Evolution, Part 3
Evolution is proving more interesting than I thought. As a physiologist by trade, the mechanics of evolution were understood via terms of basic genetics. But there is a lot more to evolution than the mechanics. It was only later in my career that I became solidified in my observation that God (however defined) values the evolutionary process more than providing for any individual protection for any member of any species against the laws created to run the process . It was unsettling to realize God is not going to protect my ass via prayer or any other approach to God. I can’t even define God past realizing that wherever there is a gift there has to be a gift giver. At first I was incredulous that God would be so indifferent to all the cruel, unjust, and disastrous things that happen in life to so many species and individual members of species. Then I eventually found some solace that God gave humans the ability to help each other via the Golden Rule. Thus humans, via the Golden Rule, can maximize the contentment in life for the maximum number of people. We humans just have to do better with the Golden Rule. God did help humans via his evolutionary process by giving us the ability to help each other. So I became just grateful that, by chance, I got a chance to participate in the evolutionary process for a minuscule period of time, and got so much help from others in my life. A lot of good luck has come my way. Sure, some people have had more luck, but a lot more have had a lot worse luck than I. That’s my perceived reality of reality.
Understanding human evolution requires that we keep in mind the time span of this process. It is not in human time which, for all practical purposes, is about our own lifetime. So when we talk about fish evolving to living on land we are talking about hundreds or thousands or millions of years. Our immediate ancestor did not all of a sudden give birth to a modern human. Furthermore, while we can, via fossils, trace the physical changes, we cannot trace the internal changes in organs like the brain. So let us train our memory on certain time lines here. Humans first evolved in East Africa around 2.5 million years ago. From 2 million years ago until around 10,000 years ago our planet was home to several human species. Tool use by humans goes back to 2.5 million years ago, so humans from the git-go had primitive tools. It was only 400,000 years ago that several species of humans began to hunt large game on a regular basis. Only in the last 100,000 years did we homo sapiens leap to the top of the evolutionary chain in such a dramatic way. By 300,000 years ago humans were using fire on a regular basis. Other species of humans were gone by 35,000 years ago. About 40,000 years ago humans managed to land in Australia. Humans began to use language about 70,000 years ago and this altered their evolutionary progress immensely. 16,000 years ago humans arrived in the Americas. Around 12,000 years ago humans began to form agricultural communities around major rivers. Christianity began around 2,000 years ago and Islam around 1400 years ago. The scientific revolution began around 500 years ago, the Industrial Revolutions around 200 years ago and today just about everything is up for grabs, including human created artificial intelligence. Thus, there was slow, very slow progress for millions of years—then suddenly, especially in the last 500 years everything changed on so many fronts including our world human population. It is probably safe to say that most humans today are simply overwhelmed by it all, feel more and more powerless over our own personal destiny, and may well be more stressed in our daily lives than ever before. “Stop the World, I Want to Get Off might well be an alternate name for modern day terrorism.
Now digging deeper into the History of Humans, it seems clear that Homo Sapiens has had a very violent and destructive history toward the environment, toward all other species, and toward members of our own species. This is difficult to digest. We are not as civilized as we think we are. Which means now we need examine what the word civilized means. To some, that means be polite and well mannered. Marian Webster Dictionary defines civilized as: “characterized by taste, refinement, or restraint”.
I would define civilized as “applying the Golden Rule to all members of our human species”. Slavery was not a civilized society no matter how polite, well mannered, refined, or restrained slave owners might have been in many cases. When humans moved from hunter/gatherers to agricultural societies it is not clear to what extent either one was more civilized than the other. Using my definition of civilized, neither one of these community life styles were more civilized. They were just different ways of providing food and shelter for their communities. I also define the best governance as that governance which provides the the greatest amount of contentment to the greatest number of its citizens.
We have no way of knowing which kind of community provided the most contentment to its citizens way back then. There were no contentment or happiness polls back in early human history and even those polls today certainly are not real accurate. The main concerns of humans back in these early days were to get enough food to eat, to have shelter from the weather, and be protected from larger animals. It was stated earlier that for groups of humans larger than 150 some sort of central concept has to be accepted as the cohesive basis for human cooperation throughout the group. The concept could be political or religious or cultural, or ethnic, or geographical, etc. It could even be a combination of concepts held collectively by the entire group. From the time human communities began to be larger, a lot of human evolutionary direction was determined by the concepts adopted by the group as their committed identity to be part of the larger group. Humans went the direction of devotion to more narrow concepts than any devotion to the human species as a whole. Thus, from the beginning, groups had no common concept to hold them together in peace with the rest of humanity. Human religions, in theory, may emphasize the Golden Rule as an ethical principle, but in reality this applies only to other members of their religious group. The Golden Rule rarely applies to ‘heathens’.
