So, lobsters might not be the best comparison for us it turns out, I know. I was shocked too. When I read that, I was like, sounded good to me until then, but then some fucking scientist I read and they said, no, but JP, he can crack back at this. He says, look, the nervous systems of humans and lobsters are in fact, so similar because antidepressants work on lobsters too.
[00:25:41] Will: Do they?
[00:25:42] Rod: Well, they have an effect. Prozac, so selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors. The SSRIs. It does block serotonin uptake
[00:25:52] Will: what existential dread the lobsters have? Like, okay, so let's find the lobster bottom of the hierarchy and we can guess, okay, that might be the most depressed one. It's like lose a lobster, give him some Prozac and is he really going, I don't care anymore? I'm like Buddha of lobster. Jesus lobster.
[00:26:08] Rod: Happy enough lobster
[00:26:10] Will: how are we testing happiness of lobsters?
[00:26:12] Rod: This is a good question because there are some strong claims. It's a survey. As a rule, they click on the left or right button happier or less happy. So the drug does what it's designed to do, the blocking of the uptake of serotonin, but nothing has suggested at least so far in research that it makes the lobsters happier or less depressed.
[00:26:29] How do you measure that? As we said, obviously surveys. But let's imagine just for fun, serotonin is the touchstone for comparison between humans and other creatures we might want to make sense of human hierarchies and how we should behave socio biologically. One example that came up was you could use what they call seahairs They're sea slugs. They're called sea hares because they've got sensory apparatus that look a lot like rabbit ears.
[00:26:51] Will: I do like everything in the ocean just being the sea version of something.
[00:26:54] Rod: Yeah. Like sea dog. Sea kangaroo. They've been used a shitload in serotonin studies apparently, these sea hares, and they are very different to lobsters.
[00:27:04] Lobsters for example, don't like to hang out with each other much unless they're, you know, doing some lobster loving. Sea hares however, if they get a detection of a chemical that comes from other sea hares, They can't wait to go and hang out with each other. They love each other. They love to hang with each other.
[00:27:17] Will: So we're seahairs.
[00:27:18] Rod: Yeah, we're seahairs. So apparently when they hang with each other, they get a, an improved ability to learn and remember things. There's something about being together, I assume it's chemical, helps them be better. Peterson also stresses about lobsters, that the males compete for the best territory to win access to most females.
[00:27:33] They have serotonin, we have serotonin, so do seahairs. Seahairs however, apparently seahair sex, everyone gets a bash. They can be hermaphrodites. So they walk between. So very different to lobsters.
[00:27:45] Will: So they're not so bothered about hierarchies. They're just like on for young and old
[00:27:49] Rod: but they have serotonin too. So why wouldn't we compare ourselves to that? Why wouldn't we make sense of ourselves?
[00:27:54] Will: It's so weird.
[00:27:56] Rod: I know it's like, well, why would you choose lobsters other than delicious?
[00:28:00] Will: Cause they stand up straight and shoulders back. He did a Google search. He put a, okay. Lesson one, stand up straight. And he's like, which other species stand up straight? And he found lobsters.
[00:28:09] Rod: I reckon he typed in anything similar to an animal and a human. Oh, here's one. So here's another one. Convergent evolution. Have you heard of this? Of course you have. So if you take, for example, chimpanzee, they use a stick to dig a grub out of a bit of wood.
[00:28:20] They're using a tool. They're using the thing. Caledonian crows, wildly good at using tools. Like they use sticks and things to open jars and get food out.
[00:28:27] Will: Oh, so your definition of conversion evolution is things that do the same thing. Can you give me a wider definition that's not a behavioral thing.
[00:28:36] Rod: well, okay. This is the, probably the best example to use though. So at least 1 percent of all animals, including insects, spiders, crabs, octopuses, et cetera, use tools in some way. But the idea that they may in some way have all evolved from the same ancestor, except way, way back, this notion of two years is saying this is probably spontaneously evolved in parallel, in different strands and different strains.
[00:28:58] So as one biologist says, it's virtually impossible to assume a single evolutionary antecedent in which this behavior sprang. Not all tool use came from one shared ancestor between chimpanzees, humans, octopuses, et cetera.
[00:29:12] Will: I think it did though.
[00:29:14] Rod: It depends how far back you go, but yes, this notion of tool use, how far, if you go back, we're all from the same creature. Pretty useless. So the bottom line is using tools is a trick that's been acquired many times in evolution, but independently, not by sequentially.
[00:29:27] Will: So you're saying hierarchies are a tool that have been aquired independently or serotonin or standing up straight? That's it.
