everything in my work makes sense only
in the light of evolution today I’d like
to tell you about why I think we need a
deeper understanding of how Darwinian
evolution has shaped to mind and
motivations of the human animal and in
particular why it hasn’t made us as
smart as we often think we are here’s
why it matters
civilization as we know it is in trouble
we’ve become too successful there are
too many of us now and we’re trashing
the planet we got this way because of
what we are and the critical question is
are we equipped to respond effectively
to what we have done there is no reason
to suspect that we should be and there
is plenty of reason to suspect that we
may not be here I argue that being
equipped will depend on whether we can
come to a deeper and more broadly public
understanding of what we are and this
will require understanding that what we
are is from the past and so what are we
humans are fascinated with themselves
our obsession with this question is why
the arts and humanities exist they have
given us more than science a mirror of
the inner self showing how the
motivations and social lives and
cultures of humans are unlike any other
creature but they have not shown us why
and they have never aspired to do so the
arts and humanities thrive by leaving
the water art we question essentially
unanswered as an enduring and revered
mystery but evolutionary biology has
given us a very clear and certain
perspective of what we are we are an
animal among many millions of others the
vast majority of which have long been
extinct a species that is only about
200000 years old but descended from a
very long lineage most of which was not
human when Charles Darwin published his
theory on the origin of species in 1859
one of his main public opponents was a
clergyman named Bishop Wilberforce his
wife was famously reported to have said
in a conversation to a friend my dear
have you heard mr. Darwin’s theory that
we are all descended from apes let us
hope that this is not true and if true
let us hope that it not become generally
known while the hope of mrs. Wilberforce
turned out to be a prophecy largely
fulfilled for example in the province of
Ontario the amount of human evolution
that is required to be covered in the
high school curriculum is zero and so it
seems to me as a biologist that in
responding effectively to a collapsing
civilization our greatest limitation is
that we don’t really know ourselves very
well at all like other animals the
behavior of humans is informed by the
effects of genes inherited from the
ancestral past but our genes do not bark
orders they only whisper to us these
animals are creatures who spend their
whole lives just trying to get fed stay
alive and get laid
that’s about it but that’s all they need
in order to leave descendants in other
words for gene transmission success
which is what biologists call
evolutionary fitness and these extinct
species of early humans were probably
also creatures who spent their whole
lives just trying to get fed stay alive
and mate with each other and this is
certainly true of chimpanzees our
closest living genetic relative in the
family of great apes survival and sex
done well is pretty much all that these
animals require in order to transmit
gene copies successfully into future
generations and of course our species
must also accomplish these in order to
leave descendants but the motivations of
modern humans involve so much more as
acclaimed philosopher Albert Camus said
we humans are creatures who spend our
whole lives trying to convince ourselves
that our existence is not absurd our
species inherited genes from ancestors
that gave us an awareness of time
awareness of self and an awareness that
others also have self-awareness this
gave us a whole new advanced toolkit for
social intelligence on a scale
unavailable to other animals allowing us
to predict the behavior of others and to
gauge how we might be perceived by
others we became ever more skilled
experts at cooperation negotiation and
teamwork and at the same time masters of
manipulation deception cheating and
but this self-consciousness also gave us
an ability to foresee our own death a
being who knows that he will die arose
from ancestors who did not know this
might have been all well and fine but
natural selection was not finished
it also gave us an anxiety about this
but not so much an anxiety about the
eventual experience of literal death
rather it gave us an anxiety about what
eventual death imposes impermanence of
the self self impermanence anxiety is
about worrying that one’s life is absurd
meaningless pointless without purpose
it’s a fear of not being able to leave
something of oneself for the future not
just because time brings eventual death
but more specifically because in
bringing eventual death time inevitably
annihilates all that we do and all that
we are and so our evolution has given us
some self impermanence anxiety buffers
to manage this curse of consciousness
there are two types and they are
represented very effectively in this
well-known manifesto for life dream as
if you will live forever live as if you
will die today the first of these is
just a delusion about being able to
leave a legacy something of oneself that
will transcend death and the second is a
distraction provided by leisure free
time indulgence in opportunities for
pleasure and so humans have more than
just a survival Drive and a sex drive we
are also motivated by what I call a
legacy drive and a leisure drive the
critical question though is why would
evolution give us an anxiety about self
and permanence perhaps it was just an
emotional cost that for our ancestors
was worth paying because it was
generally outweighed by the fitness
benefits of the awareness of time and
self-consciousness
I suggest that our ancestors could
manage this anxiety because they evolved
dispositions to be easily distracted by
leisure and cultural evolution informed
by biological evolution has given us a
large leisure menu to choose from all of
these many modern domains of leisure
drive are rooted in the same kinds of
pleasure modules that rewarded the
reproductive success of ancestors
including those associated with
obtaining food securing shelter
exploration social status success in
competition cooperation and social
