March 11, 2013 Evolution and Existentialism, an Intellectual Odd Couple By David P.

Barash

Interdisciplinary efforts, for all their ostensible appeal, are more often prais ed than practiced, especially when it comes to combining the humanities and scie nces. Nonetheless, connecting two intellectual perspectives that seem to be pole s apart, and that have had very different fates, helps sweep away some common mi sconceptions nay, fears about modern scientific thought. Let's look, therefore, at evolutionary biology and existential philosophy. The former is experiencing rapid, perhaps exponential, growth, while the latter appears to have had its day and is (unjustifiably, in my opinion) in decline. Co llectors of oxymorons "freezer burn," "jumbo shrimp," "military intelligence" might w ell appreciate the prospect of "evolutionary existentialism." They might also as k whether the bottom line involves mere alliterative appeal, in which case why n ot "molecular metaphysics" or "epigenetic epistemology." Here's why these two seemingly strange bedfellows belong together: They are, in fact, a compatible couple. What they share suggests that science has not complet ely destroyed our understanding of free will, as so many critics contend. A phil osophy of "human meaning" can coexist quite well with a science of "genetic infl uence." First let's turn to some of the prominent incompatibilities between the two. Exi stentialism has, as one of its organizing principles, the notion that human bein gs have no "essence." As Jean-Paul Sartre famously put it, "existence precedes e ssence." For existentialists, there is no Platonic form of the person, no ideal self of which our corporeal reality is a pale instantiation. Rather, we define o urselves, give ourselves meaning, establish our essence only via our existence, by what we do, how we choose to live our individual lives. We have no "human nat ure," just our own intentions. Thus choice is especially important for existentialists, because we are free; in Sartre's paradoxical words, we are "condemned to be free." In a universe devoid of purpose and uncaring about people, it is our job to give meaning to our live s. That is vastly different from evolutionary premises. At the heart of an evolutio nary view of human nature or of hippopotamus, halibut, or hickory-tree nature is the idea that living things are a concatenation of genes, jousting with other, simil ar genes to get ahead. Free, conscious, intentional choices seem out of place fo r a creature who is merely the physical manifestation of DNA programmed to succe ed. For evolutionary biologists, all living things have a purpose. It is neither div ine nor Platonic. It is also not a choice, at least for nonhuman species, becaus e their purpose is generated, quite simply, by the reward that natural selection provides for creatures that succeed in projecting their genes into future gener ations. Living things are survival vehicles for their potentially immortal genes . Biologically speaking, that is what they are and all that they are. At this point, most existentialists can be expected to disagree. For evolutionary biologists, behavior is one way genes go about promoting themse

lves. Other ways are by producing a body that is durable, adapted to its ecologi cal situation, capable of various physiological feats like growth, metabolism, r epair, and so on. Probably the most obvious way in which behavior promotes genes is the powerful inclination that adults (of any sexually reproducing species) ha ve to mate, and then, depending on the species, to care for their offspring. See n in that light, our essence our genotype seems to precede our existence, contrary to what the existentialists would have us believe. We are, in a sense, slaves to th e selfish genes that created us, body and mind, even though, as is increasingly recognized, sometimes those genes perform their work by "altruistically" benefit ing other individuals, offspring not least. Halibut and hickory trees don't know what they're doing, or why. Human beings do . "Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature, but he is a thinking reed ," wrote the French mathematical genius, religious mystic, and precursor of exis tentialism, Blaise Pascal. "A vapor, a drop of water, is enough to kill a human being. "But even if the universe should crush him, man would still be more noble than t hat which destroys him, because he knows that he dies, and he realizes the advan tage that the universe possesses over him; the universe knows nothing of this." Thanks to evolutionary insights, people are acquiring a new knowledge: what thei r genes are up to, i.e., their evolutionary "purpose." An important benefit of e volutionary wisdom is that, by giving us the kind of knowledge about the univers e that Pascal so admired, it leaves us free to pursue our own, chosen purposes. Sometimes those purposes involve a conscious decision to refrain from, say, repr oducing something unimaginable in any other species. At other times (all too rarely ), they might involve deciding to extend an ethic of caretaking to include other human beings to whom we are not immediately related, or even to include other s pecies, with whom we share comparatively few genes. But Pascal also prefigured existential thought when he wrote that "the silence o f these infinite spaces frightens me." Such fear was understandable, since the c omfortable sense of human specialness that characterized the pre-Copernican worl d was being replaced in Pascal's day by a vast universe of astronomic distances, no longer centered on Homo sapiens. The great, empty spaces of evolutionary tim e and possibility as well as human kinship with "lower" life forms that they deman d have frightened and repelled many observers of evolutionary biology as well (alt hough so far as I can tell, it hasn't deeply troubled any scientists). Many nonscientists, especially when first exposed to evolutionary thinking, are also chilled by the focus characteristic of both existentialism and modern evoluti onary biology on the smallest possible unit of analysis. The Danish philosopher and existentialist pioneer Sren Kierkegaard asked that onl y this should be written below his name on his gravestone: "The Individual." And in his masterful Man in the Modern Age, the existential psychiatrist and philos opher Karl Jaspers, although rejecting the label of existentialism, focused on t he struggle of individuals to achieve an authentic life in the face of pressures for mass conformity. In a parallel track, much of the intellectual impetus of evolutionary biology ha s come from abandoning comfortable but outmoded group-level arguments. Although the public still tends to think that evolution acts, as it's commonly put, "for the good of the species," evolutionary biologists are essentially unanimous that natural selection acts most strongly at the smallest level: individuals. Actual ly, the process goes farther yet, focusing when possible on individual genes. Sp ecies-wide effects are simply the arithmetic summation of these micro-impacts. That individual, gene-centered perspective has given rise to criticism that soci

obiology the application of evolutionary insights to complex social behavior, incl uding that of our own species is inherently cynical, promoting a gloomy, egocentric Weltansicht. The same, of course, has been said of existentialism, whose stereo typical practitioner is the anguished, angst-ridden loner, wearing a black turtl eneck and obsessing, Hamlet-like, about the meaninglessness of life. Let's look more closely at that critique by taking an extreme position and grant ing, if only for the sake of argument, that human beings, like other living thin gs, are merely survival machines for their genes, organic robots whose biologica lly mandated purpose is neither more nor less than the promulgation of those gen es. And let's grant that existentialists are very much occupied with the meaning lessness of life and the consequent need for people to assert their own meaning, to define themselves against an absurd universe. Furthermore, let's consider th e less-well-known fact that, although evolutionary biology makes no claim that i t or what it produces is inherently good, it also teaches that life is absurd. Evolutionists, after all, might well look at all living things human beings not le ast as playing a vast existential roulette game. No one can ever beat the house. T here is no option to cash in one's chips and walk away a winner. The only goal i s to keep playing, and indeed, some genes and phyletic lineages manage to stay i n the game longer than others. But where, I ask you, is the meaning in a game wh ose goal is simply to keep on playing, a game that can never be won, but only lo st? And for which we did not even get to write the rules? There is, accordingly, no intrinsic, evolutionary meaning to being alive. We sim ply are, having been produced when one of our father's sperm connected with one of our mother's eggs, each contributing genes that combined to become a new pers on. Those genes, too, simply are, because their antecedents avoided being elimin ated. We have simply been, as Martin Heidegger (another precursor of existentialism, w ho particularly influenced Sartre) put it, "thrown into the world." None of us, after all, was consulted beforehand. Biologically, our genes did it; or rather, our parents' genes. And their parents' before them. At this point, some critics say that if evolutionary biology reveals that life i s without intrinsic meaning, then biology is mistaken. Not at all. From the pers pective of natural science generally, there is no inherent reason that anything a rock, a waterfall, a halibut, a human being is of itself meaningful. As existentia lists have long pointed out, the key to life's meaning is not aliveness itself, but what we attach to it. At one point in Douglas Adams's hilarious The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, as a sperm whale plummets toward the planet Magrathea, it wonders: "Why am I her e? What is my purpose in life?" The appealing but doomed creature has just been "thrown into" its world, which happens to be several miles above the planet's su rface; the creature exists as a whale because it had inexplicably been transform ed from a nuclear missile, directed at our heroes' spaceship, into a briefly air borne cetacean when the occupants of said spaceship activated their Infinite Imp robability Drive. Evolution, too, is an improbability generator, although its outcomes are conside rably more finite. After being called into existence by that particular improbab ility generator called natural selection, we have no more purpose in life than A dams's nave and ill-fated whale, whose blubber was soon to bespatter the Magrathe an landscape. Think back, now, to Pascal and his successors, whether atheist (Nietzsche, Sartr e) or religious (Kierkegaard, Jaspers), for whom there are many ways that human b eings can and do say no to their genes. Sartre, for example, encouraged rebellio

