Science, Adventure, Philosophy, Personal Evolution
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
600 people reached the top of Mt. Everest in 2012. This blog got about 7,500 views in 2012. If every person who reached the top of Mt. Everest viewed this blog, it would have taken 13 years to get that many views.
Human caused climate change is an agreed upon scientific fact. Every major scientific association in the world that deals with some aspect of climate change agree that human activity has increased the levels of carbon dioxide [CO2] in our atmosphere, and subsequently, the temperature of the planet. As a result, polar and glacial ice is melting at phenomenal rates, threatening to destabilize the salinity of the oceans, destroy whole ecosystems, and submerge thousands of miles of coastline around the world. In recent years we’ve seen record temperatures, extreme weather, and changes in animal migratory and breeding patterns. If we continue down the path we are on, seasons will be permanently altered, ecosystems and food systems will fail all over the world, species will slide into extinction at a rate unseen in millions of years, and human beings will face their most uncertain future since the last ice age. If we continue to conduct business as usual and don’t do something to reduce the 90 million tons of CO2 we are putting into the atmosphere every day this is the legacy we will leave our children.
According to most demographers I am a member of Generation X. I was born in 1972 and my lifespan includes a time when the cell phones and the internet didn’t exist to a time when you could get, do, see or say almost anything online. I am also the father of two wonderful daughters, one has just entered high school, and the other is in the first grade. Both are brilliant, beautiful and full of wonder about the natural world. It is largely because of them that I chose to fly to San Francisco this past week to take part in the Climate Reality Project’s Climate Leader Corps Training. Despite their obvious similarities as sisters and in life experiences, according to demographers, my two daughters are members of different generations. According to those experts my older daughter [born in 1998] is a member of Generation Y, while my younger daughter [born in 2005] is a member of Generation Z. While I understand the reasons behind putting my daughters into different generations, I have started to classify everyone born after 1992 as part of one generation, The Climate Generation.
Much like the Greatest Generation and Baby Boomers, The Climate Generation is defined by the single most important impact on their lives, and that without a doubt, is climate change. The Climate Generation begins in 1992, coinciding with the Rio Earth Summit, the first of its kind and an unprecedented effort by the United Nations to bring together heads of state to lay out a responsible roadmap for environmental stewardship and sustainable development. Regardless of the successes and failures of the first Earth Summit, it marks an important juncture in human history, and marks the beginning of The Climate Generation.
In addition to the importance of the Rio Earth Summit, what we, as the parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles and mentors of The Climate Generation do about climate change will determine in large part what kind of lives they lead. Never before have older generations had so much responsibility heaped onto their shoulders. Not even The Greatest Generation, who defeated fascism preserving the promise of democracy during World War II, faced this kind of a challenge. For no matter how great a threat fascism was to free people all over the world, it hadn’t been building for hundreds of years, infiltrating every dimension of the global ecosystem, until it reached a critical point and immediately threatened our survival as a species. Climate change has done just that. Over hundreds of years of intensive resource extraction and fossil fuel use, we have saturated our global atmosphere with CO2, methane and the other greenhouse gases to the point where the entire system is infected. We have started to see the effects of this infection, in extreme weather, resulting in severe drought, intense flooding and uncontrollable wildfires. How we, as a global community, respond to this crisis, will determine if our children, The Climate Generation, have the better future we all hope for them, or if they face catastrophic fallout and a threat to their very survival.
On June 29th of this year a “derecho” traveled across the Midwest of the United States. A derecho is an extreme weather event that produces massive winds and often, intense downpours and can affect huge areas. The June 29th derecho arrived with little warning, and devastated huge areas of the country, including the area outside Athens, Ohio, where I live with my family. It destroyed homes and crops and left millions without power during a time of record heat and humidity. In fact, the days that followed the derecho were part of the hottest July in Ohio since the 1930’s. The week that followed was one of great challenge and distress for many, filled with more extreme storms. Despite the rains that came with the extreme storms the Midwest, and most of the rest of the country, have been gripped in the most severe drought in the United States in over 50 years, with over 65% of the country impacted. Crops are failing everywhere, livestock are succumbing to the stress and the world is facing potential food shortages.
