SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST

How vestiges of a Darwinian past stymied discourse between the biological and social sciences by Ramon Lorenzo D. Reyes

Common notions of nature invariably involve the sugary imagery of a delicate butterfly or a fragile and charismatic cub, nursed by a caringly gentle mother, set against a backdrop of pervasive harmony and co-existence among all things wild and free on a lush verdant planet. Yet in reality, the natural world can be a harsh place: one that builds on the most sophisticated of weaponry, the most impervious of defenses, the most resilient of recovery mechanisms, and the most cunning of strategies. The lives of a few cease to sustain those of countless others: the survival of the fittest, so to speak, at its most bleak. Now, if one were to examine the social world we find ourselves in: a wealthy few bathe in luxuries the hungry and homeless seemingly hopelessly aspire to; unseen labor sustains mouths that will never bother to contemplate the hands that feed them; indifferent greed and corruption persist, unperturbed by the plight of the resources that maintain such a system; and the most palpable prospects of a promising tomorrow remain exclusive to the fortunate few afforded the necessary opportunities in societies for which social stratification remains integral. So was Darwin right all along? Are human societies ultimately an inevitable reflection of the harsher realities of savage nature, red in tooth and claw? What Darwin Had to Say Darwins most famous work On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life was published on 24 Novermber1859. Here, he discusses primarily how animals and plants have changed over time through descent with modification, presenting the vast body of evidence he had gathered through his own research and extensive correspondence with his colleagues. Darwin proposed that the divergence of species lineages can ultimately be traced back by common descent to a single ancestor shared by all living organisms. It is here too where we read the Darwinian mechanism explaining the diversification of species lineages: natural selection. It is important to note that in On the Origin of Species, Darwin refrains from discussing human evolution, recognizing the dangers of taking on a highly controversial topic that challenged traditional religious thoughts on human origin. At most, Darwin cautiously hinted that, Light will be thrown on the origin of man. In fact, it was not until The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex published in 1871 that Darwin finally began applying the idea of natural selection to the human species. But does natural selection still have a significant influence on human evolution, provided the recent advances in areas like agriculture, technology and medicine? According to Ronald Cruz, instructor at the Department of Biology, it seems that in a lot of cases in human evolution, its gene flow that has been very influential. Nevertheless, Cruz adds, there are many examples we can cite of humans undergoing natural selection. Examples of those would have to do with medical aspects. Theres the question of why humans would evolve to have diabetes. Also, the very familiar example of certain Africans having sickle-cell anemia.

So to some extent natural selection has influenced recent human evolution. But none of these cases involve groups of people outcompeting others. There are no evolutionary grounds that necessitate the suffering existent today in human societies. Breaking Ties: The Sins of Social Darwinism Social Darwinism was a political ideology that had originated in Britain at the second half of the th 19 century. It sought to apply evolutionary principlesespecially those of Darwinian explanationsto areas of the social sciences, politics and business. The fundamental assertion of the ideology was that progress can only be a consequence of conflict between social groups, with superior groups outcompeting inferior ones: the idea of the survival of the fittest. Despite the common misattribution of the phrase to Darwin, survival of the fittest was actually coined by the sociologist Herbert Spencer to describe the outcome of social competition among people. In Social Statics (1850), Spencer argued that prosperity and progress can only possibly result from social evolution driven by competition. This was well ahead of Darwins attempts at explaining human origin in evolutionary terms in The Descent (1871). Much of the early 20th century can testify to the rise of Social Darwinism only to witness its later decline after World War I (1914-1918). The ideology was also criticized by political analysts in the 1920s and 1930s for its contribution to German militarism and Nazism. Events of the succeeding years would only facilitate this dropping out from favor as eugenics was discredited by improved understanding in genetics, and shamed by Hitlers use of it to justify the deaths of millions during World War II (19391935). Meanwhile, the early 19th century also marked the inception of the social sciences. At the time, it was actually common for social scientists to propose evolutionary explanations for the social phenomena they examined. However, Darwin and biology virtually disappeared from the social sciences by the middle of the 20th century, and, apparently, a significant number of social scientists continue to reject evolutionary approaches in their disciplines. This rejection has been largely attributed to Social Darwinism, eugenics and the alleged inability of evolution to explain social phenomena such as the development of cooperative institutions. According to Skilty Labastilla, cultural anthropologist from the Sociology-Anthropology Department, social science is a science of society, of humanity. Basically, the goal is to come up with an understanding, a theory, a hypothesis, an analysis of human behavior. Regarding the rejection of biological principles in the social sciences today, he says, Considering the history of social Darwinism, it no longer became a favorable theory or concept to espouse because of negative connotations. It was linked to imperialism, fascism, eugenics. These same associations keep evolutionary theories from being used today by many social scientists. So we mostly draw our theories now from things like culture. Indeed, it was culture that anthropologists like Margaret Mead and Ruth Benedict used to undermine the biological foundations of Social Darwinism, demonstrating that culture sets human apart from other animals. But does culture truly distance humans from the rest of the animal Kingdom? While conceding that culture is a human construct that is very difficult to ascribe to nonhuman animals, Cruz, says that if you think about culture as stemming from social relationships, definitely, animals have that. So its not as if when we say that were cultured, were so different from animals that other animals dont have a social structure. I think the only thing that truly sets us apart is how wide the

