Evolutionary Theory and Societal Development

I have received numerous comments on my blog Hope and Meaning: An Atheist’s Perspective. Most have been very positive and I am grateful to those who have responded in that manner. Some have been negative. I am even more grateful to those people because they are the ones that make me think and test my ideas to see if they withstand scrutiny. I believe they do withstand the test.

One of my respondents raises issues concerning evolutionary theory and religion that I would like to respond to. The areas are disparate and answering him in the original blog would be distracting to that message in that blog. So I have decided to dedicate two new original blogs to answer his objections. This one is going to be on evolutionary theory as it pertains to the origin and development of society and culture.

Our differences run deep. He seems to think that evolutionary theory has nothing to say about societies. He says, “You wanted to extrapolate evolutionary biology into sociology. This is absurd and is not based on any empirical evidence. And you claim to be a scientist.”

While I do claim to be a scientist, I do not claim or even want that fact alone to lend any credence to my argument. I try not to make arguments from authority. If I bend over backwards, I could grant some legitimacy to my respondent’s complaint. It is true that evolutionary theory with respect to societies is controversial and not nearly as well accepted as are the core tenets. Furthermore, traditional evolutionary theory looks at natural selection in relation to gene pools. The phenotype of the individual is what natural selection works on. But cultures are involved in the struggle for existence as well. Natural selection can favor one over the other.

But my respondent is wrong with respect to empirical evidence. E. O. Wilson pioneered the field with his book SOCIOBIOLOGY in the 1970's. Since then there has been an explosion of information. The field has changed its name from sociobiology to evolutionary psychology. There are textbooks and numerous technical and popular books. There are more peer-reviewed journal articles than I care to reference.

One reason for the length of this response is that my respondent has a number of misconceptions concerning evolutionary theory. In order to properly give a response I need to present some basic pertinent concepts that can serve as a foundation for understanding what it is that evolutionary theory really has to say about these concepts.

(1) In order for evolution to happen at all an imperfect replicator must exist. By an “imperfect replicator” I mean something that reproduces an inexact copy of itself. For the greatest part of evolutionary history that replicator has been genetic material. So in most instances when we discuss natural selection we are talking about the environment amplyfying favorable genes and minimizing unfavorable genes within a species gene pool. It is this type of replicator that gives humans the propensity to form societies.

However, with respect to human societies there is another replicator that is of the utmost importance. That replicator is ideas. An idea can be generated in one person’s mind and through speech and other modern means of communication it can be replicated in the minds of others throughout a society. It can CHANGE the structure of that society. In other words, once formed a society’s structure (i.e. its culture) evolves through the replication and establishment of ideas. Richard Dawkins has called this type of replicator a MEME.

Thus, with regard to evolutionary theory and societies, there are two distinct processes each with its own replicator; the genetic tendency for us to form societies, and the memetic ideas underlying the structure of a particular society.

(2) Natural selection does not have a brain. It can be thought of as a brute force of nature. It doesn’t care for progress. It doesn’t care for the good of the individual. It doesn’t care for the good of species. It doesn’t care about the good of societies. All it cares about is success in replication. For instance, the tail feathers of peacocks are a huge investment in resources. The energy put into developing those feathers may have been put into developing stronger muscles and longer legs to get away from predators. Yet they have these glorious tails which slow them down and make them more conspicuous to predators. So why do they have them? It turns out that the peahen prefers to mate with peacocks with more glorious tails. So even though the peacock may live a shorter, less healthy life because of his tail, that disadvantage is more than offset by his gaining more opportunities at reproductive success. With respect to memes if an idea arises in society that is capable of spreading through the members of that society, it will do so … regardless of whether or not it is beneficial for that society.

(3) There is NO trait that is adaptive in all environments. Thus, one need be very careful when one calls one trait better than another. It is only better with respect to a specific environment. Thus, it is very misleading to say that evolution leads to progress. It certainly has produced things that WE value; intelligence, ability to communicate, strong muscles etc. but simply because those things are of value to us in our environmental interactions is not sufficient reason to think they represent “progress” in evolutionary terms. If our environment was to change sufficiently, those traits may be maladaptive and be selected against. So when he says that evolutionary theory espouses progress, my respondent is wrong. Evolutionary theory espouses adaptation to an organism’s environment. And remember environments are subject to change.

(4) It is another mischaracterization to call evolutionary theory a theory of “chance”. On the molecular level most mutations that can take place will take place. Most will be neutral. By that I mean that within that particular organism’s environment the mutation will have no detectable effect on his ability to reproduce. A lesser number will be negatively selected. By that I mean that within that particular organism’s environment the mutation will have an adverse effect on his ability to reproduce. A lesser number still will be positively selected. By that I mean that within that particular organism’s environment the mutation will increase his ability to reproduce. These mutations are not positively and negatively selected by chance. There is something within the organism’s environment that makes it more likely that an organism possessing favorable (positively-selected) trait will pass it on than organisms possessing unfavorable (negatively-selected) traits.

With this primmer in mind, let’s now get to my respondent’s particular objections.