The extreme weather conditions are not isolated to the United States, though. Drought has struck much of the developing world, leaving those reliant on growing their own food facing starvation. Drought is not the only danger facing other nations around the world. Widespread flooding has destroyed entire communities across Asia, leaving thousands without homes, to face uncertain futures as climate refugees.
In South America, drought, followed by intensive flooding has washed away the livelihoods of millions, leaving them without food, or worse. All the while, record temperatures around the world continue to dry up fresh water sources that millions rely on, killing crops, animals and people. With the wildfires in the west, the drought in the plains, the extreme wind and rain in the east and our propensity to focus on all things American, it’s easy to see these weather events as being U.S. in origin and scope, but that’s not the case. The extreme weather patterns and their fallout we are observing in the U.S. are part of a global phenomenon. People all over the world, from every walk of life, are dealing with the impacts of climate change everyday, and it promises to get worse, unless we take action.
Make no mistake, the challenge is great, and the scope of the problem could hardly be larger, but this is a challenge we must to rise to face. This is a battle we have to win. If we don’t, we will pay a price during our lifetime, but it will be our children and their children who suffer from our failure. It will be our children, and their children who face a world where temperatures have made massive areas of the globe inhospitable. They will face a world where sea level rise has consumed thousands of miles of coastline, creating millions of climate refugees. They will live in a time where species die off at rate unseen since the extinction of the dinosaurs. If we do not rise to face the challenge of climate change, our children will live in a world where the crops we all rely on will not grow, and the animals we utilize for food will die of disease, starvation and dehydration.
Despite this grim prospect, there is great reason to have hope. Over the past ten years the global community has made great strides to reduce our collective carbon footprint. We have decreased our dependence on fossil fuels, by increasing our production of renewable energy. We have increased energy efficiency standards across the globe, and developers are now incorporating smart energy use and greening of areas into their designs. The Climate Reality Project continues to train thousands of presenters who go out in their communities and together share the reality of climate change with millions of audiences around the world, from South Korea to San Francisco. Independent researchers and scientists from groups like the Climate Initiative and NASA continue to work on ways to reduce the amount of CO2 we put into the atmosphere and ways to remove the CO2 that is there already. Then, there is The Climate Generation itself. Our children care about Earth and they want to protect and help heal their home.
The other day, while packing for my trip to the Climate Leadership Training my first grader asked me why I had to go to San Francisco to train to present about climate change. Without hesitation I looked at her and said simply, “So you don’t have to.” Like most kids her age, she’s intensely curious and she wasn’t totally satisfied. So, in her typical take charge manner she replied, “What if I want to work on the climate problem?” After stopping to admire her can-do attitude and her genuine desire to care for “Mother Earth” as she calls our planet, I smiled and told her that if she wants to work on the climate problem when she grows up, I will help her in any way that I can, but I’m going to work on it now so it’s a choice for her and not something she has to do. After hearing this, she said simply, “Thanks Daddy, I love you.” In that moment my daughter, who turns seven in a few days, understood what everyone needs to about climate change. The problem is real and poses a great threat and the “grown-ups” have to do something about it, or it will be worse for the kids of today when they grow up. She also helped me understand what we all need to about her generation. If we, as the “grown-ups”, set the example and lead, she and the rest of The Climate Generation are eager to follow and carry on our work.
We, as a global community, need courage. We need leaders who accept the reality of climate change, the threat it poses to our survival as a species and who will put the needs of humanity above their own immediate profits, or those of their campaign contributors. We need leaders who will follow the advice of every major science organization in the world and put into place policies that will combat the causes of climate change. We need individuals who will demand that their elected officials act in such a way and who refuse to support leaders who do not. We need communities that will commit themselves to reducing their collective carbon footprint and to battling climate change at every turn. We need nations to end their addictions to fossil fuels and develop viable renewable energy sources and alternatives. This will take some sacrifice, but more than anything, it will take the courage to stand up for the future of our children.
