1.

Introduction
An evolving world
Beginning with the scientific revolution in the seventeenth century, more
and more scientific observations were in conflict with the biblic story. The
Copernican Revolution was the first development to demonstrate that.
The research of geologists in the 17th and the 18th centuries revealed the
immense age of the earth, while the discovery of extinct fossil faunas
undermined the belief in the constancy of the world. The uniformitarian
view of geology, envisaging a very gradual past and current change of
the earth, became more acceptable. Some scientists could see that the
living world has also been gradually evolving, there are clear indications
that the current species have evolved from past ones, and many
separate species might have a common ancestor in the distant past. Jean
Baptist Lamarck proposed a full-fledged evolutionary theory for living
things (proved wrong eventually in its essential aspects) in 1809. But in
spite of all these in general a biblical world view prevailed up to the mid
19th century among lay people and scientists alike. It was a creationist’s
view in which God has created each species separately with the specific
attributes appropriate to that species. But this changed radically in 1859
with the publication of Charles Darwin’s “On the Origin of Species”.

Theory of evolution
Darwin presented in the book a totally new mechanism for evolution of
life on the basis of ‘natural selection’ through the adaptation of an
organism to the environment. This also entails the survival of the fittest
in the competitive world of limited resources. Those who have the
survival and reproductive advantages ultimately prevail in spreading
their genetic make up, while others get extinct. The adaptations very
gradually lead to the changes and new speciation.

Darwin’s theory got immediate attention and support because of the

huge collection of evidences that accompanied it. The most convincing
evidence was the discovery of a wealth of fossils by then. Each earlier
stratum of rocks contains the ancestors of biota of that one, and the
fossils in the recent strata resemble the current living organisms. Then
Darwin had the good fortune of having traveled and studied the variation
of flora and fauna both globally and locally within various local natural
barriers preventing their mixing. These and many other evidences made
the wide acceptance of Darwin’s Theory of Evolution inevitable.

This theory represents perhaps the greatest intellectual revolution

experienced by mankind. It challenged not only the constancy of the
world and the popular creationist view, but also the uniqueness of man in
the world. It did not stop by demonstrating that the man shares many1
anatomical and physiological functions of other animals – all of whom
Evolutionary determination of human behaviors
Darwin and later scientists showed that the evolutionary approach
provides answers to many ultimate ‘why’ questions concerning animal
behavior. The basic notions of the natural selection in terms of survival
and reproductive success have also worked in this. Much of the
decorative and behavioral differences during mating between male and
female could be explained by the sexual selection in evolution – a
selection based on inherited female preferences of males. Altruism, that
is the favored treatment to and sacrifices for kins, could be explained as
the survival and the reproductive successes of those kins who are helped
by such altruism, and hence genetic propensities for the altruism has
spread through the population. In a similar way many sexual as well as
emotional behaviors can be so explained by the natural selection. The
sexual behaviors include competitions, fidelities, etc. while the emotional
behaviors include things such as fears & phobias as well as more social
emotions such as love, empathy, anger etc. Evolution thus has provided
compelling answers concerning why animals by instinct do the things
they do, and are able to modify their behavior in adaptive, functional
ways.

But what about human beings? Darwinian conclusion that we are also a
product of evolution demands that our behaviors must also have their
origin in the natural selection. This means that we behave in a particular
way because this had an adaptive, survival, and reproductive advantage
among our ancestors. Though the point was already made by Darwin,
the details were developed by some later scientists and most lucidly by
Edward O Wilson, an entomologist in his book ‘Sociobiology, the New
Synthesis’ published in 1975. He and sociobiology, the discipline he
popularized, earned a lot of attention and notoriety. Many biologists
appreciated the grand scale and synthesis with which sociobiology
addressed the subject of human behavior. But others severely criticized
it for its extreme deterministic assertions on the same, predetermining
the propensities of the behaviors prior to any cultural or educational
influence.

