History’s never-ending tale of greed and violence suggests that humans are simply born to be bad.
But new scientific evidence supports the idea that altruism is hardwired into all but the most hardened sociopaths, the result of thousands of years of evolutionary biology that has kept societies from slipping into anarchy.
Though the stressed parents of petulant children might question why, toddlers are at the center of some research. Babies reveal an innate inclination to help, the Times reported, even before the socialization process has fully begun. By age three, children in groups enforce social rules, just as primitive hunter-gatherer societies would have long ago, when it was a matter of survival.
Jane E. Brody wrote in The Times that some experts believe babies reveal empathy when they whimper at the sound of another infant crying or hand a favorite toy or blanket to a friend who is upset.
Frans de Waal, a primatologist and author of “The Age of Empathy,’’ has focused his research on aggression, but has concluded that it is overrated since natural selection would have favored cooperation. “We’re preprogrammed to reach out,’’ Dr. de Wall has written. “Empathy is an automated response over which we have limited control.’’
M.R.I scans support this, revealing high activity in the pleasure centers when people are involved in activities that involve social cooperation. As The Times’s Natalie Angier wrote, “people cooperate because it feels good.’’ Even die-hard atheists might admit that this natural inclination to cooperate may have, historically, been channeled through religion.
Again, this may have originated with with early hunter-gatherer societies. Nicholas Wade, the author of “The Faith Instinct’’ and a Times reporter, suggests that religion may have “bound people together, committing them to put their community’s needs ahead of their own self-interest.’’
And though humans may have made a mess of the planet, the urge to clean it up may be innate as well. Daniel B. Smith wrote of a collective “ecological unconscious,’’ which is being explored in the burgeoning study of ecopsychology, in a recent issue of the Times Sunday magazine.
Experts in the field believe that the evolution of the human mind has been so interconnected with nature that being detached from it is profoundly harmful.
“Despair and anxiety are the consequences of dismissing deeprooted ecological instincts,’’ Mr. Smith wrote, adding that “an imperiled environment creates an imperiled mind.’’
The question of whether humans will choose to do the right thing by the planet may not be answered by science. But a few optimists in the scientific community stress that these innate urges for cooperation, altruism and preserving nature will continue to guide us.
As Dr. de Waal wrote, “I’d argue that biology constitutes our best hope. One can only shudder at the thought that the humaneness of our societies would depend on the whims of politics, culture or religion.”
KEVIN DELANEY