One day The Climate Generation, will tell their children, and grandchildren about the great battle of the early part of the 21st century. Their story won’t focus on the “War on Terror”. It won’t focus on countries fighting against each other over resources, territory or ideology. Their story will focus, instead, on the global community, working together to combat the causes and impacts of climate change. Their story will focus on how their parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles and mentors faced a threat greater than any generation before them, and what they did about it. One day The Climate Generation will tell their children and grandchildren why the world they live in is the way it is. It is up to all of us to decide what kind of world they will be describing. Will it be a world, like the one I described above, or will it be a world where humanity faced the threat of climate change and won? It is time for us to ask ourselves, as a global community, what will be the legacy we leave to The Climate Generation?
Should the ruler thirst around the humane refund?
For those who were hoping for an extensive blog on Kony 2012, I have decided to refrain. It is obvious that the primary force behind the campaign, Jason Russell, is having some serious personal issues, and so I will leave it alone for now.
In a new book featured in the article “Humans Naturally Cooperative, Altruistic, Social”, Robert Sussman, Ph.D. and C. Robert Cloninger, MD claim that humans and other primates are inherently altruistic and that cooperation serves its own purposes, unrelated to competition. Their claim, while intriguing and attractive to most peace loving people, should incite great discussion and debate, and needs to be scrutinized carefully. Scrutiny is not something reserved for claims that we don’t agree with, but rather, needs to be the standard for all scientific claims.
In this case, the authors are making a claim that flies in the face of much of what we understand about human and non-human primate behavior and evolutionary theory. Altruism is a difficult concept to quantify in human populations, let alone non-human animals. I will mention altruism below, but first, I will focus on cooperation.
Cooperation is an important behavior in many social species, however, it is not as common as many believe. In the world of behavioral studies cooperation requires that two or more individuals act together to accomplish a task or goal, the result of which is that both gain more than they would have by acting alone. Female lions appear to cooperate when hunting, because they work together to bring down prey and are more successful hunting in prides than alone. Similarly, male chimpanzees cooperate to defend territories through group boundary patrols, the result of which is males being more successful than if they were to patrol alone [a behavior that could get them killed].
In the case of humans, cooperation is commonplace. On that point the authors and I agree on what the data indicate. We see cooperation in everything from communal farming and child-rearing, to modern day warfare, to baseball and other competitive sports. Humans are excellent cooperators, especially when compared to other animals. Through language, loyalty and a reliance on each other, we have become supreme cooperators.
The point where the authors and I diverge is in the conclusions we draw from the data. According to Sussman and Cloninger cooperation exists for its own sake, and is natural for humans and other primates. They claim that cooperation is not a by-product of competition, but rather that animals cooperate for cooperation’s sake. This largely ignores a wealth of data showing that cooperation is a strategy adopted by animals, including humans, that allows the cooperators to more effectively exploit their respective ecological niches and survive and reproduce at higher rates, than would otherwise be possible. In other words, cooperation allows individuals to more successfully compete for resources.
One of the difficulties in testing this idea in humans is that humans everywhere cooperate, a lot, and it’s hard to run an experiment where the subjects don’t cooperate. This supports the first position of Sussman and Cloninger, humans appear to “naturally” cooperate. This is nothing new, or surprising.
We have seen humans cooperating over the course of history, so many times that it doesn’t even make sense to cite individual cases. We have also seen that in those cases both parties, invariably, benefit from their cooperative actions. If both parties benefit, the behavior is seen as mutualistic and there is no need to invoke any special level of selection for the behavior. However, if those behaviors are one-sided in nature, resulting in the recipient receiving a benefit, while the provider suffers a cost, they are altruistic and need further explanation.
Almost fifty years ago Hamilton provided one possible explanation for seemingly altruistic behaviors, by pointing out that if genetic relatives live together in social groups, they should act preferentially toward one another. Kin selection has been supported in populations ranging from sickle-back fish, to ground squirrels to humans [think of the Bush and Kennedy political dynasties in the US] and has been recognized as an important factor in evolution.
