 Is there an evolutionary advantage conferred by having a share of conspiracy theorists within a population?Andrea Squartini No x3hej, OSF Preprints from Center for Open Science Abstract: This article is a reflection proposing an ecologically plausible motive and an epigenetically-controlled mechanism to explain the otherwise unexplainable behaviour that leads remarkably consistent fractions of the population to choose totally irrational standpoints irrespective of their level of intelligence or education. It stems from three independent pieces of evidence, each of which is ascertained common knowledge, and which are hereby linked together: #1: A non-negligible rate of the members of every nation’s population takes and keeps positions that are against mainstream opinions, also when such choice turns out to be totally detrimental for their own social life, credibility, employment, and/or health. The massive anti-vaccination coming-out in response to Covid-19 emergency has uncovered the extent of these phenomena and put in evidence the absence of correlation with education level and intellective qualities of people, involving even rather successful and bright individuals as Nobel laureates disregarding their loss of reputation, or top sport players missing chances to win trophies and to maintain sponsored contracts. #2: In biology, a given rate of mutant phenotypes involving a minority of the population, is at the basis of the Darwinian selection process. Although some mutations could affect the fitness of the individuals bearing them, the process can ensure species survival in the unlikely circumstance that a temporally and spatially unpredictable event would occur, for which the mutant trait would result the right match to avoid negative consequences. It is as if, once in a thousand times, an otherwise weird and self-harming choice would result the winning one. And, in order to avoid that all the progeny descending from the survivor would carry the ‘crimpled’ phenotype, in evolved lineages, mutation mechanisms can use epigenetic instead of genetic circuitries, allowing clean genome reset at reproduction. #3: Epigenetics has nowadays been shown to occur also at behavioural level, regulating human neurological expression, affecting social conduct, impulsive actions and connected beliefs. Putting the pieces together, # 2 is the motive and #3 is the mechanism that explain #1. Date: 2023-07-04 Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:osf:osfxxx:x3hej Access Statistics for this paper More papers in OSF Preprints from Center for Open Science |
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