EVOLUTION

The Final Belief System

or

An account of Evolution;
the belief system that will,
in time, replace all
religions.

Published by: The Evolution Ashram
52 Kookaburra Eco-Village, Gin Gin, Queensland, 4671

 

Winfried Hoerr 2007

This book is a ‘living book’ in the sense that it will undergo modifications, additions and subtractions from time to time. It started as ‘Evolution or The Garden of Earthly Delights’ in 1998.

This book can be downloaded from the web site above.

All of this book or any part may be reproduced for personal use.

Chapters

1. Introduction

2. Genetic Knowledge

3. Cultural Knowledge

4. Belief Systems

5. The Genes Deceived

6. The Evolution of Religion

7. Practicing Evolution

8. Notes

9. Bibliography

1. Introduction

People are, on average, becoming progressively more educated. As evolution is founded on logic and scientific evidence, in time, despite some current religious revival, evolution will eventually replace all other belief systems. The myths and dogmas that underlie the current religions will be rejected. This may take hundreds or even thousands of years, but this time is short in regard to the remaining life span of the Earth. People will look to evolution to explain how we came into existence, how our minds function, and what happens to us after death.

Evolution has had only moderated success as a belief system, and no doubt there are more people who have never heard of it or, if exposed, chosen to disbelieve it, than there are believers. One of the main reasons for disbelief is the religious, philosophical and etymological separation of humans from other animals. As human knowledge increased in volume we began to think of ourselves as not really animals, but as some sort of higher organism that had left the animal world altogether. Religious separation includes the Semitic religions that emphasise, particularly in Genesis, that animals were made by God for the benefit of mankind. There is a clear separation of animals and humans with often a ‘heaven’ for human animals and nothing for non-human animals. The Greek philosopher Aristotle, while recognising three souls, vegetative, animal and rational, limited the rational soul to humans and not to other mammals with similar brain structures. Later philosophers, such as Descartes, considered non-human animals mere automatons, just reacting to circumstances, without feelings of their own. And philosophy courses today dwell on the human mind/body problem, but rarely extend this discussion to the minds of other non-human animals. The idea that humans can behave both naturally or unnaturally whereas non-human animals can only behave naturally as they ‘know no better’, is also a separation of humans from animals. Etymological separation includes using ‘he’ and ‘she’ for humans and some favoured pets and ‘it’ for all other animals. A television documentary is likely to refer to ‘animals’ and ‘humans’ rather than ‘non-human animals’ and ‘human animals’. A road sign might say that ‘animals are not allowed on the freeway’, or a sign at the zoo ‘do not feed the animals’. Here ‘animals’ does not include humans and so the growing child unconsciously learns to separate the label of ‘animal’ from the human race.

The inheritance of humans-are-distinct-from-animals ideas, ideas formed largely before biology was understood, have not helped the acceptance and spread of the evolution belief system whose message is the exact opposite: we are apes and share a common ancestry with other ape species that are living today. In my experience many people, particularly those with little interest and knowledge of biology, find the idea that they are evolved animals distasteful and can even appear insulted when the idea is suggested. They do not want to believe that they are ‘just’ animals, rather, they prefer to believe that our inherited cultural belief systems (religions, aeroplanes, computers, etc) have somehow made us at least pseudo-animals or not animals at all and so we have broken away from our evolutionary roots. This detachment from the rest of the animal kingdom does not help in understanding the evolutionary process.

Religions have also discouraged evolutionary belief. They often insist that evolution is still a ‘theory’, yet to be proven. In contrast, for a biologist the proof is all around us, one need only open his or her eyes. Religions have dwelled on uncertainties remaining in evolution. For example, the scientific view for the beginning of life is that it began about three and a half billion years ago, most likely arising from ponds and lakes. The water in them contained various chemicals and by chance some of these chemicals had the ability to make copies of themselves. ‘Parent’ chemicals produced ‘offspring’ chemicals (autocatalysis). Some of these offspring would occasionally vary from their parents (from mutation) and those variations that were most successful at replication came to dominate their pools. But while this account of the first life is generally accepted by scientists, it has not yet been proven. Nor is it likely to be; it happened so long ago there is little, if any, evidence left. Most scientists have no problem with this type of reasoning and accept that life, if it did not happen in this way, happened in some other similar way.

In the next stage of evolution these first replicating chemicals took hundreds of millions of years to evolve into single cells. Many more hundreds of millions of years passed with these single cells evolving into multi-cellular organisms. The exact way this happened is also lost in time. The fossil records are sketchy as most of the early organisms were soft bodied and any physical trace is limited to a few imprints on rocks. These weaknesses in the early evidence for evolution are sought by those who wish to discredit it. Next, fish, our ancestors, left the sea and colonised the land. Here more evidence creeps in with fossil records improving but still not complete. When we get to pre-human species, skeletal remains are present but rare. The large time period over which evolution has taken place is also difficult to grasp for the layperson. Despite incomplete evidence, many scientists reason that if only a single instance of evolution is demonstrated from fossil evidence, then there cannot be both evolution and some other way that life began, such as creation by some god.

For many people, this incomplete account and the other problems mentioned above keeps evolution at the ‘theory’ level and so unproven. Other people have grown up in religious households where evolution is not even on the agenda so they are not exposed to evolution ideas in the first place. Evolution is still a minority belief system in the world today.

There is also an emotional argument against evolution. Many religious people are looking for something deeper in life than just evolution. They do not see evolution as providing the level of emotional comfort and security they desire. Evolution does not satisfy their spiritual needs as it does not provide an afterlife or a moral system to live by. There does not appear to be any mystique or magic in it. For them evolution is emotionless and faithless and, if they believed it, they would see themselves as reduced in happiness. They see traditional religions as having more to offer. This criticism is justified, it is not clear that a person will be happier believing in evolution as it is now presented rather than one of the traditional religions.

Believing in evolution is a far more courageous decision than adopting one of the existing religious systems. You cannot cheat death with an afterlife. You will not meet up again with your friends and relatives in some heaven. There is no God or person looking over you providing guidance and protection. There is no book of rules to follow. The current religions, to varying degrees, are comfort and hope belief systems and many people have found them more appealing than evolution.

Is there a better way of presenting evolution? Evolution also needs to offer comfort and hope. People must be able to use it to interpret the world and so find answers on how to think and act. A moral and spiritual side to evolution needs to be discovered. The following chapters attempt this by examining two types of knowledge: genetic and cultural. It then looks at the interplay of these two knowledge systems and how they affect our thoughts and behaviour.

2. Genetic Knowledge

Genetic knowledge is knowledge we have at birth. We inherit these ideas (genes) from our parents with this type of knowledge having been referred to as that which is ‘deep within’, innate, inborn or instinctive. Freud referred to such as knowledge as the Id. A ‘gifted’ child is born with certain genetic ideas significantly different from other children. Genetic knowledge is present before experience. Cultural knowledge, the subject of the next chapter, is acquired after birth, by experience.

All organisms have genetic knowledge. When a tree seed (an embryo) grows it acts on its environment in a particular way. It inherits a set of genetic ideas on what to do in life. The tree knows what to do. Part of this knowing includes being able to interact with any changes of environment, not only on a day-to-day basis, but also second by second, depending on environmental cues as well as its genetic goals. For example, a tree will not open its leaf pores fully on a hot day and so suffer from a loss of water. The tree has a leaf pore opening and closing belief system (with the belief system being various inherited genes that are patterns of chemicals stored in the form of DNA in plant cells, just as human cultural beliefs are patterns of chemicals stored in the neurons of the brain). Environmental conditions, such as humidity, are measured by leaf cells and the tree reacts according to its genetic beliefs. Communication between cells is via chemical messengers such as hormones. The tree’s chance of survival, and so reproduction, will be related to how well it performs these actions.

New ideas in a seed can come through genetic mutation. New ideas can also come through sexual mating where the genes of each parent are shuffled when the amino acid sequences of DNA are unravelled and recombined. Seeds are therefore likely to vary from their parents as well as from each other in their genetic ideas, even if only very slightly. For a seed, any changes are new ideas on how it can approach its environment. All these ideas make up the seed’s knowledge. It believes through chemical patterns how to grow, produce a trunk and branches and use its leaves to collect sunlight.

There is a chance component to life. Some seeds might fall on fertile ground with their survival almost assured, others might fall on rocks or in water and so have little chance of survival, and still others might be eaten by animals. While at first the seed appears to have no control over its luck, it may have by chance a new idea that reduces the likelihood of unlucky things happening. New ideas for a bitter taste might deter animals from eating it. Wings, hard coverings, hooks and so on may all reduce its chance of falling on bare rock, or if it does so fall, help it to move to another more suitable spot. The seed grows into a tree that, in turn, produces new seeds, and those new seeds which best know their environment through any new ideas will be those most likely to survive. That is, species (see note 3) learn about their environments.

The tree is not conscious of its acts in the same way that we understand human mental consciousness. Rather there is a ‘chemical awareness’ of what it needs to do in order to survive. This chemical awareness, or consciousness, might not be great but is still considerably more than an object such as a rock but also considerably less than the consciousness we enjoy as humans. We must remember that some of our earliest ancestors were single celled organisms and our brains are collections of cells that originate from these early ancestors. Consciousness must have evolved along the line of ancestors.

If evolution is the process of the ‘differential survival of offspring’ then over time successive offspring will learn of new environments. This rate of genetic learning in a species can range from slow to fast as it follows the rate of environmental change. For example, slow environmental change such as sunspot activity can initiate ice ages and so cause migration and extinction. The movement of the Earth’s tectonic plates also redistributes the landmasses available for life. Faster changes could be volcanic eruptions, droughts, floods, disease, migration and predation, all of which can affect the direction in which organisms evolve.

Environments may be stable for millions of years and here it is likely that all the good genetic ideas on how to act have already arisen and been well tested. Offspring with new ideas are now at a disadvantage as these new ideas are not as good as existing ideas. For example, a stable estuarine environment has allowed the saltwater crocodile to become finely tuned in its form and behaviour so that there is little else for it to learn genetically of its environment. All the good ideas for knowing the environment well have already been come into existence and long since retained. Here new ideas from mutations or shuffling are unlikely to be better than those that already exist. New ideas in crocodile offspring will decrease rather than increase their chance of survival. The crocodile’s current genetic ideas are at an optimum and so it has remained unchanged for millions of years. Of course, should the environment change, offspring with new ideas for this changed environment will have an improved chance of survival. When environmental conditions again stabilise, new optimums will evolve. The rate at which organisms learn of their environments is related to the rate of environmental change.

Changes need not only be from changes in the physical environment and can be through the actions of other species. An example of a very fast change of environment could be a poisonous mist that a farmer sprays upon a population of insects. Here the behaviour of a human changes the environment in which the insect lives. If it has no knowledge of this new environment, it will die. However, there always seem to be a few insects that have a resistance to the spray. These insects have inherited genetic ideas on how to survive the spray’s effects such as a gene that produces a protein that reacts with the poison rendering it less effective. Here a short reproductive cycle is an advantage as new ideas can be passed quickly from parent to offspring. Those insects that inherit spray-resistance ideas will have the greatest chance of survival. Over time, through a succession of offspring, the species will learn of the spray. But if the spray is not used for many generations, the idea of the spray might be forgotten, and the species would need to relearn spray ideas if it is used again.

Sometimes the same genetic ideas can be learnt independently. For example, fish and squid have both learnt to see in their watery environment with the same idea of sight evolving independently. On other occasions the same environmental problem can be solved in different genetic ways. Otters have learnt to use fur for protection from cold seawater, while whales have learnt to use blubber. Each has evolved different ideas on how to defeat the same problem of coldness.

Genetic beliefs that could be beneficial in one environment might be detrimental in another. A bird’s large colourful tail plumage may make it more obvious to predators as well as increase its difficulty of flying. However, the colourful plumage might be of great advantage in attracting a mate. We can see that the idea of a large colourful plumage will only survive if its benefit in one area outweighs its detriment in another. Here the idea stays part of the bird’s genetic belief system as it has a net positive reproductive value.

Not all genetic ideas need be employed in a lifetime. Some ideas can be neutral. For example, a tree might know how to extrude sap to prevent a wood-boring insect, but not be attacked in its lifetime. If the insect disappears due to some other reason, the tree’s sap-extruding knowledge would be superfluous. It could be neutral knowledge that is neither detrimental nor helpful, or it could even be detrimental as energy is wasted making sap that is never used. If insects come back and attack in later generations of trees, those that still have sap-extruding knowledge will be advantaged. An intermittent need for sap extruding might keep this knowledge within the species. Ideas that appear neutral might really be beneficial in environments that occur infrequently. Many genes in humans seem to have no specific function but may have played some role in the survival of our ancestors.

Successive organisms, by learning of their environments, can in turn change those environments. They must then relearn the changes they have caused. One of the most extensive examples is the removal of carbon dioxide from the primitive atmosphere. The carbon was combined with calcium by various sea organisms to make their corals, shells, and internal calcareous skeletons. This insoluble calcium carbonate forms the limestone and chalk deposits of today. Other carbon deposits from past organisms include the gas, oil and coal deposits. Many species had then to relearn about this new carbon-depleted atmosphere. The end result was a co-evolution between organisms and their physical environments.

