On Gad Saad‘s new videocast, “The Saad Truth” on Larry King’s network (Ora.tv), I talked with the affable Lebanese/Canadian psychologist for about 75 minutes. The original video is here, but it’s also on YouTube, which I’ve embedded. As always, I can’t stand to watch it; maybe you can.
Saad, as I’ve noted before, is a really nice guy, and though he has strong feelings about stuff like free speech and unthinking critics of evolutionary psychology, he’s always very mild-mannered when he’s proselytizing. Gad’s the kind of guy you’d want to have a few beers with. He also writes a column at Psychology Today, Homo Consumericus.
He was wonderful on the Rubin Report.
The Gadfather is awesome!
I really like Gad Saad and I make a habit of watching his videos on youtube.
He has, however, stated that climate change has had no effect on global conflicts and I would have to disagree with that.
When resources are scarce, it just adds more fuel to already existing conflicts.
Do you have evidence that climate change has increased global conflicts, or just an argument that it should?
The fact that global conflicts are declining certainly suggests that climate change hasn’t caused an increase, although one could argue that they would have decreased at a greater rate than they have.
There was a great article on it that I cannot find now, however these two pdfs make a case that “things are complicated”
https://www.usaid.gov/sites/default/files/documents/1866/ClimateChangeConflictAnnex_2015%2002%2025,%20Final%20with%20date%20for%20Web.pdf
https://www.ids.ac.uk/files/dmfile/InFocus15.pdf
Overall I don’t think that it is wise to completely discount the effects of droughts, flooding and resource scarcity, especially water.
Populates get displaced, and there is no guarantee that their neighbours will welcome them with open arms, especially if *they* are also suffering.
An interesting article on the conflict in Rwanda:
https://atlismta.org/online-journals/0607-journal-development-challenges/the-environment-and-conflict-in-the-rwandan-genocide/
So, to recap:
Blaming everything on climate change = bad
Stating that climate change has zero effect = also bad
Still, these are just arguments about how climate change *might* cause conflict. They are not evidence that this has actually occurred.
And i am saying that I don’t think it is wise to discount climate change *completely*
As in ‘climate change did not affect anything and it never will’
That is ALL I have been saying.
And I agree with you, Cindy. Desperation most certainly can lead to conflict and tribal grouping for more conflict.
Isn’t that what the futuristic road rage movies are about? And all the rest of the dystopic futuristic stories?
Steven Pinker, in the Better Angels of our Nature, wrote that the evidence doesn’t support the notion that resource scarcity increases violent conflicts.
I still have to read that.
Why would scarcity of resources have no effect on violent conflict, though?
Isn’t that one reason that nations have historically gone to war, if not out of pure greed?
It’s a great book, highly recommended on multiple grounds.
Resource scarcity is an intuitive hypothesis, it could be corroborated by evidence, but so far, according to the evidence Pinker goes over in the book, it doesn’t hold up.
Also, minor nitpick, but framing your question that way pushes the burden of proof on disproving the questioned hypothesis, and that’s not exactly how science works, because we need reasons to take hypotheses seriously first, before shifting the burden of proof.
Could be one reason, but again, the book goes over many different reasons nations have gone to war over.
For instance, historically the big rich countries started wars and took what little everyone else had, from the people with actual resource scarcity issues.
And “pure greed” is quite a different thing, I think you would agree?
Basically, I am thinking of what I read in anthropologist Marvin Harris’ books many years ago:
Cows Pigs Wars and Witches
Cannibals and Kings
His overriding thesis is that humans are essentially just animals who are at the mercy of their environment. That if we look closely at many human behaviours, we will find that they are influenced, quite strongly, by their environment. That when hunter gatherer people to go to war, it can be for a variety of reasons, one of which is scarcity of resources. That tribes will tend (there are always outliers) to be more warlike if resources are scarce.
So, basically, I have always kept this in mind when looking at the modern world. We are not masters of our environment. Conflict can still arise over resources. Populations can become displaced, resulting in conflicts over those resources.
I don’t like to think that we are entirely immune from environmental pressures.
