Why Darwinism Isn’t Depressing

hippiemom

By ROBERT WRIGHT
Published: April 21, 2007
The New York Times

Scientists have discovered that love is truth.

Granted, no scientist has put it quite like that. In fact, when scientists talk about love — the neurochemistry, the evolutionary origins — they make it sound unlovely.

More broadly, our growing grasp of the biology behind our thoughts and feelings has some people downhearted. One commentator recently acknowledged the ascendancy of the Darwinian paradigm with a sigh: “Evolution doesn’t really lead to anything outside itself.”

Cheer up! Despair is a plausible response to news that our loftiest feelings boil down to genetic self-interest, but genetic self-interest actually turns out to be our salvation. The selfishness of our genes gave us the illuminating power of love and put us on the path to a kind of transcendence.

Before hiking to the peak, let’s pause for some sobering concessions. Yes, love is physically mediated, a product of biochemistry. (Why this would surprise anyone familiar with alcohol and coffee is something that has long baffled scientists.) And, yes, the biochemistry was built by natural selection. Like it or not, we are survival machines.

But survival machines are unfairly maligned. The name suggests, well, machines devoted to their survival. In truth, though, natural selection builds machines devoted ultimately to the survival of their genes, not themselves.

Hence love. A love-impelled grandparent sacrifices her life to save a child’s life. Too bad for the grandparent, but mission accomplished for the love genes: they’ve kept copies of themselves alive in a vibrant vehicle that was otherwise doomed, and all they’ve lost is a vehicle that, frankly, didn’t have the world’s most auspicious odometer anyway. Love of offspring (and siblings) is your genes’ way of getting you to serve their agenda.

Feel manipulated? Don’t worry — we get the last laugh.

Genes are just dopey little particles, devoid of consciousness. We, in contrast, can perceive the world. And how! Thanks to love, we see beyond our selves and into the selves around us.

A thought experiment: Suppose you are a parent and you (a) watch someone else’s toddler misbehave and then (b) watch your own toddler do the same. Your predicted reactions, respectively, are: (a) “What a brat!” and (b) “That’s what happens when she skips her nap.”

Now (b) is often a correct explanation, whereas (a) — the “brat” reaction — isn’t even an explanation. Thus does love lead to truth. So, too, when a parent sees her child show off and senses that the grandstanding is grounded in insecurity. That’s an often valid explanation — unlike, say, “My neighbor’s kid is such a showoff”— and brings insight into human nature.

Yes, yes, love can warp your perception, too. Still, there is an apprehension of the other — an empathetic understanding — that is at least humanly possible, and it would never have gotten off the ground had love not emerged on this planet as a direct result of Darwinian logic.

Some people, on hearing this, remain stubbornly ungrateful. They hate the arbitrariness of it all. You mean I love my child just because she’s got my genes? So my “appreciation” of her “specialness” is an illusion?

Exactly! If you’d married someone else, there would be a different child you considered special — and if you then spotted the child that is now yours on the street, you’d consider her a brat. (And, frankly ... but I digress.)

O.K., so your child isn’t special. This doesn’t have to mean she’s not worthy of your love. It could mean instead that other people’s kids are worthy of your love. But it has to mean one or the other. And — especially given that love can bring truth — isn’t it better to expand love’s scope than to narrow it?

I’m a realist. I don’t expect you to get all mushy about the kid next door. But if you carry into your everyday encounters an awareness that empathetic understanding makes sense, that’s progress.

Transcending the arbitrary narrowness of our empathy isn’t guaranteed by nature. (Why do you think they call it transcendence?) But nature has given us the tools — not just the empathy, but the brains to figure out how evolution works, and thus to see that the narrowness is arbitrary.

So evolution has led to something outside itself — to the brink of a larger, more widely illuminating love, maybe even to a glimpse of moral truth. What’s not to like?

Ahnimus

The universe doesn't care.

decides2dream

Ahnimus wrote:

The universe doesn't care.

hehee....i thought of you while i read this thread. seemed *perfect* for ya.



and yes, i agree.......darwinism isn't depressing at all. just b/c there are physical/biochemical reasons behind things doesn't make them less important or less enjoyable. LOVE itself may be based in biochemistry and that may be the 'why' for it...but the who and the how......still delicious. anyway, it's all perspective.

catefrances

who said it was?