Co-evolution also occurs among organisms. The types of interactions can be grouped as either beneficial (mutualistic) or detrimental (predator/prey, host/parasite or competitive) interactions. Mutualistic interactions may involve sharing genetic ideas with the learning being beneficial not antagonistic. For example, some species of termites have not learnt to digest wood cellulose directly, yet this is their main diet. They have learnt genetically to farm cellulose-digesting fungi, which they feed with leaf material they collect. The termites then digest the products of these fungi. The fungi have also learnt to expect termites to bring them the exact leaf material they favour most in their diet. This interaction is mutualistic in that both organisms gain from their communal living. Each species learns of the other and their genetic knowledge has co-evolved.

Predator-prey relationships include the interactions of rabbits and foxes or sharks and fish. New ideas in prey offspring to better avoid predators, or new ideas in predator offspring that improve their ability to catch prey, will, on average, increase their chances of survival. A knowledge race occurs between the hunter and the hunted and, while they run neck and neck, both can exist. Each learns genetically of the other. However, should one get too far ahead in this race, one or both may go to extinction.

Learning is not always in both directions. In mimicry, a non-poisonous caterpillar might learn of the red stripes of a poisonous caterpillar that is avoided by birds. Over time, it gains red stripes itself thereby getting some of the protection afforded to the poisonous caterpillar. Here the learning is only in one direction. The poisonous caterpillar learns nothing of the non-poisonous one.

3. Cultural Knowledge

The subject of this chapter is cultural knowledge: those ideas that are gained from experience. For humans, nearly all cultural ideas are stored in the brain. It is interesting to look at why brains evolved in the first place and what purpose they serve in regard to advancing the reproductive chances of the organisms which have them.

Organisms that rely only on genetic ideas for their actions cannot gain new ideas during their lifetime. New ideas about the environment can only come at birth through gene mutation or shuffling. In some variable environments this could be quite limiting for long-lived organisms. For organisms that live a short time, such as the example in the last chapter of the insect that learnt quickly of a farmer’s spray, genetic ideas are sufficient for life. As its life cycle is only a few days, the rate of genetic learning can be quite rapid. But for organisms that live a long time, one problem with relying substantially on genetic knowledge is that the rate of learning is too slow. It should therefore be advantageous if an organism can introduce some sort of flexibility to the way it acts on and with its environment within its lifetime.

Flexibility started with flexible genetic ideas. Where an organism is likely to encounter a number of different environments, it pays (in terms of survival) to have a number of genetic beliefs, sufficient to cater for these differences. A bird adopting a white plumage during winter in the snow and a brown plumage in summer is showing genetic flexibility with temperature change being the environmental cue. The bird believes genetically that white is the best camouflage in winter and brown for summer. A squid that adjusts its colour depending on its background will also gain camouflage. In these cases, actions taken depend on genetic beliefs. None of the forms generated is being stored permanently as part of the organism. Here, future forms the animals take do not depend on past forms. In contrast, an organism’s development could be insensitive to its environment, with it gaining some average form regardless of what environment was encountered. Such an organism would be disadvantaged where there is a large range of environments.

An acorn falling onto open ground will grow into a broad, thick-trunked oak tree with ample lower branches, while in a forest, where it is surrounded by many tall trees, it will grow into a tall tree with a long trunk and few lower branches. Two different environments have evoked two different structures from the same embryo. But, once grown, the form of the tree cannot be reversed; there is no going back. The genes that allow this flexibility cause a different form for the tree depending upon different environmental cues (the direction of sunlight). However, should the trees around a forest oak be cut down, light falling on the trunk will encourage side branches that would not have otherwise formed. The form of the tree is still flexible to some degree even after taking a particular growth path.

As the oak tree grows, its form is in part a record of the environment that the tree has encountered during its life, and future growth of the tree will depend in part on this record. The tree has ‘remembered’ its earlier experiences and grows (acts) in a way that takes these experiences into account. The form of the tree can be called ‘cultural knowledge’ and the direction of its future growth now depends on both its genetic any developed cultural knowledge. The form is ‘cultural’ in the sense that it has been ‘cultivated’ by the physical environment just as plants in a garden have been cultivated by the gardener (see note 4).

In humans, examples of early cultural knowledge could be an increase of muscle bulk through exercise, a sun-tanned skin, the formation of calluses, or the production of antibodies. Like the form of the oak tree, future changes in body structure depend in part on the state of the existing structures. Here muscle growth is slowed by further exercise, the rate of additional tanning decreases with exposure, and the callused worker becomes indifferent to the friction of tools. Through antibodies, diseases experienced in the past can be more easily resisted. The body has the genetic ability to record past experiences by altering its form. The process of storing cultural ideas is the process of learning through experience.

The main concept behind cultural knowledge is that an organism’s experiences must be recorded, with new actions depending on what has been recorded. An organ that evolved in animals to specialise in storing and recovering ideas was the brain. While an animal such as a wasp has a small brain, it can still remember the layout of its nest and features along the way to this nest, such as rocks and trees. Experiences of the wasp have been recorded in its brain and these cultural ideas assist in its survival. Also in the brain of the wasp are genetic ideas for navigation. The expression of these genetic ideas allows it to navigate by measuring the angle between its flight path and the direction of the sun. Both genetic and cultural ideas are in the brain at the same time and their interaction produces the flying movements necessary to take the wasp back to its nest. With the brain, a specialised organ for storing and recalling cultural ideas as well as mixing them with genetic knowledge, the wasp’s range of actions has increased. It need no longer rely solely on genetic ideas to direct its actions.

The cultural knowledge of the wasp cannot be passed to other wasps (not that a wasp needs to do this). It cannot pass ‘nest location’ ideas to its offspring or other wasps. All its cultural knowledge is non-transmittable. Each wasp must learn for itself all its own cultural knowledge. From here we can come to a very important conclusion: the first cultural knowledge that evolved was for an animal’s personal use, and not for sharing with others. Transmission of ideas was a later development. Cousins of the wasps, the bees, can transmit food location knowledge through specific dances, and as we go up in brain size, generally, greater and greater amounts of cultural knowledge can be transmitted. The ability for the different dances is genetic yet the specific dance decided upon (i.e. the location of certain nectar) is a cultural idea.

I had the opportunity of spending eight years observing the behaviour of fish in New Guinea. Two dominant genetic ideas in the fish’s brain are fear and hunger. Both can be modified by cultural ideas. A new fish that does not know what a diver looks like is very cautious when approached with food. In the fish’s brain, genetic ideas for fear and hunger struggle against each other for prominence, each trying to direct the fish’s actions. The result is a fish coming to the food in fits and starts, grabbing a piece and racing away, only to return again when its mouth is empty. The expression of the hunger idea is the fish swimming towards food and the expression of the fear idea is its hesitations and dashes away from the food.

It became clear that, in order for a fish to overcome its fear of divers, it needed to store cultural ideas of what divers with air tanks looked like. To this appearance a ‘no threat’ label was attached. The fish had learnt about the diver. Not anyone could turn up and a diver in unusual colours or carrying bulky camera equipment might still be regarded with caution. But when the diver matched the right image, the stored cultural ideas could override the fish’s fear and so allow its hunger ideas to express themselves without hindrance. By the fish’s actions, one could almost see the struggle of these genetic and cultural ideas occurring within the brain. The fish was thinking.

Eventually resident fish on underwater wrecks that we visited frequently got to know us, although the time for this process varied among species, and they relied confidently on their memories. When we fed these experienced fish, they threw all caution to the wind and I was lucky not to have the bag of food ripped from my hand. In the minds of the fish, there was a struggle of ideas for prominence. Cultural ideas for the diver’s appearance, non-aggression and food supply aligned with the genetic idea of hunger and caused the experienced fish to swim rapidly to the diver. On the other hand, the genetic fear of inexperienced fish won the struggles for prominence and so they kept away from the diver.

Sometimes an inexperienced fish would hesitate to take any food. It was reluctant to approach the diver and swam rapidly to and fro some distance away, observing both diver and food. It was in an agitated state caused by the intensity of the struggle of its ideas. The fish, in hesitating, was exploring its environment and so learning about the diver. It was taking in new cultural ideas and adding these to existing genetic ideas. Should another fish that had knowledge of the diver rush in and accept the food, this act would be observed by the hesitant fish. Here new cultural ideas of the diver’s safety entered the struggle of ideas in the hesitant fish’s brain, tipping the balance of this struggle against its genetic fear. The new ideas emboldened it and it too now took the food from the diver. Here the hesitant fish has learnt from the experienced fish and so a cultural idea was transmitted, although unintended, from one fish to another.

This transmission of cultural ideas was the next step in cultural evolution and it led to a revolution in communication among animals. It was probably first developed to any extent in nurturing, where ideas passed from parent to offspring. Nurturing is rare in fish. There is the odd species that raises and protects its young and, on even rarer occasions, teaches its offspring, but this is the exception rather than the rule. Most fish hatch from their eggs to find their parents long gone. They have to fend for themselves right from the beginning, relying initially on genetic knowledge and slowly adding to this any cultural knowledge they gain from their experiences.

In contrast to fish, a lion cub must be nurtured by its parents, in particular, the mother. The lion cub is born to a caring parent and relies on her for food and training. From this secure position it is able to explore its environment and so gain the cultural knowledge it will need for survival. The passing of cultural ideas in lions includes licks, caresses, rubbing, purring, roaring, growling, staring, scratching, and body posturing. All these ideas make up the lions’ language through which conversations take place about such things as mood, social position and hunting strategies.

One of the first genetic ideas that the cub obeys is to search for the mother’s breast. Play soon comes and with it the expression of fear and curiosity. A cub might stalk its mother’s flicking tail, with this first hunt being a safe one away from the piercing horns and kicking hoofs of a real animal. Curiosity will drive the cub to chase small animals and fear will hold it back from overdoing this play. During this nurturing period, the mother will pass intentionally to her cubs some of the knowledge gained during her lifetime. The cub observes the hunts of the pride and so learns about its environment. It also observes the caution of the older lions toward dangerous animals like porcupines, buffalo and elephants. When the lion begins its own hunts, it will add to its initial knowledge that which it learns from trial and error. Success is not so important at this stage as it will rely on food from the pride.

The lion, despite its cultural learning, still depends substantially on genetic ideas for survival. This can be seen from artificial situations such as zoo lions being rehabilitated to the wild. Old genetic ideas reassert themselves. Most of the lion’s hunting skills are still genetic: the crouched stalking position, the unsheathing of claws, and stalking into the wind. Even though these skills may never have been fully developed as a caged lion, its brain is able to exploit this dormant genetic knowledge and apply it to its new environment. These lions can learn remarkably quickly and usually survive this transmission if initially provided with some meat.

Rather than just sharing experiences and learning from trial and error, animals can think up new ideas for themselves. A lion, spying an animal, may first think of one way to catch it, and it may, if it thinks this first plan too dangerous or unlikely to work, swap to a new plan. By testing sets of ideas within the brain, the lion can eliminate some sets and keep others. The lion uses reasoning to formulate his line of attack. Here the risks are within the brain only. This process involves abstract thought in that the lion must think up new and original ideas on how to approach a particular hunt. New ideas can be created from old and these new ideas can be transmitted to others through socialisation. (Anyone who doubts the ability of animals to abstract and even out-smart humans on their home territory need only read the books The Man-eaters of Tsavo by Patterson, 1935, or the Man-eating Leopard of Rudraprayag by Corbett, 1947.)

Adult lions pass ideas intentionally to other adults. This socialisation allows communal hunting, a type of hunting that can only occur with an exchange of cultural ideas. By cooperating, lions can catch prey that they could not normally out-run. With a number of lions, lines of retreat can be cut off. The prey caught is usually large and a zebra (say) will provide one or two meals for a pride. If a single lion killed a zebra, all the meat could not be eaten in a single sitting and much energy would be spent in protecting it from scavengers. A group of hyenas can drive off a single lion and these would be the greater beneficiaries of the meat. The pride system is an efficient way of catching large prey and protecting the remains.

Here the lions benefit from socialisation; their chance of survival is increased. If contact between members of the same species is beneficial, offspring with improved genetic ideas for contact will be advantaged over those with poor ideas for contact. Of course there is an optimum to this process; eventually too much contact might no longer be beneficial. So, over time, socialisation ideas will evolve in species and this will vary from very strong to non-existent depending on the nature of the environment the species occupies. Socialisation is a genetic mutualism. For lions, the brain assists in this genetic socialisation by allowing recognition of the physical appearance and temperament of pride members. Socialisation then, while genetically initiated, is culturally realised.

It is surprising how many species of animals will accept humans as parents or substitute parents. The lion is driven to socialise genetically but in the case of a pet lion, this desire can only be realised by substituting humans for other lions. No doubt a good part of this acceptance comes from the will to live and so the human-offered food is unlikely to be rejected. Lions accept humans even though they are born with a genetic fear of them (probably evolved through the hunting of lions by natives, as feats of daring, or for protection of livestock). In general, mammals that operate in groups have a genetic desire to socialise and so, if members of their own species are absent, will ‘redirect’ this socialisation at humans (the idea of redirection is developed in Lorenz, 1966). After all, humans are animals, particularly from the eye-views of the animals with whom they interact.

The lion also has a genetic perception of most animals as food. To socialise with humans the lion must overcome these genetic ideas. The befriended lion has learnt culturally that the human is not dangerous and so it is this new piece of cultural knowledge that must win the struggle of ideas for prominence. Lions that have taken to eating humans have gained cultural ideas of humans as food and so have overcome their genetic fear of them. Lions that have been hunted by humans have gained cultural ideas that add to their genetic fear of humans; such lions can become exceedingly hard to catch.

The lions’ habit requires socialisation, whereas for other animals, such as leopards, their habit is to hunt singly, so socialisation has not been advantageous for all species. Leopards are solitary animals relying on surprise more than speed to catch prey. For new genetic ideas for cooperative hunting to be successful in a leopard cub, two leopards hunting as a team would need to catch more game than two hunting singly. Otherwise it pays for them to hunt alone. As leopards are not social, it is likely that cooperation does not increase their chance of survival.

Generally, the extent to which animals socialise depends on their lifestyles. Where interactions among individuals are beneficial to survival, genetic ideas for socialisation will evolve. For the predators above, the nature of their competitors, their prey size, the method of catching prey, and so on, have all influenced their degree of socialisation.

As we move from tree to wasp, fish, lion and human, the volume of cultural knowledge increases. For a tree, nearly all its knowledge is genetic, with some early cultural knowledge stored in its form. In wasps, most of their knowledge is still genetic except for some local, non-transmittable cultural knowledge. In fish, the amount of non-transmittable cultural knowledge has increased, with possibly a little transmittable knowledge, depending on the species and circumstance. In lions, genetic and non-transmittable cultural knowledge still dominate; however, the amount of transmittable cultural knowledge passed through socialisation and the teaching of cubs has become more significant.

In humans, examples given earlier of non-transmittable cultural knowledge were an increase of muscle bulk through exercise, a sun-tanned skin, the formation of calluses, or the production of antibodies. As well, all the little incidents from childhood, the scents of the land, what objects feel like, the experience of wind, sounds, colours, and memories of landscapes, are all stored in the brain. There are countless thousands of these private memories. The body has the genetic ability to store past experiences by altering the chemical patterns of the brain. These private memories would be impossible to tell to others or, even if they could be described, very difficult to convey using words. All these ideas are lost upon death.

The evolution of the brain was a huge step for animals, with many species becoming progressively less reliant on genetic knowledge as their brains evolved and improved their information processing ability. Genetic ideas in the human brain include those for hunger, curiosity, fear, libido, and also various desires including those for safety, warmth, socialisation and the nurturing of children. There are more than a hundred hormones produced not only by the stomach but also by other glands such as the pituitary, adrenal, gonads and even the brain itself (Bergland, 1985) that can initiate these genetic ideas. Hormones change the environment of the brain and so the direction the struggle of genetic and cultural ideas takes.

We experience these genetic and cultural struggles for prominence as thought. Each new thought becomes part of the mental environment and so changes this environment. New struggles now occur in this new environment and so on. A line of reasoning is developed which can cause hormones to be released and so pleasure experienced. For example, say the stomach has been empty for some time. Hormones will be sent to the brain by the stomach and so a feeling of hunger will result. Genetic ideas of hunger that align with cultural ideas for the location of food and where and how a meal can be prepared will win prominence. A line of reasoning develops and so a person will calculate the best method to satisfy these hunger feelings and these could range from going to the kitchen or going to a restaurant. A genetically inspired idea is realised culturally.

People’s moods, their emotional states, the way they feel, the sensations they are experiencing, their feelings of joy, love, fear, depression, and so on, are all different names for different ratios of hormones within the brain. Sometimes these hormonal states will be initiated from outside the body, such as a chance meeting with an old friend, or sometimes they will be initiated from within, such as the pain of an ulcer or melancholy from thoughts of past adventures. Our consciousness, then, is both this hormonal condition of the brain and the ongoing struggle of ideas. At any instant this consciousness has a certain momentum, a momentum that can change rapidly. Other words to describe this momentum are a person’s inclination, intention, purpose, or will.

What direction does this will take? The genetic goal of an organism is reproduction. From the genes’ eye-view the original purpose of the brain was to store and use non-transmittable cultural knowledge to assist with survival and so ultimately reproduction. If a person were confronted by a lion, the genetic idea ‘how can I escape’ will dominate the mind. Hormones, such as adrenaline released from fear will allow only thoughts of escape to win prominence. These ideas could be climbing a tree or running away. After the escape a feeling of relief will be the reward and this relief will involve changes in the types of hormones present in the brain. Different ratios of hormones underlie different emotional states. (For evidence, see the examples given by Bergland, 1985. In the analysis of tears, tears of happiness contained different hormones than tears of sadness.) By escaping, the person gained in happiness. The genetic will in this case is to increase happiness, and cultural ideas that assist in this process will win struggles in the mind and so be retained.

Other hormones, such as testosterone and oestrogen, have a longer-term effect. They will direct teenagers’ thoughts to the opposite sex and prepare them for starting families of their own. Here the will slowly turns in a different direction. Genetic ideas are activated at different stages of a person’s life.

We have evolved a hormonal system of reward and punishment for acts taken. From a genetic eye-view, a right action is one that increases the chance of reproduction and a wrong action is one that decreases it. When food is eaten the pleasant feeling of satiation occurs. In contrast, not eating is not in the long-term interest of the genes and so a hormonal wash that causes increasing pain the longer eating is avoided is the result. Labels we give for rewards for correct actions include admiration, exhilaration, joy, laughter, love, and orgasm. Labels given for punishments include nervousness, nausea, giddiness, vomiting, loneliness, thirst, fatigue, sleepiness, exhaustion, cramp, fear, shock, embarrassment, envy and jealousy. For example, a person with a strong genetic fear of heights might feel giddiness when on the roof of a tall building and so will avoid this situation in the future. In all cases the circumstances that have led to a particular hormonal wash will be remembered with those that cause happiness more likely to be sought in the future and those that did not, avoided. Through hormonal washes of pleasure and pain the actions of the body are genetically guided to the ultimate goal of reproduction.

Pleasure and pain are not necessarily separate and in some circumstances can also be intricately linked. For example, it is only when you have camped in the rain and mud that you can later appreciate a bath and linen. Having a bath that was routine before the trip now causes intense pleasure. Similarly, a person who suffers great hunger needs only the simplest food for satisfaction. While in many cases pain is necessary to understand pleasure, ongoing persistent pain, such as that from cancer, can destroy a person’s will to live.

One interesting example of how genes can use pain was demonstrated by the injection of painkillers to waterbuck during just before giving birth. The result was that the bonding between parent and offspring was reduced from those waterbuck that were injected and so did not suffer pain from giving birth (Marasis, 1971). The author suggested that the pain a woman feels on birth has evolved especially to bond the mother and child, with the link being that one wants to keep something that was hard or painful to obtain. We want to retain that in which there was an emotional investment.

People attempt to maximise their happiness but this perceived increase need not be immediate. A person may endure a boring job only because of the necessity of feeding children, which is perceived as the greater good. Here the genetic idea of nurture plays an important role in the struggle of ideas for prominence. A person may work at passing exams only because happiness in the form of a better job is hoped for in the future. Here genetic ideas for status and success are important. In both cases the path taken by humans is still one that results from the struggle for prominence of genetic and cultural ideas with the winning combination of ideas being those that make the case for the greatest overall perceived happiness. This desire to take this particular path of action is the will of the mind.

But is this the only will of the body? Remember that genetic ideas are within all the cells of the body, not just in brain cells. These cells work for the benefit of the body as a whole (cancer cells with errant genetic knowledge being an exception). A white blood cell has genetic ideas for consuming foreign cells, kidney cells have ideas for filtering the blood, and a heart has ideas for pumping blood. All these cells have genetic wills to act in a particular way not dissimilar to the tree with its genetic will to open or close its leaf pores.

If a finger is accidentally truncated, it can still survive many hours, and can often be surgically reattached within this time. Its cells are still living even though separate from the body. Each little cell in the finger has a functioning mechanism of its own, and its death results only from those necessities of cell metabolism no longer coming into the cell. Where the brain’s will is its ongoing momentum of genetic and cultural ideas, the cell’s will is only its ongoing genetic momentum.

A growing child will be capable of digesting food, breathing, sweating, fighting disease and a thousand and one other things, all necessary for the body’s metabolism and movements. The exact way it does this will vary from depending upon each embryo’s inherited genetic ideas. Inherited genetic ideas also affect conscious thought. People will vary genetically in a whole range of ambitions, desires, skills and talents. For example, the idea of coldness varies with one person happily swimming in a cold stream while another will not. Their inherited ideas on coldness has varied. The coldness ideas are present in the brain itself and take part in the decision of whether or not to swim. Similarly, one person might be good and music while another is good at sport. Many genes might contribute to these talents and these genes will make up an offspring’s genetic will. How a particular genetic will is realised will depend on the groups of cultural ideas (belief systems) to which a person is exposed.

4. Belief Systems

Before starting cultural belief systems, I will give a summary of genetic belief systems. These are groups of genetic ideas that tend to stay together. For example, a tree is a collection of cells where the genes of these cells are differentially expressed to form its various parts, such as its roots and leaves. A leaf is a genetic belief system of how to collect light for photosynthesis and a root is a genetic belief system of how to extract water from the soil. All the different parts of the tree need to cooperate to make life possible. The cells of the tree are automatically mutualistic in their relationships as they are all genetically identical. Mutualistic interaction does not imply success in reproduction. A tree with poor genes for photosynthesis will not survive regardless of how well its cells cooperate.

Similarly, with humans, the genetic ideas for making a kidney are a belief system on how to filter the blood and the ideas for a lung are a belief system on how to extract oxygen from the air. Both kidney and lung will vary in efficiency depending on a person’s particular genetic inheritance. The cells of the human body are in a mutualistic relationship. Organisms are therefore a collection of different genetic beliefs systems on how to act in particular environments with the ultimate goal being reproduction.

Also included in genetic belief systems are sets of ideas that cause the production of genetic artifacts. Examples could be bird nests, spider webs, rabbit burrows, and fingernails (made of a single chemical, keratin, not living cells). A fly caught in a spider’s web experiences the genetic ideas of the spider indirectly. A web that cannot hold the insects it ensnares will lead to the spider’s death. Genetic belief systems, whether part of an organism itself, or projected in the form of an artifact, survive differentially and so evolve into new and improved sets of ideas.

Belief systems include the behaviour of organisms. There are nearly always genetic rules to cover mating and, if the animals join in social groups, rules for socialisation. For example, a bird might need to do perfectly some elaborate dance to have any chance of mating. The genetic ideas for dancing are resident in its brain. A male lion will kill the cubs of an earlier male if it has just paired with their mother. With fighting dogs, the one that rolls on its back to expose its vulnerable stomach submits to the other and therefore ends the fight. It is a genetic belief that the winner must not take advantage of its position. Within species, genetic beliefs abound, and those members that do not obey them will reduce their chance of survival and therefore mating.

Animals can project their genetic beliefs onto other animals. A pet dog might be very friendly to children and anything can be done with it. But if given a bone it may run to a shady spot and start gnawing away. Should a child try to remove the bone the dog will now grip the bone tightly and growl. It assumes the child is another type of dog and emphasises to it the genetic rule that the first in the possession of food has the right to keep it. The child understands the language of the growls and stays away. If you like, the dog could be said to be ‘dogomorphising’ (humans are often accused of anthropomorphising when attempting to understand the emotions of animals) its genetic beliefs onto the human. The same genetic belief is known to children who, when given something such as a toy, take it straight away as their own property and may react strongly to any attempt to remove it, even by the person who has just given it to them.

Like genetic belief systems, cultural belief systems come in a number of forms. Languages and customs generally exist in the mind only and are passed from person to person through conversation and demonstration. Other cultural belief systems, while they originate in the mind, express themselves as cultural artifacts such as clothes or houses. Still other belief systems, like laws and morals, are predominately in the mind, but can also be recorded in books.

Cultural artifacts address genetic beliefs. Clothes address the genetic idea of coldness, or in some cases where clothes are worn for their beauty, ideas for attracting a mate. In house design, the door height addresses the physical size of people, windows address the genetic desire to see, roofs address the desire of deflecting rain, and fireplaces address the desire for warmth. All these cultural ideas for house design align with genetic need. Such cultural belief systems are successful in colonising new minds and the end result is that more houses are built and more clothes made.

A car addresses the genetic idea of legs. It allows us to travel further, quicker, and carry more. The car cultural belief system, in turn, consists of many smaller belief systems. For example, a part of a car, a carburettor, is centred on the idea of how to deliver fuel to the engine. Its designer believes it will work and has tested its functioning. Yet some of the original ideas on which the carburettor is built were formed in the minds of people long dead. The current designer just added some improvements. A carburettor that functions poorly will lead to ‘death’ of the old design and its replacement by a new design. A person, ignorant of a car’s mechanism, may have no idea of how this device works yet still experiences carburettor ideas indirectly as the car is driven, just as a fly caught in a spider’s web experiences the genetic ideas of the spider indirectly as it struggles to release itself. The car ideas are mutualistic with each other but this does not necessarily imply that the car works well or will not break down.

Other important inherited genetic beliefs are curiosity and the desire for hunting. Curiosity in primitive times would have caused the exploration of our environment in order to find new escape routes from predators, new ways to catch food and sheltered places for sleep. Curiosity is necessary for hunting. A spear is a product of curiosity and trial and error. It improved hunting and was useful in attacking other villages as well as defence from attack by others. A fighter jet is a more elaborate spear for more elaborate conflicts.

Some genetic ideas are difficult to address in our modern world except through cultural redirection. A genetic desire to hunt is redirected (as few animals are available for hunting today) to things like sports fishing, where the fish is released after capture for someone else to catch. A football game is redirected hunting where a ball is sought on a field, rather than an animal being sought in a forest. In both cases no food is gained by the effort. As the genetic desire for hunting is more prevalent amongst males, they dominate the physical sports.

