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Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence

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The time scale for evolutionary or genetic change is very long. A characteristic period for the emergence of one advanced species from another is perhaps a hundred thousand years; and very often the difference in behavior between closely related species—say, lions and tigers—do not seem very great. (16) My fundamental premise about the brain is that its workings—what we sometimes call “mind”—are a consequence of its anatomy and physiology, and nothing more (19) But the book of life is very rich; a typical chromosomal DNA molecule in a human being is composed of about five billion pairs of nucleotides. The genetic instructions of all the other taxa on Earth are written in the same language, with the same code book. Indeed, this shared genetic language is one line of evidence that all the organisms on Earth are descended from a single ancestor, a single instance of the origin of life some four billion years ago. (31) The simplest arithmetical scheme uses not ten digits (as we do because of the evolutionary accident that we have ten fingers) (31) Note that in all this interaction between mutation and natural selection, no moth is making a conscious effort to adapt to a changed environment. The process is random and statistical. (36) On the other hand, to assure accuracy and protect against accident we would expect natural selection to have evolved substantial redundancy in brain function. This is also to be expected from the evolutionary path that it is most likely the brain followed. (36) Five hundred million years ago, swimming in the primeval seas...(56) The behavioral as well as neuroanatomical connections between sex, aggression and dominance are borne out in a variety of studies. The mating rituals of great cats and many other animals are barely distinguishable, in their early stages, from fighting (61) the emergence of mammals and of primates (especially humans) was accompanied by major bursts in brain evolution. (63) MacLean has shown that the R-complex plays an important role in aggressive behavior, territoriality, ritual and the establishment of social hierarchies. Despite occasional welcome exceptions, this seems to me to characterize a great deal of modern human bureaucratic and political behavior.(68) It is precisely our plasticity, our long childhood, that prevents a slavish adherence to genetically preprogrammed behavior in human beings more than in any other species. (69) I demand of you, and of the whole world, that you show me a generic character … by which to distinguish between Man and Ape. I myself most assuredly know of none. I wish somebody would indicate one to me. But, if I had called man an ape, or vice versa, I would have fallen under the ban of all the ecclesiastics. It may be that as a naturalist I ought to have done so. CARL LINNAEUS,the founder of taxonomy, 1788 (107) The price we pay for anticipation of the future is anxiety about it. Foretelling disaster is probably not much fun; Pollyanna was much happier than Cassandra. But the Cassandric components of our nature are necessary for survival (77) Having never seen a spherical fruit other than an apple, but knowing the signs for the principal colors, Lana, upon spying a technician eating an orange, signed “orange apple.” After tasting a watermelon, Lucy described it as “candy drink” or “drink fruit,” which is essentially the same word form as the English “water melon.” But after she had burned her mouth on her first radish, Lucy forever after described them as “cry hurt food.” A small doll placed unexpectedly in Washoe’s cup elicited the response “Baby in my drink.” When Washoe soiled, particularly clothing or furniture, she was taught the sign “dirty,” which she then extrapolated as a general term of abuse. (111) Lana, in a moment of creative annoyance, called her trainer “You green shit.” Chimpanzees have invented swear words. (111) and from its ministrations we have learned that chimpanzees prefer jazz to rock. ... 113) And it is difficult to see any significant difference in quality between chimpanzee use of gestural language and the use of ordinary speech by children in a manner that we unhesitatingly attribute to intelligence (114) If chimpanzees have consciousness, if they are capable of abstractions, do they not have what until now has been described as “human rights”? How smart does a chimpanzee have to be before killing him constitutes murder? What further properties must he show before religious missionaries must consider him worthy of attempts at conversion? (120) Charles Darwin’s Descent of Man: “The difference in mind between man and the higher animals, great as it is, certainly is one of degree and not of kind" (122) This same opinion on the remarkable powers of language and human intercommunication can be found in quite a different place, the Genesis account of the Tower of Babel. God, in a strangely defensive attitude for an omnipotent being, is worried that men intend to build a tower that will reach to heaven. (His attitude is similar to the concern he expresses after Adam eats the apple.) To prevent Mankind from reaching heaven, at least metaphorically, God does not destroy the tower, as, for example, Sodom is destroyed. Instead, he says, “Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language; and this is only the beginning of what they will do; and nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. Come, let us go down, and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech” (Genesis 11:6-7). (122) It is extremely rare in the dream state that we bring ourselves up short and say, “This is only a dream.” By and large we invest the dream content with reality. There are no rules of internal consistency that dreams are required to follow. The dream is a world of magic and ritual, passion and anger, but very rarely of skepticism and reason. In the metaphor of the triune brain, dreams are partially a function of the R-complex and the limbic cortex, but not of the rational part of the neocortex. (142) Human beings exhibit enough reptilian behavior as it is. If we gave full rein to the reptilian aspects of our nature, we would clearly have a low survival potential. (147) Almost without exception all human languages have built into them a polarity, a veer to the right. “Right” is associated with legality, correct behavior, high moral principles, firmness, and masculinity; “left,” with weakness, cowardice, diffuseness of purpose, evil, and femininity. In English, for example, we have “rectitude,” “rectify,” “righteous,” “right-hand man,” “dexterity,” “adroit” (from the French “à droite”), “rights,” as in “the rights of man,” and the phrase “in his right mind.” Even “ambidextrous” means, ultimately, two right hands. On the other side (literally), we have “sinister” (almost exactly the Latin word for “left”), “gauche” (precisely the French word for “left”), “gawky,” “gawk,” and “left-handed compliment.” The Russian “nalevo” for “left” also means “surreptitious.” The Italian “mancino” for “left” signifies “deceitful.” There is no “Bill of Lefts.” (171) There is no way to tell whether the patterns extracted by the right hemisphere are real or imagined without subjecting them to left-hemisphere scrutiny. On the other hand, mere critical thinking, without creative and intuitive insights, without the search for new patterns, is sterile and doomed. To solve complex problems in changing circumstances requires the activity of both cerebral hemispheres: the path to the future lies through the corpus callosum (177) Calculus, Newtonian physics and geometrical optics were all derived by fundamentally geometrical arguments and are today taught and demonstrated largely by analytical arguments: creating the mathematics and physics is more of a right-hemisphere function than teaching it (179) major advances in civilization are processes that all but wreck the societies in which they occur. ALFRED NORTH WHITEHEAD Adventures in Ideas (183) In general, human societies are not innovative. They are hierarchical and ritualistic. Suggestions for change are greeted with suspicion: they imply an unpleasant future variation in ritual and hierarchy: an exchange of one set of rituals for another, or perhaps for a less structured society with fewer rituals. (184) The traditionalism of societies in a static state is generally adaptive: the cultural forms have been evolved painfully over many generations and are known to serve well. Like mutations, any random change is apt to serve less well. But also like mutations, changes are necessary if adaptation to new environmental circumstances is to be achieved (187) I sometimes wonder whether the appeal of sex and aggression in contemporary American television and film offerings reflects the fact that the R-complex is well developed in all of us, while many neocortical functions are, partly because of the repressive nature of schools and societies, more rarely expressed, less familiar and insufficiently treasured. (187) Once intelligent beings achieve technology and the capacity for self-destruction of their species, the selective advantage of intelligence becomes more uncertain.(221) “We are a scientific civilization,” declared Jacob Bronowski. “That means a civilization in which knowledge and its integrity are crucial. Science is only a Latin word for knowledge.… Knowledge is our destiny.” (229)

Finished reading : 24 May 2022