In Defense of Darwinism

by Rucha Lim


I feel that I’m a bit late in writing this but I’ll still write it because I feel the need to clarify some misconceptions that may have arisen when I brought up the biological perspective on being good.

After my comment regarding the possibility of humans being biologically primed to do good, Doctor Garcia mentioned the concept of “The Selfish Gene” to reinforce the idea that our biological imperatives drive us to be selfish. I feel that this needs to be clarified however to avoid misconceptions. What better way to clarify the concept than in the words of Richard Dawkins himself? He writes

“The logic of Darwinism concludes that the unit in the hierarchy of life which survives and passes through the filter of natural selection will tend to be selfish. The units that survive are at the expense of their rivals at their own level in the hierarchy. That, precisely, is what selfish means in this context. The question is, what is the level of the action? The whole idea of the selfish gene, with the stress properly applied to the last word, is that the unit of natural selection (i.e. the unit of self interest) is not the selfish organism, nor the selfish group or selfish species or selfish ecosystem, but the selfish gene.It is the gene that, in the form of information, either survives for many generations or does not. Unlike the gene (and arguably the meme), the organism, the group and the species are not the right kind of entity to serve as a unit in this sense, because they do not make such self-replicating entities. That is precisely what genes do, and that is – essentially logical – justification for singling the gene out as the unit of ‘selfishness’ in the special Darwinian sense of selfish.”

So what Dawkins was describing as ‘selfish’ was really our biological imperative to outlast the other organisms in our ecosystems. That is why we developed tools and techniques. It is in order to better fend off potential predators and perhaps even outhunt them in order to thrive. Dawkins further writes that primates, being social creatures are capable of the concept of reputations. This means that elements in a social group that are selfish prove to be detrimental and are often punished. We’ve seen it in how gorillas and baboons have leaders that punish members that were liabilities to the group’s survival.

Cooperation is what helped primates thrive in groups and this particularly seen in the developments of the human race. It is here that the concept of Darwinism comes into play again. Darwinism is not just about the short-term survival of the singular organism but rather, the long-term survival of its race.It is not just about the evolution of sharper claws or stronger muscles for hunting because that is just one aspect of survival. What Darwinism retains and develops are the qualities in organisms that let their kind flourish. Lions evolved into good hunters, gazelle evolved into fast runners that can flee from predators, and humans evolved into social creatures that band together against the other forces of nature. We learned to communicate and trust each other and the ways in which we are able to develop this trust through altruistic behavior and generosity. Ever since the prehistoric era, humans have banded together to hunt creatures much larger and more powerful.

This is why in my previous writings (and perhaps the ones to come) I always stress how I believe in the human narrative. We must view ourselves as the whole human race and remember the foundations in what has allowed our race to thrive, through the social and the values associated with it, compassion, altruism, and empathy.

Darwinism is applied to elements like compassion because they assist in survival. The most immediate of altruistic relationships occur between those of blood relatives and thus the genes of one progenitor are able to survive and evolve. This gave rise to the social unit known as the family. This is why things such as family values develop in order to preserve the elements of the units.Humanity however has expanded the social into the tribes and then into the kingdom,then the religion and then the nation (though not necessarily in that order). Now, in our globalized world, we’ve become increasingly conscious of our wholeness as the human race especially in the face of the dangers we have created for ourselves. As bullets and bombs do not discriminate nationality or sex or race, so we must also learn to surpass these differences and be conscious of our oneness. Remember Heidegger’s statement of philosophy as “philos sophon” or one who yearns for the whole. Darwinism does not reduce us into our base desires but has actually revealed the inner social capacities of the human for the purpose of the survival of our race.

     Many of the things I’m trying to say here, besides being influenced by Dawkins is influenced by a video of a talk by Jeremy Rifkin for the British Royal Society of Arts. The video can be found below and I’d recommend everyone watch because it’s just so full of information and insight and I may have overlooked some things in my writing.