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Published online 11 February 2009 | Nature 457, 780-783 (2009) | doi:10.1038/457780a
News Feature
Darwin 200: Human nature: the remix
People's mindsets are neither fixed by evolution nor infinitely malleable by culture. Dan Jones looks for the similarities that underlie the diversity of human nature.
Darwin famously gave scant attention to humans in On the Origin of Species, contenting himself with the teasing pledge that "Light will be thrown on the origin of man and his history". The promised light came in the The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex (1871) and The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals (1872), in which the notion of a common human origin was crucial.
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In his Books ?The Descent of Man, and Selection In Relation to Sex (written in1871)and ?The Expression of the emotions in Man and Animals ( written in 1872)?, in which the notion of a common human origin was crucial and Darwin said that natural selection had shaped the human species just like any other species. Darwin probably from his very superficial and casual observation told "humans shared common a great deal of their nature?, Darwin himself endeavored to show in considerable detail that all the chief [emotional, cultural] expressions exhibited by men are same throughout the world. While going through his book ?Descent of Man? I felt a problem probably many felt that? What does it actually wanted to tell us about? What it means to be human rather than animal in their cultural and behavior? What is consciousness? What is Cognition or a constructive consensus.?? Where is distinction between man and animal?? Struggle for natural resources allowed individuals with certain physical and mental traits to succeed more frequently than others, and that these traits when accumulated in the population over time, which under certain conditions could lead to the descendants being so different that they would be defined as a new species , told Darwin. Adaptation in nature and conflicts are probably the main things in Darwin?s theory of Natural selection and in The Descent of Men. Human beings are always considered be social , religious, cultural, superstitious and also spiritual , equipped with adaptations for dealing with so many types of conflicts posed by our social, cultural system[ variable from society to society] but it is a very selfish world, where human are in quarreling with each others, or in violent behaviors or in war [killing of so many common people], with less powerful ,disadvantageous- human had inherited [?] such nature from our animal ancestors- my recently diseased father late Bholanath Bhattacharya used to tell our brothers quoting form Darwin? Social Darwinism is a theory that competition among all individuals, groups, nations, or ideas drives social evolution in human societies. According him, besides human has also other unique features those included, sympathy, religion, morality, sentiments, a human do also fights or fight response, designed to cope with any crisis,-[If you don?t face and fight to overcome your crisis- You will never feel value of your life- He often told us],shared with inequalities, its shifts of resources away from house keeping functions such as growth, tissue repair and immune system maintenance, towards emergency measures such as extra vigilance, increased blood pressure, faster respiration and higher concentration of epenephrine and blood clotting chemicals. I had observed these too in my parent family. In the short term, this system, which I can call however ? a stress system? solves however many important physiological problems. But long term stress, chronic stress, greatly increase vulnerability of death. Socioeconomic inequalities in health, education, job opportunity, income facility, food, calorie, distribution of wealth is a challenging problem in not only within a family members, but in most localities, most cultured societies, within many civilized countries and through out world?s mankind even today in 2009, in greater form, I think it so. We all are though aware and poorer health and shorter life span expectation, early death, of people of low socioeconomic group than those of privileged class group in a society, are not at all surprising before me. People like other living organisms, in world ,have finite resources of food, energy, wealth and time to live and must allocate these resources among growth, development, reproduction, the tasks of daily living somatic or bodily maintenance for all including disadvantaged and poor class also. But in cultural and civilized human society these did never happen at all. Here haves people acquire much &more beyond his/her need, not by fitness of natural selection [struggle for existence hence no more probably valid] but by money, corruptions, and ruling powers [all man made laws in a country/state are done targeting privileged class people]. As the population overgrows in an area, there becomes food crisis, resource crisis, job competition for earning lively hood, particularly amongst economically disadvantaged and poorer section of a locality/ state/ country and in spite that these people works very hard in the respected fields to exist[ they may be called as 'Deserving Poor's struggle for existence? or a cultural and society derived crisis?] or, to acquire resources even at exploited low or negligible wages (as I found in my own family/ others families of so called educated middle class or rich class society or in cities/ urban/ locality/state as a physician and my long years experience is that so called educated, so called cultured, so called civilized upper middle class, middle class, rich class, better off people are mostly lazy, less physically fit, [often cardio logically ,metabolically less fit], to perform any physical labor in fields to produce food, to do their domestic works, are mostly non productive creatures in a state Net State