Cladistically monkeys

Credit: Paulo B Chaves 

The sociobiologists clearly made a mistake when they insisted that evolution simply must be centered on individuals. Sure, they said it was “gene-centered”, but still in an individual fashion. They further stated that according to Hamilton´s rule, a human individual should help his siblings more than his first cousins, his first cousins more than his second cousins, and so on. Cuz selfish genes or something. The Marxist anthropologist Marshall Sahlins pointed out long ago that there are kinship systems in Polynesia (and presumably elsewhere) where siblings are considered enemies, whereas distant cousins are considered close kin! And long before that, Malinowski described the peculiar habits of the Trobriand Islanders, where males apparently accepted being cuckolded by their female spouses, taking care of children that couldn´t possibly be their own. All of which disproves the sociobiological scenario.

There is, however, an obvious solution to the conundrum: group selection. After all, all Trobrianders are presumably genetically related to each other. In the same way, all inhabitants of relatively small Polynesian islands are presumably genetically related, too. As long as the “close kin” (or cuckoo kids) belong to the same tribe or small ethnic community, it might not be so important if they are siblings, third cousins or whatever. Ultimately, you are still taking care of genetic kin.

But what about modern Western society, which seems fundamentally more open? How did that come about? What if the explanation is *also* genetical? The Catholic Church banned cousin marriage during the Middle Ages. Maybe this created a wider genetic community than in ancient times. And that´s why we are more “open”. Not because we´re so damn tolerant and liberal, but because of our genetic make-up.

Note that the Catholic Church didn´t know anything about genes, heredity and evolution. There ban on cousin marriage had effects not intended (or even suspected) by those who made the decision. Which is completely in keeping with the spirit of evolutionary theory, in which fluke mutations might have far-reaching consequences, or adaptations for one set of circumstances just happens to be useful for completely different ones. Evolution is blind. In the same way, social evolution might be just as blind.

I think even atheists will find this uncomfortable. After all, many atheists cheat and somehow believe that the blind process of biological evolution eventually gave rise to…whatever version of the modern world they find congenial. And our modern behaviors are supposedly eminently Darwinian and “adaptable” in nature. This is really a crypto-teleological perspective. That is, evolution isn´t really seen as blind! Teleology is over if the modern world is really just the result of the flukish decision of some religious institution. It might be a more Darwinian scenario, but nobody *really* likes pure unadulterated Darwinism, do we now?

Who knows, maybe the promotion of “mixed” marriages at a massive scale is a genetical imperative for those who want to keep an open society, while promotion of in-group marriages is a genetical imperative for those who want the opposite. Both the lofty ideals of anti-racism and the hallowed Nation turn out to be covers for our (un)selfish genes…