IN GOD’S IMAGE?

IN GOD’S IMAGE?
The Natural History of Intelligence and Ethics

Gerhard Meisenberg

Book Guild Publishing

Sussex, England
 First published in Great Britain in 2007 by
The Book Guild Ltd
Pavilion View
19 New Road
Brighton
BN1 1UF

Copyright # Gerhard Meisenberg 2007

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 Contents

Introduction vii
1 The Doors of Perception 1
2 The Nature of Knowledge 17
3 The Nature of Intelligence 35
4 Reason and Emotion 63
5 The Logic of Nature 81
6 Origins 103
7 Men and Women 125
8 Parents and Children 157
9 Friends and Enemies 173
10 Good and Evil 199
11 Nature and Nurture 233
12 The Logic of Culture 255
13 Ideologology 281
14 A Conversation with Dr Stein 299
15 Yoyo Evolution and Noah’s Ark 325
Notes 347
References 367

v
 Introduction

As an evolutionary biologist, I have learned over the years

that most people do not want to see themselves as lumbering
robots programmed to ensure the survival of their genes. I
don’t think they will want to see themselves as digital com-
puters either.
(John Maynard Smith)1

In this book I argue that you and I are lumbering robots and digital
(or possibly analog) computers, and poorly constructed ones to
boot. This is how scientists see human beings: the imperfect products
of 3 billion years of evolution, given their present-day form not by
the divine engineer but by the mindless, wasteful and cruel process of
natural selection. This process programmed feelings and desires into
our brains, and it made us loath to see ourselves as soulless robots
and computers. To the human mind, a soulless existence is tanta-
mount to death.
Yet this is not a book about the soul. It is about the robot’s
reflexes and the computer’s programs, describing the human condi-
tion the way an anthropologist from Mars would explain it to his
people. It is above all about the shortcomings of these reflexes and
programs, and the deviance and stupidity they impose on our exis-
tence. Far from being an end product and far from being perfect, we
are a transitional entity in the history of life, evolved from apes and
amoebas and still evolving today.
My first claim is that the evolutionary process has left us with a
system of intelligent reasoning that is little more than a bundle of
cognitive reflexes. There is a set of reflexes for thinking about the
inanimate world and a different set of reflexes for thinking about
people. This cognitive toolkit produces predictable errors of rea-
soning and judgment, especially when we try to understand ourselves

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 In God’s Image?

and other people. This is because our social instincts did not evolve
for the benefit of objective knowledge, but to give us an edge in the
perennial struggle for sex and money, food and mates. It is the
reason why we have so much trouble thinking of people as robots or
computers.
Thinking about people depends on cognitive reflexes, and we use
intelligent reasoning only when we really have to. Most of the time
we are better off that way because our reasoning ability is so limited
that any pocket calculator outsmarts us in terms of abstract infor-
mation-processing ability. The only complex skills we are good at are
those that our ancestors needed for survival and that have therefore
been selected in the evolutionary game: the ability to walk without
falling over, language, face recognition, and the like. The first four
chapters are concerned with our cognitive reflexes and the limitations
of our reasoning system – in other words, our stupidity.
My second claim is that our moral intuitions about right and
wrong are merely a bundle of instinctive responses to standard social
situations that we apply knee-jerkingly. They include feelings of
guilt, shame and compassion, inhibitory controls on the four Fs
(feeding, fleeing, fighting and reproduction), in-group solidarity,
conformity and obedience, and intuitions about deservingness and
entitlements. These emotions and thinking routines evolved not to
guarantee human welfare, but to promote the survival of the genes
that have programmed them into our brains.
Chapters 5 to 10 explore the natural history of social behavior and
moral intuitions. We see that there is a close correspondence between
the social behavior of group-living primates, the customs of simple
human societies, and the political values that people endorse today.
Whether we are dealing with social interactions in a chimpanzee
colony, religious injunctions, the programs of social reformers or the
moral systems concocted by our philosophers, the imprint of Mother
Nature is stark, unmistakable and often pernicious.
But there is more to human existence than the hard-wiring
wrought by Mother Nature. The kind of society in which we grow up
shapes our experiences, and our experiences shape the ways we think
and act. The ways we think and act make us change our societies,
and this in turn changes our experiences and the ways we think and
act. This muddle of feedback loops produces cultural evolution. In
other words: history.
And this brings us to my third and most obnoxious claim: that

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 Introduction

biological and cultural evolution interact in predictable ways. To

begin with, our evolved human nature constrains both the types of
society we can construct and our behavioral, emotional and cogni-
tive responses to the cultural conditions we have created. These
cultural conditions even change the course of our biological evolu-
tion, not immediately but on a timescale of centuries to millennia.
This requires an explanation. The gene pool doesn’t change much
over the millennia as long as the species lives under the ‘natural’
conditions to which it has been adapted by mutation and selection
over thousands of generations. But our conditions of life are far
from ‘natural’. For most of our evolutionary history, our ancestors
had to do without doctors and hospitals, teachers and jailers,
supermarkets and condoms. Every one of these innovations is
changing the gene pool by way of natural or not-so-natural genetic
selection. In short, abilities and character traits that were once
adaptive in the evolutionary game no longer are so today, while
others are becoming important only now.
Chapters 11 to 15 describe the gene–culture coevolution that has
taken place in past societies and that is continuing now in the
(post)modern world. Large-scale historical patterns can be explained
that way, for example the rise of Christian Europe over the past
millennium, and the decline of the Muslim Middle East.
And what is the conclusion? In brief, the conclusion is that all or
nearly all modern societies will self-destruct during the third mil-
lennium. They will end on the rubbish heap of history, together with
the ancient Greek, Roman and Arab civilizations. This outcome is a
consequence of the value systems that humans adopt in response to
civilized conditions of life. These responses are predictable and
universal. They are predictable from our cognitive biases and defi-
cits, and from the structure of our moral instincts. And they are
universal because all human races are similar in their genetic
heritage.
Not everyone will agree with all my premises and conclusions, but
I am not offering a new dogma. Science can only offer a description
of the human condition that seems to be the closest approximation
to the real thing, given the knowledge available at this point in time.
When visiting the archipelago of knowledge, we must never forget
that we are sailing on the ocean of ignorance.
At some points I will give advice to certain kinds of people, such as
politicians, rapists and feminist genetic engineers. You will have to

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 In God’s Image?

judge the merits of these proposals for yourself. However, this is a

book about how people are and what they do, not how they ought to
be or what they ought to do. People have endless difficulty with this
distinction. This is because the human brain is not made for the
generation of objective knowledge. It is designed to use information
as a guide for action – but that’s part of my story already.

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 1
The Doors of Perception

‘Psychology could turn out to be like physics – its regula-

rities explainable by a few deep, elegant, inexorable laws –
or psychology could turn out to be utterly lacking in laws – in
which case the only way to study or expound psychology
would be the novelist’s way.’
(Noam Chomsky)

‘I think only a humanities professor at MIT could be so

oblivious of the third ‘‘interesting’’ possibility: psychology
could turn out to be like engineering.’1
(Marvin Minsky)

When Minsky opined that psychology is like engineering, he may

have had classical engineering in mind: constructing a thinking
machine, complete with desires, feelings, and self-reflection. But to
understand the natural variety of thought, feelings and all the rest,
we depend on reverse engineering: examining the human mind the
way we would examine a crash-landed UFO, trying to figure out
what it was made for and how its components work together to fulfill
the UFO’s mission.
The proper starting point for this endeavor is the brain, for it is
the brain that perceives the world, imparts meaning to it and
produces action. This chapter looks at the first of these processes: the
perception of the world and the construction of what we call
reality.

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 In God’s Image?

Places in the brain

Man ought to know that from the brain and the brain only arise
our pleasures, joys, laughter and jests as well as our sorrows,
pains, griefs, and tears. (Hippocrates, The Sacred Disease)

Would ‘you’ still exist if your brain died and was replaced by a
transplant? Or would you rather see your body dead, with your brain
living on in someone else’s body? The idea is simple: mental activity
is brain activity. If we could generate a complete description of a
brain’s activity at any one point in time, we would have a complete
description of the person’s mental activity.
When presented on a platter, a human brain looks anything but
intellectual: 3 pounds of softish, greasy tissue, the size of the liver
and three times the size of the heart, unhealthy to eat because of its
high cholesterol content. Its convoluted surface is formed by a sheet
of gray matter 3 to 4 millimeters deep. This is the cerebral cortex, our
thinking cap. Under the cortex is white matter, with gray structures
of all shapes and sizes embedded in it. The gray matter consists of
cell bodies, and the white matter consists of their processes, the nerve
fibers or axons.
Even the unmicroscoped eye can see dozens of gray patches in the
depths of the brain, and the microscopic structure is outright con-
fusing. Even the cerebral cortex is actually a patchwork of many
little areas, each having its own connections with other parts of the
brain. This complexity does not bode well for theories that view the
brain as an all-round information processor. It looks more like a
design where each part is assigned its own task.
Neurons are the building blocks of the brain, much as silicon chips
are the building blocks of a computer. There are 100 billion of them
in the brain, more than ten times the number of people on Earth.
The average neuron forms more than 1,000 synapses – tiny cell–cell
contacts – with other neurons; 100 trillion synapses – that’s a lot of
computing power!
The cerebral hemispheres present a labyrinth of folds and fissures
that vary from person to person (Figure 1.1). Brains are as different
as faces. But the larger fissures are present in everyone, and they
divide the brain into four lobes: frontal, parietal, temporal and
occipital. The frontal lobe organizes the motor output, and the
others analyze sensory input.

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 The Doors of Perception

Figure 1.1 A lateral view of the brain. The visual streams are marked by
arrows.

The back ends of the frontal lobes form the motor cortex, and
right behind the motor cortex, in the parietal lobes, is the cortex for
bodily sensations; touch, pain, and body position. Information
about body position and ongoing movements is needed for motor
coordination, and the brain applies a ‘save wire’ principle by placing
somatic sensation and movement next to each other. Each hemi-
sphere handles movement and sensation from the opposite side of
the body. Therefore left-sided strokes paralyze the right side of the
body and right-sided strokes paralyze the left side.
Children like to ask: Why did nobody ever construct a ‘real’ robot
like the ones in science fiction movies, one that can walk like a
human being? The answer is that walking requires too much com-
puting power, far more than multiplying six-digit numbers or
remembering the sequence of 3 billion base pairs of DNA. For us,
however, walking is easier. This is because for millions of years those
of our ancestors who couldn’t do math survived, but those who
couldn’t walk died. Also face recognition, voice recognition and
speech are easy for us but difficult for robots because our ancestors
couldn’t do without these special skills.
Vision is our most impressive sensory system. Our species has been
grounded for a few million years, but we still have the exquisite

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 In God’s Image?

vision that our primate ancestors evolved to navigate in the trees.

Visual signals are sent to the occipital lobes in the back of the head
and are then processed into neighboring regions of the temporal and
parietal lobes.
The auditory cortex in the temporal lobes is linked to the language
cortex, which also includes areas of the frontal lobe next to the part
of the motor strip that controls mouth and throat movements. In
most people, the left hemisphere is in charge of language. Therefore
left-sided but not right-sided strokes lead to speech disorders.
Other parts of the cortex are concerned with thinking, memory
and emotion. Actually, emotions are created in the deep structures of
the brain. These ancient circuits are unconscious, but they send
messages into the cortex much as the retina sends messages into the
cortex. The messages from the retina are perceived as visual images,
and the messages from the emotion circuits are perceived as feelings.
There are three sources of conscious experience altogether: percep-
tions from the senses, feelings from subcortical emotion circuits, and
memories.

Grandmother cells

. . . all of our ideas are nothing but copies of our impressions, or,
in other words . . . it is impossible for us to think of anything,
which we have not antecedently felt, either by our external or
internal senses. (David Hume, 1748)2

The contents of our consciousness are internal representations, or

working models, of the world. They are built from perceptions,
either directly or indirectly through memory, and acquire their
meaning from the emotions that we attach to them. Thinking is the
process of manipulating these mental models. Thus, there can be no
thought without perception.
Vision is our most important sense. Messages from each half of
the visual field are carried to the opposite side of the brain. Therefore
each half-brain concerns itself not only with the opposite side of the
body, but also with the opposite side of the outside world. The first
cortical station is the primary visual cortex, also known as area V1.
V1 is somewhat like a screen on which the retinal image is projected,
with each cell responding to illumination of a tiny spot on the retina.

4
 The Doors of Perception

The visual areas that extract meaning from the image in V1 are ten
times larger than V1 itself. More than 30 distinct visual areas have
been described in the monkey, interconnected in two processing
streams: a ventral stream from the occipital cortex into the under-
belly of the temporal lobes, and a dorsal stream that veers off into
the parietal lobes.
The neurons of the dorsal stream respond best to movement. In
the later stages of processing, we find cells that respond not only to
visual stimuli but also to signals about joint position and muscle
tension, vestibular signals, and the position of the eyes in their orbits.
This system keeps track of the body’s movements in space.
The dorsal stream connects to the frontal cortex where hand and
arm movements are organized. The importance of this system is
demonstrated by patient A.T., whose dorsal stream was destroyed by
a stroke. Although still able to recognize and describe objects, she
became unable to grasp these same objects between her fingertips.
There was no relation between the size of the object and the size of
her grip.
This patient demonstrates that conscious perception is not suffi-
cient for action. The road from perception to awareness, awareness
to thought, and thought to action is too slow. It wouldn’t be fast
enough to catch a ball. The dorsal stream is designed for quick
reflexive action, and the ventral stream for slow conscious
perception.
Damage to the ventral stream impairs the recognition and dis-
crimination of objects, a condition that is known as agnosia. Patient
D.F., for example, is a young woman who acquired severe damage to
the ventral stream through an episode of near-fatal carbon monoxide
poisoning. This left her unable to distinguish squares from rectangles
with a 2:1 aspect ratio, or to report the orientation of a horizontal,
oblique, or vertical slot correctly. But she can reach out and insert
her hand or a card correctly in the same slot, and shape her fingers
perfectly for grasping rectangular blocks of different width.3
Recognition deficits can be quite specific. Some patients with left-
sided damage become unable to read although they can still identify
most objects other than written letters or words. This is called alexia.
Right-sided damage is more likely to cause prosopagnosia: the
inability to recognize familiar faces. For example, a Harvard student
who had suffered brain damage in a car accident had to ask his wife
to wear a ribbon in her hair so he could recognize her in a crowd.

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 In God’s Image?

Other patients can no longer recognize facial expressions although

they can discriminate faces. There are also reports of a farmer who
could still recognize familiar people although he could no longer
distinguish his cows, and another farmer who could recognize his
cows but not his friends.4 These cases show that the brain has special
places for letters and faces, cows and people. Half jokingly, it has
been proposed that there are ‘grandmother cells’, which become
active only when you see your grandmother.
The face cells seem to be hard-wired. They have been found even
in baby monkeys, and human infants can distinguish face from non-
face almost immediately after birth. In one case, an infant developed
lasting prosopagnosia after early damage to the face-selective areas
of the cortex.
Face processing is prewired because faces have intrinsic biological
meaning, but what about letters, numbers and written words? Unlike
face recognition, reading is a recent invention. Therefore the brain
circuitry for reading cannot be an evolved feature of the brain. And
yet, the brains of literate people contain letter-responsive cells and
others that respond to numbers. These cells are simply shape-
selective cells that became fine-tuned by external input.5
If the brain has different places for color, faces, shape and motion,
how can it keep the right attributes together? When watching a white
mouse with pink ears eating a hole-riddled, yellow Swiss cheese, why
don’t we perceive a pink cheese with white ears eating a hole-riddled
yellow mouse instead? This is called the binding problem. Could it be
that somewhere in the brain the information from all the processing
units is reunited to produce an integrated image? Damage to this
place would cause total blindness in the presence of an intact V1.
No such place has ever been found. Most likely the visual system
solves the binding problem by analyzing each object separately, one
at a time, with binding somehow effected by the simultaneous
activity of the processing units. This implies that, unnoticed by the
viewer, attentional shifts take place many times every second. The
cognitive system then assembles a panoramic view of the world from
successive snapshots glued together by short-term memory, almost
like a real movie.
Experiments like the one in Figure 1.2 show that attentional shifts
from one object to another occur 25 to 40 times every second. This
has to happen unconsciously because we can process only five to
eight conscious perceptions per second. Most likely the attentional

6
 The Doors of Perception

Figure 1.2 When searching a display like this for the vertical bar, the time
to locate the target increases with the number of distracters as though the
subject attended to each item in turn. People can scan through 25 to 40
items every second. (Posner and Dehaene, 1994)

snapshots are timed by volleys of nerve impulses that are sent from
the deep core of the brain to the cortex. These are the rhythmic
pulses of activity that are recorded in the EEG. One implication is
that we can read only 25 to 40 characters per second. If you don’t
believe it, take a stopwatch, read one page as fast as you can, count
the letters on the page, and then divide the number of letters by the
reading time.6

The conscious and the unconscious mind

Our knowledge, like our eye, only sees outwards, and not
inwards, so that when the knower tries to turn itself inwards, in
order to know itself, it looks into a total darkness, falls into a
complete void. (Arthur Schopenhauer)

Visual responses of neurons can be measured in anesthetized ani-

mals. Therefore visual processing must be unconscious. Most brain
activity is unconscious. We are not aware of how we link sounds into
words and apply grammatical regularities to understand sentences;

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 In God’s Image?

and when walking, dancing or talking, we do not know which

muscles we contract. For sensation and movement alike, only
unconscious processing in parallel channels is fast enough and
complex enough.
Simple organisms rely on reflexes. A fly-catching frog only needs
bug detectors in its eyes or brain that are hooked to a motor pro-
gram for snapping. And a human infant smiling at a face only needs
a face cell circuitry capable of distinguishing face from non-face,
hooked to a motor program for smiling.
The unconscious information processors are called modules. Each
module is devoted to a specialized task, such as smiling or smile
recognition. It is informationally encapsulated, receiving only the
kinds of information needed for its task. It’s like in the military, where
information is given on a need-to-know basis. Reflex-like, the module
thoughtlessly transforms an input pattern into an output pattern.
One example is the perception of constancy in the visual world.
When you walk, move your head or shift your gaze, you see the
world as stationary although the image on the retina moves. But
when you press your finger against your eyeball, the image of the
world shifts. The module that makes us see the world as stationary
computes information about head and body movements and active
movements of the eyeballs, but not about passive displacement of the
eyeballs.
The malfunction of a single module leads to abnormalities that are
restricted to the module’s function. For example, there seems to be a
sexual-orientation module whose malfunction leads to homo-
sexuality. Sex identity – perceiving oneself as male or female – is
determined by a different module. Malfunction of this module
produces not a homosexual but a transsexual. These modules func-
tion as autonomous units independent of the cognitive system.
Therefore people are not free to choose their sexual orientation or
sex identity.
In a classical reflex, the input of the module is sensory and the
output is a motor act. In perception, the input is sensory and the
output is a conscious mental representation of the stimulus. In willed
action, the input is a mental representation of an intended action and
the output is a motor act.
The modules cannot afford short-term memory. The visual pro-
cessing units, for example, must forget their past activity in order to
be ready for the next volley of nerve impulses when the attentional

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 The Doors of Perception

spotlight shifts – up to 40 times every second. With that workload,

they cannot keep a record of their past activities. Therefore the
modules are cognitively impenetrable, and the thinker cannot
backtrack the sources of its information.7
By definition, only conscious contents are accessible to intro-
spection: the process by which the thinker inspects the traces of
mental states that were in the focus of attention moments before and
that gave rise to his present state. It is this ability that gives us a sense
of continued existence in time.
Thus the theater of conscious experience is a short-term memory
system that holds information on a second-by-second timescale. This
system is called working memory. It harbors internal representa-
tions, or mental models, of one or another aspect of the world. The
cognitive processing of these mental models is called thinking.
Thinking depends on ‘executive’ modules that take elements of a
conscious mental model as their input, analyze them, and send their
output back into the system to transform the mental model. The
cognitive system that is centered on working memory is the only part
of the brain that is aware of itself.

The threshold of awareness

If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would

appear to man as it is, infinite. (William Blake)

In a delayed matching-to-sample task, a monkey is presented with a

sample stimulus, for example a red circle or a blue square on a
computer screen. The stimulus is switched off, and after a delay of a
few seconds either the same or a different stimulus appears. The
monkey earns its peanuts by pressing a lever when the sample sti-
mulus but not a distracter is shown. During this procedure, the
activity of single neurons is measured by wiretapping them with
implanted electrodes.
The sample stimulus activates cells in the visual cortex. Most of
the cells fire when the stimulus is first shown, return to baseline
during the delay interval, and resume firing when the same stimulus
is shown again. But some cells remain active even during the delay
interval when the stimulus is no longer present. They make sure that
what is out of sight is not out of mind.

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 In God’s Image?

If information becomes conscious only after its transfer from the

sensory modules to the short-term memory cells, then we experience
the world with a delay. That this is the case has been shown by
Benjamin Libet at the University of California in San Francisco.
When he applied a brief, barely perceptible stimulus to the skin of his
subjects, he observed two responses in the EEG: a fast response over
the somatosensory cortex that peaked one-tenth of a second after the
stimulus, and a widespread response that developed gradually during
one half of a second.
When lowering the stimulus intensity, Libet reached a point where
the slow response vanished although the fast response could still be
measured. At this point the conscious awareness of the stimulus
faded. Anesthetic drugs impaired conscious experience and also
depressed the late potential, but left the fast response intact. The
sharp early potential marks the unconscious processing of the sti-
mulus in the modules of the sensory cortex, and the slow fuzzy
potential tracks the conscious experience.
Although the late potential signals conscious awareness, the sub-
jective experience of the event is referred back in time. A sprinter
starts running within one-tenth of a second after the start shot.
When asked about the timing of the shot, she will say that she heard
it immediately before she started running. But actually, she starts
running before the shot has reached conscious awareness.
Conscious thought was needed to program the contingency into
the sprinter’s sensory-motor systems: When you hear the shot, run.
But when the shot is fired, the response is automatic. Conscious
processing would be too slow. And yet, somehow the subjective
experience is pre-dated to the time when the stimulus first reached
the sensory cortex, or perhaps even to the approximate time of the
shot itself.
Libet demonstrated this subjective referral in time by stimulating
the thalamus, a small structure in the innards of the brain that relays
signals from the body to the somatosensory cortex. At low current
intensity, he had to stimulate for at least half a second to induce a
conscious experience. And yet, the subjects reported feeling it at
roughly the time when the fast potential appeared in their EEG.8
People can respond to a stimulus without being aware of it.
Patients with damage to the primary visual cortex are blind in part
or all of the visual field, but vestiges of vision can be demonstrated in
forced-choice tasks where the patient has to ‘guess’ the location or

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 The Doors of Perception

nature of the stimulus. Despite their blindness, many patients can

direct their gaze at the stimulus, point at it, and detect movement.
This much-studied phenomenon is called blindsight. It is possible
because a few fibers reach the processing areas of the parietal cortex
directly from visual structures in the midbrain and thalamus,
bypassing V1. These signals are sufficient for the sensory-motor
modules, but too weak for conscious perception. Conscious pro-
cessing has limited capacity. Therefore only the most robust signals
are transmitted from the modules to the conscious system.
The psychological literature is replete with examples of subliminal
perception: sensory stimuli that affect behavior although they are
too brief or too weak to be perceived consciously. Subliminal per-
ception became notorious back in the 1960s when a movie theater in
New Jersey flashed the message ‘Buy Popcorn’ to the patrons,
allegedly resulting in a doubling of popcorn sales. There is also
evidence that patients under surgical anesthesia can listen in on
conversations. Therefore surgeons should refrain from defeatist
remarks about their patients during surgery.9

The searchlight of attention

It is, no doubt, important to attend to the eternally beautiful

and true. But it is more important not to be eaten. (Jerry Fodor)

Every moment of our waking lives we are bombarded with a barrage

of stimuli, most of them utterly unimportant. The sensory modules
cannot process them all, and not all the processed information can
be accommodated in the stream of consciousness. Therefore sensa-
tions must be admitted selectively.
Most of the sorting and sifting is done in the sensory modules, but
true attention requires top-down projections into the visual streams.
These projections enhance sensory processing. When subjects view
pictures of faces on a computer screen while their brain activity is
scanned, the face-selective areas become active. When the same pic-
tures are displayed during a face discrimination task, these same areas
light up even more. But when the subject has to remember in which
corner of the screen the face appeared, irrespective of face identity, the
face areas remain dim and location-sensitive areas light up instead.10
The top-down projections that activate the sensory modules

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 In God’s Image?

originate from a cognitive map that is kept up-to-date by sensory

input. The location of this map is revealed by patients with one-sided
brain damage who show a striking neglect for the side of the world
opposite the side of their brain damage. A patient with right-sided
damage might ignore people approaching him from the left side, eat
food only from the right side of his plate, and shave only the right
side of his face. When asked to copy a drawing he will omit the left
half, as shown in Figure 1.3. The neglect patient is not aware of his
deficit. He is convinced that all the food on the plate is eaten, his
shaving is complete, and there is nothing wrong with his drawings.

Figure 1.3 Many patients with right-sided brain damage fail to

reproduce the left side of drawings. (Milner and Goodale, 1995, p.193)

Some patients with right-sided damage neglect the left side of

imagined as well as actual scenes. In a classical experiment, the
Italian neurologist Edoardo Bisiach asked his patients to imagine the
Piazza del Duomo in Milan from a particular vantage point and
report the buildings. The patients failed to name the buildings on the
left side.11 They not only failed to see left of center; they couldn’t
even think left of center!

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 The Doors of Perception

These patients have damage to brain circuits that include right-

sided cortical areas and subcortical structures. These circuits seem to
form the maps that guide visual attention. The maps respond to
cognitive input – instructing them, for example, to look for a needle
in a haystack – but they are themselves unconscious. They have to be
unconscious, for if the focus of attention shifts up to 40 times every
second, it works too fast for conscious awareness.
Thus we see only a tiny slice of reality; and we must select not
those perceptions that are the most accurate representations of the
world, but those that we need for survival in a dangerous world.

Seeing with the mind’s eye

The understanding cannot see. The senses cannot think. By

their union only can knowledge be produced. (Immanuel Kant,
Critique of Pure Reason)

How many windows are there in your living room? Do frogs have
stubby green tails? When answering the first question, people usually
visualize their room and scan over each wall, counting the windows
with their mind’s eye. For the second question, they mentally rotate
the amphibian to inspect its behind. During evolution, imagery came
first and verbal thought is a recent addition.
Visual imagery activates parts of the visual cortex, and parts of the
frontal cortex. Activation of the visual cortex depends on the kind of
imagery. Imagining a pink elephant activates areas next to those
where pinkness and elephantness are perceived. Imagining move-
ment in space, such as walking from your house to your favorite bar,
or tracing the outline of the letter B, activates motion-sensitive areas.
Presumably the frontal lobes pull the elements of the image from
long-term memory, patch them up, and bring them to life by pro-
jecting them into the visual cortex. Mental imagery evolved for
difficult recognition problems. Think of an australopithecine strol-
ling through the African savannah at Olduvai Gorge who sees the tip
of a lion’s tail protruding from behind a rock. This australopith
needs imagination to realize that most likely there is a lion attached
to the tail, and that it may be wise to beat a cautious retreat.
At a more advanced level of cognitive evolution, imagery is used
to predict the outcomes of one’s actions. Trial-and-error learning is

13
 In God’s Image?

risky because a single foolish act can be deadly. We are better off
constructing mental models of planned actions and evaluating the
imagined consequences for their desirability. By imagining the con-
sequences of our actions, we can let our ideas die in our stead.
If you are not satisfied with the liveliness of your imagination, and
your perception of the world is pale and unexciting, you can do
something very simple: drop a little LSD. After a low dose of LSD,
vision is altered in subtle ways. Color is perceived more intensely,
and attention turns to otherwise neglected details of the world. The
world becomes an enchanted place, detached from the routines of
ordinary experience. Hallucinations appear only in the dark, con-
sisting of simple visual impressions such as colored fingerprints or
colored dots or shapes that keep changing at a breathtaking pace.
Meaningful images, such as little naked women sitting in the
drawer of your desk smiling at you, or little white mice with red caps
scurrying along the walls of your room, are not typical for LSD. If
you have hallucinations of this type you are probably not the victim
of a practical joke by your hallucinogen-using friends, but you had
better do something about your drinking. These hallucinations occur
in patients with alcohol psychosis.
LSD widens emotional as well as visual experience, with effects
ranging from ecstasy to horror. Like sensory experience, feelings are
produced by the transfer of information from modular systems to
the conscious working memory system, and this is exactly the pro-
cess that is facilitated by LSD.
Elements of the LSD experience can recur spontaneously many
days or weeks after the trip. This is called a flashback. More
importantly, many users report that aspects of the LSD experience
become part of their normal emotional repertoire. LSD has been
found useful in psychotherapy, presumably because it can lead to a
lasting facilitation of information transfer from the modules to
consciousness.
The hallucinations of schizophrenics are different from those
induced by LSD. They are auditory rather than visual, and they are
meaningful. The patient hears voices talking about him, or ordering
him to do weird things. Some patients describe their hallucinations
as ‘thoughts becoming loud’, and that’s what they are. They are not
created by dumb modules but are projected into them, and from the
modules they are back-projected into consciousness. The fault is not
in the sensory system but the cognitive system.

14
 The Doors of Perception

LSD users know that their hallucinations are abnormal, but many
schizophrenics do not. Ordinarily, we tag the mental representations
in our cognitive system by their origin. If it comes from the senses, it
gets a little tag that says, ‘reality, current’. If it comes straight from
long-term memory, the tag says, ‘reality, past’. Processed products
created from bits and pieces of memory get tags such as ‘fantasy’ or
‘thought’. This happens automatically. And if it doesn’t, your psy-
chiatrist will attach a little tag to you that says, ‘schizophrenic.’
The most advanced function of our cognitive system is the crea-
tion of internal scenarios of what might be true now or could become
true in the future. We tag these internal scenarios as guesses, and
evaluate them perpetually against the ‘reality’ that is presented to us
by the senses. Above all, we keep guessing at other people’s inten-
tions and updating our guesses by observing their behavior.
The schizophrenic cannot evaluate his guesses against everyday
experience. His guesses become firm convictions that grow increas-
ingly bizarre as a result of faulty reality checks: I am a saint; my wife
wants to poison me; the CIA is after me. Thus, schizophrenic
delusions and hallucinations are both caused by a defect in cognitive
source tagging.
The LSD user recognizes his hallucinations as such because his
beliefs and expectations about the world are intact. The visual
phenomena he experiences contradict his expectations about the
world, and he even expects the drug to produce these effects.
Thus we have two closely allied modules that keep us sane: one
that classifies mental representations by their sensory or cognitive
antecedents, and another one that maintains stable expectations
about the world. We also have stable expectations about ourselves,
and we routinely compare our perceptions of ourselves with these
expectations. This is the essence of self-awareness.

15
 2
The Nature of Knowledge

Our sensations, our pleasures, our pains, and the relations of

these, make up the sum total of the elements of positive,
unquestionable knowledge.
(Thomas Huxley, 1879)1

Thinking is the processing of mental models that are held in short-

term memory stores. The craftsman builds his mental models mainly
from current sensory input, but the absentminded professor creates
them from long-term memory. Thus the craftsman and the professor
have different cognitive styles, according to their preferred source of
information. In this chapter we will encounter the mechanisms and
limitations of long-term memory.

The man who lost his memory

A world without memory is a world of the present. The past

exists only in books, in documents. In order to know himself,
each person carries his own Book of Life, which is filled with the
history of his life . . . Without this Book of Life, a person is a
snapshot, a two-dimensional image, a ghost. (Alan Lightman,
Einstein’s Dreams)

The structure of long-term memory is revealed by amnesic patients –

those who have lost their memory. The most famous case is H.M.,
who became amnesic after brain surgery in 1953. At that time, H.M.
was a 27-year-old motor winder who had suffered from severe epi-
lepsy since the age of 16. Everything had been tried, but none of the

17
 In God’s Image?

drugs known at the time worked for him. So he was finally referred
for neurosurgical treatment.
His seizures seemed to originate in the medial parts of the tem-
poral lobes, and therefore his surgeon, William Scoville, decided to
remove the medial temporal lobes on both sides. Up to that time,
this radical surgery had only been tried in a few hopelessly psychotic
patients in a last-ditch effort to relieve their suffering. Malpractice
suits against physicians were almost unheard-of in those days, and
therefore doctors were more ready than now to try desperate cures
for desperately ill patients.
But it didn’t work well for H.M. His epilepsy was indeed much
improved, but he lost his memory. He could still hold things in mind
for seconds and even up to one or two minutes, but his memory was
wiped out whenever his current train of thought was interrupted.
The doctors and nurses who took care of him had to reintroduce
themselves every time they saw him, and whatever he saw, heard or
read was forgotten within minutes. His thinking was clear, and he
still scored in the bright–normal range on IQ tests. He wasn’t stupid,
he just couldn’t remember.
He could still remember events from his early life – his childhood,
his high school sweetheart, and the jobs he had held. But his memory
for the last few years before his surgery and anything thereafter was
wiped out completely. He never got familiar with the place where he
lived after his surgery, and he knew neither the current date nor his
age.
He used accent as a clue to a person’s origin, the weather as a clue
to the time of the year, and his own emotional tone as a clue to
whether things had gone well lately. Having aged, he could no longer
recognize himself on recent photographs. He knew Franklin D.
Roosevelt and Louis Armstrong, but never learned about Ronald
Reagan, Michael Jackson and Osama bin Laden. H.M. survived his
surgery for more than 50 years, serving as a willing subject for a host
of studies about memory – a life for science.
H.M.’s brain lesion is known precisely. The missing piece of brain
includes the anterior two-thirds of the hippocampus, a seahorse-
shaped fold on the medial edge of the temporal lobe. Also a strip of
neocortex next to the hippocampus was removed, as well as the
amygdala, an almond-shaped collection of gray matter in the depth
of the temporal lobes.2
H.M.’s intact short-term retention and reasoning ability show that

18
 The Nature of Knowledge

these parts are not needed for working memory and intelligence. Nor
are they the storehouse for ancient memories. Only fresh long-term
memories depend on the medial temporal lobe, as shown by his
inability to remember the last few years before his surgery. His main
problem, however, was the inability to transcribe information from
short-term to long-term memory.
The type of memory that H.M. had lost is called explicit or
declarative memory. It includes conscious memory for personal
experiences, or episodic memory; and fact knowledge that is called
semantic memory although it is not always verbal. We know from
other patients that the hippocampus is essential for episodic mem-
ories, and nearby neocortical areas for fact knowledge.3
That the conscious recollection of facts and events is not the only
type of long-term memory became clear when H.M. was asked to
copy simple figures while only watching a mirror reflection of his
hand. Like normal people, he performed poorly the first time; and
like normal people, he improved with continued practice. He
improved although he could not remember the practice sessions. He
learned other skills as well, for example pursuing a dot on a rotating
disk with a finger, and reading mirror images of words.
When trained on a study list of words and tested an hour later, he
couldn’t recall a single word. But when presented with the first three
letters of a word and asked to complete these word stems with the
first word that came to mind, he chose the study words more often
than expected. If, for example, the study list contained the word
‘stadium’, he was more likely to complete ‘sta-’ as stadium than as
stable, standard or station.
Memory that is expressed without conscious recollection is called
procedural memory or implicit memory. It is the memory of the
modules, and that’s where the learning takes place: word-stem
completion in the visual cortex, mirror tracing in the cerebellum, and
rotary pursuit in the basal ganglia. The motor skills for walking,
talking, car driving and video game playing are of this kind. Also,
thinking routines are applied automatically. When asked to generate
verbs from nouns (pencil ! write) or to categorize things (Is a
cheddar cheese a living or a nonliving entity?), even amnesics have
shorter reaction times for repeated items although they cannot
remember having seen the item before. This is not true memory, but
simply the faster processing of information at frequently used
synapses.4

19
 In God’s Image?

The memory module

I have done this, says my memory. I cannot have done that,

says my pride, remaining inexorable. Finally – memory yields.
(Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil)

The story goes somewhat like this: conscious contents from working
memory are copied into the medial temporal lobe where they are
kept alive until the sustained activity has effected lasting changes in
synaptic strength. Working memory cannot do this itself because the
prolonged activity required for smooth encoding would arrest the
flow of thought. During recall the memory trace becomes activated
and copies itself back into working memory. Fresh memories are
most likely kept in or near the hippocampus but are then gradually
transferred to the neocortex. This is the reason why H.M. can
remember events from his youth but not events from the last years
before his surgery.
The rat hippocampus has place cells that become active when the
animal visits places in its environment. Assemblies of place cells form
a cognitive map of the environment, with the animal itself in the
center. This self-centered cognitive map forms the contents of epi-
sodic memories. It is the essence of self-awareness, not only in
humans but presumably also in rats.
When a rat explores its environment, large assemblies of hippo-
campal place cells fire in synchrony. These same cells again become
active during sleep, firing in synchrony as they did during the
activities of the day. They send their messages to the sleeping neo-
cortex, and like little elves the hippocampal messengers work
throughout the night to engrave lasting memories in the neural
networks of the neocortex. Our dreams are the noises made by these
untiring little workers.5
To be honest, we still don’t know what dreams are made of and
what they are good for. They are enacted in the working memory
system, for otherwise we would be unable to remember them. But the
hippocampus accepts no messages during sleep. It is in receiving
mode in the waking state, and in sending mode during sleep.
Therefore our memory span for dreams – a few seconds – is the same
as for working memory unaided by the hippocampus.
If the hippocampus receives its inputs from working memory, then
the place cells should respond not only when we are in a place, but

20
 The Nature of Knowledge

also when we merely think about it. This has been demonstrated in a
study where London taxi drivers were asked to imagine familiar
routes around town while their brain activity was scanned. Sure
enough the right hippocampus lit up.6
Since the contents of consciousness can be constructed from
thought as well as perception, they should be encoded with infor-
mation about their source. Most of the time it works, but often
enough the source tag fails to survive.
In a study in the Netherlands, subjects were asked about their
memories of a plane crash that had occurred ten months earlier. An
El Al Boeing 747 cargo plane had lost both starboard engines shortly
after take-off from the Amsterdam airport. In a futile attempt to
make it back to the airport, the plane crashed into an eleven-storey
apartment building, killing four crew members aboard and 39 people
in the building. The event received extensive news coverage, so most
people were very well able to remember it ten months later.
One questionnaire item asked, ‘Did you see the television film of
the moment the plane hit the apartment building?’ Those who
answered ‘Yes’ were asked about further details: whether the plane
came down vertically, or whether it hit the building flying horizon-
tally, and whether the fire broke out immediately after the crash or
sometime later. In two versions of the experiment, 55 percent and 66
percent of the subjects said they had seen the TV film and proceeded
to give details about the event.
Actually, no film of the crash existed. The subjects had encoded
the products of their imagination into long-term memory without a
reliable source tag, and simply assumed they had seen the non-
existing film when the possibility was suggested to them.
Poor source monitoring is a common cause of memory distortions.
In real life it rarely matters whether you know what you know
because you saw it, somebody told you about it, or you figured it out
yourself. Involuntary plagiarism results from misremembering
something we heard from someone else as our own idea.
Memories can also be distorted by prior expectations, information
acquired after the event, the need for cognitive consistency, wishful
thinking and simple fuzziness. In one study, people’s political atti-
tudes were determined at an interval of nine years. Although many
respondents’ opinions had changed considerably, they themselves
were unaware of the change. They had revised the memories of their
past to make them fit with the present.

21
 In God’s Image?

In the legal system, eyewitness reports are the worst possible evi-
dence. A majority of cases where a prisoner’s innocence is estab-
lished by DNA evidence involves the false identification of the
perpetrator by one or more eyewitnesses.7

Other minds

We should make things as simple as possible, but not simpler.

(Albert Einstein)

The evolutionary origins of working memory and its hippocampal

memory module are revealed in studies of eye-blink conditioning. An
eye blink is the normal response to a sudden stimulus applied to the
eye, for example an air puff or a light touch. This is the uncondi-
tioned stimulus.
In delay conditioning a tone (or any other neutral stimulus) is
presented for about one second, and an air puff to the eye is applied
shortly before the stimulus ends. The tone becomes a conditioned
stimulus, and in time the subject blinks whenever the tone comes on.
This simple response is learned in the cerebellum. It works in rats,
rabbits, monkeys and humans, and even in amnesics and in animals
whose hippocampus has been destroyed.
Trace conditioning is a slightly different procedure in which the air
puff is delivered after the end of the tone. Amnesics and animals with
hippocampal damage can manage this procedure only if the interval
between the end of the tone and the onset of the air puff is less than
half a second. They fail to learn the response with longer intervals.
In delay conditioning and short-interval trace conditioning, the
messages about the tone and the air puff can be associated because
both converge on a cerebellar neuron at the same time or nearly the
same time. With longer intervals, the association can be formed only
when the gap between the end of the tone and the onset of the air
puff is bridged by short-term memory. This requires the short-term
stores of working memory, which then feed their output into the
hippocampus.8 Most likely, the initial reason for the evolution of
short-term memory in the ancestors of vertebrates was to permit the
association of stimuli that do not overlap in time.
In Chapter 1 we saw that we scan our environment by rapid
attentional shifts. Without short-term memory, the animal can only

22
 The Nature of Knowledge

respond to one stimulus at a time but not to constellations of stimuli

to which it attends one after another. With short-term memory,
however, it can glue successive sensory snapshots together into a
coherent working model of the world. In other words: a cognitive
map.
Once this cognitive map was invented, animals learned to use it for
navigation. The mouse uses it to find the way to its hole, the squirrel
to remember its hoard of acorns, and the laboratory rat to remember
from which arms of the maze it has already eaten the food. Dis-
crepancies between the currently perceived environment and the
remembered environment guide visual attention to investigate
the unexpected and the unknown.
Eventually animals learned to construct mental models of desired
states, compare a desired state with the actual state of the world, and
take action to achieve the desired state. Thus the animal became able
to act intentionally rather than responding to the world passively.
In trace eye-blink conditioning, the association between tone and
air puff is most likely formed in working memory. Since events in
working memory are rememberable, therefore introspectable and,
in that sense, conscious, we can expect trace conditioning to depend
on conscious awareness in humans.
This prediction has been tested by Robert Clark and Larry Squire
at the University of California in San Diego. They went out of their
way to make trace conditioning extra hard. They did not tell
their subjects about the aim of the study, but seated them comfor-
tably and made them watch a movie. The tone and the air puff to the
eye were administered while the subjects were watching the dis-
tracting movie. Under these conditions some of the subjects acquired
the conditioning and others didn’t. Questioning revealed the reason
for the difference: only those who became aware of the contingency
between the tone and the air puff acquired the conditioned response.9

Trace conditioning requires conscious awareness.

Rats and rabbits can acquire trace conditioning.
Therefore rats and rabbits have conscious awareness.

This syllogism is valid if the mechanism of trace conditioning is

the same in rats, rabbits and humans. For all we know, it is. In all
animals studied so far, trace conditioning engages the hippocampal

23
 In God’s Image?

system in addition to circuitry in the brain stem and cerebellum that

is also used in delay conditioning.10
If declarative memory and consciousness per se are not unique to
our species, perhaps our own variety of episodic memory is. Human-
style episodic memory implies not only rich contextual information
but also an awareness of one’s own continuity over time, a narrative
of one’s own life. These are cognitive abilities that we do not like to
concede to other animals.11
Most people cannot remember events pre-dating their third or
fourth birthday. This is called childhood amnesia. Furthermore,
children before the age of three or four years cannot report the
sources of their knowledge although they are able to learn simple
facts and skills. This is called source amnesia. Frequently, though
not always, abilities that develop at a late age in children also
emerged late during human evolution. Therefore childhood amnesia
and the source amnesia of children suggest that episodic memory is
an evolutionary latecomer that distinguishes us from the brutes:

The hippocampus produces episodic memories.

Episodic memories are more complex in humans than in other
animals.
Therefore the hippocampus is more complex in humans than in
other animals.

Actually, it isn’t. The hippocampus is an archaic structure that is

present even in the earliest vertebrates. From the most primitive
mammals to humans, the hippocampus increased fivefold in size
while the neocortex increased 200-fold. This fits with the idea that
episodic memory – and, by implication, conscious experience – is an
ancient cognitive specialization that evolved in early vertebrates for
navigation in the environment.12
The apparent memory gaps of childhood are not convincing
either. Even children younger than 18 months can repeat a sequence
of actions that they have witnessed up to a few months earlier. The
delayed imitation method used in these studies requires a mental
representation of the imitated action, and it does not work in
amnesics.13 Perhaps we cannot remember early childhood events
because the old episodic memories are overwritten by new experi-
ences. Or perhaps memory traces are still buried in the adult brain

24
 The Nature of Knowledge

but cannot be brought to life because the cognitive landscape of the

adult brain is too different from that of the child.
Also the source amnesia of children does not prove an absence of
episodic memory. Conrad is a retarded patient with Down’s syn-
drome who learned to make palm frond brooms, after lengthy
instruction by an old woman in his village. Every time I interview
him in class for the benefit of our medical students, I ask him,
‘Conrad, who showed you how to make brooms?’ And he smiles and
says, ‘Myself.’
Conrad has a mental age of two to three years, but he can recall
episodes from his past life. Sometimes he talks about the past. He
just cannot connect the memory of his past learning with his present
skill. He cannot hold the two mental models – of the learning
experience and his present skill – in working memory concurrently to
recognize the causal links between them.
It has also been claimed that only intellectually competent adult
humans encode information about time as well as space while all
other creatures on this planet are limited to the three dimensions of
space. However, even the lowly scrub jay can not only remember
where it has hidden a hoard of food and what kind of food is in the
cache, but also when the food was hidden. At least, it knows that it
has to recover perishable food such as waxmoth larvae within one or
two days after hiding them, while peanuts can be left in the hoard far
longer.14
So why are we so eager to find categorical differences between us
and other animals? Machiavelli would have replied that we are the
ones who are in power. Therefore there is no need for restraint in our
dealings with other species although such restraint is advisable with
other people. We must insist on the special status of humans to
reassure others that we are going to treat them like human beings
and not like animals.
The psychologist’s answer is that we have different feelings for
humans than for other animals. That’s why we eat pigs but not
people. Being unable to introspect the modules that produce our
feelings, we cook up simple explanations that are intelligible to our
feeble minds. In the West (though not in India), we used to claim
that only humans have an immortal soul.
The evolutionary biologist can add that our ancestors lived in
closely-knit communities or family groups that competed with other
human groups for scarce resources such as food and mates. They

25
 In God’s Image?

needed solidarity and cooperation within the group, combined with

indifference or wariness toward strangers. As human societies grew
larger, the boundary between ‘us’ and ‘them’ moved farther and
farther away from the individual until it finally reached the species
boundary.
Only recently did cognitive scientists become fascinated by ‘con-
sciousness’, a concept that is sufficiently vague to be useful as a
modern substitute for the soul. They even offered us specific cogni-
tive abilities such as language, self-awareness, mental time travel and
‘generativity’ as uniquely human accomplishments. These ideas help
us to justify our actions: they don’t have syntax; therefore we can eat
them.15 If we eat animals because they don’t have syntax, why don’t
we eat babies and retarded people? All those traits that distinguish us
from the brutes are present in different degrees in different people!
In reality, consciousness is what we share with other animals.
What sets us apart from them are greater fact knowledge, more
abstract concepts and more complex reasoning. Some of our alleg-
edly unique attributes, including our sense of time and our vast
semantic knowledge system, are elaborations of cognitive abilities
that are also present in other animals. Others, most notably lan-
guage, are not true cognitive functions at all. Language compre-
hension is as modular as color perception and face recognition, and
speech is a motor skill that is learned thoughtlessly.16
Sorry, but you have to stick to the old-fashioned soul if you really
feel the need to justify the way you treat other species. This is indeed
uniquely human: the desire to understand and justify our own
behavior. To this end we construct mental models of our place in the
world and the meaning of our interactions with the world, filling the
black holes of cognitive impenetrability with the yarns of myth and
philosophy – and science.
The question of animal consciousness is part of a wider issue: the
problem of other minds. The problem is, in short, that I have first-
person knowledge of my own subjective experiences – cogito, ergo
sum. There is no way I can ever know whether such states exist in
other creatures, be they rats, computers or other humans.
If I don’t know, I must guess. Out of pure pragmatism, scientists
use a guessing rule that they call the rule of parsimony, or Occam’s
razor.17 Occam’s razor demands that entities should not be multi-
plied and that of two alternative explanations, the simpler one
should be preferred. Scientists always try to explain as much as

26
 The Nature of Knowledge

possible with as little as possible. For example, there are two theories
about schizophrenia. One states that schizophrenia is caused by
abnormal functioning of neurons in the brain, and the other that it is
caused by an evil spirit that takes possession of the victim. Which
theory do you prefer?
We already know that mental states depend on neurons. Therefore
you don’t need a radically new entity if you assume that schizo-
phrenia is caused by malfunctioning neurons. Spirits, however, have
never been demonstrated in reproducible observations or experi-
ments. Therefore you have to postulate an entity that is not other-
wise known to exist. In this case Occam’s razor cuts the spirits, not
the neurons. But during the Middle Age, when neurons were
unheard-of while spirits were known to exist, it would have cut the
other way.
The behaviorists of the early twentieth century invoked the rule of
parsimony to explain all animal behavior in terms of stimulus–
response contingencies without intervening mental states. Even for
humans they considered subjective experience an improper subject
for scientific investigation. But this use of Occam’s razor breaks
down when we widen our horizon to include the evolutionary origins
of mind. Is it parsimonious to believe that a working memory system
and a hippocampal memory module evolved with conscious
experience in humans and without it in other animals? And why
should, for example, the subjective experience of fear have evolved
only in humans? After all, the eliciting stimuli are similar for humans
and rats (substituting tigers for cats), and so are the autonomic and
behavioral fear responses.18

The mind’s library

In the beginning there was not the word, but the association.
(Philip Johnson-Laird, The Computer and the Mind)

Brain-damaged patients can show us how knowledge is organized in

the brain. We saw in Chapter 1 that agnosic patients cannot access
knowledge through a single sensory modality. The prosopagnosic
who asks his wife to wear a ribbon in her hair so he can recognize her
at a party can still recognize her by her voice. He still knows his wife.

27
 In God’s Image?

Only the link between the visual system and the knowledge is cut.
Thus, knowledge is different from perception.
If knowledge is not in the senses, is it in the words? You may
remember tip-of-the tongue situations when you just couldn’t come
up with the name of an acquaintance or the word for a familiar
object. In these situations the knowledge of the person or object is
crystal clear. Only the link between the knowledge and the mental
lexicon is malfunctioning.
For most people name-finding difficulties are an occasional
embarrassment, but some brain-damaged patients have persistent
naming problems. One of these cases has been described by Antonio
Damasio’s group at the University of Iowa. The patient code-named
AN-1033 had trouble finding the correct names for pictures of ani-
mals, fruits and vegetables, but he could describe what he saw. When
presented with the picture of an ostrich, he would say ‘Bird that
sticks head in sand’, and a pumpkin was identified as ‘Melon . . . use
it on Halloween’.
Another patient, known as Boswell, was also unable to name
animals and vegetables, but unlike AN-1033 he did not recognize
them either, except at a very general level. He would identify a duck
as ‘Bird’, and a pineapple as ‘Possibly vegetable’. Questioning
showed that he had no further knowledge of the things he was
looking at.
The reason for the difference is that AN-1033’s brain damage is
limited to the left temporal lobe, while Boswell has similar damage in
both temporal lobes. Perception and the knowledge of the perceived
entities are represented on both sides of the brain. Therefore a severe
loss of previously acquired knowledge is likely only after bilateral
damage. But the links between the knowledge and the lexicon are
left-sided only. Therefore patients with left-sided damage are likely
to have naming difficulties despite near-normal recognition and
knowledge.
Knowledge is distributed in vast networks, with object attributes
represented near the corresponding sensory and motor structures.
Thus, screwdriver color is represented near the color center in the
ventral stream; screwdriver movements near the motion-sensitive
area of the dorsal stream; and screwdriver uses near the motor cortex
controlling the hand. Some brain areas are especially important for
knowledge of animals, others for tools, and others again for famous
people.19

28
 The Nature of Knowledge

According to an old idea, our knowledge of the world is not only

translated into language but is actually preserved in a verbal code. In
George Orwell’s novel 1984, the government embarks on an ambi-
tious project: the introduction of Newspeak, a new language that
makes undesirable thoughts impossible because it has no words for
their expression. By depriving people of words such as ‘freedom’ and
‘dignity’, these concepts will become unthinkable.20
Of course, the brain doesn’t work that way. The denizens of
Orwell’s world would be like AN-1033, not Boswell. They would be
missing the words, but they would still have non-verbal concepts of
freedom and dignity.
The closest real-world approximation to Orwell’s Newspeak is the
fad that is known to Americans as political correctness. The idea is
that by turning idiots into retardates, Negroes into African Amer-
icans and prostitutes into sex workers, we can change the way people
think about idiots, Negroes and prostitutes.
The semantic networks in our brains contain emotional nodes in
addition to those for sensory and functional attributes. Political
correctness is an attempt to excise the emotional nodes. It does not
work too well, for by replacing words we cannot eliminate the
feelings they connote. Already people talk about retardates the way
they used to talk about idiots, and therefore ‘mental retardation’ had
to be replaced by the even more cryptic label of ‘developmental
disability’.
Other examples of semantic manipulation are found in the debate
about abortion. Anti-abortionists refer to the aborted entity as a
baby, while their opponents speak of a fetus. This makes a huge
difference. A fetus is a remote, abstract entity that most people have
never seen. Things and people that are so remote that nobody has
ever seen them are not sufficiently important to merit consideration.
A baby, however, is something to be cuddled and cared for. Our
species has a high level of parental investment, and therefore we
respond to babyness with caring feelings. Rather than trying to
stamp out the emotions that are woven into our knowledge of the
world, this form of manipulation deploys them strategically.
Rather than ridiculing pro-death and pro-compulsion activists for
their crude use of semantic manipulation, we have to wonder how we
can ever form an opinion about abortion or anything else. The
concepts of death and compulsion are linked to strong emotions
and instinctive responses because death and compulsion were

29
 In God’s Image?

omnipresent threats to our ancestors. But our ancestors did not

know about abortion and therefore could not evolve instinctive
responses to it. In the absence of tailor-made responses, we can form
an opinion about it only by associating it with something that
already has emotions and instinctive responses attached to it. This is
how we grope for meaning in a world for which we did not evolve.
Natural scientists are of course totally untouched by semantic
manipulation and self-manipulation. They concern themselves with
the origin of the universe, the nature of matter and energy, the origin
of our species, and the mechanisms of thought and judgment. These
issues are too unimportant to rouse strong emotions. Therefore
black holes, atoms, evolution and intelligence never become politi-
cally incorrect – or do they?

Networks of meaning

Not mere contemplation, but action forms the center from

which for human beings the cognitive organization of reality
originates. (E. Cassirer)21

Back in the 1930s, the Russian neurologist Aleksandr Luria visited

Central Asia to find out how illiterate peasants reason about the
world.22 In one example he presented a peasant with the drawings of
a hammer, a saw, a log and a hatchet, and asked him:

‘Which of these items does not belong here?’