Galaxie2X4

Has anyone here read "The Selfish Gene" by Richard Dawkins? Many people were devasted by the message that we (individual organisms) are merely temporary vehicles for our genes to propigate into further generations. No more no less. Well before Dawkins and Darwin for that matter, Many intellectuals, philosophers, or religious folk accused science of stealing the warmth and humanity out of life and this was the accusation made against Dawkins and his "gene's eye" perspective on life. Although this message essentially implies that there is no purpose in the ultimate fate of the cosmos, which can be a bleak message indeed, it is usually just wackos who tie their lives into the ultimate fate of the cosmos anyway.

catefrances

Galaxie2X4 wrote:

Has anyone here read "The Selfish Gene" by Richard Dawkins? Many people were devasted by the message that we (individual organisms) are merely temporary vehicles for our genes to propigate into further generations. No more no less. Well before Dawkins and Darwin for that matter, Many intellectuals, philosophers, or religious folk accused science of stealing the warmth and humanity out of life and this was the accusation made against Dawkins and his "gene's eye" perspective on life. Although this message essentially implies that there is no purpose in the ultimate fate of the cosmos, which can be a bleak message indeed, it is usually just wackos who tie their lives into the ultimate fate of the cosmos anyway.

but isn't every animal on earth merely a temporary vehicle for genes in order that that species may propagate? why should humans be any different. because it's possible for us to think we are?

Galaxie2X4

catefrances wrote:

but isn't every animal on earth merely a temporary vehicle for genes in order that that species may propagate? why should humans be any different. because it's possible for us to think we are?

Group selection or "for the good the species" arguments have been falsified by countless examples of biased behavior towards one's own kin. Even insect species in which behavior seems altruistic is actually selfish. Humans are no different. Humans are animals too. Animals do cooperate but they do so for the good of their own genes not for the good of their species.

Truthmonger

Galaxie2X4 wrote:

Animals do cooperate but they do so for the good of their own genes not for the good of their species.

Precisely. How else do you explain W ?

Galaxie2X4

Truthmonger wrote:

Precisely. How else do you explain W ?

Exactly, QHW and most republicans are the epitomy of selfishness, hoggishness, and greed, and if there is a bleak message to be taken from the realization that our ancestors survived because they were selfish, is that it will be very hard to transcend greed and selfishness for the good of others and the planet, even if this means that one's own personal well-being may be jeopardized. Of course humans are unique in that they have reached a level of consciousness that other animals have not, so perhaps humans can "evolve" as Vedder put it so frequently during the '03 tour, usually right before or after DTE. I am skeptical however.

catefrances

Galaxie2X4 wrote:

Group selection or "for the good the species" arguments have been falsified by countless examples of biased behavior towards one's own kin. Even insect species in which behavior seems altruistic is actually selfish. Humans are no different. Humans are animals too. Animals do cooperate but they do so for the good of their own genes not for the good of their species.

ta. i like learning new stuff. makes me smarter.

Ahnimus

Galaxie2X4 wrote:

Exactly, QHW and most republicans are the epitomy of selfishness, hoggishness, and greed, and if there is a bleak message to be taken from the realization that our ancestors survived because they were selfish, is that it will be very hard to transcend greed and selfishness for the good of others and the planet, even if this means that one's own personal well-being may be jeopardized. Of course humans are unique in that they have reached a level of consciousness that other animals have not, so perhaps humans can "evolve" as Vedder put it so frequently during the '03 tour, usually right before or after DTE. I am skeptical however.

I don't know that we have achieved a higher level of consciousness. We have more brain, prefrontal lobe. But that doesn't equate to more concsiousness.

Galaxie2X4

Ahnimus wrote:

I don't know that we have achieved a higher level of consciousness. We have more brain, prefrontal lobe. But that doesn't equate to more concsiousness.

You might be correct. Consciousness is a very slippery term that is difficult to define precisely. For me it is the ability to overcome biological drives for example not eating every time I am hungry, remaining monogamous, behaving altruistically even when I will ge no direct benefit to myself, enjoying math. In terms of brain matter, we do have more than most animal species and this results in "higher" cognitive abilities, but to say humans have achieved a higher level of consciousness may be unwarranted. For all I know my cat has reached a zen like state of self actualization.

callen

Galaxie2X4 wrote:

Of course humans are unique in that they have reached a level of consciousness that other animals have not,

I sometimes wonder if we have indeed reached a higher level of conciousness....we simply follow our survival insticts...how we choose our mates...our enemy's...freinds....all security.

Galaxie2X4

callen wrote:

I sometimes wonder if we have indeed reached a higher level of conciousness....we simply follow our survival insticts...how we choose our mates...our enemy's...freinds....all security.

In many respects I completely agree, although humans can reflect upon life and analyze and reanalyze and think about their thinking and I doubt non-human animals are capable of that, at least not to the degree that humans are. Some people can and do overcome biological drives however many cannot.

boxwine_in_hell

Does Darwin have an explanation for diarhea of the mouth?

callen

Galaxie2X4 wrote:

In many respects I completely agree, although humans can reflect upon life and analyze and reanalyze and think about their thinking and I doubt non-human animals are capable of that, at least not to the degree that humans are. Some people can and do overcome biological drives however many cannot.

granted...but after reanalyzing we still make the same decisions based on those same animalistic instinctive drivers. Am thinking this out loud...trying to come up with something we human animals do thats not in someway related to our survival. I'm sure some will think of some....then we can test to see if I'm full of shieze.... (-: