Nature/Genetic forces

One of my hobbies is to look for genetic reasons for human behavior. One advantage of taking this approach is that I don't have to educate myself about psychology. So I ask myself, why would hunter-gatherers like nature?


 * 1) Hunters and gatherers use nature to obtain food. They seek regions with healthy plant-live because they want to gather plants or hunt animals that eat plants.
 * 2) What modern humans call "nature" means places where there is no sign of human life. We don't call a cornfield "nature".  The center divide of freeways often have wildflowers that have been planted.  We don't call that "nature".  A grocery store is full of edible plants and we don't call that nature.  Zoos and pet stores are not called "nature", even though they contain wild animals.  Apparently it's not nature whenever too many people are around.

So why do we crave solitude, or isolation from other human beings? Why do we prefer quiet places? Humans are dangerous, not only as potential enemies, but as carriers of human disease. And, humans will have gathered the best plants to eat or hunted the animals in places where too many humans have already visited. We don't like to see trash on the ground because that means this is not a good place to hunt, forage, or raise children.

We do that which makes us happy, or from an evolutionary perspective, we have learned to enjoy what we must do in order to survive. Dogs love to chase balls because their ancestors chased rabbits and such. I don't know if birds love to sing, but they sing to make love (i.e. attract mates.)

My guess is that humans love to sing and dance because that is how we selected mates as we evolved. Perhaps dancing proved that a man would be a good hunter of large prey: They had to be able to run backwards from a bison or mammoth that they are trying to kill. But I don't think that is the prime reason for dancing.

I don't see how singing would help one hunt, unless perhaps that meant one could make good bird calls. I doubt if that is why people sing, for a couple of reasons. First, early humans did not have shotguns, so attracting a duck to come within 20 meters is not going to put dinner on the table (or rock if that is what Mr. and Mrs. Flintstone used fi to eat on.) Also, I googled it, and apparently birds don't sing the way humans do. They don't use musical intervals (the fourth, the fifth, the minor fall, the major lift, ect.) I once heard that the opening theme in Beethoven's Fifth Symphony was inspired by a bird call. I googled the bird call, and it was not a major third.

So why would humans perfect a musical style not used by birds if human singing evolved as a way to attract birds?

My guess is that human singing is like the beautiful plumage that birds display. Both are considered beautiful for reasons that don't seem related to the genetic principle of survival of the fittest. There are two possible explanations for such mysteries:


 * 1) Useless beauty in males is correlated to survival: Any male peacock that can survive with those ridiculous looking feathers cant be a "bird brain". If the males of a species don't contribute significantly to raising offspring, fewer males are not detrimental. The males carry half the genes, and the need to attract females using potentially dangerous plumage can improve the gene pool.
 * 2) Perhaps birds are practicing a form of avian racism: They say that birds of a feather flock together. I you mate with a close relative you run the risk of having children with birth defects. But if you mate with a distant relative, your offspring are relatively safe from birth defects. But your child will have slightly more than 50% of your DNA. Closely related to racism is nationalism.  If we take actions to protect our country at the expense of other nations, we benifit.  Birds don't fight wars the way humans do because wars do not benefit the species. I think most would agree that the human penchant for war is like a bug in our software.

Or maybe fancy feathers, beautiful music, and even nature itself are all intrinsically beautiful. And all Earth's creatures experience, appreciate, and share that beauty. That is the answer that makes me happy.