‘The hammer doesn’t belong here. The hatchet chops the log,
the saw saws it, but the hammer doesn’t fit in. Then again, if
you saw the log, you’ll have to drive a wedge in, so you’ll need
the hammer.’
‘But can you say that a saw, a hatchet, and a log are the same
types of things?’
‘Sure, they’re alike, they work together.’

Another peasant was asked:

‘What do blood and water have in common?’

‘What’s alike about them is that water washes off all sorts of
dirt, so it can wash off blood too.’

30
 The Nature of Knowledge

The world knowledge of these illiterates was not filed away in

abstract categories such as tools and liquids, but was structured
around their daily experiences and activities. It was dominated by
pictorial episodic memory, not abstract semantic memory. Only
illiterates had this concrete, situational thinking. Even slightly edu-
cated villagers and those who had lived in cities or worked as party
activists on the collective farms used abstract categories.
Luria blamed this difference on formal education. There certainly
is a good deal of explicit teaching of categories in school. Elementary
school children on the Caribbean island of Dominica learn in the
sweat of their brows that the world consists of two kinds of things:
those that were made by people, and those that were made by God.
You find this way of slicing up the world silly? Intellectuals like
silly categories: nature versus nurture, learning versus instinct, con-
servative versus liberal. Do you really believe these categories make
any more sense than those that Dominican children learn in school?
The categories are only in our heads. Nature abhors boundaries
almost as much as she abhors a vacuum.
Unlike learned people, illiterates spend most of their time thinking
about the here and now: what they perceive and what they do.
Therefore they simply group those things together that they
experience together. But school knowledge is disconnected from the
real world. I realized this when a laborer on my farm asked me:

‘Doc, is it true that the land is actually lower than the sea?’
‘Who says that?’
‘The fishermen in Dublanc. They say when they are far out on
the sea on a clear day they can still see the top of Mount
Espagnol, but they cannot see the bottom. Therefore, they say,
the land is lower than the sea.’

Most people in the Caribbean village of Dublanc have been to

school for about ten years, and they all know at some abstract level
that the Earth is round. But they failed to connect this knowledge
with their observation.
The American medical students at my school are another example.
In a survey, half of them endorsed the belief that humans ‘were
created by God pretty much as they are now’. The other half
believed that they ‘evolved from lower animals over long periods of
time’. Most of these students had taken advanced biology courses,

31
 In God’s Image?

and more than half had an undergraduate degree in biology. But the
creationists among them had compartmentalized their knowledge:
science for passing exams, and religion for explaining how the world
works.
In theory, explicit knowledge is available for multiple uses. In
reality, however, it is rarely applied outside the context in which it
has been learned. This requires something in addition to storage
capacity and categorization. It is called intelligence. And there is yet
another ingredient: the motivation to use one’s intelligence.
Situational grouping is not the only organizing principle of pri-
mitive categorization. One of Luria’s illiterates was presented with
the drawings of a glass, a saucepan, spectacles and a bottle and
asked:

‘Which one does not fit in?’

‘I don’t know which of these things doesn’t fit here. Maybe
it’s the bottle? You can drink tea out of the glass – that’s useful.
The spectacles are also useful. But there’s vodka in the bottle –
that’s bad.’

This villager used the archaic dichotomy between approach and

avoidance. Even a frog has to distinguish between things-to-be-
approached and things-to-be-avoided. Finer distinctions are based
on the type of approach or avoidance: a fly is something-to-be-eaten,
a mate is something-to-be-courted, a stork is something-to-be-
jumped-away-from, and a pond is something-to-be-jumped-into,
especially when a stork is nearby. Also humans start out like this.
For a three-month-old infant a face, but not a book, is something-to-
be-smiled-at. Later on the face versus non-face distinction is refined
into concepts such as person versus non-person, and animate versus
inanimate.
We categorize by intended action whenever there is a salient action
tendency, for example when we label certain objects as ‘food’. And
we do it with people. Is alcoholism an illness or a character flaw? Are
suicide bombers heroes or murderers? These categories are defined
by our action tendencies. An illness is something-to-be-treated, a
character flaw something-to-be-reprimanded, murder something-to-
be-punished and heroism something-to-be-admired.
These categories do not exist in the real world. They are only in
our heads. Therefore sensible folks don’t argue about them. Instead

32
 The Nature of Knowledge

they wonder what they want to do with an alcoholic or a prospective

suicide bomber, why they want to treat him that way, and what the
consequences of such treatment will be.

33
 3
The Nature of Intelligence

The hardest thing to understand is why we can understand

anything at all.
(Albert Einstein)

In Chapter 2 we saw that patient H.M.’s intelligence was intact

because he had lost only long-term memory but not working mem-
ory: the system that creates mental models and transforms them for
the purpose of problem solving.
The information-processing ability of working memory comes at a
steep price: a sharply limited capacity for the amount of information
it can hold. This is demonstrated in the digit span test. The examiner
calls out a sequence of digits that the subject has to repeat. Most
people can repeat about seven digits – a far cry from the tens of
thousands of words and images that we keep in long-term memory.
To permit cognitive processing, the information in working
memory must be unstable, pliable and rather fuzzy. For example, the
sequence MAN, CAD, MAT, MAP, CAN is harder to keep in mind
than PIT, DAY, HOT, COW, PEN because the sound structures of
the items are too similar. The sound-based verbal memory store that
holds these words has difficulty keeping the items apart.
In addition to short-term stores that keep information alive for
some seconds, working memory has a ‘central executive’ that sets
expectations and goals, moves the focus of attention, searches long-
term memory, corrects errors and controls access to the motor sys-
tem. All conscious thought, and indeed all conscious experience, is
produced by this system.1 This chapter describes the mechanisms of
intelligent reasoning and their shortcomings.

35
 In God’s Image?

Quantities and probabilities

Through and through the world is infected with quantity. To

talk sense, is to talk in quantities. It is no use saying the nation
is large. – How large? It is no use saying that radium is scarce. –
How scarce? . . . Elegant intellects which despise the theory of
quantity, are but half developed. (Alfred North Whitehead)2

A woman who goes on her first date and finds that the man wants
sex should not conclude that all men want sex. A woman who went
on dates with 100 men and found that every one of them wanted sex
can be more confident in her judgment. What she applies intuitively
is the law of large numbers.
Failure to apply the law of large numbers can result from the
emotional impact of an event. Even a single highly disturbing
experience can lead a woman to conclude that all men want sex
despite the unrepresentative sample size. This bias is wired into the
brain because emotionally salient experiences are usually about
something important. A failure to learn from them quickly is more
dangerous than learning something that eventually turns out to be
false.
Aside from emotional salience effects, people can learn efficiently
from repetitive experience. Social stereotypes are formed that way.
In one study, subjects were asked to estimate the academic perfor-
mance of Toronto high school students from nine ethnic groups.
When their answers were compared with data published by the
Toronto Board of Education, it turned out that the participants were
fairly accurate in their perceptions of both the relative standings of
groups and the magnitude of between-group differences. Some kinds
of ‘prejudice’ are hard to eradicate because people are too good at
picking up regularities that actually exist in the world.3
Social stereotypes are learned with minimal mental effort. But
reasoning about repetitive events and large numbers can be difficult,
as in this classical demonstration:

A certain town is served by two hospitals. In the larger hospital

about 45 babies are born each day, and in the smaller hospital
about 15 babies are born each day. As you know, about 50
percent of all babies are boys. However, the exact percentage
varies from day to day. Sometimes it may be higher than 50

36
 The Nature of Intelligence

percent, sometimes lower. For a period of one year, each hos-

pital recorded the days on which more than 60 percent of the
babies born were boys. Which hospital do you think recorded
more such days?

Only 21 out of 95 undergraduate students answered correctly that it

must be the smaller hospital. Of course, with a smaller sample size there
is always a greater chance of an atypical result.4 In this case we cannot
apply the law of large numbers automatically because the conclusion is
not derived from repetitive experience. We have to reason it out.
People are not good at combining probabilities either. In one
study the investigators confronted 20 physicians, 20 fourth-year
medical students and 20 house officers, selected in 67 hallway
encounters at four Harvard Medical School teaching hospitals, with
the following question:

If a test to detect a disease whose prevalence is 1 in 1,000 has a

false positive rate of 5 percent, what is the chance that a person
found to have a positive result actually has the disease,
assuming that you know nothing about the person’s symptoms
or signs?

Only 11 of the 60 victims gave the correct answer that only one out
of 51 patients with a positive test has the disease. The most common
answer, given by 27, was 95 percent.
Now you may conclude that you should never entrust your health
to a Harvard-educated physician. Actually, the fault lies with the
framing of the problem. In a more recent study, Gerd Gigerenzer
from the University of Salzburg in Austria presented physicians with
a similar problem in two formats:

To facilitate the early detection of breast cancer, women are

encouraged from a particular age on to participate at regular
intervals in routine screening, even if they have no obvious
symptoms. Imagine you use mammography to conduct breast
cancer screening in a certain region. For symptom-free women
age 40 to 50 who participate in screening using mammography,
the following information is available for this region:

37
 In God’s Image?

Probability format:
The probability that one of these women has breast cancer is
1%. If a woman has breast cancer, the probability is 80% that
she will have a positive mammogram. If a woman does not have
breast cancer, the probability is 10% that she will still have a
positive mammogram.
Imagine a woman (age 40 to 50, no symptoms) who has a
positive mammogram in your breast cancer screening. What is
the probability that she actually has breast cancer? __%

Natural frequency format:

Ten out of every 1,000 women have breast cancer. Of these 10
women with breast cancer, 8 will have a positive mammogram.
Of the remaining 990 women without breast cancer, 99 will still
have a positive mammogram.
Imagine a sample of women (age 40 to 50, no symptoms) who
have positive mammograms in your breast cancer screening. How
many of these women do actually have breast cancer? __ out of __

Only two of the 24 physicians presented with the probability

format but eleven of the 24 physicians presented with the natural
frequencies format came up with the correct answer that eight out of
107 women (7.5 percent) with a positive mammogram have cancer.5
Our senses perceive quantities of people but not fractions or per-
centages of people. Therefore our mind can handle numbers far
better than fractions and percentages.
In other tasks, people jump to a conclusion based on the first thing
that comes to mind. This is called the availability error. For example,
when asked whether a typical English text passage contains more
words beginning with the letter ‘R’ or more words with R in the third
position, most people answer, incorrectly, that there are more words
beginning with R.6 Words with R in the first position are judged
more common because they are more easily retrieved from memory.
Also the vividness or salience of the information affect judgment.
In 1986 the number of Americans visiting Europe as tourists drop-
ped sharply because many people were scared by highly publicized
plane hijackings. In fact, the rate of violent crime in the US was so
high at that time that Americans living in cities put themselves at a
greater risk of dying a violent death by staying at home rather than

38
 The Nature of Intelligence

traveling to Europe.7 The same repeated itself after the fall of the
World Trade Center in 2001.
For the same reason, fear of a nuclear meltdown can mobilize
thousands of people in grassroots movements against nuclear power
plants. The prospect of a 1 percent increase in cancer deaths due to
air pollution from coal- and oil-burning power plants – 0.2 percent
of all deaths, or 8,000 Americans every year – fails to mobilize the
masses because these deaths are less spectacular than those from a
nuclear accident. People routinely overestimate the risk of a violent
death compared to the risk of dying from a disease.
This attentional bias is in all likelihood genetically wired into all
human brains. It could evolve because two conditions were met:
there was a problem that was important for survival; and the pro-
blem was solvable. Our ancestors could avoid death from homicide
and accidents but not diseases, so they evolved attentional systems
and fear responses for violent and accidental deaths but not for
death from disease. This is the reason why violent crimes and unu-
sual accidents are reported in the newspapers but deaths from dis-
eases are not – unless they were caused by bioterrorism.8
This bias is no longer adaptive. Today many deadly diseases are as
preventable as violence and accidents. But where are the attentional
systems and defensive reflexes to guide our responses?
Defensive responses depend on familiarity. Plane hijackings are
less familiar than urban violence, and nuclear power plants are less
familiar than the conventional variety. This bias evolved for good
reasons. Something we know – nuclear arms, for example – is most
likely harmless unless we made unpleasant experiences with it in the
past. With something new – human clones, for example – we cannot
be sure.
Reasoning biases can prevail over formal logic. In one study, 115
participants in the Second International Congress on Forecasting,
held in Istanbul in July 1982, were asked to evaluate either one or the
other of two scenarios:

a. A complete suspension of diplomatic relations between the

USA and the Soviet Union, sometime in 1983.
b. A Russian invasion of Poland, and a complete suspension
of diplomatic relations between the USA and the Soviet
Union, sometime in 1983.

39
 In God’s Image?

Although the first scenario was included in the second, the prob-
ability estimates were more than three times higher for the second
than the first. The same fallacy was demonstrated in a classical
experiment where subjects were presented with the following
description:

Linda is 31 years old, single, outspoken, and very bright. She

majored in philosophy. As a student, she was deeply concerned
with issues of discrimination and social justice, and also parti-
cipated in antinuclear demonstrations. Please rank the follow-
ing statements by their probability, using 1 for the most
probable and 8 for the least probable.

a. Linda is a teacher in elementary school.

b. Linda works in a bookstore and takes yoga classes.
c. Linda is active in the feminist movement.
d. Linda is a psychiatric social worker.
e. Linda is a member of the League of Women Voters.
f. Linda is a bank teller.
g. Linda is an insurance salesperson.
h. Linda is a bank teller and is active in the feminist
movement.

Defying the most elementary rules of logic, 89 percent of the

subjects ranked alternative h as more likely than alternative f. Also
this fallacy can be remedied by manipulating the way the informa-
tion is presented. Gerd Gigerenzer asked his subjects: ‘Think of 200
women like Linda. How many of them are (a) bank tellers, (b) bank
tellers and active in the feminist movement?’ Now, more than 80
percent got it right!9
In the forecasting example, the logically less likely scenario was
judged more likely because it was presented in a credible and familiar
context. Ordinarily, new information that fits with one’s prior
knowledge and expectations is indeed more likely to be true than
information that does not. Therefore it makes sense to learn pre-
ferentially those things and draw those conclusions that fit with what
we know already. This is one of the reasons why people seek out
information that conforms to their established worldviews, and why
prejudice perpetuates itself.
In Linda’s case, the subjects constructed a mental model of

40
 The Nature of Intelligence

Linda’s personality and simply matched it with the given alter-

natives. They rated choice h as more likely than choice f because
Linda shared more features with the stereotype of a feminist bank
teller than with that of an ordinary bank teller.
We use this strategy when we evaluate a new acquaintance by
comparing her with people we know already. People who are similar
in certain ways often are similar in other ways as well. This is an
example of reasoning by analogy. The subjects committed the same
logical fallacy as the forecasters, but for a different reason.

The analogical brain

Analogies decide nothing, that is true, but they can make one
feel more at home. (Sigmund Freud)

Most problems that we encounter in life are similar to problems we

encountered sometime in the past. In analogical problem solving, we
search our memory for a past experience that shares critical elements
with the current problem. The two mental representations are held in
mind concurrently, correspondences between their elements are
identified, and the solution of the present problem is inferred from
the remembered solution of the past problem. In a classical example,
Mary Glick and Keith Holyoak at the University of Michigan pre-
sented their subjects with the following story:

A small country fell under the iron rule of a dictator. The

dictator ruled the country from a strong fortress. The fortress
was situated in the middle of the country, surrounded by farms
and villages. Many roads radiated outward from the fortress
like spokes on a wheel. A great general arose who raised a large
army at the border and vowed to capture the fortress and free
the country of the dictator. The general knew that if his entire
army could attack the fortress at once it could be captured. His
troops were poised at the head of one of the roads leading to the
fortress, ready to attack. However, a spy brought the general a
disturbing report. The ruthless dictator had planted mines on
each of the roads. The mines were set so that small bodies of
men could pass over them safely, since the dictator needed to be
able to move troops and workers to and from the fortress.

41
 In God’s Image?

However, any large force would detonate the mines. Not only
would this blow up the road and render it impassable, but the
dictator would then destroy many villages in retaliation. A full-
scale direct attack on the fortress therefore appeared
impossible.
The general, however, was undaunted. He divided his army
up into small groups and dispatched each group to the head of a
different road. When all was ready he gave the signal, and each
group charged down a different road. All of the small groups
passed safely over the mines, and the army then attacked the
fortress in full strength. In this way, the general was able to
capture the fortress and overthrow the dictator.

After reading this story the subjects were presented with a dif-
ferent problem:

Suppose you are a doctor faced with a patient who has a

malignant tumor in his stomach. It is impossible to operate on
the patient, but unless the tumor is destroyed the patient will
die. There is a kind of ray that can be used to destroy the tumor.
If the rays reach the tumor all at once at a sufficiently high
intensity, the tumor will be destroyed. Unfortunately, at this
intensity the healthy tissue that the rays pass through on the
way to the tumor will also be destroyed. At lower intensities the
rays are harmless to healthy tissue, but they will not affect the
tumor either. What type of procedure might be used to destroy
the tumor with the rays, and at the same time avoid destroying
the healthy tissue?

Those who had read the fortress story were more likely than those
who had read other, unrelated stories to come up with the solution
that the rays should be focused on the tumor from many directions.10
IQ tests contain verbal analogies such as ‘Human is to shoe like
car is to . . .?’ or ‘School is to student like hospital is to . . .?’ The
hydraulic model of the circulatory system, the planetary model of
atomic structure, and the billiard ball model of gases are founded on
analogies. Linguistic analogies become entrenched as metaphors: the
doors of perception, the weight of the evidence. In narrative form
they are called parables.

42
 The Nature of Intelligence

Analogy is used to teach abstract concepts, solve problems, and

infer missing pieces of information. Thus the student who learns that
the electrons circle the nucleus the way the planets circle the sun will
readily conclude that the electrons are kept in their orbits by gravity.
Analogical reasoning is inductive. It is guesswork, and sometimes the
guess is wrong.
Politicians use analogy as a substitute for intelligent arguments.
Before the 1991 Gulf War there were two major opinions: the hawks
insisted that Saddam Hussein was an emerging Hitler who had to be
stopped before he swallowed other countries, developed new weap-
ons, and became yet more dangerous to Western interests. The doves
warned that the Persian Gulf was a trap like Vietnam.
Back in the 1960s, reasoning about Vietnam was dominated by
another analogy. According to the domino theory, once Vietnam
fell, the neighboring countries would also fall like a row of domino
blocks. Did millions of people have to die because the politicians
didn’t realize that countries are not subject to the law of gravity?
Another example of analogical reasoning is found in the debate
about voluntary active euthanasia: the proposal that a physician
should be allowed to end the life of a terminally ill patient if the
patient requests him to do so. Historically, the most notorious
euthanasia program was that of the Third Reich when thousands of
seriously ill patients, most of them institutionalized psychotics, were
put to death without anyone’s consent. Now euthanasia of any kind
is hard to sell because it is associated with the Nazis.
We use principled reasoning only for petty problems and the
pursuit of established goals. Judgments on important matters such as
life and death, or peace and war, are made by simple association,
analogy and instinct. This is often adaptive because these mechan-
isms have been fine-tuned by a long evolutionary history, whereas
intelligent reasoning is still undeveloped in our species.
However, the archaic routines work only in situations for which
they evolved. You should be wary of people who associate with your
enemy because they may gang up with your enemy against you. But
rejecting an idea because it is associated with someone who did bad
things is a more dubious reasoning short-cut. Hitler was a vegetar-
ian. Does this mean that vegetarianism is a bad thing?
The ‘slippery slope’ argument warns that if we allow assisted suicide
of terminally ill patients, sooner or later this will be extended to
depressives and troubled teenagers, and involuntary as well as

43
 In God’s Image?

voluntary euthanasia will soon follow. This is again reasoning from

analogy, but this time the source analog on which the proposition is
mapped is not pulled from memory. It is the product of our
imagination.
What needs to be explained is this: Why is there only one slippery
slope? If we prohibit voluntary active euthanasia, terminally ill patients
will soon be kept alive against their will with ever more sophisticated
life support systems, no matter how much pain they suffer!
The problem is that not everything can be imagined with equal
ease. One reason for the lopsided slippery slope argument is that
those who defend it are not dying. In their world, death by homicide
is a matter of concern but the risk of being kept alive under dis-
agreeable circumstances is not. Perspective taking requires thinking,
and ordinarily we try to do with as little thinking as possible. And
besides, who wants to imagine himself in the situation of a dying
patient suffering severe pain?!
Also, the risk of being killed by a fellow hominid was very real
throughout the history of our species, but the risk of being kept alive
suffering has never been around. Even if it had been, it would have
made no difference for the genes that wire our brains. Therefore we
evolved a horror of being killed but not a horror of being kept alive.
Times have changed, though. The world of our ancestors was full
of would-be murderers. Our world is full of doctors who are tempted
to prolong the patient’s life despite his suffering. For the doctor, the
dying patient is a goose that lays golden eggs!

The mind’s logic

‘Contrariwise,’ continued Tweedledee, ‘if it was so, it might be,

and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn’t, it ain’t. That’s logic!’
(Lewis Carroll)

Some of our reasoning is visual. Figure 3.1a shows a classical

experiment in which the subject is presented with a tilted figure and is
asked to press a button if it is a correct letter F and a different button
if it is mirror-inverted. If the subjects solve this task by creating a
mental image and rotating this image into the familiar vertical
position, the reaction time should depend on the angle of rotation. A
rotation by 458, for example, should be faster than a 908 rotation,

44
 The Nature of Intelligence

Figure 3.1 Mental rotation.

a) Mental rotation of the letter F. Subjects are asked whether the figure
represents a correct F or an inverted F. The reaction time is proportional to
the rotation angle.

b) Mental rotation tasks like this one are included in many intelligence
tests.

which should be faster than a 1808 rotation. We would not expect

this relationship if the subjects were using a verbal code.
The reaction time did depend on the rotation angle, and it showed
that the image is rotated at a speed of 56 rpm.11 It is indeed hard to
imagine how anybody could solve a complex mental rotation task
through verbal reasoning. Try to describe the drawings in Figure
3.1b to a friend on the phone and let him figure out the solution
based on your verbal description alone! Also, reasoning about spa-
tial relations is visual:

The cup is left of the fork, the saucer is right of the fork, the
knife is in front of the cup, and the spoon is in front of the
saucer. What is the relation between the knife and the spoon?

However, most deductive, rule-based reasoning is not performed

on visual images but on verbal statements, or propositions. When
faced with the syllogism:

All gringles blobber.

Olp is a gringle.

45
 In God’s Image?

you can readily conclude that Olp blobbers. This syllogism is no

more difficult than Aristotle’s classic:

All men are mortal.

Socrates is a man.
Therefore Socrates is mortal.

In syllogisms, the reasoner has to plug a new piece of information

(the minor premise: ‘Socrates is a man’) into an inductively derived
rule (the major premise: ‘All men are mortal’).
Some cognitive scientists believe that reasoning is performed by
chaining together verbal propositions according to logical inference
rules. Others believe that there are reasoning rules of sorts, but that
people pick their rules pragmatically, according to the nature of the
task.
Others again believe that verbal propositions are translated into
meaning-based representations, or ‘mental models’, of the premises.
If a proposed conclusion holds in all possible models of the premises,
it is judged valid; if it holds in at least one of them, it is judged
possible; and if it holds in none of them, it is judged impossible.12
If people use abstract logic only, then reasoning should be inde-
pendent of meaning. Let’s assume you are in a restaurant. The
manager tells you about the patrons:

All of the Frenchmen are wine drinkers.

Some of the wine drinkers are gourmets.

Are some of the Frenchmen gourmets? Most people endorse this

conclusion. Now try this:

All of the Frenchmen are wine drinkers.

Some of the wine drinkers are Italians.

Are some of the Frenchmen Italians? Few subjects endorse this

conclusion, although this syllogism has the same logical structure as
the first. If we were thinking logically, the two syllogisms would be
equally difficult, but they are not. Either we reason with meaning-
based representations in the first place, or at least we apply a final
reality check before accepting a conclusion.
Limitations in working memory capacity force reasoners to

46
 The Nature of Intelligence

construct and evaluate as few mental models as possible. In the

above example, they stop reasoning when they arrive at the believ-
able conclusion that some of the Frenchmen are gourmets. The
unbelievable conclusion that some of the Frenchmen are Italians
sends them back to the drawing board.
This reasoning style has been called ‘satisficing’. People strain their
minds only until they have arrived at a solution that seems ‘good
enough’. When reasoning about causes they stop thinking once a
plausible cause has been found; and decision makers stop looking for
even better choices once they have hit upon a course of action that
seems good enough. The psychiatrist stops thinking about the nature
of his patient’s problems once he has found a good-enough diagnosis
in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, the Bible of all psychia-
trists. And any good Christian stops thinking once he has found the
answers to his questions in his Bible. It’s the old-time religion. It’s
good enough for me.13
One strategy that people use to minimize working memory load is
illustrated by the following puzzle:

Suppose that only one of the following assertions is true about a

specific hand of cards:
There is a king in the hand or there is an ace in the hand, or
both.
There is a queen in the hand or there is an ace in the hand, or
both.
Which is more likely to be in the hand: the king or the ace?

Eighteen out of 24 Princeton students answered that the ace is more

likely present. Only 5 students came up with the correct answer that
the king is more likely. Why is the king more likely? One of the two
statements must be false. When the first statement is false there is
neither a king nor an ace, and when the second statement is false
there is neither a queen nor an ace. Either way, there is no ace.
This cognitive illusion emerges because reasoners try to minimize
the load on their working memory by mentally representing only
what is true, but not what is false. Presumably they construct the
three mental models that are compatible with the truth of the first
statement, then those three that are compatible with the second
statement, and sum up those that include an ace (four out of six) and
those that include a king (two out of six).14

47
 In God’s Image?

Our reasoning is limited by low working memory capacity – or

stupidity, as less subtle writers would call it. Only, to make sure that
nobody understands them, cognitive scientists don’t call it stupidity.
They call it ‘bounded rationality’.

The social contract

Here is what I would have done if I had been faced with this
problem in designing Homo sapiens. I would have made com-
monsense psychology innate; that way nobody would have to
spend time learning it. (Jerry Fodor)15

Not all reasoning errors can be explained by stupidity. In the

selection task, the subject is presented with an if–then rule and asked
to check the validity of the rule by turning over one or more of four
cards laid out on the table. For example:

When starting a job as waiter at a restaurant, the manager tells

you the following rule: ‘If a person is eating hot chili peppers, he
drinks a cold beer.’
The cards below have information about four people sitting
at a table in the restaurant. Each card represents one person.
One side of the card tells what a person is eating and the other
side of the card what that person is drinking. Indicate only
those card(s) you definitely need to turn over to see if any of
these people do not conform to this rule.

Now try the next example:

In a crackdown against drunk drivers, Massachusetts law

enforcement officials are revoking liquor licenses left and right.
You are a bouncer in a Boston bar, and you’ll lose your job

48
 The Nature of Intelligence

unless you enforce the following law: ‘If a person is drinking

beer, he must be over 20 years old.’
The cards below have information about four people sitting
at a table in your bar. Each card represents one person. One
side of a card tells what a person is drinking and the other side
of the card tells that person’s age. Indicate only those card(s)
you definitely need to turn over to see if any of these people are
breaking this law.

Most people can solve the drinking age problem. You have to turn
the first and the fourth card. You have to check on those who drink
beer and those who are underage. Few solve the restaurant problem
although it has the same logical structure: you have to check on
those who eat chili and those who do not drink beer. Again you have
to turn the first and the fourth card. In this problem most people
turn the first and the third card. Instead of trying to falsify the rule
the way a scientist should do it, they make a misguided effort to
verify it.
The difference in difficulty cannot be explained by the number of
logical inference rules that have to be chained together, the number
of mental models to be inspected, or familiarity. Over time, most
people have been exposed to at least as many contingencies between
food and drink as between drink and age: cereal and milk, coffee and
cake.
The important difference is that the restaurant problem presents a
descriptive rule, whereas the drinking age problem presents a pre-
scriptive rule. It is framed as a social contract with rights and obli-
gations. Reasoning about ordinary contingencies is called indicative
reasoning, and reasoning about social rules is called deontic
reasoning.
Does this mean that social contracts promote logical thinking?
Take this example:

49
 In God’s Image?

If you mow the lawn I will give you five dollars.

You do not mow the lawn.
Therefore, I will not give you five dollars.

Now consider the next example:

If it is a cat then it is an animal.
It is not a cat.
Therefore, it is not an animal.
Most people endorse the first syllogism but not the second, although
they have the same logical structure and both are invalid.16
In another example, subjects are confronted with the following
rule in the four-card task:
If an employee works on the weekend, then that person gets a
day off during the week.
Each card represents an employee, with information about
his weekend work on one side and information about the day
off on the other side:

Indicate only the card(s) you definitely need to turn over to see
if this rule has been violated.

This problem was presented with two different context stories. In

one story the subject was asked to put himself in the place of an
employee who is considering working on Saturdays from time to
time. However, there are rumors that the rule has been violated
before. The subject has to check information about four colleagues
to see whether the rule has been violated before. Most subjects
turned the ‘Worked on the weekend’ and the ‘Did not get a day off’
cards.
Another context story instructed the subjects to put themselves in
the role of the employer who had heard rumors that the rule has

50
 The Nature of Intelligence

been violated. Now most subjects flaunted the rules of logic by

turning the ‘Did not work on the weekend’ card and the ‘Got a day
off’ card.17
When reasoning about ordinary contingencies, we zoom in on the
items mentioned in the premises and try to verify the contingency.
This is an attentional bias that evolved for inductive learning: when
two events have occurred together in the past, watch out for each of
them to find out whether the contingency holds.
The reasoning routine for social contracts is: watch out for
cheaters! Our ancestors lived by implicit social rules for millions of
years, so they evolved a knack for cheater detection. Even three-
year-old children learn it easily. These reasoning routines work like
reflexes, but they use a mental representation rather than a sensory
stimulus as their input, and produce a conclusion rather than a
motor act. When special-purpose reasoning routines and general
intelligence are at odds, the special-purpose routines win out. Most
of the time this serves us well because specialized routines are faster
and more efficient than rule-based, deductive reasoning.18
All animals have specialized reasoning and learning predisposi-
tions to suit the conditions under which they evolved. Figure 3.2
shows an example. Dogs do not easily learn to move away from food
in order to get the food. Squirrels master this task with ease,
although few people would claim that squirrels are more intelligent
than dogs. Dogs evolved in a world where the best way to reach food
was to move straight toward it. But squirrels could get the acorns on
the next tree only by moving away from them, down the stem and
finally up the food tree.19 We evolved a knack for social contracts,
and they evolved a knack for detours. That’s why it is so difficult to
come up with a species-fair IQ test.
Deductive reasoning is not as important for ordinary people as it
is for logicians. When Aleksandr Luria probed the thinking habits of
illiterate peasants in Central Asia with syllogisms, he got responses
like this:

‘Cotton can grow only where it is hot and dry. In England it

is cold and damp. Can cotton grow there?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Think about it.’
‘I’ve only been in the Kashgar country; I don’t know beyond
that . . .’

51
 In God’s Image?

Figure 3.2 Detour learning is easy for squirrels but very difficult for dogs.
(Barash, 1977)

‘But on the basis of what I said to you, can cotton grow

there?’
‘If the land is good, cotton will grow there, but if it is damp
and poor, it won’t grow. If it’s like the Kashgar country, it will
grow there too. If the soil is loose, it can grow there, too, of
course.’
‘Cotton can grow only where it is hot and dry. In England it
is cold and damp. What can you conclude from my words?’
‘If it’s cold there, it won’t grow; if the soil is loose and good, it
will.’
‘But what do my words suggest?’
‘Well, we Moslems, we Kashgars, we’re ignorant people;
we’ve never been anywhere, so we don’t know if it’s hot or cold
there.’20

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 The Nature of Intelligence

It had never occurred to this peasant that knowledge could be

attained by deductive reasoning. For him, knowledge could only
come from personal experience. Perhaps the great cognitive divide is
not between humans and apes but between educated people and
illiterates. They don’t have deductive reasoning. Therefore we can
eat them!
Teaching sign language to chimpanzees has been criticized as too
artificial. But signing chimps are no greater oddities than are reading
and writing humans. In both cases, individuals have been trained
with great effort to master an artificial communication system. You
cannot compare bush chimps with educated humans. To get a rea-
listic picture, you have to compare bush chimps with uncivilized
pygmies from the far end of the Ituri forest, or else you have to
compare well-trained laboratory chimps with educated people.
Laboratory-trained apes are indeed a lot smarter than their wild
cousins, even outside the tasks for which they have been trained.21

Thinking about thinking

If you can’t see my mirror, I can’t see you. (Sticker on back of a

truck)

The vertebrate brain evolved as a contingency-detection device. In

Chapter 2 I even argued that one prerequisite for the evolution of
conscious thought was a short-term memory system that could pick
up contingencies between stimuli that are perceived with a time
delay. In the human lineage, this contingency-detecting system
evolved into two somewhat separate branches: one for the physical
world, in which contingency is refined into causality; and another
system for people and other sentient beings that works with concepts
of mental states and intentional action. Children as young as 12
months distinguish self-propelled living things from inanimates that
move only when pushed.22 A living thing moves because it wants to
attain a goal and it believes that its action will attain the goal. This
way of understanding sentient beings is called a ‘theory of mind’.
One simple building block for our theory of mind is joint atten-
tion. From the age of ten months, children can follow another’s gaze
as if they were aware of his focus of attention, and they attend to the
goal object of an actor’s reach. Joint attention requires the ability to

53
 In God’s Image?

detect signs of directed attention, a spatial mapping algorithm to find

the point in space that the other is looking at or aiming at, and the
behavioral response of orienting toward that point. Even monkeys
use joint attention to respond to a food source or a predator that has
been discovered by someone else, and to learn by observation.
Emotional contagion is an even simpler reflex. A monkey who
notices that all other monkeys in the troop are frightened should
respond in kind because danger may be near. If he keeps day-
dreaming while everyone else rushes to the trees, he is the one who
gets eaten by the leopard. Panicking crowds are driven by emotional
contagion. The canned laughter that tells the viewers of TV comedies
where the funny parts are is an example, as is the contagious nature
of yawning. And for the same reason, marrying a cheerful person is
better than marrying a grumpy one.
Even very young children use these copycat reflexes to respond to
other people’s emotions, desires and intentions. Understanding
people’s knowledge and beliefs is learned at a much later age because
it requires cognitive perspective taking: putting oneself in the other’s
shoes. Perspective taking requires general intelligence.
Children younger than four or five years misapply the copycat
reflexes by falsely imputing their own knowledge and beliefs to
others. They act as if they assume that other people’s knowledge and
beliefs create corresponding states in themselves. Even adults
sometimes succumb to this fallacy.23
We use cognitive perspective taking to manipulate others. We
flatter them, and we deceive them. Deception is at the pinnacle of
cognitive evolution because it requires a mental representation of the
other’s beliefs and the capacity to figure out ways of manipulating
them. Deception is therefore ubiquitous in humans, fairly common
in the great apes, very rare in monkeys, and almost unheard-of in
any other species.
Thinking folks are not content with case-by-case applications of
their mindreading skills. They also use their theory of mind in their
attempts at understanding how the world works, treating humans as
autonomous agents. Other cultures believe that intentional beings
such as spirits and sorcerers can cause human actions. No culture
outside modern science describes human motivations, intentions,
actions and habits of thought the way we would describe a machine.24
In our enlightened age we should know that there are no free
autonomous agents. There are only events and their consequences.

54
 The Nature of Intelligence

But we are reluctant to part with the old ideas. We have genuine
desires to reward virtue and punish deviance, admire heroes, and
despise certain kinds of unfortunate people while comforting others.
We cannot reward, punish, admire, despise or comfort a machine.
Our instincts are not built like that. We need the distinction between
person and thing. We need a ‘humane’ theory of mind to explain our
intuitions and make sense of our feelings and actions.
Autism is a disorder of social cognition. In Chapter 1 we saw that
some patients with right-sided brain damage ignore the left side of
the world although their sensory systems are intact. Autists are
somewhat like that, but they do not ignore space. They ignore
people, and they fail to form mental representations of other peo-
ple’s – and even their own – psychological states.
Autistic children avoid eye contact, miss out on joint attention and
emotional contagion, object to being cuddled, don’t smile at people,
and don’t play with other kids. In the psychology lab they reason
normally about objects but cannot figure out what a character in a
puppet show knows or believes, nor what that character intends to
do. They grow up to be pathological truth-tellers, incapable of tac-
tical deception. The autist’s theory of mind is close to the scientist’s.
For both, people are robots with weird programming.
In autism, social information is not processed by those brain areas
that are specially designed for it. Even face recognition is not done by
the dedicated face area, but by brain areas that are otherwise devoted
to the perception of inanimate objects. Some autists learn to use the
vacant social-cognition areas of the brain for specialized skills such
as music or mathematics. These people are called idiots savants if they
are otherwise dull, and geniuses if they are generally bright.25

Left brain, right brain

Thanks to words, we have been able to rise above the brutes;

and thanks to words, we have often sunk to the level of demons.
(Aldous Huxley)

All large-brained animals are capable of non-verbal reasoning, but

language and verbal reasoning are uniquely human.26 Language is
different from the vocalizations, gestures and facial expressions that
animals use for communication. It informs – or deceives – not only

55
 In God’s Image?

about internal states but also about the external world. In fact many
people, especially males, are none too good at talking about their
emotions.
Another difference is that the expressiveness of animal signals, and
of our own emotional expressions, depends on fine gradations. We
signal not only the presence or absence of fear, surprise or delight,
but also the intensity of the feeling and whether we are delightfully
surprised or fearfully surprised. Language, however, is either–or and
all-or-none. We must distinguish ‘lamb’ from ‘lamp’, ‘write’ from
‘ride’, and ‘furry’ from ‘ferry’. Each word and each sentence has its
own discrete meaning. The neural networks that produce and
understand language have to draw sharp boundaries.
Emotional expressions are coordinated by the anterior cingulate
gyrus, a ‘limbic’ region of the frontal lobe that represents the internal
state of the body.27 Our language areas did not evolve from this
neural substrate, but they skirt the temporal lobe structures that
represent the state of the outside world, the auditory cortex, and the
part of the motor cortex in charge of mouth and throat.
The left hemisphere usually controls language, but there are other
differences between the two half-brains. Figure 3.3 shows the

Figure 3.3 Patients with damage in the left or right hemisphere were asked
to reproduce the target figures from memory. (Posner and Raichle, 1994,
p. 162)

56
 The Nature of Intelligence

drawings of brain-damaged patients who were asked to copy from

memory a composite figure. Those with right-sided damage neglec-
ted the overall shape, and those with left-sided damage neglected the
components. The right hemisphere sees the forest, and the left
hemisphere sees the trees.
This difference applies to thought as well as perception. In a study
by V.L. Deglin and M. Kinsbourne in St Petersburg,28 the solving of
syllogisms was studied in recovering schizophrenic patients after
one-sided electroconvulsive therapy (ECT). The shocked hemisphere
is groggy for about half an hour after ECT, leaving most of the
thinking to the unshocked hemisphere. During this time interval
Deglin and Kinsbourne asked their patients to solve syllogisms with
a false premise, for example:

Winter is cold in tropical countries.

Ecuador is a tropical country.
Is it cold in winter in Ecuador, or not?

People can respond to this syllogism in either of two ways. A ‘theore-

tical’ answer would be, ‘Yes, winter is cold in Ecuador.’ An ‘empirical’
answer would be, ‘Nonsense, winter is not cold in tropical countries.’
Educated people usually give theoretical answers, but village bumpkins
such as those interviewed by Aleksandr Luria give empirical answers.
The important result was that patients with a suppressed right
hemisphere gave theoretical answers but those with a suppressed left
hemisphere gave empirical answers. We know from imaging studies
that the right hemisphere is more involved than the left in the
retrieval of non-verbal information from episodic memory.29
Therefore it can check the premises against the wider context of past
experience and world knowledge. If it’s incongruous, it is rejected.
The left hemisphere zooms in on each premise in turn, oblivious to
the wider context. The left brain uses logic, and the right brain uses
common sense.
This division of labor is revealed by some stroke patients, as in the
following dialog between examiner (E) and patient (P):

E: (Holding one of his fingers in the patient’s right visual

field) ‘Seize my finger with your left hand . . . Well, can’t you
move your left hand at all?’
P: ‘Just give me time to proceed from thought to action.’

57
 In God’s Image?

E: ‘Why don’t you need time to proceed from thought to

action when you use your right hand? Maybe you can’t move
your left hand?’
P: ‘I can move it perfectly. Only, there are sometimes illogical
reactions in behavior; some positive and some negative . . .’
E: (Placing the patient’s left hand between his own hands)
‘Whose hands are these?’
P: ‘Your hands.’
E: ‘Ever seen a man with three hands?’
P: ‘A hand is the extremity of an arm. Since you have three
arms, you must have three hands.’30

This patient has lost the ability to match the feedback from his
paralyzed left hand with his body image, but his last reply reveals
that his intact left brain is a true intellectual, drawing logically valid
conclusions from absurd premises.
It is doubtful that the analytic thinking that we use for logic and
mathematics has ever been useful for an animal in the wild, but
language was immensely useful for communication. We can there-
fore suspect that language evolved for communication and that the
evolving language areas of the left hemisphere shaped the conceptual
knowledge system in their own image:

Words are mapped onto concepts.

Words must have discrete meanings in order to be useful for
communication.
Therefore the concepts must have discrete meanings.

Thus the left hemisphere evolved the habit of chunking its

knowledge of the world into handy pieces. This way of representing
the world is a precondition for deductive reasoning: the rule-based
type of reasoning that produces logic and mathematics.
Your left hemisphere will now triumphantly conclude that this is
finally a categorical difference between humans and other animals.
Your right hemisphere will object that it is merely a difference in
degree, not in kind. Any chimpanzee makes categorical distinctions
between a rock and a banana, and between the alpha male and a sexy
female. It might yet turn out that even monkeys represent objects as
discrete entities in the left brain, and space in continuous coordinates
in the right brain.31

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 The Nature of Intelligence

Bumps on the head

There is only one step from the sublime to the ridiculous.

(Napoleon I)

Imaging studies show that some brain areas are involved in nearly all
kinds of reasoning, and others are recruited only for some kinds of
task but not others. One thing, however, is clear: complex tasks
engage vast networks of interconnected regions.32
The study of brain localization originated with Franz Josef Gall in
the early years of the nineteenth century. Based on no more than a
few anecdotal reports of brain injuries, Gall proposed that functions
such as language, vision, mathematics, compassion, loyalty and
memory are based on physical processes, and that these processes
take place in distinct brain areas. Both ideas were revolutionary in
his time.
For Gall, the mind was an assembly of mental organs, each
occupying its own place in the convolutions of the brain. The extent
to which each mental faculty is developed depends on the size of the
mental organ. Therefore mental abilities and dispositions can be read
from the size of their brain region and even from the shape of the
overlying skull.
Gall was a serious scientist who tried to collect solid evidence for
his theory, but some of his followers were not. They transformed
Gall’s theory into phrenology, the science of reading people’s talents
and dispositions from the shape of their skulls. Phrenologists catered
to the desire of thinking people to know themselves. And in the
enlightened nineteenth century, reading one’s character from
the bumps on one’s head seemed more scientific than reading it
from the stars.
Phrenology was the latest craze in Victorian salons, but serious
science proceeded at a different level. Paul Broca described the
frontal speech area in the left hemisphere as early as 1870, based on
autopsies of brain-damaged patients who had lost the capacity for
speech, and by the early 1900s a handful of neuropsychological
syndromes were known already.
Although the observations of neurologists gave cautious support
to the theory of functional localization, this idea lost ground during
the first half of the twentieth century. One reason for the back-
lash was that functional localization was associated with the

59
 In God’s Image?

pseudoscience of phrenology. Remember, most of our judgments are

based on simple association rather than reasoned weighting of the
evidence!
Even worse, brain localization seemed to imply that mental abil-
ities and personality traits are innate – and that’s bad. To improve
the world, we must improve people. To improve people, the brain
must be malleable by education and propaganda.
In consequence, twentieth-century pop science portrayed the brain
as a tabula rasa, and party talk soon revolved around Oedipus
complex and penis envy rather than bumps on the head. This
changed only during the 1970s, when Freudian psychobabble went
out of fashion and language organs and mate choice modules
usurped its place.33
Real science does not seesaw the way pop science does. There is
only the continuous revision of old ideas and addition of new ones to
accommodate new facts. Even the most revolutionary theories look
revolutionary only to those who are not familiar with the older ones
on which they were built.
For modern neuroscience, the brain does indeed have specialized
provinces for different functions: movement perception, number
sense, face recognition, verbal short-term memory, autobiographic
memory and the like. But unlike phrenology, neuroscience tries to
localize computational steps rather than folk psychological traits
such as loyalty and benevolence.
Another difference is that neuroscientists think in terms of wide-
spread networks, rather than localized functions. For example, the
network of visual attention includes parts of the right parietal lobe,
right frontal lobe, anterior cingulate cortex and subcortical systems;
and episodic memory requires not only the hippocampus but also
circuits in the frontal cortex, thalamus, hypothalamus and basal
forebrain.
On balance, Gall’s two conjectures that mental activity is pro-
duced by physical processes and that it depends on specialized brain
structures proved correct, more correct at least than the alternatives.
Also Gall’s assumption that brain functions are innate is not dead.
Following Chomsky, many linguists describe even language as an
‘instinct’ with innate learning dispositions and dedicated neural
substrates; and evolutionary psychologists attribute just about
everything, from reasoning biases to sexual attraction, to genetically
prewired ‘Darwinian algorithms’.34

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 The Nature of Intelligence

Bumps on the head are no longer taken seriously, but what about
overall brain size? Imaging studies show that thinking takes a lot of
space. All else being equal, a big brain should be better at thinking
than a small brain.
In 1906 the statistician Karl Pearson summarized the results that
were available at his time, concluding:

(a) that there is a slight correlation between size of head and

general intelligence,
(b) that this correlation is not sensibly increased by allowing
for the size of the body relative to the size of the head,
(c) that the correlation is so small that it would be absolutely
idle to endeavour to predict the intellectual ability of an
individual from his or her head measurements.35

One century later, Pearson’s conclusions are still valid. Our

methods are more sophisticated, though. We don’t have to measure
heads, and we don’t have to wait until a genius dies to weigh his
brain. We use brain imaging to determine brain size in the living
body, without the confounding effects of disease and senility. These
studies show that the correlation coefficient for brain size and
intelligence is between 0.3 and 0.35. The brain of a near-genius with
an IQ of 130 weighs, on average, 70 grams more than a mediocre
brain with an IQ of 100. This is 5 percent of the total brain weight.36

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 4
Reason and Emotion

Without [feelings] there would not be I. And without me

who will experience them? They are right near by. But we
don’t know what causes them. It seems there is a True Lord
who does so, but there is no indication of his existence.
(Chung Tzu)

As a student of biology, I learned about the mating behavior of

spiders. The instructor explained the courtship rituals, and how in
some species the female eats the male during copulation. Suddenly a
student asked: ‘Do the spiders feel anything when they have sex?’ It
was of course a girl who asked this question. Males are more
interested in the mechanical aspects of copulation.
You will say that only the spiders themselves could answer this
question, and that was what the instructor replied. Still, we can
approach the student’s question by rephrasing it this way: Would
feelings during copulation help the spider in its reproductive effort?
Feelings don’t seem parsimonious, for all a spider needs is a
copulatory reflex that is triggered when a member of the opposite sex
is in sight. Male sexual behavior is said to work like this in our own
species. The difficulty in building a copulating robot is not a need for
emotion. It is the computational demand for programming the
correct motor sequence. Behavior can be automatic, the way the
heart beats and the hair grows because the heart is programmed to
beat and the hair is programmed to grow, oblivious of pleasure and
pain.

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 In God’s Image?

Pleasure and pain

Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two

sovereign masters, pain and pleasure. (Jeremy Bentham, 1789)

In many instances, however, it is probable that instincts are

persistently followed from the mere force of inheritance, with-
out the stimulus of either pleasure or pain . . . the common
assumption that men must be impelled to every action by
experiencing some pleasure or pain may be erroneous. (Charles
Darwin, Descent of Man, 1871)

We must respond appropriately to important objects in the envir-

onment, such as sexy females and fierce enemies. In the simplest case
the animal responds, reflex-like, to a sensory stimulus that triggers a
motor program. The innately recognized stimulus is called a sign
stimulus, key stimulus or release stimulus. A bug triggers prey-
catching in frogs because it activates bug detectors in the frog’s
nervous system that are hooked to the motor circuitry for snapping.
And a face triggers smiling in babies because it activates face cells
that are connected to a ‘smile center’ in the frontal cortex.1
Without learning, the neural lock on which the key stimulus is
fitted is always crude. The face cells of a newborn recognize no more
than a round shape with two dots. Learning is needed to transform
this primitive circuitry into an image-like template on which external
stimuli are fitted.
This type of learning is called imprinting. The classical example,
skillfully demonstrated by Konrad Lorenz, is the imprinting of newly
hatched geese. After Lorenz had spent a few hours with the goslings,
they recognized him as their mother. They followed him wherever he
went, and when given the choice, they preferred him to mother
goose.
The goslings knew that they must follow a large moving object
that makes noises. That’s all the innate knowledge they need, for
ordinarily the first large noisy moving object a gosling sees is mother
goose, and not an Austrian ethologist. Their follow-the-mother
response is hard-wired into the brain but the sensory template has to
be shaped by learning. Likewise, a billy goat raised by a sheep foster
mother will socialize and mate with sheep rather than goats.
Somehow, the templates for socializing and mating seem to develop

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 Reason and Emotion

from the mother template.2 Tarzan had been raised by apes. Poor
Jane!
Large-brained animals develop very complex sensory and cogni-
tive templates. In Chapter 3 we encountered the ‘social contract
schema’, a template that is activated whenever a real or imagined
situation has the configuration of a social contract. In this case the
output is not a motor response but a ‘deontic’ reasoning routine that
homes in on rule violations.
In imprinting, the innate neural detectors become more selective
through learning, but the social contract schema is useful exactly
because it can be applied in many situations. Paying for one’s
groceries at the supermarket and driving on the left (or right) side of
the road are examples of obligations that arise from society-wide
social contracts. The programmed learning that makes us obey laws
is very different from the programmed learning that holds families
together.
Programmed learning needs no emotions. Nor does classical
conditioning. Pavlov’s dogs learn salivating in response to a bell
simply because the sound and the food are presented together or in
short succession. Presumably the dogs feel happy when they hear the
bell once they have learned the contingency, but the feeling does not
drive the conditioning. It follows the conditioning. Animals learn as
easily to associate a sound with an electric shock although the shock
is unpleasant.
Contingencies like this are learned at an unconscious level. The
modules can guide attention, approach and avoidance auto-
matically, but they also send messages into the cognitive system.
These messages are experienced as feelings. They make us approach
those objects, people and ideas that make us feel good, and turn
away from those that make us feel bad. Feelings are the carrot and
stick that the motivational modules use to guide the thinking mind.
Above all they are needed for operant learning, that is, learning
about the consequences of our actions. Good feelings tell us that an
action was successful and that we should repeat it; and bad feelings
tell us it was a failure, and we should avoid it in the future.
What does this mean for the feelings of copulating spiders? Con-
sciously experienced feelings are limited to creatures with a cognitive
system: a map of oneself in the world, with continuity in time pro-
vided by short-term memory and with the ability to examine the
traces of earlier mental representations introspectively. However,

65
 In God’s Image?

even if spiders have such a system, feelings during copulation would

make sense only for those species that copulate repeatedly. Those
that copulate only once in a lifetime need no feelings because there is
no opportunity for emotionally guided learning.

The pursuit of happiness

HAPPINESS: An agreeable sensation caused by contemplating

the misfortune of others. (Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s
Dictionary)

Somewhere in the brain there must be specialized systems that

produce pleasant feelings. This circuitry was discovered by James
Olds and Peter Milner in 1953. They implanted rats with electrodes
to determine whether electrical brain stimulation would interfere
with learning. In one rat they made a strange observation. After they
had stimulated the brain in one corner of a large enclosure, the rat
repeatedly returned to this spot as if in anticipation of more stimu-
lation. In follow-up experiments, rats were implanted with electrodes
and trained to press a lever for a brief train of electrical stimulation.
Lo and behold, some of the rats turned into current junkies who
pressed the lever more than 1,000 times in a ten-minute session!
Only a few parts of the rat brain support self-stimulation. Most of
them are not in the cerebral cortex but in the deep central structures
of the brain. Humans report pleasant sensations when these sites are
stimulated. The effects are subtler than in rats, though, and it is
unlikely that euphoriant drugs will ever be replaced by implanted
electrodes.
After half a century of research we still know precious little about
this reinforcement circuitry, but we know that the neurotransmitter
dopamine is an important link. Dopamine cells are in the midbrain,
but their axons reach out to the forebrain structures that are con-
cerned with emotion, motivation and the initiation of movements.
Stimulant and euphoriant drugs such as cocaine and amphetamine
enhance dopamine action, and so do nicotine and morphine.
When a monkey is trained to associate a light with the delivery of
fruit juice a few seconds later, the dopamine cells at first ignore the
light but respond to the juice. Once the animal has learned the
contingency, the cells respond to the light but ignore the juice. And

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 Reason and Emotion

when a trained monkey is shown the light but no juice is delivered,

the cells reduce their firing at the time the animal expects the juice.
They are disappointed.3
The dopamine cells behave exactly as your child does. When you
unexpectedly present a lollipop to your child when you come home
from work, the child’s dopamine neurons will fire in rapid bursts,
causing an excitement bordering on ecstasy. If you bring a lollipop
every time you come home, the neurons fire when the child hears you
coming but not when you present the lollipop. But when your child
expects you to bring a lollipop and you don’t, the dopamine cells
shut down and your child throws a tantrum.
It is the comparison between actual and expected outcomes that
revs up the neurons and produces the feeling. This means that we do
not judge our condition by absolute standards. Either we compare
the present with the past, or we compare ourselves with others. Only
if you have grown up poor can you appreciate your present wealth.
We need poor people so the rich can appreciate their wealth, and we
need sick and disabled people lest the healthy take their health for
granted. For the same reason it does not pay to treat people well.
Employees will work harder and be more loyal to the firm when they
get a raise, but soon the higher pay is taken for granted and the
workers are as lazy and malcontent as ever.
What counts in life is improvement, progress, or merely novelty,
the substitute for unachievable improvement. The fads and fashions
of our time prove beyond a reasonable doubt that novelty is valued
for its own sake. On the bright side, if your situation changes for the
worse you will get used to it, and soon you will be almost as happy as
before. Mother Nature gave us feelings not to keep us happy, but to
keep us going.
We must respond with the right dose of joy and sadness, optimism
and pessimism, wariness and curiosity to the events of everyday life,
never getting too elated or too dejected. Like blood pressure and
blood sugar, mood must be kept at an optimal level. And if you’re
too happy or too sad for your own good, your psychiatrist will be
happy to tell you that you are manic-depressive.
One study found that even people who had won the jackpot in the
Illinois State lottery one month to 1.5 year before the interview were
no happier than less lucky lottery players. People who had been
paralyzed by an accident one month to one year before the interview
were unhappier than others – by 0.75 standard deviations, to be

67
 In God’s Image?

precise – but not as much as might have been expected. The effects of
most life events wear off after a few months, and people keep
moderately happy by adjusting their expectations to their circum-
stances. And we all know a few people who are always malcontent
no matter how lucky the conditions of their life, and others who keep
happy even in the greatest adversity. Make sure you don’t marry one
of the malcontents!
Overall, married people are a little happier than singles, rich
people are a little happier than the poor, and churchgoers are a little
happier than atheists. But all this together explains only a small
portion of the variations in happiness. People living in rich countries
are much happier than those living in poor countries, though, pos-
sibly because differences in wealth are far greater between than
within countries. Making the poor richer makes them happier, but
making the rich even richer does little to boost their happiness.
Someone should tell that to the politicians!4
Genes are more important than money. In one study of adult
twins the subjects responded to a subjective-well-being questionnaire
twice, 4.5 to 10 years apart. Their happiness levels at these two
points in time were quite different, indicating that either happiness is
not very stable over time or the measurement of happiness was
inaccurate.
The heritability of happiness during the first assessment was
modest, but combining the two assessments revealed that 80 percent
of the individual differences in the stable component of happiness
were genetic. Although current happiness depends on the triumphs
and catastrophes of the past few months, average happiness over a
lifetime depends heavily on genes!
Even the subjective well-being of zoo chimpanzees, as judged by
their caretakers, was found to be highly heritable. One of the
investigators pointed out that this means we can breed happier
chimps.5 What about breeding happier people?
Without selective breeding or gene therapy we depend on chemical
crutches. If mood is regulated like blood pressure, then the use of
mood-improving drugs is no different from the use of blood pressure
pills. The only difference is that nobody wants an extreme blood
pressure, but many people want to feel extremely good. Stimulants
and narcotics being in ill repute, we have to find something less
offensive and more profitable, properly patented and promoted:
listen to Prozac!