[00:29:34] Rod: It's just saying that basically evolutionary biology doesn't necessarily easily account for the development of things. Also, I have to, a little aside on tool use. While digging into this, I learned that orangutans, they use leaves and branches as gloves when they handle spiny fruit.
[00:29:50] Will: Do they really?
[00:29:51] Rod: Hats when it's raining. And they also fashion twigs to aid in masturbation. Speaking of tool use.
[00:29:58] Will: Well, there you go. Why didn't you tell me more about that? You can just leave that for now.
[00:30:02] Rod: I was going to say animal tool use. That's going to be, it's fucking amazing.
[00:30:06] Will: I don't care about all tool use. I just want to know about these masturbating animals with tools.
[00:30:10] Rod: There's one about a dolphin, no, it was a sea otter that uses an electric eel around his ding dong to gain results.
[00:30:17] Will: Good on, I assume, him
[00:30:19] Rod: in this case, probably, well, let's just say penis bearing. Not him or her.
[00:30:23] Will: I get it. Highly likely. Well, you know, I think gender might be a human social construct, not a lobster social construct.
[00:30:29] Rod: We better look harder. So also if you go to if you're going to choose lobsters, because there's some kind of possible evolutionary similarity, there are others you could use.
[00:30:38] He's another creature that is equally as evolutionary removed from us as lobsters, similarly distant. Insects like ants, bees, and wasps, they're as far removed from us as lobsters tend to be, evolutionary speaking. They're equally different. So why choose?
[00:30:52] According to evolution,
[00:30:53] Will: According to evolution, it's not a person. What do you mean equally different? They're smaller. So, they're more different.
[00:30:58] Rod: That's true, they're more different. You do have me there. Thanks for joining us, it's been great. These creatures, ants, bees and wasps, they have a social hierarchy that has a single queen and a bunch of males, and the male's role tends to be protecting the colony and providing sperm when demanded. So they're sex slaves. Why don't we compare ourselves to them? Why not?
[00:31:16] Will: It's not fun. Because we don't come out on top in this scenario. That's why you don't use that example.
[00:31:20] Rod: The queens kind of do if being on top is you're the only one you die when you finished reproducing.
[00:31:25] Will: You're a pregnancy slave.
[00:31:27] Rod: Yeah. And then you have sex slaves. But so the bottom line is there are many creatures we could choose to compare ourselves to for reasons that you could come up with.
[00:31:34] Will: Are you saying he might be cherry picking from the kingdom of animals out there to show it?
[00:31:39] Rod: Well, but it's not cherry picking, it's science because serotonin, serotonin. So back to lobsters, just to round us out. If a biologist wants to explain or understand similarities between two creatures, and you mentioned this earlier, you look for their most furthest back common ancestor. So for humans and lobsters, Our most recent common ancestor was probably, it branched out when there was an evolution of a complete gut in one strand and not the other. What does that mean? The mouth and the anus became two separate openings.
[00:32:09] Will: Lobsters have got a mouth anus
[00:32:11] Rod: no, this is another creature.
[00:32:12] Will: Oh, okay.
[00:32:13] Rod: If we were going to go back to lobsters and compare, why wouldn't we go back to the most closest antecedent where we paired off on the evolutionary tree?
[00:32:20] So when we developed a mouth and an anus, and they didn't, they kept one whole. so the closest living animal to that ancestor that would be our shared person, a coal, which is described as a mostly harmless marine worm, no bigger than a grain of rice. It's social interactions are limited to mating and a little bit of a dabble in opportunistic cannibalism if they run into one.
[00:32:41] Will: So that's what it's based on. Do they stand up straight?
[00:32:43] Rod: Nope. They're tiny little worms.
[00:32:45] Will: They might stand up straight. Like worms can stand up straight too.
[00:32:49] Rod: You don't know that . You're not a worm-ist. And so for them, they don't have complex displays of aggression like lobsters do. They don't have social hierarchies that are obvious like primates do. So if the common ancestor of humans and lobsters didn't have the dominance hierarchies
[00:33:04] Will: Are you saying it's emerged separately?
[00:33:06] Rod: Yeah, perhaps lobsters again aren't the best comparator. So none of the arguments, none of the arguments hold water other than completely arbitrarily. So bottom line, the verdict, right? Wholesome verdict. Do hierarchies exist in animals and humans?
[00:33:20] Will: Yes.
[00:33:20] Rod: No biologists would argue that there aren't dominance hierarchies and they haven't existed for a long time. No one would, but plenty of animals live together without trying to assert dominance over each other. There are many examples of that.
