ASEBL Journal – Volume 10 Issue 1, January 2014
our predecessors roamed the globe and adapted (physically, genetically) to the new
environments, but it was culture that initially propelled them (47) and subsequently
sustained them to form complex social divisions of labor and societies.
There is, of course, an advantage to different cultural groups: the passing down of
rights and property (an advanced development), and hence why, Pagel suggests, there
are many different cultures. “Cultures restrict the flow of genes” (54) and so, in spite
of one homo sapiens sapiens species we all look ethnically different (in our ancestors’
predilections for selecting certain features). Just as we see in natural biology (RNA
strands joining, hungry amoebae forming a spore tower to sacrifice many to save a
few, the many cells and organs of the human body), “natural selection made it
possible for individuals to align their interests with those of their group” (72), and
indeed there are cues to which we respond positively when identifying who is part of
our group and negatively when noting who is outside of the group. While Pagel
stresses over and again the importance of the group in terms of culture, he does not
minimize self-interest – “natural selection has duped us with an emotion that
encourages group thinking” (98). Regarding cultural evolution and social learning (or
what biologists call diversifying selection), the “variety” of individual skills and
talents count most (100). Culture is a sorting process, says Pagel (131): someone
makes a musical instrument, and then someone else begins to play it (109). Pagel
makes a sustained argument for diverse cultural groups (human culture), but this
development can only come to pass through distinct individuals. Oddly, high
heritability (individual differences) has little to do with overall human survival (118);
but yet natural selection would then have eliminated our differences. Pagel seems to
suggest that there is an evolutionary bias for a variety of personality types.
Likewise, Pagel says that the arts and religion are “cultural enhancers” – emotional
motivators related to behavior (135). He seems satisfied with the simpler notions that
the arts transmit ideas and that religion helps explain occurrences. Is this a bit
perplexing? Pagel is arguing that we survived and thrived because of culture, but he
does not quite come out and argue for an adaptive function in the arts (and lumps arts
together without distinguishing one from another). Or maybe he does argue for an
adaptive function. Even if beliefs are wrong, false, or incorrect they might,
nonetheless, help a group survive (as D.S. Wilson has noted). Be that as it may, Pagel
says that even without religion we would be much the same (i.e., selfish and morally
corruptible). Simply, we have concocted religion to offer ourselves “courage and
hope” and to coordinate and unite groups over other groups (159). As natural
selection pits genes against genes, so religion induces emotions shared in a group
(opposed to another) in “cultural relatedness” (165). However, there is no cycle
(typically) of endless conflict; in fact, conflicts can render “opportunities” that
produce moral outcomes (180-181). There are many distinct cultural groups with
different beliefs (though all with one common denominator, the need, apparently, to
own beliefs).
With acknowledgment to Robert Trivers, Pagel notes that reciprocal altruism by virtue
of its mental complexity exists only among human beings (190). But such altruism is
always on shaky ground (as game theory has demonstrated) for, in the words of
Robert Axelrod, there is “the shadow of the future” – the possibility that one party
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