Domestic Products or for countries GDP though their intellect works or services,], and these poor people do extinct often of starvation, malnutrition, unless a local social system is existing for better working conditions , better salaries, better job facilities, thus giving the poor a better chance to provide for themselves. It becomes a big question to me that how these worthless [upper and middle society class ] people in eyes of nature do survive long?. It is possible only because so called civilized our society? A governmental politics? In animal society those who can not strike to kill, generate his/her food by labor, or is physically weak one must extinct but in human society rather physically the weak members of civilized societies do survive well and do propagate their offspring as bad gene. -a form of artificial selection. Natural selection shapes allocation of these resources between growth, reproduction and bodily maintenance when there remain always inequity in planet as a striker & stoker relation ship with haves and haves not? A selfish system, an open market trade system, made by human as a cultural evolution? Is that a Culture? What is a culture? what it means to be human? do you find any difference of Human from Animal in the cultural aspect? Are Human culture Universal one? Is most clearly revealed in those features of human culture that are universal i.e. pre fixed or difference exist[cultural diversity]. Does Culture depend on Academia? The aid which we feel impelled to give to the helpless is mainly an incidental result of the instinct of sympathy, which was originally acquired as part of the social instincts. Darwin felt that "social instincts" such as "sympathy" and "moral sentiments" also evolved through natural selection, and that these resulted in the strengthening of societies in which they occurred, so much so that he wrote about it in Descent of Man: "The following proposition seems to me in a high degree probable- namely, that any animal whatever, endowed with well-marked social instincts, the parental and filial affections being here included, would inevitably acquire a moral sense or conscience, as soon as its intellectual powers had become as well, or nearly as well developed, as in man. For, firstly, the social instincts lead an animal to take pleasure in the society of its fellows, to feel a certain amount of sympathy with them, and to perform various services for them? In spite of Cultural Diversity, moral norms diversity [ Moral norms are a prominent, but by no means exclusive, subset of the broad class of cultural norms. These are the social rules that govern a great deal of people?s behavior in everyday life ? from what to wear and how to meet and greet people ,to tipping and queuing. ] one interesting part of human nature is that human individuals can be atheists, and an increasing number are atheists in world today. Human societies are historically universally religious being largely involved in religious act and thinking, largely belief in existence of God, life after death and much supernatural belief. ?There is of course no God part of the brain,? Supernatural thought is so ubiquitous in part because it is so readily accommodated by human cognitive systems from early child hood Religious belief may have been particularly important for the cultural evolution of large-scale societies., At least my diseased old father used to belief in religious thought. Was he very wrong? What ever we brothers and sister learnt about Darwinian evolution, it was from him and in our childhood. His learning was that, the religion[?] or the religious behavior helps us a lot for peace in our mind, getting along with others by forgiving them, to live in a harmonious way. The term 'religious behavior' he probably used here as the exterior (social) effects of religion. But not the religion itself. According him the long lasting effect of religions benefit human beings from education to food or basic hygiene to social relationships, religion helps to upbringing our morality too. By religious teachings, people learnt and defined norms in every society. Religion defined the culture of society in the past. Science came into picture at a later stage and within a century or two and became dominating as it seeks truth by experiments. Religions are however based on metaphysics like quantum physics science has a philosophic base thus probably has a link to truth. Religious quest or quest after a creator of world or quest for creationism[of course creation of universe] and quest for absolute truth or reality are intrinsic to human nature like experimentation, rationality and empirical positivism. So religious metaphysics seeks to arrive at truth also or its experience by trying to go beyond the intrinsic limitations of sensory knowledge and logical faculty. Religious methodologies are trying to refine mind and reason so that realization of truth and reality in oneself is possible through intuitive understanding and cognition rather than by empirical or positivist or even rational approaches. I never have seen the conflict with true science and true religion. Both are open to the truth and knowledge and represent a fully human and alive person who is intellectually honest with himself/herself Natural Evolution probably should built into the human mind a preparedness to care about few sets of social issues: kinship, use complex languages to communicate, socialize , adorn their bodies, use fairness and justice; avoiding harm to and caring for others poor and disadvantageous; in-group loyalty; social hierarchy and respect for authority; and the domain of divinity and purity, both bodily and spiritual if I believe into. Morality is however a social construction, but each society constructs it on top of these five innate moral foundations, relying on them to varying degrees 0Many complex skills and behaviors are being passed on through culture, human behavior results from the interaction of biological and cultural evolution. The human