Jordan Peterson, Lobsters, and Human Evolution

Susan diRende
4 min readMay 22, 2018

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I started watching Jordan Peterson’s classroom lectures on YouTube a few years ago. I was a fan before the whole free speech/social justice warrior business flared up. I was especially taken with one of his earliest lectures about dominance hierarchies in lobsters. At the time, he presented the information, but did not lay out any concrete theory about how human society should deal with that legacy. I was free to develop my own theories about what it means today.

Peterson’s deductions from the data come through a lens that is serious and male. Mine arise from a viewpoint that is farcical and female. My fascination with sociobiology wasn’t just a random intellectual hobby. For several years it was the source for many of the comedy routines that I performed in a late night cabaret in Seattle. Below, you get a taste with a video that talks about cloning.

Sociobiology as comedy routine, performing as Claire DeLune in the Seattle Fringe Festival

I performed weekly, presenting theories on fashion, romance, and the meaning of life from the perspective of a blonde bombshell named Claire DeLune. Sociobiology “proved” the retro golddigger worldview the character espoused. Frequently people would come up to me after a show and gush about how funny but unnerving my routine had been because it was “so true.” Comedy left them with a soupçon of doubt despite the comfortable fit that the evidence had with their preconceptions about human behavior. Peterson, however, is presenting his conclusions as Truth, and, without any punch line, I fear that the resonance people are feeling comes from their own biases and not any new revelation about the roots of human behavior.

I mean, if we’re going to talk sociobiology and male dominance, I think Peterson et al. need to address the results of genetic testing in the wild that reveals no less than 20% of offspring in almost every species on the planet are from a male other than the partner. Even in pair-bonded matings like ducks for a season or swans for life, the female of the species likes to hedge her genetic bets. She usually chooses a male with more of some desirable trait than her current partner. She will only stray “up,” using a metric of her own devising. Taking this into account in the manner of the Peterson-derived “lobster model,” society would be welcome to push for monogamy so long as it accepted that females will of course have non-monogamous relationships with males they deem more “fit” than their chosen mate.

After all, species evolution is driven by female choice. Sure, males will do everything they can to make sure their genes are carried forward, but it is essential to “fitness” that females choose. Read The Beak of the Finch about evolution tracked among Darwin’s finches in the Galapagos. Females pick the trait they conclude will lend highest survivability to their offspring.

Many mammals do this by smell, and studies show that humans are no different. Males who sniff T-shirts worn by female coeds may like the smell of almost all of them, but females like and dislike the smell of the shirts worn by male coeds based on how closely matched their genes are. The greater the genetic distance, the sexier the smell.

This leads me to say patriarchy, despite all the good it may have done, has probably hindered human evolution by controlling or constraining female choice. Fathers picking sons-in-law look for men like themselves. Men whom the nose of the daughter would wrinkle at. History is full of women having sex with minstrels and slaves, and many theoriest explain that choice as a desire for more equal power relations in sex. But perhaps it simply the lure of genetic diversity, a pitch for a better set of genes either in looks or smarts or artistic ability than the husband can provide.

Today, as women gain more and more financial and social equality, they don’t need to look for the security of a rich or at least financially stable husband to guarantee the viability of their offspring. They can start picking men for their emotional IQ, their willingness to engage with child rearing, their abilities as partners not masters. Of course, that will leave lots of men out in the cold, and they are not likely to take it well.

Oh, look. There they are, already feeling the icy wind of evolutionary oblivion, trying to stave off the inevitable by marching in neo-Nazi rallies and fulminating online. I say to them, evolution is returning to the hands of human females, and you better adapt or die out with the Neanderthals.

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Susan diRende
Susan diRende

Written by Susan diRende

Author. Artist. Philosopher Clown.

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