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 Reason and Emotion

The seat of fear

We all know that emotions are useless and bad for our peace of
mind and our blood pressure. (B.F. Skinner, Walden Two)

Each emotion triggers typical behaviors. Pleasure drives outgoing,

exploratory and social behavior, fear leads to escape or ‘freezing’,
anger to attack, disgust to avoidance, and sadness to withdrawal.
Each of these emotions has its own dedicated circuitry in the brain.
Joseph LeDoux of New York University wanted to know how
fear responses are triggered when rats learn to associate a tone with
an electric foot-shock. It was already known that most acoustic
information is sent to the thalamus, and from the thalamus to the
cerebral cortex and a number of subcortical structures. It soon
turned out that even rats whose cerebral cortex had been removed
acquired the typical responses. Therefore the ‘fear center’ was defi-
nitely not in the cortex.
It rather turned out to be in the amygdala, an almond-shaped
collection of gray matter in the front part of the temporal lobe. Rats
whose amygdala had been destroyed showed no signs of fear: no
blood pressure increase, no stress hormone release and no behavioral
‘freezing’. In intact animals the amygdala sends messages to other
subcortical structures to induce these effects. Presumably it also
projects to the neocortex to produce a conscious feeling of fear, but
LeDoux never asked his rats if they felt afraid.
The amygdala alone can learn simple reflexes, but neocortex and
hippocampus are needed to learn about dangerous environments, for
example the conditioning chamber where the rat experienced electric
shocks. But even this presumably conscious learning requires the
amygdala for the emotional responses. Mother Nature cannot afford
the luxury of dismantling old structures such as the amygdala to
construct something new from scratch. She can only make add-ons
that become more elaborate over time and take over some of the
responsibilities from the older structures, or hook up circuits that
originally evolved for different tasks.6
And what exactly is it that people fear? Children between eight
months and two years of age are afraid of strangers, and of being left
alone. Older children fear specific objects. When urban American
children were asked about their fears, it turned out that most of them
were afraid of – animals! Up to the age of 11 or 12 years, snakes,

69
 In God’s Image?

lions, tigers and bears topped the list of things they feared. Hardly
any child mentioned the real dangerous things, such as cars, germs
and electrical outlets.
Adults with simple phobias have irrational fears of specific objects
or situations. The most common phobias are about snakes and
spiders, social situations, being in open places (agoraphobia), in
small closed places (claustrophobia) or at great height (acrophobia).
Flower phobias, by contrast, are rare. Our brain seems to be pro-
grammed to fear exactly those objects and situations that were
dangerous in the world of our ancestors.
Rhesus monkeys in the wild are afraid of snakes, but many captive
monkeys are not. They have to learn their fear. When an infant
monkey sees a snake, it will look from the snake to the mother, or to
any other monkey that happens to be nearby. If the adult shows no
sign of fear, the infant calms down; if the adult jumps and screams, the
infant does the same. The lesson sticks, for the monkey who learned
its snake fear by observation will fear snakes throughout its life.7
This combination of joint attention and emotional contagion is
called social referencing. It shows how ‘instincts’ are really learning
dispositions. Fear of snakes is learned more easily than fear of
flowers, but most of the time it is learned socially by observation.
On page 36 I attributed the social stereotyping of ethnic groups to
implicit associative learning: the thoughtless picking-up of regula-
rities in the world. This is not the whole story. The other part of the
story is that our ancestors lived in social groups that competed one
against the other. They had to learn about other human groups
easily, for the same reason that monkeys have to learn about snakes
easily. And because learning about strangers by personal experience
can be dangerous, they evolved a knack for copying the prejudice of
other group members.

Judgment and action

The habit of analysis has a tendency to wear away the feelings.

(John Stuart Mill, Autobiography v)

When encountering a tiger in your backyard, your brain has two

options. One is to activate the amygdala directly and jump to safety.

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 Reason and Emotion

The other is to use your intelligence to reason out that escape is the
appropriate response. Which of these two processing modes gives
you a better survival chance?
Emotion is fast and special-purpose, whereas reason is slow and
general-purpose. In unambiguous situations and when a quick
response is needed, emotion works best. In complex situations with
enough time for deliberation, we should think dispassionately and
then hook our conclusions to emotions to produce action – but most
of the time we don’t.
In the frontal cortex, the dorsal parts do the thinking and the
ventral parts do the feeling. In imaging studies, the dorsal parts light
up and the ventral parts calm down when subjects think hard, and
the converse happens when they are racked by anxiety or depression.
This is the reason why sexual arousal, mild depression and other
emotional states can be suppressed by mental arithmetic. It is also
the reason why during intense emotional states words are spoken less
judiciously, decisions are made less prudently, and problem solving
is performed more reflexively than in more relaxed states. In Chapter
3 we saw that even intelligent people revert to simple associative
thinking when faced with emotionally charged issues such as abor-
tion, war and euthanasia.8
Creative work requires principled reasoning, mental flexibility,
perseverance, meticulous attention to detail and careful reality
checks, but also enthusiasm and emotional investment. It is the
tension between emotion and reason, passion and restraint that
engenders great works of art and creative thought. Therefore a
creative genius should be somewhat deficient in the mutual inhibition
of reason and emotion.
That reason and emotion must cooperate also in the rest of us is
illustrated by a patient named Elliot, who has been described in
detail by Antonio Damasio at the University of Iowa.9 Elliot was
chief accountant and comptroller at a home-building firm, happily
married and well-adjusted. His younger brother and sister described
him as a natural leader and a role model.
At the age of 35, Elliot developed visual disturbances and per-
sonality changes. It was soon found that his illness was caused by a
tumor that grew from the base of the frontal lobes, compressing and
destroying the surrounding brain tissue. The tumor was removed,
and Elliot seemed to be all right. His memory and language were
intact, and his IQ was still way above average as it had been before

71
 In God’s Image?

his illness. Everyone expected him to return to his family, resume his
work, and live happily ever after.
But nothing was as it had been before. One problem was a loss of
initiative. He had to be prompted to get out of bed and go to work,
and at work he had to be given detailed instructions for tasks that he
had previously been able to organize himself easily. When working
on a complex task, he would do individual steps accurately but lose
sight of the overall project. When sorting documents pertaining to a
client, he would start reading an unimportant document and keep on
reading for the rest of the day rather than doing what he had
planned to do. His actions were stimulus-bound, rather than
internally guided. This would be just fine for an assembly-line
worker, but for a mid-level manager it spells disaster.
Although Elliot did not seem to notice his shortcomings sponta-
neously, he did acknowledge his mistakes when they were pointed
out to him. But despite his insight he was unable to learn from his
mistakes, and his employment was soon terminated. Since then he
kept drifting from one job to another.
He also lost the ability to make prudent decisions about his life.
He could no longer plan ahead for a day, much less for the months
and years of his future. Being unemployable in his previous occu-
pation, he embarked on risky business ventures that ended in pre-
dictable bankruptcy. There was a divorce, and a new marriage
followed by another divorce. How could a knowledgeable, experi-
enced person like Elliot be so foolish?
What he had lost was not intelligence but judgment. In the psy-
chology lab he was still good at all those things he couldn’t get right
in his life: plan finances, predict other people’s reactions in hypo-
thetical social situations, and make commonsensical moral judg-
ments. He could think straight and he understood what was expected
of him, but he couldn’t translate his insights into action.
The failure to act on one’s better insight is called ‘goal neglect’. It
is seen not only in brain-damaged patients but also in normal people,
especially those with low intelligence. Lots of people smoke, drink or
commit crimes despite their better insight. They may invent rational
reasons for their irrational actions, but Elliot seems to have lost even
this ability.10
Elliot had lost the interface between emotion and cognition. He
could still respond to simple emotional stimuli. He could be annoyed
by a distressing noise, and generate the expected autonomic

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 Reason and Emotion

responses. He could be frightened, and show bursts of anger when

provoked. These simple emotions do not require the frontal cortex
but are generated by the amygdala and other subcortical structures.
Indeed, these responses are disinhibited in patients like Elliot.
What these patients are missing is the response to complex emo-
tional stimuli. When shown slides depicting gruesome crimes or gory
accidents, they fail to show the expected increase in heart rate and
electrical skin conductivity. They understand and can talk about the
horror and disgust implied in the pictures, but are not really touched
by it. They are like LeDoux’s rats, who can be frightened by a simple
shock-predicting tone with only the thalamus and amygdala intact
but require the cerebral cortex for fear responses to complex cues.11

The central executive and the parliament of instincts

Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can
never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them . . .
Reason alone can never be a motive to any action of the will.
(David A. Hume, Treatise of Human Nature)

The central executive of working memory is a toolkit that processes

cognitions and gives direction to the train of thought. It sets goals,
plans subroutines in the pursuit of these goals, maintains a focus of
attention and shifts it as required for the task at hand, pulls the
strings of memory retrieval, monitors the outcomes of cognitive
operations, and corrects errors. The executive modules scan the
mental models in working memory, identify their important features,
and transform these mental models accordingly. Therefore all cog-
nitions must have tags that define their meaning and instruct the
executive modules about their proper processing.
On page 15 we saw that cognitions are tagged according to their
origin: whether they are perceptions, memories, guesses or fantasies.
But cognitive source tagging is not enough. Every cognition needs a
little value tag that states how desirable the represented state is, and
what responses are appropriate. This emotional value tagging is
done implicitly on a second-by-second basis. Without it, there would
be no conscious experience of emotions.
Decision making requires the ability to process cognitions
according to their emotional value. For example, when you apply for

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 In God’s Image?

a new job you have to represent your current situation in your mind
and compare it with the job you are applying for. You should
evaluate every part of these mental models for its desirability: the
kind of work, your relations with your boss and colleagues, pay,
overtime work, the distance of your workplace from your home,
opportunities for professional advancement, and so on. Elliot makes
foolish choices because he cannot attach the appropriate feelings to
his perceptions, thoughts, conjectures and fantasies.12
Thoughts as well as perceptions function as key stimuli that trigger
emotions, guide attention and press for action. There are many
different emotions pressing for different kinds of action. We need a
parliament of instincts to make the final decision. Simple-minded
animals resolve these conflicts by majority vote, with stronger action
tendencies suppressing weaker ones: sex inhibits disgust, fear inhibits
sex, and fear and anger inhibit each other in some situations but not
others.
Large-brained animals know how to integrate conflicting moti-
vations into a single course of action. A child who tries to do well in
school does so for many unrelated reasons: conformity, the avoid-
ance of disapproval or physical punishment, a desire to be like the
adults, and anxiety about an uncertain future after failing in school.
Going to school is not an instinctive behavior, but it is motivated by
a coalition of basic needs and desires that are programmed into the
brain.

The social instincts

Thus at last man comes to feel, through acquired and perhaps

inherited habit, that it is best for him to obey his more persistent
impulses. (Charles Darwin, Descent of Man)

Emotions teach us about worthwhile goals and the means to attain

them. This is illustrated by people who have lost the emotion–
cognition interface through frontal lobe damage early in life, as in
the following example:

M.H. is a 26-year-old woman who was referred by the Massa-

chusetts Department of Social Service for inappropriate beha-
vior and negligent care of her 2½-month-old infant. She had

74
 Reason and Emotion

been developing appropriately until 4 years of age, when she

was struck by an automobile. She was unconscious for 48 hours
and suffered bilateral skull fractures and a right frontal
hematoma.
Over the next year she began to show temper outbursts when
frustrated. She became verbally and physically assaultive in an
abrupt, unpredictable, and short-lived manner. She hit her
brother, threw her father over a table, and cut her sister with
glass. Family members lived in constant terror and once called the
police when she threatened them at knife point. She repeated the
first and second grades and was given special tutorials in English,
social studies, and reading. She graduated from high school at age
20. Since her early teens, she was known for her sexual pro-
miscuity and bravado. She intermittently engaged in heavy
alcohol and marijuana use. She had no sustained friendships.
After high school graduation she held several temporary
menial jobs where infrequent outbursts against coworkers or
customers occurred. Although free of major depressive symp-
toms, she impulsively attempted suicide twice, once with an
overdose of hypnotics, and another time by jumping out of a
second floor window.
At age 17 she was raped while wandering through a local
cemetery, but returned to the scene and was raped again by the
same man. Her first pregnancy was terminated by an elective
abortion, another ended in miscarriage, and her third accidental
pregnancy yielded a daughter despite her parents’ and boyfriend’s
pleas for an abortion. She under-dressed the baby in inclement
weather, fed her erratically and left her unsupervised for lengthy
periods of time. There were suspicions of physical assault. At 20
days of age, the patient’s daughter was placed in foster care. This
intervention infuriated the patient who saw nothing wrong with
her child care. She attacked the social worker, and threatened to
kill members of the social service agency. At her last follow-up
visit she was pregnant again but was uncertain who the father
might be. Individual psychotherapy did not significantly alter her
behavior nor did a prolonged trial of anticonvulsant agents.13

This woman has a below-average IQ but is not mentally retarded. A

brain scan showed damage in both frontal lobes, in about the same
places that Elliot had lost.

75
 In God’s Image?

This patient has the ancient instincts of aggression and sex but is
defective in love, respect, devotion, caring, compassion, guilt, shame
and embarrassment. This makes her incapable of social learning. She
cannot weight her options and plan her actions according to her
emotional needs; nor can she take account of other people’s emo-
tional needs. Elliot still knows the rules of the social game although
he can no longer apply them, but M.H. never learned them.
Sociopaths like M.H. are fairly common, populating prisons and
placing a burden on social and psychiatric services. Do all these
crooks and cranks have frontal lobe damage? Sociopaths of the
common garden variety have no obvious brain damage, but many
test abnormally on psychological tests that are used to identify
patients with frontal lobe damage. Most criminals have poor self-
control like those with frontal lobe damage, and there even are
reports of reduced gray matter volume or reduced metabolic activity
in frontal brain regions. Also many drug addicts have the same
decision-making defects as neurological patients.14
There is no difference between brain dysfunction, psychiatric
disorder and bad character. If our diagnostic tools show brain
damage, we call it a neurological disorder. If not, it’s bad character.
We can also use a psychiatric label such as ‘antisocial personality
disorder’. Bad character is an abnormality of brain function. Or
else we have to blame it on evil spirits – but spirits are not
parsimonious.

Who is in charge?

Men believe themselves to be free, simply because they are

conscious of their actions, and unconscious of the causes
whereby those actions are determined. (Baruch d’Espinoza
(Spinoza), Ethics)

Most people believe that rational choice produces voluntary action.

And yet, the goal neglect of neurological patients and some normal
people shows that insights are not always translated into action. One
part of the brain knows what should be done, but a different part
acts.
Split-brain patients illustrate this point. In split-brain surgery, the
fiber bundles that connect the left and right cerebral hemispheres are

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 Reason and Emotion

cut in the midline. This radical surgery has been performed only in a
small number of severely epileptic patients in an attempt to prevent
the spread of seizures between the hemispheres.
Split-brain patients do surprisingly well in everyday life. Each
half-brain goes about its business as usual. The right hemisphere
concerns itself with the left half of the body and the world, and the
left hemisphere with the right half. And unless one of the hemi-
spheres is a sociopath, the two half-brains cooperate quite well.
When talking to a split-brain patient, you talk to a fully conscious
left hemisphere. Most right hemispheres are mute although they can
understand simple verbal commands. Some right hemispheres can
even read, or they learn reading during the years following the
surgery.
The left hemisphere receives input from the right half of the visual
field, and the right hemisphere from the left half. To test the
responses of the two hemispheres, the subject is placed in front of a
screen and asked to focus his gaze on a small cross in the middle.
When the picture of an object is flashed on the right half of the
screen for a period too short for eye movements, the left hemisphere
can report its identity. When flashed to the left half of the screen, and
this means to the right hemisphere, the left hemisphere will say it saw
nothing. The right hemisphere cannot name the object either, but
can identify it by touch with the left hand.
In the example shown in Figure 4.1, a chicken claw was flashed to
the left hemisphere and a snow scene to the right. The subject was
instructed to point to one of eight pictures that matched the one on
the screen. The right hand (left hemisphere) chose the rooster, and the
left hand (right hemisphere) the shovel. When asked to explain
the choices, the left hemisphere responded, ‘I saw a claw and I picked
the chicken, and you have to clean out the chicken shed with a
shovel’.15
The left hemisphere maintains the illusion of mental unity by
explaining the actions of the right hemisphere as its own. Could it be
that most of our actions are produced unconsciously, although the
thinking mind accepts them as its own choices? Many schizophrenics
believe that their actions are controlled by outside forces and their
thoughts are inserted into their minds or sucked away by fiendish
devices. Perhaps they are right.
Paradoxically, to maintain sanity we must keep track of the
sources of our cognitions but we must also adopt thoughts and

77
 In God’s Image?

Figure 4.1 Rationalization of choice in a split-brain patient. For

explanation, see text. (Gazzaniga and LeDoux, 1978)

actions as our own that come from non-conscious sources. We must

accept as parts of ourselves the products of motivational and cog-
nitive modules no less than we accept as parts of the outside world
the messages we receive from the sensory modules.
Thus the psychological self is created by the automatic process of
cognitive source tagging – the process that is impaired in many
schizophrenics. Split-brain patients don’t become schizophrenic after
surgery because they don’t have to learn their rationalization skills
from scratch. They simply continue a routine that they have been
practicing all their lives.
There are limits to rationalization. Muscle twitches induced by
electrical stimulation of the motor cortex are not interpreted as
voluntary by the subject. This is because the brain compares actual

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 Reason and Emotion

movement with expected movement. If the discrepancy is too great,

the action is not interpreted as voluntary.
When people initiate a simple voluntary act, for example bending
a finger, the EEG shows a change in brain waves that precedes
the movement by about half a second. This activity is called the
readiness potential. Benjamin Libet used the readiness potential
to investigate the timing of voluntary movements. He made his
subjects watch a clock face with a rotating dot, and instructed them
to bend a finger while watching the dot. The subjects had to decide
themselves when to bend the finger. Using the dot on the clock face
as a timer, they had to report when exactly they decided to bend the
finger.
The result was surprising. The readiness potential appeared first,
the conscious decision to act followed 0.35 seconds later, and the
actual movement started another 0.2 seconds after the conscious
decision. Thus the conscious decision did not cause the brain activity
preceding the movement. If anything, the brain activity caused the
conscious decision.
Although this observation fits nicely with the examples of ratio-
nalization in split-brain patients, Libet balked at the conclusion that
the conscious control of ‘voluntary’ action is an illusion, proposing
instead that conscious activity can veto an impulse to action that
builds up unconsciously.16 But he could not explain how a conscious
veto can be produced without non-conscious antecedents.
In Libet’s experiment, the instruction to move the finger merely
biased the threshold of a pre-set motor program. There was an
expectation of an impending movement, and once the movement
occurred it was interpreted as voluntary. Complex decisions, for
example to enter a monastery, publish one’s poems on the Internet
or kill one’s mother-in-law, are more complex. Such decisions are
preceded by conscious deliberation. Indeed it is hard to imagine why
a cognitive system should have evolved at all if it cannot influence
actions. Libet’s experiment only shows that not everything we
attribute to conscious control is actually triggered by conscious
activity.
But what exactly is voluntary in willed action? The central
executive that creates, inspects and manipulates the mental models is
an assembly of cognitive reflexes that work automatically. The
attachment of emotional value to the cognitions is automatic as well.
Our conscious thinking is itself produced by unconscious modules!

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As long as everything works smoothly we can maintain the illusion

that the thinker is in the driver’s seat, but when some of the modules
drop out, as in Elliot’s case, the illusion collapses. The subjective
impression of free will only demonstrates our inability to introspect
the causes of our thoughts and actions.
Whether conscious or not, brain events are physical events. Our
100 billion neurons are 100 billion billiard balls, all moving at the
same time. There is no place for freedom, and certainly no place for
uncaused causes. It’s all causes and effects, events and their
consequences.
You may object that the world of quantum mechanics is not
deterministic but probabilistic. Radioactive isotopes decompose with
a predictable probability, but the decay of an individual atom is not
predictable by any known causal rule. And, who knows, perhaps the
origin of a new universe is a probabilistic rather than deterministic
event – although theologians will dispute this point.
We tend to think of determinism and freedom as opposites
because in the domain of social cognition we have a concept – a
cognitive template – of compulsion that is linked to aggressive and
avoidance responses, adversarial thinking and aversive emotional
states. The opposite is called freedom. We are prone to map the
concept of physical determinism on this template not realizing that
uncaused causes cannot produce free will. In this universe, the
opposite of determinism is not freedom but randomness.

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 5
The Logic of Nature

What a book a devil’s chaplain might write on the clumsy,

wasteful, blundering, low, and horribly cruel works of nature!
(Charles Darwin)

Things are the way they are because they got that way. That’s called
evolution. Evolutionary biology is an existentialist science dealing
with life and death. But unlike the existentialist philosopher, the
evolutionary biologist is not interested in the lives and deaths of
individual bodies, or the brains that inhabit the bodies, or the souls
that inhabit the brains that inhabit the bodies. It is not the indivi-
dual, but the succession of bodies with brains that is the subject of
evolutionary biology.
Aside from the soul, the only immortal parts of the body are the
double-stranded coils of DNA, the stuff from which the genes are
made and the blueprint for the construction of bodies and brains
(though not necessarily souls). The bodies and brains that we see
today exist because the DNA that makes them still exists; and the
DNA still exists because the bodies it made in the past were able to
survive and procreate. They were the fastest runners in the great
relay race of life. The body is the DNA’s way of making more DNA,
much as the hen is the egg’s way of making more eggs.1
There is nothing inherently good or bad, valuable or worthless
about life and death, existence and nonexistence. These value
judgments are only in our brains. They got wired into our neural
networks by the forces of biological evolution to keep us on the track
of life. But you have to drop them, or else you will understand
nothing.

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The Red Queen

The Red Queen took her hand and led her on a wild run. When
they had stopped they were right where they had started, and
the Red Queen explained why: ‘Now here, you see, it takes all
the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want
to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as
that!’ (Louis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass)

We have two sets of about 30,000 genes each: one from mom, and
one from dad. These genes construct bodies with brains by con-
trolling the synthesis of the body’s proteins. Actually, only 1.3 per-
cent of our DNA codes for proteins. Most of the rest is useless junk
DNA: dead weight that we carry with us only because natural
selection was not strong enough to eliminate it.
If DNA is faithfully copied from generation to generation,
how can a species ever change? How can a fish evolve into a mam-
mal, and an ape into a human? Any plumber can give you the
answer: nothing in the world is perfect. No matter how well designed
things are, sometimes they break. What is true for water pipes is also
true for DNA. Whenever the 3 billion base pairs of our genome are
copied, a few little errors creep in. These random errors are called
mutations, and their consequences can be tragic. Sickle cell disease,
cystic fibrosis, hemophilia, deafness, muscular dystrophy and a host
of other genetic diseases are caused by mutations in a single gene
that cause the production of a defective protein. At least one out of
200 children is born with a serious single-gene disorder. Another one
in 200 is born with a chromosome aberration, as in Down’s syn-
drome which is caused by an extra copy of one of the smaller
chromosomes.
Many mutations cause a disease only when they are present in two
copies. Mutants who also carry a normal copy of the gene are
healthy. These recessive mutations are transgenerational time bombs
that go unnoticed for many generations before they cause serious
disease in an unlucky child who inherits two copies, one from each
parent.
Disease-causing mutations keep the doctors busy, but they are not
the stuff of which evolution is made. Indeed, the reason why serious
genetic diseases are not more common than they are is that many
patients are too sick to reproduce. Therefore their mutations die with

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them. Other mutations are slightly damaging, either in single or

double dose, but their effects are too mild to make a disease on their
own. But when combined with other mutations and an adverse
environment, they contribute to our colds, headaches, stomach
upsets, shortness of breath, neuroses and fuzzy thinking.
The average child is born with 100 to 300 new mutations on top of
those inherited from the parents. Most of them occur in the junk
DNA and are totally harmless, but between one and three of them
are mildly obnoxious. Therefore children are, on average, a little
sicker than their parents. To give an example, everywhere in the
world about 1 percent of all people develop a schizophrenic psy-
chosis at one or another time in their lives. Although it is not caused
by a major defect in a single gene, we know that nearly 80 percent of
the disease risk is genetic. Schizophrenics have, on average, fewer
children than other people. Also their close relatives, who are
expected to carry some of the offending genes without having the
disease, have no more children than everyone else. So why are
‘schizophrenia genes’ still floating in the gene pool, and why are they
so common that 1 percent of all people get the disease?
The answer is suggested by an interesting observation: the fathers
of schizophrenics are, on average, a little older than the fathers of
healthy people. We know that new mutations are more common in
the children of old fathers because mutations build up over a lifetime
in the male germ line. Thus schizophrenia seems to be caused by
mutations, including new mutations that are not present in the
patient’s parents. Schizophrenia mutations are common enough to
turn 1 percent of the population insane in every generation! The
reduced reproduction of schizophrenics is nature’s only way to
eliminate these mutations.2
In traditional societies, only one-half of all children survived to
puberty and not all survivors reproduced at the same rate. Most
likely those who died childless had, on average, a few more muta-
tions than those who managed to spawn a large brood. But Mother
Nature is blind to the plight of her children. Nature does not count
the casualties, but the survivors!
Most of the selection that takes place in nature is not the trium-
phant advance of genetic innovations, but the steady removal of
genetic garbage. It is part of life’s perennial struggle against the
second law of thermodynamics. This is the world of the Red Queen,
where it takes all the running you can do to keep in the same place.3

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Evolutionary change

The natural world is rampant with flawed designs that reflect the
trouble evolution has had turning one form into another, such
as a quadruped into a biped. (Frans de Waal)

Genes ‘for’ schizophrenia and genes ‘for’ homosexuality are genetic

variants that increase the likelihood of becoming schizophrenic or
homosexual, compared to alternative variants of the same gene.
Some of these ‘genes for’ are freak mutations that remain rare
because they get selected out of the gene pool, but others are com-
mon because they do something good. Genes, like drugs, have many
side-effects.
The real interesting question about a gene that increases a man’s
chance of becoming homosexual from, say, 2 percent to 5 percent, is:
What else does it do? Does it increase intelligence? Or stimulate
maternal behavior in women? Or does it make the men more
cooperative? Perhaps it increases the likelihood of homosexuality
only in men who carry two copies of it but makes those who carry a
single copy more fertile. Whenever a genetic variant occurs at fairly
high frequency in the population, you can bet it’s there for a reason!
Truly useful mutations are rare, and most of the time their effects
are so subtle that it takes hundreds or thousands of generations
before a genetic innovation has spread through the species. We are
‘designed’ to function properly, and the chance of improvement by a
random mutation is about as great as the chance of improving the
functioning of a computer by blindly poking in its innards with a
screwdriver.4
Mother Nature has no foresight. If an improvement requires a
combination of several new mutations but each mutation in isolation
is maladaptive, it can’t be done. We have a fitness valley that cannot
be crossed.
This point is illustrated by a small, faraway country called Mor-
onia. Although the Moronians are peaceful people, there are more
guns than people in the country and lots of people die in gun-related
accidents and crimes. And yet, the Moronians cannot get rid of their
guns. If guns were outlawed, decent folks would surrender their guns
and criminals would hold back theirs. Armed criminals could prey
on unarmed citizens. Eventually the police would confiscate the guns
of all criminals as well, but the Moronians elect their president every

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four years – any president who orders a ban on guns would risk
increased crime within the first four years, so he wouldn’t be re-
elected.
Nature is like the Moronians. Only a mutation that boosts
reproduction here and now can make it. Mutation is blind, and
selection is nearsighted. The Great Designer is a moron!
This is the reason why we are as imperfect as we are. Although by
and large well designed, we could do better. Our lungs, for example,
are of inferior design because they allow the mixing of fresh and
spent air. Lungs with two windpipes, one to bring fresh air in and the
other to blow off the spent air, would be more efficient. Also, our
arms and hands with their rigid bones and awkward joints are
suboptimal. Grasping appendages that are flexible in all directions,
like the elephant’s trunk and the tentacles of the octopus, would be
better. We are stuck with our bony arms because they evolved from
weight-bearing legs, and major redesigning is next to impossible
because vast gene assemblies would have to change in concert to turn
arms into tentacles.5
Mindlessness is the reason why it took nature 3 billion years to
turn free-floating coils of nucleic acid into apes and another 6 million
years to turn apes into humans. The genetic engineers of an intelli-
gent life form could achieve these feats a million times faster. Per-
haps our descendants will one day design life like this, provided we
ever evolve into an intelligent life form.
More likely, we will either die out or evolve to a less intelligent
state. Evolution does not always progress from simple to complex,
from molecules to bacteria to fish to dinosaur and human. Complex
life forms can become simplified with equal ease. The single-celled
yeasts are degenerate mushrooms, whales have lost their legs, and
tapeworms have lost their guts. Evolution does not mean progress. It
only means change.
Complexity comes at a price. Our noble brain, for example, burns
nearly a quarter of the food we eat. In a future where food is scarce
and thinking is not required for reproduction, evolution can easily
shrink it back to the size of an ape brain. Something like this hap-
pened to our pigs and sheep, and even dogs and cats. After adjust-
ment for body weight, their brains are between 20 percent and 35
percent smaller than those of the wild beasts from which they were
bred.6 They were not deliberately selected for small brains. They just
didn’t need big brains any more.

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 In God’s Image?

We may be heading in the same direction. But most species do not

evolve into less complex forms. They simply die out. An average
animal species survives only for 1 million years or so before it dis-
appears from the scene. Most of the species that lived as recently as 5
million years ago have no living descendants. In nature, death is the
rule, survival the exception.
Some species have changed very little. The deep-sea dwelling
coelacanth, for example, is a fish whose anatomy has not changed
much since the time of the first land vertebrates. At the other end of
the scale are our crop plants and domestic animals. Both the Chi-
huahua and the St Bernard are the descendants of a Chinese race of
wolf that was presumably first domesticated about 15,000 years ago.7
What distinguishes coelacanths from dogs is the selective pressure
imposed by the environment. Coelacanths have been living in the
same environment for 200 million years. Therefore the genes that
were good enough 200 million years ago are still good enough today.
Natural selection in an unchanging environment penalizes any
deviation from the status quo.
For dogs, by contrast, everything changed with domestication.
Suddenly some of the abilities that had been useful in the wild were
no longer needed, while others became important: docility, good
looks and the ability to digest the inferior food that their human
masters left for them. Suddenly, natural selection was pushing them
in a new direction. The deliberate selection of domestic animals by
people who had at least a crude grasp of the principle of inheritance
began only later, long after the rise of the first civilizations.
Humans are more like dogs than like coelacanths: a transitional
entity in the history of life, not only racked by the spasms of cultural
fads and fashions but also subject to the insidious workings of
directional selection in the artificial environments we have created
for ourselves.

Suicidal genes

No one man in a billion, when taking his dinner, ever thinks of

utility. He eats because the food tastes good and makes him
want more. If you ask him why he should want to eat more of
what tastes like that, instead of revering you as a philosopher he
will probably laugh at you for a fool. (William James, Psy-
chology: briefer course, 1892)

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Despite its limitations, evolution has achieved a lot more than most
other morons. Wherever we look in nature, there are beautifully
designed eyes to see, legs to run, and brains to think. Take as an
example the human hand. It may be less than perfect, but is still
good at many things, from stone knapping to piano playing. This
tool-using hand could not have evolved from scratch. It evolved
from a hand that was already well adapted for a different use:
climbing in the trees.
The tree-climbing hand of our ancestors was a preadaptation for
the tool-using hand we sport today: evolved for one use and then co-
opted and remodeled for a different use. The fins of ancient fish were
designed for swimming before they became the legs of the first land
vertebrates; and feathers evolved in flightless dinosaurs to keep them
warm long before one of their descendants co-opted them for flight
and became the first bird. And in Chapter 2 I proposed that thinking
uses a short-term memory system whose original function was to
associate stimuli that were perceived with a time delay.
Modern human behaviors are a different case. Science and phi-
losophy, for example, are of such recent origin that they cannot be
the results of natural selection favoring scientists and philosophers.
But curiosity is an evolved feature of the human mind. All animals
have to explore their world for food, shelter and mates, and science
and philosophy are merely bright people’s ways of exploring the
world. According to one saw, science is a way to satisfy one’s curi-
osity at other people’s expense.
But science and philosophy can become maladaptive – especially if
you keep reading learned books rather than chasing after potential
mates! In that case, the genes of scientists and philosophers will be
selected out of the gene pool. They have become maladaptive, and
this for an interesting reason: we have become too intelligent. Our
intelligence increased enormously over the past 2 million years but
our motivational systems are still archaic. Now they are out of sync.
Food is an even simpler example. Our ancestors had all the vita-
mins they needed, but calories were always scarce. And so they
evolved a taste for sweet and fatty foods with plenty of calories.
Today we have food in abundance, and we damage our health by
pigging out on sweets and greasy hamburgers. This is not as bad as it
looks. Usually we are past the reproductive age by the time diabetes
and heart disease catch up with us, and our overeating-genes are
safely in our children already. Still, some people eat themselves into a

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degree of obesity that reduces their chance of finding a mate. And

this is indeed bad for their genes!
The modern practice of contraception is even more damaging.
Evolutionary theory predicts that animals produce offspring as fast
as they can – and that’s exactly what they do, as any owner of a
female pet cat knows only too well. But we are different. We enjoy
sex while avoiding babies.
The reason for this bizarre aberration is revealed by an observa-
tion of the Polish anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski. In the early
years of the twentieth century, Malinowski spent several years with
the natives of the Trobriand Islands, off the coast of New Guinea.
The Trobrianders were a seafaring people of Melanesian origin, with
an economy based on fishing, gardening and the periodic exchange
of gifts. They were an anthropologist’s dream. Unspoiled by outside
influences, they provided a window on the thinking of humans in a
‘state of nature’.
The sexual behavior of the Trobrianders was quite typical for our
species. Teenagers went through a succession of sexual adventures,
and adults spent most of their lives in monogamous marriage. Wives
were expected to be faithful to their husbands, and husbands were
expected to be sometimes unfaithful to their wives.
One day Malinowski saw how a Trobriander, returning from a
two-year voyage to neighboring islands, was cheerfully greeting his
wife and the baby son she presented to him. Too polite to ask the
man himself, Malinowski asked one of the other Trobrianders why
the returning husband was not upset at his wife’s infidelity.
The Trobriander did not understand Malinowski’s point, and
eventually it turned out that the Trobrianders did not see a birth
under these circumstances as evidence of infidelity. It is true, Mal-
inowski was told, that a virgin cannot conceive. But otherwise,
sexual intercourse is not required. A woman gets pregnant when an
ancestral spirit decides to return to the earth. His interlocutor
pointed out a woman who was inordinately ugly. Every man in the
village was firm that he never had sexual relations with her. And yet,
she had a child. This, he was told, proves that sex is not required for
pregnancy.8
The Trobrianders were unusual. Almost all simple societies stu-
died by anthropologists did know that sexual intercourse leads to
pregnancy. Besides the Trobrianders, only some Australian abor-
igines were unaware of the connection. Also, all of Malinowski’s

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informants were male. I suspect that the Trobriand women knew it

very well, but preferred not to tell their men.
The Trobrianders show us that knowledge about the mechanism
of reproduction is of recent origin. Our early ancestors knew no
more about it than any other animal. A desire for children would
have been bad for them because the only way to act on it would have
been to snatch other people’s babies. What they needed was a desire
to copulate and a readiness to care for children once they were there.
This is the reason why men are ready to pay a prostitute, but sperm
banks have to pay their donors. Like a military commander who
gives information on a need-to-know basis, Mother Nature meted
out desires on a need-to-do basis. The conditions of life have
changed, but the desires have not. Some of them are still useful,
others have become useless, and some are suicidal.

The peacock’s tail

The law of battle for the possession of the females appears to

prevail throughout the whole great class of mammals. (Charles
Darwin, Descent of Man)

How did the peacock get his tail? He got his tail because the peahen
likes it. This big, showy tail is used to attract peahens, and for
nothing else. Although it does not prevent flight, the peacock’s tail is
rather a burden when it comes to traveling far distances or escaping
from a fox. But no matter how far you can travel and how well you
can escape from the fox, if you cannot get a mate your genes are
dead.
The real question is: Why does the peahen like a showy tail, and
why does she bother at all? Unlike many other male birds, peacocks
do not help their mates at the nest. All the peahen ever gets from her
mate are his genes.
Perhaps the peacock’s tail evolved from a sexually dimorphic tail
that attracted females simply because it was a signal for maleness: a
release stimulus that triggered female sexual behavior. Like men who
prefer big breasts, animals often prefer an exaggerated stimulus to
trigger their instinctive responses. For example, when an oyster-
catcher is offered a choice between her own egg and a plaster egg

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twice the size of her own, she will incubate the plaster egg rather than
her own.
Perhaps the peahen likes showy tails because all peahens like
showy tails. A son tends to resemble his father because he got half of
his genes from him. Mating with a sexy male increases the likelihood
of sexy sons, and sexy sons are likely to produce more grandchildren.
The logic of nature is circular! This runaway sexual selection is not in
the best interest of the species. It only benefits the genes that give the
males beautiful tail feathers, and those that make the females prefer
these tail feathers.
Good genes could be another reason. Poor nutrition and chronic
infections impair feather growth, diarrhea soils the tail, and moths
and mites can literally eat the male’s beauty. By insisting on an
impeccable tail and unruffled feathers, the female selects a male who
can resist the ever-present threats of parasites and malnutrition.
Such a male is likely to have a low mutational load, and his good
genes will benefit her offspring. There is indeed evidence that the
offspring of males with the most beautiful tails have a better survival
chance than those of less attractive sires.9
Mate choice for good genes does not explain why sheer size and
elaborate colors should be important. A more economically designed
male could just as well be inspected for signs of good genes by the
choosy female. Even if we could ask the peahen, she couldn’t give us
the answer. All she knows is that huge, colorful tail feathers on a
male are sexy. Mother Nature gives her children feelings, but she
does not tell them why.

The reason for love

I suppose [crocodiles] would cooperate with [their mature pro-

geny] not only on terms of mutual advantage, but on terms of
joint advantages as long as the loss of either did not exceed half
the gain of the other. Hence society starts with the family.
(Ronald A. Fisher, 1929)10

Do selfish genes produce selfish minds? To begin with, ‘selfishness’

means different things for genes and people. A mother’s loving care
for her children is unselfish in the commonsense meaning of the
word, but selfish for her genes because she labors for copies of her

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own genes in her children. And when, out of the goodness of my

heart, I give you a pack of condoms, I act unselfishly although the
consequences are selfish. By preventing your reproduction, I elim-
inate competitors of my own genes in the next generation!
These are two very different examples. Parental care is an evolved
behavior that we share with many animals. It evolved exactly
because it is selfish from the genes’ point of view. But giving away
condoms cannot be an evolved behavior because we evolved in a
condomless world. Its adaptiveness is incidental. The logic of nature
dictates that minds are designed for the survival of the mind-
constructing genes. In a ‘natural’ environment, any action that
benefits another animal while compromising the actor’s reproductive
prospects requires an explanation.
Social evolution starts with gregariousness. There are shoals of
fish, flocks of birds, and herds of zebras and gazelle. The reason for
gregariousness is not immediately obvious, for animals in a crowd
catch each other’s diseases, compete for food and attract predators.
A lone animal can hide, but a herd cannot.
But there is one advantage. When you meet a lion while you are
the only zebra far and wide, you’re done; but in a herd of 50 zebras,
the chance that you are the victim is only 2 percent. Even the hun-
griest lion will never eat 50 zebras in one sitting, only one. It is not
the species that benefits from gregariousness, but each gregarious
individual!11
The mother who cares for her child is a better example of social
behavior. Maternal love evolved because it benefits copies of the
mother’s genes in her children. Mother and child share 50 percent of
their genes, as do brothers and sisters.
How much should you love your brother? Let’s assume you have a
rare gene that causes you to sacrifice your life to save your drowning
brother. Would this gene survive? It wouldn’t, because through your
death one copy of the altruism gene will be lost. Your brother has
only a 50 percent chance of carrying this gene. Therefore you would,
on average, save only half an altruism gene while losing one. The
gene breaks even when you sacrifice your life for two brothers, and
half an altruism gene is gained when you save three brothers.
This principle is known as kin selection. It predicts that people do
not love their brothers like themselves, but only half as much. Sib-
lings should show a precarious balance between competition and
cooperation, and that’s what they usually do. Some parents will

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object that their children compete more and cooperate less than they
should if they share 50 percent of their genes, and they are right. It is
likely that during the millions of years of human evolution, most
siblings were actually half-siblings. Half-siblings share only 25 per-
cent of their genes. You have to save four half-siblings, not just two,
to break even!
We never evolved a reliable capability for kin recognition, and
unless you get a DNA test from a paternity lab you will never know
how much you should love your brother. We are merely pro-
grammed to love those with whom we are very familiar, and also
those who are similar to us.12 There has always been a high prob-
ability that such people are relatives.

Boundless love

Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. (Matthew 22, 39)

No altruism gene is lost when you sacrifice your life to save the life of
an identical twin. Therefore you should love your identical twin like
yourself. But in reality, total altruism occurs not even among iden-
tical twins. It could not evolve because identical twins were too rare
among our ancestors. To evolve total altruism by natural selection,
we would have to live for tens of thousands of years in groups of
genetically identical individuals from the cloning lab that compete
against other clones for reproductive opportunities.
We don’t have to wait so long to see boundless love. As the
genetically identical descendants of the fertilized egg, the cells of our
body are a community of clonemates that competes with other such
communities for reproductive opportunities. Therefore they are
unconditional altruists. They willingly restrain their growth to
comply with the needs of their neighbors. Many even die dutifully
during fetal development, committing suicide by programmed cell
death when they are no longer needed.
If our cells were not genetically identical, embryonic development
would be a mess. All cells would scramble for access to the gonads,
for only the genes in the germ line are immortal. This is the reason
why all truly multicellular organisms that evolved on this planet are
made up of genetically identical cells.
This harmony of boundless altruism – or tyranny, as we would call

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it because we didn’t evolve for it – can break down as a result of

somatic mutations. Over a lifetime, more and more mutations
accumulate in the trillions of cells that form our body. These somatic
mutations cannot be transmitted to our children, but they can
damage the cells and thereby contribute to the aging process. In
rare instances, however, somatic mutations turn a single cell into a
cancer cell, making it grow and multiply without regard for the
greater good of the body. Most cancers harbor a whole collection of
these mutations. Cancer is evolution in the fast track, with cells
mutating and mutants being selected for aggressive growth. Even-
tually all the selfish genes in the tumor will perish when their
destructive work is completed, but Nature has neither foresight nor
mercy.

The reason for fairness and justice

A hydrogen bomb is an example of mankind’s enormous

capacity for friendly cooperation. Its construction requires an
intricate network of human teams, all working with a single
minded devotion toward a common goal. Let us pause and
savor in the glow of self-congratulation we deserve for
belonging to such an intelligent and sociable species. (R. Bige-
low, The Dawn Warriors)

Outside the family, social behavior is based on cooperation for

mutual benefit. Some cooperation is incidental, as in the case of two
cavemen trapped in their cave by a boulder. Rather than taking
turns trying to move the boulder, better push together! Much of the
cooperative hunting and defense that we see in animals is of this
kind.
Sometimes, however, we help others without receiving an
immediate benefit. This situation is modeled in the prisoner’s
dilemma game. You and your friend are in prison. You can already
be convicted for a minor crime that earns each of you a one-year
sentence. You have also committed a bigger crime together, and now
the prosecutor interrogates you separately to get a confession. If
neither of you confesses, you will get one year each; if you both
confess, you get three years each; if you confess and your friend
doesn’t, you go free and he gets five years; and if he confesses and

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 In God’s Image?

you don’t, he goes free and you get five years (Figure 5.1). What
should you do?

Figure 5.1 Pay-off matrix in the prisoner’s dilemma. The squares show
what I get.

To get the best overall result, you should both stay mum and
accept a total of two years. But for you, it is always best to confess. If
your friend stays mum you go free rather than serving a year; and if
he confesses you get only three years instead of five. Either way,
defection is better than cooperation.
The prisoner’s dilemma can be played not only for years in prison
but also for money or, if you want to model evolution, the number of
offspring. The essential conditions are that cheating pays no matter
what your partner does, and that the overall outcome of mutual
cooperation is better than the overall outcome after defection by one
or both partners.
Cooperation will always lose in the prisoner’s dilemma as long as
only a single round is played. But what if the situation repeats itself
again and again? The iterated prisoner’s dilemma game can be
modeled on the computer. You can generate digital creatures that
always cooperate, always defect, or use more complex decision rules.
Robert Axelrod, a political scientist at the University of Michigan,
did exactly this. He even invited game theorists to submit strategies
for the iterated prisoner’s dilemma game, and pitted these strategies
against each other in his computer. It was already known that

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‘always cooperate’ cannot survive because it is easy prey for the

cheats. Unconditional altruism is not viable in the digital world. Also
‘always defect’ is not optimal, because it defeats the cooperators only
to get locked into mutual defection when it encounters another cheat.
The most successful strategy in Axelrod’s tournament was ‘tit-for-
tat’, submitted by the Canadian psychologist Anatol Rapoport.
Tit-for-tat always cooperates in the first move and then copies the
behavior of its opponent. It cooperates with cooperators, and
retaliates against cheats. It forgives previous uncooperativeness,
responding only to its opponent’s latest move. Tit-for-tat is imme-
diately intelligible for humans: be nice to those who are nice to you,
and be nasty to those who are nasty to you.13 ‘Love thy enemy’ is not
evolvable, but ‘an eye for an eye’ is.
Being nice only to those who are nice to you is evolvable not only
because it benefits the ‘reciprocal altruism’ genes in you. Mutual
cooperation helps both parties. If you are nice only to those who
respond to good deeds in kind, you also benefit copies of these genes
in your partners. Since there certainly are many different reciprocal
altruism genes in the population, we are dealing with a whole gang of
genes that support one another.
Kin-selected altruism is common in nature. Many animals care for
their young, and cooperation between adults is rife wherever close
kin live together. Prairie dogs warn their relatives with alarm calls
when they spot a predator, and juvenile birds of various species help
their parents raise their younger siblings. Tit-for-tat reciprocity is
rare. Good examples have been described for only a few mammalian
species, including some primates.14
First of all, there must be situations where cooperation pays. Food
sharing makes sense for big-game hunters but not grass-eaters. For
most animals, mutual help is more important than food sharing. If
you cannot pluck the ticks and lice from your back, reciprocal social
grooming makes sense; and when you live in a dangerous neigh-
borhood, you need a friend who helps you when you need him and
whom you help when he needs you.
Another requirement is that the partners stay together for a long
time so they can interact repeatedly. Mutual help can evolve in small,
stable groups but not in an anonymous crowd or among transients
and drifters. Also, a good memory is needed to keep track of pre-
vious interactions. This is the reason why reciprocity is almost
unheard-of in invertebrates and small-brained vertebrates.

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 In God’s Image?

One final requirement is the absence of strong dominance hier-

archies. Why should you bother with the give-and-take of social
exchange if you are strong enough to steal with impunity? In the real
world, tit-for-tat never rules supreme. It is only one of many stra-
tegies in social interactions.
Humans are bright enough to know that cooperation brings its
rewards. An employee works because he expects a paycheck at the
month’s end, and some merchants refrain from cheating their cus-
tomers in expectation of future business. But this awareness of the
future is not a precondition for reciprocal exchange. Blood-sharing
vampire bats (see Box 5.1) may not have it. All that is needed is an
awareness of the past, combined with a few simple decision rules.
Tit-for-tat players need no more foresight than the digital creatures
in Axelrod’s computer.

BOX 5.1

Blood ties among vampires

The common vampire bat is one of the most cooperative animals

we know. In Central America, vampire bats spend their days in
hollow trees where clusters of up to a dozen females roost along
with several males. Every night the bats leave their roost to feed
on the blood of horses, cattle, and sometimes humans. Vampire
bats have a ravenous appetite, drinking 50% of their own weight
in blood every night. The greatest danger they face is starvation. A
bat will die if it goes without blood for two consecutive nights.
Typically, 7% of the adults and 30% of the less experienced
juveniles return empty stomached every morning. Without mutual
help, more than 80% of the adults and almost all juveniles would
starve to death every year, but actually the mortality is only 24%
per year. Female vampire bats can reach an age of 18 years.
The reason for their low mortality is this: the hungry bat begs for
food by stroking the bulging tummy of a more successful roostmate
who will then regurgitate part of its meal for its needy comrade.
This unselfish act can save the petitioner’s life without endangering
the blood donor. Unrelated bats have a buddy system, so that two
individuals regurgitate almost exclusively to each other. Because
female vampire bats feed their own young with blood and some of

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the adults in the roost are relatives, reciprocity in this species could
evolve from kin-selected patterns of blood sharing.
Vampire bats could evolve this social security system because
they meet all the requirements. They roost with the same indivi-
duals every day and therefore know each other personally; the
sacrifice for the donor is small but the benefit for the recipient is
great; and they have no strict dominance hierarchy that would
allow dominant animals to exploit subordinates. Vampire bats
have larger brains than other bats of similar size, and this may
provide them with a good memory and the ability to detect
cheaters.15

Even in humans the rules of the game are implemented by emo-

tions such as gratitude and indignation. These emotions are created
when feelings of love and hate become attached to the memories of
previous social interactions. Most people, for example, judge the
appropriateness of punishment not by its crime-preventing effect but
by their intuitions about deservingness.16 The emotions evolved first,
and the awareness of the future came later.
Thus we have two sets of social instincts: unconditional altruism
for family members; and friendly cooperation with other community
members. Conflicts between loyalty for family members and fairness
to everyone lead to nepotism, which is now considered a form of
corruption but has been the leading social ethos in small-scale
traditional societies.

The limits of unselfishness

Much as we might wish to believe otherwise, universal love and

the welfare of the species as a whole are concepts that simply do
not make evolutionary sense. (Richard Dawkins)17

Next to kin selection and reciprocity, group selection has been

credited with the evolution of altruism. The idea is that groups of
cooperators outcompete groups of selfish individualists, and that
selection works in favor of the species or of groups within the spe-
cies. As late as 1963 Konrad Lorenz argued that even aggression
against conspecifics serves the greater good of the species rather than
the selfish interests of the aggressor.18

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 In God’s Image?

This greater-goodism of the early ethologists went unchallenged

until the Scottish zoologist Vero Wynne-Edwards formalized some
of its assumptions in his 1962 book Animal Dispersion in Relation to
Social Behaviour. Wynne-Edwards claimed that animals limit their
populations by self-imposed restraints on breeding, thereby pre-
venting overpopulation and the depletion of their food resources.
Wynne-Edwards’s favorite example was the red grouse, which he
had studied on the Scottish moors. The males of this species fight
over breeding territories early in the season. Most gain a territory
and can breed, but some don’t. The losers simply give up, con-
demned to a bleak existence on the margins of the moor and an
almost certain death by slow starvation.
Why don’t the defeated males try again and again until they drop?
Wynne-Edwards claimed that they don’t try because their efforts, if
successful, would cause overcrowding and depletion of the food
resources. The unrestrained breeders get wiped out when their
population crashes, and neighboring populations of restrained
breeders come in to fill the vacuum.
This position was immediately attacked by game theorists who
showed that a gene for restrained breeding would rapidly go
extinct.19 Genes that benefit the group with little or no detriment to
the individual can prosper, but genes that are clearly bad for the
individual cannot survive even if they are good for the group.
All of Wynne-Edwards’s examples can be explained as instances of
genetic selfishness. Why should a defeated red grouse try yet another
fight and risk serious injury if the chance of winning is minimal? To
make the best out of a bad situation, he should stick around and
preserve as much of his remaining strength as possible, hoping to usurp
a territory and a wife when one of the territory owners succumbs to
roundworm infestation or gets eaten by a fox or shot by a hunter.
Human birth control is neither an evolved behavior nor altruistic
in the psychological sense. It does not benefit the local population
either, for in our time, contracepting populations become rapidly
supplanted by populations of unrestrained breeders.
We are also lacking any evolved behavioral mechanisms to protect
the natural resources on which we depend. We happily ravage the
planet without any thought of the consequences. The Lebanon
cedars that supplied the timber for the temple of Jerusalem and the
fleets of ancient Egypt are no more. The Lebanon mountains have
turned into bare rocks, hardly able to support some grass and thorny

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scrub. The Phoenicians could have replanted the cedars after cutting
them down to protect the soil from erosion and provide wood for
their children and grandchildren, but they didn’t.
Another example are the Easter Islanders who entered a lush
tropical island that provided them with an unlimited supply of
timber to build their huts and canoes. Within a few centuries, they
established an impressive culture whose greatness is still testified by
the bizarre stone statues that overlook the coastal plain. But when
the first Europeans reached the island, this native culture was dead.
The Easter Islanders had turned their island into a barren, treeless
landscape, most of the native wildlife was gone, and the remnants of
the human population were reduced to cannibalism.
Some people like to believe that primitive hunters are born con-
servationists who avoid overhunting and the killing of pregnant and
nursing females. None of the more rigorous studies could find such
restraint. Thus, the Yanomamö and Ye’kwana hunters of South
America do indeed avoid the game-depleted areas around their villages,
but when they encounter any game there on the way to their hunting
grounds they kill it anyway. They do not avoid the depleted areas to
protect the remaining game, but only because hunting there is no longer
worthwhile. Conservation may be fashionable among the intellectual
elite of modern nations, but it is alien to the primitive mind.20
In our time we do indeed restrict hunting rights and establish
wildlife preserves, and we have laws to limit environmental pollu-
tion. But we take action only when we expect immediate returns. A
wildlife reserve can attract tourists who will benefit the local econ-
omy, but measures for the control of global climate change are
unlikely because their benefits would be slow in onset and cumula-
tive over some centuries. Another limitation is that the sacrifices
must be slight. Supporting ecological research or establishing a
wildlife reserve costs little and creates jobs. But what about fossil
fuels? Experts tell us that reserves of cheap mineral oil will be all but
depleted within 50 years, and oil sands and coal will run out after
another 400 years or so.21 The standard response is: ‘Why worry? We
won’t be alive then.’ Evidently, we have no evolved mechanisms to
extend altruism to our descendants.
Such mechanisms would make no biological sense. Parents should
help their children compete with other people’s children. Among our
ancestors, parents could help their children to reach a high position
in the social hierarchy, find a desirable mate, and raise a lot of

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 In God’s Image?

children. This kind of altruism could and did evolve by kin selection.
But altruism for descendants who are not yet born could not evolve
because our early ancestors had no opportunity of helping them.
Kin-selected altruism depends on a personal bond. Therefore it
cannot even give us love for our own future children, let alone future
generations in the abstract. We could possibly translate kin-selected
altruism into transgenerational altruism by imagining future states
of the world along with the contingencies leading to these states, and
feeding these mental models into the emotional circuits that control
altruistic behavior. We would have to create imaginary personal
bonds with people who do not yet exist.
Cognitive-emotional acrobatics of this kind is too much for most
humans at their current stage of cognitive and moral evolution. One
problem is that cognition and emotion would both have to work in
full gear at the same time, but they usually inhibit each other.22
Cognitive engineers should rewire the human brain so that strenuous
thinking suppresses only the selfish and aggressive emotions but not
the altruistic ones!
Reciprocity is even less suited than kin-selected altruism as a
source of concern for the future, because our descendants can never
repay us for the sacrifices we make for them. What has the future
ever done for me?
Concern for future generations will always have a lunatic touch.
People recognize that it is a misapplication of our altruistic instincts,
just as sadism is a misapplication of the sexual instinct. Altruism
evolved only for relatives and friends. Extending it to strangers –
with the exception of terrorists and other assorted enemies – is
considered acceptable and even laudable in modern societies, but any
further departure from the natural situation is perceived as deviant.

