Redefining Reality - The Intellectual Implications of Modern Science

suited to solving these problems and that are unlikely to arise
accidentally are the remnants of the human brain’s evolution, the
As an example, evolutionary psychologists point to our ability to
read emotions from other people’s faces, even when they are trying
to hide them from us. We sense when something is wrong with
someone or when someone is harboring ill intentions toward us.
This is a skill that is innately part of the human mind, but it seems
unlikely to have arisen accidentally, and there don’t seem to have
been any inborn features that would have permitted us knowledge
of one another’s intentions from looking at faces. Thus, we tend to
think of this ability as inherited from our evolutionary past.
One of the questions for evolutionary psychology relates to altruism
in humans. Why are we as a species so sociable, thoughtful, and
empathetic? We have cultures everywhere, and these could not
occur if there was not a presumption of cooperation. If we are so
Some offer the explanation that we are primarily altruistic
toward those who are like us. Our ancestors did not live in
societies but in small bands of relatives. If they did not care for
one another, then the group as a whole would fail. Because the
Stone Age clan was a small group who shared genes, mutual
survival was as important as individual survival; indeed, group
survival aided individual survival.
We developed the predilection to be nice to people who seem
like us because doing so made it more likely that we and
our offspring would survive to procreate. When the context
changed and we started living in more diverse communities,
this got tweaked to a general altruism.
A different account came out in 1962 from the Scottish ecologist
Vero Copner Wynne-Edwards. He contends that because animals
depend on their surroundings for survival, they have a deep
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