Nearly forty years ago, Robert Trivers gave us one explanation for what appear to be one-sided cooperative behaviors, or altruism, reported for people worldwide. He introduced the term reciprocal altruism, which applies to both humans and non-humans, and states that if animals [including humans] have long-term social interactions that allow them to receive reciprocation of a cooperative or altruistic behavior consistently enough, they should be willing to cooperate, even if an immediate payoff is not obvious. His hypothesis has been supported over and over in numerous animal and human studies [think of political contributions by big oil].
While these two hypotheses explain much of the altruistic behaviors we see in the natural world, they do not explain them all. We still don’t know everything about altruism or altruistic behaviors, including the biochemical and psychological benefits received by the individuals providing the seemingly altruistic behaviors. One clue may be the fact that hardly anyone, anywhere feels bad when they do something for someone else. Instead, people everywhere appear to get a chemical rush out of acting cooperative and altruistic – it makes them happy. This may give an indication of the importance of those behaviors in our evolutionary past. It may be that it was so important for our ancestors to cooperate, even when their chances of immediate payoff were low, that selection favored those individuals who acted cooperatively, and they were inspired to do so because it felt good. This is somewhat like the reason that sex feels good. The short answer is: because in the evolutionary past, those who had more sex had more offspring, and those who got an immediate payoff through feeling good had more sex.
While intriguing, Sussman and Cloninger’s new book is really one of philosophy, not scientific inquiry. Their philosophy appears to be that resources are not limited, and that all organisms everywhere, do not have to compete for those resources. Much like the current rhetoric coming from one side of the debates over the economic crisis, they seem to think that resources are unlimited and that there need not be competition for those resources. This is the position one is led to if they carry out the two separate logics of: “I want everyone in America to be rich.” (Mitt Romney, 2011) and “Cooperation isn’t just a byproduct of competition, or something done only because both parties receive some benefit from the partnership, rather, altruism and cooperation are inherent in primates, including humans.” (Sussman, 2011).
Neither position is tenable if the once agreed upon fact of limited resources is recognized. For his part, Romney was pandering to the pressures exerted by the public and media over a position of not taxing corporations and wealthy individuals to shore up our economic woes. Sussman’s position, on the other hand stems from what appears to be a philosophical divide. Competition is one of the central tenets of evolutionary theory. Resources are limited for every population of animals throughout the world, resulting in competition for those resources. It is through competition that individuals are selected upon by natural forces and potential mates for their differing characteristics or traits.
It follows that it is only because they have to compete for resources that animals, including humans, cooperate and act altruistically.
I think a far more interesting question at this point, is when and why did cooperation become so intrinsically embedded in what we do as a species?
Just about 170 miles from the very spot where I’m writing this blog entry is the “Creation Museum” in Petersburg, Kentucky. It’s the most elaborate pseudoscientific construction ever created, in an attempt to convince large groups of people that a particular view, one that includes creationism and intelligent design, is correct. The “museum” goes as far as presenting dioramas of humans and dinosaurs coexisting, sometimes in a Flintstonian manner.
On the surface it is a comedy, a farce of serious museums, and if it weren’t so obvious what the founders of this “museum” were trying to accomplish, I would laugh with everyone else. However, a brief glance at their website reveals their true target demographic, and their intentions. The directors of the “Creation Museum” are targeting children with their propaganda, their online content and the programs they sponsor. They are trying to alter the basic understanding of evolution in this country, furthering their own agendas at the cost of our children’s education, and understanding of the world.
Ever since Darwin discovered natural selection, evolutionary scientists have struggled against dogmatic zealots who have pushed their agendas and personal philosophies in efforts to bend science to their own ends. From Darwin’s main critic, Bishop Wilberforce, to the “Father of Intelligent Design” Phillip Johnson, J.D., philosophical and religious agendas have threatened the science of evolution from its inception.