[00:33:30] A lot of those have serotonin and a lot of them don't. Serotonin is everywhere
[00:33:33] Will: so the verdict is Jordan Peterson might've been cherry picking
[00:33:36] Rod: got a bit carried away. And the real suspicion is that perhaps his discussion of lobsters serves to illustrate what he already believes about the world, not science, but he's not only obsessed with lobsters. He has a full range of merch that's all about beta lobsters standing back. Like it's genius. It's genius. That's Jordan Peterson and lobsters.
[00:33:56] Will: I'm very glad to now know whatever it is that I know at the end of that. There you go.
[00:34:03] Rod: I saw this piece, it said, what's with Jordan Peterson and lobsters? and I thought, yeah, what is what are you talking about? I know him from many other things.
[00:34:09] Will: You are such a sucker for, oh my God. Okay. I can do a parallel here with your Jordan Peterson. I've been thinking about how you detect a deep fake and this might be, it's a big stretch. It's a big stretch. It's a big stretch. Yeah. There you go. That's my parallel. No but you know, there's more and more out there of stuff being made by your artificial intelligence.
[00:34:35] And I was just thinking, what is our pathway out of here? Like is there a way to detect or do we just give up?
[00:34:40] Rod: Give up. Except the artificial. I give up and you don't.
[00:34:44] Will: There must be a way. I reckon there's ways. I reckon there's ways.
[00:34:47] Rod: I reckon I agree there will be
[00:34:49] Will: and it doesn't have to be all like weird computers. It could be other things. It could be other things. Like, for example, using historical plausibility or network effects or something like that.
[00:34:58] Like, like in the sense of a photograph of someone. And, you know, for a new piece of evidence to emerge, then it'd have to be like a certain number of things before that would be plausible of that. I don't know, I don't know, but I just think that this is a growing area where we're going to have to find some sort of solution.
[00:35:14] Because otherwise it is going to destroy a lot if it's going to be so easy. You know, with these voice recordings now that are so easy to make.
[00:35:21] Rod: Well, they say don't, in your phone message, don't say more than
[00:35:24] Will: I think that, that ship has sailed.
[00:35:26] Rod: That's enough. No, we're okay because our voice is not on the internet. No one could fake us. There's no data. There's no raw material.
[00:35:32] Will: What else have you been thinking about?
[00:35:34] Rod: Well, the animal tool use thing. I flagged that earlier. Like I want to find out what the most astounding examples are and the most insane explanations for it. I think it's going to be very interesting. Animal tool use, obviously, particularly for sexual gratification, but not only. I've been thinking about that.
[00:35:49] Will: I got another animal one then, I guess. What animals have been made extinct by zoos? There have been animals that have become extinct while they've lived in zoos. You know, this is like the last Tasmanian tiger but I think there's been some others that the zoos have gone, Oh, these look awesome. Let's have some of these in the zoo. Oh, we killed them all. We preserved the last one. This is the last one. Yeah. I wonder what zoos have done there.
[00:36:11] Rod: I also, I mean, this will be interesting to, or at least of deep relevance to our dear producer and editor, Alex, but how much are operating theaters and that kind of backend work where they knock us out and chop us up just like a normal workplace?
[00:36:24] And how much do we want them to be? Like, how much do you want to know that your surgeon, your anesthetist, et cetera, are acting just like we would at work or the two people flipping the burgers.
[00:36:32] Will: Just chatting over there. Yeah, of course.
[00:36:34] Rod: Yeah. Like you're cutting open the bits and you're pulling out the thing and you're panicking about the extra bleed. And it's like,
[00:36:38] Will: and they're talking about the latest episode or whatever.
[00:36:40] Rod: And you're like, ah, I gotta get new tires. I gotta get new tires on my car. It's really shitting me off and no one will call me back on my mortgage.
[00:36:46] Will: New tires.
[00:36:46] Rod: That's what I mean. The mundanity with what. To us, the people on the slab is extreme, but to the people who are doing this deep work, like what is it actually like and do we want to know? Do you want to know?
[00:36:58] Will: I want them to be relaxed. I don't want them to be high focused and this is, I'm stressed. This is the first time I've ever done this.
[00:37:03] Rod: I want them clenching their teeth and freaking out in case they kill me. I really don't want that.
[00:37:07] Will: Send them in a listener. You got any topics you want us to explore?
[00:37:10] Rod: Yeah. cheers@wholesomeshow.com or comments beneath.