However, the points you make are also sound, and all that I can say, in the end, is that ‘sh*t’s complicated’. Various pressures, not just environmental, are here there an everywhere!
There is no ‘one rule’ to anything. I just don’t like discounting things entirely, that’s all.
I would hazard a guess that most wars on this planet were fought for a variety of reasons including: hatred, desire to get rid of people who don’t believe or behave as your group does, to consolidate all related tribes into one group, to increase power, to assist other nations in defending themselves, to commit genocide, to prevent or curtail genocide, to gain wealth, to gain freedom, to acquire the other side’s ideas and technology, etc.
As with everything human beings do, their are a multitude of possible causes.
Drat! I forgot to say that I haven’t seen or read anything by Gad Saad, but must do so based on what you’ve said here. Maybe I also need to subscribe to Psychology Today again. It’s been many years since I last read one.
I don’t know that he stated that climate change has had NO effect on global conflicts, but that climate change is only weakly related to religious extremism.
If Vietnam suffered a serious drought (the nation is already quite poor), I can’t imagine an increase in suicide bombings. Climate change could exacerbate a situation where religious fundamentalism is already present, but I take it his beef is with critics who discount religion entirely and look for excuses elsewhere.
He often uses satire as a means of belittling people’s arguments. He did a series of these making fun of Bill Nye’s claims that climate change was one of the main causes of terrorism and ISIS.
It is a powerful way of destroying bad arguments, however it is also a good way of setting yourself up to be misrepresented.
Ok here is a link to the video that I am talking about. If indeed Bill Nye says that climate change is 100pct behind the rise of ISIS etc then yes, I will have to agree that that is silly.
However, Gad Saad says, in the comments, that climate change cannot even be a small factor. I just reject the extremes, that’s all.
Last time I tried to link a video I screwed up so let’s see how this goes:
Ok I screwed it up again. Halp me I am not good with html
This is the proper HTML formulation:
LinkText
I stuck the video url where “LinkText” is, should I have put it where URL is?
Yes, you should have. You replace “LinkText” with whatever text you want other people to click on to get to the URL.
You have to put the full URL (the actual link not the word URL) in quotes after the href= tag.
So you would put the less than sign followed by the letter a href= followed by the URL “youtube url” followed by the greater than sign followed by The words that you want hyperlinked followed by less than, forward slash (/) ‘a’ greater than.
It’s hard to show this without it being picked up as HTML.
Ok thanks Mark and Peter for MANSPLAINING that answer. I appreciate it! My first instinct was to put the web address where URL was, but I second guessed myself (which is the norm for me)
BTW if either of you identify as non-binary I hereby apologize for the accusation of mansplaining, I am pre-emptively sorry for oppressing you!
That’s okay, I’m currently tucked away in my safe space, so your micro-aggression has no effect on me.
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Only a Sith deals with absolutes (which is an absolute!).
Yes, I agree with you that it is an overly strong claim that he’s making. I think it would be better stated that there is little (or no) evidence to support the positive claim that climate change has a causal affect on terrorism.
You sure set that cynophilist straight right from the start!
[Like you, I avoid watching myself on video or listening on audio. Hell, I had an artist give me a courtroom sketch from one of my cases (no cameras allowed in federal court), which I hung in my office at first, but had to take down because it gave me the willies. OTOH, I have a photo on my desk of me holding a 22 lbs. redfish I caught (and released) a couple years ago, and I’m cool with that — though there’s no doubt the fish is the star of the pic.]
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Nice.
Thank you for a great video, and for sharing your insights, opnionis, and thoughts on a number of topics, focusing on evolutionary applications of human behavior, and of the mind.
I quite enjoyed that discussion.
Good video. As an evolutionary psychologist, what role did the development of 10,000 religions play in human evolutionary success? [Assuming ‘success’]
At 1:09:30 into this excellent interview, during discussion of your new book (which I have on order) Gad references religions as “peddlers of hope” and in another minute or two asks (paraphrasing here) whether “honesty” might be a maladaptive genetic trait that might distinguish non-believers from believers. There wasn’t much time left for any detailed discussion of that question in the interview, but I do wonder what evolution has to say about the role religions have played in dominating (so far) the cultural development of the human species? I believe Gad referenced the term “religion memeplex” during that part of the discussion, if I heard him right. Thanks again for posting the interview.