Genetic curiosity and genetic hunting can also be redirected in games such as chess. Here the new layout of each position is a new landscape in which to hunt a solution. We are curious about each position from where an attack must be launched or escape routes found. In chess, hunting and curiosity are redirected for the sake of a hormonal wash alone, not usually for any material gain. The chase for a new idea gives sufficient pleasure with happiness resulting from a brilliant move. The game, a cultural belief system, addresses genetic need.

Science is the systematic exercise of curiosity and has led to the production of a host of artifacts that have improved living conditions and so has generally increased happiness. This advance was only possible in the first place due to the development of the brain and the voice box which allowed detailed communication. A further advantage was having flexible hands through which books could be made and through which ideas could be transferred indirectly to other people, including from anonymous persons and those long dead (something that animals possibly of similar intelligence, such as whales, could never do in their watery environment). This passing of cultural belief systems has become critical to modern societies and children are made to spend, sometimes against their will, long periods at schools to absorb them.

One can see from the examples above that genetic and cultural ideas are intricately linked. One important example is the idea of genetic opportunism, where, when expressed unrestrained has been labelled the ‘law of the jungle’. The rest of the chapter will be spent on this idea which will be central to the development of a morality for evolution later.

If we see a lion charge a cheetah and take the prey that it has just caught, we don’t think that the lion has acted badly. The cheetah, in turn, is upset at having its food stolen, but it too would probably think the lion has acted according to its habit. Indeed, it even expects to be chased from its food if discovered by a lion. Wild animals expect each other to behave opportunistically; that is, apply the genetic rule that strength and cunning should prevail. The lion’s actions are directed by its genes, particularly those for hunger and aggression. From a genetic eye-view it did well to obtain food without effort and so maximise its hormonal wash.

The same was true of early humans. The law-of-the-jungle genetic ideas prevailed and the strong, the cunning and the lucky had the greatest success. In primitive times, opportunism was the order of the day when dealing with unknown people. Genetic knowledge for lying, stealing, murder and rape could express itself where retaliation was unlikely. In humans, the law-of-the-jungle ideas did not apply to genetic mutualisms. A mother did not steal from her children rather, if possible, she would steal for her children. The first groups of humans were probably small with most related, and so the rules of interaction were covered by genetic mutualisms. Such is the case for the modern family where the genetic bonds between members can be very strong.

The next stage in the modification of law-of-the-jungle ideas was in the formation of cultural mutualisms. Unrelated people in the village could help each other on the understanding that this help may be returned at some other time. Such mutualisms encouraged reciprocal obligation (Axelrod, 1984). Within the village there would be an occasional conflict but this could be controlled by a headman or a group of elders. Should the village itself come under attack, the whole would act as one to repel the attackers. The village would survive or fail depending on its actions. Early village life was often tenuous and being conquered meant death or slavery (DuChallieu 1861, Ward 1910, Weeks 1913). Cooperation in the form of cultural mutualisms increased a village’s chance of survival.

One village raiding another was opportunism at the level of the village. Ancient armies, such as those of Alexander the Great, took it for granted that as conquerors they had the right to put anyone to the sword, take women for their own use, plunder a town and burn the remainder. With cultural ideas still in their infancy, genetic ideas dominated the struggles for prominence in people’s minds.

These genetic rules for opportunism are as strong today as they were in our past. Children are born with law-of-the-jungle genetic ideas and the strength of these ideas will vary from child to child, just as they vary in all their other talents. Today’s cultural laws attempt to control people who have been unable to rein in their excess opportunism through fines and imprisonment. A child must learn the cultural laws of the day in order to get the support and protection of the society in which it lives. It is obliged to accept not just these morals and laws but also the society’s language, customs and religion. It often has little choice in this, as this cultural knowledge is the only knowledge to which it is exposed. As the child grows, new ideas will be taken into its mind. The child learns that skipping school or cheating in exams brings a rebuke. The growing child is censured by the society for errant behaviour; behaviour different from that set out by the society’s rules, although often behaviour normal in earlier primitive times. People who inherit strong opportunism but absorb few cultural ideas to control this opportunism may make their way into the jail system.

For the male soldier, raiding, killing and raping are, from his genetic eye-view, good things to do. He might have a wife at home to whom he will return, but even so, it is in his genetic interest to produce extra children on the side. His genes would increase their chance of replication by such an action. Therefore we could expect genes for rape and pillage to have evolved and no doubt they still exist in modern humans. There were countless examples of rape in the Second World War, more recently in the ethnic wars of the former Yugoslavia, and still ongoing is the ethnic cleansing of Sudan. Where a woman has no defence and where a soldier knows that there is no retaliation in the chaos of war, rape is commonplace. Pillage, or looting, was at times, the sole object of wandering armies who relied on what they stole for survival. I am sure that in some periods of human history, those who behaved opportunistically gained more resources and left more offspring behind.

In contrast, a person can be rewarded for a courageous deed in wartime or a life of charity work by fame, money or medals. All these sorts of selfless acts are highly regarded by societies. By punishment and reward, the laws of a society are maintained and opportunistic genetic ideas reined in. The earlier law-of-the-jungle genetic ideas have been overridden by cultural belief systems and so a person’s behaviour is now modified.

Laws are belief systems that promote cultural mutualisms between a person and the resident society and they are needed for these societies to function. If laws are made through a common consensus, they should be beneficial to most individuals. If a law such as ‘do not steal’ is accepted by the majority, people can follow the genetic idea of accumulating materials (a idea against hard times) with a reduced risk of their materials being stolen. If a law of ‘do not rape’ is accepted, women will feel greater freedom in their contact with men. Laws are also needed for driving a car, for controlling dishonesty in the real estate industry, misrepresentation in most forms of advertising, and so on. Laws allow people to get a measure of the society in which they live, and adjust their behaviour accordingly.

In a democracy a law is made by common consensus and is an agreement between people on how to act. By obeying laws happiness should be maximised. But this is too idealistic as it is rare that laws are made by common consensus. In general, a panel of lawmakers will enact laws, the ideas for which are the outcome of the struggle of cultural and genetic ideas within their own minds, not the minds of all the people who must obey the law. In many cases these interests will coincide, but not always. Ideas compete in a number of minds through the medium of conversation, that is, through discussion. The people making the laws are likely to be those with the greatest ability for thrusting themselves forward in society and the laws they enact will generally align with their own interests. Their interest is, of course, to maximise their own happiness, rather than the happiness of the average person. Corruption occurs when the decisions that are made are not in the best interest of the body of people that the panel, committee, or political body, represents.

Yet the laws made cannot be too inequitable or else the average person may revolt by withdrawing labour through a strike, or there may be general unrest, rebellions or even revolutions. People can also protest the laws by migrating; for example, many of the Protestant Huguenots migrated to escape Catholic persecution. Laws made by political parties can have the objective of solidifying their grip over a country. This may involve laws for the repression of minority groups, laws that prevent an opposition political party from becoming established, or laws that ban marches and suppress free speech. If a country is run by a small number of elite families who own nearly all the property, and the military enforces the decisions of these families, the laws made will be such as to continue the existing inequality of wealth and power. Ideas need only reach prominence in the minds of the elite families. A dictator, such as Stalin, whose genetic opportunism extended to cruelty and revenge, could make laws that need only reach prominence in his own mind and so maximise his own personal hormonal wash. Anyone objecting to his rule could not escape as the borders were sealed.

Generally, despite any bias in laws, on average, the increase in cultural belief systems (the laws made, the artifacts constructed, the medical research carried out, and so on) has helped people to live longer and more comfortably, thereby increasing their chance of survival and so reproduction. Evidence for this is the large increase of population in the last few hundred years.

5. The Genes Deceived

From chapter three on cultural knowledge, the original purpose of the brain was to allow a change of ideas during one’s lifetime with the goal of enhancing the expression of genetic ideas by the addition of new cultural ideas. As well, our inherited genetic ideas have evolved to lead us, by hormonal reward and punishment, along the path of survival and eventually reproduction. Through seeking happiness we survive and reproduce.

Can this bond between happiness and reproduction be broken? The first cultural ideas we had were non-transmittable. These ideas were mutualistic with genetic ideas and so were no threat to this bond. This is still the case for wild animals today. A lion learns the layout of the land, including the best places for hunting, water, and shelter. A hormonal wash and so happiness results when the lion catches an animal, quenches its thirst or lies under a shady tree. These types of cultural ideas help it to survive and so eventually reproduce with none of these ideas subverting the bond between happiness and reproduction. The early cultural knowledge of humans would have also been similarly linked with survival and reproduction.

The modern human mind is different from earlier human minds. It contains a substantial body of cultural knowledge, considerably more than in primitive times. With this complexity came new belief systems and so new ways of experiencing happiness. Examples could be flying in planes, reading books, eating tasty foods or playing electronic games. A trip in a plane addresses the genetic idea of curiosity and so is an enhanced exploration of, or movement within, our environment. For those who stay at home, an adventure book can also be exploratory by redirecting the travel or hunting to the experience of others. Elaborate cooking recipes address genetic hunger with the food becoming tastier than in earlier times. Playing a search and destroy electronic game could be a redirected raid on a neighbouring village. All these new cultural ideas address genetic ideas that evolved in primitive times.

There are also new ways of experiencing unhappiness. Decreases in happiness could come from disapproval by one’s society, having ideas against the stream, slants by social institutions, dominating and chastising religions, repressive universities where mediocrity prevents innovation, and dull and repetitious jobs. All can lead to unpleasant hormonal washes with these states being given such names as guilt, melancholy, depression, and boredom.

New cultural knowledge includes a range of contraceptives (such as condoms, diaphragms, and pills) that can prevent fertilisation. Here culturally produced structures (artifacts) have allowed more frequent mating, often with different partners, resulting in greater volumes of hormones released and so increased happiness. Children are avoided. As a result, cultural ideas for the use of these contraceptives have proliferated. Through these artifacts, a person gains the genetic reward (sexual pleasure) without the genetic consequence (children). From a genetic eye-view, the cultural ideas for contraception are no longer mutualistic. The genes that promote the sexual act have been deceived. They have given the brain a hormonal wash but have not increased their chance of reproduction. While the body still opts for maximum happiness, in this case happiness and reproduction no longer go hand in hand.

Another example could be a Catholic priest’s celibacy. A cultural belief system has deceived a person into helping others rather than having and helping his own children. The reason a church might give for this enforced celibacy is that it avoids the distraction of family duties. The priest, now unencumbered, can devote more time to his parishioners. From a genetic eye-view, these celibacy ideas break the bond between reproduction and happiness by preventing reproduction. But the priest is not necessarily made unhappy by avoiding reproduction; he is rewarded by the satisfaction of helping his parishioners. The priest’s genetic ideas for nurturing have been redirected by religious cultural ideas into helping members of his flock, which have become, in his mind’s eye-view, his offspring. From this redirection, the priest gets a similar hormonal wash to what he would normally have received if he had helped his own children. His happiness may even be greater as he now has more ‘children’ than he could normally have had with a family. However, from the eye-view of the parishioners his actions are not selfish. His help assists in their survival and so reproduction, and this help need not be returned (although contributions will be made for his own and the church’s upkeep).

The Confucian and later Christian idea of ‘love your neighbour’ also exploits the genetic nurturing belief system. This idea is startling because it goes against what one would expect from evolution with its system of reciprocal mutualisms. It seems against genetic law. Its message is essentially to redirect one’s love, normally given to children, relatives and friends with whom there are genetic and cultural mutualisms established, to unknown people. By helping others where there is no chance of this help being returned, energy and time are lost and so these acts are wasteful from a genetic eye-view. Resources that could have been directed towards kin and friends are redirected to unknown people. However, the person can receive from this redirection a similar hormonal reward as if kin had been helped. Again, cultural ideas have broken the bond between happiness and reproduction.

These ‘selfless’ acts are encouraged by societies but not all people perform them (see note 5 on altruism). I think a lot depends on inherited genetic ideas as well as the cultural ideas sown in the mind at an early age. For example, for people who inherit strong nurturing ideas, one family might not be enough. After their children have grown up and gone their own ways, such people might care for other non-related children, possibly on behalf of some charity. By doing so they further satisfy their strong nurturing ideas and so continue to enjoy happiness. If the inherited nurturing talent is weak, there may be relief when the children have left home, or the couple may choose to have no children at all. A society often calls further nurturing acts, such as helping at an orphanage, selfless, but really they are still redirected genetically derived acts aimed at maintaining nurturing pleasure.

Other genetic ideas, such as those for socialisation, can also be redirected. A prisoner of war refusing to divulge the names or whereabouts of comrades (who are unlikely to be his kin) may suffer death as a result. As adults, these comrades hardly need nurturing but they still form part of a prisoner’s social group, even though absent. Much the same as villagers band together to defend themselves from attack, soldiers band together to protect their own kind. For a village, many people would be related and so it would be in one’s own genetic interest to combine with other villagers to fight an invader. However, from a genetic eye-view in an army of many thousands, it is questionable whether there is any reason to fight. Here cultural beliefs installed by army doctrine, such as ‘one should not betray friends’ or ‘be loyal to your unit’, have aligned with genetic ideas for socialisation to defeat strong will-to-live genetic ideas. The training of soldiers with their similar uniforms, haircuts, salutes, and so on, is a way of creating the village feeling of ‘we are all in this together’. Surprisingly, the prisoner may even perceive a net increase of happiness by this non-cooperation even though death is a reduction in happiness. It is the least negative outcome. The cultural ideas instilled in the prisoner’s mind would cause greater unhappiness had s/he lived with the knowledge that friends were betrayed.

