Humanity and natural selection

Abstract

In some modern biological images of the human species human action is reduced to a consequence of natural selection, that is, to a tendency to maximize fitness. The precise nature and scope of the theory of natural selection are, however, undecided; yet in evolutionary interpretations of human society neodarwinism is often treated as a dogma, and natural selection sometimes becomes a transcendental force. There are instances of changes in gene frequencies, in human as well as other populations, that conform with neodarwinian (“socio-biological”) presumptions; but it is not known to what extent the evolution of the human (or other) species has been due to such changes. There is still less ground for explaining the diversity of human societies in this way. The image-makers also make illegitimate use of the comparative method: familiar features of human conduct, such as favoring kin and reciprocation, are used in accounts of animal behavior, and are then rediscovered among human beings; during this two-way transfer, the meanings of words are changed; altruism, egoism, and deceit lose their moral content, and the complex human idea of kin is reduced to a measure of genetical similarity. The intention of neodarwinists is to reveal a human nature determined by evolutionary processes, but one of the most important distinctive features of our species is the plasticity of our behavior, attitudes, and intentions. Moreover, if neodarwinian premises are accepted, to speak of intention is misleading, and there are no independent criteria by which neodarwinian (or any other) arguments may be judged: all one does is regulated by the need to maximise one's inclusive fitness. Hence much writing in this field wavers between an uncompromising reduction of human action to considerations of population genetics, on the one hand, and a recognition that there are other kinds of authentic knowledge about human beings, on the other. Among the latter is historical knowledge. The neodarwinian images of humanity emphasize human depravity. In their misanthropy they reflect the outlook of conservative pessimists who have influenced European thought for two and a half millennia, and whose views imply that most attempts to improve the human condition are against nature and so must fail. An alternative, which corresponds to the facts of everyday life and of history, is that human beings are capable of rejecting what is conventionally held to be inevitable, and of determining their destiny by conscious, deliberate action.