That was a wonderful conversation. Gad is great! I’d love to hear an entire series of talks between you guys.
When I watch videos in bed in the early hours of the morning, like I did this one, I always fall asleep. This is the first time I’ve stayed awake throughout! It was most enjoyable. š
Using the Muenchhausen syndrome as an explanation for the cuddled safe-space culture (and I guess, authoritarian left by extension) seems plausible. In case this is not generally known: Muenchhausen is a fictional German nobleman known for his absurd and inconsistent claims. Nice fit!
Jerry, I’m always a little sad when you mention your inability to watch or listen to recordings of yourself: particularly because you have one of the coolest voices I know of – a deep, likeable drawl. I’m absolutely genuine – it’s one of the first things that jumped out at me when I first saw you lecturing.
The interview’s excellent by the way.
Excellent interview. It went very naturally and spontaneously.
Saad is an amusing person. He holds a smile throughout the interview and his heavy dark eyebrows turn down on the sides gives him a neotenous scolded puppy look.
Neotenous… I had to look that one up, while listening to the conversation. Now I know why Neotenic is a brand name on some products I use.
Neotenic eyebrow pencil?
Face cream: to keep my forward parts as soft as a baby’s behind… š
(Reference to old, unrelated TV commercial, for those who recall.)
oooooooooh, he called it a “blog.”
gad saad is great. glad you got to talk with him.
I didn’t realise that Jerry was so tiny.
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No, Gad is HUUUUGE!
Excellent – and I hope you’ll have another discussion with Prof. Saad. The discussions he’s had with fellow academics are first rate. I’m heartened to find that almost everyone I enjoyed before the regressive tsunami is firmly anti-regressive. There’s one exception – Steven Novella. A heartbreaking disappointment.
I watched it on YouTube, last night, and enjoyed it very much.
Excellent discussion about human evolution, behavior, and the naturalistic fallacy trap! Whenever I hear someone plead for humans as a special case that’s somehow exempt from evolution, I start waiting for the other Shoe (of Religion) to drop: whether from a long-time believer, or from an atheist who’s undergoing some sort of irrational conversion.
On a (somewhat) related dog person vs. cat person note, a friend of mine (who, like me, is an unrepentant dog person) had chided me for feeding Barn Cat whenever I go out to check on my horse. Last week she accompanied me out to the ranch, because she wanted to spend time brushing and fussing over my horse (and giving alfalfa cubes to all the horses). After I’d finished my cleaning chores, I mentioned that my one remaining task at the ranch was to feed the Barn Cat. I only put out food (a can of Fancy Feast and some kibble) for him if he’s in the tack barn – sometimes he’s in another barn, and other boarders feed him there.
My friend kind of rolled her eyes at me as I got the cat food out of my car and called for Tabby. I’ve set up a bowl for him on a high window ledge in the tack barn, so he can eat in peace. My friend came into the barn as I was retrieving the bowl and petting the cat.
Friend: “Oh! A beautiful cat!”
Me: (now filling the cat bowl and opening the Fancy Feast can outside the tack barn – Tabby doesn’t like my new car, or else hasn’t learned to recognize it as mine yet)
Friend: “The cat is really friendly!”
Me: “I’m just going to throw away this empty can…”
Friend: “Hurry up!! The cat is hungry!!!”
So you see, even unrepentant dog persons can be trained by cats.
Sweet!
And this is why I swim every day to get more epiphanies.
Enjoyed the interview. All of it. But I was particularly glad to hear Jerry talk about the challenge of writing about science for a popular audience. He does this so well, all the time, on this website.
Thanks! Thoroughly enjoyed the interview.
Mike
Dr. Coyne,
That was a fascinating discussion and it’s always very stimulating to listen to two extremely intelligent people have a conversation about anything; many insightful theories were covered.
I believe the name you were looking for (the Holocaust denier) was Ernst Zundel.
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