In all these cases so far, people who redirect their actions are still acting to maximise their own happiness, even if this may no longer maximise their reproductive success. Their genes have been deceived. But this is not necessarily a bad thing. It is much better to have as your friends people with redirected nurturing ideas such as ‘love your neighbour’, or redirected socialisation ideas such as ‘support your comrades’. Your life will be happier in the company of these friends. They will help you for the sake of helping you, rather than for any expected return. Their actions are still to maximise their own happiness from redirecting genetic ideas, but from your eye-view, their actions result in an increase in your happiness.

It is interesting to look at some of the extreme actions that humans take, such as suicide and martyrdom in terms of the interplay of genetic and cultural ideas. After all, these acts hardly seem likely to benefit the person taking them. Roman soldiers such as Brutus and Mark Antony committed suicide because of loss of face when their armies failed. The Essenes of Qumran committed suicide by jumping over a cliff to avoid the humiliation of capture by the Romans. The Japanese samurai was capable of suicide if he failed in his allotted task. In 1978 about nine hundred people in Jonestown, Guyana, committed suicide by poison, most in the expectation of going to a better life after death. Love for a ruler can cause attendants to clamour to be buried alive with him (James, 1962). Today, religious martyrs happily drive trucks full of explosives into buildings killing themselves in the process, and so securing themselves a place in heaven.

These acts represent the extremes to which cultural knowledge can affect genetic knowledge. From a genetic eye-view, nothing could be more destructive. Normally, ideas for suicide will not survive in their struggle with will-to-live genetic knowledge. People lost in a desert or marooned in a life raft can undergo extraordinary hardships just to stay alive. Another genetic idea that will struggle against suicide ideas is the fear of pain. It is usually not easy to kill oneself, and the pain in doing so might be reason enough not to attempt it.

What struggle of ideas in the mind results in these acts? The first thing to note is that all these people had a reasonable stock of cultural ideas. I can’t imagine that suicide existed in primitive times because the amount of cultural knowledge was much lower. The cultural knowledge of non-human animals is also insufficient for suicide. In all the above examples, it was cultural knowledge that drove suicide and martyrdom, not genetic knowledge (I exclude here people with genetic errors of birth such as insanity, schizophrenia and so on). Remember that the original reason for the evolution of cultural knowledge was to increase the chance of reproduction of one’s genes, not to destroy them. The cultural knowledge learnt by the wasp, the fish, and the lion all increased their chances of survival. For cultural knowledge to now destroy the genes is a new turn of events.

One cultural belief favourable to suicide is that of life after death. These ideas will placate will-to-live genetic ideas. The person sees him/herself as not really dying, but going from one place to another. Many of the people of Jonestown genuinely believed that they were not really dying, but going from a painful earthly life to a blissful heavenly one. Greater happiness in heaven was the motive and so the act was still one of maximising happiness. Or else in the case of the Japanese samurai, the loss of face would result in a life too painful to bear. He thinks his pain will be less through suicide. Today many people suffer depression from overwork, financial crises, failed relationships and so on. Here genetic ideas have been depressed to the extent that their ability to struggle against invading cultural ideas for suicide is decreased. The will to live can be practically non-existent. In the case of the failed businessman, suicide is still the act of greatest happiness, in the sense of it being the act of least pain. Whatever the reason for suicide, from a genetic eye-view, any cultural ideas that cause death are disastrous. This is particularly the case if the person has not yet reproduced. An early death guarantees that the genes will not be passed to the next generation.

Another interesting type of suicide appears different from the ones above. If a spell is cast upon a person through witchcraft, all hope of living may be given up and the person might fret to death (Denton, 1993, found that the heart is voluntarily stopped by the brain). The person believes death is inevitable. Here the cultural ideas acquired in childhood are so strong that once people know that they have been bewitched, these cultural death ideas will win over will-to-live genetic ideas. The person sees no choice but death and, should death result, the genes will have again been deceived by cultural ideas. Often the only way to recover, as the condemned person’s mind sees it, is the removal of the spell by the same or another witch doctor. Removal-of-spell ideas then enter into the mind and align with genetic will-to-live ideas. The outcome is now survival.

Drug taking is another form of redirection that circumvents genetic ideas. Successful drugs, such as the opiates, chemically mimic various hormones that produce happiness in the brain. Through drugs a person can get a hormonal reward without addressing any genetic ideas. An externally produced ‘hormone’ rather than an internally produced one is used. The person’s acts are often redirected towards obtaining more of the drug rather than reproduction. Therefore, drugs can also break the bond between happiness and reproduction.

Modern cultural belief systems, such as fast cars, good restaurants, and holidays on tropical islands, all produce happiness, but, due to their cost, they can be at the expense of a large family or, in some cases, any family at all. The pleasure of these activities is placed before the pleasure of families. Evidence of this widespread gene deception lies in the decrease in the number of children per family in most western societies, where, coincidently, the volume of gene deceiving cultural belief systems has grown to be the highest. By rough correlation, the greater the volume of a society’s cultural knowledge, the more chance there is that ideas can invade to allow increased happiness at the expense of genetic reproduction.

But while cultural ideas that reduce reproduction are detrimental from a particular person’s genetic eye-view they are not necessarily detrimental to societies. There are already too many people in the world so a cultural redirection away from reproduction is a good thing. People can continue to be happy through redirection with less children being produced.

6. The Evolution of Religion

So far I have suggested that much of our knowledge is genetic with this knowledge being realised culturally. For example, the ability for language is genetically initiated and it is realised culturally through the particular language of the day, whether it be English or Japanese. Hunger is genetically initiated and it is satisfied through the local cuisine. Similarly, countless other genetic belief systems are realised through their cultural counterparts. I believe that another of these genetic belief systems is that for spiritualism and it is realised through the particular religion to which the growing child is exposed.

Evidence for genetic spiritualism is the differential interest people take in their local religion. Some are fascinated while others are disinterested and there is every grade in between. This differential interest is also found in other talents such as those for sport or music. A child who becomes a priest is likely to have inherited a stronger genetic spiritualism than other children. The child has a talent for religion. Further evidence comes from people with genetic errors such as temporal lobe epileptics who can experience strong religious feelings during attacks. Artificial magnetic stimulation of the temporal lobes of healthy people has caused similar feelings (Hamer, 2004).

Other evidence for genetic spiritualism is seen in spiritual tourism. During my travels in India I met many Westerners who were ‘spiritual’ tourists. They told me they were trying to satisfy some ‘innate’ or ‘inborn’ (different words for ‘genetic’) spiritual longing. This spiritual feeling was ‘deep within’. The Christianity to which they had been exposed to in their countries of origin had been unable to meet their needs. In India, most found that the various communities and ashrams, while there was an initial fascination, also failed to hold their interest in the long term.

What is the origin of this genetic spirituality? We have within us numerous genetic ideas including those for curiosity, wonder, love, nurturing and reflection. All could be part of and contribute to our reflective thoughts and so our spirituality. All could be extra ideas that are likely to be advantageous to survival. Such feelings include an elephant that mourns the loss of a companion and the same elephant’s melancholy when revisiting the bleached bones. Reflective thoughts and feelings that are more than the day-to-day running of one’s life have been considered by some (such as Hardy, 1975) as spiritual experiences. We could expect that this genetic spirituality to have evolved through the various ancestral species of humans.

Genetic ideas for spiritualism would not necessarily mean ‘god’ genes or anything like that. They could be genes for awe, wonder, imagination, veneration, and a willingness to believe in mysteries. Similarly, a person with a musical talent would not have flute or piano genes. They would just be genetically attracted towards playing and hearing music, although they may well prefer one instrument or style to another. When they act upon these genetic ideas and play music they are rewarded with hormonal washes. By taking on the religion of the day, a spiritually inclined person will also be rewarded by hormonal washes. He or she will be happier and more satisfied being in a religion than being without religion.

In chapter four on belief systems I gave examples of how cultural ideas have evolved to address genetic ideas. Houses and clothes address the need for shelter and warmth. Laws and morals address genetic law-of-the-jungle ideas. Cooking belief systems address genetic hunger. Similarly, the local religion would address not only our genetic spiritualism but a wide range of other genetic ideas such as those for socialisation, nurturing, fear and hope. Cuisine is to hunger what religion is to spiritualism.

This leads to the question of the origin of cultural religions. There have been many religions so there have been many origins. The initial seed must have reached prominence in at least one mind. Imagine a village with no religion. A person might say: ‘A fast is needed in order to ensure that our crops are successful.’ As this fast would only take a little time to perform, the village might fast rather than risk losing their crops. In this case the fast idea has gained support from the genetic fear of hunger in its struggle for prominence. The person who thinks up this idea might gain status in the eyes of the other villagers and so there could be a personal gain to spreading it. Remember that beliefs do not have to be true, they only need to be seen to ‘work’. The ritual for the protection of the crops must be seen to protect the crops from the villagers’ eye-views. If the crops are generally successful, then fasting will save the crops in the majority of cases. On the occasion that it does not, there is always the opportunity to say the ritual of fasting was not correctly followed. Some time later the same or another person declares that a sacrifice is needed with the fast. A place might be needed for this sacrifice and so a house is set aside for worship. People may begin to meet there. Maybe a crop spirit is thought to reside in the house, and so on. As the religion evolves, morals and rules of behaviour are included. The religion now provides a frame of reference for the individual through which the world can be viewed. Over time, a priest class will evolve to ensure the correct following of religious ideas. By a process of addition and modification of ideas, the religion will evolve and mature.

The priest class can exploit this situation and so live by intrigue, often becoming the ruling class or, if not, able to influence the ruling class. As mentioned in chapter four, laws are rarely equitable and usually favour those who make them, so we can expect religious ideas to favour priests. The priest class does not usually grow food or build houses and so a religion must contain ideas that cause wealth to come to this group. Here the priest class requires the satisfaction of both physical and spiritual needs, whereas the lay people get the satisfaction of only their spiritual needs. The cathedrals, temples and mosques that cover the planet are examples of the redirected efforts of the layperson. Some Christian sects expect a percentage of one’s earnings to be given for the upkeep of the priests and church infrastructure. A Buddhist idea is that it is good karma to give to monks allows these monks to survive. Embedded within religion doctrine are ideas that make the physical survival of the priest class possible.

A genetic idea of children is to seek the comfort and protection of their parents while growing up and so it seems a logical extension to create a mythological parent (god) to comfort and protect us as adults (Freud, 1913). A habit formed in childhood of someone looking over us is continued in adulthood. The cultural idea of ‘god’ addresses the genetic need for protection and security in the adult. Other examples of religions addressing genetic need include rituals that address the desire for stability in the form of habit. Revisiting relatives in some heaven satisfies our genetic social desire and the idea of not really dying addresses our genetic fear of death.

Fear is used to keep believers attached to religious doctrine, to maintain the status quo and to thwart ambitious thinkers. People who are curious as to whether religious doctrine is true or not can be suppressed with the idea of faith. People who persist with wrong thoughts run the risk of being excommunicated, or even murdered. Their chance of reproduction is reduced. In our history countless millions have suffered this fate and this suppression is still continuing through the religious wars of today. In contrast, for correct-thinking people, acceptance and help from the community as well as a heaven after death are the rewards.

Fear of death is a strong genetic idea. A cultural idea to address this fear is life after death; a cultural idea that is far from being an established truth. Only a dead person could confirm its existence, which is of course impossible. Yet to survive in people’s minds cultural ideas for an afterlife will get support from genetic will-to-live ideas in their struggle for prominence. A person is not really dying, just going from one place to another. Life after death is a comfort belief. Even if a person is doubtful about an afterlife, why take a risk with another belief system, such as evolution, which says that there is nothing after death?

Religions are not the only cultural belief systems to have evolved by offering comfort and protection. Pseudo-religious organisations like the Masons offer fellowship with strong bonds often forming among members. Similar is the army where some members can derive great comfort from belonging. Any problems can be referred to a higher rank and so a member need concentrate only on his or her allotted task with all other needs being met. In both cases socialisation and security is increased and responsibility decreased. A person joins in with a smaller and more manageable number of people than the society as a whole, possibly more like the size of villages in earlier times.

At least in regard to the evolution of new religions we can look at recorded history for clues. Scientology was created by L Ron Hubbard, the Christian Scientists by Mary Baker Eddy, and the Mormons by Joseph F Smith. The seed ideas to start these belief systems needed only to reach prominence in the minds of their creators. As others took them up new ideas were added and old ideas changed and the religions evolved.

It is interesting that nearly all religions have been started by males and so it is only natural to expect that the doctrines that arise are centred around the thoughts and activities of men. In the earlier discussion on laws, laws made were biased by the genetic and cultural ideas of the minds in which they were created; after all, it is in these minds that any new ideas must struggle for prominence. This religious bias toward men turns out to be the case. Most religions put men firmly at the head of the family. The education of boys usually takes precedence over that of girls. Women are usually barred from religious office or, if not, given unimportant roles. Some religions allow men more than one wife, but few allow women more than one husband, and so on. All these dissymmetries make it clear that religion is a male phenomenon.