n against the pressures of conformity and the lack of authenticity inherent in d enying one's freedom, just as Camus urged his readers to reject any complicity i n lethal violence, to be "neither victims nor executioners." By the same token, Kierkegaard led the way for the "truly religious" to take deep and often persona l responsibility for their spiritual lives. As descendants of both existential and evolutionary perspectives, we have the op portunity to assert ourselves as creative rebels. We may elect intentional child lessness. We may choose to be less selfish and more genuinely altruistic than ou r genes might like. We may decide to groom our sons to be nurses and our daughte rs to be corporate executives. I would go farther, and suggest that we must do s uch sorts of things deny aspects of our own biological heritage if we want to be ful ly human. The alternative to let biology carry us where it will is to forgo the resp onsibility of being human, and to be as helpless and abandoned as a (briefly) ai rborne Magrathean whale. Going with the flow of our biologically generated inclinations is very close to what Sartre called "bad faith," whereby people pretend to themselves and others that they are not free. That is not to claim that human beings are perfectly free. W hen the early-20th-century philosopher Jos Ortega y Gasset observed that "man has no nature, only a history," he neglected to add that this includes an evolution ary history, as a result of which we are constrained as well as impelled in cert ain ways and directions. We cannot assume the lifestyle of honeybees, or Portugu ese men-of-war. But such restrictions are trivial and beside the point: Within a remarkable range, our evolutionary bequeathal is wildly permissive. This uniquely human potential to resist our own genes might help explain why peo ple expend so much effort trying to induce others, especially the young and impr essionable, to practice what is widely seen as the cardinal virtue: obedience. T o recast Freud's argument about incest restraints, if we were naturally obedient , we probably wouldn't need so much urging. And yet, on balance, it seems that f ar more harm has been done throughout human history by obedience to Hitler's Final Solution, Stalin's elimination of opponents real and imagined, Mao's Cultural Re volution, Pol Pot's genocide than by disobedience. On the basis of evolutionary existentialism, I would therefore like to suggest t he heretical and admittedly paradoxical notion that, in fact, we need to teach m ore disobedience. Not only disobedience to political and social authority but es pecially disobedience to some of our troublesome genetic inclinations. Along with a capacity for altruism, we also appear to have been endowed with occ asional tendencies to ill-treat stepchildren (who are, of course, unrelated to o ne's self), to give free rein to any number of violent tendencies, to discrimina te against others who appear different from ourselves, to value short-term succe sses over long-term consequences. It is a good thing that we are not marionettes , dancing at the end of strings pulled by our DNA. It is also a good thing that we can identify any such tendencies, and decide whether to defy our inclinations or go along with them. It is largely when we act in ignorance of our biology th at we are most vulnerable to it. As Albert Camus wrote, reconfiguring Descartes's cogito, "I rebel, therefore we exist." Or, as Andr Malraux put it, "The greatest mystery is not that we have bee n flung at random among the profusion of the earth and the galaxy of the stars, but that in this prison we can fashion images of ourselves sufficiently powerful to deny our nothingness." In that denial lies not only a great mystery but also a thrilling hope. David P. Barash, an evolutionary biologist, is a professor of psychology at the

University of Washington. His most recent book is Homo Mysterious: Evolutionary Puzzles of Human Nature (Oxford University Press, 2012). 13 comments vernaye How is this a new idea? John Fowles's The French Lieutentant's Woman (1969) alre ady brought together these two discourses decades ago. Gopher63 Early in the essay, it would seem that evolution is more compatible with religio us faith than is existentialism (Kierkegaard not withstanding). However, given their concurrent co-evolution, both would seem compatible, something for religio us fundamentalists to chew on. 22287188 Wonderful article worth reading and rereading time and again. My very minor carp : "Actually, the process goes farther yet, focusing when possible on individual genes. Species-wide effects are simply the arithmetic summation of these micro-i mpacts." This is within-species microevolution. But Professor Barash might have mentioned the macroevolutionary school, initiated by such luminarious as Richard Goldschmidt, that retains a serious following and sometimes hints at the possib ility of a "Rubicon" separating our species from others. Donald Forsdyke, Department of Biomedical and Molecular Sciences, Queen's Univer sity, Canada andrewhidas Good reprise of the essential strains of these two disciplines, but I would take issue with the assertion that, "...on balance, it seems that far more harm has been done throughout human history by obedience." The author cites history's ext remes Hitler, Stalin, Mao in support of this thesis, but that is to gloss over too l ightly, in my estimation, the aggregate, far greater good of everyday and "posit ive" obedience learned from parents, teachers, and various other estimable sourc es helping to shape us as civilized beings: "Be kind; Stop whacking your baby si ster; Eat your oatmeal; Don't run out in the street; Help the helpless." As in s o many things, the sum total of the quotidian ultimately prevails over generaliz ations based on extremes. jklfairwin to andrewhidas True. The quoted section smacks of the often stated proposition that religion ha s done far more harm than good, and citing the many so-called .religious wars as examples while ignoring the secular / atheistic wars of the 20th century. There are both good and bad aspects to all human traits and the time frame as well as the perspective from which one views them can totally alter their meaning and c ontribution. Robert K Why would we have a "capacity for altruism" if genes incline us to be selfish? This is a mistake given the logic of your explanation of what genes "conspire" t o do. The real trouble is in your assertion (that is a fallacy) that because gen es are a unit of selection, therefore, they are selfish. There is no relationshi p. Even Dawkins admits that you can interchange the "selfish gene" with the "coo perative gene". The point is, genes are replicated, so is animal social behavior and human culture (see evolution in four dimension). This doesn't say anything about obedience, disobedience, altruism or selfishness from an evolutionary per spective.To determine whether a trait evolves by natural selection biologists ex amine its relative advantage (relative fitness) within a group. Traits that bene fit the individual within a group at no cost (what we can qualify as selfish or

