Have our brains become obsolete?
Forget Skinner, throw away your Durkheim, and burn your Jung; there is a new social science which is revolutionizing the way we understand the human being. Although it is named differently in different fields, it amounts to pretty much the same thing: sociobiology or evolutionary psychology. Begun by E. O. Wilson in the 1970's, this biologist might become the Freud of the 21st century.
The core idea amounts to this: evolution has affected not only the structure of our body but the character of our mind. Human beings evolved between two million and a hundred thousand years ago in an environment which was very different from the one we live in today. Survival in this environment meant a particular set of behaviors which eventually became ingrained into our psyche; had they behaved differently, you would not be reading this article right now. Although much of this behavior is affected by the complex rational brain, it is nonetheless alive and present in daily behavior.
The idea is not as crazy as it might sound. The neural structure of many species has been shaped by the conditions in which they evolved, and it is no different for humans. For example, the need for sensory input in animals which are scavengers is very different from those which rely on well defined stable food sources. Because koala bears only eat the leaves of the eucalyptus tree, they can be placed in a cage with no signs of stress because they have no internal need for constant sensory input. The opposite is true for species which never know where their meal will comes from next; for them, the more sensory input, the better the chances of survival. Hence, to cage a dog is to torture it, at least from its point of view. Examples as these are endless.
There are many ways in which evolution is reflected in the human psyche. The most basic 'instincts' and drives have been shaped by it: the fear of snakes, the cuteness of babies, the emotional intimacy of couples, and so forth. While many might view these reactions to be self evident, there is no inherent reason why these images should be "true". Why should the faces of all babies be 'cute,' no matter how ugly they might be? Obviously, those individuals in our evolutionary history which had the opposite of such feelings would have been eliminated from the evolutionary tree. If there was an inherent disdain for the image of a child, all parents would have eventually become childless, and there would be no future generations of humans. Imagining such counter examples for many instincts and one can get the point.
It is perhaps even more interesting to consider the insights which these ideas shed on the modern world. One example might be violence.
Evolutionary history, that which long preceded the recorded human history of the last 4,000 years, was characterized by a scarcity of humans. Because human groups typically consisted of thirty or so members, there was ample opportunity for dominant individuals to obtain leadership roles. In the modern world, however, where a group might consist of millions of members, there are disproportionately fewer leadership positions available. There can only be one president of a company, only one president of state, and so forth, to which all other individuals of the group must generally be subservient to. Consequently, the dominant individual today does not have as many opportunities to express his dominant tendencies in the public arena. Yet these drives eventually are expressed somewhere, and it is usually in the home.
Another interesting case might be that of obesity. Our bodies were made to survive in harsh environments, and thus take every single opportunity to store extra calories in the body as fat. In other words, since the most difficult thing was to obtain calories during our evolutionary history, our bodies were designed to easily store them. However, the situation has become inverted. Because we have created an affluent world through modern technology where calories are readily available, the most difficult thing now is not to acquire excess calories; to be lean, we have to fight our own body's natural tendencies or 'instincts'. Although this example does not particularly deal with the mind, it is a good case of how evolutionary drives, which were beneficial under certain circumstances, become harmful in others.
Unfortunately, as with all new ideas, there are still many problems with this new social science. It is often criticized that sociobiology can and will be used as a justification for unethical and illegal behavior. A man murders because he 'has' to, or cheats on his wife because he was programmed that way. It is also argued that any trait can be found and sanctified as having been driven by evolution, when to a great degree such a claim is rather subjective. The line between hard science and subjective opinion become blurred under this reasoning.
There are many valid points to these criticisms, which should always be kept in mind. There is still much to disentangle with regard to evolution’s effect on the human psyche.
Yet these criticism seem to overlook the tremendous insights which the field has brought to understanding the human being. It helps account for one set of internal pressures driving people to act in the ways they often do. It has also shed some light on their solution.