Phil Roberts, Jr.  wrote:

....
> Back to evolutionary theory, what is your view of the behavior of
> the 9/11 terrorists?  A minor discrepancy, or a major headache for
> evolutionary psychology?

The problem with evolutionary psychology arises, IMHO, when it leaves
the realm of cognitive and psychological biases, tendencies and
propensities, and tries to provide a simple, monistic account of a
complex event in a cultural context.

The behavior of fundamentalist terrorists falls under the class of
dominance hierarchy behaviors gone wrong, attempting to "protect" the
home territory at the service of an "alpha male" (in this case, Allah)
and his beta male lieutenants (the Imams and terrorist leaders). The
altruism extends to the service of "kin" (i.e., coreligionists, even
though they are not necessarily *genetic* kin), as we see in the trials
of the Bali bombers - who apologise and show remorse only for killing
Muslims accidentally (as Imam Samudra did recently).

To run with this explanation, we need not only the "sociobiological"
story, but also the "evolutionary psychology" story about adaptation to
troop-size populations in the EEA, and also the cultural evolution story
about how Islam has been developed and employed in the countries from
where these people come. Sometimes these explanatory levels directly
connect - you could argue that the almost medieval village-like culture
of parts of Iran and the Middle East contribute to the impression that
defense of religion is defense of kin, for example. 

However, if you seek to explain why *those* individuals undertook such a
drastic course of action, then you need to add to the mix the
psychological propensities of the individuals. A lot of that I think is
hardwired, but like anything hardwired it has a distribution curve (on
risk-taking, radical versus conservative profiles, and so forth). The
curve is subject to evolutionary explanations, but why the individual is
thus and so is not (that is a developmental issue).

IMO. I'm trained as a philosopher, not a psychologist or biologist, so
take it for what it is worth.

-- 
John Wilkins
B'dies, Brutius
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