self regarding) have an advantage over traits that are costly to the individual and that benefit others (we can qualify as altruistic). Therefore we shouldn't e xpect altruistic traits or genes for that matter to evolve within groups because they are locally disadvantaged. "Group level arguments" have nothing to do with genes as replicator units. For "the good of the group" just describes a trait t hat is costly to the individual and beneficial to others. The only way these tra its can evolve is by group selection. Whether traits evolve by group selection i s an entirely separate question that has to be examined on a case by case basis. groland in reply to Robert K These issues have been examined among relatives and large groups. We are more a ltruistic towards sibs, cousins, and relations with which we share genes. Thus even if it places an individual at a disadvantage, it can be beneficial for rel ations and therefor the gene. Reciprocal altruism also works in large groups be cause we expect to be paid back in times of need. Also studies show that more h omogenous societies are often more altruistic, which explains why many Scandinav ian countries have strong social safety nets because people feel that they are h elping peple like themselves. In the US, there is a prevailing attitude that wh at little safety net we have goes to others, unlike myself. Robert K in reply to groland This was not the point of my post. Dr. Barash confuses genes as replicators as a n argument against group level selection. My point is even if genes are the unit of replication, this doesn't have anything to do with altruism or selfishness. It just says that genes get transmitted, and that is all. jklfairwin in reply to Robert K Altruism is , in one sense , not costly to the individual at all, but rather ben eficial. Given the right circumstances, altruism which benefits the group, may a llow the individual a better chance of survival and replication. There may be a selfish reward for altruism. philosophile The article states, "...we have the opportunity to assert ourselves as creative rebels...The alternative [is] to let biology carry us where it will." Remember, it is our biology--the mechanisms of natural selection and gene mutati on--that evolved the powerful neural (and hormonal) systems that give us that op portunity. One could even argue that by creatively rebelling we are doing what b iology had in mind for us (so to speak) from the beginning. The paleontologist T eilhard de Chardin seems to have thought so. jklfairwin Some of us believe that consciousness, and the corresponding tendency to moralit y and altruism were simply accompanying byproducts of evolutionary selection for increased brain power to discern patterns and predict future behavior as well a s being able to "read" the meaning and future intentions of our compatriots, all of which were valuable in surviving long enough to procreate and raise survivin g offspring to continue the genes existence. rameshraghuvanshi Long long ago great philosopher Spinoza wrote "Men believe themselves to be fr ee, because they are conscious of their actions,and unconscious of the causes w hereby those actions are determined" Recent research in neuroscience proved t hat more than 95 p.c. our life govern by our unconscious mind ,we have no freew ill.Unfortunately most people are ignorant about their unconscious mind and live blindly and so they are suffered helplessly used their freewill to get what the y never achieved,I think Philosopher Nietzsche understand how unconscious mind decide our destiny o he wrote"Accept your fate not only accept it but love it"N ovelist Dostoevsky wrote" I terrible afraid only one thing living life I avoid t

he responsibility of my suffering ,All my suffering is occurred because of my fa te I must accept them".My personal experiences teach me that what may you do to disobey your destiny your destiny lead to you what your unconscious mind deci ded in childhood.Neuroscience tell us that our unconscious mind developed betwee n age of one and two year of childhood and that never changed.I give my experie nces. At the age of 2 I suffered most terribly by emotional post-traumatic stress di sorder [PTSD] My mother was suffering by T.B.I was with her with doctor instr uction my father abruptly snatched me from her this indecent so horribly effec ted on my psyche and from that my unconscious mind developed I want to reduced to suffering of my mother but my father not tolerated my closeness with my mot her so abruptly santched me.he abruptly this idea fix up in my unconscious mind I did not helped her this guilt feeling terribly haunted me life long I find out solution to sublimed this guilt I became publisher books are symbol of mo ther devoted all life publishing book I try to reduce my guilt feeling.My exper iences teach me that we are slave of our unconscious mind on his hint we are dan ce through out our life.I choose my career, my wife, my residence , my hobbies and most important my great longing accordingly my unconscious mind. From all my experiences Spinoza Nietzsche and Dostoevsky know importance of unconscious min d and teach us how live joyfully and with self satisfied life with guidance of y our unconscious mind

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