Earlier I spoke of law-of-the-jungle genetic knowledge that results in humans behaving opportunistically. It consists of genetic ideas to lie, steal, cheat, murder and rape, and the strength of these inherited ideas will vary from person to person. This genetic opportunism was recognised by religions which, evolving in a time when biology was poorly understood, gave these genetic ideas labels such as ‘original sin’, ‘dark forces’, or the ‘devil’. For example, imagine a child at a party who sees a cake. The child’s genetic ideas say, ‘I want to eat the lot,’ while the cultural ideas it has just learnt say, ‘I should take one slice and leave the rest for others.’ The young child initially leans toward the genetic side but, as it grows and takes in more cultural ideas, its behaviour will move in the direction of sharing. The child is taught to label this genetic part ‘greed’ and ‘selfishness’ or even the devil trying to lead it astray and think of it as bad while the cultural components of restraint and sharing are good. Here the devil is ancient law-of-the-jungle genetic opportunism trying to win prominence in the mind. Ignorance of biology led to a parallel system of explanations, most of which are still in use today.

Like the child, adults will experience many of these types of struggles between genetic opportunism and the cultural morals and laws of the day. Their religion tells them that this is a struggle of good and bad forces. If they succumb and allow the bad forces to win, the result might be hell rather than heaven. The labelling of these opportunistic ideas as the work of outside forces (rather than the genes) has caused countless people worry and pain. The only excuse I can see for religions is that they knew no better. For primitive people, such law-of-the-jungle opportunism was good at the time; it gave people the skills necessary to keep themselves alive. We are only here today because of the existence of genetic opportunism; it is genetic knowledge that we should learn to tame rather than denigrate.

Cultural knowledge can be opportunistic as well. Examples include people caught in destructive religious cults and dictatorial political systems who find themselves participating in cruel acts that they would never have thought of, let alone done, under different cultural belief systems. Some religions allow people to use ‘karma’ or ‘God’s will’ to dissociate themselves from blame. A couple may say it is God’s will as to how many children they have and so it is not their responsibility to control their breeding. They then proceed to follow their nurturing instincts and produce as many children as they can feed. As over-population is currently causing environmental degradation that is only going to get worse for future generations, people must learn to rein in these opportunistic desires.

It is fairly safe to say that cultural belief systems, including science and religion, contain both factual and mythical components to varying extents. An early belief was that the sun revolved around the earth however this belief was later shown to be a myth. Two myths common to most religions are the existence of some higher authority, such as one or more Gods, and an afterlife, either through reincarnation or going to a heaven. These myths are still popular and probably have more believers than disbelievers. Most scientists consider these ideas mythical in the sense that they are far from being established truths, yet there is no doubt that they increase the happiness of many of the people who believe them. They are satisfying beliefs, and ones that cannot easily be proved or disproved.

Many myths entered belief systems because people like to think they are true. It is flattering to think that the Earth is the centre of the world. It enhances our importance in the universe. It satisfies our genetic desire for revenge to think that bad people will eventually be punished, if not in this world, at least in some later world. Christ is said to have had a virgin birth, came alive again after being killed, and to have fed thousands from a few loaves. It is natural to attribute special powers to people we admire. What were ordinary events have had magic added to them to embellish the stories. Impressive religions had a greater chance of survival. Such myths are protected from scrutiny because all evidence has long since disappeared. These ideas of magic are opportunistic in that they are untrue yet good for the survival of religions (although it is possible that these stories were not intended to be myths at the time of writing; for alternative explanations see Thiering, 1993). For those who believe in this magic, it is proof that the rest of Christian doctrine must be true.

The factual and mythical components of religion can be so intricately intertwined that it is often impossible to separate the two. A priest saying, ‘You want happiness, don’t you? Through Jesus you can find happiness.’ is mixing fact and myth. The first part of this statement is a genetic fact as the body is designed through the evolutionary process to seek happiness; the second part is a cultural myth, as adopting Jesus need not necessarily bring happiness. Through countless mixing techniques of myth and fact religions have been able to confuse the mind and so invade it.

Another example is the extensive use of music by religions. Feeling good from music is a genetic truth as hormonal washes can be obtained from music that has no religious connection. Religious sermons are nearly always supported with music in some form with the resulting enlightened feeling being used to support the truth of the sermon and, more generally, the truth of the religion’s ideas.

Physical objects, such as flames, alters, robes, icons, bibles, scared water, church buildings, and fetishes, can also be myths. They are set aside for religious use and all can be considered sacred. One is not meant to question why they have special status, they just do. All these things add to the awe and respect that some people have for religious belief systems. This ambiguity gives religions their strength. The religions that have survived (countless have gone to extinction) have all employed mystery in their doctrine. For the questioning believer, this mystery reduces the chance of ever getting to know the belief system completely or ever refuting its central ideas. One mystery is built upon another. Ideas for gods, heavens, angels, and devils have never been properly defined nor have religions any intention of defining them. To do so would be to undermine the mystery. For example, a person may be able to find an explanation of the trinity in his or her own mind (the relationship between God, Jesus and the holy ghost) and yet, when pressed, be unable to explain the meaning of ‘god’ or ‘ghost’. A book of facts can be quickly put aside after it is finished, but one that contains myths causes one to dwell upon it. Mystery excites the human imagination, that is, it addresses genetic curiosity. By never fully satisfying the curiosity, the curiosity is retained.

I believe that many of the mysterious ideas used by religion are metaphoric for some fundamental genetic truth. Take the word ‘soul’, for example. The idea of a soul has good survival value and so is prominent in one variation or another in most religions. It is necessary for the idea of life after death. People can witness a physical body decay so there must be some other substance that allows life after death. Say that a person tells us that when you die your soul leaves your body with this soul eventually being reborn in a different body. The word ‘soul’ is successful here because it says that we are not alone; there is something more than the physical body and people, being social animals, fear loneliness. The cultural idea of ‘soul’ addresses the genetic fear of death.

From a scientific viewpoint, the idea of a non-material soul, if limited to humans only, does have difficulties with evolutionary principles, one of these being the question of the boundary for the start of souls. If humans have souls and fish not, then, as we are evolved animals, with the majority of our ancestors non-human, there would have to be some boundary along the evolutionary tree where a parent did not have a soul and an offspring did. This seems difficult to believe. The alternative to this is that souls evolved in some graduated way along the evolutionary tree. Other problems include: if a soul is non-material, how can it interact with a material body? In humans, how does a personality developed during a lifetime pass to this immaterial form? I cannot see these problems being solved so I reject the idea of an immaterial soul.

It is easy to think of better explanations for the soul. Say we have a tray of coloured balls, by rearranging these balls we can make a pattern and so a message. By rearranging them further we can make a change to the previous message, and so on. Now there has been no material change; the exact number of atoms existed in the balls before and after the rearrangement, yet there is a new message that was not there before. Something new can be made without a net material change. The balls could be the atoms that make up the DNA of the brain and its neurons and hormones. In one sense these patterns are made from material and therefore are material, yet in another sense they are independent of the material and therefore immaterial. I will take the soul as something more than the brain itself yet still constructed of material. Where is the evidence for this line of reasoning? Say a person suffers a car accident. A knock can cause concussion and so damage to the brain. The pattern is upset, with some order of the brain chemicals changed. The person is no longer the same and can suffer a memory loss and even a permanent change in mood or personality. Part of the soul has disappeared. Upon death the pattern is destroyed completely and the soul no longer exists.

A person inherits half of his/her genes from each parent with the genes of these parents coming from grandparents and so on, back into antiquity. The genes themselves are patterns of chemicals that are more than the chemicals themselves. These chemical patterns have taken countless generations to evolve. The inherited pattern could be called a genetic soul. In this case the idea of reincarnation, that a soul comes from outside and inhabits a human body, is not too far from the truth. The genetic soul is inherited with half coming from each parent so in this sense the soul does come from outside the body. As the character of each child seems unique and predetermined by this parental inheritance, it is only natural for people, knowing no genetics, to assume that some ‘soul’ floated down and found residence in the newborn. A metaphor was created to explain the unknown and this metaphor is still taken literally by many people today.

There is also a cultural soul with new patterns of brain chemicals formed from remembering cultural ideas. All these retained patterns (genetic knowledge and non-transmittable and transmittable cultural knowledge) are more than the brain itself. Both genetic and cultural patterns combine to make up the overall soul with each pattern unique to every person. Part of the cultural soul can pass to others through conversations and any books that are written and part of the genetic soul can pass to offspring through sexual mating. This cultural passing of ideas, combined with the passing of genes to offspring, could constitute an afterlife for the soul.

7. Practising Evolution

When I tell people that I am an Evolutionist, they often reply: “what’s that?” For them evolution is science and therefore it could not contain sets of morals and laws by which to live. They see science and religion as separate; one is practical and the other is spiritual. Can evolution be a spiritual belief system in its own right, one by which a person can live without recourse to any of the traditional religions?

One characteristic I have noticed of people who choose Evolution as a belief system over the traditional religions is that they often come from a scientific, possibly biological, background. These sort of people, subject to a large dose of logic in their scientific training, seem less inclined to separate humans from other animals. We have evolved from other non-human animals. While we may have developed beliefs systems considerably more complex than any other animals, we are animals all the same.

People point to our elaborate artifacts as a major difference and it is indeed a large difference. While the other ape species have produced a few artifacts, these are minor compared to our buildings, computers and rockets. People also point to our religions as unique and say that these too separate us from non-human animals. But let us say that some tragedy befalls human kind and they are no more. Could anyone say with certainty that with this dominant and repressive species gone another species of ape could not, in a few million years, evolve to fill our place and so develop similar artifacts and religious belief systems? I doubt it.

It is my belief that Evolution will in time, possibly over hundreds or thousands of years, gradually replace the traditional religions we have today as people come to understand and appreciate science. It will be the final belief system and its success will be due to it being a system that has minimised myths and maximised logic.

If we take religions broadly as cultural belief systems that tell us how we came into existence, provide some moral system for living while we are alive and what happens after death, then no one would question that evolution explains the first and last criteria. That is, we came into existence through evolution and after death we die with no afterlife. We leave behind only genetic traces in the form of genes passed to children and cultural traces in the form of the conversations we have had and books that we have written. However, whether evolution provides a moral system is not so clear. Can we deduce from evolution a system of behaviours; that is, a system of rules and morals by which we can live?

We have within us genetic ideas to seek happiness and in this respect it is hard to go past the Bentham/Mill utilitarian view that the ultimate goal should be personal happiness, but not happiness at the expense of another’s happiness. Evolution though, seems more ruthless than this in that happiness should be the goal even if it is at the expense of another’s happiness (see note 5 on altruism). Evolution’s law-of-the-jungle opportunism is for the survival of the individual at any cost (and others with whom genetic and cultural mutualisms have been established). Help will not be given to strangers. Evolution supports selfishness rather than selflessness. If our behaviour was just genetically driven, it could be a very ruthless belief system with little forgiveness or charity. But life is also cultural and so laws have been created where ruthless behaviours can be repressed and punished and so this way of living is unlikely to produce happiness.

Religions contain ideas for the model believer to allow them to approach some sort of spiritual perfection. Many of these behaviours, such as forgiveness, charity and humility, are aimed at progression to some afterlife or rebirth. Perfect members are given titles such as ‘saint’. Perfection for the evolutionist would be adopting a set of cultural beliefs that best address his/her particular genetic ideas. By so doing a person will maximise happiness. It is still necessary to suppress those bits of law-of-the-jungle opportunism that are antagonistic to other members of the society and whose practice is likely to bring the society’s retribution. This ‘seeking of happiness’ without unduly reducing the happiness of others, is the moral system of Evolution.

To achieve this we must examine our personal genetic ideas very carefully so as to determine what ideas would be best to retain. Unwanted genetic ideas cannot be disposed of however through introspection we can adopt new cultural ideas that will override and redirect them. That is, we can mask the effect of many genetic ideas with new cultural ideas in much the same way as genetic opportunism has been reined in by morals (cultural ideas). As well as masking genetic ideas, we must eliminate detrimental cultural ideas and replace them with better cultural ideas. Such an approach will create an Evolutionist.

Cultural ideas can be obscure or even known unconsciously. We learn how to drive cars, catch trains, operate houses, and to use a computer. We learn the language, customs, economic systems, and religions of the day. We also often learn intolerance, racism, and bigotry. We take all this cultural knowledge for granted and it is rarely challenged by the young mind because it is not yet developed enough to mount a challenge. That is, most cultural ideas reach prominence as there is little other cultural knowledge in the mind to struggle against. It is here that the bad cultural habits of previous generations can survive and so be retained with little opposition. For many people, little thought will go into questioning how these cultural ideas came into existence in the first place and whether retaining them is worthwhile. In this sense, our bodies are receptacles for the genetic and cultural knowledge of our parents and the cultural knowledge of our societies.

What are some bad or misleading ideas that need to be replaced? I use the word ‘bad’ here in the sense that they are ideas that need to be overridden, replaced or masked. New cultural ideas that replace these bad ideas could be part of a moral system for the evolution belief system. This replace of genetic and cultural isdeas is best illustrated by example.