In recent years, groups such as the National Center for Science Education have provided rock solid arguments invalidating ideas such as intelligent design and “creation science” as scientific approaches to the world. In fact, a brief examination of their platforms reveals that they are philosophical at best, and usually theological at their core. This is not a bad thing, however, it is not science. For ideas to be scientific in nature they must produce testable hypotheses. Seemingly eloquent, but in reality ignorant, presentations of the complexity of the human eye concluding that there must be an “intelligent designer” behind such intricate forms are not scientific.
Despite the fact that it is clearly obvious that ID and “creation science” are not scientific in nature, there is still active debate among members of the general public. This is reflected in a recent Gallup Poll, which showed that while a majority of respondents believe in evolution, they are unsure about how it proceeds, or the role, if any of “God”.
I was thinking about this issue the other day when I received an email from a student in my Human Evolution class, telling me that he couldn’t make it to class that day because he had to go get an infected wisdom tooth pulled. Now, I’ve heard a lot of excuses for missing class, but this was a first, and knowing the student, I knew he must be in a fair amount of pain. I sent him a quick reply wishing him a speedy recovery and telling him that I’d see him when he returned to class. While I was replying to him, though, and throughout the rest of the day, I couldn’t help but think about the third molars in modern humans and how most people in western and non-western cultures either have them extracted or deal with impacted teeth and infections SILVESTRI ET AL ’03.
While some have argued that our jaws actually have plenty of room for our third molars, or “wisdom teeth”, empirical data do not support this position. Further, when we look at examples of earlier specimens of Homo sapiens we see that they had plenty of space for their third molars, or “wisdom teeth” TRINKAUS ET AL ’03.
These findings result in several observations and hypotheses and conclusions. First, third molars are useful in processing tough, gritty, grainy foods. Second, early humans had more space in their jaws than do modern-day humans 
. Third, human females prefer males with smaller, more feminine faces as long-term partners 
. Fourth, modern human populations eat softer, more processed food than earlier populations of humans did. These hypotheses can be tested, some have already, and the vast majority of studies support them.
Interestingly, the ID argument against hypotheses about reduction in third molars, often invoke evolutionary explanations, just without a connection to apes. In his article “Are wisdom teeth (third molars) vestiges of human evolution?” Jerry Bergman begins with this frame,
“A major conclusion of evolution is that the human jaw has shrunk from its much larger ape size to the smaller modern human size as humans evolved.”
In that initial wording in the Introduction to his article, Mr. Bergman reveals his bias and his primary issue. This is more obvious in his conclusion, when, after not providing any objective data he states that,
“The most important factor is probably diet, but the influence of other factors including mutations, needs to be examined more fully to understand why wisdom teeth are more often a problem today. The once common belief that wisdom teeth problems are related to putative evolutionary modifications has now been discredited…”. (emphasis added)
Diet (i.e. food) is one of the most important selective forces in all of evolution. Animal traits evolve in direct response to the foods they eat. Further, mutation is the source of all new variation in evolution and critical for evolution to occur. Both of the explanations used by Mr. Bergman are evolutionary in nature. It seems that the only way the Mr. Bergman can discredit ideas of humans evolving from apes is for humans to have evolved in a different way. Just a quick note to Mr. Bergman: We are apes, get over it.
The evidence all suggests that modern humans have undergone simultaneous sexual selection for smaller faces, and a relaxing of natural selection on the processing capabilities of our dentition, resulting in the current condition we observe across human populations. Adults who regularly need to have their third molars removed surgically, to prevent impaction, infection and extreme dental crowding. All of this has led me to ask the question, “How Intelligent Can a Designer be That Gave Humans “Wisdom Teeth?”
On the surface, it would seem that LeBron James and lasting peace in the Middle East have nothing in common, and I could make that argument myself, but I won’t. Instead, I will show how both are not only linked to one another, but to the celebration over the death of Osama bin Laden.
