Subject: 
            [evol-psych] Re: Richard Dawkins: Our big brains can overcome our
            selfish genes
       Date: 
            Tue, 12 Feb 2002 16:00:14 -0500
      From: 
            Tom Schoenemann 
        To: 
            [email protected]
 References: 
            1




>Dawkins wrote:
>If any species in the history of life has the possibility of breaking
>away from short-term Darwinian selfishness and of planning for the
>distant future, it is our species. We are earth's last best hope ...
>
>-------------------
>
>The irony of it all is that Darwin himself was no proponent of
>"short-term Darwinian selfishness." It is Dawkins' (and T. H.
>Huxley's) cardboard version of Darwinism that is the problem.
>
>Dawkins is going around saying that we can break with Darwin, that we
>should get rid of (some of) our biological heritage, whereas Darwin
>himself was adamant, in "The Descent of Man," that human kindness and
>morality belonged within an evolutionary framework. Instead of
>ascribing these and other enlightened capacities to exterior forces -
>an inherently dualistic, religious view - Darwin saw them as products
>of nature.
>
>-- Frans de Waal

Early in the _Selfish Gene_ Dawkins writes: "Be warned that if you 
wish, as I do, to build a society in which individuals cooperate 
generously and unselfishly towards a common good, you can expect 
little help from biological nature.  Let us try to _teach_ generosity 
and altruism, because we are born selfish." (p. 3).  But much of the 
book is spent explaining how altruism is actually the result of the 
evolutionary process (e.g., kin selection and reciprocal altruism). 
I think Dawkins is confusing the "selfishness" at the genetic level 
(which is, after all, just a metaphor), with selfishness among humans.

-Tom
___________________________________________________
P. Thomas Schoenemann
Assistant Professor
Department of Anthropology
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6398

Phone: (215) 573-7671
Fax: (215) 898-7462
E-mail: [email protected]
Homepage: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~ptschoen/