The reasons for some common reasoning errors

‘According to nature’ you want to live? O you noble stoics,

what deceptive words these are! Imagine a being like nature,
wasteful beyond measure, without purposes and consideration,
without mercy and justice, fertile and desolate and uncertain at
the same time; imagine indifference itself as a power – how
could you live according to this indifference? (Nietzsche, Beyond
Good and Evil)

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 The Logic of Nature

The logic of nature is simple enough. You don’t need to be a genius

to understand that random copying errors produce genetic diversity
and that some genetic variants are more likely than others to be
passed on. Also the claim that the presence or absence of one or
another genetic variant influences the probability of certain beha-
viors is straightforward. This is the kind of reasoning we apply to the
physical world, but it is not the way we think about people. People
are supposed to have feelings and desires, set goals, and act in the
pursuit of their goals. Their actions are purposeful.
Like intentional action, evolution creates complex outcomes that
our brain imbues with meaning by attaching emotions to them.
Substituting theory of mind for physical causality, everyone before
Darwin took the adaptedness of life as evidence for the action of a
mindful creator. This is the famous ‘argument from design’, cham-
pioned by creationists to the present day.
The mental model of the evolutionary process is so similar to that
of intentional action that we have a hard time holding the two apart.
On page 35 we saw that a sequence of dissimilar words, like PIT,
DAY, HOT, COW, PEN, is held in working memory more easily
than a sequence of similar-sounding words such as MAN, CAD,
MAT, MAP, CAN. Similarity-based interference affects our think-
ing about evolution and intentional action as well, with the result
that we tend to collapse these two mental models into one. As a
result we confuse the evolutionary causes of our psychology with the
psychological causes of our behavior.23
But the contents of our desires are very different from the evo-
lutionary reasons for their existence. Yes, our desires evolved
because they used to lead to reproduction; but no, we do not desire
reproduction. We desire sex but not the propagation of our genes;
tasty food but not nutrients; and knowledge even when it is useless
for survival.
Another example is the famous question: can true altruism exist?
Is it really altruism if it benefits the copies of one’s own genes in a
relative or if it leads to reciprocation? Our desires and cognitive
reflexes evolved because they promoted the transmission of the genes
that produced them. In that sense, there can be no true altruism.
However, common people consider an altruistic act as genuine if it is
motivated by a spontaneous desire to make someone happy. It
should ‘come from the heart’. In that sense, altruism can be and
often is genuine. Genes are no more selfish than rocks in a river that

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are still there because they were hard enough to resist the water while
others were ground to grit. And yet, we find the selfish-gene meta-
phor titillating because it triggers a cognitive routine that we use for
thinking about people.
Another reasoning error is known as the naturalistic fallacy. It
states, in simple terms, ‘It’s natural, therefore it’s good’. If people
used to live without the complexities of civilization since time
immemorial, then the ‘natural’ life is good; if evolution is a struggle
for survival, than the struggle for survival is good; if we evolved to
take advantage of others, then we should take advantage of others.
This direct translation of an ‘is’ statement into an ‘ought’ state-
ment is contrary to formal logic. Nevertheless, a statement such as ‘If
it is universal in nature, it’s all right’ is similar to our most funda-
mental social algorithm: ‘If it is universally practiced in my com-
munity, it’s all right.’ We take this social algorithm for granted
because we are born conformists, and unthinkingly we transfer our
conformity from the social to the physical domain.
Again the thinker works with two superficially similar mental
models, one about nature and its rule-governed goings-on, and the
other about human society and its rule-governed goings-on. He does
not necessarily collapse the two models into one, but stuffs them into
the same mental file folder and in the process transfers a value tag
from one to the other. This creates the idea of a moral world order
that can be rationalized by claiming that God made both the natural
and the social order, and therefore both must be good.
Out of pure malice I invited you to commit the naturalistic fallacy
by describing certain modern behaviors, such as science and con-
traception, as ‘bizarre aberrations’ that are ‘maladaptive’ and ‘dys-
functional’. Common folks use such labels for various kinds of social
pathology. But in evolutionary biology they only mean that the
genes that form the psychological structures on which the behavior is
based are no longer selected for, but selected against, provided
alternative genetic variants are available in the gene pool that
hamper the development of these structures.
If contraception is favored by high intelligence or a sense of per-
sonal control over one’s life or a preference for competitive rather
than nurturant activities, then, everything else being equal, the genes
favoring these traits will become less frequent in the population.
Whether that’s desirable or not is a different question altogether.

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 6
Origins

Man’s derived supremacy over the earth; man’s power of

articulate speech; man’s gift of reason; man’s free-will and
responsibility . . . all are equally and utterly irreconcilable
with the degrading notion of the brute origin of him who was
created in the image of God . . .
(Samuel Wilberforce, 1860)1

Biologists distinguish between analogies and homologies. Analogous

structures have similar functions but different origins. The bird wing
and the insect wing are analogous. Homologous structures have the
same origin although they may have acquired different functions.
The bird wing and the human hand are homologous.
The same applies to behavior. Konrad Lorenz marveled at the
human-like social bonds of graylag geese.2 But human love and
goose love are unrelated. They evolved independently because the
common ancestor of humans and geese – a lizard-like creature that
lived 250 million years ago – most likely lacked stable social bonds.
Also chimpanzees have human-like social bonds. But chimps and
humans are the descendants of an ape-like creature that lived as
recently as 6 to 7 million years ago. Therefore chimpanzee love and
human love most likely have a common origin and are produced by
homologous brain structures.

Degrees of relatedness

It is dangerous to make man see too clearly his equality with the
brutes without showing him his greatness. It is also dangerous

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 In God’s Image?

to make him see his greatness too clearly, apart from his vile-
ness. It is still more dangerous to leave him in ignorance of
both. (Blaise Pascal, 1670)

Mutations in the non-coding junk DNA are not removed by natural

selection and therefore accumulate over evolutionary time. They
form a molecular clock that tells us how closely two species are
related. The greater the differences in the junk DNA of two species
are, the more distant is their last common ancestor.
Along with the fossil record, the molecular clock shows that Old
World monkeys diverged from the human lineage between 25 and 35
million years ago, orang-utans 12 to 16 million years ago, gorillas 8
or 9 million years ago, and chimpanzees 6 or 7 million years ago.
With 98.7 percent DNA sequence identity between human and
chimp, the chimpanzee is more closely related to us than to the
gorilla. The genetic distance between humans and chimpanzees is
about as great as the distance between blue whale and fin whale,
horse and donkey, or rhesus monkey and baboon. These species
pairs can produce viable inter-species hybrids. Does this mean that a
cross between human and chimp is possible?
Perhaps, but the scientific value of this experiment would be
limited because the hybrid will most likely be sterile. During human
evolution two ape chromosomes fused to produce human chromo-
some #2. Therefore we have only 23 pairs of chromosomes while
apes have 24. A hybrid will have 47 chromosomes, and many of its
gametes will contain an unbalanced set of chromosomes that pro-
duces a non-viable fetus. There are also other chromosomal differ-
ences that are likely to impair the fertility of the hybrids.3 A better
way of finding out which of our genes make us human would be to
produce chimps who have some of their genes or chromosomes
replaced by those from humans, or humans who have some of their
genes or chromosomes replaced by those from chimps.
Should a human–ape hybrid be considered human? Should he
have the legal status of a person, or should it be an object that can be
owned as property? What makes a human–chimp hybrid interesting
are not the insights it gives us into the nature of species differences,
but the insights it gives us into the nature of our thinking.
When you travel into the past with your time machine, stopping
every 100,000 years, you will meet creatures that are less and less
human and more and more ape. And when one of our descendants, 5

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 Origins

million years into the future, does the same, he will look in vain for
the dividing line between his humanity and our animality.

The law of the jungle

[There is] one general law, leading to the advancement of all

organic beings, namely multiply, vary, let the strongest live and
the weakest die. (Charles Darwin, Origin of Species)

Of all the great apes, the orang-utan is on the most distant branch of
the human family tree. It is also the most distant geographically, for
it is found only in Indonesia on the islands of Borneo and Sumatra.
Females of this tree-dwelling species weigh 70 to 80 pounds, but fully
grown males reach 150 to 200 pounds, with an arm span of up to 8
feet and the strength of a heavyweight wrestler.
Unlike the other apes, orang-utans are loners. They do aggregate
at times, especially in their youth, but the more typical sight is a
solitary male, or a female carrying her infant or followed by an older
child. Orang-utans move slowly, covering no more than a few hun-
dred meters per day. Tarzan’s way of swinging through the canopy
doesn’t work, not even for orang-utans.
Primates in general take to group life when the predation risk is
high, but orang-utans have no predators. Nobody of their size can
follow them into the trees. Another reason for their solitude is that
they have to disperse to get the high-quality diet of fruit and fresh
leaves that they require. Forget about Walt Disney’s Jungle Book.
Orang-utans cannot forget the bare necessities of life. Their big
bodies need lots of food, and orang-utans in the wild have been seen
dying of slow starvation during bad seasons.4
Mothers carry their infants full-time. For an infant, this is the only
safe way of traveling through the trees. Although older offspring are
no longer carried but follow their mother closely, breast-feeding is
continued up to an age of five to seven years. The female lives celi-
bate during these years, becoming sexually receptive only after
weaning. Like the females of most other species, female orang-utans
care about sex only when they are close to ovulation. The birth
interval is between five and ten years, and a female raises no more
than three or four offspring during her lifetime. No other animal, not
even humans, reproduces as slowly as the orang-utan.

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 In God’s Image?

Modern people are so used to birth control that they are rarely
aware of the mechanisms of natural fertility. The two important
factors are breast-feeding and nutrition. A healthy, well-fed mother
resumes menstruation and ovulation within a year after birth, even
with continued breast-feeding. But if the mother is in poor health or
suffers chronic undernutrition, continued breast-feeding can delay
the resumption of fertile cycles for years, in humans as well as apes.5
Well-fed orang-utans in captivity and well-fed humans in natural-
fertility populations give birth every two years.
The orang-utan father is conspicuously absent. And why should
he bother? The mother can raise his child alone. She is infertile for
many years after conception, so he has to roam the jungle to find
fertile females elsewhere. Although most bird fathers help raising the
brood, more than 90 percent of mammals have father-absent
families.6 This is old mammalian heritage. The first mammals had no
paternal care, or else lactation would have evolved in males as well as
females, and men as well as women would have breasts. Once
female-only lactation had evolved, it was a barrier for the evolution
of paternal care because the father was useless for feeding the brood
anyway. Feminist genetic engineers should introduce genes for male
lactation into our species!
Female orang-utans stay in the area where they were born but the
males stray off after puberty, roaming the jungle in search of food
and mates. In all animals either the males or the females or both
leave the place of their birth. This is necessary because inbreeding is
hazardous to the offspring’s health. In our species incest is not
recommended because about half of the children from matings
between father and daughter or brother and sister are seriously
abnormal. Even the children of first cousins have mildly increased
mortality.7
Because female orang-utans spend most of their adult lives preg-
nant or nursing, receptive females are rare in the jungle. Once an
adult male has located a sexy female he will follow her for some days
to get her used to his presence, and copulate when she is ready. When
there is more than one adult male around, they have to fight it out.
Seasoned males can often be distinguished from one another by scars
and lasting deformities from their past fights.
You may have wondered why orang-utan males are so much
bigger than the females, although the females must be strong for the
rigors of pregnancy and lactation while the males only copulate. The

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 Origins

only reason is that the males have to fight over the females! The male
expends only 200 milligrams of protein, 1 milligram of zinc, and
trivial amounts of other nutrients in each ejaculate, plus a few cal-
ories for muscular activity during copulation. With this low invest-
ment, his priority is to copulate with as many females as possible.
And because every male has the same priority, they have to fight.
Any gene that increases a male orang-utan’s size and fighting
power is selected for. Some of these genes make only the males
bigger, but others make both males and females bigger. As a result,
orang-utans are too big for their ecological niche. Their large size
limits their mobility in the trees, and a big body needs more food
than a small one. A fruit tree that could support a whole troop of
small monkeys cannot feed more than one or two orang-utans at a
time. Orang-utans pay a high price for their imposing size: a solitary
lifestyle, long birth intervals, and a place on the list of endangered
species.
Not all male orang-utans use the same strategy. Younger, smaller,
subadult males don’t fight. When an adult male consorts a female,
the subadults keep out of his way. But they are never far, always
ready to jump in for a quick copulation when the big guy turns his
back.
Mature females don’t like these ‘sneaky fuckers’ although they
copulate willingly with the big males. But the subadults have a
simple solution for this problem. If the female doesn’t want him, the
male simply rapes her. Orang-utans are among the few primate
species where forced copulations are common. Some males never
seem to grow up, and they use the sneak-and-rape strategy
throughout their lives. This type of behavior is illustrated by an
unusual report about the ex-captive orang-utan Gundul:

One day, I went to the platform with a visitor from North

America and one of the cooks. When Gundul arrived, he ate a
little but seemed distracted. Suddenly Gundul grabbed the cook
by the legs and wrestled her down to the platform, biting at her
and pulling at her skirt. I had never seen Gundul threaten or
assault a woman, although he frequently charged male assis-
tants. The cook was screaming hysterically. I thought, ‘He’s
trying to kill her.’ I had a vision of Gundul tossing the cook off
the platform into the shoulder-deep swamp water and drowning
her.

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 In God’s Image?

I attacked Gundul with all my strength, trying to jam my fist

down his throat. I shouted to the visitor to take the dugout back
to Camp Leakey for help. My repeated blows had no effect on
Gundul; but neither did he fight back very aggressively. I began
to realize that Gundul did not intend to harm the cook, but had
something else in mind. The cook stopped struggling. ‘It’s all
right,’ she murmured. She lay back in my arms, with Gundul on
top of her. Gundul was very calm and deliberate.
He raped the cook. As he moved rhythmically back and
forth, his eyes rolled upward to the heavens. I was in shock. I
felt as though this were happening to other people somewhere
else, and I was watching from a distance. I have no idea how
much time passed.
Gundul let the cook go, stood up, and, soundlessly, moved
off the feeding platform into the trees. It was over just like that.
The cook had a look of relief on her face; she seemed grateful to
have survived . . . Although badly shaken, the cook had not
been injured. Later, her husband’s reaction gave me an insight
into Kalimantan thinking. ‘It was just an ape,’ the husband
said. ‘Why should my wife or I be concerned? It wasn’t a man.’8

This incident has been reported by Biruté Galdikas, who has been
working with orang-utans in Kalimantan (Borneo) for many years.
It appears bizarre because most males, ape as well as human, are
sexually attracted only to females of their own species. Only they fit
on the male’s ‘sexy female’ template.
But Gundul had been raised in a human household before being
released into the wild at the research station of Camp Leakey, and
presumably he became imprinted on the women in this household. I
am not trying to excuse the ape’s behavior, but Indonesian women
are not much bigger than female orang-utans.

The first family

The maternal instinct leads a woman to prefer a tenth share in a

first-rate man to the exclusive possession of a third-rate one.
(George Bernard Shaw)

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 Origins

Unlike orang-utans, gorillas spend most of their time on the ground.

They have to, for with a weight of 200 pounds for females and 400
pounds for males they are the largest living primates. Although
scattered over wide areas of Africa, their populations are dwindling.
The mountain gorilla, which has been studied in more detail than the
other races, has been reduced to a few hundred individuals in the
Virunga Mountains at the border between Rwanda and the Congo.
Most gorillas live in family groups with a dominant silverback
male, some wives, and their offspring. Many groups contain one or
more junior males, but only the dominant silverback breeds. Gorillas
can afford this family structure because their efficient digestive sys-
tem enables them to subsist on low-quality food. They stuff up to 40
pounds of greenery into their mouths every day, but their food
supply is so abundant that there is not much feeding competition.
Therefore relationships between the family members are peaceful,
relaxed and affectionate, except for occasional squabbles that are
adjudicated by the silverback. The females interact more with their
husband than with their co-wives, and they all defer equally to the
power of their silverback – a feminist’s nightmare.
Both males and females are likely to leave their family at puberty.
A female can either join a lone silverback or transfer to an established
family group. An adolescent male can become a lone silverback or
join a bachelor group, but eventually he has to get married. There are
two ways to acquire a harem. Ideally, he succeeds in soliciting the
transfer of young females during peaceful encounters with established
families. Or else he can raid a group, chase off the resident silverback
and herd off one or more of the females. These incidents are rare, but
their effect on the victimized group can be devastating.
One unwritten law of gorilla society is this: if a new wife has an
infant already, it has to die. According to one count, infanticide by
males is responsible for 14 percent of all infant deaths in mountain
gorillas. This is most common after the death of a silverback when
the surviving family members are exposed to the encroachments of
roving males.
The logic of infanticide is crystal clear. The female is infertile until
two years after birth when the infant is weaned, but a mother who
loses her infant will start cycling within one or two months. By
killing her infant, the male not only eliminates a competitor of his
own children but also gains the opportunity to start reproducing
almost immediately.

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 In God’s Image?

The males of our species are more civilized, but most prefer a
childless woman to one who has someone else’s baby already.
Among the Yanomamö indians of the Amazon forest and the natives
of the Pacific island of Tikopia, a man may ask his bride to kill the
children from her previous union as a precondition for marriage.9
Untouched by feminist ideas, the gorilla female mates with the
baby-killer within weeks after the event. Emotions are programmed
into the brain by genes, and her genes have nothing to gain by
resisting his advances. The faster she gets pregnant again, the better.
Her next child will not be at risk because gorillas are exemplary
fathers who never harm their own brood.
She does not need her husband to feed or carry the child, but she
needs him for protection against other males. This is the nature of
gorilla love, and the origin of family life in this species. If we could
ask a female gorilla what qualities she values in a mate, she would
certainly say, ‘He has to be strong.’

The first tribe

The feeling of pleasure from society is probably an extension of

the parental or filial affections, since the social instinct seems to
be developed by the young remaining for a long time with their
parents. (Charles Darwin, Descent of Man)

Chimpanzees are closest to humans both genetically and psycholo-

gically. They are smaller than most humans, but with the same size
dimorphism: 70 to 80 pounds for females, and about 100 pounds for
males. Being good at walking as well as climbing, they prefer the
margins of the African forests where they can take advantage of food
and protection from the trees while walking fairly far distances on
the ground.
Chimpanzees depend on fruits, nuts and fresh greens, but meat is a
special treat for them. Alone or in small groups of males they hunt
young bushpigs, baboons and gazelle, and the small, leaf-eating
colobus monkeys. No other primate species except humans is known
to hunt cooperatively. Chimpanzees are especially fond of the brain,
which they scoop from the skulls of their victims with great delight.
Jane Goodall always took great care that her little son was properly

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supervised at Gombe, where she studied the behavior of the local

chimps. Human children have big brains!
Another remarkable feature of chimpanzees is their use of simple
tools. They use sticks to poke for termites, and stones to open hard-
shelled nuts; and branches are brandished and stones are thrown
during the charging displays of the males. There are true ‘cultural’
differences, since the patterns of tool use differ among
communities.10
A chimpanzee community is like a little village where everyone
knows everyone else. Each female has a core area where she spends
much of her time alone with her children, while grown males roam
all over the community range, usually in small groups. Only the
females emigrate at puberty. Therefore the males in the community
are genetically related but most of the adult females are unrelated.
Possibly for this reason, there is more cooperation among males than
among females.
The males have a clear hierarchy, and each chimpanzee commu-
nity has a ruler who bears the royal title of alpha male. The alpha
male must be able to win fights and impress others in wild charging
displays, but he is not always the fiercest fighter in the forest. He
must also be able to secure support from others while isolating his
rivals. There is a lot of intrigue at the top of the hierarchy where the
more ambitious characters are found, and most alpha males are
overthrown by a coalition of rivals within a few years. Whole books
have been written about the political histories of chimpanzee
communities.
The will to power is important, but the need to be with others is
even stronger. Chimpanzees are extraverts. They are gregarious, and
sometimes they form special friendships. The term is anthro-
pomorphic, but it is the closest we have in our vocabulary. Friends
groom each other, feed together, share food, warn each other when
danger is near, help each other when one is in trouble, and some-
times they embrace and kiss each other. Like humans, chimpanzees
have a keen sense of reciprocity in their social relations.11
Social grooming occurs in most primates, but kissing is customary
only among chimpanzees and humans. Kissing gives us an idea
about the evolutionary origin of friendship, for it is almost certainly
derived from mouth-to-mouth feeding, a behavior that occurs
between a mother and child in many primates.
Mothers cared for their children and children were attached to

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their mother since the time of the earliest mammals. Friendship was
created when attachment and caring were transferred from the
mother–child relationship to relationships between adults. In this
process some behaviors that were originally used by mothers only,
such as embracing the infant, grooming and feeding it, came to
reinforce relations between friends. Mother Nature does not create
new adaptations from scratch. She finds new uses for what is already
there.
Like human societies, chimpanzee communities are torn between
competition and cooperation. Group-living animals are attracted to
one another but they also compete for food, mates and money.
When chickens are penned up in a chicken yard there is much
fighting during the first days, especially at feeding time. Gradually
the fighting subsides as a dominance hierarchy forms. Once a
chicken knows its place, it will no longer attack the strong guys but
assert itself against the weaklings.12 Dominance hierarchies are uni-
versal among group-living animals. An ethologist who is uncertain
about the dominance relationship of two monkeys can make the
peanut test: put a peanut between the two animals, and see who
grabs it.
The peanut test does not always work with chimpanzees because
the boss may choose to be generous to a subordinate. Dominance,
attachment and reciprocity are so closely interwoven in the chim-
panzee mind that generosity becomes a way of securing the loyalty of
a subordinate. A forgone peanut is a small sacrifice if you can get
sympathetic help during your next fight with a rival.
Male chimps have something more valuable than peanuts to
compete for: fertile females. The few females who are not pregnant
or nursing are in estrus for only ten days during their 35-day men-
strual cycle. During these ten days they have gorgeous pink swellings
in the perineal region that are visible from a distance and are
absolutely irresistible for the males. Sexual swellings occur in many
primate species during estrus, although not in humans and orang-
utans.
Compared to gorillas and humans, male chimpanzees are models
of tolerance. They simply take turns copulating with the female.
They have to, for the grouping patterns in a chimpanzee community
are so fluid that a male would not be able to control a female, let
alone a harem. The alpha male does have certain prerogatives,
though. He often tries to monopolize the most attractive females:

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those with the biggest swellings at the height of estrus who are most
likely to conceive. But he has to watch out, for there are always
youngsters around who try to sneak a copulation. A chimpanzee
copulation takes only ten seconds.
In the chimpanzee mating system, sperm from many males have to
compete for access to the egg. The males cope with sperm compe-
tition by adopting General Grant’s strategy, trying to reach the
battlefield the fastest with the mostest. Male chimpanzees have a
higher copulation rate, larger testes and a higher sperm count than
humans and gorillas.13
By sampling every male in the village the female runs a risk of
sexually transmitted diseases, and her children would be better off if
she would limit her activities to the males with the best genes. But she
has no choice. She has to be promiscuous because male chimpanzees
are xenophobic – they really loathe strangers. They get along well
enough in their own tribe, but both males and unattractive females
from neighboring communities are attacked viciously. When the
female has an infant, often enough the infant is killed – and some-
times eaten – when the mother is attacked. Familiar females and
their infants are treated in a more gentlemanly manner. By spreading
her favors, the female makes herself thoroughly known to all males
in her community.
She can also sneak off during the peak of her attractiveness to visit
a neighboring community as a sex tourist. Her sexual swellings are
the passport that allows her to cross the border. Next time she runs
into one of the enemy’s border patrols, there will be at least one or
two who tell their comrades, ‘I know her, she’s okay’. This does not
mean that she copulates out of fear. All she needs is lust. And that’s
what Mother Nature gave her.
Female chimpanzees are as vulnerable to male harassment as
female gorillas, but they have found a different solution for the
problem. In gorillas the result is a family, and in chimpanzees a
tribe.14

The feminists

The women’s effort has never been anything more than a

symbolic agitation . . . The reason for this is that women lack
concrete means for organizing themselves into a unit which can

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stand face to face with the correlative unit. They have no past,
no history, no religion of their own; and they have no such
solidarity of work and interest as that of the proletariat . . . They
live dispersed among the males, attached through residence,
housework, economic condition, and social standing to certain
men – fathers or husbands – more firmly than they are to other
women. (Simone de Beauvoir)

The females of most ape species have to suffer indignities from the
males that range all the way from displacement at feeding sites to
rape and infanticide. There is not one primate species in which
females dominate males – with one exception. This exception is the
pygmy chimpanzee or bonobo. While common chimps used to roam
all over tropical Africa before their habitats got fragmented by
humans, wild bonobos live only in the forests of the Congo. Their
habitat is richer than that of the common chimpanzee, with large-
fruited trees that provide a reliable food supply year-round.
The most important difference between the two species is in their
sexual adaptations. Female chimpanzees are in estrus for only ten
days during their cycle, and they rarely have sexual swellings during
pregnancy and lactation. Bonobos, by contrast, are sexy for more
than 20 days every cycle, are sexually active during pregnancy, and
resume cycling within a year after birth although ovulation resumes
only at the end of lactation, three years after birth.
Like common chimpanzees the bonobos live in communities of
related males. But because their food supply is secure, the females
can afford to spend most of their time in sizable groups. This creates
opportunities for social interaction. And interaction there is. In
addition to mutual grooming and play, female bonobos enjoy gen-
ito-genital rubbing: two females clasp each other ventro-ventrally,
and rub their swollen genitals in rapid sideways movements. A
female immigrant can achieve a smooth transition by attaching
herself to one or a few older females in her new community. This is
very different from chimpanzees, where immigrant females have to
put up with hostility from the resident females.
Non-reproductive sex is rare in the animal kingdom. Bonobos use
sex to reinforce bonds between females, but gorillas (and some
humans) maintain lasting bonds between mates although copula-
tions are infrequent. Perhaps their bonding pattern evolved earlier
and is more mature than the sexually-reinforced bonds of female

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bonobos, and the all-purpose glue of sex has been replaced in time by
more selective emotional adhesives.
While male chimpanzees form coalitions to dominate other males,
female bonobos use their solidarity to dominate the males. When a
mixed chimpanzee party finds a bunch of bananas, the males eat first
and the females have to wait. When bonobos find a bunch of
bananas, the females share the best fruits among themselves and the
males have to wait. Since most of the females are unrelated, their
cooperation must have evolved through the benefits of reciprocity
rather than kin selection.
Male bonobos have a dominance hierarchy, but they rarely form
coalitions against other males. They don’t have to. There is no need
to compete for attractive females because attractive females are
never in short supply. A male is better off sticking around the
females and copulating whenever an opportunity arises.15
Bonobos show us that a feminist paradise is possible. All it needs
are strong bonds between females, reinforced by genital rubbing.
Feminist genetic engineers should find the genes that are responsible
for female–female bonding in bonobos and engineer them into the
human genome!

The descent of man

Those who do not look back to the past will never look forward
to the future. (George Macauley Trevelyan)

Genes and fossils combined tell the story of our early origin. Once
upon a time, about 8 million years ago, an ancestral ape species
decided to split up into three separate branches. The first evolved
into the gorilla. The second produced the chimpanzee and the
bonobo. The third lineage was a bit odd, for unlike the others it
learned to walk on two legs. 2 to 4 million years passed until,
sometime between 4 and 6 million years ago, this bipedal ape
hybridized with the chimpanzee ancestor. The offspring of this ille-
gitimate sex, still walking upright, are called hominids. They are the
lineage that produced us.
The brains of the early hominids, which are known to fossil
hunters as the australopithecines, were still chimpanzee-sized.
Therefore the early hominids looked somewhat like chimpanzees

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walking on two legs. Most of the threefold increase in brain size from
450 grams in the early hominids to 1350 grams in modern humans
took place during the past two million years.
Eventually, the place of these small-brained creatures was taken
by Homo erectus. With a height of up to 6 feet, H. erectus was larger
than the early hominids. He looked almost perfectly human from the
neck down, but his archaic face with its prominent brow ridges and
receding chin and forehead, and his smaller brain – between 700 and
1,200 grams – distinguish him from us.
We don’t know where H. erectus came from; 1.8 million years ago
he suddenly popped up in Africa, Java, the Caucasus Mountains and
possibly China, complete with hand axes and other simple stone tools
that were more advanced than those used by earlier African homi-
nids. He was probably the first human to tame fire. With this
advanced technology he dominated the scene until 600,000 years ago
when larger-brained humans first appeared in Africa and Europe. In
Java he died out only 50,000 years ago, and on the Indonesian island
of Flores he evolved into a dwarf species with chimpanzee-sized body
and brain. These dwarves were still alive 18,000 years ago. They were
a human species that had reverted to a more ape-like state.16
In Europe, however, a trend for bigger brains produced the
Neandertal. Living in Ice Age Europe, the Neandertals had the
stocky physique that is typical for natives of cold climates, with thick
bones and tendon insertions suggesting enormous muscle strength.
But the most diagnostic differences are in the shape of the skull.
Neandertals had an undeveloped chin, conspicuous brow ridges, a
receding forehead, and a braincase that was widest at the base. The
average Neandertal brain was marginally bigger than the modern
European brain, but marginally smaller when adjusted for body size.
The Neandertals ruled Ice Age Europe until 40,000 to 30,000 years
ago when they were replaced by the Cromagnons, a race of fully
modern people. But where did these modern people come from?

Adam and Eve

And God said unto them: Be fruitful and multiply (Genesis 1,

28)

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 Origins

A fossil may be either an ancestor or a blind alley of evolution, but

the DNA of living people must have been inherited from real
ancestors. Beginning in the late 1980s, the first important studies
were done with mitochondrial DNA. The mitochondria are not only
the powerhouses of the cell but they also contain a small snippet of
DNA, only 17,000 base pairs long compared to the 3 billion base
pairs of nuclear DNA. Mitochondrial DNA is easily obtained in
quantity because it is present in thousands of copies in each cell, not
just two copies like the nuclear DNA. And unlike nuclear DNA, it is
inherited only from the mother.
The most striking finding was the great similarity between all
living humans. All mitochondrial DNA sequences could be traced to
a common female ancestor – mitochondrial Eve – who lived between
120,000 and 250,000 years ago. This does not mean that there was
only one woman living at that time. It only means that the mito-
chondrial DNA of all other women living at that time has died out.
This happens easily because a woman’s mitochondrial DNA will
die whenever she fails to produce a surviving daughter. In a very
small population – say, an island population that is cut off from the
rest of the world for thousands of years – most of the original
diversity gets lost by chance. Soon only the mitochondrial DNA of a
single female founder will remain. But in a large, continent-wide
population, many more lineages will survive and therefore the last
common ancestor of all surviving mitochondrial DNA will be in the
distant past.
The young age of mitochondrial Eve means that the human
population was small for many generations and probably many
millennia after she lived. Studies of the Y chromosome, which is
inherited only in the male line, show that Y-chromosomal Adam
lived at about the same time as mitochondrial Eve. Only long after
the time of Adam and Eve did the population expand.
Where did this small band of people come from who were destined
to become our ancestors, and when did they expand? When a
population expands into a new area, usually only a few move while
everyone else stays behind. Many genetic variants will not reach the
newly occupied areas although they survive in the old homeland.
Therefore our original homeland is, most likely, in that part of the
world where the genetic diversity among living people is greatest.
This area of greatest diversity is Africa. The excess diversity can
simply mean that the African population used to be larger than the

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populations of the other continents, but the genetic guesswork is

supported by the fossil record. The only fossils in the critical age
range of 120,000 to 70,000 years ago that looked similar to us and
could conceivably be our ancestors have been found in Africa and
the Levant.
The oldest fully modern fossils outside Africa are about 60,000
years old, and the modern human races evolved only after that time.
Indeed more than 90 percent of the non-selected diversity in the junk
DNA of modern humans is between individuals within the same
ethnic group, and less than 10 percent is between ethnic and racial
groups.17
Were the moderns brighter than the Neandertals? We cannot
administer IQ tests to Neandertals, but we can compare their stone
tools with those of the modern humans who displaced them. In the
Middle East there is no difference. Both human types used the same
toolkit, and the same caves where near-modern humans lived 90,000
years ago were occupied by Neandertals 30,000 years later.
In those days, anatomically modern humans represented a tropical
variant, and the Neandertals were a cold-adapted race that inhabited
the inhospitable regions of Ice Age Europe and the frigid mountains
north of the Fertile Crescent. For tens of thousands of years the
Middle East was a border territory between these two human types,
with Neandertals prevailing during the glacial maxima and moderns
during the warm interglacials.
Things look different in Europe. By the time the Cromagnons
began infiltrating Ice Age Europe 47,000 years ago, their culture was
already clearly advanced over that of the local Neandertals. The two
human types then coexisted in Europe for thousands of years, until
the final demise of the Neandertals 28,000 years ago. During this
time the Neandertals borrowed some cultural elements from the
advancing Cromagnons, but they never quite matched the Cro-
magnons’ sophistication.18
Did bloodthirsty Cromagnons exterminate the simple-minded,
peaceful Neandertals in an orgy of war and genocide? Not neces-
sarily. Population replacements are not military but demographic
events. Let’s assume that a tribe of 1,000 Cromagnons invaded a
continent that was inhabited by 100,000 Neandertals. And let’s
assume that there was a 10 percent difference in reproductive rate
between the two populations. The average Neandertal woman raised
1.9 surviving children, and the average Cromagnon woman 2.1.

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 Origins

What would be the situation 2,500 years later, assuming a generation

time of 25 years? You only need a pocket calculator to figure out that
after 100 generations there would be 600 Neandertals and 130,000
Cromagnons!
Population replacements are common in history. In many parts of
North America, the native Indians disappeared within a few gen-
erations. The Hottentots, who inhabited much of South Africa 300
years ago, no longer exist. The white South African population
stagnated during the second half of the twentieth century while the
black population doubled every 20 to 30 years. The birth rate of
Palestinian Arabs has been twice that of the local Jews for two
generations, and the Arab population of the West Bank has risen
from 1 million to 3.5 million over the past 40 years. After World War
I, Northern Ireland became British rather than Irish because 80
percent of the population were Protestant and only 20 percent
Catholic. By now the two religions are approaching parity because
the Catholics had a 40 percent higher birth rate than the Protestants
during the past three generations.19
These demographic trends are too slow to be newsworthy, but
they are the stuff of which history is made. Whenever two popula-
tions share the same country, the more prolific one prevails. What is
truly surprising is that Neandertals and Cromagnons could share
Europe for so many millennia. It shows that the Neandertals were
not wiped out suddenly by a new disease to which the Cromagnons
were resistant; the Cromagnons had no guns; and the Neandertals
had no condoms.
In prehistoric and early historic times, child mortality and the
effects of nutrition on female fertility were most important for the rise
and fall of human populations. Under civilized conditions, the same
is achieved by deliberate fertility control. Strangely, although today
fertility differentials are more important than war and genocide, most
people find it easier to think of history in terms of war and genocide
than differential reproduction. Why should this be so?
One reason is stupidity. Violence has immediate consequences, but
differential reproduction has long-term consequences, and the pre-
diction of immediate consequences requires less reasoning than the
prediction of long-term consequences. You don’t need a pocket
calculator to figure out that genocide leads to population extinction!
Another limitation is that our attentional and motivational systems
evolved for situations where effective behavioral responses were

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possible. Our ancestors could kill their enemies, and they could guard
against being killed. Therefore human beings evolved a keen attention
to inter-group violence, wariness of being killed by strangers, and a
readiness to kill potentially dangerous strangers. If you don’t believe
it, switch on the evening news! But our ancestors have never been able
to parachute condoms over enemy territory or sell their enemies food
laced with contraceptives. Until very recently they didn’t even know
how baby-making works. Therefore they never evolved the ability to
perceive birthing as a hostile act of inter-group competition.
The Hottentots disappeared as an ethnic group, but their genes are
still alive in the mixed-race population of South Africa. And in the
unlikely case that current trends continue indefinitely, there may be not
a single Palestinian Jew or white South African left 1,000 years from
now, but their genes will still be alive in the surviving populations.
The Neandertals, however, walked the earth and left no genetic
trace. Much as they tried, geneticists did not find DNA variants
unique to Europeans that were inherited from them. Their mito-
chondrial DNA, at least, has gone for good. Pieces of mitochondrial
DNA from at least nine different Neandertal fossils have been
sequenced, and these sequences were very different from ours.20
Modern humans would not be as homogeneous as they are if there
had been substantial interbreeding with Neandertals.
Evolution takes place at three levels. First, there is the random
accumulation of genetic changes in the junk DNA. These mutations
do not matter for the organism that carries them but can be used as a
molecular clock to measure genetic relatedness. Second, there are
‘meaningful’ genetic changes that affect anatomy, physiology or
behavior. Third, there are genetic changes that prevent interbreeding
or reduce the fitness of the hybrids: changes in the number or
structure of the chromosomes, and traits that interfere with mate
choice, fertilization, or fetal survival. Mutations of this kind can
create a new species.

Bigger is better

Some races increase, others are reduced, and in a short while the
generations of living creatures are changed and like runners
relay the torch of life. (Lucretius, De rerum natura)

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After adjustment for body size, the human brain is three times bigger
than a typical ape brain. Brain enlargement took place neither evenly
over time, nor all of a sudden. We can recognize two brain explo-
sions, one about 2 million years ago at the transition from the
australopithecines to Homo erectus, and the other from 500,000 to
200,000 years ago at the transition from Homo erectus to Homo
sapiens.
Our big brain is a mixed blessing. It consumes at least 20 percent
of our metabolic energy, and it makes the infant’s head so large that
birth is difficult. To make birth possible at all, our babies are born at
an immature stage, and this increases the burden of child rearing for
the mother. Our brain could not have evolved to its present size
unless it provided its owner with sufficient advantages to offset these
enormous costs.
In general, those primate species that depend on hard-to-get, high-
quality food have big brains and small guts, and those that can
subsist on leaves have small brains and big guts. According to the
food-for-thought hypothesis, big brains evolved to locate scarce
food. Orang-utans, for example, are almost as smart as chimps
although they are solitary. They need a good brain to remember
when and where food can be found. Humans have a substandard
digestive system that makes them dependent on high-quality food,
but that doesn’t explain why we are so much brighter than orang-
utans.
Big brains also go with complex social systems. According to the
Machiavellian intelligence hypothesis, a cognitive arms race results
from the demands of alliance formation, cooperation, cheating and
cheater detection. We certainly have complex social systems, but this
does not explain why we are so much brighter than chimps. There
must have been additional incentives for brain evolution.21 Most of
our excess brainpower is used for two related functions: language
and intelligent reasoning. Therefore human brain evolution was
most likely driven by either the benefits of talking or those of
thinking.
Brain evolution follows a simple pattern. Whenever brains become
big, the forebrain enlarges more than the brainstem, within the
forebrain the neocortex enlarges more than the limbic cortex, and
the frontal cortex enlarges more than the posterior cortex.22 This
means that everything else being equal, a big-brain gene will improve
both language and thinking. If such a gene is selected for because it

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improves language ability, reasoning ability will increase as a side-

effect; and if it is favored because it improves reasoning, language
will improve as a side-effect.
Apes cannot talk because their vocal tract cannot produce the
sounds of human speech, but they can be trained to communicate
through sign language or through the use of lexigrams on a key-
board. Apes of all species can learn about 100 signs, and they use
them in the appropriate context. They can produce two-word and
three-word combinations, but no true sentences.
Language comprehension is easier than speech. Some bonobos
that were exposed to spoken English from an early age learned to
understand words. One of them even distinguished between syntactic
structures, for example ‘Make the doggie bite the snake’ versus
‘Make the snake bite the doggie.’ Like humans, bonobos can develop
speech comprehension only during early childhood but not as adults,
and they develop it not by effortful training but incidentally by daily
exposure. Human-raised bonobos can achieve a level of speech
comprehension similar to a 2½-year-old child.
Disappointingly, conversations with language-trained apes are not
very intellectual. Most of the time they use their skills to request
things, such as ‘Gimme juice’, or ‘Tickle me’. Sometimes they name
spontaneously the things they see, and they can even use signs or
lexigrams to communicate with other language-trained apes.23 The
ape language studies show that the bottleneck in language evolution
was not comprehension but speech production. They also show that
vocabulary is easier than grammar. Therefore most likely words
evolved first, and grammar came later.
A protolanguage of single words and short word strings of the
kind produced by signing apes would be immensely useful in the
world of an early hominid. Words like ‘tiger’ or ‘fig tree’ are useful
communications, especially when combined with pointing or other
signs of directed attention. Smart people need no grammar because
they can infer meaning from the context and from non-verbal sig-
nals. Complex grammar in the human brain is somewhat like a
Ferrari motor in a Volkswagen car, and we have to wonder how it
could evolve at all.
According to one view, articulate language is a latecomer that
made its debut 40,000 years ago in physically modern humans. This
is the time when ‘symbolic’ activities such as ritual, personal orna-
ments and cave painting became common. One problem with this

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 Origins

theory is that the proposed date for the origin of language coincides
with the divergence of the major racial groups. Therefore we have to
expect marked differences in language ability across races; but for all
we know, all human races have pretty much the same language
ability.
Because the brain areas devoted to language are large, the most
active periods of language evolution most likely were periods of
rapid brain enlargement. It is quite possible that the first burst of
brain evolution that produced the H. erectus brain was triggered by a
fortuitous restructuring of the vocal tract. The first grammarless
protolanguage must have been immensely useful for the reinforce-
ment of social bonds, social learning, and entertaining one’s com-
rades and prospective mates. Thus it pushed the evolution of bigger
and better brain structures to make better use of this newly gained
ability. We do not know why language got started in the hominids
but not in the ancestors of present-day apes. Perhaps bipedality
created the conditions for the later evolution of speech by changing
the anatomical relations of the neck region and thereby incidentally
restructuring the vocal tract.
But why did the brain get even bigger? One possible reason is
technology, such as the first use of fire by H. erectus. For the most
backward human groups on record, fire is important not only for
food preparation but also for defense against predators.24 Fire was
enormously useful, but only the more intelligent specimens of H.
erectus could make effective use of it. This imposed a selective
pressure for increased intelligence. In time, higher intelligence led to
the invention of projectile weapons that increased hunting efficiency,
but again only the brightest members of the species were able to
make and use these weapons. Thus began a process of runaway brain
evolution, with human intelligence producing new technologies and
the technologies selecting for even higher intelligence that produced
even more complex technologies.
This implies that the more recent advances of human brain evo-
lution were driven not only by the perennial needs to find scarce
food, outmaneuver rivals, and entice prospective mates with well-
grammared speech. We also needed a good brain to make use of our
own technology. By inventing useful but complicated things, our
ancestors created the selective pressures for their own evolution. If
the late stages of brain evolution were technology-driven, then it is
not surprising that our grammar is more sophisticated than

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 In God’s Image?

necessary for the needs of simple hunter-gatherers. It is a byproduct

of selection for high intelligence.
Brains actually got a bit smaller during the past 50,000 years, but
so did overall body size. This need not mean that we are evolving
back into apes. Perhaps it only means that further increases in brain
size would entail prohibitive costs, especially for childbirth, and that
brains kept getting better without getting bigger.
Even the variation in brain size among present-day human races is
substantial. To be precise, the average cranial capacity has been
found to vary between 1,085 and 1,518 cc among modern human
populations. As shown in Figure 6.1, those populations that evolved
in cold climates tend to have bigger brains than those that evolved in
the tropics. Some but not all of this variation can be explained by
differences in body size or nutrition.25

Figure 6.1 Cranial capacities of aboriginal populations. Note that cranial

capacity does not vary with the classically recognized races, but with
climate. 1450cc and over; 1400–1449cc; 1350–1399cc;
1300–1349cc; 1250–1299cc; less than 1200cc (from Beals,
Smith, and Dodd, 1984)

The only way to find out whether human brains got more efficient
over the past 50,000 years or so is to identify those genetic variations
that affect intelligence among living humans. Then we have to study
fossil DNA to determine whether the ‘high-IQ’ variants are more
frequent now than they were in Fred Flintstone’s time.

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 7
Men and Women

The sexes differ so much in structure and function, and

consequently in traits of feeling and character, that their
interests are antagonistic. At the same time they are, in
regard to reproduction, complementary.
(William Graham Sumner)1

If a genetic engineer of the twenty-second century could increase the

intelligence of chimpanzees vastly and give them speech, his products
would be very much like us. They would be gregarious, love their
children, cooperate and compete like humans. If we could put one of
them on a congressional subcommittee, he would be as savvy as his
human colleagues, forming alliances, cultivating a positive image of
himself, obstructing his opponents, manipulating others, and seeking
his advantage whenever he can get away with it.
Only in one respect would our mentally enhanced chimpanzee be
very different from us. He would not understand why these silly
humans make so much fuss about sex. It could be so easy. When you
see a sexy female and you don’t have anything better to do at the
moment, just copulate with her on the spot, if she doesn’t mind. And
why should she mind? After all, sex is fun!

Breeding systems

The contractual nature of marriage is perhaps, in part, a

recognition that the mother–infant bond must be protected
from the fragility of the male–female bond. (Anthony Walsh)2

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 In God’s Image?

A survey of 97 countries showed that 93.15 percent of women and

91.85 percent of men in these countries had married at least once by
age 49. This is quite remarkable. Only 15 percent of all primate
species are monogamous, but they live dispersed in self-sufficient
pairs, with the female guarded against rival males by her husband.
This is the perennial curse of married life, that the man must ensure
that his wife’s children are also his own, for short is the life of a gene
that allows its bearer to shepherd somebody else’s genes. It is the
reason why monogamy is so rare in the animal kingdom. The desert
baboons are the only non-human primates that maintain a lasting
mating bond, usually with more than one female, while living side by
side with other males. They herd their females, never leaving them
alone with other males day or night.3
Human husbands can avoid the nuisance of round-the-clock mate-
guarding because they don’t have to do all of it themselves. In tra-
ditional societies, their wives are always surrounded by other women
and a bunch of children who will tell the husband about his wife’s
escapades. Quite possibly our ancestors could evolve their mono-
gamous habits only when the first grammarless protolanguage
allowed them to gossip about who did it with whom.
Despite our gorilla-like family life, there is one feature that we
share with chimps. In about 65 percent of traditional societies the
woman joins her husband’s family at marriage. The reverse pattern is
far less common. This means that humans have a chimpanzee-like
dispersal pattern in which girls leave their home at puberty. Whereas
the female chimpanzee joins a neighboring community of males, the
woman joins her husband’s kin group.4
What an ancestral woman needed for herself and her children were
protection and material help. She could achieve this by attaching
herself to a man and granting him exclusive sexual access in return
for protection and help. In other words: getting married. Paternal
care can evolve because 50 percent of the child’s genes are from the
father, but only if his paternity is reasonably certain and only if his
help makes a big difference for his child’s survival. Otherwise, his
genes are better off if he spends his time chasing after other women,
rather than caring for his wife’s children.
A woman can also return to her family and rear her children with
the help of her mother and brothers. One problem with this strategy
is that the grandmother may still have young children of her own
who carry 50 percent of her genes while her grandchildren carry only

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25 percent of her genes. And from a brother’s point of view, a sister’s

child carries only 25 percent of his genes and a half-sister’s child 12.5
percent.
Both patterns are common in our species. At one end of the
spectrum we find societies such as Victorian England and traditional
China where people were supposed to marry, marriages were sup-
posed to last for life, men were expected to spend a good deal of time
and money for wife and children, and women and to some extent
even men were expected to be sexually faithful to their spouse.
At the other extreme we find the residents of the Caribbean island
of Dominica. In this corner of the world, a woman will come in heat
when she is physically ready for her next pregnancy. There will be a
sexual affair with a man, or perhaps with a few men in short suc-
cession. This will most likely get her pregnant within a year. During
the pregnancy the boyfriend is likely to develop other priorities, and
the woman is likely to lose interest in sex, her boyfriend, or men in
general, often until her baby has reached an age of two or three
years. One of our housemaids explained to my wife, ‘I didn’t want
him any more. I was so vexed because he made me a baby.’ A
Dominican woman can expect little help from her child’s father, and
most fathers are penniless anyway.
Some feminists like this matrifocal system, but Dominican women
are less enthusiastic. They complain bitterly that their men shun the
responsibility for a family. My neighbor, who employs one or two
people in his copra house on-and-off, once explained, ‘The women
work for their children; the men work for their rum and cigarettes.’5
This mating system is adaptive whenever the mother is able to raise
her children without the father’s help. Nobody likes the result, but
Mother Nature has zero regard for the happiness of her children.
What counts is the survival of the genes, and nothing else.

From each according to his ability, for each according to her need

[The] chief distinction in the intellectual powers of the two sexes

is shown by man’s attaining to a higher eminence, in whatever
he takes up, than can woman–whether requiring deep thought,
reason, or imagination, or merely the use of the senses and
hands. (Charles Darwin, Descent of Man)

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 In God’s Image?

Since time immemorial, all early humans subsisted by hunting and

by collecting wild fruits, berries, tubers and vegetables. Therefore
our basic mental toolkit evolved as an adaptation to life in small
hunter-gatherer bands. Agriculture has been practiced only during
the past 10,000 years in the Middle East, and for shorter periods
elsewhere. During that time biological evolution did change our
genes to some extent, to adapt us to the new farming lifestyle, but a
few millennia are too short for truly dramatic genetic changes. Also
the emergence of truly ‘civilized’ conditions of life has been too
recent to have had any major impact on our genes. Therefore the
only way to understand human nature is to understand it as an
adaptation to the lifestyle of Stone-Age hunter-gatherers.
In hunter-gatherer societies, the men hunt and their wives collect
vegetables. The reasons for this division of labor are, in decreasing
order of importance, that men are more mobile than women because
they have no children to carry about; men can run faster than
women because their pelvis is designed for running whereas the
female pelvis is a compromise between the needs for running and
childbirth; and men are stronger than women.
According to one anthropologist, ‘Women are most likely to make
a substantial contribution when . . . the participant is not obliged to
be far from home; the tasks are relatively monotonous and do not
require rapt concentration; and the work is not dangerous, can be
performed in spite of interruptions, and is easily resumed once
interrupted.’ Therefore activities such as basket weaving, cooking
and the manufacture of clothes pass from the female to the male
domain as they become professionalized. Contrary to Marxist ideas,
the economic contribution of women in the society has little to do
with their property rights, access to leadership positions, or any
other status attributes. This is still true in the modern world.6
A woman will always invest her excess resources in her children.
But a man can use his economic leverage not only for wife and
children but also for attracting new mates and cultivating coopera-
tive networks with other men. Ethnographers have long noted that
most of the meat brought home by hunters does not go to wife and
children but to other men and to fertile females other than the
hunter’s wife. At least, this is typical for hunter-gatherers in tropical
habitats where the women can provide most of their children’s needs
through their gathering. It would not be possible for Eskimos where
women and children depend entirely on male hunting. But even

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among tropical hunter-gatherers the father contributes at least a

little, especially during the first one or two years after birth.7
The sexual division of labor has shaped our mental abilities.
Overall, girls up to the age of 14 or 15 years do a little better than
boys in school and on IQ tests. After this age the boys overtake the
girls, and among older teenagers and adults usually males do a little
better than females. Mental maturity, like sexual maturity, is reached
one or two years earlier in girls than in boys.8
Although men and women have nearly the same IQ, they have
different ability profiles. Women excel at verbal tasks. For example,
in a test of verbal fluency the subject has to come up with words
starting with the letter F, without repeating any. The more words she
can rattle down in a minute, the higher is the score. Women score
higher in this test than men. Presumably, they need verbal fluency to
talk their men into doing what they want them to do.
Men tend to do better in arithmetic tests, even those that do not
involve money, and in certain spatial tasks such as mental rotation
and the space relations task shown in Figure 7.1a. Male chauvinists
say these spatial abilities are important for driving, but evolutionary
psychologists think that our male ancestors needed them so they
wouldn’t get lost on their hunting expeditions and military cam-
paigns. Also stone throwing and club swinging require spatial
ability.
Irwin Silverman and Marion Eals of York University in Ontario
wondered what skills an ancestral woman needed for her foraging.
They reasoned that a forager must be able to detect edible greens in a
messy environment and remember their identity and location. So
they designed the test shown in Figure 7.1b. The subject has to look
at this picture for one minute and is then asked to remember the
items and their locations after a brief delay. As predicted, women did
better than men.9

Woman power

Unless woman repudiates her womanliness, her duty to her

husband, to her children, to society, to the law, and to everyone
but herself, she cannot emancipate herself. (George Bernard
Shaw)

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 In God’s Image?