(1) My respondent does not believe that evolution can account for our ability to form societies. He seems to agree with me that the propensity to form societies is a part of man’s basic nature. He says, “Societies form because a desire to form groups is inherent in man’s nature.” But he expresses doubt that such a propensity could come about through a “series of evolutionary chances”. Instead, he believes that societies form because God specially gave man the propensity to form societies.

What does it mean to for man to have a propensity to form societies? It means that within our genome is a set of genes that causes our brains to develop in such a way that we naturally want to form groups. So my respondent and my disagreement seems to center on exactly how those genes got there. My position is that they evolved, his would be that they were specifically put there by God.

Does my respondent present any evidence for this? No, instead he says he believes it because he doesn’t think that natural selection can cause something through a “series of evolutionary chances”. The first thing to notice is that he has already fallen to the evolution as “chance” fallacy. Natural selection does not function on chance. But what does the evidence REALLY say? Which is more likely, did those genes occur naturally or were they specially inserted into our genome?

Unfortunately, we do not yet know enough about the developmental process to identify which genes are necessary for such a trait. Even so, there is certainly suggestive evidence that natural selection is capable of producing such genes. If God had made those genes specifically for us, then we wouldn’t expect to find them in other animals. But our entire genome is VERY similar to that of chimpanzees, our closest evolutionary relatives. I do not know of a single gene that is found in us that does not have a counterpart in chimpanzees. The genetic differences between us seem to be differences in quantitative expression as opposed to differences in number or kinds of genes.

In fact, chimps also have a propensity to build societies. Those societies are very different than ours and a lot less complex, but they are societies as well.

Furthermore, we see evidence that genes that would be necessary to foster societies are found in more distantly related animals as well. Marc D. Hauser, in his book MORAL MINDS: HOW NATURE DESIGNED OUR UNIVERSAL SENSE OF RIGHT AND WRONG, details an interesting series of experiments . Rats were trained to press a bar in order to get food. The frequency of their bar pressing was measured. Then a novel rat was placed in a cage separated from the trained rat by only a clear plastic screen. This time when the rat pressed the bar he not only got his food reward but the rat in the connecting cage got a nasty shock.

The frequency with which the trained rat pushed the bar lowered dramatically. Thus, even rats appear willing to sacrifice in order to lessen another’s suffering. The same experiment was repeated with chimpanzees, and some of the chimps deprived themselves of food for 12 days in an apparent attempt to avoid causing pain.

This certainly suggests that such traits have been around long enough for natural selection to modify them consistent with human needs. It also shows that there is indeed empirical evidence to support such evolutionary ideas.

(2) My respondent does not think that evolutionary theory can be applied to sociology. He claims there is no empirical evidence to support it. He also believes that evolutionary theory espouses progress and takes me to task for implying that “we can go backwards to[o]”. He asks, “How do we [k]now that forming societies is actually an evolutionary progress, and not one of those maladaptive traits that you are so fond of.”

Continuing with his diatribe on evolutionary progression, he asserts that evolutionary theory is being contradicted by maladaptive traits.

I believe I adequately refuted his errors with respect to “evolutionary progress” above. So in the interest of keeping this post as short as possible I will not go further into his criticism #2.

(3) My respondent denies that evolution has given us a propensity to cooperate. He says, “Evolution has given us a propensity to cooperate. That is false. Let us look at the wonderful atheistic empires of the Nazis and the Russians. How many millions of people did they kill? Why did they kill them? We do not even cooperate within the same society. Those two empires killed more of their own people than anyone else.”

I believe this criticism reveals a valuable insight into my respondent’s flawed thinking. Note how he has contradicted himself. In criticism #1 he seemed to agree that humans have propensity to cooperate and he attributes that to God. Here he seems to deny that humans have a propensity to cooperate citing the fact that we can do horrendous things to each other. And what does he attributes that to? Interestingly, the term he uses is not “evolution” but to “atheism”.

Earlier in the Hope and Meaning blog, he had made the assertion that there is no ethics in an atheistic universe. This was in a blog that expressly presents a case for atheistic ethics. He ignored everything in favor of his preconception that atheists cannot have a foundation for ethics. My respondent is a bigot with respect to atheism and that colors his judgement.

Consistent with his bigotry when he finds it advantageous to believe humans have a propensity to cooperate he ascribes that propensity as a gift from God. But when he thinks about atheism he denies we even have that propensity. He is such a bigot that he even includes Hitler’s Nazis with atheists. Hitler was a Catholic and the German had then and have now Lutheranism as their state religion.

Stalin was an atheist. And Stalin was a bad guy. But Stalin did what he did, not in the name of ATHEISM. He did it in the name of COMMUNISM. Communism is a dogma. If there is anything that I am more opposed to than religion it is unquestioned dogma. The vast majority of atheists are too. I don’t know of any atheist who aware of the facts would ever even try to defend Stalin actions in the mass murders that took place during his regime. I want you to compare that to my respondent’s actions with respect to his defense of God’s supposedly killing every living thing in the world except for 8 members of Noah’s family and 2 of every “kind” of animal. As I document in my response to his assertions on religion. THIS is the exact kind of unquestioned dogma that I find extremely dangerous.