Since my original posting of Part I of this blog entry, there have been more developments surrounding this event. There have been questions about how bin Laden died, how his body was disposed of, and if he’s even dead. Beyond that, there have been questions of how bin Laden could have remained “hidden” in a million-dollar estate so close to the Pakistani military, how the US was able to get to him and just what the celebrations of his death mean for US and global society. At the same time, the “Arab Spring” in the Middle East is struggling to move forward, with draconian crackdowns in Syria, Bahrain and other countries, while the G8 pledges to support the movement. Israel and Palestine seem to be moving further from a plausible place of negotiation after Netanyahu’s obstinance during his Washington visit last week. All the while, LeBron James and his new team, the Miami Heat, steam-rolled the competition in the Eastern Conference playoffs to reach the NBA Finals for the second time in James’s storied career, where they will face the Dallas Mavericks. A fact that has many in Ohio, especially Cleveland Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert.
So, what does the reaction to the Heat reaching the Finals have to do with the celebrations over the death of bin Laden, and peace in the Middle East? Maybe everything. As I’ve stated numerous times before, our species is a lethally, territorial, xenophobic one. Males from different communities compete over territories, and they will attack each other, lethally if possible, when they have distinct advantages or the costs of not attacking are too high. While it’s obvious what lethal, territorial xenophobia has to do with the death of bin Laden and peace in the Middle East, it might seem less clearly connected to attitudes about LeBron James and the possibility of his winning his first NBA title.
In the eyes of many in and around sports, the city of Cleveland and the state of Ohio, King James committed to the ultimate act of betrayal. He left his home state, where he was the undisputed leader of a contending franchise, and joined a new team. From the perspective of a xenophobic species, he ceased to be a member of a specific “in-group” and became one of the “others”. When LeBron left Cleveland for Miami his actions elicited very primal reactions from those that admired and adored him. For an example, look at the open letter issued by his former boss, Dan Gilbert. Those reactions and feelings haven’t any dissipated over time. Many people in the city of Cleveland, and Cavaliers fans everywhere, genuinely hate LeBron James, and they do so because they feel betrayed and abandoned. What makes it worse is that those fans feel betrayed and abandoned by “one of their own”. To further the insult, he wasn’t a role player who came off the bench, he was the “chosen one”. LeBron James was supposed to not only save the city of Cleveland from decades of disappointment, he was supposed to rule the NBA, and he was going to take the Cavaliers with him. From the perspective of a xenophobic species, the alpha male left his group to side with an enemy, resulting in his former group mates feeling betrayed and abandoned.
Those same feelings are experienced by humans in all cultures, in all contexts, regardless of where they live. When we identify someone as a member of our in-group we empathize with them in a particular, unique way. Conversely, when we identify someone as a member of an out-group, an enemy, we empathize with them little, or not at all. The reaction of Cavaliers fans to LeBron James now that he is a member of an out-group is, at its core, the same base reaction of Israelis to Palestinians, or those celebrators and revelers to the death of Osama bin Laden. To be clear, I am not claiming that the reactions of sports fans are equal to those of members of different cultures in conflict, or people fearing for their lives. I’m suggesting that the behaviors stem from the same adaptations to selective forces that favored individuals who empathized strongly with in-group members and not with members of an out-group. While the stakes are obviously much higher in the cases of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the on-going war with al qaeda, the feelings share the same roots. Sports are simply ritualized forms of combat and competition that allow us to act out deeply ingrained coalitional, competitive and complex behaviors in ways that are, usually, not lethal. Part of the attraction of sport is that it allows us to form in-groups and out-groups in safe, stimulating environments, where we can act out aggression, friendship, and competition. In the cases of anger towards James, celebrations over the death of bin Laden, or the situation in the Middle East, we see all three of those behaviors, and many others, acted out in very different contexts. While those differences are important for the impacts they make on individuals and on society (the departure of James from Cleveland is, obviously, nowhere near as important as a struggle for national and personal survival) it is the similarities in the reactions of the groups that reveal our evolutionary heritage. It is in the similarities in the reactions of these disparate groups that we see how rooted in our evolutionary past our current behaviors are.