Figure 7.1 Cognitive differences between men and women. (Silverman and
Eals, 1992)
a) Which of the shapes on the right side is produced by folding the
cardboard piece shown on the left? Typically, men are better than women at
this task.

b) Look at this picture for one minute, then try to remember as many
objects as possible, plus their location. Typically, women are better than
men at this task.

The world is ruled by men. Most political and military leaders are
men, and even where women and men have the same property rights,
most people who have earned great wealth through their own efforts
are male. Human sex roles are chimpanzee-like, not bonobo-like!

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 Men and Women

According to feminist lore, this sorry state of affairs has nothing

to do with genetically hard-wired sex differences. Early societies were
matriarchal, and therefore there was no selective pressure for the
evolution of psychological sex differences that would adapt men and
women to the roles they have to play in a patriarchal society. Both
patriarchy and apparent psychological sex differences are the pro-
ducts of recent cultural developments rather than the outcomes of
Darwinian algorithms that are programmed into male and female
brains. If this is true, then there must be a cultural factor X that
snuffed out the old matriarchal societies. Factor X cannot be unique
to one geographic region, such as Christianity in Europe, because
male rule is a worldwide phenomenon.
Factor X could be warfare. Being stronger than women, men are
the better warriors. If men in female-dominated societies are not
motivated to fight wars, then these societies will be wiped out by
hostile neighbors. However, men have always been stronger than
women, and even male (but not female) chimpanzees fight wars.10 If
male warriors forced patriarchy on the women, then patriarchy must
have prevailed for at least 6 or 7 million years, since the time of the
human–chimp split. This is plenty of time for the evolution of psy-
chological sex differences to adapt both men and women to the roles
they have to play in a patriarchal society.
Another cultural explanation for patriarchy is illustrated by the
Moso in southwest China. The Moso are one of the few remaining
matriarchal societies in the world. They have no husbands and
fathers, and the women live with mother and siblings instead. Sexual
relationships are on a visiting basis, and they are controlled entirely
by the women. This female sexual freedom has an important con-
sequence: a later age at first birth and longer birth intervals com-
pared to the surrounding patriarchal societies.11
This has to be expected. In patriarchal societies decisions about
family size are made by the men, and in matriarchal societies they are
made by the women. Women always bear the brunt of child rearing
because most men are utterly incompetent at this task. Therefore
women but not men are motivated to limit the number of their
children. In traditional patriarchal societies the men want as many
children as possible to gain social influence through their sons, and
to show off their sexual prowess. But, where women are in control of
their sex life, they plan their sexual relations to avoid unwanted
pregnancies.

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 In God’s Image?

This means that matriarchal societies cannot survive. They breed

themselves out of existence. In Chapter 5 we saw that knowledge
about the connection between sex and babies originated only
recently as a by-product of cognitive evolution, probably sometime
during the past 100,000 years in physically modern humans. Before
that time, the women could not plan their sexual relations to avoid
unwanted pregnancies. Therefore the reproductive disadvantage of
matriarchal societies must be of recent origin.
Most anthropologists agree that family planning has never been
terribly efficient in preliterate societies. Therefore cultural selection
against matriarchy should be strongest in advanced literate societies
where family planning is practiced more widely. Today, most ‘tra-
ditionalist’ societies have high birthrates. Therefore the number of
people with a traditionalist cultural background is rising worldwide
although most societies are drifting toward a non-traditional,
rational worldview. If traditionalist societies owe their demographic
advantage to gender inequality, then cultural selection favoring
patriarchy is a powerful force here and now.12
The Israeli kibbutzim are among the few societies where children
are brought up gender-blind. The kibbutz is a type of rural commune
that was founded with the explicit aim of creating a socialist society.
People were viewed as essentially good, but as having been corrupted
by bourgeois culture and urban civilization. The antidote was a
community with communally organized work, strict pay equality,
communal dining halls, children’s houses where even infants were
cared for communally, and strict gender equality. The sentiments of
love, affection and cooperation, which traditionally were associated
with the family, were to be transferred from the family to the
collectivity.13
Unlike most other experiments of this kind, the kibbutzim have
survived to the present day, providing their members with income,
services and a lifestyle that is genuinely valued by the kibbutzniks.
Even economic equality has survived at least to some extent.
What did not survive was gender equality. In less than one gen-
eration, women had drifted from the machine shops and agricultural
work groups into the communal kitchen, laundry, primary school
and children’s house. Also most leadership positions were left to the
men, and women attended the general assembly less often than the
men and participated less in the discussions.
The women’s distaste for hard labor can be explained by their lack

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of physical strength but leadership requires no muscle power, not in

a kibbutz at least. It was not the men’s fault. Both the men and the
female pioneers had insisted on female participation in kibbutz
governance, as they had insisted on female participation in farming
and manufacturing.
Rather than scrambling for prestige and power, the women
insisted on a revival of formal marriage, an institution deeply
despised by the early founders; and they insisted on spending time
with their children, rather than leaving them entirely in the care of
the children’s house. As a result, the birth rate rose and the divorce
rate declined. Today there is more sex role differentiation in the
kibbutz than in mainstream Israeli society.14
The kibbutz experience shows why we cannot understand
women’s roles in terms of their ‘status’. Status is about dominance,
and dominance is created by competition for something valuable.
Sex roles are not created by competition for something that is
equally valued by men and women, but by sexually dimorphic
preferences.
Gender role differentiation in the kibbutz went even farther than
in the rest of Israeli society. Could this be related to the level of
civility in the kibbutz? The kibbutzim contribute not only more than
their fair share of army officers, cabinet ministers and members of
the Israeli parliament, but also a disproportionately low share of the
nation’s criminals. In this kind of society, women can afford sharply
divided gender roles without fear of being taken advantage of!
This can also account for the survival of the egalitarian ethos in
the kibbutz. We know that worldwide, a high level of income
inequality is typical for countries with rampant corruption and low
IQ. Conversely, the most egalitarian societies are found in Scandi-
navia, where corruption is extremely low while IQ and educational
level are high.15 The kibbutzim were founded by well educated
Ashkenazi Jewish immigrants who were deeply committed to the
creation of a better society. The success of the kibbutz and the failure
of communism in the rest of the world show that an egalitarian
society cannot be imposed on the proletarian masses. At the present
stage of our cultural and biological evolution, it can only be achieved
by a moral and cognitive elite.
Outside the kibbutz, overly feminine women do run a risk of being
taken advantage of. Therefore we are trying hard to eliminate gender
inequality. And so we exhort our women to emulate the men, be

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more power-conscious, compete in male-dominated occupations,

and be economically self-sufficient.
There are three types of marital relation. Originally, husband and
wife had to cooperate in the survival tasks of making a living,
maintaining the household and raising the children. There was much
interaction with high interdependence. From the Victorian Age
onward, this type of marriage was replaced by the breadwinner–
housewife marriage. This type of marriage is stable because inter-
dependence is high, but interaction is low because husband and wife
work in separate domains.
Today, husband and wife pursue separate careers while house-
work is minimized by automation and children by contraception.
Interdependence is low and therefore marital stability is low, and
interaction and cooperation are also low. We will have to see whe-
ther this development will finally succeed in eliminating marriage
altogether.16 The most interesting social experiments of our time are
not done in the kibbutz, but in mainstream Western society!

Emotional glue

When two people are first together, their hearts are on fire and
their passion is very great. After a while, the fire cools and that’s
how it stays. They continue to love each other, but it’s in a
different way – warm and dependable. (Kalahari Bushman)17

[He manifested] all Sappho’s famous signs – his voice faltered,

his face flushed up, his eyes glanced stealthily, a sudden sweat
broke out on his skin, the beatings of his heart were irregular
and violent. (Plutarch)

There are less tangible reasons for male–female bonding – falling in

love, for example. Many twentieth-century anthropologists believed
that romantic love is a product of Western culture that is unknown
in the rest of the world. As early as 1928, Margaret Mead reported
that on the South Sea island of Samoa, teenage girls were unafflicted
by the scourge of romantic entanglement. They rather found ful-
fillment in a succession of brief sexual affairs.
Margaret Mead’s conclusions have not passed the test of time. A
more recent survey found that romantic love is a species-wide

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 Men and Women

phenomenon. To be precise, at least one incident of passionate love

was documented in 147 out of 166 societies, or 88.5 percent of the
total. This does not prove that passionate love is unknown in the
remaining 11.5 percent. Absence of evidence is not evidence of
absence! Studies of modern societies have shown that both the fre-
quency and intensity of romantic love are essentially the same
worldwide.18 Romantic love is sometimes overlooked because many
traditional societies condemned it as a pernicious passion that wrecks
marriages and detracts people from their obligations to family and
society.
According to experts there are two stages of romantic love. First
there is a stormy attraction phase that lasts for some months. This is
followed by a more prolonged and tranquil attachment phase that
tapers off after two to four years. The attraction phase functions in
the initiation of a sexual relationship and the rapid establishment of
pregnancy; and the attachment phase maintains a pair bond during
pregnancy and lactation when the father is most important for the
child’s survival.
In at least some hunter-gatherer societies, the presence of the
father does indeed improve child survival. Among the Ache in
Paraguay, children under the age of five growing up with their father
were less likely to succumb to illness, homicide and capture in war
than children growing up without a father. Father presence no
longer had this effect for older children.
Thus the most natural mating pattern for our species is a pair bond
that is maintained for one breeding season. Indeed, marriages in
Western countries are most likely to break up after about four years.
An extension of the mating bond beyond this point depends on the
same mechanisms that also maintain other social bonds, namely the
ability to do interesting and satisfying things together and to help one
another in everyday life. And still, even after many years, love
matches are still a little happier than arranged marriages.19
If love is more important initially and cooperation in com-
plementary sex roles is more important later on, then we can predict
that the elimination of the traditional division of economic and
social roles between men and women increases the divorce rate but
has little impact on the marriage rate. Another prediction is that in
countries where love is considered essential for marriage, divorce
rates are higher than in those where it is considered optional. This is
indeed seen in international comparisons.

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 In God’s Image?

In a study in the United States during the 1960s, college students

were presented with the question: ‘If a man (woman) had all the
other qualities you desired, would you marry this person if you were
not in love with him (her)?’ At that time, 64.6 percent of the males
but only 24.3 percent of the females firmly said no. When the survey
was repeated in 1984, 85 percent of both males and females said no.
Apparently, emotional involvement was considered more essential in
1984 than during the 1960s. This is part of a general trend from a
pragmatic, survival-oriented value system to one that emphasizes
emotional gratification and individual self-expression.20 The reason
for this trend is only too obvious. In an affluent society, we can
afford it!
When I told my friends from Mars about romantic love, they
asked me how people reason out when they should fall in love and
with whom, and whether we teach this subject in our schools. They
thought I was pulling their legs when I told them that people don’t
know how and why they fall in love! My friends knew that people are
supposed to make important decisions after careful deliberation,
especially those that require the processing of complex information.
A decision to fall in love is both important and computationally
demanding.
I hope I did not give my friends a bad impression about our
species, but I told them that decision-making is decentralized in the
human brain. The fall-in-love module is informationally encapsu-
lated. It works on a set of inputs that need not be available to the
cognitive system. And it is cognitively impenetrable, which means
that we are only aware of its output but not of the computational
steps that produced this output.
Few animals fall in love the way humans do. When Jane Goodall
started her studies of chimpanzees at Gombe, she noticed that most
friendships were between males. Friendships between females or
between a male and a female were less common, but there was one
exception: Rodolf and Flo. Jane Goodall wondered how the two
would behave when Flo came into estrus. Being human, and being
female, she expected that they would form a special sexual rela-
tionship and that Rodolf would stop other chimps from mating with
Flo. But nothing like this happened. When Flo became sexy, Rodolf
simply took turns with the other males mating with her. These stupid
chimps didn’t see any connection between their friendship and sex!21
And why should they? Friendship and sex have different roots.

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Friendship evolved out of a need for mutual help and cooperation,

and sex evolved for procreation. In the minds of most animals, these
are two separate domains altogether. This is the genealogy of human
relations: the mother–child bond was first, dating back to the earliest
mammals; friendship was invented by the social primates, patched
up from elements of maternal care, infant attachment to the mother,
and the more recently evolved mechanisms of reciprocity and
cooperation; and humans have intertwined the brain circuits of
friendship with those of sexual attraction to create romantic love.
This account of love and sex does not square well with Freudian
psychoanalysis. For Freud, love was a derivative of the sex drive. In
some popular versions of his theory, love was regarded with deep
suspicion. As a circuitous expression of a partially repressed sex
drive, it stood in the way of full sexual satisfaction and was therefore
considered mildly pathological. Could this twist of twentieth-century
thinking be another reason for brittle marriages and high divorce
rates?
Another theory was popularized by the zoologist Desmond
Morris. In his 1966 bestseller The Naked Ape, Morris claimed that
humans are hypersexualized. We have the biggest penis of any pri-
mate, and female orgasm seems to be more common in humans than
in other primates. Our copulation rate is higher than in many other
primates and certainly higher than required for procreation.
According to Morris, we are hypersexualized because sex is needed
for pair bonding.
Nobody doubts that sex is important for pair bonding. A Platonic
relationship would be pointless for one’s genes, and so it comes as no
surprise that sexual neglect is a fairly common cause of divorce in
both traditional and modern societies. However, pair bonding does
not require a lot of sex. From rabbits to bonobos, sexual opportu-
nists copulate the most. Monogamists have low copulation rates
because the reproductive return of additional copulations with a
single mate is low. Rather than copulating round the clock, a pair-
bonded male is better off expending his extra energy on mate
guarding.
Morris’s theory predicts that people with a strong sex drive are
more likely to marry and less likely to divorce than those with a low-
keyed sexuality. But in reality, a high level of sexual activity before
marriage predicts a high divorce risk. Morris’s theory also predicts
that pair bonding is most stable in those stages of the life cycle in

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which the sex drive is strongest. Therefore teenage boys should be

more devoted husbands than middle-aged men. I doubt that this
prediction is supported by much evidence.22
The idea of sex as an emotional glue for pair bonding was
attractive at Morris’s time. Many twentieth-century thinkers did not
only consider unrestrained sexual pleasure essential for psychologi-
cal health; they also believed that sexual freedom and political
freedom are two sides of the same coin. The government in George
Orwell’s 1984, for example, took great care to suppress any non-
reproductive sex.
A theory that fits snugly into a cultural niche or satisfies the
emotional needs of its protagonists is not necessarily false. Still,
when a theory is popular although it is not supported by any decent
evidence, we have to look for the needs that it satisfies on the mar-
ketplace of ideas – after judging it on its merits.23
The social sciences are cluttered with improbable theories and
implicit assumptions that are popular only because they fulfill a
psychological need. There are also theories that are most likely true
but that nobody likes because they offend people’s feelings. Both
kinds are fascinating because they provide a window on the minds of
their protagonists and opponents and on the preoccupations of the
culture in which they are embedded.

The eye of the beholder

The man’s desire is for the woman; but the woman’s desire is
rarely other than for the desire of the man. (Samuel Taylor
Coleridge, Table Talk)

The parts of the body devoted to procreation are so unsightly

that the human race would have died out long ago but for the
beautiful faces. (Leonardo da Vinci)

For a chimpanzee, the question of female sexual attractiveness

would be easy to answer: any female with the telltale perineal
swellings is attractive. This ideal of feminine beauty is good enough
for a chimp because all females with perineal swellings are fertile.
Our women do not advertise their fertility, but we have another cue:
age. Female chimpanzees keep cycling and getting pregnant until

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they drop, but the fecundability of human females declines greatly

with age.
Think of a gene that occurs in two variants in the population: one
causing a man to prefer 20-year-old women, and the other causing
him to prefer 50-year-old women. Who will end up with more chil-
dren: a man with the 20-year-old gene or a man with the 50-year-old
gene? Which gene will become more common from generation to
generation, and which will become less common? Figure 7.2 predicts
that women are most attractive at age 22; a 38-year-old woman is
only half as attractive as a 22-year-old woman because she is only
half as fertile; and a 50-year-old woman is totally unattractive.

Figure 7.2 The age dependence of female fecundability. Fecundability is the

likelihood of getting pregnant after being exposed to the risk. In this graph,
maximal fecundability is set at 1. Does this curve resemble the age
dependence of female sexual attractiveness? (Wood, 1994, p. 322)

A study of mate preferences in 37 cultures found that men uni-

versally desire a young marriage partner. Young men prefer women
who are about their own age, but old men lust for women who are
much younger than themselves. Even homosexual men prefer male
partners of an age in which women are most fertile. However, cog-
nitive information about a woman’s reproductive state does not
reach the beauty-assess module. A face-lifted, estrogen-replaced 50-
year-old can still be attractive, even for a man who knows full well
about the sorry state of her reproductive system.
According to Aristotle, ‘it is fitting for the women to be married at

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around the age of eighteen; the men at thirty-seven or a little before.

At those ages, sexual union will occur when their bodies are in their
prime, and will end, conveniently for both, at the time when they
cease to be fertile’. If you disagree, you can also follow the old folk
rule that ideally the woman should be half as old as the man plus
seven years.24
Men seem to pay special attention to those body parts that are
involved in reproduction. Within healthy limits, women should be
hourglass-shaped with well-developed breasts and a low waist-to-hip
ratio. When investigators studied the body proportions of centerfold
models in Playboy magazine from 1955 to 1990 and winners of the
Miss America contest from 1923 to 1987, it turned out that the
models and beauty queens got thinner over time, but their waist-to-
hip ratio was consistently low at about 0.7.
A low waist-to-hip ratio signals fecundity because it distinguishes
women of reproductive age from prepubertal girls and post-
menopausal women and because it shows that the woman is not
pregnant. The male preference for robust breasts is more mysterious
because breast size is thought to be unrelated to milk yield. The
mammary gland is so small that it forms only tiny, barely visible
swellings under the nipples. For the most part, breasts are merely
two hunks of adipose tissue that are held in place, poorly so in most
cases, by a small amount of fibrous connective tissue.25
Also signs of good genes should be attractive because good genes
used to be important for child survival. Many genetic defects cause
physical abnormalities, especially in finely structured body parts
such as the face. Therefore too much deviation from the healthy
average should be perceived as unattractive. When faces are digitized
on the computer and averaged, the composite faces thus generated
are indeed judged more attractive than most of the original faces.
Mediocrity is beautiful!
There are less obvious elements of female attractiveness. Under
natural fertility conditions, if you have had regular sex with a
woman for some time she is probably either pregnant or lactating or
infertile. Additional copulations won’t make a difference. Everything
else being equal, a man should therefore always find his own wife less
attractive than another woman.
For a woman, the two most important items on her shopping list
are good genes for her children, and support in rearing the children.
We know that in many species the offspring of sexy males are

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healthier than those of less attractive males. Chicks fathered by

peacocks with the most beautiful trains grow faster and have a better
survival chance than those fathered by less attractive sires, and
tadpoles fathered by males with a sexy croak survive better than the
offspring of poor croakers. Even fruit flies do better when their
mothers had the opportunity to choose their mates. Whatever it is
that signals good genes in a species, females are bound to find it
sexy.26
Human males have neither beautiful tails nor sexy croaks, but
signs of good health and physical prowess seem to be attractive for
women. Also, tall men are considered more attractive than short
men. Body size was heavily affected by nutrition and disease among
our ancestors, and tallness showed resistance to diseases and nutri-
tional deficiencies.
In a world where all men strive for high status but only those with
good genes can achieve high status, dominance should be attractive
for women as well. There is ample evidence that many women are
fascinated by dominant men although few men are fascinated by
dominant women. Most women prefer a man who is assertive but
not tyrannical,27 but some run into trouble because they fail to make
this distinction.
The importance of male investment leads to a preference for rich
men and those who are clever enough to have good prospects of
getting rich. This cannot be blamed on economic pressure. For
women medical students, for example, the earning potential of a
prospective partner is not less but more important than for less
advantaged women. Women but not men prefer a partner who is a
little richer than themselves. Therefore getting rich enlarges the pool
of potential partners for men but reduces it for women.
The emphasis of men on good looks and of women on money has
a tangible consequence: pretty women are more likely than plain
women to marry a rich man; and poor men are more likely than rich
men to marry a fat woman. It would be tragic for a plain woman to
keep falling in love only with the richest men, or for a poor man to
keep courting only the prettiest women. Therefore the blind pursuit
of the most attractive partner must be avoided.28
Real-world mate choice goes somewhat like this: first, a self-image
module assesses one’s own mate value; second, a mate-assess module
computes the mate value of a prospective partner; third, a com-
parator computes the difference between the two mate values;

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fourth, if the mate values are similar, the comparator activates the
fall-in-love module. I should present this theory to my friends from
Mars who asked me how people decide whom to fall in love with! I
am sure they will understand it.
There are other inputs for the fall-in-love module. Empathy works
best with a partner who feels like oneself, and cognitive perspective-
taking works best with one who thinks like oneself. This is also true
if the partner’s personality resembles one’s own personality as it has
been at one or another time in one’s past life. The result is called
assortative mating: the attraction to those who are similar to
oneself.29

The battle of the sexes

A girl, a young woman, or even an old woman should not do

anything independently, even in [her own] house. In childhood a
woman should be under her father’s control, in youth under her
husband’s, and when the husband is dead, under her sons’.
(Laws of Manu, ch. 5, v. 147)

In an ideal monogamous system, the reproductive interests of the

two parents coincide because they invest equally in their children. As
a result, natural selection reduces the physical and behavioral dif-
ferences between the sexes.30 Without an evolutionary history of
monogamy, the differences between men and women would be
greater than they now are in our species. For example, romantic love
evolved equally in males and females because both sexes profit from
the establishment of a monogamous pair bond.
But we are not 100 percent monogamous, and therefore the
interests of men and women are often in conflict. Men behave either
like chimpanzees or like gorillas. The chimpanzee’s strategy is to take
advantage of any opportunity for copulation. In one study, men and
women were asked how many sex partners they would ideally like to
have over the next two years. On average, the women said, one; the
men said, eight.
Other investigators made the following experiment. On an
American college campus, an attractive male or female confederate
of the experimenter approached a stranger of the opposite sex with

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one of three randomly selected questions: ‘I have been noticing you

around campus. I find you very attractive. (a) Would you go out
with me tonight? (b) Would you come over to my apartment tonight?
(c) Would you go to bed with me tonight?’ Of the women approa-
ched for a date, roughly 50 percent consented; of the women
approached with an invitation to go back to the man’s apartment, 6
percent consented; and none of the women consented to the request
for sex. Of the men, roughly 50 percent consented to go out on a
date; 69 percent agreed to go back to the woman’s apartment; and 75
percent agreed to go to bed with her that evening. No wonder that
there are more female than male prostitutes!
Gays are lucky. They are free to pursue sexual variety while
straight men have to accommodate the preferences of the women
who force them into lengthy, expensive and often unproductive
courtship displays. According to a study by the Kinsey Institute in
the San Francisco Bay area before the advent of AIDS, 75 percent of
gay men had had more than 100 sex partners, and 25 percent more
than 1,000. Most lesbians, in contrast, form stable partnerships and
they typically have less than ten sex partners in a lifetime.
A man whose mind is set on a quick copulation should not be too
picky. In one study, both men and women said that the intelligence
of a partner they were dating should be at least average. When asked
about the minimum intelligence of a sex partner, women said, ‘In
that case, above average.’ The men said, ‘In that case, below aver-
age.’ For a marriage partner, however, men and women had equally
high standards.31
A man’s reproductive success depends on the number of women
he manages to impregnate. This produces the Coolidge effect. One
day, Calvin Coolidge and his wife were shown around a farm.
Learning that the cockerel could have sex dozens of times a day, Mrs
Coolidge said, ‘Please, tell that to the president.’ On being told, Mr
Coolidge asked, ‘Same hen every time?’ ‘Oh no, Mr President. A
different one each time.’ ‘Tell that to Mrs Coolidge.’
Rather than copulating like a cockerel or chimpanzee, a man can
also act like a gorilla, trying to monopolize one or, better, a few
women. Of the 1,154 societies in the Ethnographic Atlas, 1,073 used
to practice some form of polygamy, but even in these societies few
men could afford more than one wife. Polygamy is most common in
simple horticultural societies where the women do most of the sub-
sistence work, and also in those advanced societies where the men

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are very status-conscious. The abolition of polygamy in some of the

most advanced societies seems to be an attempt at reducing conflict
among the men and making male status hierarchies less visible.
Polygamy is bad for the wives of rich and attractive men but good
for other women. In a strictly monogamous system, a woman who
couldn’t secure an investing male can remain single, marry a criminal
or alcoholic, or become the mistress of a married man. Polygamy
gives her the additional option of becoming the second wife of a
business executive or the tenth wife of a movie star. Or possibly she
could marry a postal clerk whose sweetheart opted for the business
executive or the movie star.
One consequence of monogamy is that a man who wants to marry
another wife has to dump the one he has already. In a polygamous
society, he would simply add the new wife to his household. So,
what’s worse: divorce, or a second wife?
The big problem is that most women are ill-tempered, argu-
mentative and uncooperative. In a polygamous household, almost
invariably the co-wives quarrel with each other. Any husband who is
pestered by a nagging wife should be aware that if he had two wives,
most likely the wives would pester each other but leave him in peace.
Female aggression evolved for female rivals, not husbands!32
Although 93 percent of all societies in the Ethnographic Atlas
permit at least certain men to have more than one wife, only 0.5
percent allow a woman to have more than one husband. The reason
is only too obvious. When women quarrel they shout at each other.
When men quarrel they kill each other!
Men apply a simple decision rule: if there are opportunities for
casual sex, take advantage of them; if not, marry. Why buy a cow if
you can get the milk free? This collides head-on with the female
decision rule: if he shows evidence of serious commitment, copulate;
if not, don’t. This is a very unethical strategy. By refusing to copulate
with non-investing males, the women breed us for high investment
the way a farmer breeds his cows for high milk production! For-
tunately, modern men found an ingenious counterstrategy: we tell
our women that in order to be truly liberated they have to be as
promiscuous as the men!
There is a more constructive angle to this. Promiscuous animals,
including promiscuous people, have no reason to prefer altruistic
partners, but monogamists have good reasons to do so. This means
that in a monogamous system, the evolution of altruism is favored

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not only by kin selection, group selection and the benefits of mutual
help, but also by sexual selection. Even the otherwise hard-to-evolve
Christian variety of unconditional altruism can, in theory, evolve by
sexual selection.
Human breeding systems are affected by the sex ratio. Countries
with a shortage of marriageable women have a higher marriage rate,
lower divorce rate, less single mothers and less violent crime than
countries with a shortage of men. Being in short supply improves the
bargaining position of women. It enables them to force their own
preference for stable marital relations on the men and to keep the
male preference for promiscuity and violence under control.
Interestingly, countries with a shortage of women have less female
literacy (compared to male literacy) and less female labor market
participation than those with a shortage of men. Why should women
study and work if they can afford to leave these unpleasant activities
to the men? Our women can do even better than female bonobos.
When they are in a good bargaining position, they can exploit the
men! The sex-ratio effect predicts that in India and China, where the
sex-selective abortion of female fetuses is popular now, women will
be highly valued, marriages will be stable, and violent crimes will be
rare for many years to come.
Sex ratio effects are most often invoked for African Americans.
With lots of young men unemployed, in prison, or hooked to drugs,
there is a shortage of marriageable men in this population. This
predicts an asymmetric pattern of interracial marriage. Many black
women should marry a white man, and hardly any black men should
marry a white woman.
In reality, the exact opposite is found. In 1986, for example, 3.7
percent of black women outside the South married a white man, but
more than 10 percent of black men married a white woman.33 Evi-
dently the predicted sex ratio effect is overridden by something more
important. Could this something be sexual attractiveness? Every year
I see scores of female sex tourists from Europe visiting the Caribbean
island of Dominica. Male sex tourists seem to have other destina-
tions. Thailand, for example. Quite obviously, Afro-Caribbean men
are attractive for white women, and Thai women are attractive for
white men.
In those animals where one sex is much more beautiful than the
other, it is invariably the male who is more beautiful. In humans,
however, women are considered the fair sex. And even a most

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cursory inspection of women’s magazines shows that women are

single-mindedly preoccupied with their looks.
Sex differences in beauty are explained by Trivers’s parental
investment theory. It states that in those species where the females
rear the young and the males contribute nothing but their sperm,
females are the limiting resource for reproduction. They need not
compete for the males but the males have to compete for the females,
either by fighting off other males or by gaining the female’s favor.
Therefore males must be either strong or beautiful. Most male birds
attract their mates, but male primates fight over them.
In our species, however, the women used to depend on male help
and protection. They had to be beautiful to compete for investing
males. They even had a greater need for beauty than the men because
men compete not only by attracting their mates, but also by fighting
over them.
Trivers’s theory can explain why the Caribbean has sexy men and
plain women while Thailand has sexy women and plain men. Pos-
sibly, the ancestors of the Thais evolved under conditions where
women could not rear their children without male help. Therefore
their women had to be sexy to attract investing males. The men did
not need to be sexy because the women depended on them.
Conversely, if African women were able to raise their children
alone, they could afford to attend to signs of good genes rather than
high commitment in their suitors. Therefore the men had to be
sexy.34
It seems unfair that opportunistically mating men should evolve to
be more attractive than good providers and that hard-working
women should evolve to be less attractive than those who let the men
work for them, but such is the logic of nature. The application of
parental investment theory to international sex tourism is an
example of a theory that might be true but is unpopular because it
offends people’s feelings.
The biggest problem with monogamy is that the husband never
knows whether his wife’s children are also his own. A modern hus-
band can send the family’s DNA to a commercial paternity testing
lab to make sure, but our ancestors had to rely on indirect cues – the
sex drive, for example. Most men prefer as marriage partner a
woman who is not very active sexually although they prefer women
with a higher level of sexual activity as dating partners. The mate
value of a promiscuous woman is very low because there is a high

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chance that her children were fathered by someone else. Make sure
your teenage daughter understands this point!
The Victorian idea that women are sexually passive and receptive
was not a random scientific error. It was wishful thinking. People in
parts of Africa and the Middle East are more pragmatic. They
simply cut off the clitoris. This operation is performed on young girls
to increase their chance of finding a good husband.
In an international survey, chastity in a prospective marriage
partner was valued more highly by males than females in 23 of the 37
samples (Figure 7.3). In the remaining samples there was no differ-
ence either because, as in China, everyone considered chastity
indispensable, or because, as in Sweden, nobody considered it
important.35

Figure 7.3 How important is chastity (defined as no previous sexual

intercourse) in a prospective marriage partner? 0 = unimportant 3 =
indispensable (Buss and Schmitt, 1993)

The nature of sexual jealousy is different for men and women. A

man can afford to ignore his wife’s emotional life – which most
husbands certainly do – as long as there is no danger that she
copulates with someone else. A woman can be more tolerant about
her husband’s philandering – which only some of them are – as long

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as he does not establish an emotional bond that would divert his

investment.
In one experiment, subjects were seated comfortably in a chair
while pulse rate, electrical skin conductivity, and the activity of the
corrugator supercilii muscle (frown muscle) were recorded. The
subjects were given one of two instructions: ‘Please think of a serious
romantic relationship that you have had in the past, that you cur-
rently have, or that you would like to have. Now imagine that the
person with whom you are seriously involved becomes interested in
someone else. (a) Imagine you find out that your partner is having
sexual intercourse with this other person (b) Imagine that your
partner is falling in love and forming an emotional attachment to
that person.’
When imagining their partner in bed with someone else, the men
sweated and their heartbeat increased by nearly five beats per min-
ute, similar to the effect of three cups of strong coffee, and their
brows wrinkled. They calmed down somewhat when they imagined
emotional infidelity. Women showed the reverse pattern. This result
is not surprising. Men in general are focused on copulation while
women attend more to the emotional peripherals.
The male brain has a mate-eject module that is triggered by the
partner’s sexual infidelity. In traditional societies, adultery is the
most commonly reported cause of divorce. In 25 of the societies for
which information is available, divorce follows from adultery by
either partner, in 54 it follows only from adultery on the wife’s part,
and in two only from the husband’s. In one of the two exceptions,
the Trobrianders, divorce in response to the wife’s infidelity is not
mentioned but we hear that ‘should she commit adultery the hus-
band has the right to kill his wife’ (though he is more apt to ‘thrash’
her).36

Getting one’s way

Prevent rape – Just say yes. (Bumper sticker)

An honest suitor in search of recreational sex is well advised to flaunt

his good genes. If this fails, he can resort to more drastic methods.
On an American college campus, 15 percent of college males
admitted having had intercourse with a woman ‘against her will’,

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and 37 percent had touched a woman’s genital area ‘against her will’.
Three percent used physical aggression, 6 percent used verbal
threats, 11 percent used physical restraint, and 35 percent ignored a
woman’s protests. Surveys of rape victimization show the same. In
one study, 15 percent of college females reported having been raped,
and 18 percent reported attempted rape. Attempted rapes are rarely
mentioned in surveys of males, presumably because males are
reluctant to admit failed attempts. More than 90 percent of the
victims knew the offender, and half of the offenders apologized after
the assault. Make sure your daughter knows these numbers when she
enters college!
Contrary to widespread prejudice, women do not seek out
opportunities for being raped. They actually avoid risky behavior
when they are close to ovulation. I explained to my teenage daughter
that women don’t like being raped because they have to be free to
pick the best genes on the market, but she thought the reason was
that women insist on male parental investment.37
Feminists claim that sexual coercion is produced by a male-
dominated, patriarchal society. Western societies were more patri-
archal and male-dominated during the nineteenth century than they
are now. Therefore there should be less sexual coercion now than in
the past. We will never know. The sex researchers of the Victorian
Age never questioned college students about the number of women
they had raped.
At one time it was even thought that many human societies are, or
were, rape-free. For example, an early ethnographer visiting Mon-
golia reported:

I put this question to several well-informed Mongols: – What

punishment is here imposed for rape? . . . one well-educated
lama said frankly: ‘We have no crimes of this nature here. Our
women never resist.’

Based on this report, Mongolia was coded as ‘Rape: absent.’ But

actually, Mongolia did have legal injunctions against rape. Rape
rarely takes place in plain view of the ethnographer, but there is
evidence for its presence in almost all societies. Applying the rule
that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, we have to
conclude that rape is a human universal.
Sanctions against rape range from mild ridicule to the death

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penalty. Generally, the harsher the punishment, the less common is

rape.38 It looks as if a universal male inclination for rape had to be
checked by disincentives – prison, for example. Or does the causal
arrow point in the opposite direction? Where rape is rare, it is
considered devious and is punished severely; but in those societies
where most men rape, the men agree among themselves that it is all
right. If only a few do it, it’s a crime; if everyone does it, it’s an
inalienable right.
Other behaviors are judged that way. If you go on a killing
rampage, it is called murder and you are put on death row; if your
country goes on a killing rampage, it is called war and if you are
good at it you get a medal. The most commonly cited example of this
moral stance is not rape or murder, but drugs. Alcohol causes more
harm than marijuana, and yet, alcohol is legal and marijuana is not.
The reason is that most people like to drink alcohol, but only a few
like to smoke marijuana. This difference in popularity is not an effect
of the law. In the Netherlands, marijuana use did not increase to any
great extent after it had effectively been legalized39; nor has alcohol
prohibition done much to curb drunkenness. We may have no
opportunity to test the alternative views about rape and its punish-
ment anytime soon. I don’t know of any country where the Legalize
Rape movement has been very influential lately.
One theory proposes that rapists are mate-deprived. In its socio-
biological incarnation, it states that men are programmed to use
coercion when they have no opportunities for legitimate copulations,
like the subadult orang-utans that we encountered in Chapter 6. In
reality, however, many coercive men have extensive sexual histories.
Most of them do not have less mating opportunities than others, but
more. Men who cannot find partners for casual sex become hus-
bands, not rapists!
Some feminists believe that the motivation for rape is not sexual
but aggressive. Brainwashed by the ruling patriarchal system, the
rapist wants to hurt and humiliate women. This theory predicts that
most rapes are committed in aggressive rather than sexual contexts.
Rape is indeed common in aggressive contexts, especially during
war, but the most parsimonious explanation is that soldiers rape
because there is no risk of legal complications.
Actually, most rapes are date rapes. Date rapists nearly always
start with innocuous tactics. If honest advertising doesn’t work, they
feign love; if that doesn’t work, they try to get their date drunk; and

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only if that doesn’t work either, they resort to more rigorous

methods.
Rapists do appreciate the thrill of raping,40 but they do not hate
women. They just want to copulate. Aggression against conspecifics
evolved for competition, but the rapist’s relationship with his victim
is not competitive. It is a predator-and-prey relationship. It is like
hunting – and the hunter does not hate the animals he kills.
The feminist theory of rape has little empirical support, and its
logic is not beyond reproach. Why should a male-dominated society
produce male hostility against women? Female-dominated societies
are likely to produce male hostility against women! And why should
this hostility take a sexual form? Therefore we have to wonder why
the feminist theory of rape could ever become popular in the social
sciences.
Lee Ellis, in reviewing the evidence, noted: ‘among social scientists
one finds a long tradition of liberal attitudes toward free expression
of sexuality, but little tolerance for the free expression of aggression
and domination. By considering rape an act of aggression and
domination, rather than a sexual act, one is able to logically main-
tain that tradition without suggesting that rape should be socially
tolerated.’41
For sociobiologists, rape is an optional component of a male
short-term mating strategy. This implies that societies that encou-
rage the male inclination for sexual variety are rape-prone. Perhaps
all societies that encourage instant gratification, both in sex and
otherwise, are rape-prone. In that case our age should have more
rapists than the Victorian Age, not less. Instant gratification is
equated with freedom in contemporary Western culture. If rape is
the price we pay for sexual freedom, we have to wonder whose sexual
freedom we value so much and who is paying the price.
Presumably the inclination to rape depends on the way male
sexual arousal is wired to sensory filters and emotional circuits.
Sexual arousal can be blocked by fear, disgust and thinking, so why
not by violence? Distress cues from a rape victim do indeed inhibit
sex in some men but stimulate it in others.42 Feminist genetic engi-
neers should look for genes that induce the growth of inhibitory
connections between the aggressive and sexual circuits, and engineer
these genes into the human genome!
There is no need to postulate specially evolved brain circuits for
rape. For Carl von Clausewitz, war was the continuation of politics

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by other means; for the date rapist, rape is the continuation of

courtship by other means. Male thinking really is stereotyped like
this!

The women fight back

The great question that has never been answered and which I
have not yet been able to answer, despite my thirty years of
research into the feminine soul, is ‘what does a woman want?’
(Sigmund Freud)

Men being as they are, a woman has two options. She can simply go
shopping for good genes. This behavior pattern is a relic from a time
when infant mortality was high and good genes were important for
her child’s survival. Alternatively, she can try to acquire an investing
male. This strategy is a relic from a time when infant mortality was
high and the father’s support and protection were important for the
child’s survival.
Combining the two strategies is risky because of the male mate-
eject module. And yet, some women manage to get the best of both
worlds by securing an investing male while procuring good genes
from someone else. As a result, not all ‘legitimate’ children have been
fathered by the husband. Box 7.1 reviews some estimates of misas-
signed paternity in human populations.

BOX 7.1

HOW FAITHFUL ARE OUR WOMEN?

Surprisingly, we know more about extra-pair paternity in birds

than in contemporary human populations. Figures of up to 30
percent have been reported from two studies in England during
the 1970s. Most other published estimates are far lower. In
Mexico in the 1990s, the non-paternity rate was estimated at 11.8
percent. In Michigan during the 1970s it was 1.4 percent for
Whites and 10.1 percent for Blacks, and in Hawaii in the 1970s it
was 2.3 percent. Swiss women in the early 1990s were remarkably

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faithful. Only between 0.41 percent and 1.35 percent of their

children were not fathered by the husband!
Most of the modern data on undisclosed non-paternity are
gathered incidentally in the context of genetic screening, but many
of them remain unpublished. The effectiveness of genetic screening
programs – and possibly their funding – is compromised by high
non-paternity rates, and women may be reluctant to use these
services if they realize that information about paternity may be
obtained.
For example, unpublished results from a large international
study of apoE genotypes in Europe showed that non-paternity
rates are close to 10 percent in many countries. Interestingly, the
highest rate was found in Italy. Could this be because legal
obstacles made divorce next to impossible in Italy until very
recently? Somebody should tell the Italian legislators about the
frequency of extramarital paternity in their country!43
Overall female sexual activity is not much influenced by the
menstrual cycle, but at least one study found that extra-pair copu-
lations are more common at the time of ovulation. Better step up
your mate-guarding when your wife is ovulating!44
It would be easy in our age of molecular genetics to require a
routine paternity test after the birth of every child and send the
results (by registered mail) to both parents, except in cases where
both request in writing not to be informed. This practice would not
only prevent paternity misassignment, but also reassure husbands
who read too much about sociobiology, and flag mix-ups in the
hospital nursery. Good idea? I doubt that this proposal will make it.
I cannot imagine how anybody could outlobby a coalition of fem-
inists with unfaithful wives and their lovers. If only a few do it, it’s a
crime; if everyone does it, it’s an inalienable right!
We do not know whether female extra-pair copulations do indeed
procure better genes. If they do, then the lover’s children should, on
average, be healthier than the husband’s. A husband is a compro-
mise between good genes and good character; a lover is good genes
and nothing but good genes. Information on this point is important
for the legislators who have to decide about the introduction of
routine paternity testing!

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 In God’s Image?

Pair-bonding genes

Do not become archivists of facts. Try to penetrate the secret of

their occurrence, persistently search for the laws which govern
them. (Ivan Pavlov)

How can individual variation in mating behavior ever persist? If one

type of behavior is only slightly better for the behaver’s genes than
the other, then the genes that favor the less effective behavior will
soon die out. But will they?
Women have an alternative between one-night stands and mar-
riage, and because of the male mate-eject module these two behaviors
are somewhat incompatible. Let’s assume that those women who
secure an investing male produce more surviving children than those
who don’t. In that case all women should pursue marriage, and genes
favoring stable pair bonding will prevail.
But what if only half of the men are suitable for marriage and the
other half are only good for one-night stands? In a monogamous
system, the genes of a single promiscuous woman in a tribe where all
other women insist on marriage would be at an advantage because
she will raise children while those who insist on marriage run a 50
percent risk of childless spinsterhood. However, if all other women
are promiscuous, then the genes of a woman who insists on marriage
will have the advantage because with her husband’s help she will
raise more children than her promiscuous sisters. Natural selection
will lead to a state where some women pursue marriage and others
prefer one-night stands. This is an example of frequency-dependent
selection. Like the physical environment, the social world has many
ecological niches where alternative behaviors can thrive side by side.
Behavioral geneticists study the causes for behavioral variability.
For example, if unrelated adopted children who were reared in the
same family behave in similar ways, then the rearing environment
must be important; and if identical twins are similar even when they
were reared apart, then genetic hard-wiring must be important.
Matt McGue and David Lykken from the University of Minne-
sota applied this kind of test to divorce, also known as ‘mate
desertion’ in sociobiological jargon. In a twin study, they found that
about 50 percent of the divorce risk could be attributed to genetic
factors – of one partner. Most of the remaining risk was presumably
contributed by the other partner’s genes.

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 Men and Women

If you are a male with an identical twin who is not divorced, your
divorce risk is only 11.8 percent; if your identical twin is divorced, it
is 42.6 percent. Non-identical twins are less similar. If your non-
identical twin brother is not divorced, your risk is 19.3 percent; if he
is divorced, it is 30.4 percent. The authors calculated that if both you
and your spouse have divorced parents and a divorced identical twin,
your divorce risk is 77.5 percent!45
Sociologists have long known that divorce runs in families. The
usual explanation has been that the divorce risk comes from the
experience of growing up with a single parent or the experience of
marital discord during childhood, but McGue and Lykken con-
cluded that the influence of the shared family environment on the
divorce risk of their twins was close to zero.
Social learning explanations are hopelessly ad hoc. Why should the
children of divorced parents have a high divorce risk? They should
have a low divorce risk because they have learned from their parents
what behaviors they have to avoid in a marriage! We know indeed
that the divorce rate of children whose father died is almost the same
as that of children from two-parent households. Only the children of
divorced parents have a greatly increased divorce risk.46 The social
psychology literature is packed with data about familial predictors of
everything from divorce to delinquency and schizophrenia. Only,
without genetic studies we cannot know whether family resemblance
is produced by shared family environment or shared genes.
Does this mean that there are pair-bonding genes? Of course not.
The brain circuits for the establishment of a bond are different from
those that maintain it. Therefore we must expect that some genes
affect the likelihood of seeking or finding a partner, and others
influence the likelihood that the relationship is maintained. If any-
thing, genes that reduce the likelihood of seeking out or finding a
new partner are most likely to increase marital stability!
McGue’s and Lykken’s study shows that marital failure results
from personal qualities that the two partners bring into the marriage.
Some people are suitable for marriage and others are not, period.
The genetic influence was additive. This means that the divorce risk
is not only influenced by erratic gene combinations, but there are
genetic variants that predictably increase the divorce risk and others
that reduce it.
The practical significance of this is obvious. In some countries,
such as Iran, a man will send his bride to the doctor to test her

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virginity before marrying her; and in some traditional societies,

Samoa for example, a virginity test used to be part of the wedding
ceremony. A woman who is no longer a virgin is of course not
suitable for marriage! Fifty years from now, your grandson will
marry his sweetheart only after sending her to the geneticist to have
her tested for divorce genes and for genes that predispose to extra-
pair copulations. Why use the error-prone evolved algorithms if the
lab can do it with far greater accuracy?

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 8
Parents and Children

For the reproduction of the race, there are two instincts

needed, the sexual and the parental, and the way these two
are organized is to say the least curious.
(Charles Darwin)

Mates are genetically unrelated and therefore we must expect endless

conflict, but parent and child share 50 percent of their genes. And
because children are their only direct route to genetic posterity,
parents should be nice to their children although it is less obvious
why children should be nice to their parents.
Childhood is the most dangerous time in life because under nat-
ural conditions, an unweaned infant is doomed after the mother’s
death. The dependence of the child on the continued existence of the
mother is the reason why females live longer than males, even in
species whose males are not addicted to alcohol and tobacco. The
female advantage is greatest in species such as chimpanzees where
only the females care for the children, smaller in species like us where
the males help a little, and minimal in monogamous siamangs and
New World monkeys where father and mother are equally important
for the child’s survival.1
A gene that causes the premature death of a male is selected
against because it ends his reproductive career, but a gene that causes
the premature death of a female is selected against even more
because it kills her youngest offspring in addition to ending her
reproductive career. The female survival advantage that results from
this kind of selection is one of the few instances where Mother
Nature concurs with the human sense of justice.

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 In God’s Image?

True communism

Great idea. Wrong species. (The ant researcher Edward O.

Wilson, when asked for his opinion about communism.)

In theory there is a simple way to protect children from the risk of

being orphaned, and also from the risk of maltreatment by devious
and incompetent mothers: raise all children communally! But it
doesn’t work like that. Throughout the animal kingdom parents care
only for their own children, sometimes with assistance from close
relatives. This is true even under the most crowded conditions. In the
Mexican free-tailed bat, more than 1 million females raise their
young in maternity caves. In one of these caves the researchers
counted a density of 4,000 pups per square meter. At one time these
bats were hailed as the only true communists of the animal kingdom,
with females feeding their young collectively.
Not so. Careful observation showed that each female nurses only
her own pup. Other pups try to get a free suck and sometimes they
succeed, but as a rule the mother will reject them in favor of her own.
Most mothers manage to allot more than 90 percent of their milk to
their own pup.2 The only examples of parenting communism are
found among the social insects, where armies of sterile workers feed
the brood. And even here it’s all in the family, for the workers merely
feed their own sisters.
Love is the genes’ way to reach out to copies of themselves in
others, and this is true for people as it is for bats and bees. Love for
other people’s children makes no evolutionary sense. What is worse:
your child dying in a traffic accident on the way to school; or the
school bus having an accident, with 50 other children dying while
your own child is safely in bed at home with the flu? This may not be
satisfactory for our refined moral sensibilities, but it is the logic of
nature.

The blueprint of love

An ugly baby is a very nasty object. (Queen Victoria)3

Like other instincts, parental care is triggered by an external stimulus

that is fitted on a sensory template in the brain. This template is

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 Parents and Children

called the ‘cute schema’, and Figure 8.1 shows what it looks like:
round cheeks, large eyes, small nose, a high brow, and a head that is
large relative to the body. These are the attributes of babyness, much
as a narrow waist, wide hips and firm breasts are the attributes of
fertile femininity. During the first weeks after birth, the general
attraction to cute infants must be transformed into a personal bond
between mother and child. This is the reason why maternity hospi-
tals insist on early and frequent contact between mother and child.

Figure 8.1 The cute schema. (Eibl-Eibesfeldt, 1976)

While the mother starts out with the cute schema, the infant has its
own mother schema. Back in the 1950s, Harry Harlow from the
University of Wisconsin showed this by separating infant rhesus
monkeys from their mothers after birth. He then gave them a choice
between two substitute mothers: a wire mother with a built-in
feeding bottle, and a milk-free cloth mother. Much to the scientists’
surprise the baby monkeys spent most of their time clinging to the
cloth mother, visiting the wire mother only to drink.
In Harlow’s time, most psychologists believed that the infant’s
attraction to the mother developed through regular feeding. As good
behaviorists – the leading research tradition in those days – they were

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used to training their animals with food rewards and electric shocks.
This worked better than expected, for the animals managed to
condition the scientists into the belief that all behavior is motivated
by these simple rewards and punishments! In reality, softness,
warmth and rocking movements were the attributes that attracted
Harlow’s monkeys to their mother. Everyone except psychologists
had known this all along. Babies calm down when they are carried,
and babies who are carried a lot cry less than others even when they
are not carried. Physical contact never quite loses its reassuring effect
throughout life.4
Few experimenters would want to repeat Harlow’s experiments
today, for the motherless monkeys became awfully neurotic. Those
who were raised with a cloth mother did learn to interact socially
with other young monkeys, but they never learned how to copulate.
Monkeys reared in total isolation without a substitute mother for the
first six or 12 months of their lives were far worse off. They became
autistic, spending all their time with self-clasping and stereotyped
rocking and huddling. There was no play, no exploration of a new
environment, and no social contact. Their only social responses were
fear and aggression. In the worst cases, even aggression was oblit-
erated and the animals were torn by fear and anxiety.
When infant monkeys were initially cared for by the mother and
then put in solitary confinement, they went through a predictable
sequence of responses. First they protested, as shown by increased
activity and vocalization. After a while, the protest subsided and the
infant withdrew and became inactive. The first stage is dominated by
anxiety, and the second stage is probably the monkey equivalent of
depression.
When the monkeys were reunited with their mothers after six days,
they clung to them more tightly than ever before. Even 12 months
later they explored and played less than those who had been with
their mothers all the time. The experience was most distressing for
those monkeys whose mothers had shown signs of rejection before
the separation.
The same pattern of protest followed by withdrawal and despair
has been observed in human children who were separated from their
mothers for periods of a few days to several months. If the child is
reunited with the mother within a few months, or if it finds a sub-
stitute attachment figure, chances are it will grow up to be normal; if
not, lasting emotional disturbances are inevitable.5

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Conflicts of interest

I have personally watched and studied a jealous baby. He could

not speak, and, pale with jealousy and bitterness, glared at his
brother sharing his mother’s milk. (Augustine, Conf. I.7.11)

Being equally related to all her children, a mother should value each
child alike. The child, however, is more related to itself than to
mother and siblings who each carry only one-half of its genes. As a
result, the child should always try to extract more resources than the
mother is willing to give.
In mammals, this conflict is most obvious at the time of weaning.
Breastfeeding is needed for the child’s survival, but it suppresses
ovulation and deprives the mother of nutrients for her next preg-
nancy. The mother’s cost of delayed reproduction remains constant,
but the benefit of continued breastfeeding for the child declines as
the child becomes able to eat other foods. The mother should wean
her child when the benefit for her genes in the child drops below the
cost that her genes suffer through delayed reproduction. But from
the child’s point of view, a sibling shares only 50 percent of its genes
and a half-sibling 25 percent. The child should therefore value itself
two to four times more. It should try to breastfeed well beyond the
time when this is no longer profitable for the mother’s genes.6
This logic dictates that weaning is always a struggle. The best way
to locate a baboon troop in the African savanna is to listen for the
noise of children throwing their weaning tantrums. This is not
exactly in the best interest of the baboons because sometimes the
noise attracts not a notebook-wielding ethologist but a hungry leo-
pard or lion.
Modern parents rarely see weaning tantrums, but they know that
children become remarkably strong-willed once they reach an age of
two or three years. They do not realize that this is the age at which
their Stone Age ancestors used to wean their children, and that
children have evolved their spite to get that little bit of extra milk
that would improve their survival chance at the expense of mother’s
continued reproduction. Now it is not the breast but the candy box
that is the object of the child’s desire, and all the child gets for its
efforts are bad teeth.
Also older children behave as if they knew that their own interests
are different from mother’s. They learn easily that some of the

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mother’s teachings should be heeded: not to play with the saber-

tooth, or to stay out of the traffic. But they also know that other
teachings are not in the child’s interest but the mother’s: to be nice to
brother and sister, respect elders and go to bed early.
The best learning rule for the child is to emulate what the parents
like to do. Smoking should be emulated because the parents like it.
What the parents do with gusto is most likely good for them, so it is
most likely good for the child. But when the mother wants the child
to do something that she herself abhors, such as washing the dishes,
it is probably an attempt to manipulate the child against its own best
interests. These are examples of social referencing, which we have
encountered already in Chapter 4.
Jane Goodall described an example of parent–offspring conflict in
chimpanzees. Although young chimpanzees enjoy sex plays long
before puberty, they do not like adult sex. When mother copulates,
the children try to push the male off.7 They are jealous. They seem to
know that mating effort conflicts with parenting effort. By spoiling
their mother’s enjoyment of sex, they try to tilt the balance between
sex and parenting in their own favor.
Some human children have the same prejudice against adult sex.
When my seven-year-old daughter saw a copulation on TV, she
watched, and then said, ‘I don’t like to see that’; and on vacation, my
daughters used to guide me ceremoniously and in a wide arc around
any newspaper stand with displays of sex magazines. No sex for
daddy! Most twentieth-century psychologists believed that such
behaviors in children are the result of a sexually repressive
upbringing. If this is the case, why do chimpanzee children act in
similar ways although they grow up in a world where the adults
copulate in the streets?
The psychoanalytic theory of parent–offspring conflict is known
as the Oedipus complex. Boys between two and five years of age are
supposed to develop a sexual attraction to their mother that brings
them in conflict with the father. Freud did not derive this theory
from observations of children, but he developed it to explain the
neuroses of his adult patients. There is still no evidence for the
Oedipus complex from observations of children. There are boys who
love their mother, but boys lusting after their mother are a rare sight.
The evolutionary logic of the Oedipus complex is utterly
improbable. Why should a boy who develops sexual feelings for his
mother and thereby risks the ire of a potentially dangerous father or

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stepfather have a better survival chance and greater lifetime repro-

ductive success than one who does not? And why should desire be
kindled only to be repressed? Freud’s fundamental error was that he
confounded the child’s attachment to the mother with sexual desire,
without realizing that these are two different phenomena altogether.8
Freud insisted that the Oedipus complex was an essential part of
psychoanalysis, and people who were drawn to his creed because it
promised a cure for their neuroses had to accept it as part of a
package deal. Accepting or rejecting psychoanalysis in toto requires
less brainpower than sorting out the motley ideas that happened to
wind up under this label. The same applies to our thinking about
religions and political programs.
This package-deal thinking is more than pragmatism and stupid-
ity. In the social domain, we have an evolved us-and-them thinking
that makes us view agglomerations of interacting people as col-
lectivities rather than disjointed individuals.9 Transferring this
thinking habit from the social to the intellectual domain, we treat
agglomerations of interacting ideas the way our ancestors treated
clans, tribes and factions.