alliances companionship intimacy family
relations recreational sex humor
amusement an aesthetic entertainment
toys stories meditation and intoxication
in addition however I suggest that our
evolution gave us an anxiety about self
and permanence because it also rewarded
the reproductive success of our
ancestors by making them susceptible to
a delusion of legacy in particular
legacy through Parenthood as dobzhansky
broke man has a hope perhaps an illusory
one that he somehow survives in his
descendants a life devoted to one’s
family and to one’s progeny seems to
acquire a meaning it may be experienced
as capturing a particle of an
immortality which is beyond the reach of
an individual legacy drive in its
rudimental form then is about genes that
fooled our ancestors into thinking that
they could leave something of themselves
ideas beliefs values a copy of the inner
self or means of a parent transmitted to
the Future through the minds of one’s
offspring as a memetic legacy and
because genetic legacy
also occurred at the same time genes
that informed legacy drive were
propelled into future generations other
animals have offspring only as an
incidental consequence of sex drive but
only humans hope and plan for offspring
and then spend much of their lives
seeking pride in them and this obsession
with pride in offspring can be seen in
some of the oldest written records but
men have always had a nagging
uncertainty of their paternity as
pulitzer prize-winning author Phyllis
McKinley wrote women are the fulfilled
sex through our children we are able to
produce our own immortality so we lack
that divine restlessness which sends men
charging off in pursuit a fortune or
fame worn imagined utopia and so mostly
men have created alternative domains for
legacy like pursuits of imagined utopias
typically represented by religion as
philosopher James feeble man wrote the
human individual knows that he must die
but has thoughts larger than his fate
religion is an effort to be included in
some domain larger and more permanent
than mere existence in addition men
mostly men have created alternative
domains for legacy that involve pursuit
of fortune or fame and cultural
evolution informed by biological
evolution as generated a large legacy
menu to choose from that includes more
than just parenthood and religion but
also accomplishment accomplishment
through things like achievement in
education status in a reputable career
competition for awards
prestige from volunteering mentorship
and philanthropy recognition for
kindness bravery and other virtues
membership or leadership in a social or
cultural group and popularity with
family friends and associates Darwinian
evolution then has shaped the human mind
with motivations that convinced us that
our lives can have meaning and that
distract us from the nagging worry that
they probably don’t the time inevitably
annihilates all that we do in all that
we are legacy and leisure drives our
components of our evolved psychology
because our predecessors who lacked them
did not become our ancestors because
they were unprotected from self
impermanence anxiety and so less likely
to reproduce and the irony here is that
Darwinism postulates exactly the
opposite of what our evolved psychology
whispers to us about what we can be in
what we can do one of the leading
architects of the modern evolutionary
synthesis in the last century Georg
Gaylord Simpson wrote man is the result
of a purposeless and materialistic
process that did not have him in mind he
was not planned he is a state of matter
a form of life again to all of life and
indeed to all that is material and so
the old and still continuing debate
between evolution and creationism is
misguided creationism is not in conflict
with evolution it is product of it and
so the central problem of what we are is
that we are attracted instinctively to
delusions and distractions as poet TS
Eliot mused humankind cannot bear very
much reality this does not bode well in
terms of our being equipped to respond
our lives resemble the lives of chimps
more than any other animal they have a
rudimental theory of mind and a capacity
for culture through social learning
across generations but chimps live in a
world as they find it humans however
live in a world as they make it and we
have made it mostly a world of delusions
for chasing legacy and mostly a world of
distractions for chasing leisure and
this has made a world that is
annihilating other species at a rate
never seen before in the history of life
and a civilization that is unsustainable
for our species because we are our
product in part of Darwinian evolution
our genes to a large extent whole
culture on a leash as evolutionist EO
Wilson wrote human behavior like the
deepest capacities for emotional
response which drive and guided is the
circuitous technique by which human
genetic material has been and will be
cut intact these deeply ingrained
motivations are a product of a long
history of genetic inheritance driven in
each ancestral generation by the
relentless but purposeless action of
Darwinian selection in the past these
motivational domains limited our
capacity to learn from the history of
our mistakes they loomed large on the
radar of our ancestors leaving little
room for a deep understanding of the
impact of humanity on our small planet
and essentially no room for significant
motivations to protect it but our
evolution has also given us capacity to
say no to our evolutionary bequeaths and
so the good news is that culture can
also hold genes on a leash if we
instruct it wisely with what it needs to
do so I suggest that we can do this by
something that I call bio social
management
it’s about Rocky
and embracing what we are defined by
these four fundamental human drives but
prescribing ways to fulfill them that
also make room on our radar for
responding effectively to the impending
collapse of civilization in other words
cultural evolution could come to our
rescue but there is much work to be done
cultural evolution will need to be
better informed with what it needs in
order to promote the positive
consequences and manage the negative
consequences of our biological evolution
and this will require having a much
deeper and more broadly public
understanding of what we are thank you [Applause]