Subject: 
        [evol-psych] Re: Richard Dawkins: Our big brains can overcome our selfish
        genes
   Date: 
        Wed, 13 Feb 2002 16:02:10 -0000
   From: 
        "Jeremy Bowman" 
     To: 
        "Evolutionary Psychology" 




Natural selection equipped us with urges to behave altruistically towards close family members, but it does nothing
for people we don�t know, and its effects are entirely negative on sentient beings that we do not find
"cute-looking". Just consider the way we treat animals that do not remind us of our own children.

We value our own health and our children�s health more than we value the health of the animals we eat, because
these values tend to promote our genes (rather than theirs). Since natural selection explains how we came to have
those values, we might call them "Darwinian" values. If we care about the welfare of sentient beings in general,
including those we share comparatively few genes with, then those "Darwinian" values are bad values. They allow
us to exploit other creatures, and often our own kind too. "Darwinian" values are similar to (and probably include)
the values that allowed slavery. They may be good for some, but on the whole they are evil. Surely Dawkins has
something like this in mind.

HOWEVER, to the detriment of our selfish genes� interests, but happily for those other sentient beings, the adult
human brain is too big to fit through the birth canal in "finished" form (i.e. with all the connections necessary for
adult life in place). Like everything else delivered in "kit" form, "some assembly is required" for a properly
functioning human brain. There is a lot of "internal wiring" and "calibration" to be done, and it takes at least
eighteen years to do it. All of which means there is quite a lot of "plasticity of mind" in a human being. Like a mail
order set of bookshelves, there is a great variety of "finished products" and ways of assembly. We are able to do
things that do not promote our own genes in future generations, but which do make for a happier life. For example,
we invent contraceptives. We construct theories. In particular, we can guide the formation of our children�s values
-- to some limited extent -- in ways that undermine rather than promote our own genes� interests.

The human infant is helpless -- and nearly mindless -- but after a few years, it can ride a unicycle and play a guitar
solo. And care about eliminating suffering, no matter whose it is -- even the suffering of an animal whose
exploitation would promote the interests if the human infant�s own genes.

In that sense, we can "transcend" Darwinian values. It�s a bit like a bird "defying gravity". Of course a bird is still
subject to the law of gravity, but gravity doesn�t have the same effect on a bird as it has on a stone. Similarly, the
"law" of natural selection still applies to human beings, but it doesn�t have the same effect on us as it has on
creatures whose values are entirely innate.

Jeremy Bowman