At 11:35 EST on May 1, 2011 the United States and the world were provided with information that thousands have been waiting for for nearly a decade: Osama bin Laden is dead. President Barack Obama in a televised news conference informed the world that a US special forces team had raided a compound in Pakistan and killed the Al Qaeda leader. Almost immediately people started to gather outside the White House in Washington, DC and what started with 30-40 revelers turned into a world-wide event that stretched to Times Square and a Mets/Phillies game in NYC and even took hold in Athens, Ohio.
Many in the media have embraced the impromptu celebrations, and even Rush Limbaugh praised the actions of the Obama Administration (though he has since backtracked). Still, some have questioned their appropriateness, and what it says about our civilization. Recently, on the Huffington Post, Dr. Pamela Gerloff wrote about the psychology of revenge and why we shouldn’t celebrate the death of Osama bin Laden. That sentiment has spread around the social networking site Facebook in the form of a false Martin Luther King, Jr. quote,
“I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy. Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”
While it appears that the heroic, transformational civil rights leader never said these exact words, the comments are not unreasonably assigned to him, and the sentiment is the key.
A genuine, visceral backlash in response to the peaceful, patriotic mobs seen on the streets of the US and around the world is emerging in text messages, emails, tweets, and op-eds. I use the term mob here, because that is what the groups of revelers are, they are mobs. However, much like flash mobs, these are non-violent celebrations, which provide safe places to express emotions about an identified enemy and our nation. While some are morally outraged that people are celebrating the death of another human, some are skeptical of the patriotic feelings of those involved, and are uncomfortable with the public display.
In her article, Dr. Gerloff stated that, “”Celebrating” the killing of any member of our species — for example, by chanting “USA! USA!” and singing “The Star Spangled Banner” outside the White House or jubilantly demonstrating in the streets — is a violation of human dignity. Regardless of the perceived degree of “good” or “evil” in any of us, we are all, each of us, human. To celebrate the killing of a life, any life, is a failure to honor life’s inherent sanctity.” Instead, she suggested that the death of Osama bin Laden provides us with an opportunity to assess what kind of nation and species we want to be. She went on to say that, “We could start by not celebrating the killing of another.” To her credit, Dr. Gerloff stated that, “We are not a peaceful species. Nor are we a peaceful nation. The celebrations of this killing throughout the country draw attention to these facts.” However, I would argue that she and the other critics and detractors are missing an important lesson that this historic moment offers to teach us.
The reaction of thousands around the US and the world provides us with a glimpse into our own psychology. Not the psychology that has developed over the course of our lifetimes, but the psychology that has evolved over million of years of partially closed social groups of related males competing violently with other groups for resources and territories. The impromptu celebrations that began around midnight Monday morning and lasted well into the early morning hours were not planned, they were not organized, they were the rawest of human emotion and data. Those gatherings were the result of the human mind and collective experience being exposed to a life-threatening traumatic event (9/11), then provided with one, centralized cause and target of that event. The final piece of the puzzle was provided with President Obama’s address of the nation late Sunday night. Osama bin Laden, for many, represented evil, but beyond that, he represented the source of an invasion on our way of life. He was the ultimate “outsider” and the target of deep lethally xenophobic feelings that were both justified and accentuated by our government, the media and bin Laden himself.
As the leader of Al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden took it upon himself to antagonize, demonize and threaten the United States. While he may have thought that it was necessary for his own survival, when he claimed responsibility for the deaths of over 3000 Americans, the die was cast. The reaction of ordinary citizens to the news that he was dead was predictable, almost unavoidable from the perspective of evolutionary psychology. It was the reaction of a group of primates, celebrating in the elimination of a threat and rival. In those hours after the announcement, it was nothing more, nothing less, and we need to understand that. We need to understand that for all of our language and culture and “civilization” we are, at our core as a species, a lethally xenophobic primate.