Distrust, dislike, and diversity inevitably brought about conflict between human groups and thus these conflicts were almost always decided by violence with one group either conquering the other or one sending the other group on their way to a new geographical location. The same violence resulted in the extinction of most large animals that were a threat to humans. Weapons were crude back in the earliest days and so the total number of victims was kept relatively small. But as weapons became more sophisticated the death toll in human conflicts became greater. Our capacity as a species ‘killing machine’ has grown exponentially in line with our technical advancement, if we discount disease which still takes a big toll on human life.
Hunter/gatherers were smaller groups and were displaced at will by larger agricultural communities. Where ‘civilizations’ occurred depended on the fertility of the soil, and the ability to raise crops sufficient to supply food year round. This would almost always be near rivers. The ability to stay in one area year round provided more social stability and the birth rate went up. Thus population increases were greater in the agricultural community. If we just consider population increases, then by that measure the agricultural communities made humans a more successful species. But we need to be careful here. Population numbers is different from achieving more contentment for the greatest number of people. It need be remembered that the agricultural revolution only began about 12,000 years ago and humans existed for 2.5 million years. The tools back then were crude and very labor intensive. There were no domesticated beasts of burden yet (dogs were domesticated about 15,000 years ago), Mother Nature might not cooperate, poor crops result in a given year followed sometimes by massive starvation, population density in these permanent agricultural communities left people exposed to diseases, and the hours of work in a day was greater than the hours worked by hunter/gatherers. On top of that, in one way or another, these large groups began to differentiate between social status in the group. Division of labor began to occur with men dominant over women, children required to do many hard tasks at a young age, and larger families were able to raise more food than small families or individuals.
Hunter/gatherers were usually done hunting or gathering by noon. This left more time to amuse themselves in whatever way they wished. They were not dependent on weather, and could easily move when their current environment became undesirable. There were less chances of friction between adults who did not know each other well. Probably the members of a hunter/gatherer group were more contented but this is mostly logical conjecture. Either way, in both societies the death rate among children was high and the overall average life spans were like 30 years. It would be interesting if we could measure the overall contentment level of life back then to now, but we simply cannot. So much about contentment levels are relative.
Another factor need be put in play here. Ever since the exclusive hunter/gatherer lifestyle there has not been a single natural way of life for humans as there has been for other animals. Humans ‘invented’ different cultures from many possible alternatives. With this happening, our species cannot easily fit in with the survival of the fittest. What culture survives at any point after the agricultural revolution may not be the most civilized culture (one which generates the most contentment for the greatest number of humans).
With larger agricultural societies came division of labor and much of that labor was monotonous, physically exhausting and the work days could be long. Hunter/gatherers had much more interesting days in that each day started from scratch and the environment was often new as they moved around often; this meant new challenges each day, often in new environments to gather or hunt for food.
10,000 years ago there were 5 million humans on the planet, an estimated number, but an ice age back 70,000 years ago almost made the human species extinct. At any rate, gather/hunters had little problem finding food to eat when weather cooperated and they could move from place to place as needed.. Surviving was another matter. The diet depended on where they were gathering at the time, and what kind of human predators were in the area besides weather conditions.
Early human learned culture was fairly simple. If you were a hunter/gatherer then you learned which berries you could eat, how to find the best places to spend the night, how best to hunt, etc. Once agricultural societies came to be the culture, this added specific skills which were learned, not inherited.
For most of the 2.5 million years humans existed on the earth we were not all that much different in our evolutionary path than other vertebrates. That is, the strongest, healthiest, and luckiest survived to adulthood and contributed their genes to the future genetic gene pool. Over time, as the human brain evolved more, we could add cleverness to the factors which increased individual survival and therefore future human gene pools. Once humans began to live in larger communities, where different individuals ended up with different tasks within their community, class distinctions began to arise.
