Evolutionary Instincts: Not Quite What You Think

Lord Daniel Finkelstein, former board member of the Gatestone Institute which published such hits about how Islamification is leading to White Extinction, has been having some thoughts about racism. To sum up: Conservatives are uniquely able to understand real racism and its real causes, because they are aware that it is a natural behaviour and part of the human condition. We must therefore be cautious about claims that it can be eliminated by destroying capitalism, or changing education patterns, and instead wearily recognise that we must work hard at overcoming it whilst also preventing the swarthy heathen from taking our women.

So basically the standard conservative thought about racism since at least the 1960s.

Anyway, as part of this Finkelstein refers to the 'evolutionary instinct that leads us to co-operate with people who are like us and to reject and even fight those who seem unfamiliar'. Now Finkelstein doesn't provide a basis for this claim (and I'm not paying the Times money to find out), but I can guess where it comes from, as it's a canard that regularly does the rounds.

This likely harks back to a man called William Hamilton, who came up (as a joke as I recall) with the notion of 'inclusive fitness' [1]. How this works is as follows:

I and my brother share 50% of our genes - therefore I'm more likely to be altruistic towards him, as there's a greater chance of my genes being passed on if I help him; conversely I only share 25% of my genes with a cousin, so I'm less likely to be altruistic towards them, but more so then I would a stranger.

And so on. The basic concept is that the more I'm related to someone the more likely I am to be altruistic to them, because supposedly there's a higher likelihood that we share genes. This then morphs into the argument that, e.g. racism is 'natural', because it's a form of gene sorting - I'm more likely to share genes with people of a similar 'race' (or ethnicity, or culture) than I am with others, so I will be more co-operative towards them, and less co-operative towards others.

That, I believe, is the likely foundation that's being deployed in what Finkelstein says that we have an evolutionary instinct towards helping people who are 'like us' and fighting those who are 'unfamiliar'.

There is, however, a large flaw with this: it doesn't make much evolutionary sense. There's no guarantee that someone who looks like me, or shares the same cultural markers as me, with share the same genes as me - equally someone who look doesn’t like me might have the same genes as me. In short, as a rule, it's not very efficient as is open to being cheated on by others who don't have that 'instinct'.

Contrarily, a far better rule (as Queller, 1985 has noted) for determining whether someone shares the same genes as me would be for this to be based around values or behaviours. I.e. if someone behaves altruistically, they probably have the same genes that make me behave altruistically, so co-operating with them passes on my genes. This eliminates the problem. And note that there's no limit to this - the people who behave like me is a potentially infinite set, and a larger one than 'people who look like me'.

Now of course racism works on the logic of convincing people that 'someone who looks like me' is more trustworthy than someone who is unfamiliar; hence the capitalist captain of industry is 'on my side' whereas the brown-skinned man is trying to take my job, and consequently never ask why there isn't adequate supports in place in the first instance. This is hardly a novel insight, but what it does show is that, whether there is an evolutionary instinct or not, it is in the terrain of culture not nature.

I'm sure the Lord Finkelstein has given this deep consideration; but for my part, I can't help but wonder if a political and economic system that, by its nature (pun intended), pitches people into competition and divides them is really the best way of solving this issue.

[1] This assumes that the gene is the unit of selection (that is the site evolution operates on), rather than the individual, or the group (or all of the above). The jury is still out on which one it is, but biologists and philosophers of biology are moving towards 'all of the above' as the correct answer. Here I’ll be taking the gene-eye view, as that’s easier to explain and I assume it’s one the Finkelstein, and Leslie are using.

Reference

Queller, D. C. (1985) 'Kinship, reciprocity and synergism in the evolution of social behaviour', Nature Vol. 318, pp. 366-367.

 

Herd Immunity and Social Darwinism

One of the interesting things that has come out of Boris Johnson having to go into intensive care is the number of Conservatives, Johnson included, who seem to think that this is a display of terrible weakness.