Evolutionary psychology, a new field on the subject that succeeds

sociobiology is softer in its approach. This ascribes to the evolutionary
theory the ultimate changes of human behavior, but admits that there
are psychological influences that form the proximate causes. This admits
that many behaviors and preferences that were adaptive in their original
evolutionary contexts may no longer be adaptive today, thanks to the
advanced culture and civilization we now enjoy. Nevertheless, many
critics still do not think that evolutionary psychology is much of an
improvement on sociobiology in its overemphasization of the influence of
evolution on human behavior. Many of them are of the opinion that2
cultural and environmental influences are much more potent than
Considering the political ethical implications, many of the critics see a
great danger in the ideas of sociobiology or even evolutionary
psychology in propagating very conservative and right wing beliefs and
practices. These might even be used to excuse the crimes of individuals,
saying that these are just because of the genetic compulsion he/she
suffers from. This is the reason that many accused the socio-biologists of
being sexists, imperialists, racists etc.

Nature or nurture

Ultimately the real influence must be coming from an interaction

between nature and nurture. Neither genes nor environment and culture
can be considered in isolation. The processes that are taking place in our
brain are not all hard-wired there from evolution. Rather humans
constantly adapt their behaviors and desires to new environmental and
cultural challenges for which our evolutionary past could not have
prepared us. Under the circumstances the human brain will only have its
effect in collaboration with innumerable other internal and external
influences.

Some scientists have suggested some alternative ways to evolutionary

psychology to relate evolved goals and ends to their implementations in
action. An example is something called Rational Choice Theory. This
builds on a belief-desire model that necessitates some goal for an action
and some belief about the relation of the action to the attainment of that
goal. Rational choice theory moves from the rational action of this model
to rational choice. That gives the performer of the action an opportunity
to choose from a range of possible actions, a chance to choose the action
that is optimal in realizing the goal.

Adoption of Darwinism in social science

In post-Darwin era some social scientists tried to find a link with
Darwinian theory suggesting that competition within the species was
crucial for progress, either at the individual or group level. Starting with
he Darwinian theory of individual competition, the ideology of progress
through struggle was increasingly transferred to the level of national or
even racial competition. Sometimes this linking biology with social
thoughts took Lamarckian overtones. Many eager to prove the
dispensability of some ‘unfit’ races did not believe that the original racial
differences were created by natural selection. They took resort to
Lamarckian evolution instead.

Lamarckism required one to believe that individuals are not totally

constrained by their biological inheritance. For new characters to be
acquired and transmitted, inheritance had to be a soft one to enable the3
acquired characters inherited. Even Darwin himself did not believe that
The area where evolutionism impinged most obviously on social thoughts
was the implication that there might be a struggle for existence among
individuals, nations or races. This points toward the controversial topic of
Social Darwinism, the use of the Darwinian notion of struggle to justify
social policies in which there was little sympathy toward those who could
not adjust and adapt. This has acquired a reputation for promoting
ruthless social attitudes. But the use of Darwinian catchphrases such as
“the survival of the fittest” by a variety of rightwing thinkers creates an
exaggerated sense of the theory's influence on these social aspect. On
the other hand socialists had a mixed attitude towards Darwin’s theory.
Marx and Engels certainly welcomed evolution theory because of its
support for a materialist’s view of human nature. But they also realized
that there was an analogy between the natural selection and the
capitalist economic system. Later during Stalinist period in soviet union
the Lamarckian theories such as Lysenko’s flourished in Soviet Russia.

Lysenko claimed that vernalization process in which wheat seeds are

frozen so that they germinate during the next spring, can be transmitted
to the next generation as a case of inheritance of acquired property. It
failed, but not before taking down the wheat crop of Russia and also the
genetics and dissenting geneticists in the country.

Trying to control and manipulate a race’s genetic constitution was

practical from of Darwinian selection theory. Francis Galton first
proposed this and coined the term Eugenics for this in 1883. The idea
subsequently gained popularity in some quarters in various countries.
For example the British Parliament passed the Mental Deficiency Act in
1913 ensuring in theory that those diagonised as having low intelligence
would be institutionalized and prevented from bearing children. This was
a movement for an extreme from of biological determinism. This was
coming under suspicion as the racial excesses of the Nazi Germany came
to a head in the late 1930s. Biologists now recognized that few
characters are controlled by single genes, while the difficulties created
by the existence of recessive genes made the hope of purifying human
race seem an illusion in practical terms. The subject of genetic
determinism, however, remained a strongly debated issue among the
biologists. Though the natural selection mechanism which would
determine the human behavior were much more clear by now, for many
scientists the human ability to learn and acquire a culture was far more
significant in determining how people behave.