We need remember sex in humans is drastically different from other vertebrates in that other vertebrates, for the most part, only engage in sex when the appropriate hormones appear in the blood and then the sex is highly predictable, often doesn’t last long, and isn’t very fussy as to the particular partner. With humans, sexual behaviors are all over the place, driven in large part by inclinations that originate in our cerebral cortex. A foot fetish, for example is not a hormonal phenomenon, but is driven by the cortex which, for whatever reason, finds feet a sexual turn-on. The least attractive humans might fare better in their sex life if human sex was more dependent on the presence of hormones.
When humans select a sexual partner, physical appearance plays a big role, social position plays a role, titles plays a role, personality plays a role, money plays a role, sexual orientation, etc. As a result, over the years humans have tended to be bigger, faster, stronger, smarter, and healthier than in the past. And more handsome. We see recreated images of early humans and we think them rather ugly They probably did not look ugly to themselves back then, but grew over time to become a more handsome species. Since humans, for the most part, do not breed indiscriminately in the presence of certain hormones, genetic evolution is different in humans compared to other vertebrates. Humans are the only species which laughs, or cries the way we do, or creates material things from nature to any degree.
From the get-go human evolution had multiple directions in which to go. All animals have needs for self defense, need for food, need for protection from weather/climate, need water, need enough calories, minerals, etc. to survive. But the level of intelligence in the human species creates whole new parameters for their evolutionary process. These new parameters include our understanding of consequences, our innate drive for material possessions, for titles, for control over others, our varied religious beliefs, our assumed dominion over other animals and the environment, varied social concepts, and our varied ability to follow the universal ethical principle of the Golden Rule. To varied degrees all humans know we need others to succeed in many grandiose schemes, especially in the more recent stages of human evolution.From the beginning humans needed each other to wage war, to establish a particular religious sect, to produce many of our material things, to provide good health care, to distribute food, natural resources, and move energy sources around, and so on.
On the other hand, diversity of behavior, personalities, sexual inclinations, political systems, and ethical matters are never so varied as in human ‘herds’. This diversity generates conflicts—endless conflicts—within communities and between human communities. In the midst of all this intraspecies conflict some degree of peace can only be achieved—some degree of civilized living achieved— both via the Golden Rule. A certain level of violence may be needed before a particular human ‘herd’ can revert to accepting ethics (the Golden Rule) as a means to restoring some peace between ‘herds’ or, opposing ‘human herds’ decide to live and let live between the human ‘herds’ in question. After each period of extreme violence between opposing human ‘herds’ the common feeling is ‘never again’. But whole new generations replace older generations and the whole cycle starts all over again.
Let’s take World War II. Everyone everywhere promised themselves never again. Weaponry had become so destructive that death tolls became astronomical. After the U.S. dropped two atomic bombs on two Japanese cities, everyone agreed that war between modern military powers would be self destructive to both. Well, probably quite surprising, for over seventy years there has been no atomic war between any nations. HOWEVER, this has hardly stopped massive killing of humans across the globe. And the numbers surpass the massive deaths in World War II. In World War II 60 million people were killed in all, which was about 3% of the world population. In terms of percentage of population here is how death was parceled out:
Belarus: 25% of it’s population (2,290,000)
Poland: 17% of it’s population (5,820,000)
Ukraine: 17% of it’s population (8,850,000)
Rest of USSR: 15% of it’s population (16, 825,000)
Latavia: 14% of It’s population (260,000)
Lithuania: 13% of it’s population (375,000)
Germany lost 12% of it’s population (9,000,000)
Japan lost 4% of it’s population (3,125,000)
China lost 4% of it’s population (20,000,000)
France lost 3% of it’s population (550,000)
Italy lost 2% of it’s population (454,000)
United Kingdom: 3% of it’s population (451,000)
Canada: 2% of it’s population (45,000)
United States: 1% of it’s population (420,000)
Jewish deaths: between 5.7 and 7.3 million. This represents 55% of the Jewish population prewar years.
The ‘never again’ proved short lived. In fact, today there are 75 million refugees scattered around in tent cities spread over desolate ground. Is death or being one of these refugees the better fate?
Korean War: United States deaths: 36,000 deaths; North Korean deaths: 1,000,000; South Korean deaths: 1,217,000; China: 600,000 War ended as a stalemate.