Trade-offs

Woman seems to differ from man in her greater tenderness and

less selfishness. Woman owing to her maternal instincts, dis-
plays these qualities toward her infants in an eminent degree;
therefore it is likely that she would often extend them toward
her fellow-creatures. (Charles Darwin)

For the father there is an optimal mix of mating effort, dominance

striving and parental effort, and under most conditions his genes
fared best with a very modest dose of parenting. And so Mother
Nature gave men little interest in infants, a low responsiveness to
infant needs, and indeed a low responsiveness for all emotional
signals, not only those from infants. Therefore childcare is always
women’s work. Nowhere in the world do the men stay at home with
the kids while the women go out to work, fight or pursue sex with
additional mates.10
But women should be doting mothers, shouldn’t they? A woman
need not scramble for copulations, and power struggles would only

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endanger her and her children. For her, children should be more
important than sex and power. But they aren’t. Most modern women
want only one or two children or none at all. In a survey in Aus-
tralia, less than one-quarter of the women reaching adulthood after
1960 said that enjoying motherhood is more important than enjoying
sex. Among those who reached adulthood between the Wars, the
proportion was more than 50 percent.11
Present attitudes are dysfunctional, but the brain mechanisms that
produce them have once been adaptive. To keep herself and her
children alive, an ancestral woman had to spin her social networks to
acquire investing males, outcompete rival women, and protect her-
self and her children from dangerous men. She needed aggressiveness
and competitiveness along with abilities for deception, cooperation
and exploitation. No wonder that women are as bitchy as they
are!
Above all, our female ancestors had to feed themselves and their
children. Rural women in the pre-industrial era worked as hard as
their men, but without fixed working hours. They worked around the
house in close proximity to their children, switching back and forth
between housekeeping, gardening, spinning, weaving, dairying and
the children. But today’s women have to work away from their
children. They can have either a career or a family, but not both. As
a result, we are selecting for women who are high in maternal
instincts but low in ambition, competitiveness and motivation to
work.
Parental love evolved because children are the vehicles for their
parents’ genes. It should therefore parallel the child’s reproductive
value. In traditional societies, the reproductive value of a newborn
was not very high because about half of all children died before they
had a chance to reproduce. Prospects were best at puberty when the
child was past the dangerous age but still had its whole reproductive
career ahead.
In a Canadian study, adults were asked to imagine the death of a
child and estimate the grief of the parents. Most respondents thought
that grief was moderately great for a dead infant, maximal around
puberty, and less for an adult child. The curve matched the repro-
ductive value of a child under ‘uncivilized’ conditions.12 Mother
Nature made sure that parents do not imprint on their children
immediately in full intensity. Rather, parental love deepens over time
as long as the young child lives with the parent.

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Parents should adjust their love and care also to the child’s health.
The survival chance of an acutely ill child depends very much on
extra care. Therefore parents should allot extra care to a sick child,
and that’s what they do. However, a child who is chronically ill,
malformed, mentally retarded or psychotic is not likely to reproduce.
A parent should be as reluctant to care for a disabled child as an
investor is to put his money into a hopelessly defunct business.
Therefore many parents uncouple emotionally from a handicapped
child, and handicapped children are indeed far more likely than
healthy children to become child abuse cases.
A study of premature twins found that the mothers directed more
positive behaviors toward the healthier twin. This was true even
when it was the sicker twin who directed more positive behaviors
toward the mother. The sicker twin gets less attention because it is
sick, not because it is less fun to interact with.13 Whereas the male’s
sexy-female template contains cues for health and fertility, the
mother’s cute schema contains cues for infant viability.
Rather than concluding that love for a problem child is unnatural,
we have to accept that parental love is a highly variable trait. Some
people can love almost any child under almost any circumstances,
others are likely to neglect or abuse their children under almost any
circumstances, and most fall somewhere in between.
Another example has been reported by Chris Crandall from the
University of Kansas. It had been known for some time that fat
students are underrepresented at American colleges and universities,
and that this cannot be explained by lower ability or unwillingness to
study, or the unpalatable campus food. Crandall found the reason:
74 percent of the thin girls but only 53 percent of the fat girls were
supported by their parents. This difference could not be explained by
family size, parents’ income, ethnicity and the number of children
attending college. Apparently, parents are reluctant to pay for the
college education of their fat daughters.
As a good liberal, Crandall tried hard to blame the unwillingness
to pay for fat daughters on the anti-fat attitudes of conservative
parents. What he actually found was that both liberal and con-
servative parents discriminate against fat daughters, despite con-
servative anti-fat attitudes and the liberal obsession with political
correctness. Only, liberal daughters are more likely than those from
conservative homes to study anyhow, even if the parents don’t pay.14
The evolutionary logic of discrimination against fat daughters is

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 In God’s Image?

crystal clear. Americans consider fat women unattractive. In a nat-

ural environment, an unattractive woman may not be able to secure
an investing male and suffer high infant mortality as a result.
Therefore an attractive daughter used to be in a better position to
produce lots of grandchildren for her parents. The psycho-logic is
even simpler. Parents follow the general tendency to reject unat-
tractive people. This is, almost by definition, what unattractiveness
means. Natural selection could have wired the brain to eliminate this
general tendency in the parent–child relationship, but it didn’t. It
would have been good for unattractive children, but not for the
parent’s genes.
Parental support used to translate into better survival and
reproduction for the child, but does a college education improve a
daughter’s reproductive prospects? Of course it doesn’t. Of all
demographic variables, a college education is the most powerful
predictor of female reproductive failure. In the United States, col-
lege-educated women have only a little more than half as many
children as those who drop out of high school.15 If you want to be
nice to your genes, don’t send your daughter to college! In the brave
new world in which we live, parental love is no longer adaptive.

Children worth rearing

As to the question of whether to rear offspring or expose them,

there should be a law against rearing deformed ones. (Aristotle,
Politics VII,16)

Lapses in parental love can be far more serious than in the case of
Crandall’s fat college daughters, as in the following account of the
warlike Yanomamö Indians of Venezuela:

A child is killed at birth, irrespective of its sex, if the mother

already has a nursing baby. They rationalize the practice by
asserting that the new infant would probably die anyway, since
its older sibling would drink most of the milk. They are most
reluctant to jeopardize the health and safety of a nursing child
by weaning it before it is three years old or so, preferring to kill
the competitor instead. Kaobawä’s wife, Bahimi, killed a new-
born male shortly after I began my fieldwork. She later told me,

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quite tearfully, that it would have taken milk away from Ari-
wari, Kaobawä’s favorite child. Ariwari at the time was over
two years old, but Bahimi refused to wean him. Sometimes a
child is killed simply because the mother doesn’t feel that she
can care for it properly and that it would be an inconvenience to
have to tend a baby. I once saw a plump, well-fed, young
mother eating a large quantity of food that would have been
suitable to give to an older infant. Her emaciated, filthy, and
nearly starved child – about two years old – kept reaching out
for the food. The mother explained that the baby had gotten a
bad case of diarrhea some time ago and had stopped eating. As
a consequence, her milk had dried up. She refused to attempt to
feed it other foods because ‘it did not know how to eat other
foods’. When I insisted that she share her food with the child, he
ate it ravenously. In short, she was letting the baby die slowly of
starvation . . .
Male babies are preferred because they will grow up to be
warriors and hunters. Most men make known their wishes to
have a son – even to the point of insinuating that the wife ought
to deliver a male or suffer the consequences. This is always done
in a subtle way, usually by displaying signs of anger or resent-
ment at the thought of having a daughter that constantly eats
without being potentially an economic asset or guardian of the
village. Many women will kill a female baby just to avoid dis-
appointing their husbands . . .
Several techniques are used to kill a newborn child. The most
common method is to strangle it with a vine so as not to touch it
physically. Another common method is to place a stick across
the child’s neck and stand on both ends of it until it chokes. In
some cases the child is not given the stimulus to breathe and is
simply abandoned. Finally, some women throw the child
against a tree or on the ground and just abandon it without
checking to see if it was killed by the injuries sustained.16

This was not an isolated aberration. In one survey, 39 out of 60

traditional societies for which information was available acknowl-
edged infanticide. Like other child-related chores, infant killing is
always women’s work. The single most common reason, mentioned
in 21 cases, was deformity or poor health of a newborn. Also
uncertain or inappropriate paternity was frequently mentioned. In

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15 of the surveyed societies, adulterous conception was offered as a

reason. Other reasons were related to the overburdening of the
mother. The birth of twins was mentioned in 14 societies, but usually
only one twin was killed. In eleven societies, a newborn was killed if
it arrived too soon after the last child or the mother had too many
children already. The unwed status of the mother was offered as a
reason in 14 societies, and in six the infant was killed when no man
would acknowledge paternity or accept an obligation to provide for
the child.17
One reason is never mentioned: population control. Traditional
societies did not use infanticide deliberately to regulate their popu-
lation. The practice was tolerated, discouraged, prohibited and very
rarely encouraged, but the decision about an infant’s fate was made
by the parents without any regard for the common good. This
should not surprise us. Modern women who pop their contraceptive
pills never give any thought to the effect that their behavior has on
the world population.
The exposure of infants was common in ancient Greece and
Rome. Romulus and Remus were exposed by their parents, as were
Heracles and Oedipus. The examples are mythical, but they show
that the practice was familiar to the mythmakers. In the second
century AD, the gynecologist Soranus wrote: ‘Now the midwife,
having received the newborn . . . [and having] examined beforehand
whether the infant is male or female . . . should also consider whether
it is worth rearing or not’.18 In Rome, the decision about the infant’s
fate was left to the father. In our own matriarchal society, where
only women are involved in child rearing, the decision would most
likely be left to the mother. The cruel practice of raising even ser-
iously disabled children took hold only with the rise of Christianity.
In AD 374, infanticide was finally categorized as murder under
Roman law.
Asian societies did not follow this trend. In the seventeenth cen-
tury, Jesuit missionaries in China were horrified to find that in
Beijing alone thousands of babies (almost exclusively females) were
thrown on the streets like refuse, to be collected each morning by
carriers who dumped them into a huge pit outside the city.19
In Europe, the Church never managed to eradicate child exposure,
although it was quite successful in suppressing contraception.
Foundling homes were established since the fifteenth century, and
millions of abandoned children passed through them until prosperity

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and contraception defused the problem in the nineteenth century.

We can only estimate that close to 20 percent of all children were
abandoned by their parents, and up to 80 percent of those processed
through the foundling homes died. This is comparable to the rates of
infanticide in other traditional societies.
In humans as well as other primates, a mother is most likely to
neglect, abandon, maltreat or kill her child when she is under severe
stress from illness, malnutrition or strains in the social fabric.20
Under these conditions, successful parenting has always been diffi-
cult or impossible. The best option was to bail out and try again
when the conditions were more propitious. The mechanism that
evolved for this situation is simple enough: stress suppresses the
parental instinct.
Human mothers do not imprint on their children immediately
after birth. In one study, 40 percent of first-time mothers and 25
percent of repeat mothers recalled that their predominant emotional
reaction when holding their babies for the very first time had been
one of indifference.21 The delayed onset of maternal love gives the
mother a window of opportunity to make up her mind. If she is fit
for the mother role and the child is healthy, the bond forms;
otherwise she lets the baby die. Our ancestors had to treat parental
care as a resource to be invested, not squandered. They could not
afford the luxury of raising all the children born to them.
Adaptive forms of infanticide are based on evolved mechanisms
such as the delayed onset of maternal love, the suppression of
maternal love by stress, and a deeply ingrained revulsion at the sight
of a deformed infant. But infanticide is not always in the best interest
of the mother’s genes. In some traditional societies people killed
excess sons to avoid splitting their estate among too many heirs, and
they killed daughters to avoid paying large dowries. Some upper-
caste Hindus used to kill all their daughters although they had the
means to raise both sons and daughters. People simply realize that
children can interfere with the pursuit of status, sex and money.
Maladaptive forms of infanticide can be blamed on our ability to
override primitive drives by intelligent decision making. Remember
how some of the more sensible Yanomamö mothers avoided
touching the infant they want to kill? This motif of intentionally
avoiding anything that might kindle maternal feelings runs like a red
thread through the accounts of traditional infanticide.
If infanticide is often a maladaptive by-product of runaway brain

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evolution, why did it not stop the process? Imagine a world, perhaps
100,000 years ago, where some women but not others were already
bright enough to predict the blood, toil, tears and sweat that a new
child would impose on their future lives. Bright women but not
stupid women would have killed many of their infants without any
pressing need to do so, and their high-IQ genes would have been lost
to posterity. Obviously, that’s not what happened.
One reason is that mothers are naturally averse to killing their
newborns. Therefore well-situated women who could raise their
children with only moderate inconvenience were not likely to kill
them. Child exposure and infanticide were practiced mainly by
women who were strongly motivated: those who were in dire straits
because they had no husband or were too poor. On average, these
women were likely to be less intelligent and less socially skilled than
others.22
Compared to immediate distress, long-term consequences are
lousy motivators. Knowing about the mechanism of reproduction,
even ‘primitive’ people were in theory able to use coitus interruptus
to prevent unwanted pregnancies. But they rarely did, presumably
because they were not in the habit of thinking ahead by nine months.
Contraception became possible only when a certain level of intelli-
gence and intellectual culture was reached in the most advanced
societies.
That’s how it is today. Contraception is used most liberally by
bright women in the more advanced societies, and it is quite effective
at eradicating their genes. Abortion seems to be more popular with
single mothers and other poorly adjusted women. Thus we can see a
general pattern: infanticide selects against social maladjustment, and
contraception against intelligence and foresight. Abortion falls
somewhere in between. We can predict that over the millennia,
infanticidal societies tend to evolve toward higher intelligence and
reduced antisocial tendencies, whereas contracepting societies evolve
in the opposite direction. In Chapter 12 we will see that this is
actually the case.
We will never be able to assess the evolutionary impact of infan-
ticide in traditional societies. Old-fashioned cultural anthropology is
a dying science because unacculturated traditional societies are
rapidly disappearing. There is not a single uncontacted tribe left in
the world that is not spoiled by mass media, alcohol, schools and
police.

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This creates a dilemma: should the leftover tribes be integrated

into the modern world and thereby culturally annihilated? Or should
we create ethnographic parks, fenced in to keep the tourists out,
visited only by unobtrusive anthropologists and an occasional
camera team to film documentaries about traditional practices such
as infanticide, cannibalism and headhunting?

Other people’s children

Another woman’s child is like cold slime. (African saying)23

Traditional infanticide does support one prediction from evolu-

tionary theory: we are indifferent to other people’s children. In
traditional societies the fate of newborns was a family affair, of little
concern for the community at large. Children had a legal status
similar to slaves and domestic animals. In Rome, for example, the
pater familias was entitled to kill his child or sell it into slavery as he
pleased.
We no longer permit parents to kill their children or sell them into
slavery, but does this mean that we value other people’s children? Or
do we prohibit infanticide only because we detest the killing of adults
and the killing of our own children by other adults, and the brain is
too fuzzy to make fine distinctions?
The test cases are those where the interests of parents and children
are at odds. There is no lack of devious and incompetent parents in
modern societies, and undesirable outcomes are at least mildly pre-
dictable. Canadian crime statistics, for example, attribute only 5.6
percent of murders with an adult victim to ‘mental illness or retar-
dation’ of the killer, but 46 percent of parents who killed their own
child were so categorized.
We do not hesitate to deny a driving license to people who
endanger others on the road, but we do not deny a breeding license
to people who are dangerous for their own children.24 The difference
is that psychotic, alcoholic or retarded drivers are dangerous for us
and our own children, but psychotic, alcoholic or retarded parents
are dangerous only for their own children. From our point of view,
the endangered children are other people’s children. If we deemed
other people’s children worthy of the same protection as our own
children, we would deny breeding licenses. But we respect other

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people’s children only to the extent that we respect their property,

and for the same reason: because we depend on good relations with
other adults.
Another example can be drawn from the American debate about
abortion. Pro-abortionists could point out that unwanted children
will have to suffer if their parents are forced to have them, and they
would be right. Unwanted children are at risk of becoming socially
maladjusted or criminal and of failing in school.25 Abortion could be
advocated by pointing out that every child has the right to be born
under auspicious circumstances.
But nobody argues like this. The pro-choice argument is made
exclusively from the perspective of the mother, who is expected to
make the decision for her own personal benefit. An adult can easily
imagine herself in the place of a woman who doesn’t want a child,
and feel great indignation at the thought that she should be forced to
have one. Despite the cute schema it is far more difficult to empa-
thize with an unwanted child exposed to an unloving mother.

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 9
Friends and Enemies

Men should be either treated generously or destroyed,

because they take revenge for slight injuries – for heavy ones
they cannot.
(Niccolo Macchiavelli, The Prince)

Group life evolved for protection. It originated as an adaptation to a

dangerous world where predators and hostile neighbors were lurk-
ing. It enabled our ancestors to respond to threats that had been
detected by other group members, warn each other of impending
danger, and fight together to ward off enemies. On your own you
will be eaten. As a group you will prevail.
But group-living animals also compete with one another for the
good things of life: food and mates, sex and money. Therefore,
community life is precariously suspended between the yin and yang
of competition and cooperation. We need friends in order to prevail
against our enemies.

The need to belong

He who is unable to live in society, or who has no need because

he is sufficient for himself, must be either a beast or a god.
(Aristotle, Politics)

Social behavior is motivated by positive emotions. Forming a bond

is an occasion for joy and celebration, and the severance of a bond
leads to upset and grief. A wedding is celebrated but a divorce is not.
Also the birth of a child is considered a happy event although young

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childless couples are actually happier than those with children. As

rational happiness maximizers the parents should grieve at the birth
of a child, and celebrate when the child dies!
Life satisfaction is only weakly related to wealth, age, gender,
education and occupation, but it does depend on social bonds.
Married people are happier and healthier than singles, who are in
turn happier than the divorced. Psychiatric hospital admissions are
least common for the married and most common for the divorced.
And although young children can make their parents miserable,
connectedness with their adult children is the best predictor for the
happiness of old women.1
In Chapter 3, I described autism as a wiring problem that makes
the autist unable to attend to people. Most autists are not only
unable to attend normally to others, but they also lack the positive
emotions that reinforce social behavior. Still, most of them can and
do respond to their isolation with negative emotions. Therefore they
are haunted by anxiety and depression, like the isolation-reared
monkeys that we encountered in Chapter 8.
Sociality evolved for protection, and therefore it is little wonder
that danger brings people closer to one another. People seek support
from their friends in their troubles, and the child stays close to the
mother in unfamiliar places. This security-through-attachment knee
jerk can become dysfunctional. Counselors have noted for a long
time that many abused wives are reluctant to dump their devious
husbands. They go through endless cycles of physical abuse, recon-
ciliation and renewed abuse. This is called traumatic bonding.
Are these women masochists? Do they enjoy being beaten up? Of
course not. They are terrified, and they do what every terrified
human being does: seek refuge in a close personal relationship. If the
only close relationship that is available to the abused wife is the
husband, then she will return to him again and again. She behaves
like a horse that runs back into the burning stable.2
The emotional resources that drive and reinforce social relations
are crude. Pleasure can motivate us to approach and explore physical
objects as well as people; anxiety motivates the avoidance of all kinds
of risk; and sadness is a response to any worsening of our condition,
teaching us to avoid such outcomes. Therefore depression and gen-
eralized anxiety disorders have no specific evolutionary ‘meaning’.
They are multi-purpose brain mechanisms running wild. There are
limits to the number of special-purpose mechanisms that can evolve.

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We have only 30,000 genes in our genome, and not all of them are
concerned with the brain. Therefore the brain produces complexity
by the same mechanism as the DNA: by permutations of a few
building blocks.
And so Mother Nature tied up feelings, drives, sensory filters and
attentional biases into packages. To children she gave the attach-
ment package to keep them close to the protecting mother, complete
with comfort in physical contact and separation anxiety. To mothers
she gave the caring package, with nurturing and protective beha-
viors. Finally, with a good deal of cutting and pasting, she made
packages for friendship, cooperation and marriage.

Bullies and leaders

The fundamental concept in social science is Power, in the same

sense in which Energy is the fundamental concept in physics.
(Bertrand Russell, Power: A New Social Analysis)

Animals have no judges to adjudicate their disputes.3 Monkeys who

compete for a peanut or a fertile female can fight it out, but fighting
is risky. It also causes bad feelings. That’s not good either, for next
time you might need the help of your current adversary to chase
someone else off a peanut or a fertile female. That’s monkey busi-
ness, but the fact that humans can easily empathize with it tells you
something.
Conflicts of this kind produce a dominance hierarchy. The most
dominant chicken picks the worm, the most dominant monkey grabs
the peanut, the alpha male of a chimpanzee colony has first pick
among the fertile females, and the lord of the manor has the right of
the first night with his serf’s bride. Fights are unavoidable to
negotiate the hierarchy, but once everyone knows his station in life,
the whole community can live in peace.
Social primates know the dominance ranks of all group members.
Ntologi, for example, is alpha male of a chimpanzee community in
the Mahale Mountains of Tanzania. He pays little attention to the
lowest-ranking community members although he does show respect
for frail old males; he cooperates with mid-ranking males, often
sharing meat with them after a successful hunt; and he antagonizes
the one or two high-ranking males who could threaten his position.

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Ntologi’s tactic works. With ten years tenure he is the longest-ruling

alpha male in any chimpanzee community studied so far.4
Power struggles are common in chimpanzee communities. There
are several weeks or months of instability with recurrent fights, until
one of the contestants gives up and pays homage to his opponent.
Chimpanzees signal submission by bowing and pant-grunting to the
boss. This seals the dominance relationship between the contestants,
and keeps everyone up-to-date about who pant-grunts to whom.
Social status is not in the outcome of fights but in the minds of the
community members.
Human societies have multiple dominance hierarchies. Socio-
economic status defines a master hierarchy, but tiny little rank orders
are everywhere. They are in the playgroups of preschool children and
among school-age boys. Each academic institution has a dean,
associate dean, assistant dean, professors, associate professors and
assistant professors, with the poor students at the bottom of the
hierarchy. And the schoolteacher who cannot get accepted as alpha
male (or alpha female) by the children is in deep trouble.5
We don’t pant-grunt, but like chimpanzees we signal respect or
submission by making ourselves look small. We used to bow or
curtsey to show respect, and people used to prostrate themselves
before despotic rulers. Important people exaggerated their size with a
crown, a wide gown, or an elevated throne. A person’s ‘stature’ can
refer to either his size or his importance. There are ‘higher’ cognitive
functions and ‘lower’ vertebrates. In the scala naturae we are on one
of the higher rungs, somewhere between the brutes and the angels.
We are the pride of creation, the alpha males of the world.
Dominance is mentally represented on a high–low dimension,
whereas belongingness is mentally represented on a close–distant
dimension. We speak of ‘close’ friends and ‘distant’ relatives, but of
‘high’ and ‘low’ social classes. In Chapter 2 we saw that the cognitive
system evolved as a spatial mapping device to represent the animal’s
physical environment. In time, we have co-opted this spatial cogni-
tive map for the mental representation of social relations.
The rich and powerful are taller than the rest of the crowd.
Researchers at an American university found that the assistant
professors were 1.24 inches taller than the average of their age and
sex, associate professors were 1.50 inches taller, and professors were
1.97 inches taller. Department chairs were even 2.14 inches taller
than average. Most animals show a similar relation between body

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size and dominance rank, presumably because large size helps to win
fights.6 But most professors, business executives and presidents of the
United States are taller than average although few of them reached
their positions by beating up their opponents.
Height is affected by early nutrition and health. Therefore children
of poor parents are, on average, shorter than those of the rich. But
even when people from the same social background are compared,
the taller ones are more likely to land a well-paying job. Tall people
also score slightly higher on IQ tests, probably because early nutri-
tion affects IQ as well as height, but even among people with
equivalent education the taller ones get the better jobs.7
Businesses and governments need leaders because there would be a
terrible mess if everyone followed his own inclinations or conscience.
But most animals (and some of our businesses and governments)
have bullies but no leaders. Leadership requires cooperation
and impartial justice in addition to dominance. The formula is
simple:
Leadership = Dominance + Reciprocity
And what is it that a chief can offer his Indians as reward for their
loyalty? Ntologi is a good hunter who shares his proceeds with
others, but most leaders in animal groups and simple human
societies have no material possessions to offer. They offer protection,
not only from themselves but also from others. A leader must be
strong and resourceful to make it to the top, and he is expected to
use these qualities to protect the group against its enemies. But his
main resource is the very ability to force his will on others. He is
expected to adjudicate disputes among group members and enforce
his decisions, so the contestants can stop hostilities without losing
face.
Dominance and belongingness go together. While leaders are
always well connected, the lowest-ranking group members are at risk
of falling through the bottom of the rank order: excluded for reasons
of unattractiveness, incompetence or deviance. Those at the top
struggle for power. Those at the bottom struggle for acceptance.
Dominance and affiliation are the two major dimensions of all
human relations. Even the parent–child relationship is shaped by
them. High affiliation with high dominance makes an authoritative
parenting style; high affiliation with low dominance produces an
indulgent style; low affiliation with high dominance produces an

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authoritarian style; and low affiliation with low dominance makes

for neglectful parenting.8

The young male syndrome

When God created men, she was only practicing. (Anonymous)

The following episode has been observed by Richard Byrne among

the chimpanzees of the Mahale Mountains in Tanzania:

A group of adult males was already surrounding the group of

rocks in which a mother and cub leopard was sheltering when
we arrived on the scene. Most of the chimpanzee party, females
and juveniles, were well off the ground in trees: They were
screaming, showing fear-grins, and urinating. We sympathized
with their behaviour, since the intermittent roars of the adult
leopard were very loud and intimidating! The leopard was in a
typical ‘birth cave’, a 3m long fissure with a narrow, triangular
mouth of under a metre across, the width of a single chimpan-
zee. The persistent males, which did not include the alpha-male
but several old animals, closed in on the cave mouth, displaying
loudly around and on the rocks, until the leopard roared, when
they leapt back a few metres. This was repeated many times over
45 min, until finally one of the males went right inside the nar-
row cave. He emerged carrying a small cub, crying pitifully; we
estimated it at 2–3 months, at which age it would not normally
emerge from a birth cave. The other males clustered round,
pummelling and pulling the cub, tossing it up in the air; one
male bit it. After a few minutes, they left it and we ascertained
that it was dying. Other chimpanzees appeared fascinated with
the body, and one adolescent female in particular carried it for
hours, cuddling and tickling it in her day-bed.9

Why should a chimp be so foolhardy to venture into the leopard’s

den to steal a cub? Chimpanzees do sometimes kill baby animals for
meat, but these chimps were not hungry. The body was not eaten. It
was used as a doll by a playful young female! There is only one
sensible explanation for the hero’s act: he was showing off. He
wanted to show the other chimps what a fearless fellow he is. Who

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would ever fail to respect the daredevil who faced up to the chim-
panzees’ most dreaded enemy? Who would ever want to risk a fight
with him? He may not have reasoned it out exactly like this, but he
behaved as if he knew.
Male primates show off to avoid unnecessary fights. Gorillas
impress their opponents by strutting and chest-beating. Chimpanzees
put on wild charging displays, swinging through the branches, run-
ning upright on the ground, brandishing sticks and throwing stones.
Humans are subtler than this. They brag about their sexual con-
quests, their cleverness and the money they earn.
The rule is simple: the evolved striving for dominance is propor-
tional to the difference in reproductive success between high-ranking
and low-ranking individuals. A female’s reproduction is only mildly
affected by her status. Somebody will get her pregnant no matter
what, but a low-ranking male can be left out in the cold altogether.
Therefore males ended up with more dominance striving than
females. And while women compete by making themselves look
young and pretty and pretending to be chaste and virtuous, men
show their prowess through crime, gambling, drugs, reckless driving
and dangerous hobbies. Most crimes are committed by young men,
with a peak age between 18 and 24 years. This is the age at which the
males have to fight over the females.
The preoccupation with status and reputation produces the con-
cept of honor. Any challenge to one’s status and one’s sense of self-
worth, any provocation, any sign of disrespect is an affront to one’s
honor that necessitates a forceful response. In Detroit, for example,
52.8 percent of the ‘social conflict’ homicides were in retaliation for
previous verbal or physical abuse. Another 16.1 percent were clas-
sified as ‘escalated showing-off disputes.’ According to one homicide
detective, ‘Murders result from little ol’ arguments over nothing at
all. Tempers flare. A fight starts, and somebody gets stabbed or shot.
I’ve worked on cases where the principals had been arguing over a 10
cent record on a juke box, or over a one dollar gambling debt from a
dice game’.10
Honor demands revenge. In traditional societies, where a man’s
status is defined by his kin group, the slaying of a kinsman or the
rape of a kinswoman obliged the victim’s male relatives to seek
revenge on the perpetrator or his relatives. In more individualist
cultures, insults of various kinds, often in competition over a fertile
female, obliged the opponents to settle the affair by duel.

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Being wronged makes you look like a sucker. It lowers your status
relative to the perpetrator’s, and revenge is required to restore the
old balance. As one gang member explained: ‘It’s like this. If you
slap me, I’m gonna hit you with my closed fist. If you stab me, I’m
gonna shoot you. An eye for an eye doesn’t exist – it’s one-up. One-
up is what it is in gang life.’11
When the Nazis were fighting terrorists in the occupied territories,
they applied a simple rule: for every German who was killed, they
would shoot ten local villagers. And when 3,000 Americans were
killed in the World Trade Center, Afghanistan was attacked in
retaliation. And to make sure the customary ten-to-one ratio was
exceeded, Iraq was attacked as well. This is the logic of terror: if you
cannot defeat your enemy’s army, attack civilians; if you cannot
punish those who attacked you, lash out against bystanders.
There is a brighter side to all this. Men show off their machismo
not only in crime and war, but also in sports, moneymaking, arts and
science. And most of the time they compete by cooperating with
other men. The age of peak creativity for artists, pop stars and
scientists is the same as for criminals. Thus civilization is the creation
of competing and cooperating males. It is the incidental byproduct
of the male desire to show off.12

Pride and shame

It is not enough to succeed. Others must fail (Gore Vidal)

The brain has specialized modules that scan the social environment
for cues of dominance status. To raise your status, you have to fool
other people’s modules by acting as if you were a notch higher than
you really are; and for this maneuver to succeed, you must feel and
believe that you are indeed a notch higher than you really are.
If this sounds too convoluted, look at the following example.
When I asked medical students at the beginning of their first seme-
ster how they expect to perform academically, 65 percent marked on
their questionnaire that they expect to perform in the top quartile of
their class; and 95 percent expected to be above the class average.
Obviously, most students overestimate their ability. You can call it
either self-deception, or the power of positive thinking.
Is self-deception an inevitable consequence of the way the brain is

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wired? Thinking how great we are makes us feel good. Since the
purpose of feelings is exactly to make us pursue the things that make
us feel good, we have a self-reinforcing loop. Self-flattering thoughts
produce good feelings, which in turn reinforce self-flattering
thoughts. We all know self-deluded jerks who seem to be caught in
this feedback loop, but not everyone is hopelessly addicted to wishful
thinking. Presumably we have emotion-free reality-check circuits
that keep evaluating the discrepancies between our wishful thinking
and reality.
But these reality-check circuits are biased. They are tuned to
maintain an optimal level of self-deception: enough to impress others
and to give us self-confidence and optimism in everything we do, but
not so much as to make us do foolish things. Ideally, we should be
realistic when deliberating upon a course of action, but become
overconfident when pursuing a set goal or interacting with people.
Pride and shame are the carrot and stick of the dominance system.
For Christians, humility used to be a virtue and pride one of the seven
deadly sins, but twentieth-century social scientists turned this value
system upside down. Failings of all sorts, from teenage pregnancy to
bullying in school, domestic violence and rape, were blamed on low
self-esteem. Evildoers, it was said, suffer from an inner sense of
worthlessness, and they do weird things in an attempt to prove their
worth both to themselves and the doubting world. So who is right?
Stable high self-esteem that is based on fairly accurate self-
assessments does indeed reduce antisocial behaviour. But high self-
esteem that comes from faulty self-assessment is associated with
deviance and crime. Many criminal psychopaths have a ‘narcissistic
and grossly inflated view of their self-worth and importance’. In one
study, most incarcerated rapists showed no signs of low self-esteem,
nor did they feel very guilty. Many of them not only bragged about
their sexual stamina but presented themselves as multi-talented
superachievers – somewhat incongruously for people interviewed in
prison. Great is the power of positive thinking!13
Artificially raising people’s self-esteem may not be a good idea. In
the United States, many behavioral problems among African
Americans were blamed on low self-esteem. Based on this theory,
efforts at boosting ‘black pride’ were undertaken since the 1960s. By
and large these efforts were successful. During the past quarter of a
century surveys have consistently shown that the self-esteem of
blacks is about the same or somewhat higher than that of whites.

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This did indeed coincide with behavioral changes. Until at least

the 1920s, killings of blacks by whites were more common than
killings of whites by blacks. Sometime during the twentieth century
the pattern reversed, and recent murder statistics show that blacks
kill whites five to ten times more often than whites kill blacks. Until
1950, rapes of black women by white men were more common than
rapes of white women by black men. The numbers were balanced
during the 1950s, and every survey after the 1960s showed that
black-on-white rape was more common than white-on-black rape:
ten times more common according to the latest counts.
The same applies to collective violence. The Nazis did not kill the
Jews because they felt inferior to them, but because they thought of
themselves as a master race that is entitled to exterminate others. The
most aggressive nations are always those that have the highest opi-
nion of themselves: France in the eighteenth century, Germany and
Japan during part of the twentieth, and the United States now. This
is the logic of dominance hierarchies. High-ranking individuals and
groups are, almost by definition, those who can afford to lash out at
the underlings. Weird responses are most likely when unrealistically
favorable self-evaluations are threatened by others, for example
when a nation that has an inflated opinion of itself is humiliated by a
lost war. That’s what created the Nazi movement in Germany after
World War I.14
With evidence being so ambiguous, why is the belief that raising
people’s self-esteem has prosocial effects, so popular? One reason is
simply that our culture is based on the pursuit of happiness. Hap-
piness means not only sex and money but anything that feels good,
including high self-esteem. Therefore we need experts to tell us that
indulging our egotism is a good thing.
Also, there can be no revolution without high self-esteem. Satan
was impelled by his pride to rebel against God and the angels. Also
in our species the poor, downtrodden and disenfranchized rebel
against oppressive rule when they no longer believe that their lowly
station in life is deserved. The first task of the revolutionary is
therefore to raise their sense of self-worth and convince them that
they deserve better.

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Tit-for-tat against Pavlov

CYNIC: A blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they

are, not as they ought to be. (Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s
Dictionary)

Social systems beyond the immediate family are based on coopera-

tion, reciprocity and fairness: ‘One good turn deserves another’ is
one side of this coin, and ‘An eye for an eye’ is the flip side. Not only
humans play this game. The following incident has been reported by
Frans de Waal in his study of chimpanzees at Arnhem zoo:

A high-ranking female, Puist, took the trouble and risk to help

her male friend, Luit, chase off a rival, Nikkie. Nikkie, however,
had a habit after major confrontations of singling out and
cornering allies of his rivals, to punish them. This time Nikkie
displayed at Puist shortly after he had been attacked. Puist
turned to Luit, stretching out her hand in search for support.
But Luit did not lift a finger to protect her. Immediately after
Nikkie had left the scene, Puist turned on Luit, barking fur-
iously. She chased him across the enclosure and even pummeled
him.15

Tit-for-tat requires a number of processing steps. (1) The brain has

to assess the value of one’s own and the partner’s actions. Puist knew
that her assistance had been risky for herself and valuable for Luit.
(2) There must be an expectation that value is returned. Puist
expected assistance from Luit. (3) The brain has to compare the
partner’s real behavior with his expected behavior. Luit’s behavior
fell short of Puist’s expectations. (4) Pleasant feelings must be
recruited if value is returned and unpleasant feelings if it is not
returned. Puist’s feelings were unpleasant. (5) Pleasant feelings must
be turned into gratitude, and unpleasant feelings into anger. Puist’s
unpleasant feelings were turned into anger.
Also, Luit knew that Puist’s assistance had been of value for him.
This should have triggered pleasant feelings. He should have asso-
ciated these feelings with Puist to shape them into sympathy and
gratitude. Sympathy and gratitude should have driven him to help
Puist, and they should have suppressed his selfish impulses of lazi-
ness and fear.

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 In God’s Image?

After they had failed to do so, the discrepancy between his

expectations about himself and his actual behavior may have pro-
duced yet another emotion: guilt. Being a chimp he couldn’t tell her
he was sorry, but he did allow her to chase him across the enclosure.
Chasing him raised Puist’s self-esteem at his expense, and thereby
Luit did eventually repay part of his debt.
This kind of behavior is common in chimpanzees and humans but
rare in monkeys. Tit-for-tat reciprocity did not fall from the sky,
but was patched together from elements that had evolved in other
contexts. The positive emotions of trust and gratitude were co-opted
from kin-selected social bonding. And when attachment was
refined into commitment, a social exchange relationship came to be
valued for its own sake, not only for its material benefits. Retaliation
was co-opted from the mechanisms of social dominance. In social
animals with stable dominance hierarchies, the boss expects defer-
ence and punishes insubordination. All that was needed to turn
retaliation against insubordination into retaliation against cheaters
was the expectation that a favor would be returned.16
Therefore the cognitive map of reciprocity mirrors that of dom-
inance. A reputation for fairness and honesty is the equivalent of
high dominance status; moralistic aggression against a cheater is
equivalent to the punishment of an impertinent underling; pride
is produced by displays of either one’s competence or one’s virtue;
and shame can result from defeat, failing at a task and getting caught
cheating. One’s honor is at stake when either one’s dominance status
or one’s honesty is called into question.
Still, dominance and reciprocity do allow alternative cognitive
mappings. When labor relations are mapped on the dominance
template, the employer is a legitimate authority and the employee is
subject to that authority. Work is obedience to the employer’s
commands, and pay is the reward for the employee’s obedience. The
employer is somewhat like Ntologi who shares meat with sub-
ordinates in recognition of their loyalty. On the social exchange
template, however, work is an object of value. The worker is the
possessor of his work and the employer is the possessor of his
money, and employment is the voluntary exchange of the worker’s
work for the employer’s money.17
Not everyone plays tit-for-tat. There is an alternative social
strategy, called Pavlov, that uses a simple decision rule: if your
partner cooperates, repeat your last move; if not, change. Let’s

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assume you are an employer who pays his worker very little, but the
worker does good work nevertheless. As a tit-for-tat player, you give
him a raise. You respond to a cooperative move by him – doing good
work – by making a cooperative move – give him a raise. As a Pavlov
player, you don’t give him a raise. Your last move – paying him little
– was successful, so why should you change?
Pavlov is as good as tit-for-tat in the digital world of computer
games, and most people prefer it to tit-for-tat when interacting with
strangers in the psychology lab.18 Pavlov players can learn to
cooperate for mutual benefit. But their strategy is narrowly self-
serving, geared toward the exploitation of weaklings. Pavlov is a
cold-blooded strategy that is not linked to the social emotions. It has
no place for gratitude and trust; there is no guilt after an unwar-
ranted defection, and no expectation of reciprocation. This mindset
is called Machiavellianism. It is measured with a ‘Mach scale’ where
the respondent has to indicate agreement or disagreement with
statements such as ‘The most important thing in life is winning’ and
‘The best way to handle people is to tell them what they want to
hear.’
Typical high-Machs express a relative lack of affect in inter-
personal relationships, a lack of concern with conventional morality,
and low ideological commitment. They are selfish, manipulative,
competitive and unconcerned about the effects that their actions
have on others. Some high-Machs get honored with psychiatric
labels such as psychopathy or antisocial personality disorder, espe-
cially if they run up against the law.
Tit-for-tat respects others as equals, but Pavlov thrives on
inequality by exploiting the weak and gullible. In questionnaires, the
endorsement of social inequality is strongly linked to the endorse-
ment of Mach-type statements such as ‘Basically, people are objects
to be quietly and coolly manipulated for your own benefit’ and
‘There really is no such thing as ‘‘right’’ and ‘‘wrong’’. It all boils
down to what you can get away with.’ Pavlov and tit-for-tat can
coexist in human populations because they are aimed at different
audiences: tit-for-tat is reserved for close associates, and Pavlov is
used for exploitable strangers.
In social conflicts, from marital rows to labor disputes and wars,
each contestant has to convince his audience that he is the right-
eously outraged tit-for-tatter and his opponent the selfish opportu-
nist who wants to take advantage of him. And how is this achieved?

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 In God’s Image?

By deception and self-deception, of course! By overrating the bene-

fits due to them and underrating their obligations to others, people
can behave like selfish opportunists while posing as righteous tit-for-
tatters. Sometimes it works but sometimes it doesn’t. That’s why we
need lawyers.
Criminals always underrate the impact of their crimes on others.
Many imprisoned rapists sincerely believe that they do not deserve
their fate. They are the real victims, singled out by a rabid legal
system to go to prison for nothing at all – only a copulation! This
kind of bias is wired into the brain so we can take advantage of tit-
for-tat players who are temporarily off-guard and of poor suckers
who are powerless to resist our machinations.19

The foundations of society

Treat the aged in your family as they should be treated, and

extend this treatment to the aged of other people’s families. Treat
the young in your family as they should be treated, and extend
this treatment to the young of other people’s families (Mencius)20

Machiavelli wondered whether it is better for a prince to be loved or

feared. He concluded:

. . . one ought to be both feared and loved, but as it is difficult

for the two to go together, it is much safer to be feared than
loved, if one of the two has to be wanting. For it may be said of
men in general that they are ungrateful, voluble, dissemblers,
anxious to avoid danger, and covetous of gain.21

Actually, most people can easily combine love and fear.

Throughout the world harmless, honest politicians are despised as
irrelevant while ruthless despots and dangerous psychopaths are
worshipped by the masses. Hitler understood this very well. The
Christian God understands it, too. Christianity succeeded despite its
many flaws because the Christians know how to love and fear their
God at the same time.
Machiavelli’s conclusion that being feared is better than being
loved made sense in the unruly city-states of Renaissance Italy where
he lived. He might have thought otherwise had he been a Bushman

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in the Kalahari Desert. Anthropologists have long been baffled by

the ‘primitive communism’ of simple hunter-gatherers such as the
Bushmen. There are differences of prestige even in these egalitarian
societies, but bossing others around and boasting about one’s
accomplishments are strictly forbidden – the Stone Age equivalent of
political correctness.
Why are dominance struggles so subdued in these simple societies?
First of all, cooperation among equals is the most efficient economic
strategy for hunter-gatherers. Hunters make big kills only spor-
adically. The successful hunter cannot eat a whole buffalo or ele-
phant himself, and therefore the best system is to share the meat with
everyone else. Hunter-gatherers have no material possessions of any
value. There are women to compete over, but a Bushman dictator
cannot prevent his wives from running off with other men if they
don’t like his ways. Only the invention of walled compounds and
professional harem guards emancipated despotic rulers from the
tyranny of female choice.
Another reason for primitive communism is that hunter-gatherer
bands are more fluent than the social groups of most other primates.
If there is a tyrant in your group, you can vote with your feet and
join another band. Also, humans are efficient killers. A tyrant is apt
to be stabbed in the back at any time, either by a lone assassin or by
a death squad of disgruntled band members. Despotism became
possible only after the invention of salaried bodyguards.
When social units grow too large to be maintained by personal
bonds between their members, primitive communism gives way to
stratified societies ruled by chiefs or kings. Social stratification and
despotic government distinguished the first civilizations from the
small agrarian communities from which they had evolved.22
Until recently, democratic institutions were confined to small
communities where the important people knew each other personally:
city-states of ancient Greece and medieval Europe, and the cantons of
Switzerland. The Roman republic gave way to autocratic rule once
the city-state had grown into an empire, and the French Revolution
failed to establish a functioning democracy in a large European
country although small societies such as Iceland and Switzerland
already had a long tradition of successful democratic governance.
Not only Machiavelli recognized the problem of holding large
polities together. Confucius and his followers also recognized that
benevolence falls off steeply with social distance, but they believed

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that the love for one’s family should be extended to include persons
outside it as well. Benevolence should guide the ruler’s relations with
his subjects as it does the father’s relations with his children. The
citizens, in turn, owe loyalty and obedience to their government in
the same way that a child is loyal and obedient to the parents. And
we should treat everyone with human-heartedness the way we treat
family members.
Confucianism was opposed to the legalist tradition, which main-
tained that people will always pursue their own advantage. Rather
than convincing them to restrain their selfish pursuits for the benefit
of others, the ruler has to harness their selfishness through a system
of rewards and punishments.23
In China the Confucian tradition became the leading social ethos
for more than two millennia, but the West embarked on a different
trajectory. In Europe and America, the Christian obsession with sin
and personal salvation became secularized into an obsession with
freedom and competition. The struggle for eternal life was trans-
formed into the struggle for sex and money.
Western societies have been enormously successful by harnessing
people’s selfish persuit of personal gain. Soviet communism was
doomed because it rejected the legalism of modern capitalist societies
but failed to become Confucian. Karl Marx was not a psychologist
but an economist. He and his intellectual heirs never understood that
every society needs a guiding ethos that is rooted in human nature.
Perhaps a modern society that is based on benevolence rather than
the harnessing of people’s quest for sex and money can work only if
pharmacologists develop an altruism drug that can be mixed in the
drinking water, or if genetic engineers equip everyone with an extra
dose of benevolence genes.
The proposal to improve society with drugs or genes is based on
the assumption that people will always create the kind of society that
suits their inclinations. Sophisticated people will create sophisticated
societies, and simpleminded people will create simple societies.
Populations with a high proportion of altruists will create harmo-
nious societies, and those with a high proportion of antisocials are
plagued by distrust, violence and corruption.
This is an example of reductionism: explaining complex phe-
nomena at a more basic level of analysis. For some twentieth-century
intellectuals, reductionism was a term of abuse.24 A world ruled by a
few fundamental laws is not only boring. It also seems to limit the

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opportunities for intentional manipulations to improve the human

condition. Even worse, we use different cognitive routines for people
and for physical events. Only the routines for people can create
morality. Therefore any attempt at reducing human agency to brain
chemistry and genes is dehumanizing and immoral!
This may be so. However, all great scientific advances were
reductionist. Biological phenomena made sense only when they
could be ‘reduced’ to interactions between molecules, and astronomy
made sense only when it could be ‘reduced’ to the laws of physics.
The evolutionary biologist is wise because he reduces the history of
life to the workings of mutation and selection. The biochemist is
wiser because he reduces it all the way to the properties of matter.
The wisest of all is the theologian, for he reduces the whole world to
the will of God. Only, he skips too many intermediate steps.
Paradoxically, reductionism does not simplify our description of
the world but makes it more complex. Biologists could dispense with
simplistic notions of a vital force once they could explain life at the
molecular level; and psychology no longer needed an immaterial soul
once psychological phenomena were attributed to the activities of a
mere 100 billion neurons. One problem with reductionism is that it
reveals too much complexity, so much indeed that the gap between
the layperson and the expert becomes intolerably large. But, sorry,
the world is complex.
Nor does reductionism prevent the intentional manipulation of
things. On the contrary, it gives us the tools to create a better world.
Marx was a great reductionist in explaining social dynamics from the
economic conditions, and his followers tried to create a better society
by manipulating the economy. This didn’t work out too well. Let’s
see if pharmacologists and genetic engineers can do a better job!

The political animal

CONSERVATIVE: A statesman who is enamoured of existing

evils, as distinguished from the liberal, who wishes to replace
them with others. (Ambrose Bierce, The Cynic’s Word Book)

Young males struggle for status, but those who have already
achieved a comfortable position in the social order are better off
supporting the system rather than struggling even harder. This is the

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reason why a strong middle class is a social force favoring political

stability. A president enacting tax breaks for the middle class to
ensure his re-election is not very different from Ntologi sharing meat
with males in stable mid-ranking positions.
Conformity to established hierarchies is also favored by the per-
ception of threat. This mechanism evolved in the social primates
because a high anxiety level correlates with a low probability of
success in power struggles. One convenient side-effect of this anxiety-
causes-conformity reflex is to prevent quarrels among group mem-
bers when the group is threatened by an external enemy. Nations
become more disciplined and authoritarian when they are threatened
by unemployment, crime or war. The outbreak of World War I
aborted any attempts at social reform or socialist revolution in the
warring countries; economic depression in Germany brought Hitler
to power; authoritarian religious groups make more converts during
times of economic crisis than in times of prosperity; in the Deep
South, lynchings of Blacks were most frequent during times of
economic strain; and the best way to prop up support for author-
itarian rule is to scare gullible citizens with an evil enemy who
threatens them with weapons of mass destruction.25
Individual differences in attitudes and values can be examined by
asking people what they value in life, what they like or dislike, and
what they consider important or unimportant, right or wrong. Such
surveys can show, for example, whether those who are against
abortion also dislike nudists and support the death penalty and the
war on drugs.
In one study of this kind, Valerie Braithwaite from the Australian
National University in Canberra extracted four general clusters of
attitudes and values. The first cluster included an emphasis on
cleanliness, ambition, a comfortable life, international power,
national strength and order, propriety in dress and manners, and
social standing and getting ahead, combined with a distaste for
humanitarianism. Braithwaite labeled this value orientation ‘security
through order and status’. In the twentieth century, people with
these preferences used to be called conservatives.
A second cluster included obedience, religiousness, honesty and
self-control, and a distaste for independence and the experience of
pleasure and abandonment. This factor, ‘religiosity and personal
restraint’, was also associated with political conservatism, although
to a lesser extent than ‘security through order and status’.

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A third cluster included broadmindedness, a world at peace, a

world of beauty, freedom, equality, international harmony and
equality, and personal growth and inner harmony. This factor was
labeled ‘humanistic and expressive concerns’ and was associated with
a ‘liberal’ political orientation. A fourth cluster, ‘personal accom-
plishment’, included an emphasis on academic achievement, social
skills, loyalty, status, creativity and physical development. It was not
related to political preference.26
These value orientations express the fundamental attitudes toward
dominance hierarchies. ‘Personal accomplishment’ describes the
legitimate struggle for high status within the established order.
‘Security through order and status’ and ‘religiosity and personal
restraint’ express deference to the status hierarchy. The first of these
two factors describes the external aspect and the second the internal,
moralistic aspect of this social strategy. These ‘conservative’ atti-
tudes would make sense for an adult hominid who has already
attained a tolerable position in his group, and in situations in which
the tribe has to be united against its enemies.
‘Humanistic and expressive concerns’ has also been described as
the ‘postmodern’ value system. It emphasizes freedom and inter-
personal relations at the expense of dominance. This strategy is
appropriate for a world of peace, affluence and justice where people
can afford to strive for personal goals. Freedom-lovers can be
revolutionaries or escapists, but even the most apolitical hippie will
feel more sympathy for the socialist or anarchist revolutionary than
for the conservative. His basic approach to social dominance coin-
cides with that of the revolutionary but not the conservative.
Machiavellianism and social dominance orientation can be added
as a fifth dimension. They describe the selfish struggle for personal
gain in a dog-eat-dog world.

Us and them

The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders.

That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being
attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism
and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any
country. (Hermann Goering)

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 In God’s Image?