A choice of quotations:

"He [Johnson] has obviously worked like mad to try and get through this but it's not good enough so far." (Ian Duncan Smith)

"His [Johnson] outlook on the world is that illness is for weak people." (Sonia Purnell, Johnson's biographer)

In both of these quotations the indication is pretty clear - being ill is for the weak; the strong do not get ill. Being ill, then, is a lack of will, effort or moral character.

And this, it seems to me, goes along with the logic of that bizarre current of thought known as social Darwinism.

Social Darwinism (1) is not entirely aptly named: the main currents of the idea predate Darwin and actually originate with Herbert Spencer. The famous phrase that guides the belief 'survival of the fittest' was actually coined by Spencer some ten years before On the Origin of Species was published. Indeed, the constant conflation between Spencer's ideas and Darwin's was something that annoyed Spencer immensely in his own lifetime.

The phrase is, however, a good summary of what social Darwinism is: the essential notion is that life is a competition, the survivors of which are the 'strongest' or 'fittest' as they come through the challenges of life. This is why, of course, those who held this view opposed any programmes of poor relief - to provide aide to the 'weakest' would distort the workings of nature.

Fitness, let it be said, is a technical term in biology and basically means nothing more than the ability of an entity to leave progeny. The more it can produce the 'fitter' it is. Noticeably this doesn't tell us anything about the characteristics of the entity, or which ones are making it more fitter than others. And it is also not divorceable from the environment: obviously an entity that is the fittest in, for example, an ocean environment might not be so good in a forested environment. Fins on a fish, for example, are probably a contributing factor to its ability to leave progeny, as it helps the fish to navigate the water environment. You cannot, however, say that fins are unambiguously 'good', 'adaptive' 'fitness enhancing' as if you stuck them on a monkey it would add precisely nothing to the monkey's ability to leave progeny and could even actively harm it.

This obviously is not what the social Darwinist conception means by 'fittest'; though what exactly is meant is hard to determine. The definition is tautological: the fittest are those who survive; how do we know this? Because they have survived! But in that case fitness has little to do with any quality in the individual, but more to do with background and wealth. There are, after all, hordes of wealthy people (many of them in government) who have no conceivable talents or abilities but will 'survive'; just as their are loads of people who are very gifted, but who will struggle to develop this due to poor nutrition, lack of support in education and the various other ills associated with the misfortune of being born poor.

What is interesting here though is the way in which this believe in 'the strong survive' may well have coloured the government's Coronavirus response, particularly in the herd immunity strategy. This was, for a long time, the government's purported aim: infect a large chunk of the population as a way of building up the immunity. It seems to be premised on the very logic that social Darwinism runs with: everyone gets infected and then those that die are simply too 'weak'. This is seemingly what is to be drawn from Dominic Cummings (alleged) comment of 'herd immunity, protect the economy and if that means some pensioners die, too bad'.

The herd immunity strategy seems to then derive from the social Darwinist assumptions: the only ones who will be effected are those to weak, so it will thin out the population of the undesirables and so ultimately improve the country and economy. Those that die have simply not tried hard enough. Which has a certain resemblance with the Conservatives approach to welfare benefits and the economy. This seems to be what lies behind Johnson's turning up at hospitals and shaking hand with everyone, as well as the press's initial disdain for anyone challening the herd immunity strategy: A belief that their strength means they will not catch it.

Noticeably we have now changed track after Johnson, Hancock and Cummings all came down with it, with there even being denials that was ever a herd immunity strategy. Somehow it seems the 'survival of the fittest' becomes a less attractive strategy when you have the realization that you are not, actually, excluded from the general struggle to survive. And with that comes the realization that the 'strength' so coveted by the Conservatives is based less on anything real, than simply being able to be outside of difficulty. 

It is, after all, easy to survive when you have vast arrays of wealth and support to fall back on.

(1) There is a question as to whether social Darwinism as a definable programme ever existed: Robert Bannister's Social Darwinism: Science and Myth in Anglo-American Social Thought presents this argument. Whether it did or didn't though, I think currents of its thought certainly influence contemporary thinking.