Vietnamese War: 3.4 million military and civilian deaths. American deaths: 64,000. Vietnam finally won the war.
Since World War II over 12 million persons have been killed by American wars, including invasions and support of guerrillas in other countries. The number of Americans killed in military actions since World War 2 is 102,284=1,400 per year. No nation comes close to the United States in the ‘killing fields’. Yet we kill each other to a far greater degree than others ever kill us in wars. Each year roughly 15,000 citizens are murdered in the United States. Thus, even though a total of 102,284 Americans have died since 1945 in armed conflicts abroad, roughly 1,095,000 American citizens have been murdered by other American citizens during the same period.
The question begs: Why did America, alone among all the major industrial powers that participated in World War II, get so addicted to violence as the means to an end abroad, and personal domestic disputes? It is not even remotely close. We are the King of the Killing Fields. Perhaps the answer lies thusly: America was the least (percentage wise) hurt by deaths in World War II and along with Canada retained almost all of it’s infrastructure. So we did not fear military battles as much as those countries which lost so many more people to death during World War II. We had the resources and priority to build the most powerful military force in the World and we spent more money to do so than all the other industrialized countries combined. The attitude was that no one—absolutely no one—would ever dare to challenge us militarily and we would defend other countries from attack. This was not as kind hearted as we were led to believe by our government officials. The truth is, the military-industrial complex became the main stimulus to keep our economy strong. If we ever suddenly pulled back from military expenditures without redirecting those expenditures elsewhere we would plunge into economic depression.
Why aren’t Americans more depressed about all the killing associated with our endless military operations (discrete and open) and our love of guns? The reasons are obvious enough. There aren’t enough American deaths in these ventures. Our opponents suffer far more deaths exponentially. No other country we have waged war with directly or as a proxy for rebels, has the multiple weapons of mass destruction that we have. If we can easily tolerate 15,000 murders a year of our own citizens, by our own citizens, we can tolerate roughly 1,400 American deaths from military actions against other nations each year. That’s over a 10-1 ratio. Two other factors figure in here as to why Americans continue to support military ventures is that the draft is gone and replaced to a substantial degree by mercenaries, most from the poorer elements of our society. Even more important, we undertake these military ventures on borrowed money. If the generation carrying out these military ventures actually paid the cost, these ventures might lose favor with the taxpayers. Personally, and I suspect this is true for many others, I have never paid any kind of price personally for any of these military ventures. I had a draft deferment in the Vietnamese War, and with every other military adventure my taxes never went up, they always went down since much of my income began to come from stocks and the income here is taxed at a low rate. There never has been any economic incentive for me to oppose our ‘killing fields’, or any fear of being drafted.
A key part of our assumption since World War II—that we could win any war waged based on our tremendous military superiority, proved simply wrong. Korea was a stalemate and every other military venture, with the exception of Grenada and the Balkans, has been a dismal failure. We could easily win if there were uniformed soldiers fighting on battlefields like in the two World Wars. Today it is mostly our soldiers who have uniforms. We charge in, destroy a country’s infrastructure almost overnight, then have no idea who to kill after that. Foes and friends are all dressed alike. We bunker down in green zones and then send our military mercenaries out to seek out the enemy and most of their deaths will occur from land mines, snipers, suicide bombers, various acts of terrorism, and surprise ambushes. The more educated ones in our military are mostly back in the green zone pushing buttons for smart bombs, missiles, drones, etc. We get bogged down for years, kill huge gobs of people, then tire of it all, declare victory and leave. Which country, of the dozens of countries in South America, Africa, middle East, and far east are better off today than when we went in or got involved militarily with rebels to save them?
Now what, we could ask, has any of this to do with human evolution? Human evolution from the beginning of agricultural communities on to the present day has been a contest between the Golden Rule and violence as the means to solve conflicts. Both violence and the Golden Rule have a genetic basis in humans. As with other genetic traits these traits are not all or none, are present in degrees, and the expression of both is affected by environment and influence by others with whom we come in contact directly or indirectly. The contest is always one of whether conflicts will be solved by the Golden Rule or by violence. Thus for years we have had peaceful nations and warlike nations. Warlike nations depend a lot on national patriotism, a blind allegiance to the mother country with little regard for the ethics involved.
Part 4 of human evolution to follow.