culture has been integrated into our lives because of our intellectual capabilities, our ability to communicate with each other over large distances, and our technology. Labastilla agrees, saying, Sure, I mean, theres no question that we are not that different from the animal world. We are social animals. We are animals in the sense that some of our most basic behaviors are actually found in the animal world, the animal kingdom, right? That said, there nevertheless are a lot of behaviors humans are capable of that other animals are not. However, he adds, Right now, even though there are some social scientists who pursue that line of thought that most of what we do now actually stemmed from our evolutionary past, these remain controversial because they seem to limit the capacity or creativity of humanity to transcend the animality of our evolutionary past. Our Darwinian Heritage: The Bigger Picture and Reason for Hope So does the prospect of further dialogue between the biological and social sciences remain feasible despite the damage inflicted by vestiges of a Darwinian past? We seem to be forgetting that competition is not the only force that has shaped life on the planet. In reality, we find a great deal of cooperative interactions among nonhuman animals, and theserather than competitionhave been key to the evolutionary success of highly organized social species. Behavioral ecology explains cooperation in the animal Kingdom in two ways: kin selection and reciprocity. Kin selection would easily make sense of cooperative behavior since ones kin is a vessel for genes similar to ones own. On the other hand, reciprocity rests on cooperating with individuals who are likely to return the favor some other time. The two complement each other at explaining the concept of altruismacting for the benefit of another even at the prospect of cost to oneself. It is noteworthy that humans exhibit not just reciprocal altruism, but true altruism: acting for the good of another without thought of anything in return. Interestingly, true altruism is something we share with our closest living relatives, the chimpanzees. Such things as this may complement the explanations social scientists have for social phenomena like the building of cooperative institutions. Additionally, a historical examination of Social Darwinism shows that it is no more than a political ideology that misapplied evolutionary principles for its own ends. So perhaps there is hope. Cruz explains that, biology would benefit from social theory while at the same time social theories can also benefit from biology. I think most researches should start going in that directionin interdisciplinarity, in dialogue, among multiple disciplines because only then can you get the complete picture, or a very large picture that you would otherwise not get if you just focused on the biology or on the social aspect. When asked about dialogue between the two areas of science, Labastilla responds saying, I really think that despite the controversy, there is potential for biology to be examined. One problem is that in our country especially, the divide between the social and hard sciences seems so clear that we cant work together. There is lack of training and funding for areas that could provide opportunities for dialogue. Right now, were not saying though that social scientists are closed to the idea, but we also have to be different from biologists because we also believe that cultural societies have a huge role in shaping human life, that there are aspects to human life that overpower the biological.

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