An example of bad genetic ideas could be those for taste; ideas that were fixed in primitive times. Taste for sweet, salty and fatty foods, as these were presumably scarce, evolved to give the greatest hormonal reward. These foods are now available in abundance. Cultural belief systems that address these genetic ideas include potato chips that are high in fat and salt and ice-cream and chocolate that are high in fat and sugar. This genetic situation can be made worse by boredom from an uninteresting life where eating becomes one of the few pleasures. People who inherit strong genetic talent for these tastes yet fail culturally to check them, will end up obese. This strong talent could also be seen as a genetic myth in that the genetic ideas are not valid in today’s world. Cultural belief systems for the manufacturing and advertising of chips, chocolate and ice cream that hide the health risks are bad for these obese people. An Evolutionary moral would be to override such genetic beliefs.

Another example of genetic knowledge that is out of synchronism with the modern world could be the quarrelling that often arises between parents and teenagers. Hormonal changes within teenagers generate libido and their thoughts turn towards the opposite sex. In primitive times they would be starting families of their own. However this is delayed in modern societies probably because the volume of knowledge needed to function in them is so great that it takes some time to learn. The breaking of the parent/offspring bond at puberty can be seen to occur naturally in other species. In lions and elephants the males leave their mothers and form groups of their own. For these species, mothers lose interest in their maturing male offspring and may even drive them away. However, in many modern human families, both male and female children can remain in the home well after puberty and this unnatural event can often lead to conflict. The children become moody with trivial incidents becoming major conflicts. Parents wonder at the change and wonder what they have done to cause it. When this quarrelling can be seen as a genetically normal part of growing up that is designed to separate teenagers and parents much of the conflict can be resolved. Evolutionary morality would contain cultural ideas that explain the mechanism behind this conflict to parents.

The genetic drive to reproduce can be very strong. In some countries it is a necessity as children provide the social security of the parents. In primitive times, war and disease kept populations in check so it was genetically advantageous to maximise one’s family size given enough food to feed them. But today, as there are so many people on Earth, an unrestrained genetic desire for breeding should be overridden with cultural ideas. An example is China’s one-child policy. The government reasons that the country will be physically unable to support future populations should the old birth rate be allowed to continue. Generally, if the Earth’s population continues to grow, then eventually the environment will be degraded to such an extent that biological forces will cause a large correction in the population, probably through disease or famine. Having more than two children would be considered a form of genetic nurturing greed for the parents in that they are demanding an increased share of the world’s resources than that needed to replace themselves. Their actions in regard to childbirth are therefore immoral from an evolutionary viewpoint in the sense that future generations will suffer from these actions.

Genetic greed can come in many forms. Americans make up four percent of the world’s population, yet they produce over twenty five percent of the atmospheric pollutants. Their inherited cultural knowledge has produced an excessive lifestyle that they are reluctant, or even unable, to abandon. The American government of the day acts aggressively toward other countries that threaten to interfere with the supply of materials that make this lifestyle possible. A reduction of happiness for future generations, not just in America but in other countries, will be the result of this greed.

Bad cultural ideas also need to be overridden. They include the repression of women who are often the victims of tribal customs where their treatment is as little more than objects for male possession. They may be denied education, given to a husband not of their choice, forced to marry at a young age, circumcised, beaten, and so on. They are reduced to the status of servants of men. As this cultural practice has been passed down through generations of men they think it a normal and possibly a desirable behaviour. For men, cultural ideas for the repression of women address their genetic desire to minimise their workload and maximise their control. From the woman’s eye-view all this repression is male selfishness as the cultural ideas enslave her. Unjust tribal customs have caused, and are still causing today, untold misery. Religions are unlikely to change this repression as they too originated from male thought and are often sympathetic to the repression ideas. None of this repression would have any part in an Evolution belief system.

Other cultural ideas can be good in moderation but bad in excess. Cultural ideas for excessive work can mentally imprison a person. As we need money to live work must be done. A lucky few have managed to find interesting jobs, but for many, work is ordinary at best and for some it is dull and repetitious. One would think that, as we have transferred most physical work to machines, we should only need to work one or two days a week. But people seem to be working longer than ever. This is because our needs, defined by persistent advertising, rise in proportion to output. Economic cultural belief systems that tell us that we need bigger houses, more cars and more frequent travel evolve by aligning with genetic ideas. The result is more hours of work rather than less. One step to increased happiness might be to recognise that we need considerably less than we think (or are told) we do. Evolution would contain cultural ideas for restraint and moderation and these ideas are likely to increase our happiness.

An undesirable cultural idea in religions is that for an afterlife which has allowed a sado-masochistic theme to develop in many religions, particularly Christianity. The idea that we must suffer in this life through self-flagellation, penance, confession, pilgrimage, and so on, in order to reach some sort of perfection and so an afterlife is a common idea. Such cultural beliefs would be pushed aside in Evolution. Here we are free from an afterlife with some sort of judgement as to how we conducted ourselves while alive. As there is no afterlife, enjoyment can be sought here and now without guilt.

There would also be no requirement for pacifism. Such a belief is also part of the sado-masochistic theme and would not be part of an Evolution moral system. Turning the other cheek and suffering under some tyrant without reaction, remaining in a loveless marriage (due to marriage vows), forgiveness of a person who continues to torment you; none of this would be part of evolution. We should not allow others to infringe upon our own happiness.

The above examples are general. More specifically, each person is unique genetically, and so each must choose those particular cultural systems that match his/her personality. One person might be happy living a quiet life on an island while another might love the bustle of a city life. There is no point in reversing roles where both are unhappy. The person who likes islands should live on an island and the person who likes cities should live in a city. The cultural ideas we choose to have should address those particular genetic talents that we inherit.

Finding out our particular genetic beliefs and the correct cultural ideas to address them is not necessarily easy. The genetic ideas are fixed and many of the cultural ideas have been absorbed at an early age and have become habit. From this habit a regular and predictable supply of hormonal washes is obtained. Why risk some new cultural belief system even if it does look attractive? The new cultural system is untried and so the hormonal rewards are uncertain. The more habitual a person is, the harder it will be for them to examine and change their resident ideas. These ideas can be good fighters in the struggles to prominence in the mind and will soon expel any new ideas that challenge them.

Many people allow these early ideas to direct their thoughts with their validity rarely challenged. This is deflating; we think ourselves important, and we think that we largely control and direct this struggle, but I fear that we have overestimated our control. People generally act out those genetic and cultural ideas passed to them with little to no change. Some people however, manage to control and to redirect their idea struggles more than others. Such people have been referred to as ‘disciplined’, ‘strong willed’, or ‘determined’.

It is time for us to get strong willed and ask: what is my genetic and cultural knowledge, and is any of it superfluous or detrimental to my needs? What ‘bad’ genetic and cultural ideas, such as in the examples above, have I resident in my mind? However, the very word ‘need’ is tainted because many of the things we think we need are really just things our genetic and cultural ideas tell us we need. These sources are biased, and to follow them may not lead to happiness. Wrong genetic or cultural ideas may set a course for the growing child that does not lead to happiness. The only hope here is that, in later life as an adult when some mental control may be regained over one’s life, the expression of these ideas can be checked and modified. Sometimes travel to different countries helps by allowing us to experience a new set of habits; a set of cultural ideas that may well be different from our own. We can then see our own ideas in a different light. It is this type of ‘standing back’ that we need to do with one part of our mind in order to see the other part.

Another method that might be helpful is meditation. By clearing one’s mind, the ideas within it can be seen more clearly. The process of meditation, whether through chanting, dancing, yoga or just sitting quietly, can be a pleasurable activity in itself. It produces various hormonal washes and so happiness. Many ascetics have advocated this activity as one that brings great rewards through knowing oneself. It is even possible for meditation to become addictive. Some religious devotees cannot go without their morning and evening meditations so habitualised have they become to the regular hormonal washes that they receive from these actions. Meditation is a genetic concept and a trip to the zoo will find numerous types of meditative addictions in the form of animals pacing up and down in their cages in repetitive patterns for relief from boredom. We will do the same if we find ourselves on some isolated railway station with five hours to wait for the next train.

Another way to change the cultural ideas of the mind might be to find a group of people who have many of the ideas that you also wish to have. As we are social animals there is a tendency to go towards the average of the people with whom we mix. Over time this new set of cultural ideas to which we have exposed ourselves will begin to win struggles in our minds and replace some of the unwanted ideas.

8. Notes

Here I present a series of notes that were difficult to fit into the text above, yet all add to an understanding of the evolutionary process.

Note 1.

Cultural belief systems address existing genetic belief systems so the cultural systems that arise are heavily dependent on what genetic systems already exist. But sometimes this relationship can go further with the cultural belief system influencing the direction of evolution of future genetic systems. One of the main ideas in chapter two was that species evolve to know genetically the environments in which they live. It should follow then, that if a species’ environment contains a particular cultural belief system, offspring born with new genetic ideas to accommodate that cultural belief system should have a greater chance of survival. Over time the species should learn genetically of this cultural belief system. I will look at two examples in detail to see if and how this happens. The first is the domestication of plants and animals, where organisms have had in the past, and still have, human cultural belief systems as part of their environment. The second example is medical, where humans have medical cultural belief systems as part of their environment.

Humans have learnt culturally to domesticate various organisms, this being a major advance in terms of human survival. Domesticated grasses, such as wheat and rice, have much larger grain sizes than their wild cousins and these grains can be stored against lean times. Cattle, sheep, pigs, goats, camels, fowl, and various other animals, have all helped provide a year-round source of food. They have also provided other products like milk, wool and hides. Animals such as horses provided transport and dogs were employed in hunting. Domestication allowed humans to move away from the direct hunting of wild animals and the collecting of wild plants. It gave a more reliable source of food that could be stored to cover lean seasons and, because of this, a greater village size was possible and so more extensive socialisation.

Part of the environment of these organisms contains humans. If, over time, species learn genetically about their environment then domestic organisms should also learn genetically about humans. In order to increase quality and quantity, farmers have been selective in their breeding. Wheat plants with new genetic ideas on how to produce a large, high-protein grain will have a greater chance of being re-sown. Cows with new genetic ideas for a greater volume or quality of milk will also increase their chance of breeding. Or in beef cattle, the fatter or better-behaved animals will be retained with lean and unruly ones eaten. Cultural perceptions of what are desirable characteristics become, over time, genetic ideas in domestic organisms. In this process of domestication, there is a knowledge transfer from one species to another. Many domesticated species could not now survive in the wild, so reliant have they become on the presence of humans in their environments.

While domestic organisms learn genetically about human cultural knowledge, is there any co-evolution? Do we change either genetically or culturally to accommodate domestic organisms? This is certainly true for cultural knowledge. Wheat farmers learn all they can about the nature of wheat. They will know the seasons to plant it, what moisture conditions it likes, how to fertilise it, and so on. A scientist might actually study the plant in detail, including its genes. All this is cultural knowledge and it exists only because a wild wheat plant was there in the first place. Therefore the genetic knowledge of the wheat plant and the cultural knowledge of humans have certainly co-evolved. The relationship between the wheat and humans appears mutualistic with each benefiting from the existence of the other. The number of wheat plants is now much greater than could have been possible had competition with other plants not been biased by a human component within their environment. The same mutualistic relationship exists between humans and the domestic cow with the cow also increasing considerably in numbers.

But the most interesting question here is whether humans have gained any genetic knowledge of wheat or cows. Is there a genetic co-evolution as there was between the termites and fungi in chapter two? Say a village existed some thousands of years ago whose main diet consists of wheat products such as bread. The genetic ideas of children born in this village will, of course, vary. As one of the main activities of the village is growing wheat, offspring with improved genetic ideas for cultivating wheat could be expected to have an increased chance of survival. If so, then over time through a succession of offspring, one would expect genetic ideas for wheat growing to evolve to know this wheat environment. There could arise a genetic talent for farming. These ideas might not be specific but rather be a general longing to cultivate the soil and sow and care for plants, just as there is in humans a general hunting talent, yet not to hunt any particular species or use any particular hunting style.

The same argument could be made for a child born in a village of pastoralists whose main activity is caring for cows, such as the Samburu of Kenya. The lives of these people depend on an intricate relationship with their cattle, with their blood and milk making up a part of their diet. For a young man, each cow is a prize possession. His wealth is measured by the number of cows he has and it is often only possible to marry by buying a wife through a gift of cows to her parents. It is in his interest to have an intricate knowledge of the habits of cows. Most of this cow knowledge would be cultural and learnt from other members of the tribe. Even so, a child born with greater cow-caring genetic ideas should be advantaged as genetic ideas for keeping cows would be directly related to reproductive success. It is hard to imagine that over tens of thousands of years some sort of genetic domestication talent, some genetic love for non-human animals, could not evolve.

For new genetic domestication ideas to have come into existence there would be a number of conditions. Firstly, there would need to have been new gene mutations or new shuffling of existing genes to create new domestication ideas. Secondly, humans must have been involved in the domestication process long enough for it to have had some genetic effect.

For the first point, the advantage of any new ideas need not be very great, with an advantage of just a few percent probably sufficient. Strong genetic ideas for nurturing have already arisen. As well, humans have evolved genetic ideas for socialisation. Maybe it is a small genetic step from nurturing children to nurturing plants and cows. It may also be a small genetic step from socialising with fellow humans to socialising with animals and plants. These two types of existing genetic ideas, could be modified, broadened or redirected to include other organisms. Any new genetic ideas to redirect some of this care, attention and socialisation could be called genetic domestication knowledge.

For the second point, there are records of agricultural practices in Mesopotamian cuneiform texts that date to 3200 BC. There are also references to products of grain such as bread, and flocks of animals kept by shepherds, in the Old Testament. How long it has been practised in Africa is hard to say. It seems likely that large villages containing hundreds of families would need the regular supply of food that was only possible with domestication. If domestication ideas were crucial to survival, then they would be genetically learnt very rapidly. If the advantage to survival were negligible, then they could take a long time to learn genetically, if learnt at all.