We need friends so we are better able to fight our enemies. This, at

least, is the male variety of friendship. Nowhere is this logic more
visible than in war, when armies of cooperating males thrash their
enemies and get thrashed by them.
Ninety percent of the hunter-gatherers known to anthropologists
fought wars, usually in the form of raids and ambushes. Pitched
battles are common only under civilized conditions where the leaders
can leave the fighting and dying to the common soldiers. Usually
only males fight, captured male enemies are killed either with or
without prior torture, and captured women are kept as wives. Only
15 percent of simple societies without centralized political systems
killed women as well as men.27
The only other primate that indulges in this pattern of inter-group
aggression is the common chimpanzee. Jane Goodall describes the
chimpanzee raiding parties as ‘border patrols’. A party of males
ventures into the border territory and sometimes even into the
heartland of the enemy. That the chimps are not strolling aimlessly
through the bush is shown by their telltale behavior. They are
uncharacteristically quiet and often stop to listen intently. When they
meet a sizable group of enemy chimps, they either retreat quietly or
impress the enemy with charging displays before retreating.
Chimps attack only when they encounter a lone male, a lone
unattractive female, or a consorting male–female pair. The victim is
held to the ground, pounded with stones or sticks, deep bite wounds
are inflicted, and strips of skin are torn from the victim’s body.
That’s fun, isn’t it? These attacks can last for more than half an hour.
The victim is left to die of blood loss and wound infections. Quite
obviously, aggression against strangers is not subject to the same
inhibitions as is aggression against compatriots. Humans are exactly
like this. For example, many Americans today approve of the torture
of foreign terrorist suspects although they oppose the use of torture
for American citizens.
Jane Goodall described a war of secession in Gombe. A small
group had split off from the Kasakela community, founding the
Kahama community at the periphery of the old community range.
Over a period of five years, all six adult males and at least one female
of the Kahama community were killed by Kasakela males.
Annexation of the Kahama territory brought the Kasakela males in
conflict with the powerful Kalande community, which nearly led to
the extinction of the Kasakela community.28

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Feminists have always known that only males can be demented

enough to kill each other in war – but why? Is it because males are
stronger? In that case inter-group aggression should be a male affair
in all those species where males are stronger than females, but this is
not the case. In many monkey species the males are much stronger
than the females, but only the females gang up against strangers.
Males are the patriotic sex in humans and chimpanzees because in
these species the males stay where they were born while females transfer
to another community at puberty. Thus the males of the community
are related, and cooperation between them is favored by kin selection.
In monkeys the males transfer at puberty, and the roles are reversed. In
traditional human societies, war and blood feuds are most common
where related men live together. But even where the women live with
their own relatives, they do not gang up to kill other women.29
The difference between female and male friendships is the differ-
ence between caring and cooperation. Women value intimacy in their
same-sex friendships while men are more interested in doing things
with their male friends: hunting cave bears, playing soccer, getting
drunk, robbing a bank or going to war. And the greater the danger
they face together, the more grows the friendship. A study of Viet-
nam veterans found that friendships were most likely to persist
among those who had been in lethal combat together, less among
those who had been in combat but had not experienced the death of
comrades, and least among those who had never been in combat.
Male bonding does indeed win wars. In ancient Greece the Theban
general Epaminondas managed to rout the Spartans in the battle of
Leuktra after forming the core of his army from 500 couples of
lovers. The American army should have done the same in Vietnam!30
When the size of the warring party exceeds the reach of personal
bonds, male bonding must be supplemented by tribalism. We have a
remarkable ability to identify with groups, be it a tribe, nation,
religion or political ideology. As we can create a self-image only by
comparing ourselves with others, we can create group identity only
by comparing our own group with other groups. In this process we
apply the same self-serving biases to the collective that we otherwise
reserve for ourselves. This is the reason why military leaders always
overestimate the chance of victory, often with disastrous results.31
Another self-serving bias is the belief in the righteousness of one’s
cause. Most wars are started by politicians and fought by soldiers
who honestly believe they are the good guys and the others the bad

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 In God’s Image?

guys. This lopsided sense of justice is the strongest motive for war,
so strong that it leads some individuals to sacrifice their lives.
Suicide terrorists are the most familiar example of self-sacrificing
heroism. They almost invariably come from weak nations such as
Chechnya, Palestine and Iraq that are treated like dirt by a powerful
enemy. We fight our wars for fun, but they fight theirs to right a
wrong.
Crashing a hijacked airliner into a building will not exactly
increase the copy number of your genes in future generations.
Therefore we must ask: How could belligerence and heroism persist?
Wouldn’t any pacifist mutant who leaves the fighting to his com-
patriots have an advantage, especially if he stays at home with the
women while the others are risking their lives? The pacifism gene
would rapidly take over. Obviously, that’s not what happened. There
must be something in it for the warrior.
Part of the answer is that in primitive warfare, enemies are raided
and ambushed only when they are grossly outnumbered by the
aggressor. The attackers rarely get killed. Even in today’s wars 90
percent of the victims are non-combatant civilians.32 With all
advantages on the aggressor’s side, attacking an enemy who is
actually not dangerous at all entails only a slight risk. The converse
error, sitting peacefully at home while the enemy prepares his attack,
would be fatal. Therefore our brain evolved to make the less costly
mistake: shoot now, think later. Attack the enemy now, before he
gets the false idea that we are evil and dangerous. We need this bias
to counteract the tendency for wishful thinking that is also wired into
our brains.33
Once the members of a community sense an external threat, even a
minimal one, fear and hate are blown out of proportion by the
primitive mechanism of emotional contagion, aided by rumor
spreading. In our time rumor spreading – about terrorists and
weapons of mass destruction – is the task of the mass media.
But most important for the evolution and maintenance of belli-
gerence and heroism are the benefits that accrue to valiant warriors
in their own community. Males have to show off in order to assert
their status. What better way is there to show off than by killing
enemies? Males also must cooperate. What better way is there to
show cooperativeness than by fighting side by side with one’s com-
rades? Tensions within the community can be defused that way, not
because an aggressive drive needs to be discharged but because

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bonds of friendship and mutual obligation are reinforced by joint

aggression against a common enemy.
Valiant warriors are respected by other men, and women love
those men who are respected by other men. That’s where the good
genes are! The ethnographers of the warlike Yanomamö Indians of
Venezuela found that those who had killed an enemy fathered more
than their fair share of the tribe’s children because they had more
than their fair share of wives. How can a woman ever respect a man
who has never killed an enemy?! This is true even now. The war paint
has been replaced by a uniform and the trophy head by a medal, but
a decorated soldier still makes an attractive mate. As usual, it’s the
women who are at the root of the problem!
According to an old theory, we are as cooperative as we are
because tribes of self-interested antisocials were exterminated by
tribes of warlike cooperators; and perhaps we are as bright as we are
because those with slightly lower IQs ended up in the cooking pots of
those with slightly higher IQs.34 But if this is true, why did chimps
not become human although they fight wars?

Everlasting peace

Everlasting peace is a dream, and not even a pleasant one; and

war is a necessary part of God’s arrangement of the world . . .
without war the world would deteriorate into materialism.
(Helmuth von Moltke)

The rarity of women warriors and the similarity of warfare in

humans and chimpanzees show that war is a biological phenomenon.
How can we hope to overcome this primate heritage in the nuclear
age?
Drugs or genes that prevent cooperation among males would not
be a good idea because civilization is as much a product of male
cooperation as is war. But eliminating male violence without elim-
inating male cooperation should be possible. Reducing the testos-
terone level would be a good starting point. We can also take all
power from the men and try a civilization that is based on female
rather than male cooperation, but we would have to increase female
intelligence to compensate for the lower female desire to show off.
Without such interventions there will always be incentives for war:

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 In God’s Image?

the prestige accruing to the brave soldier, the experience of comra-

deship, and the opportunities for looting and raping. Russian sol-
diers in Afghanistan used to make necklaces from the cut-off ears of
their killed enemies, and American soldiers had their fun with Ira-
quis in the prisons they inherited from Saddam Hussein. On the
other hand, fighting is dangerous and one is bossed around by the
officers.
In some historical settings, for example the raids of the Vikings, all
the incentives were there and they were more than sufficient to offset
the rigors and dangers of the venture. But today’s armies discourage
looting and raping and torturing, taking the fun out of the whole
enterprise. Therefore volunteers are in short supply, and the self-
recruited raiding party of yore had to be replaced by forced levies of
citizens and finally by mercenaries. The ancient Greek and Roman
world went through this sequence, as did Christian Europe.
War is still exciting for armchair patriots, idealists, and the poli-
tical and military leaders, but not for the grunt soldier who does the
dying. It’s the political and military elites, not the nations and armies
led by them, that are the equivalent of the ancient brotherhood of
males. And in an international community with more than 150
nations, it takes only one powerful clique to start a war.
Xenophobic aggression is an individual-difference trait. Only
some people identify strongly with in-groups, and only some of those
turn their allegiance into an aggressive stance toward outsiders.
These people are likely to join the military, a fundamentalist reli-
gious group or a political party. A politician must identify strongly
with his party or political program, or his own idiosyncratic ideas
that he promotes through his party; and to succeed he must translate
his allegiances and convictions into a valiant struggle against his
opponents. Therefore on average, successful politicians are more
cohesive, aggressive and xenophobic than the rest of us. This is the
reason why demonstrations of outraged citizens demanding a war of
aggression are less common than anti-war demonstrations – except
in places where the government succeeds in brainwashing its citizens
through the mass media.
Things are changing, though. War is no longer fun even for the
leaders. Milosevic, Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden had to
duck smart bombs and cruise missiles aimed at their headquarters,
and if America ever gets nuked, the first bomb will be dropped on
Washington, DC before a single soldier dies in the trenches.

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Warfare is reverting to the ancient pattern of hit-and-run attacks.

Overt nuclear attacks in the twenty-first century will be limited to
cases where the victim cannot retaliate. There will also be covert
attacks by governments and by non-governmental organizations
such as Al-Qaeda: bring your nukes into enemy territory or close
enough to it, strike, and make sure nobody can figure out who did it.
If you don’t behave you get nuked. Some governments will have to
learn it the hard way.
Males are fascinated by death and destruction, aren’t they? Poli-
ticians know it. The Roman emperors sponsored gladiatorial con-
tests to ingratiate themselves with the urban masses; and in our
globalized age, American presidents sponsor wars in faraway
countries to secure their re-election. But do we really have to go to
war? Just turn on the TV or shoot down spaceships on the computer
screen! That’s what our civilization is all about: sex without babies,
adventure in the armchair, and violence without the risk of ending
up dead.

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 10
Good and Evil

Since morals, therefore, are meant to have an influence on

the actions and affections, it follows, that they cannot be
deriv’d from reason . . . Morals excite passions, and produce
or prevent actions. Reason of itself is utterly impotent in this
particular. The rules of morality, therefore, are not conclu-
sions of reason.
(Hume, Treatise of Human Nature)

For the theologian, rules of conduct are imposed by God or inherent

in the world order. For the philosopher, they are imposed by people
or inherent in the world order. Both the theologian and the philo-
sopher acknowledge that ‘moral truths’ can be recognized, either by
the right kind of belief or by the right kind of reasoning.
The scientist is not concerned with moral truths. He merely studies
how people form their judgments. He investigates the epidemiology
of moral intuitions, behaviors and philosophies; looks for the rele-
vant brain circuitry; studies precursors and analogues of adult
human morality in children and in other animals; and, of course, he
wonders why it exists in the first place. The scientist studies morality
the way he studies digestion: as a biological phenomenon with its
own history, mechanisms and functions for the organism. At least,
that’s what he ought to do.
The moral philosopher is an object of study for the amoral sci-
entist. Philosophers like to retaliate by claiming that the scientist
cannot be objective because he is always guided by his own moral
intuitions. This is a valid objection. The world is not the way it ought
to be, and scientific research is bound to uncover upsetting truths
from time to time. Being human, and being prone to wishful

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thinking, scientists are tempted to avoid, misinterpret or denigrate

such research. Morality is one of the most powerful impediments in
the scientist’s pursuit of the truth, second in importance only to
stupidity. But this does not invalidate the scientific enterprise. Sci-
entific objectivity is like measurement accuracy. It is never 100 per-
cent, but it can be approached to a satisfactory extent.
Philosophers have a reputation as unpractical people whose
intellectual edifices are pathetically useless in everyday life, whereas
scientists do useful things. But scientists do not create useful pro-
ducts. They only create knowledge. Natural science lays the foun-
dation for engineers who translate scientific knowledge into tools
and toys, and treatments for our illnesses. The science of human
behavior lays the foundation for philosophers who translate its
insights into moral philosophies – at least, that’s what moral phi-
losophers ought to do. Thus science is as much a foundation of moral
philosophy as of engineering.
The scientist’s task is to hypothesize, observe, analyze, and tell the
truth. He is meant to enlighten the moral engineer (and everyone
else) by predicting the consequences of actions such as human
cloning or nuclear war. He can also advise him about the ease with
which moral systems can be adopted by people. For example, a
proposal to consider the dignity of cabbages inviolable while other
humans should be treated as a source of vitamins and minerals may
not appeal to the public because it runs up against evolved food
preferences and altruistic instincts. We cannot engineer moral sen-
timents from scratch.

The birth of conscience

Conscience is not primarily interested in the world where the

wrong is committed, or in the consequences that the wrong will
have for the future course of the world, . . . [but it] trembles for
the individual self and its integrity. (Hannah Arendt, Civil
Disobedience, 1969)

One cognitive requirement for morality has been pointed out by

Hank Davis in an article entitled ‘Theoretical Note on the Moral
Development of Rats’. In his experiments he placed a hungry rat in
front of a dozen pieces of food. The rat would eat one piece after

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another until, when reaching for the fifth piece, a white-coated giant
would scare the wits out of it by clapping his hands right above the
poor beast’s head. After a few experiences like this, the rat would
stop eating after the fourth piece.
This experiment had been designed to test the counting ability of
rats, but Davis went one step further. He repeated the experiment
with a well-trained rat, but left the laboratory right after placing the
rat in front of the food. After the fourth piece the rat rose on its hind
legs, looked around, sniffed the air, and then happily consumed the
rest of the food. Davis’s verdict was merciless: by human standards,
rats are a morally bankrupt species!
The rats had learned a simple rule: eat four food pellets, then stop.
They obeyed the rule to avoid punishment, but ignored it once this
danger had been removed. They failed to internalize the rule. They
acted like people who refrain from stealing when they are likely to
get caught, but do so readily when they are sure they can get away
with it. They had no conscience. They failed to make the transition
from externally imposed rules to internalized standards that Jean
Piaget considered central to moral development.1
The information about the experimenter’s absence that the rats
computed into their decision to eat is spatial and contextual. It is the
kind of information that is processed by the conscious working
memory system and encoded into long-term memory by the hippo-
campus. Therefore the rats’ decision to eat was the rat equivalent of
a conscious moral choice. I should add that Davis’s experiment also
proves that rats are atheists. Disregard for an authority who is
temporarily out of sight is not exactly the foundation on which
religion is built.
Dogs can be more moral than rats. With repeated punishment,
hungry dogs can be trained to refrain from eating a piece of meat.
When left alone with the meat after successful training, well-bred
Shetland Sheepdogs will not touch the meat even in the absence of
the trainer; but Basenjis start eating as soon as the trainer has left the
room.
So don’t be surprised to find that some humans internalize rules
and others don’t. An international meeting of experts on the reha-
bilitation of criminals concluded that ‘treatment’ programs for
sociopathic criminals should be ‘less concerned with attempts to
develop empathy or conscience than with intensive efforts to con-
vince them that their current attitudes and behavior (simply) are not

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in their own self-interest’.2 This is the treatment for Basenjis, not

Shetland Sheepdogs.
The difference between internalizers and non-internalizers lies in
the relationship with the person imposing the rule. In close rela-
tionships, people tend to treat their partner like themselves. Hurting
the partner would be like hurting oneself, and violating his expecta-
tions would be like failing to live up to one’s own standards. Only
individuals (of any species) that are capable of close personal bonds
can equate another’s expectations and standards with their own. And
because humans can identify with the groups to which they belong in
the same way that they identify with loved and valued people, they
can internalize rules that are imposed by the consensus of their group.
Not all rules are imposed from outside. Konrad Lorenz related
how one of his dogs, Bully, accidentally bit Lorenz’s hand when he
tried to break up a dogfight. Even though Lorenz did not reprimand
him and immediately tried to reassure him, Bully was so upset about
his misdeed that he suffered a complete nervous breakdown. For
days he was virtually paralyzed, and uninterested in food. He would
lie on the rug breathing shallowly, an occasional deep sigh coming
from his tormented soul. For weeks Bully remained extremely sub-
dued. Lorenz noted that his dog had never bitten a person before, so
could not have relied on previous experience to decide that he had
done something wrong.3
Dogs need not learn the rule, ‘Never bite your master.’ It is
implicit in the relationship between a dog and its master. For mil-
lions of years a wolf biting the pack leader had to expect grave
consequences, and for the past 10,000 years or so a dog biting its
master was apt to be shot – a very effective way of breeding a master-
bite inhibition into a species.

Shame and guilt

It is needful only to look around us, to see that the greatest

restrainer of the anti-social tendencies of men is fear, not of the
laws but of the opinion of their fellows. (Thomas Huxley,
Evolution and Ethics)

Guilt? It’s this mechanism to control people. It’s an illusion. It’s

a kind of social control mechanism – and it’s very unhealthy. It

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does terrible things to our bodies. And there are much better
ways to control our behavior than . . . guilt. (Ted Bundy)4

The four F’s (feeding, fleeing, fighting and reproduction) are rein-
forced by pleasant feelings that are experienced when the instinctive
action is performed. Lorenz’s dog demonstrates that behavioral
inhibitions on the four F’s are reinforced by unpleasant feelings that
are experienced when a proscribed action has been performed. Not
only instinctive drives but also the inhibitions imposed on them
require emotional reinforcement to guide learning!
When a transgression jeopardizes one’s standing in a dominance
hierarchy, the negative emotion is experienced as shame; and when it
jeopardizes a personal bond it is experienced as guilt. Therefore guilt
is most commonly experienced in close personal relationships,
whereas shame is concerned with one’s standing in the wider com-
munity and one’s self-image.
As children develop the capacity for empathy and guilt, they learn
rules of conduct without external punishment. The negative emo-
tions they experience by disobeying are all the punishment they need.
Parents who are loved by their children can guide them simply by
their emotional responses to the child’s behavior: pride and
approval, or disappointment. Punishment should be reserved for
those children who are impervious to the happiness and dis-
appointment they cause for their parents. Punishment is needed
where love cannot reach. This is the reason why nations need judges
and jailers but families do not.5
The unpleasant emotions that we experience as shame or guilt lead
to adaptive behaviors. The subdued behavior of Lorenz’s dog
appeases the offended boss by signaling submission. In humans,
shame is associated with lowering or aversion of the gaze, a behavior
that signals submission. It also leads to the avoidance of social
contact. This makes sense because shamed individuals are easy tar-
gets of aggression.
Also intense feelings of guilt can lead to social withdrawal – a
sensible response when the detection of an undiscovered misdeed
would entail punishment. However, guilt after lesser transgressions
motivates attempts at undoing the damage and repairing the social
relationship that has been jeopardized by the wrongdoing. Even
chimpanzees sometimes try to make amends after hurting a comrade.

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They seem to be less moral than Lorenz’s dog, though. But what do
you expect? Chimpanzees are not like dogs. They are more like us.6
Not only aggression is reined in by inhibitory controls. Jane
Goodall reported the following anecdote about Goblin, the young
alpha male of the Gombe chimpanzees:

One day, about half-way through her first period of swelling,

Goblin approached Melissa and summoned her with vigorous
shaking of vegetation. She ignored him at first and then, when
he persisted, she threatened him. This seemed to enrage him –
with a scowl he leapt at her and, as she ran off, chased after her
and actually stamped on her back. Melissa was beside herself
with fury and, as Goblin displayed away, she stamped after
him, screaming until I thought she would choke.7

Estrous females do not normally rebuff the alpha male’s sexual

advances, but Melissa had a special reason to be outraged: she was
Goblin’s mother. Goblin’s power as alpha male must have gone to
his head, for ordinarily a male chimpanzee does not show much
sexual interest in his mother. We don’t know whether incestuous
chimps experience anything resembling shame, guilt or remorse.
King Oedipus did, but he was human.
If she were human, Melissa would argue that copulation between
mother and son displeases the gods or violates the natural order of
things. Or she would say that the mother–child relationship is sacred
and should not be defiled by sexual acts. Only a scientist can be
boorish enough to say that a reluctance to copulate with one’s
mother has been wired into the brain because many children of incest
used to die early, so the incestuous genes failed to survive.
People vary in the strength of their inhibitory controls. In Chapter
9 we saw that one of the major value orientations, ‘religiosity and
personal restraint’, is defined by an emphasis on religiousness, obe-
dience, honesty, politeness and self-control. This is the value system
of people with well-developed inhibitory controls and a somewhat
hypertrophied moral sense.
The antisocial types who populate our prisons are at the opposite
end of the bell-shaped distribution for self-control. Think of a psy-
chologist who puts a marshmallow on the table in front of a child.
He tells the child, ‘I am going out for ten minutes. If you don’t eat
this marshmallow, I will give you two when I come back.’ When the

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mothers of children who ate the marshmallow were presented with a

questionnaire about typical habits of their children, they endorsed
statements such as ‘Lets little problems get to him’, ‘Tries to see what
and how much he can get away with’, ‘Worries about not getting his
share of toys, food, or love’, and ‘Teases and picks on other kids’.
Teenagers who prefer immediate rewards in a similar test are more
likely than others to drink, smoke, fail in school and get into fights.
The delayed rewards of moral conduct are stable personal relation-
ships and recognition as a valued member of one’s community. If
you chase after instant gratification rather than working for these
delayed rewards, you are headed for trouble.8
Because moral sentiments are based on the mechanisms of inhi-
bitory control, moralists judge actions by their active or passive
nature. Which of the following is acceptable: keeping an irreversibly
comatose patient artificially alive; pulling the plug of the life support
system; giving him a lethal injection; or killing him with a machete?
For the comatose patient it really doesn’t matter if his body is kept
alive for yet another year or what way he is going to die, but the
doctor would feel bad if he chops off the patient’s head with a
machete. This proposal does indeed activate the emotional parts of
the brain, although pulling the plug of the life support system does
not.9
Also, people could get a bad impression about the doctor’s
character if he chops off the patient’s head with a machete. The brain
pays attention to the actions of others but not their inactions.
Therefore we must avoid attention-grabbing actions with unpopular
consequences, but we need not avoid omissions with equally
unpopular consequences.

The moral community

No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the

continent, a part of the main . . . Any man’s death diminishes
me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send
to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee. (John Donne,
Devotions 17)

Every semester, the anatomists at my school celebrate a touching

memorial service in honor of the anatomy body donors. But why?

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Our anatomists are certainly weird people, but do they really believe
their rite does any good for the cadavers? I would think that once
you are on the anatomist’s dissecting table, it really doesn’t matter
any more. No, they must do it for selfish reasons!
The real reason is that people value the capacity to maintain
lasting bonds of attachment, caring and loyalty. Honoring the dead
is a good advertisement for this capacity. Even respect for the corpse
of a stranger makes a good impression because it shows one’s
membership in the imaginary community that spans the whole
human species.
Through an emotionally charged ceremony, the anatomy pro-
fessors and their students reassure each other that they belong to a
moral community where the intimate emotions of attachment and
caring are extended to every community member. The amoral bio-
chemist who asks what’s in it for the cadavers can only be a
high-Mach who treats human relations as a matter of cost–benefit
calculation, rather than something that should be cultivated for its
own sake! Ritual is important not only for anatomists but for other
primitive tribes as well. It confirms group membership and reinforces
shared beliefs and a shared value system, as it does in the Holy
Communion of the Christians.
When I told my friend from Mars that according to the Pope
humans have an immortal soul but other animals don’t,10 he asked:

‘Does this mean you should not kill pigs but killing humans is
okay?’
‘Why that?’
‘When you kill a pig, the pig is dead. That’s bad. But when
you kill a human, his soul continues to exist. You are not guilty
of destroying a life. Therefore your Pope’s teaching implies that
killing a human is okay.’

I had to explain to my friend that humans do not really consider

killing a bad thing. I told him that many politicians and teenage boys
are fascinated by military technology because they like killing as
many people as possible without risking their own lives. They only
consider it bad to kill their own people. Therefore they have to mark
their own kind as different from everyone else. People wear their
immortal soul the way the soldier wears his uniform: to distinguish
themselves from those who can be killed with impunity.

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The flip side of the moral community is the need to defend one’s
shared values and beliefs against internal and external enemies. Once
upon a time the Christian faith was the ethical foundation of Wes-
tern societies. Beliefs that contradict God’s word, for example that
the Earth revolves around the sun, were therefore an abomination. If
you embrace such ideas you deserve to be burned alive because you
undermine the moral foundation on which society and all human
relations are built!
Likewise, in the post-Auschwitz, post-Hiroshima era of the late
twentieth century, an insistence on the moral equality of all human
beings became a top priority. But humans do not normally extend
fairness and concern to poor suckers, although they respect those
whom they recognize as their equals. In order to uphold the moral
claim that people of all races and nations deserve respect, fairness
and humanitarian concern, it was mandatory to uphold the factual
claim that they are equal in ability and character. Therefore research
on genetic differences in ability and character between ethnic and
racial groups undermines the moral order and should be outlawed.

Freedom and dignity

The dignity of man is not a scientific concept. (J.C. Greene,

Darwin and the Modern World View)

Each member of the moral community is considered equally worthy

of attention, respect and care. This is the egalitarian ethos of the
small group on which the primitive communism of simple hunter-
gatherers is founded. Equal access to the material and emotional
resources of the community minimizes envy, and it reassures us in
our most fundamental need: the need to belong.
As hunter-gatherer bands gave way to tribes, tribes gave way to
states and states to empires, the egalitarian ethos succumbed to two
enemies: a political leadership that creates inequalities in power, and
a commercial exchange system that creates inequalities in wealth.
Democracy is an attempt to restore the egalitarian ethos by controls
on those in power, and by guaranteeing civil rights for every citizen;
and socialism is an attempt to restore it by mitigating the inequalities
in wealth that are created by commercial exchange.
Primitive societies value both freedom and equality as tokens of

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group membership. This link was rediscovered at the time of the

French revolution when those who valued equality and community
came to value freedom as well: Liberte´, Egalite´, Fraternite´! But today
freedom is no longer seen as a token of group membership. For us
freedom is the right of the individual to pursue sex and money
without outside interference, and it includes the right of the strong to
take advantage of the weak. Therefore freedom and equality are
incompatible. Since the rules of the game are made by the strong,
wealthy and successful members of society, modern consumer
societies are invariably democratic, libertarian and inegalitarian.
This emphasis on freedom creates the principle of autonomy: an
opposition to any interference in other people’s affairs. Prohibiting
homosexuality, human cloning, alcohol and marijuana is bad, and
taking from the rich to give to the poor is also bad because it violates
the autonomy of the rich. Autonomy is the harakiri of moral phi-
losophy because it implies that people are free to choose the moral
principles that suit them. Today moral philosophies are judged by
the same criterion as other consumer goods: customer satisfaction.
With freedom devalued and equality abandoned, human dignity
had to take their place as a token of group membership. Dignity
used to refer to attributes, rights and obligations that go with
membership in a select group. A dignitary’s dignity is a function of
his office and position in society. It is undignified for a boy to cry,
and menial work is below the dignity of an aristocrat. The aristocrat
has the right to an aristocratic lifestyle, and you don’t let the Queen
live in a suburban flat.
Dignity means conformity to the standards of one’s social group:
noblesse oblige. The modern concept of professionalism comes close
to this traditional meaning of dignity: living up to the standards of
one’s profession. The captain of the Titanic who sank with his ship
was a paragon of dignity as well as professionalism, as were the
musicians who played to the end.
Modern thinkers managed to stretch this element of old-fashioned
in-group chauvinism into the concept of human dignity and human
rights. Now mankind at large is understood as the in-group whose
members have certain rights – forget about the duties – by virtue of
their species membership.
I tested your understanding of this point in Chapter 7 when I
wrote that on the Caribbean island of Dominica a woman ‘will come
in heat when she is physically ready for her next pregnancy’. This

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description does not only imply a low mate value. As a good species
chauvinist you will object above all that I liken Dominican women to
dogs and other ‘subhuman’ species.

Authority

If you love me, obey my commandments. (John 14,15)

The Bible relates how Abraham proved his worth by obeying God’s
command to sacrifice his only son. This unconditional obedience to
authority has fallen into disrepute lately, and for good reasons. Sure
enough, loyalty to a legitimate government and respect for laws are
hard to avoid, and few moralists can find fault with this. But herding
innocent victims into gas chambers or dropping atomic bombs on
unsuspecting civilians because one has been ordered to do so is
something else. These are cases where the conflict between obedience
to authority and other moral values is more blatant than usual.
One of those who were appalled by these experiences of World
War II was Stanley Milgram of Yale University. He decided to study
obedience at close quarters, in the psychology lab at Yale.11 And so
he advertised for experimental subjects in local newspapers, osten-
sibly for participation in a learning experiment. In the lab, the
subject was introduced to a man who said he was also recruited by
an advertisement but who was actually a confederate of the
experimenter.
The subject was shown an impressive-looking shock generator
with a voltage range from 15 to 450 volts. Next to the voltage, the
scale showed, from left to right: Slight shock – Moderate shock –
Strong shock – Very strong shock – Intense shock – Extreme
intensity shock – Danger: Severe shock. Two switches after this last
designation were simply marked XXX. The effect of the shock
generator was demonstrated to the subject by a sample shock of 45
volts applied to his wrist.
The subject was told that he was the teacher and the other par-
ticipant was the learner. The learner was strapped down in a chair,
with the electrode wrapped around his wrist. The subject had to
teach the learner word pairs and punish him for every wrong answer,
starting with 15 volts and increasing the shock intensity in incre-
ments of 15 volts.

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 In God’s Image?

In the first experiments the learner was placed in a different room,

but it turned out that without feedback from the learner virtually
everyone went to the highest voltage. Therefore Milgram brought
the victim close to the subject and used a standardized sequence of
responses from the victim: there were no signs of discomfort up to 60
volts; grunts of increasing intensity from 75 to 105 volts; at 120 volts
the subject shouted that the shocks were becoming painful. At 150
volts, the victim cried, ‘Experimenter, get me out here! I won’t be in
the experiment any more! I refuse to go on!’ By 270 volts, the vic-
tim’s response was an agonized scream. At 300 volts the victim
shouted in desperation that he would no longer provide answers to
the memory test. At this point the experimenter instructed the sub-
ject to treat no answer as a wrong answer, and to shock the learner
on the usual schedule.
Whenever the subject wanted to terminate the experiment, the
experimenter used a standard sequence of prods: ‘Please, continue.’ –
‘The experiment requires that you continue.’ – ‘It is absolutely
essential that you continue.’ – ‘You have no other choice, you must
go on.’ The experiment was terminated when either the highest vol-
tage was reached or the subject refused to continue after the last prod.
With only vocal feedback from the victim in a neighboring room,
25 out of 40 subjects went to the highest voltage; when the victim was
strapped down in the same room, a few feet away from the subject,
16 out of 40 went to the highest voltage; and when the subject had to
place the victim’s hand on a shock plate before administering the
shock, only 12 out of 40 obeyed to the end.
The physical presence of the experimenter was important. When
the experimenter left the room after giving the initial instructions
and then gave his orders over the phone, total obedience dropped
from 26 in 40 to 9 in 40. Does this remind you of Davis’s rats?
Now you may think that Milgram’s subjects were sadists who got
a kick out of the experiment. That this was not the case could be
demonstrated by letting the subject choose the shock intensity. In
this situation a large majority of the subjects never went beyond 90
volts. There were only two sadists in the sample of 40 men who went
to shock intensities of 375 and 450 volts, respectively. That’s the
right stuff for concentration camp guards!
People obey either out of fear, or out of love. Legitimate authority
is based on a personal bond or shared group membership. The child
obeys the parents because it loves them; the law not only demands

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obedience but protects the citizen in return; and the soldier who
drops nukes on civilians or chases undesirables into gas chambers
takes part in an enterprise with a higher purpose – although not
every soldier believes in the higher purpose.
But for Milgram’s subjects there was no personal bond, no shared
identity and no common purpose to justify their obedience, nor was
there a risk of punishment. Their obedience was a reflex. This is the
banality of evil: that it is done automatically, without good reason,
without conviction and, often enough, without satisfying any emo-
tional need.

Quid pro quo

A man ought to be a friend to his friends and repay gift with

gift. People should meet smiles with smiles and lies with
treachery. (The Edda)

Reciprocity seems less problematic than obedience. Social exchange

relationships are based on fairness and trust, and they are, in essence,
interactions between equals. And unlike obedience, they benefit both
partners: I pay you a kickback, and you give me a building permit.
Are you really sure that cooperation for mutual benefit is always
better than obedience to authority?
Cooperation requires the punishment or ostracism of cheaters.
But because all people sometimes do weird things that are out of
tune with their character, we also need forgiveness.
Forgiveness must be used sparingly, though, lest it be taken for
granted. We should not heed Jesus’s demand to forgive seven times
70 times. According to the philosopher Michael Ruse, ‘complacency
letting a bad act occur four-hundred and ninety times borders on the
criminally irresponsible. We ought to put a stop to such an appalling
state of affairs’.12
In classical tit-for-tat, cooperation is contingent on the partner’s
previous move, but real people have longer memories. They take
their partner’s whole history into account, in his interactions with
them as well as with others. In other words, they judge his character.
This works best in places where everyone knows everyone else. When

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driving to work, I often take riders in the back of my pickup. Last

time I left my car in the auto repair shop, a car stopped by my side
when I was walking the half-mile from the repair shop to the school,
offering me a ride. On the way the driver said, ‘I know you. You like
to give people ride.’ This assessment of another’s ‘deservingness’ is
called indirect reciprocity or generalized reciprocity.13
Those who do little favors to others because it is in their nature to
be nice are called altruistic, and those who do the same because they
expect a favor in return are called selfish. We like those who are
guided by social emotions because their behavior is predictable, but
we dislike the cost–benefit thinking of the high-Mach. In personal
relationships, intelligence is a concealed weapon that makes us
feel secure but is rarely used. In Chapter 7 I proposed to subject
prospective marriage partners to genetic screening and to paternity-
test every newborn. These ideas do not sound right because they
involve personal relationships where people are supposed to be
guided by love, trust and self-deception rather than statistical base
rates.
Our distrust of rationality is not arbitrary. There are personality
tests that measure ‘agreeableness’ with questionnaire items such as ‘I
couldn’t deceive anyone even if I wanted to’ or ‘We can never do too
much for the poor and elderly.’ Other tests measure the extent to
which people rely on feeling or thinking. They contain items such as
‘Which rules you more: your head or your heart?’ or ‘Are you more
drawn toward the convincing or the touching?’ Sure enough, most of
those who rely on feeling rather than thinking score high on the test
for agreeableness.
Even the use of sophisticated technology by aloof technocrat-
physicians causes misgivings in many people because the treatment
of the sick should be guided by love and compassion, not cold cal-
culus. Our ancestors must have felt the way we feel about impersonal
high-tech medicine when commercial exchange first appeared thou-
sands of years ago. Before that time the exchange of goods and
services was not a purely utilitarian act but also confirmed bonds of
kinship, friendship or bondage.14
But we have long left the Stone Age. We live in a thoroughly
artificial world whose opportunities we cannot use and whose dan-
gers we cannot evade unless we apply cold reason even in those
domains where feelings are supposed to reign. This is not a world for
the fainthearted and the feebleminded! Luckily we can split the

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emotional and cognitive tracks to a remarkable extent. Our ancestors

got used to commerce, and we are getting used to high-tech medicine.
Not all kinds of commercial exchange are considered permissible.
Buying a house is unproblematic. Paying a doctor or a lawyer is also
acceptable, although some people believe that medical treatment and
legal process should be available to everyone independent of his
ability to pay. But is it acceptable to buy adoption rights on a baby
auction? Or pay somebody to serve a prison term one has been
sentenced to? Or to sell a kidney? Most people consider such deals
immoral – but why?
Taboo trade-offs infringe on human bonds or tokens of group
membership. You don’t buy a child even if a baby auction would
ensure that the children are placed in the most suitable families. A
parent–child relationship is not supposed to be a matter of rational
consumer choice! Prostitution is considered immoral for the same
kind of reason. Where every citizen is equally subjected to the law,
your status as a citizen would itself be in question if you bypass the
law by paying someone to serve your prison term. And every society
guarantees its members protection from bodily harm. A society that
puts some of its members into a position where they have to sell
body parts to the highest bidder is defunct!
We must take this moral stance because we must live up to our
commitments. We must convince our spouse that we will be faithful
no matter how great the temptation, and we must convince our
friends, associates and superiors that we are loyal to them no matter
what.15
While I am writing this Osama bin Laden has been in hiding for
more than five years, no doubt surrounded by a small group of faithful
friends. The American government has put $25 million on his head,
but so far nobody has sold him out. This shows the moral superiority
of bin Laden’s friends over the Americans. Or do you think that
selling one’s friends to their enemies is an acceptable practice?
And is it acceptable to solicit treason and murder with a cash
reward? Any person, organization or government that engages in
such a practice is morally bankrupt. The Nazis put a reward on
Einstein’s head, and the Iranian government on Salman Rushdie’s.
People who engage in such practices – or merely condone them –
cannot be trusted. If you sell your friends to the Americans there is a
high likelihood they will not pay you out, but kill you instead and
claim your death as yet another victory in the war on terror!

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However, aside from human relations and people’s commitment

to the moral order, everything can be bought and everything has to
be paid for, and people like it that way. In the United States, those at
the 90th percentile of the income distribution earn five times more
than those at the 10th percentile. However, when asked what groups
in their country they perceive as advantaged or disadvantaged, most
people rate the poor as more advantaged than the rich.16
People find comfort in the belief that ability and effort earn their
rewards, and deviance and sloth are self-defeating. Whereas enti-
tlements come from group membership or one’s position in society,
deservingness comes from one’s own effort. In a just world, the poor
deserve their poverty because they are lazy, careless or stupid. People
get heart attacks because they eat too much fat and lung cancer
because they smoke, and women get raped because they themselves
provoked the assault. Victims are blamed for their misfortunes, and
we maintain a clean conscience by convincing ourselves that our own
victims do not deserve better.
Back in the 1960s and 1970s, Melvin Lerner showed this effect in
his laboratory at the University of Kentucky. In a classical experi-
ment, the student subjects were instructed to watch a ‘learning
experiment’ that was taking place in another room, and to analyze
the emotional cues of the experimental subject. They witnessed how
the subject, ostensibly a fellow student who had signed up for the
experiment as part of her course credit, was told that she was doing
the ‘negative reinforcement’ condition. The victim was strapped into
the chair, an electrode was fastened to her wrist, and after every
wrong answer in the learning test she was given a strong electrical
shock. Of course it was all staged, but the student subjects believed
that they were observing a real experiment.
After observing this ‘experiment’, the subjects had to fill a ques-
tionnaire about their impressions of the victim: was she intelligent or
unintelligent, friendly or unfriendly, mature or immature, and the
like. When the students believed that the victim would earn money in
the ‘positive reinforcement’ condition after having to endure the
shocks, the evaluations were not too bad. If they believed that she
would be shocked again, they were worse. And in a ‘martyr’ con-
dition where the victim volunteered for the negative reinforcement
condition to benefit a squeamish peer, the evaluations were worst of
all.
In this experiment the subjects could do nothing to help the victim.

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Nor could they attribute the victim’s misfortune to her misconduct.

So they did the next best thing: derogate the victim. If she did not do
anything in particular to deserve her fate, at least she is the kind of
person who deserves it! Thus they maintained the illusion that the
world is a just and predictable place where virtue is rewarded and
vice is punished.17
Or could there be a simpler explanation? The victims of mis-
fortune are weak and helpless. They are at the bottom of the dom-
inance hierarchy, at least temporarily. They are the kind of people
who can be despised, mistreated or exploited with impunity. And
someone who volunteers for this role must be extra stupid!
This may be so, but the belief in a just world does seem to be a
form of wishful thinking that satisfies a fundamental human need.18
Out of the desire for a just world order, the leading minds of the pre-
modern world developed the religious idea of retribution in the
afterlife. Muslims and Christians believe in the divine judge who
sends the defendants to heaven or hell; and Hindus and Buddhists
believe in the impersonal and therefore less capricious law of karma,
which determines one’s fate in future incarnations according to the
balance of one’s virtues and vices, joys and sorrows in this life.
The intellectuals of the late twentieth century were too bright to
profess a belief in a just world where everyone gets what he deserves
and bad things never happen to good people. Nor could they believe
in divine justice. And so they had to fall back on a more defensible
position. Yes, the world is full of injustices and inequalities. But no,
people are not born unequal. They are made that way! That people
are born with unequal genes for hair color and skin color is accep-
table, but that they are born with unequal genes for intelligence and
for all those other character traits that make for success in the
struggle for sex and money cannot be true! Mother Nature cannot be
so unjust as to condemn some individuals, and perhaps even whole
nations and races, to a marginal existence by giving them crappy
genes!
To make matters worse, everyone knows that intellectuals are
addicted to wishful thinking. Therefore everyone assumes that those
who believe that Mother Nature is unjust hold this belief because
they like injustice. Therefore it became mandatory for every career-
conscious academic to profess a belief in genetic equality. Morality is
always accompanied by her ugly sister, hypocrisy. Did I mention
somewhere that morality is an impediment to scientific progress?

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Rules, rules, rules

What is morality in any given time or place? It is what the

majority then and there happen to like, and immorality is what
they dislike. (Alfred North Whitehead, Dialogues, 1954)

I have no hope of meeting a truly virtuous and benevolent

person. To meet someone who has mastered constancy would
be enough. But constancy is impossible if you imagine yourself
having when you have not, full when you are empty, prosperous
when you are destitute. (Confucius, Analects VII,26)

According to the primatologist Hans Kummer,

as a member of a group, a human can be too tricky for his own

good. He becomes less predictable to the others, and a person –
or any other being – whose behavior cannot be predicted is
dangerous, not only if he is an enemy or competitor, but even as
a collaborator and friend. The fundamental disadvantage of
group life is competition, and its fundamental advantage is
cooperation. To succeed, cooperation requires that each parti-
cipant be able to predict the other’s actions.19

As individuals we ought to make ourselves predictable for our

partners by being truthful: tell the truth, and show our true feelings.
As a society we ought to standardize our behavior by adopting
universal rules of conduct. The sexual domain, for example, is a
minefield. You can easily lose a valuable mate by trampling on your
partner’s feelings, and an enraged husband with underdeveloped
inhibitory controls can reduce your life expectancy considerably.
Therefore it is mandatory to plant the sexual landscape thickly with
moral signposts.
But moral injunctions tend to encroach on behaviors that do no
damage at all, such as contraception, masturbation, homosexuality,
and copulation in unusual positions. Homosexuals make an easy
target because they can be fitted on the us-and-them template. Thus
the moralist creates an out-group whose members can be despised
and mistreated. That’s good for his self-esteem. But a more general
reason for gratuitous rules is, simply, that people feel more com-
fortable when others do what everyone does.

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Some of the more arbitrary rules have been dropped lately. One
reason for shooting down the old rules is that affluent societies are
held together by the joint pursuit of happiness, and restrictive rules
would interfere with pleasure-seeking. This does not sit well with
traditional morality. Gluttony, for example, is one of the seven
deadly sins. But if suddenly all people would abjure gluttony, what
would happen to restaurants and the sellers of diet plans? Greed is
another deadly sin, but what would happen to our economy if a
terrorist released an airborne drug into the atmosphere that elim-
inates greed?
Conformity is omnipresent. When accompanying a friend to a Ku
Klux Klan meeting, better hold back with your left-wing socialist
ideas, lest you end up with a black eye that makes you wonder
if moralistic aggression has something to do with group norms and
in-group–out-group distinctions. You can examine the same phen-
omenon by going to church naked next Sunday – unless you
attend service at a nudist camp. In that case you had better be naked,
or else . . . If only a few do it, it’s a crime; if everyone does it, it’s
an inalienable right.
Convention is not the same as morality. Even children know the
difference. When asked if it would be right to call the teacher by her
first name if everyone approves of it, they say, yes; but when asked if
it is okay for a child to push another child from the top of a slide
even if everyone agrees that it is right to do so, they say no, it’s still
wrong; and when asked if it is right to eat one’s dog for supper if
everyone agrees it is right, they say no.20
Sometimes the distinction simply depends on the degree to which a
rule is entrenched in the local culture. In other cases people seem to
use empathy, effectively applying the Golden Rule: ‘And as ye would
that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise’ (Luke 6:31).
This implies that moral transgressions are apt to cause guilt, whereas
conventional transgressions are followed by shame. How would you
feel, going to church naked?
Another possibility is that there are hard-wired brain circuits to
inhibit actions such as pushing another child, copulating with one’s
mother, biting one’s master or eating a family member, but none that
would prevent children from calling their teacher by her first name.
This distinction is fuzzy because few if any brain circuits are totally
hard-wired or totally arbitrary. We are merely pre-programmed to
learn certain things more easily than others. Therefore the distinction

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between morality and convention is as fuzzy as that between nature

and nurture.
Perhaps Davis’s rats are not that amoral after all. Perhaps they
used an advanced, ‘postconventional’ type of reasoning to distin-
guish between learned rules and moral principles.21 To refrain from
eating more than four food pellets is an arbitrary rule that is valid
only in the context in which it has been learned, but to refrain from
eating one’s pups, that’s morality! Conventional rules can be inter-
nalized, but moral rules are internal to begin with.

The Good Samaritan

How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently

some principles in his nature which interest him in the fortune
of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though
he derives nothing from it except the pleasure of seeing it.
(Adam Smith, A Theory of Moral Sentiments)

Norms and conventions that are based on social dominance justify

class privileges and dictatorial rule; those based on reciprocity assert
the worth of the rich and the worthlessness of the poor; equality is
invoked to demand the right to a parasitic lifestyle; and freedom is
invariably abused by the strong to exploit the weak. Compassion,
however, is beyond reproach, isn’t it?
On the Caribbean island of Dominica there lives a middle-aged
white lady in a small house about half a mile from the nearest village.
When you approach her house, you are soon surrounded by a whole
army of scraggly cats. The cats are there because the lady loves little
kittens. When one of her cats is pregnant, she takes her into the
house and prepares a drawer of her kitchen dresser for her and the
kittens. She feeds and protects the kittens in her house until they are
old enough to fend for themselves.
The trouble is that she cannot take care of all the adult cats. She
has only a vague idea about the kind of food and the amount of food
they need, and the animals are plagued by diseases and malnutrition.
When I suggested having all the females sterilized, I met with the
greatest indignation. How could I propose such a wicked thing,
depriving her cats of the joys of motherhood?!
This lady created a Malthusian nightmare, but her motives are

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praiseworthy. She shows genuine concern for the welfare of those

who need her most, and her respect for the reproductive choices of
her cats is truly exemplary. To assess the needs of her animals she
uses cognitive perspective-taking: the ability to put oneself in ano-
ther’s shoes. Perspective-taking can guide altruistic actions, but on
its own it does not motivate them. The sadistic father who kills his
daughter’s pet rabbit in front of her eyes acts as he does exactly
because he knows about her emotions.
True empathy arises when cognitive perspective-taking links up
with emotional contagion: the social reflex that makes us feel happy
in the presence of happy people, panicked in a panicking crowd, and
distressed at the sight of a suffering person. Emotional contagion is
primitive, but perspective-taking is limited to intellectual giants.
Therefore empathy-guided altruistic acts such as helping and con-
solation are rare in monkeys and in children less than one year of age,
but common in children older than one year and in chimpanzees.22
The response of the empathically aroused human robot to another
human robot’s distress involves two decisions. The first is: Is the
distressed person important or not? If not, the natural response is to
minimize one’s distress by turning away. When the film clips about
the victims of starvation, war and genocide on the evening news
make you queasy, simply switch the channel!
If the distressed person is important, the brain must decide whe-
ther it is a friend or an enemy. If it is an enemy, the decision-making
module turns on the circuits for pleasure and aggression. Tender
feelings are recruited and help or consolation is offered only when
the distressed person is a relative, ally or friend. This response is not
driven by a need to reduce one’s own aversive state. It is an act of
caring that carries its own emotional rewards.
And why did natural selection arrange this group marriage
between emotional contagion, perspective-taking and care? Robert
Trivers suggested that compassion evolved because helping someone
in dire straits produces more gratitude than helping someone who
doesn’t really need help. But wouldn’t it be counterproductive to
help exactly those who are least able to reciprocate? More likely,
compassion is a piece of kin-selected altruism that first evolved in
mothers. Outside the family, its only function is to earn a good
reputation for indirect reciprocity.
This does not mean that all acts of compassion and loving care are
performed out of hypocrisy. The lady with the cats shows this quite

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clearly. And yet, she only produced misery. She solves the dilemma
of allotting her limited emotional and material resources by helping
baby animals rather than adults, presumably because baby animals
are closer to the cute schema than are the adults. Compassion is
unfair. It discriminates against the unloveable.
In Darwin’s words, in group-living animals, ‘sympathy is directed
solely towards members of the same community, and therefore
towards known, and more or less loved members, but not to all the
individuals of the same species’. Being driven by love, raw compas-
sion is partial. It cannot support a system of justice for everyone but is
a recipe for favoritism and nepotism. A business executive may retain
an ineffective employee out of compassion, hurting both the company
and the customers, and a politician may give administrative posts to
his needy friends rather than to those best qualified to serve the
public. People are more compassionate with their own children than
with other people’s children, and they help a distressed friend while
turning their backs on a stranger; and aid to the victims of war and
famine depends on how the misery is presented by the mass media.23
Compassion is stimulus-bound. When Milgram pitted obedience
against compassion, his subjects objected only when they were close
to the screaming victim. Bomber pilots drop their bombs without
compunction because they are never confronted with the mayhem
they create; and in civilian life we keep compassion in bounds by
pushing the misery out of sight, locking it up in hospitals, prisons
and nursing homes.
The lady with the cats shows that raw compassion is nearsighted.
No doubt she is a little feebleminded, but her approach has a dis-
tinctly Christian touch. The Good Samaritan of the gospel did not
fight crime. He only helped the crime victim. And what about
Mother Teresa’s work in the slums of Calcutta? Did she really reduce
human suffering? Or did she merely permit starving children to
survive and live miserable lives and produce a new set of starving
children? Compassion was not designed by Mother Nature to make
the world a better place.
When the lady objected that sterilizing her cats would deprive
them of the joys of motherhood, she simply projected her own
human emotions into her cats. It never crossed her mind that
motherhood could have a different meaning for a cat than for her-
self. For perspective-taking and empathy one has to model the
other’s thoughts and feelings in one’s own mind. This works best

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with people who are similar to oneself, less well with cats and with
psychotic or retarded people, and very poorly with Martians.

Moral feelings, moral thoughts

Our moral reasoning works like a lawyer seeking evidence, not

like a judge seeking truth. We make up justifications post hoc,
which we present as if they were the causal reasons that led to
our initial judgment. (Jonathan Haidt)24

In Chapter 4 we saw that reason and emotion inhibit each other

because emotion is used for quick-and-dirty choices while reason is
used for strategic planning. Therefore we must expect that strong
emotions inhibit moral reasoning. In one study, teenagers were pre-
sented with abstract moral dilemmas and with dilemmas about sexual
relations. Their reasoning about these dilemmas was scored according
to its stage. Stages of moral reasoning are defined by its complexity:
how many points of view are considered, and how the effects of an
action on different people and on the social order are taken into
account. Both male and female teenagers scored lower on the sexual
than the non-sexual dilemmas. The experimenters concluded that ‘the
affective involvement of the adolescent with sex depresses his ability to
reason at a level comparable to that shown on more abstract issues’.25
If compassion suppresses moral reasoning the way sex does, then
we are either warm-hearted and do nice but stupid things the way the
lady with the cats does, or we are cold-blooded and do selfish things
intelligently. That’s unfair! It gives bad people an advantage over
nice people!
Compassion does not always lead to bad results. The outstanding
examples are people who rescued Jews in Nazi-occupied Europe,
risking their lives to shelter them in their homes or bring them out of
the occupied territories. What was it that impelled them to such
dangerous actions?
It was not the hope of material gain. There were no rewards, only
grave risks. Nor was it the desire for social recognition. Many of the
rescuers were actually reprimanded for their irresponsible actions,
risking their lives and the lives of family members to help strangers.
They were not driven by religion or ideology either. Some of them
were politically active and some were religious, but they did not

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undertake their activities as members of a political or religious

group. They did not describe their actions as patriotic or political.
And, despite the horrors of war, not one of the non-German rescuers
made anti-German statements.
Virtually all the rescuers insisted that they simply did what they
had to do. One of them, a German-Czech man by the name of Otto,
was sent to concentration camps for helping Jews, and even as a
prisoner he struck deals with guards to continue his rescue activities.
When asked about the moral principles that made him do all this, he
said, ‘I never made a moral decision to rescue Jews. I just got mad. I
felt I had to do it. I came across many things that demanded my
compassion . . . Every other person is basically you. Gradually, by
opening your eyes, you see that . . . everyone is you’.26
Otto and the other rescuers saw their activities not as a prescribed
duty but as the essence of being human. It defined their identity, not
as happiness-maximizing individualists but as members of the moral
community that includes all human beings. Moral choices are not
rational but intuitive in nature. People as simple and honest as Otto
accept their intuitions at face value, but philosophers rationalize and
systematize theirs into impressive intellectual edifices. At bottom,
however, judgments of right and wrong are gut feelings, more akin to
aesthetic judgments than to factual ones.
Reason can still make a difference because it allows us to predict
the effects that our actions have on us and on others. To give an
example, do you like the idea of transplanting organs from geneti-
cally engineered pigs to humans? Perhaps you don’t, and your ‘yuk’
response makes you judge such a practice unethical. But now put
yourself in the place of a patient who is going to die unless he gets a
pig heart. You will revise your original judgment if and only if the
intuitions aroused by this mental model outcompete the original yuk
response. If you are disgust-prone you are likely to stick with the yuk
response; and if you are empathy-prone you will give the poor
wretch the heart – unless you empathize with the pig.
There are two levels of moral judgment. Level 1 judgments are
direct responses to external stimuli, such as the presence of helpless
puppies and kittens; or they are responses to the mental repre-
sentation of one’s own intended action, such as biting one’s master.
This level of moral judgment is shared between humans and other
large-brained animals. Level 2 judgments depend on the mental
representation of anticipated outcomes. They require a level of

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intelligence that is achieved only by some humans. Thus the differ-

ence between humans and other animals lies not in the capacity for
moral choice, but in the nature of the mental models that provide the
inputs for the motivational systems making the choice.
The intuitive nature of moral judgments means that people make
quick judgments but have difficulty coming up with reasons for
them. This has been called moral dumbfounding.27 Therefore the
best way of teaching ethics is to present one’s victim with an out-
rageous proposal and let him figure out why he finds it so out-
rageous. I do that all the time.
Another implication is that moral debates are a waste of time.
Since moral judgments are produced by strong emotions, such
debates are bound to lead to confrontation rather than persuasion.
Therefore the value relativism that is implied in the principle of
autonomy is not such a bad thing after all!
The most important conclusion, however, is this: all moralists are
liars. Most are simply hypocrites who seek a moral reputation but
avoid paying the price of moral conduct whenever they can get away
with it. In the psychology lab, most subjects happily cheat while
pretending to be fair.28 However, with few exceptions – Otto, for
example – even serious moralists do not tell the truth. They cannot.
The sources of moral judgments are cognitively impenetrable, and
therefore the moralist has to make up arguments that have precious
little to do with the real reasons for his convictions. The hypocrite
deceives only others. The serious moralist deceives both others and
himself.