In her article, Gerloff suggests that, “We will only have peace when we stop the cycle of jubilation over acts of violence. Who will stop the cycle? If not us, who? If not you and I, who will it be?” This is an admirable intellectual position to take, and one that I agree with in principle. However, it is naïve to think that we as a group can simply put aside our evolved behaviors and emotions and embrace a new psychology to “consciously evolve” toward the kind of species we aspire to be. Instead, we need to understand why the death of a leader from another community matters, and why we have such strong emotional reactions to it.
Human babies are regularly born facing the opposite direction of their mothers, a position that has often been reported to be unique to our species (Rosenberg & Trevathan, 2002). In a recent report in the journal Biology Letters, Satoshi Hirata, Koki Fuwa, Keiko Sugama, Kiyo Kusunoki and Hideko Takeshita of the Great Ape Research Institute of Hayashibara Biochemical Laboratories in Okayama, Japan report that chimpanzees also give birth to offspring in a similar position, a position called “occiput anterior”. Joseph Milton of Nature magazine reported that, “The discovery…calls into question the argument that backwards-facing babies were an important factor in the evolution of midwifery in humans.”
It has long been suggested that the regular practice of human females receiving assistance during childbirth is unique in our species and due to the typical position of human infants during the process (Rosenberg & Trevathan, 2002). Mechanically, human infants need to rotate during labor and emerge with their faces opposite those of their mothers to most effectively protect their brains. However, it has been assumed that this position makes it difficult for mothers to give birth on their own, because they can’t reach back and clear an airway for their new infants (Rosenberg & Trevathan, 2002). The result, some have argued, has been a long history of midwifery, or helpers, throughout the course of human evolution.
Hirata et al’s report has started a debate about the presumed uniqueness of human birth and what it means if chimpanzees have similar births. Interestingly, their report, which is causing so much uproar, is of three births in captivity. To further complicate matters, the researchers report to having been in the enclosures with the chimpanzees when they gave birth. While it is almost certain that their presence did not impact the orientation of the infants during labor, it is still highly irregular and not objective science. The sample size in this report, however, is a different story. Sample sizes are critical to help ensure that observations are not of anomalous phenomena. While I doubt that these three chimpanzees all had infants in irregular positions, more data is needed before conclusions can be drawn about species typical patterns during child birth in chimpanzees. Beyond this new information on childbirth in chimpanzees, more data is needed on childbirth in the other ape species. Given the long history of apes in captivity in zoos and sanctuaries, it’s surprising that those data are not already known.
If the data from this current study hold up over time, just what does it mean for studies of human evolution? Trevathan originally hypothesized that the orientation of human infants during delivery is part of the unique adaptive suite of encephalization and pelvic shape in humans, and that it was directly connected to the notion of helpers during labor (something also proposed to be unique to humans). Some researchers have taken that notion of helpers to develop hypotheses about midwifery and its history in the human lineage. While statements like the “…evolution of midwifery” are a little fanciful, most researchers agreed that the orientation of human infants during delivery, combined with the orientation of the pelvis and the difficulty of modern childbirth make it difficult for human females to deliver on their own. While it’s true that most female primates give birth on their own, there have been reports of helpers assisting during childbirth in common marmosets (Rutherford, personal communication).
One thing that was unknown before this report, and is still not completely resolved, is when the occiput anterior orientation of human infants first emerged. If these data are confirmed by further studies it could mean that this position, once thought to be unique to humans has a deep evolutionary history, or that it represents variation across primates. Simply put, we need more data to be able to say whether or not this pattern is unique to chimpanzees and humans, unique to humans, chimpanzees and bonobos, or a more generalized pattern seen in other primates. For studies of human evolution, it doesn’t shatter any paradigms, but it should serve as a lesson: We need to be as complete as possible in our data collection, as thorough as possible in our analyses, and as careful as possible in our conclusions.
As we gather more and more data, on more and more different primate and animal species, we continue to see that humans are not unique after all. Instead, the pattern that is emerging is that humans share so much in common with the other primates that the line between the two is a blur. The one thing that is clear is our place in nature. We are apes, primates, mammals, vertebrates, and the product of evolution by natural selection.
