'We are not compelled to believe in biological uniformity in order to affirm human freedom and dignity.' LANGUAGE AND DEVELOPMENT For example, incest taboos developed to prevent the physiological penalties of inbreeding and recessive genes which reduce fitness (e.g., the emergence of recessive disorders through homozygosity).Īlthough much racial variation (diversity) in behavior is culturally influenced, some has been shown to be genetic. Human behavior evolved during a 5 million year period as hunter-gatherers to confer genetic fitness: increased personal survival, increased personal reproduction, and the enhanced survival and reproduction of close relatives who share the same genes by common descent. Chimpanzees are our little-brother species and similar in many respects, but no human could successfully emulate the life and behavior of a chimpanzee. Human nature is one idiosyncratic hodgepodge of traits out of many conceivable.

The 67 common human characteristics listed by Murdock include courtship, faith healing, penal sanctions, etc. Human behavior has a large genetic component. 'Which of the censors and motivators should be obeyed and which ones might better be curtailed or sublimated?' GENETICSĮach species is an evolutionary experiment. Will the transcendental goals of societies dissolve, and will our post-ideological societies regress steadily toward self-indulgence?

(1) We lack any goal external to our biological nature (for even religions evolve to enhance the persistence and influence of their practitioners). 'If humankind evolved by Darwinian natural selection, genetic chance and environmental necessity, not God, made the species.' 'The brain exists because it promotes the survival and multiplication of the genes that direct its assembly.' The two apparent dilemmas we face therefore are: 16 and 222 ) as the scientific or systematic study of the biological basis of all forms of social behavior, in all kinds or organisms including man, and incorporating knowledge from ethology, ecology, and genetics, in order to derive general principles concerning the biological properties of entire societies. Sociobiology is defined (paraphrasing pp. Quotations are for the most part taken from that work. Summary by Michael McGoodwin, prepared 1991, minor revisions 2009Īcknowledgement: This work has been summarized using the 1978 edition.

Edward osborne wilson on human nature