I believe that a genetic domestication talent exists and is variable in offspring, just as we vary in our other talents such as those for sport, music, mathematics and spirituality. Those who have inherited strong domestication are more likely to become involved with plants and animals, probably preferring the outdoor life. If, by necessity, they find themselves working in a city office block, they might dream of a country block with a duck pond and vegetable patch. Our past association with farming has left a genetic legacy, a yearning for the rural life.

The next case I will look at is that of medicine. Here it is not domestic animals that have had human belief systems as part of their environments, but humans themselves who have a human cultural belief system as part of their environment. The interaction is between genetic and cultural ideas of the same species.

Animals, including humans, have various medical genetic ideas for healing themselves: they know to lick cuts for the antiseptic properties of saliva, they will rest if muscles are strained or bones are broken, blood clots will seal cuts, and an infection from a wound will be fought by antibodies or phagocytes. The temperature of the body can be raised to defeat viruses and shivering can warm a cold body. The body has numerous genetic cures to help keep itself alive.

Humans will also learn genetically of new diseases. The black-death, influenza, smallpox and syphilis have all caused countless deaths. Genetic ideas vary in offspring and so a plague will leave alive those with the best genetic ideas for defeating the disease. Over time, to varying extents, Europeans have learnt genetically of these diseases and many have become resistant. But when Europeans colonised new countries, the indigenous inhabitants often had no genetic idea of these diseases and so whole populations were wiped out. Similarly, Europeans had greater susceptibility to diseases, such as malaria, as they had no genetic knowledge of this disease. For example, for some Africans, the genetic idea of sickle cell anaemia was a way of defeating malaria.

As the volume of human cultural ideas increased over the last few thousand years, cultural medical cures crept in to supplement genetic cures. The first cultural cures were not really cures at all but were more or less sorcery. A cure could involve performing a ritual including sacrificing some animal, having certain foods as taboo, making a fetish, or praying. Often the contraction of disease was associated with wrongdoing. Or else one person’s illness was because another had bewitched him or her. People still pray today for cures to diseases for which there are no genetic or cultural cures.

The next stage in the evolution of cultural medicine could be called ‘folk’ medicine. Different populations, such as the Chinese, developed many weird and wonderful concoctions for various illnesses. A lot of these cures took advantage of the wide variety of chemicals in plants. Cures were largely found by trial and error. Here people would notice that a herb has a particular effect. Later two herbs would be mixed to produce a greater effect, and so on. Mixtures of plants and their methods of application would improve over time. All these new cultural ideas would align with the genetic will-to-live in their struggle for prominence in the mind and so be willingly taken.

Science followed folk medicine and the first applications were mainly involved in extracting the active components of folk cures. Such was the case with quinine that came from the bark of the South American cinchona tree which the Indians used against malaria. Scientists were able to produce this alkaloid artificially and its use allowed extensive colonisation of Africa and South America. Aspirin was made from the bark of the willow tree. Similarly, science has refined and mixed countless other herbal medicines.

Over the last hundred years or so, there has been a systematic study of the human body. This scientific approach has added vast amounts of cultural knowledge for fighting disease. While most folk and scientific ideas work in healing the body, there will always be a few treatments that will have no effect or even a detrimental effect. Despite these failures, the net result has been an improvement of health and, with this, a longer life span and so an increase in population.

Like human cultural ideas being part of a domestic cow’s environment, cultural medical ideas are now part of a human’s environment and, over time, these ideas could influence the direction of the evolution of human genetic knowledge. Is this directional change good for humans? For example, say a mother’s birth is becoming difficult and so the doctor decides to give the child a caesarean birth. Many of these types of births are unnecessary and are done more for the mother to escape pain than for any danger to her life. But there are some that save the mother’s life, a life that would otherwise have been lost. If this operation is needed due to insufficient or poor genetic ideas for natural birth, say by the mother having too narrow a pelvis, then any offspring that now survive could well carry these narrow-pelvis genetic ideas. The ability for a natural birth has been reduced. Julius Caesar is said to have had this type of birth so this operation is not new. Cultural medical knowledge has allowed errant genetic ideas to survive where they would normally have been eliminated. If this practice is continued for long enough then genetic ideas allowing unaided births could decline to the extent that, in a thousand years or so, caesarean births will be the norm, not the exception. Like the wild wheat where human cultural knowledge led to the grain becoming plump, medical knowledge may lead to the pelvis becoming narrow. If so, cultural medical knowledge is changing genetic knowledge.

This same logic could be applied to countless other cultural medical practices. Poor medical genetic ideas might lead to health problems such as asthma, diabetes, cystic fibrosis, haemophilia, and so on. In primitive times many of these people would have had a reduced or no chance of survival. Medical cultural knowledge can now keep alive many who would have otherwise died. However, despite their cure they still retain the original genetic ideas and it is these that will be passed to offspring. (To counter this genetic decline there has recently been some attempt to screen foetuses by genetic testing of parents with known hereditary diseases.) The result will be a decline in the proportion of good genetic ideas in the population. In tandem, the number of cultural medical ideas will increase to compensate for this genetic decline. The net effect is that over time the responsibility for health passes from the genetic to the cultural.

Despite this trend to genetic decline, there has been a general improvement in health of the population from medical cultural ideas. People are living longer. However, this movement from genetic to cultural cures has led to an acceleration of the use of medical services. The ratio of doctors (agents of medical cultural knowledge) to members of the public has been steadily increasing, as have the resources consumed by medical cultural ideas. In the long term, if a good part of human endeavour is spent keeping alive a genetically weakened population, then our medical cultural ideas will be a burden rather than an asset.

Another problem with medical cultural knowledge includes its concentration within the minds of a few. If people are able to substantially provide their own cures (through genetic knowledge and some folk medicine), they retain some control over their lives. Where people have to rely on medical cultural knowledge in order just to survive then they have lost control to outside agents. This might result in people feeling as if they were controlled by others, particularly as they get older and more dependent on complex modern drugs. They have not been taught any folk medicine when young and so they are completely in the hands of medical agents. Many doctors are scornful of alternative or folk medicine and actively discourage people from taking an interest in these medicines and so taking some responsibility for their own health.

Rules for the application of medical knowledge can be made by a medical elite who end up exploiting the patient. In some places it is actually illegal to have a home birth or a birth without medical supervision. Here a law has managed to invade the minds of an elite (such as a medical board advising a hospital which may have a financial interest in increasing hospital use), so enforcing the acceptance of the law by the general public. The ideas that make up the law need only reach prominence in the minds of the people of the board and may not have survived had they been tested in other minds. One of the interests of doctors is to have plenty of patients; after all, they have to make a living. Genetic ideas for the accumulation of materials (profits) might therefore influence the direction of mental struggles. If so, this factor of self-interest will bias their decisions. The doctors might argue that it is safer for a mother in a hospital. Ironically, this will almost certainly be true in the future due to the gradual dilution of medical genetic ideas.

These two examples demonstrate that while the genetic and cultural belief systems exist at two distinct levels, and, while cultural systems address genetic systems, cultural systems can, in some cases, change the direction of evolution of genetic systems.

Note 2.

Evolution in its broader sense means an unfolding and so the process applies to both geology and biology. In the sun there is an evolution of atoms from lighter to heavier as matter is ‘burnt’ in a nuclear sense to produce energy, some of which we experience as sunlight. On Earth there is also a geological unfolding in the form of volcanic eruptions, erosion and sedimentation all which cause landscapes to evolve. For biology, evolution is taken as the differential survival of chemical patterns (DNA) in offspring where some of these patterns may vary from parental patterns. The presence of this process separates the biological from the geological and I believe it is the only process (or law) that exists in addition to other physical laws (gravity, nuclear, etc). This process is not present in the evolution of such things as crystals. While they can grow in infinite patterns (for example, snow crystals) and sometimes affect the growth of other crystals around them, new patterns do not survive differentially. There is no progressive line of change through which something significantly different from the original crystal can arise in time. The differential survival of offspring applies to both genetic and cultural ideas; there is a single process operating.

Note 3.

Some evolutionists may think that that I have made ‘group selection errors’ with my use of words. For example, by saying ‘otters learnt to use fur for protection from the cold’ appears to imply that the species as a group evolved. What I am really saying is that the differential survival of offspring results in those otters that best know their cold environment having the greatest chance of survival. The idea of fur then becomes widespread throughout the species. For convenience I have referred to a species learning this or that characteristic genetically, but I really mean learning via the differential survival of individuals. Evolution is at the level of the individual, not at the level of the species.

Note 4.

Is evolution teleological? That is, is evolution end-directed and so does it have similarities with the idea of destiny or fate? Maynard Smith (1968) in his book Mathematical Ideas in Biology outlines how the physical characteristics or the Earth determine to a large extent the evolution of organisms. For example, the strength of bone is proportional to the area of its cross-section while the weight of an animal is proportional to its volume. Therefore, as animals increase in size their weight increases faster than their bone strength and so limits the size they can grow. The larger the animal the more stress is placed on its bones. Gravitational strength is part of the destiny of shape for animals. Should gravity be half or twice its current strength, different animals would have evolved. Other conditions influencing biological evolution could be the makeup of the Earth’s atmosphere, the chemicals in the soil, the availability of water, the cycle of evaporation and rainfall, and so on. The physical form of the Earth is the End that directs, to a large extent, the forms which animals can take.

Within this band of physical possibilities there is a random element. Earlier I gave examples of animals that by chance developed different genetic ideas to solve the same environmental problem. Otters learnt genetically to use fur for warmth and whales learnt to use blubber. Similarly with desert plants, while they must evolve water conserving features in order to survive, they can do so in many different ways. So within the constraints imposed by the Earth’s characteristics, considerable variability is possible.

The same can be said for the evolution of cultural ideas. Physical conditions, availability of materials, the size of humans, existing genetic ideas, and so on, all constrain the cultural ideas that will come to exist in the mind. Houses address the genetic idea of shelter but their forms are still constrained by the wood, soil, and rocks necessary for their construction. Cooking styles also vary considerably, but the dishes produced are still constrained by the types of plants and animals that exist. Yet within these constraints there is an element of chance resulting in many different styles of building and cooking. Similarly with religions, while they are constrained by genetic ideas such as fear and hope, there is a random element in their formation that gives them considerable variety. End-directedness and randomness go together.

Note 5.

I have avoided the use of ‘altruism’ in the text above because of its controversial nature. Altruism is often confused with genetic or cultural mutualisms (see chapter 4) but it is neither of these if we take a strict sense of altruism of a person acting solely for the well being of another, making no gain for him/herself. Its existence has been hotly debated by philosophers. Many have concluded that all actions are selfish, denying that altruism exists. But it has certainly existed as there must have been occasional genetic aberrations in offspring for altruistic behaviour. These offspring would have been disadvantaged in terms of resources and so one would not expect new genetic ideas for altruism to flourish for more than a few generations.

If it is not genetic, can altruism be created by cultural ideas? Ideas such as ‘love your neighbour’ seem to be directing a person to act altruistically. Here one helps others simply for the sake of helping, rather than for any personal gain. A philosopher might reply that the altruistic person gets satisfaction from seeing the helped person happy. The evolutionist would call this altruistic help a redirected genetic idea for nurturing or socialising, with the reward being the same or similar as if one had helped kin. In both cases the action is still selfish from the eye-view of the helper as he is acting to maximise his happiness. But from the eye-view of the helped person, the helper appears to be acting altruistically.

In note one I argued that current medical practices could be producing a genetically weakened population. In a similar way, maybe our cultural beliefs are changing so that genetic aberrations for altruism are no longer detrimental. While a person born with a genetic tendency to altruism would be doomed to failure in primitive times, would this person be so disadvantaged in today’s world? Changed cultural ideas such as ‘love your neighbour’ may make a person with genetic altruism more attractive as a partner and so increase his/her chance of reproduction. If so, genuine genetic altruism could increase in frequency.

Note 6.

Chance seems important in shaping the belief systems of societies. Imagine that Christ, Mohammad or Buddha were born in modern times and studied science, geography and history at school. Imagine them looking down microscopes and travelling to foreign countries on their holidays. Do you think that their ideas would be different? Certainly, their whole outlook on life would have changed. They no doubt would have excelled but probably in different ways. Their ideas were products of their time. Similarly, Darwin born a hundred years later would not have needed to make the discoveries that he did.

Note 7.

Biological evolution, the differential survival of offspring, appears to occur in levels. The first level consisted of patterns of chemicals in the form of genes in cells and the second, patterns of chemicals in the form of ideas in minds. The second level emerged from the first and was only possible after the first level had become established. A third level could now be emerging from the second level in the form of patterns of zeros and ones in computers. Current computer programs are still products of human minds and so are still cultural ideas. But should these patterns become self-generating at sometime in the future, and where new patterns (offspring) become subject to differential survival in an electronic environment, new electronic ideas could emerge.

These layers of patterns are linked in the sense that each layer needs the layer below to exist. Mental ideas need a genetic body to reside in and electronic ideas need a human produced computer and a supply of electricity. One might speculate that the nature of the evolutionary process is to generate a succession of levels of chemical patterns with each pattern emerging from the level below. As the world has thousands of millions of years left in its evolution, a number of new levels might still be possible.

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