My problem with religion is that at its best it is an enabler of unquestioned dogma, and at its worst it is the world’s strongest supporter of unquestioned dogma. I do not think that without religion anyone would have flown planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on 9/11/ 2001. I also think that George W. Bush’s religious belief that God had made him president to fight a war on terrorism underlies his disastrous invasion of Iraq.

But let’s discuss my respondent’s argument. It is a non-sequitur. My point was that societies cannot exist without cooperation. He brings up atrocities. But to commit those atrocities required a great deal of cooperation. While it is true that most of the time cooperation is a good thing, it should not follow that in ALL cases is it a good thing.

Furthermore, in all examples given the people persecuted were people who threatened that society. So the acts, indefensible on moral grounds, WAS an attempt to stabilize those particular societies. Dogmatic memes significantly transformed those societies into societies that I and most others reading this would not want to live in. But no one has ever said that societal evolution necessarily leads to good things for its inhabitants. What these dogmatic memes were good at, was making a societies which could easily eliminate the unwanted and potentially subversive elements. While it is oppressive, it could be adaptive for that society.

(4) I had stated that in order for us to form stable societies we needed to be good cheater detectors. My respondent denies that we are. He uses Napolean, Caesar, Stalin, Hitler, and Enron as examples.

While I am sure that both Napoleon and Caesar did do some questionable things I do not think of them in the same class as Hitler or Stalin. The people at Enron WERE caught. So was Hitler. Stalin is about the only one who benefited from his misdeeds without paying a huge price. Plus these people are the extremes. To use those as examples of our not being able to detect cheaters is ludicrious.

The truth is that very few scam artists are very successful. Interestingly many of the most successful use religion as a hook to reel in their victims. I believe that the undue respect we give to religious belief in general is what makes this possible.

(5) My respondent asked me why we have religion in our society if it is not correct. I told him there was numerous possible explanations for why it persists. I mentioned evolutionary biologist, Richard Dawkins’ idea that it persisted because of a VERY adaptive reaction on the part of children to believe what their parents tell them. My respondent now questions how Richard Dawkins thinks religion could have first come about. Not all of it could be due to a tendency to unquestioningly believe what one’s parents tell them. Someone must have thought it up in the first place.

I would have thought the answer to that was obvious. Religion came about because we tried to find causes for things. Why did people get sick? Knowing nothing about unseen germs, a malevolent god is a pretty good hypothesis. Why was there a flood? Knowing nothing about weather patterns, a pissed-off god was a pretty good hypothesis. Why did an earthquake wipe out a town? Knowing nothing about plate tectonics, an angry god was a pretty good hypothesis. In short, with primitive knowledge everything looks magical. Magic is best explained by a God.

(6) My respondent notes that I acknowledge that I accept that some aspects of religion may be adaptive and asks, “If it is adaptive then shouldn’t we keep it?”

On a purely aesthetic basis, I would say, “no”. I do not think it a good thing to believe something for which you have no evidential basis to believe, no matter how comforting it may be to believe that.

On a purely practical basis, I would say, “it is irrelevant”. Religion is securely ensconced within numerous societies and we aren’t going to get rid of soon.

On a purely utilitarian basis, I would say, “absolutely not.” The world is global now. What goes on in Timbuktu can affect Los Angeles. Religion, being such a strong promoter of unthinking dogma, could easily become very dangerous to our ability to exist as a species. To paraphrase Sam Harris, if tomorrow New York disappeared beneath a huge mushroom cloud there would be a proportion of people in this country who would see this as a sign that the very best possible thing that could happen was about to happen. That is the return of Jesus Christ.

I suspect one of those people that would see it that way is televangelist Pat Robertson. Pat Robertson ran for the Republican nomination for the Presidency and made a unnervingly strong showing. I would hate to see a person in the office of the presidency with the power to make the end of the world a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I would like to see faith-based religion replaced with reason-based critical analysis. I do not think any society ever suffered from becoming too reasonable. Will it? Who knows? It is certain that change is not imminent in this country at least. Religion is firmly ensconced. As I indicated, societal evolution doesn’t necessarily go the way we want it to, nor does it even necessarily go the way that is best for that society.

Evolutionary theory only says that we have a natural tendency to form societies and that these societies will change over time with the onset of new memes. It does not tell us what society is the best. For that we need to ask other questions. That science is not yet established. Theoretically it could be. I think if we did develop it, in the long run it would be a good thing. However, we would be bound to make some mistakes. Such mistakes at the level of societies would have some locally disastrous consequences. If we were to keep with the scientific method we would discover the mistakes and correct them eventually, but that would be of little consequence to the people wronged by the mistake.

I suspect that on the recognition of the first major mistake the hew-and-cry would be to trash the system altogether. I doubt if it would survive it. So I don’t hold out much hope that a science dedicated to finding better and better societal structures will ever be developed.

I suspect that we will continue on our course of haphazard undirected societal evolution with the hope that we will “luck out” on a good one. I hope there will always be a society that encourages complete freedom to think whatever one may want to think, and an encouragement to debate any and all ideas. These are things I think are important in a society.

Cheers,

Darwin’s Beagle