species has a unique set of features, including a large brain in proportion to the rest of the body; the ability to communicate each others by languages, speech or in writings complex meaning full sentences, information, through symbolic languages; articulation and physiological vulnerabilities to Alzheimer?s disease, certain cancers and other disease conditions. We human should need very small part of our brain for sustain our life and functions. Major part of human brain remains inactive rather neurologists, neurobiologists do not know its function. What was then required to have a large part of human brain evolutionary?. For the speech say letter? A? brocas area has been identified in temporal lobe. But if you are an MRI expert in brain scanning, then you must have seen that to utter a letter ?A? how many areas of brain become metabolically active. Human brains are actually the result of an evolution that incorporated both the instinctive animal behavior of 200 million years ago with the emotional mammalian addition approx. 100 million years ago and the cognitive capacity that first developed in the neo cortex of the great apes approx. 5 million years ago probably. Depending on our genetic and epigenetic (environmental) makeup, we tend to regress towards our ancient brain or progress to our modern brain. In most cases the direction is under human control. We have inherited a tendency to make war from our animal ancestors ? that war or any other violent behaviors are genetically programmed into our human nature ? and that humans have a 'violent brain'."... How much the Natural Selection pressured or Cultural selection affected our human genome? Why do humans can act both as devils as well as angels? Genome researchers thought that genetic differences between humans and humans and between human and chimps would be explained by single letters of DNA, a type of variation called a single nucleotide polymorphism,or SNP. SNPs had appeared about 10,000 years ago, suggesting that selection has been causing very rapid genetic change since that time. Moyzis and Hawks have concluded that evolution must have ramped up over the past 40,000 years because of more new mutations and created more raw material for the selection. One of such cultural evolution was first agricultural revolution or creating new environments ,and specific skills. Genetic mutations that allow adults to digest lactose, a sugar found in milk, have emerged independently in different populations in response to the same cultural innovation ? cattle domestication. To me human bodies and human minds were the product of bag of genes that had evolved under the pressures of natural selection, just like everything else evolved in the living world from RNA World. One comparison between humans, and his closest relative animals like apes, chimps, dolphins, and mice, for example, showed that the protein-coding sequences of genes expressed in the brain have changed very little across the species NATURE|Vol 457|12 February 2009] DAA few genes are interesting exceptions however. Selection seems to have favored changes in FOXP2,a gene involved in human speech, after humans and chimps diverged between 4.6 million and6.2 million years ago and other two genes like ASPM and MCPH1 ? both the genes are considered to be related to large human brain size. there is another gene that encode DUF1220, a ?protein domain of unknown function? that seems to be under selection, active in the brain and has many more copies in humans than in other species. But none of these genes alone is likely genes those are unique for human and to explain a single human trait. However a very small piece of RNA ? human accelerated region 1 (HAR1) ? that is expressed in brain cells during human fetal development have been discovered. Beyond that, nobody knows what HAR1 does Human cognitive systems grow from early child hood. Religious behavior may have been particularly important for the cultural evolution of large-scale societies. As societies grow, it can be harder to enforce moral, religious, respect to authority and altruistic norms. Children are natural-born chatterboxes. It must be part of teaching from childhood and from early school period. Morality, sympathy, respect, cultural, religious behavior and thought are gradually vanishing away in modern society from upper, upper middle class people so called educated society of west Bengal especially of Kolkata. Rather there is increasing immorality, disrespect, drug/tobacco addictions, alcohol consumption, suicide, promiscuity, adulterous, corruption behaviors From better off families, kids grows up today in newly mushrooming three stars or five stars hotel like schools of kolkata and in near by urban or cities schools with lots of tuition fees, eticates to be cute, dashy, unhealthy competitions and expectation of their parents in set up of private teaching educational systems with a lot of active non cognitive learning compared with village poor societies. They do not learn Religion or a moral story._ In spite a lot of Junk studies of science. But none of modern schools could produce a single Nobel laureate nor a S S Bhatnagar Laureate- a Nobel for Young Scientists of India, neither could produce hundred yards step closer work compared to late Prof. Satyen Bose[ widely acknowledged for his Boson] or late Acharya. J.C Bose nor even a JB Narliekar nor a late Sambhunath Dey . Authors- Professor Pranab kumar Bhattacharya MD(cal) FIC path(Ind.) , Professor of Pathology. Institute of Post Graduate Medical Education & Research, 244a AJC Bose Road, Kolkta-20, West Bengal, India; Mr. Ritwik Bhattacharya, B.Com(cal),; Mr. Rupak Bhattacharya BSc(Cal)MSc(JU) 7/51 purbapalli, Sodepur Dist 24 parganas(North) Kol-110, West Bengal, India; Miss upasana Bhattacharya Acknowledgement- To Recently diseased late Mr. Bholanath Bhattacharya for some of his quotations he often used to tell me used here. Copy Right©- Strictly reserved to Professor Pranab Kumar Bhattacharya as per IPR copy Right Rules