High-Mach moralists

If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing

evil deeds and it were necessary only to separate them from the
rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil
cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is
willing to destroy a piece of his own heart? (Aleksandr
Solzhenitsyn)

After my devastating critique of compassion, you may be languish-

ing for an alternative that is more appropriate to the dignity of an
intelligent species. What about this one:

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Whether the other nations live in prosperity or whether they

perish interests me only insofar as we need them as slaves for
our culture. Whether or not ten thousand Russian women drop
from exhaustion when digging an anti-tank ditch concerns me
only to the extent that the ditch gets finished for Germany. We
will never be crude and heartless without need. That’s clear.
We Germans, as the only ones in the world with a decent
attitude toward animals, will take a decent stance toward these
human animals as well. But it is a crime against our own blood
to care for them and bring them values, so that our sons and
grandsons might have even more problems with them . . . Most
of you know what it means when hundred dead bodies are lying
together, or five hundred, or even a thousand. Having gone
through this and – aside from exceptions of human weakness –
having remained decent, that’s what made us hard. This is a
never written and never to be written page of honor in our
history.29

So spoke Heinrich Himmler, in a speech delivered to SS officers in

the Polish town of Posen in 1943. Himmler was keenly aware that
compassion is a powerful motive, but he explicitly rejected it as a
guide to moral action. We saw that morality emerges from the
inhibition of inappropriate impulses, such as biting one’s master,
copulating with one’s mother or going to church naked. According
to Himmler, compassion also ought to be suppressed when it
interferes with moral action. Resisting it is virtuous, and yielding to
it – aside from ‘exceptions of human weakness’ – is shameful.
Himmler knew what the lady with the cats does not know: that
unthinking goodness can lead to misery. It has to be suppressed for
the benefit of ‘our sons and grandsons’. Daughters and grand-
daughters didn’t seem to count for him. This is not the primitive level
1 morality of the lady with the cats. Any chimpanzee can dote on
little kittens or be nauseated by a heap of dead bodies. Only some
humans can control these impulses for the benefit of ‘sons and
grandsons’ because only they can create in their minds an image of
the world in which their sons and grandsons are going to live.
In Chapter 5 we saw that humanitarians – the kind of people who
extend the habits of kin-selected love beyond the narrow circle of
family and friends – do not usually support measures that benefit
future generations at the expense of people living now. Himmler

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shows us an easier way to transgenerational altruism: group identity,

or ethnocentrism. Kin-selected love requires a real or imagined
personal bond, but solidarity with one’s group can be extended to
everyone who is perceived as a group member, even ‘sons and
grandsons’.
Himmler was no sociopath who discounted the distant con-
sequences of his actions in favor of immediate gain. On the contrary,
he discounted not the future but the present. He imposed suffering
here and now for the prospect of a distant paradise. He valued
decency and honor, and was as attached to ‘our culture’ and his
people’s sons and grandsons as others are to their closest friends – or
to little kittens. Whatever standard we apply, Himmler was not less
but more moral than the rest of us.
Are you getting my point? High morality is not something we
should aim at, but something we must guard against. Petty evil is
done out of selfishness, but the greatest evils known to history have
been committed by high-spirited idealists. Morality is the fuzzy
emotional stuff that gives us bizarre ideas and makes us do weird
things.
Himmler’s world was sharply divided between in-group and out-
group, with members of the in-group marked by distinguishing traits
such as a decent attitude to animals. This is the kind of thinking that
produced the concept of dignity. We understand human dignity as
something that sets us apart from other animal species, but Himmler
drew the line somewhere else. He did not subscribe to modern species
chauvinism but to the old-fashioned kind, the kind that pitted nation
against nation.
This mindset entails the glorification of war, and it is the foun-
dation of any revolutionary ethic. Whatever the ultimate aim, be it
the world rule of the Aryan race, the classless society, or the king-
dom of God, utopian revolutionaries had to cultivate an ideology in
which compassion was tantamount to treason. The Nazis even
understood what few others have understood ever since: that war
without genocide makes no biological sense.
The Nazi leaders had gone through their formative years fighting
in World War I. The experience of war as the normal state of affairs
had created a value system where collective survival rather than
individual enjoyment was seen as the essence of life and the ultimate
goal of moral action. This value system is alien to us, and it was alien
to many Germans even in the heyday of Nazi power. This is the

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reason why the Nazis depended on the most powerful propaganda

machinery history has ever seen. And because the prevailing culture
of the time had already made the cut-off between ‘us’ and ‘them’ at
the species boundary, Himmler had to speak of ‘human animals’ to
justify his actions.
Values are shaped by experiences. Where survival and success
depend on one’s family, the family is held sacred; where war is
perpetual, warrior values prevail; where misery is inescapable, people
are preoccupied with life after death and salvation; where opportu-
nities to get rich are plentiful, materialism is rampant; and where
security and affluence are taken for granted, self-realization becomes
the main concern.
Like everyone else, idealists deceive themselves. They overestimate
the happiness that their struggle can bring to others, and the ease
with which their aims can be attained. Sensible folks know it. They
keep their paradises in the distant past. They dream about the
Garden of Eden, the ‘original affluent society’ of the noble savage, or
the matriarchal societies of Old Europe before the outbreak of
patriarchy.30 Traditional mythologies have tales of a long-lost
Golden Age, and modern pop science is adding some more.
The idealisms of the twentieth century are not much in favor
today, mainly because the outcomes were awful. We have realized
that the better worlds that idealists dream up are not that ideal after
all. The Nazis’ dream of a heroic future with perpetual war could
actually be a nasty state of affairs, especially in the nuclear age; and
the classless society of Marxist dreams must be a boring place where
nobody would want to live. Wasn’t it boredom more than anything
else that brought the Soviet power down?
We have learned that collective benefit should not be pursued at
the expense of individual benefit. And because we have to draw a line
between those who count and those who don’t, we now insist that it
be drawn at the species boundary. Herding pigs to the slaughter-
house is okay, but herding people into gas chambers is not, no
matter what their nationality, race or religion. That way we make
sure we have only out-groups that cannot retaliate. We also insist
that good ends do not justify bad means. Translation: we must not
impose short-term sacrifices on people for the sake of long-term
benefits. We must discount the future, not the present! We respond
as strongly to the failures of twentieth-century world-improvement
schemes as the eighteenth-century enlightenment philosophers did to

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the experience of the religious wars and nineteenth-century monar-

chists did to the reign of terror during the French Revolution.
Only China has not yet learned the lesson. When the communists
seized power more than half a century ago, there were 550 million
Chinese. Now there are 1.3 billion. To stem the tide, the government
permits only one child per couple, and two if the first child is a girl.
Like the cliques led by Hitler and Stalin, the Chinese leaders are
altruistic high-Machs who victimize people here and now for the
benefit of ‘sons and grandsons’. They use bad means to achieve what
they consider good ends, and they refuse to discount the future the
way we do.
Few Westerners criticize the Chinese government for its popula-
tion policy because they do not relish the prospect of 2 or 3 billion
hunger-crazed Chinese armed to the teeth with nuclear warheads.
They agree that population control is a worthy pursuit. Only some
believe in the merits of a classless society, and even fewer believe that
the world rule of the Aryan race is a good thing. Somebody here is
not taking seriously the principle that the ends do not justify the
means!
The high-Mach moralist uses people as pawns in cost–benefit
calculations. Not for calculating his own benefit, mind you, but for
calculating the benefits and harms for everyone involved or at least
everyone who counts – even ‘sons and grandsons’. If this means that
somebody gets hurt, that’s too bad.
Low altruism with high rationality makes a common high-Mach;
high altruism with low rationality makes a humanitarian with level 1
morality; high altruism with high rationality makes a high-Mach
moralist with level 2 morality; and low altruism with low rationality
can bring you trouble. Altruism is merely a cognitive reflex. It can be
well developed in highly rational as well as highly emotional people.
The Chinese leaders use cold-blooded reason not only in the
pursuit of their goals but also for determining what goals are worth
pursuing. And it can be argued that their goal of controlling
population growth is worth pursuing. The Nazis, by contrast, pur-
sued their goals with cold-blooded reason but used crude intuition
for determining what goals are worth pursuing. They were not too
rational. They were too irrational and emotion-driven in setting their
ultimate goals.

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Theories of justice

As Plato was conversing about Ideas and using the nouns

‘tablehood’ and ‘cuphood,’ [Diogenes] said, ‘Table and cup I
see; but your tablehood and cuphood, Plato, I can nowise see.’
‘That’s readily accounted for,’ said Plato, ‘for you have the eyes
to see the visible table and cup; but not the understanding by
which ideal tablehood and cuphood are discerned.’ (Diogenes
Laertius)31

As a student I attended a seminar in forensic psychiatry. In the very

first session, before introducing the first patient, the professor
explained in well-chosen words the principles of forensic psychiatry.
According to him, normal, unimpaired people are free to choose
between alternative courses of action, and this makes them respon-
sible for their actions. However, this freedom is compromised in
certain psychiatric diseases, and people so afflicted are not respon-
sible for their misdeeds. While a common criminal deserves pun-
ishment, the psychotic is ill and deserves treatment.
One of the students objected that this distinction makes no sense
because all behavior, criminal or otherwise, has causes: the family
environment, genes or ‘society’. The psychiatrist insisted that these
influences do not abrogate the freedom of choice. A normal person
acts by his own free will and therefore has to be held responsible for
his actions.
The student was right. The brain activity that produces crimes is
subject to physical causality. Being trained in the natural sciences, I
could see not a shred of logic in the psychiatrist’s argument. Sure, he
had to justify his professional activity, but why these inanities about
freedom and responsibility? Couldn’t he tell us something sensible,
for example that recidivism for psychotic criminals is lower if they
get treatment instead of punishment, or that the deterrent effect of
punishment doesn’t work for psychotics, or that common criminals
are happier in prison while psychotics are better off in a psychiatric
ward?
Criminal justice is the civilized variety of retributive justice. The
uncivilized variety is called revenge. The desire to punish evildoers
evolved as a means of behavior control by the old-fashioned but
effective technique of operant conditioning. It restrains rebellious
underlings and forces selfish opportunists into cooperation. In the

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evolution of our moral instincts, retaliation came first. Other ‘moral’

behaviors could then evolve to avoid retaliation by other group
members.
What about offering convicted murderers on death row a deal:
rather than being executed, they can volunteer for scientific experi-
ments involving brain surgery. Thereby they can help doctors find
better treatments for mental illnesses. What would you choose if you
were on death row: the electric chair, or the prospect of surviving
with the unpredictable but probably benign effects of experimental
brain surgery?
Even many people who approve of the death penalty will object to
my proposal. Killing a murderer is good old instinctive behavior that
is emotionally gratifying, but using him for medical experiments is
not. The impulse to approve of damaging instinctive behaviors such
as war and the death penalty is reinforced by the fact that these
instincts are shared by everyone. Less damaging rational actions,
such as experimenting on a murderer, are not supported by intui-
tions that are shared by everyone. In daily life we have to convince
others that we share their values, and therefore we are often obliged
to publicly approve of damaging instinct-guided actions while
rejecting more rational and less damaging alternatives.
The need for communication also explains why so many people
are convinced that ethical judgments are more rational and at the
same time more universal than judgments about, say, the tastiness of
food. To coordinate our beliefs about right and wrong with those of
others and to flaunt our righteousness, we must represent moral
values at a conscious level and verbalize them. And so we pull our
moral philosophies from a pool of ideas that are culturally available
and widely endorsed by others. This is the reason why we need moral
philosophers but no food philosophers – except for gourmets who
flaunt their refined tastes.
And what about a proposal to punish criminals with torture rather
than prison? Everyone agrees that the aim of punishment is to make
the criminal suffer, either to deter him and others from crime, or to
make him atone for his misdeeds, or to please the victims of his
crimes. Five days of torture would be more effective to achieve any
of these aims than five years in prison, especially if the procedure is
broadcast on prime-time TV.
Again, few people will like my proposal. Torture satisfies our
vindictiveness, but it also rouses compassion. The problem is that the

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dose–response relationship is steeper for compassion than it is for

revenge. Moderate but protracted suffering of the criminal satisfies
our desire for revenge without rousing compassion. Intense suffering
satisfies the desire for revenge only a bit more, but it rouses com-
passion to an intolerably greater degree. That’s how rational our
treatment of criminals is!
The rational approach, which I labeled level 2 morality, is
endorsed by the utilitarian school of moral philosophy. Utilitarian-
ism exhorts people to work towards the greatest happiness of the
greatest number, based on the recognition that all people pursue
pleasure and avoid pain.32 For the utilitarian, punishment is meant
to deter people from crime. The convicted criminal’s suffering is a
cost that is acceptable as long – and only as long – as it is outweighed
by the benefit of deterrence. By punishing criminals we use bad
means to achieve a good end.
But the punishment of evildoers evolved in early human ancestors
who were too stupid to reason about its costs and benefits. Therefore
it cannot depend on a utilitarian calculus. Indeed, when confronted
with hypothetical scenarios in the psychology lab, people allot
punishments on the basis of intuitions about deservingness rather
than the weighting of costs and benefits.
Some philosophers rationalize these level 1 judgments by claiming
that punishment is intrinsically good because crime is intrinsically
evil. Others rationalize the intuition that a successful crime upsets the
dominance hierarchy by raising the status of the criminal at the
victim’s expense by claiming that crime upsets a ‘natural’ balance
that has to be restored by punishment. People keep confusing the
natural ‘order’ with the social order!33
Philosophies that rationalize level 1 morality are called deonto-
logical. They work with concepts such as responsibility, dignity,
personhood, deservingness and the ‘value’ of human life. Above all
there is the concept of moral agency that the forensic psychiatrist
invoked: the idea that human beings are responsible for their actions
because somehow they are autonomous agents. For these philoso-
phers, punishment is not a bad means to a good end; it is a good end
in its own right.
Deontological thinking is user-friendlier than the utilitarian vari-
ety because it requires less thinking, and because it can accom-
modate personal preferences. The American moralist Leon Kass, for
example, claimed that all decent people find human reproductive

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cloning repugnant, and that therefore cloning should not be toler-

ated.34 Great logic! We also know that all decent Aryans find the
presence of Jews in their country repugnant. Therefore they should
exterminate the Jews.
Primitive people apply the customs of their society without much
thought. At a more advanced stage of cultural evolution, they
develop idealistic notions: that certain actions are intrinsically vir-
tuous or evil, or that there is an intrinsic value to certain kinds of
human or non-human life. At the third and most rational stage, they
realize that virtue and value, freedom and dignity are merely fig-
ments of the human mind, so they replace them with a pragmatic,
utilitarian ethos. This sequence is reversible. Declining civilizations
become less rational and revert from utilitarian to deontological
values. This happened when Christianity replaced the civic ethos of
the early Roman Empire.
For effective behavior control we must treat others as if they were
autonomous agents – but only when reward and punishment are
likely to work. When the transgressor failed to discharge an obli-
gation or committed a hurtful act deliberately, disincentives are
likely to work. But if he neglected his duty because he was ill, or if he
hurt someone by accident, teaching him a lesson will be futile. Nor is
a psychotic’s behavior easily changed by punishment. Therefore the
proper treatment for the psychotic is not punishment but social
exclusion.35
The intuitive psychology, or ‘theory of mind’, that I described in
Chapter 3 evolved exactly for distinctions of this kind. The intuitions
are programmed into the brain. They are not reasoned out. If they
were, the forensic psychiatrist would have given a sensible account
about why the law should treat psychotics different from common
criminals.
When Plato spoke of tablehood and cuphood, he tried to con-
ceptualize the cognitive manifestations of an important process that
takes place outside of conscious awareness: the categorization of
objects in the sensory systems of the brain. And in trying to con-
ceptualize categories he ended up reifying them: treating them as if
they were real things. The error is understandable. Our cognitive
system evolved to represent real things in the real world. Abstract
thinking is an evolutionary newcomer, and we still have the ancient
tendency to believe that everything we think about and everything
we have words for actually exists in the outside world.

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 In God’s Image?

When the forensic psychiatrist appealed to responsibility and

moral agency, he tried to conceptualize – and ended up reifying – the
cognitive manifestations of another process that takes place outside
conscious awareness: the decision to allot moral outrage to an evil-
doer. Diogenes might have replied, ‘Action I see; but agency, my
dear moralist, I can nowise see.’

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 11
Nature and Nurture

Nature has always had more power than education.

(Voltaire, Vie de Molie`re, 1739)

Education makes a greater difference between man and man,

than nature has made between man and brute.
(J. Adams, Letter to a Relative, 1776)

All people have roughly the same cognitive architecture. Why?

Because of sexual reproduction. If genetically predetermined wiring
patterns were totally different in different people, then combining
Mom’s genes with Dad’s would lead to a terrible mix-up in the
child’s brain. Therefore differences between people can only be dif-
ferences in degree, but not in kind.
While evolutionary psychologists describe the generic human
being, behavioral geneticists study the causes of individual differ-
ences. Any measurable trait is fair game for behavioral geneticists:
divorce, criminal convictions, school grades, church attendance, and
the scores on personality questionnaires and IQ tests. I will con-
centrate on intelligence, for three reasons: first, it is the trait that
most clearly sets us apart from other animals. Second, it predicts
many important social outcomes. And third, it plays a key role in
cultural evolution.

Measuring minds

. . . man is a suspicious, sensitive, and uncooperative animal who

objects to having his intelligence tested and is not usually

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interested in helping a scientific investigation at such a price.

(Donald O. Hebb, 1949)

Intelligence is what intelligence tests measure. This is an ‘opera-

tional’ definition: defining something by the way it is measured.
Anything that requires complex thought can be used in an IQ test.
The Wechsler test, for example, contains six verbal subtests and five
non-verbal, ‘performance’ subtests. The verbal part includes Voca-
bulary (What does ‘presumptuous’ mean?), Information (Who wrote
the Iliad?), Comprehension (Why is gold worth more than copper?),
Mental arithmetic (13 6 17 = ?), Similarities (In what way are fruit
and egg alike?), and Digit span (repeat the sequence 7–3–9–5–2–6–8).
The performance part contains Object assembly (jigsaw puzzles),
Block design (copying a design with colored blocks), Picture
arrangement (arranging cartoon pictures to make a coherent story),
Picture completion (incongruities in pictures, such as smoke from a
chimney blowing one way and a nearby flag blowing the opposite
way), and a Digit symbol test that measures the speed with which a
routine task is performed.
The reason for lumping all this together in one test is that most
people who are good at one task are good at the others as well. It is
like in school, where children who are good in one subject usually
excel in the others as well. Using a procedure called factor analysis,
statisticians describe this in terms of a general-ability factor that they
call the g factor. Other factors describe special abilities such as
memory, spatial ability and verbal ability.1
Does the g factor mean that all mental abilities are produced by
the same brain system? Not necessarily. Let’s assume, for a moment,
that there is a language-ability network in the left hemisphere and a
spatial reasoning network in the right hemisphere. If these networks
are truly independent, then people with good verbal ability would
not necessarily have good spatial reasoning ability and vice versa.
But what if good food during childhood boosts both hemispheres
simply because all neurons have the same nutritional requirements?
If some children get better food than others, then many of those with
high verbal ability will also have high spatial ability. There would be
a g factor although each ability is produced by a different brain
system.
In reality, brain imaging studies show that some brain areas are
engaged in all reasoning tasks while others are recruited only for

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some. This means that intelligence is produced by a multi-compo-

nent system where some components are important for most or all
cognitive tasks, and others are important only for some tasks.2
The nature of g has been revealed in a study by Patrick Kyllonen
and Raymond Christal in 1990. They administered two kinds of test
to Army recruits at Brooks Air Force Base in Texas: a set of working
memory tests that required the active processing of information held
in short-term memory, and a set of tests for ‘general intelligence’.
The result was striking: those who did well on the IQ tests also did
well on the working memory tests. In essence, the two types of test
measured the same thing. In other words, g is a measure of working
memory capacity.3
IQ tests do not measure sensori-motor coordination (‘kinesthetic
intelligence’), skills that depend mainly on procedural memory
rather than reasoning (‘practical intelligence’), social skills (‘emo-
tional intelligence’) or episodic memory. These abilities are impor-
tant in daily life, but they are different from reasoning ability and are
not closely related to the g factor. In Chapter 2, for example, we saw
that patient H.M. did well on IQ tests although he had lost his
episodic memory.
The structure of mental ability is somewhat like the structure of
athletic ability. Let’s assume a scientist subjects a few hundred army
recruits to a contest with sprinting, long jump, long-distance run-
ning, swimming, javelin throwing, and the like. He finds that those
who are good at one kind of athletic activity are usually also good at
the others. Factor analysis reveals a general factor of athletic ability.
Then, along comes another scientist who designs a battery of tests
for muscle strength. Much to everyone’s surprise, he finds that the
general factor extracted from various tests of muscle strength is
equivalent to the general factor of athletic ability, but it also turns
out that this general factor is unrelated to piano playing ability and
billiard playing ability.

Life is an IQ test

All evil comes from ignorance. (Confucius)

In IQ tests, the mean of the famous bell curve is defined as 100, and
the standard deviation – a measure for the variability – is set at 15.

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 In God’s Image?

One-half of the population have an IQ above 100 (although at least

80 percent believe they are in that range), two-thirds are between 85
and 115, and 95 percent between 70 and 130.

Figure 11.1 The normal distribution. It shows that people of average IQ are
far more common than those with extremely high or extremely low IQ.

The relationship between a predictor, such as IQ, and an outcome,

such as school grades, is indexed by the correlation coefficient r. An r
of 0 between IQ and school grades means that the two are com-
pletely unrelated, and an r of 1.0 means they match perfectly. In
elementary school and high school, the correlation between IQ and
grades is usually betwen 0.5 and 0.7. A correlation of 0.5 means that
a child with an IQ at the 97th percentile (IQ 130, two standard
deviations above average) has, on average, school grades at the 84th
percentile (one standard deviation above average); and children with
school grades at the 97th percentile have an average IQ of 115.
But IQ is more than a measure of school-related skills. When
American high school students were tested for knowledge in non-
academic subjects such as art, law, health, engineering, foreign tra-
vel, the Bible, colors, etiquette and fishing, the correlation with test
intelligence was 0.81. Social class correlated with non-academic
knowledge only to the extent of 0.4.4
The more homogeneous the sample, the lower is the predictive
power of cognitive tests. Among medical students at my school, the
correlation between IQ and first-semester GPA is only 0.3 to 0.4.
Contrary to widespread prejudice, there is no minimum required IQ
for success. My computer tells me that with an IQ of 120 you have a
70 percent chance to make it through medical school without

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repeating any semester. With an IQ of 70, the probability is 20

percent. However, undergraduate GPA is even less predictive than
IQ for medical school success. Most theorists don’t realize how hard
it is to predict anything at all about people!
Job performance is even harder to predict than school success.
Medical school performance can be indexed by grades, but how do
you measure the proficiency of a physician? Still, mental tests do
predict job performance above chance. At one time, the US
Department of Labor estimated that the use of aptitude scores to
place workers in jobs would result in large increases in productivity
and save the national economy upwards of $178.2 billion.5
Even crime is related to IQ. Imprisoned criminals score about
eight points below the population mean on IQ tests. Some people
think this is because low-IQ criminals get caught more often, but
others argue that it is because committing crimes is a dumb thing to
do. Table 11.1 shows how IQ is related to single motherhood. You
may want to show it to your teenage daughter. Both delinquency and
single motherhood are more closely related to IQ than to socio-
economic status.6 But what else do you expect? It’s all about human
behavior and the brain systems producing it. Social class, culture,
education and genes can be indirect causes at best.

Table 11.1 The incidence of illegitimate births among White women in the
United States.

Percentage with
Cognitive class illegitimate birth
Very bright 4
Bright 9
Average 24
Dull 37
Very dull 62
Adapted from Murray, 2002

Genius genes and stupidity genes

It is impossible for man to be endowed by nature from his very

birth with either virtue or vice, just as it is impossible that he

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 In God’s Image?

should be born skilled by nature in any particular art. It is

possible, however, that through natural causes he may from
birth be so constituted as to have a predilection for a particular
virtue or vice, so that he will more readily practice it than any
other. (Moses Maimonides 1135–1204, The Commentary on the
Mishna, Eight Chapters VIII)

Give me a dozen healthy infants and my own specified world to

bring them up in, and I’ll guarantee to take any one at random
and train him to become any kind of specialist I might select –
doctor, lawyer, artist, merchant-chief and, yes, even beggar and
thief, regardless of his talents, penchants, tendencies, abilities,
vocations, and race of his ancestors. (J.B. Watson, Behaviorism)

Let’s assume that your IQ is 100 and you read in the New York
Times that the heritability of test intelligence is 60 percent. Does this
mean that 60 out of your 100 IQ points come from the genes and the
other 40 from the environment? Does it mean that without genes you
would have an IQ of 40, and without environment you would have
an IQ of 60?
Of course you realize that I am pulling your leg – unless you are
one of those who have either no genes or no environment. Herit-
ability is not the extent to which a trait is determined by genes, but
the extent to which its variation in the population is caused by
genetic differences between people. Heritability is estimated with
family studies. For example, identical twins have all their genes in
common, except for the occasional mutation. If identical twins who
were reared apart in different families are more similar than unre-
lated people who were reared apart in equally different families, their
similarities must be caused by their shared genes.
Conversely, similarities between unrelated children raised in the
same family must be caused by their shared environment. For
example, the education, income and marital status of the parents are
shared among siblings. Many other environmental effects are not
shared by children in the same family. They make the children dif-
ferent from one another.
Some gene effects are additive. When a gene comes in a high-IQ
variant and a low-IQ variant, then those with two copies of the high-
IQ variant are bright, those with two copies of the low-IQ variant are
stupid, and those with one copy of each are in between. Now think

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 Nature and Nurture

of perhaps 100 such genes, each adding or subtracting a few IQ

points. Your IQ depends on how many high-IQ variants and low-IQ
variants you have overall. If only additive gene effects were impor-
tant, then identical twins would have the same IQs, and every child
would be about halfway between its parents.
Real life is more unpredictable than this. One reason why family
members are as different as they are is that many families do, in all
likelihood, have rare genetic variants with large effects. Another
reason is that gene effects do not always add up. We can even think
of a situation where heterozygotes are better off than either of the
homozygotes: if you have two copies of one variant, you are stupid;
if you have two copies of the other variant, you are also stupid; but if
you have one of each you are bright.
Twin and adoption studies show that in the United States and the
Scandinavian countries, about 70 percent of the variation in adult IQ
is due to genes. Most but not all of the gene effects are additive. The
IQs of unrelated adopted children living in the same family are
somewhat similar, but when these children are retested as adults,
they are no more similar than complete strangers. As children they
resemble both their adoptive and biological parents, but as adults
they resemble only their biological parents. Slowly, their genes assert
themselves against the influence of the family environment.7
What does a heritability of 70 percent mean? Let’s assume that the
Chinese government decides that the communist ideal of equality can
be achieved only when all people are born with the same genes.
Therefore sexual reproduction is outlawed, and all children are
cloned from the same cell line. When everyone has the same genes
but the environment is as variable as before, how uniform would the
mental ability of the Chinese be? The answer is that the standard
deviation for IQ would be reduced from 15 points to 8.2 points. The
proportion of ‘dull’ people with an IQ of less than 85 (according to
the old norms) would be down from 16 percent to 3.4 percent. The
same would be true for ‘bright’ people with an IQ above 115.
Now let’s assume that the American government tries to enforce
the democratic principle of equality by taking all children away from
their parents. They are raised in identical environments by robots
that are programmed to treat every child exactly the same. In this
case the standard deviation of adult IQ will be reduced from 15 to
12.5 points. Now only 11.4 percent, rather than 16 percent of the
population would be below 85, and an equal number would be above

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 In God’s Image?

115. Under these conditions the heritability of IQ would be zero in

China and 100 percent in America because in China all remaining
variation would come from the environment, and in America it
would come from the genes.
Another proposal would be to improve everyone’s genes or
everyone’s environment by one standard deviation. With a herit-
ability of 70 percent, an environmental improvement of one standard
deviation would raise the IQ of the population by 8.2 points.
Improving the genes by one standard deviation would raise it by 12.5
points. To improve the environment by one standard deviation, we
only need to make the environment of the average child better than
the environments of 84 percent of today’s children. And in the age of
molecular genetics, even improving our children’s genes by one
standard deviation is not beyond reach. We still don’t know which
genes are responsible for variations in mental ability, but the hunt
for IQ genes is just getting started.8
Although we have not yet identified the genes, mutational load is
likely to be important. Thousands of genes are needed for mental
development, and disabling mutations in any one of them are
expected to lower the IQ. This means that people with few mutations
are bright, and those with many mutations are stupid. Such muta-
tions tend to be selected out of the gene pool, especially if they do
other nasty things in addition to lowering the IQ. Therefore any one
of them is rare.
Another possibility is that a gene exists in two or more common
variants. The alternative forms of the gene can coexist in the
population either because their good and bad effects balance out; or
because people who have one copy of each variant are a little better
off than those who have two identical copies; or because a new
variant is in the slow process of replacing an older one.
Also personality traits such as neuroticism, extraversion, agree-
ableness and conscientiousness are influenced by genes, although the
heritabilities are a bit lower than for IQ. Again the shared family
environment is important for children, but loses its importance as
children grow up. Even for social attitudes such as traditionalism
and religiosity, the influence of the rearing environment slowly fades
during adulthood. So far only a few genes have been found to
influence personality, and their effects seem to be very subtle.9
The relative unimportance of the rearing environment for adult
personality is not exactly what twentieth century psychologists

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expected. Freud believed that early childhood experiences made his

patients neurotic. Psychoanalysts paved the way for sociologists and
social psychologists who blamed socialization within the family for
every evil, from neuroses and schizophrenia to incorrect political
attitudes.
Only evolutionary psychologists are not surprised by the weakness
of the family influence. Children must learn how to succeed in their
community. Rather than emulating their parents, Stone Age children
were better off learning selectively from those peers and adults who
were most successful and respected in their community: great ora-
tors, hunters, warriors and womanizers. Now this role-model slot is
filled by pop stars.

Genes for inequality

To the real work of man for man – the increase of achievement

through improvement of the environment – the influence of
heredity offers no barrier. (E.L. Thorndike, 1914, Educational
Psychology, Vol. 3)

In the actual race of life, which is not to get ahead, but to get
ahead of somebody, the chief determining factor is heredity.
(E.L. Thorndike, 1916, Educational Psychology: Briefer Course)

The IQ gap between children from the top and bottom thirds of the
socio-economic pecking order is about ten points in modern
America.10 Does this mean that social class is a cause or even the
cause for individual differences in mental ability? In that case it must
be the socio-economic status of one’s family of origin that counts,
since IQ is fairly stable in adult life. The alternative view holds that
adult social class is determined by a person’s intelligence.
If social class shapes intelligence, then an adult’s intelligence
should be more closely related with his social class of origin than
with his attained social status. But if intelligence drives social
mobility, we can predict the opposite. Also, if intelligence drives
social mobility, then less intelligent children in a family should slide
down the social hierarchy while their brighter siblings climb up.
Children whose IQ is higher than their father’s do indeed tend to
climb up the ladder while their low-IQ siblings slide down. In an

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American study, children with IQs between 90 and 109 earned an

average of $46,000 as adults, those of their siblings with IQs above
120 earned $68,300, and those of their siblings with IQs below 80
earned only $22,000. This difference was seen although the siblings
had been reared in the same family.
Social class does influence both IQ and achievement, though.
Adoption into a good family can boost a child’s IQ by at least 10
points, although we don’t know how much of this advantage is
maintained through adulthood. The educational achievement and
occupational status of adopted children are intermediate between
those of their biological and adoptive parents, but there is a tendency
for adoptees to move away from the occupational status of their
adoptive parents and closer to that of their birth parents in the
course of adult life.11
According to one theory, technology creates a rising demand for
intelligence in modern societies. Everyone tries to learn in order to
earn, as market forces drive the salaries of the skilled up and those of
the unskilled down. Thus high-IQ genes drift to the top of the social
hierarchy where they are maintained by assortative mating: the
tendency to mate with someone similar to oneself. Wealth and power
are monopolized by a cognitive elite while the ranks of the working
class are depleted of the brighter elements. Being stupid, the poor are
unable to improve their lot by insisting on reforms or organizing
revolutions.
This type of society is called a meritocracy. It is the most efficient
and most oppressive society history has ever seen, with those at the
bottom deprived not only of wealth and power but of intellect and
culture as well, their self-esteem crushed by the insight that they are
not capable and worthy individuals shortchanged by an unjust
society, but the dregs of humanity: cognitive and genetic garbage.
Income inequality in most of the Western world has been rising
since the 1970s. If this reflects a technology-driven demand for high
intelligence, then we must expect that the salaries of technical pro-
fessions such as engineers, scientists and computer programmers
have risen the most.
However, the incomes of engineers have actually stagnated. The
rising inequality is caused by the soaring incomes of upper-level
office workers.12 In other words, corporate managers are diverting a
greater share of their companies’ resources into their own pockets.
What has become more important in recent decades are not

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intelligence and technical skill, but the ability to function in the

buddy networks of corporate management! People naturally prefer
members of their own social group to outsiders, and therefore
business executives are more inclined to allot salary increases and
benefits to their own colleagues rather than the workers.
A genetically based IQ meritocracy would also run up against kin-
selected altruism. Those on the top of the heap are bound to use their
money and influence to promote their children’s success, no matter
how dumb the children might be. When the children’s success
depends on nepotism and patronage rather than ability, the genes are
impotent. Common workers are at a competitive disadvantage
because they remain an anonymous crowd. One interesting obser-
vation is that income inequality began rising as soon as every
working class home had TV. Spending one’s free time watching TV
is more fun than attending union meetings and getting involved in
risky labor disputes.
The IQ gap between the richest and poorest thirds of the popu-
lation has actually narrowed from 12 points in the 1930s to 10 points
in the second half of the twentieth century among white Americans.
Nor is there any evidence that assortative mating for intelligence has
increased over time. But what do you expect? People don’t choose
their mates for IQ. Men go for beauty, and women for money!13
Back in the twentieth century the importance of intelligence and
its heritability were quite controversial. It was not because of the
facts. The relations of intelligence with social mobility, delinquency
and other outcomes had been known since the early years of the
century, and studies of IQ heritability form one of the most con-
sistent data sets in the behavioral sciences. So what was all the fuss
about?
The reason for the IQ controversy is that humans have a cognitive
template for social dominance. In daily life they keep scanning the
people around them for signs of dominance status. So pervasive is
this habit that when intellectuals come across IQ tests, they auto-
matically map them on the dominance template. The number score is
especially seductive because the brain represents dominance ranks in
linear order, the same way it represents numbers. This is the reason
why most intellectuals see IQ not as an index for wisdom, health
consciousness, creativity or refined tastes and manners, but as an
index for social class. Therefore conservatives and authoritarians,
who like dominance hierarchies, support intelligence research and

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emphasize the importance of IQ, while revolutionaries and escapists

condemn it.14
Social cognition is built around the two dimensions of dominance
and affiliation. Dominance is bad because it leads to conflict and
oppression. Affiliation is good because it means friendship and
compassion, and the belief in the brotherhood of all men. Empha-
sizing dominance at the expense of affiliation is inhumane; and IQ
research is inhumane because IQ is a measure of dominance. This is
the psycho-logic that determines people’s opinions about intelligence.
Claiming that IQ – identified with social dominance – is innate is
even worse. We evolved to be cruel with underlings who are too
weak to take revenge on us. If we believe that another person’s
inferior status is not a temporary embarrassment but is genetically
caused and therefore permanent, we feel invited to exploit or mis-
treat him. During the twentieth century, before the advent of genetic
engineering, genes were generally perceived as immutable.
Genes are perceived as the essence of a person’s ‘true nature’.
When an unpleasant outcome such as poverty is attributed to a
person’s ‘true nature’, it is judged to be deserved; but when it is
forced upon him by external circumstances, he cannot be blamed.
This moral knee-jerk tells us to be nasty to people whose problems
are caused by their genes.
On the other hand, we blame people for the things they do
intentionally, but not for their bad luck. Those who are born with
genes for laziness, stupidity or deviance did not choose their genes.
They merely had bad luck in the genetic lottery. Therefore some of
our social knee-jerks demand discrimination against the genetically
handicapped while others demand sympathy for them. If it turns out
that a criminal is chock full of crime-predisposing genes, should we
punish him harder because the genes confirm that he has a bad
character? Or is he exonerated by his genes?15

James Flynn’s discovery

Two seemingly incompatible conceptions can each represent an

aspect of the truth . . . They may serve in turn to represent the
facts without ever entering into direct conflict. (L.V. de Broglie,
Dialectica I,326)

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The 1960s were the heyday of ‘naı̈ve environmentalism’, especially in

the United States. It was widely believed that all that was needed to
boost the mental development of disadvantaged children was to take
them away from their poor and incompetent mothers for a few hours
every day, and put them in the enriched environment of a good
preschool. Thus, program Head Start was born. One explicit aim of
Head Start was to boost the children’s IQ – a strange objective for an
educational program.
And IQs did rise. Not by one point a month as enthusiasts had
hoped, but gains of ten or even 15 points were reported from some
places. The let-down came when Head Start children left the pro-
gram and went to regular schools. Within two or three years, they
performed no better than the controls. Sometimes small gains per-
sisted for years, but the overall results were disappointing.16
In 1969, the Berkeley psychologist Arthur Jensen responded to
this experience in a famous article entitled ‘How Much Can We
Boost IQ and Scholastic Achievement?’ According to Jensen:

Compensatory education has been tried and it apparently has

failed . . . when bridges do not stand, when aircraft do not fly,
when machines do not work, when treatments do not cure,
despite all conscientious efforts on the part of many persons to
make them do so, one begins to question the basic assumptions,
principles, theories, and hypotheses that guide one’s efforts. Is it
time to follow suit in education?

Jensen’s conclusion was simple. The best studies available at the

time showed that the heritability of test intelligence was close to 80
percent. Compensatory education couldn’t work because IQ and
school achievement were constrained by genes, at least in those
children on whom it had been tried. Jensen even went on to propose
that the 15-point average IQ difference between black and white
children in the US was most likely genetic.17
Jensen did not need to ask for critical comments on his article.
Bands of demonstrators disrupted his classes, all the tires of his car
were slashed, and swastikas were painted on his office door. The
campus police assigned plainclothes bodyguards to accompany him
whenever he left his office, and for several months the campus bomb
squad handled the screening and opening of all his mail. There were
threats on his life and his family. His ongoing research in the

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Berkeley schools was immediately terminated and permanently

proscribed by the Berkeley school officials.
After the rioters came the scholars. Not behavioral geneticists, but
outraged intellectuals from diverse backgrounds. One of the major
studies on which Jensen’s conclusions were based, a study of iden-
tical twins reared apart by the British psychologist Sir Cyril Burt,
was claimed to be fraudulent. Others were claimed to be flawed on
technical grounds.18 By the mid-1970s, the behavioral genetics of
intelligence seemed all but dead.
And yet, new evidence came trickling in, slowly at first but in an
ever-increasing stream during the 1980s, confirming the old result:
genes are important. Not quite as important as Jensen thought in
1969, but important nevertheless. Like the Lernaean hydra, beha-
vioral genetics grew two new heads for every one cut off by the critics.
The greatest discovery, however, did not come from behavioral
geneticists but from a single scholar with an improbable back-
ground. James Flynn is not a psychologist, but an American-born
political philosopher at the University of Otago in New Zealand.
Flynn started out as an activist in the civil rights movement during
the 1950s before emigrating to New Zealand, and his interest in the
genetics of intelligence was an extension of his political commitment.
During the 1970s and early 1980s, he searched through the records of
army testers for evidence that the results of IQ tests administered to
black and white recruits had been mishandled or misinterpreted. He
never quite found what he had been looking for, but he hit on
something far more interesting: performance had increased over time
for everyone.
Next he looked at instances where old IQ tests had been revised.
IQ tests have to be updated from time to time, and the new version is
normed on a representative sample of the population. Flynn found
that whenever an old version of a test had been administered along
with a more recent one to the same people, the scores on the older
test were higher. In other words, the populations on whom the tests
were normed had grown brighter over time.
This initial discovery was followed up by the most impressive
detective work in the history of modern psychology. In many
countries, for example, mental tests had been administered to mili-
tary recruits over many years, and the trend lines could be analyzed.
By the mid-1980s it was clear that in all Western countries for which
data were available, IQ had risen between five and 25 points over a

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period of only 30 years. Evidence before the 1930s is sketchy, but

there are reports of IQ gains since the earliest days of IQ testing.
Overall, Americans and Europeans have gained about 30 IQ
points in the course of the twentieth century! Some studies show that
the greatest gains have occurred in the middle and lower reaches of
the bell curve, most likely as a result of better living conditions and
educational opportunities for the less privileged parts of the
population.19
One hundred years ago the average IQ was somewhere around 70,
and half the population would be considered mentally retarded by
present-day standards. This creates a credibility problem. If our
great-great-grandparents were morons, how could they run their
governments, businesses and universities?
Let’s look at a study by the Zimbabwean scholar Fred Zindi.
Zindi administered two widely used IQ tests, the Wechsler scale and
Raven’s Progressive Matrices, to two groups of high school students:
one in Zimbabwe, and the other in a working class inner London
district. He found that on the Wechsler test, the London children
scored 95 and the Zimbabweans 67. Even on the non-verbal Raven
test, the Zimbabweans scored a modest 72 compared to 97 for the
English children.
Zindi’s subjects represent the cognitive elite of the Zimbabwean
nation. They had passed the competitive high school entrance exam,
and they were certainly far brighter than the poorly educated older
generation. Therefore the average IQ of all Zimbabweans is certainly
far below 70. Still, the Zimbabweans can run their affairs fairly well,
aside from the occasional civil war. Nor are they alone. There are
lots of countries with an average IQ of 70, and they are doing not
much worse than the Europeans did 100 years ago when their IQs
were, supposedly, in that region.20
The causes of the Flynn effect are one of the great mysteries of our
time. Well-meaning space aliens treating us with intelligence rays are
one possibility, but space aliens are not parsimonious. So we have to
use Occam’s razor. Or was there genetic selection in favor of higher
intelligence? If in every generation only those in the upper half of the
IQ distribution reproduce, the population IQ would rise by about six
points per generation or 22 points per century. But this kind of
selection has never been in evidence. Ever since the introduction of
effective contraceptives, those who are too stupid to use them have
had the advantage. A reasonable estimate is that genetic selection

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 In God’s Image?

should have lowered the population IQ by two to five points during

the century.21
We need overall environmental improvements of 3.7 (present-day)
standard deviations to explain an IQ gain of 30 points. This means
that 100 years ago only one or two people out of 10,000 lived in an
environment that was as good for the development of their intelli-
gence as the average environment is today.
Schooling is an obvious candidate. In Chapters 2 and 3 we saw
that Aleksandr Luria attributed the poor reasoning skills of peasants
in Central Asia to their lack of education. Schooling does indeed
make a difference. Children whose school entry is delayed lose about
five IQ points for every year of school missed, and those who con-
tinue school between age 14 and 18 gain about 1.8 points for every
additional year in school. Since the average length of schooling has
increased by more than five years in most industrialized countries
over the past century, most of the Flynn effect can be explained by
more and possibly better schooling.
Therefore it is surprising that the Flynn effect is strongest for
reasoning tests such as Raven’s Progressive Matrices that had been
designed to minimize the effects of culture and education. Flynn
calculated that the gain on the Raven test in the UK was 55 points
between 1892 and 1992. By this measure, only 10 percent of Britons
had an IQ above 75 in 1892!
We know that the Flynn effect is present even in pre-school chil-
dren. This means that in addition to education, better nutrition is a
likely candidate. We know that malnutrition in infants and young
children can cause mental deficiency, but we don’t know whether
dietary improvements within the ‘normal’ range make a difference.
Perhaps better food makes bigger brains, and bigger brains make
higher IQs. According to the autopsy records of more than 7,000
patients who had been processed by the Institute of Pathology at the
London Hospital between 1860 and 1940, brain weight increased by
52 grams in males and 23 grams in females over this time period.22
Whatever its causes, by now the Flynn effect has ended in the most
advanced societies. IQs are still rising in the backward countries. On
the Caribbean island of Dominica, for example, the average IQ has
risen by about 18 points over the past 35 years. But in Norway and
Denmark, the Flynn effect has ended in the cohorts born after 1980.
If anything, IQs are declining again among young people in these
countries. The same may be true for other advanced societies as well.

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Presumably we are approaching a genetic limit to the development of

human intelligence.23
Flynn believes that most of the IQ gains do not reflect a true
increase in intelligence. If the gains are real, he asks, ‘why aren’t we
undergoing a renaissance unparalleled in human history? . . . why
aren’t we duplicating the golden days of Athens or the Italian
Renaissance?’ His conclusion is that ‘The Ravens Progressive
Matrices Test does not measure intelligence but rather a correlate
with a weak causal link to intelligence; the same may apply to all IQ
tests.’24
If I had a time machine, I would travel to the Athens of the fifth
century BC. I would pick up Socrates from the Athenian market place
and take him with me to Chicago on American Air. I would tell him
of our 3 billion base pairs of DNA and the sequence of the human
genome. I would show him how to browse the Internet and tell him
of men walking on the moon and space missions to the outer planets
of the solar system. Then I would take him to downtown Chicago
and show him the city from the top of the John Hancock Building.
Finally I would fly with him to New Zealand and introduce him to
James Flynn, and I would lock them together in a seminar room at
the University of Otago until they can agree on whether the classical
Athenian civilization or our own can boast the greater achievements.
Flynn, are you sleep-walking?! We are undergoing a renaissance
unparalleled in human history, and we not only duplicate but far
exceed the golden days of Athens and the Italian renaissance! All this
would be impossible without a massive rise in intelligence. If any-
thing, the Flynn effect shows that the advancement of civilization
goes hand-in-hand with the advancement of human intelligence.
One point I have to concede to Flynn. We know that low IQ is a
risk factor for crime and teenage pregnancy, and even divorce strikes
bright people less often than the dumb. Therefore we should have
less crime, teenage pregnancy and divorce now than 100 years ago;
but we don’t.
IQ accounts for 29 percent of the inter-individual differences in
job performance in modern America, but only 4 percent of the
variability in delinquency.25 A small effect like this easily gets
swamped by other factors. And what if, for example, many IQ-
boosting genes also prop up the morality modules in the frontal
lobes, while many IQ-boosting environmental influences, such as
mass media and schooling, also undermine traditional restraints? In

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 In God’s Image?

that case higher genotypic IQ will reduce delinquency, whereas

environmentally boosted IQ will raise it. Thus there seem to be hard
correlates of intelligence such as computer-building ability (or tem-
ple-building ability in the case of classical Athens), and soft corre-
lates such as resistance to crime. Only the hard correlates track the
historical trends of intelligence.

IQ population genetics

In science convictions have no rights of citizenship. Only when

they decide to descend to the modesty of hypotheses . . . they
may be granted admission . . . though always with the restriction
that they remain under police supervision, under the police of
mistrust. (Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science)

Most studies about test intelligence in different ethnic groups have

been done in the United States, and the results are consistent. An IQ
gap between African Americans and Whites of about 15 points has
been observed since the earliest days of IQ testing. Even when socio-
economic status is held constant, about three-quarters of the dif-
ference remain. IQ tests do not under-predict the occupational status
of African Americans. In this sense they are not biased against
African Americans. Hispanics are only slightly above Blacks in IQ
and achievement.
Asian Americans from China, Japan and Korea score as high as
Whites on IQ tests, but they overachieve in the educational and
occupational arenas. Flynn estimated that they perform as if their
IQs were 10 to 21 points higher than they really are. This means that
IQ tests are biased against Asian Americans.
International comparisons show the same. IQs have been mea-
sured in at least 114 countries, and they range all the way from 59 in
Equatorial Guinea to 108 in Hong Kong and Singapore. Chinese,
Japanese and Koreans in their own countries have IQs of about 105,
slightly higher than the white populations of Europe and North
America. Typical IQs are near 90 in Southeast Asia, 85 in India and
the Middle East, and 70 in tropical Africa. We do not know to what
extent these differences are genetic or environmental in origin, but

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when I entered skin color and IQ in the same data table, I was
stunned by the discovery that the correlation coefficient between
these two variables was a whopping 0.88. Neither wealth nor edu-
cation predicted national IQ as closely as did skin color!
People of East Asian origin tend to be stronger in spatial than
verbal ability. On the SAT, Asian Americans score higher than
Caucasians on the math part but lower on the verbal part. No
wonder that they are over-represented in science and engineering but
under-represented in law and politics!26
Personality traits and social and reproductive behaviors also differ
between ethnic and racial groups. The crime rate, for example, is
fourfold higher for African Americans than European Americans,
but most of this disparity is explained by the IQ difference. Single
motherhood is also more common in the Black than the White
population, but most of this difference cannot be explained by IQ.
Chinese and Japanese have less crime, less illegitimate children and
less divorce than Whites, no matter whether they live in their own
countries or in the United States.27
The question of whether such differences are genetic or environ-
mental has social implications. If, for example, the Black–White IQ
gap in America is genetic, the best quick fix is to provide Blacks with
more schooling and job opportunities than Whites. But if it is caused
by discrimination, then racial segregation would be best. To make
sure that African Americans can develop to their fullest potential,
unfettered by a prejudiced White majority, the whole United States
should be divided into Black and White nations.
Is there something wrong with my logic? Showering favors on
people because they are different is counterintuitive, but why? It is,
of course, because we evolved to be nice to our own people but
indifferent or hostile to outsiders. Also, being nice to people by
segregating them out is counterintuitive. Exclusion from one’s band,
tribe, nation, religion or species is universally understood as a hostile
act. Dogs cannot learn to obtain food by moving away from it, and
humans cannot learn to be nice to others by segregating them out.28
According to the population geneticist Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza,
85 to 90 percent of the total genetic diversity in our species is found
within local populations, 3 to 6 percent are ‘ethnic’ differences
between different populations on the same continent, and 5 to 10
percent are ‘racial’ differences between continents. These figures
were calculated from a large number of presumably non-functional

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 In God’s Image?

DNA sequence variations that are most likely not subject to

selection.
Arthur Jensen made a similar breakdown for the test intelligence
of 622 Black and 622 White children in California. He found that 44
percent of the variability was between individuals, 29 percent
between families, 8 percent between socio-economic status groups,
14 percent between races, and the remaining 5 percent were mea-
surement error. The IQ difference between the Black and White
children was 12 points.29
Thus about 14 percent of the overall variability in both IQ and
DNA markers are accounted for by differences between populations.
If IQ genes float as randomly in the gene pool as Cavalli-Sforza’s
DNA variants, the ‘genotypic’ difference between the most distant
human populations should be about as great as the observed dif-
ference between Black and White children in California: 12 IQ
points.
In reality, IQ genes do not float freely in the gene pool but are
subject to natural selection. To create an IQ gap of 12 points in the
60,000 years since the first divergence of the major racial groups,
natural selection would have to shift the population IQ by one point
every 5,000 years. Is selection of this magnitude credible? Let’s
assume that in the United States only Whites with below-average IQ
reproduce at all. Similarly, only the brighter half of African Amer-
icans reproduces. We can calculate that this would drive the average
White IQ down by six points, and raise the average Black IQ by six
points.30 The present gap of 15 points would almost disappear within
a single generation. If the IQ gap is genetic, it’s easy to eliminate!
It’s easy? Dame Eugenia Charles, the former prime minister of
Dominica, once remarked, ‘AIDS is easy to prevent. Have sex only
with your legal partner. If you don’t have a legal partner, be celi-
bate!’ And when a student asks me about the best way to lose weight,
I tell her, ‘That’s easy. Eat less!’ Diet plans are foiled by gluttony,
AIDS programs by lust, and social engineering projects by moral
knee-jerks. We all know that liberals don’t want to make themselves
unpopular by telling others how they should reproduce; and con-
servatives believe that we have no right to interfere with the God-
given differences between the races.
When solutions to problems would run up against moral intui-
tions, most people prefer to ignore the problems or find explanations
in something we cannot change. For example, in the United States

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the Black–White difference in liability to extramarital birth has

remained stable at 1.1 standard deviations over many decades. Is this
caused by poverty? Unlikely. During the twentieth century, illegiti-
mate births soared among Blacks and Whites alike while everyone
became more affluent.
If poverty doesn’t work, what about discrimination in a White-
dominated society? That doesn’t work either because Afro-Car-
ibbeans have the same breeding habits as African-Americans
although they are not dominated by a White majority. Or slavery?
Slavery ended one-and-a-half centuries ago, and besides, even tra-
ditional African marriage systems are marked by low parental
investment and ‘a mating pattern that permits early sexual activity,
loose economic and emotional ties between spouses, and in many
cases the expectation on the part of both spouses that the marriage
will end in divorce or separation, followed by the formation of
another union.’31
Those who believe in genetic race differences emphasize that
human populations evolved in different environments: Negroids in
the tropics, Caucasians in the temperate region, and Mongoloids in
the mammoth steppe of Ice Age Siberia and the inhospitable
mountain ranges of Central Asia. Thus, Mongoloids evolved flat
faces to prevent frostbite, and they became slit-eyed to protect the
eyes from the glare on the snow-covered landscape. People living in
cold climates, it is said, needed more ingenuity for survival; and being
dependent on male hunting they had to maintain stable families for
the survival of women and children. Therefore Mongoloids ended up
with the highest intelligence and the most stable families, and
Negroids with the lowest intelligence and the least stable families.32
Is this science, or are these merely ‘Just So Stories’? According to
the philosopher Karl Popper, the difference between science and
non-science is that a scientific hypothesis generates predictions that
can be falsified by observation or experiment.33 If a hypothesis
cannot be falsified, it’s not scientific. For example, the hypothesis
that prayer is effective predicts that sick patients for whom prayers
are said have a better recovery than equally sick patients for whom
nobody prays. If the experiment shows that the prayed-for patients
do not have a better recovery than the control patients, the
hypothesis is false. Therefore the claim that prayer is effective is a
scientific hypothesis.
Also, theories about genetic race differences can be falsified – and

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 In God’s Image?

it’s easy. We simply have to find those genetic variations in our

genome that contribute to personality and intelligence. If the fre-
quencies of the alternative variants differ systematically between
populations, then the evolutionary stories might be true; if not, they
must be false.
Once upon a time every intellectual was free to champion a theory
because it pleased him or furthered his career. Now all this is jeo-
pardized by the encroachment of hard science. Will the intellectuals
complain? Some will. Others won’t, because they are sick and tired
of silly academic debates that can be resolved easily by modern
molecular genetics.

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 12
The Logic of Culture

History itself is an actual part of natural history, of nature’s

development into man. Natural science will in time include
the science of man as the science of man will include natural
science: there will be one science.
(Karl Marx)

For the behavioral geneticist, culture is the variance component of

psychological and behavioral traits that is explained by membership
in social groups. Translation: culture describes similarities between
members of the same group, and differences between members of
different groups. Some traits, for example the burning of widows on
the dead husband’s funeral pyre, are highly cultural. Others, such as
the habit of scratching one’s head, are not.
Many behaviors are near universal. People all over the world have
marriage-like arrangements; they have an aversion to copulating
with their mother, especially if she is postmenopausal; stealing from
one’s comrades is always considered objectionable although stealing
from a stranger is sometimes not; and the belief in an afterlife is near
universal although the belief in a beforelife is not. Only the details
vary with culture.
Culture has to respect human nature. As if tied by an invisible
rubber band, cultural usages and habits of thought gravitate toward
a stable center. If they conform to human nature they persist; if not,
they will be abandoned on the slightest provocation.

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 In God’s Image?

Diversity and uniformity

We learn the mores as unconsciously as we learn to walk and

eat and breathe . . . [W]hen we wake to consciousness of life we
find them facts which already hold us in the bonds of tradition,
custom, and habit. (William Graham Sumner)

Rooted in the soil of human nature is the jungle of socially learned

knowledge: how to make a living, what dress to wear, on what side
of the road to drive, and what to do to go to heaven. All culture is
knowledge. Richard Dawkins even invented a name for bits of cul-
turally transmitted knowledge. He called them ‘memes’.
We have cultural universals such as marriage and war because the
human brain is not a blank slate, and the acquisition of knowledge is
not a passive process. We are predisposed by our genes to learn
certain things more easily than others. To understand cultural
diversity, however, we need to understand two further processes: the
transmission of knowledge in social groups, and the mechanisms by
which differences between groups are maintained.
Knowledge transmission is the easy part. Children learn
thoughtlessly by observation. Even the lowly octopus is capable of
observational learning, and chimpanzees have reached a stage where
behavioral skills and routines are transmitted across generations.
Chimpanzees have culture.1 Humans have added a further refine-
ment: language. Through language we can learn about things we
have never seen, such as spirits and microbes.
Culturally transmitted knowledge produces social and economic
institutions, and it produces the material culture of the group: tools,
buildings, weapons and works of art. For the prehistoric period we
know only the material culture. For historic societies we also have
written records about belief systems and behavior.
Because knowledge changes faster than genes, cultural evolution is
faster than biological evolution. Thus, 30 years ago scientists were
studying a deadly disease called kuru that was ravaging the Fore
tribe of New Guinea and that was transmitted by cannibalism. At
first they assumed that eating the deceased members of the com-
munity was an ancient custom of the tribe that had survived through
the millennia. Not so. Informants told them that this custom had
been acquired from neighboring tribes only recently, ‘after the first
airplane had been sighted’. Similarly, in the fourth century BC Plato

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reported that ‘not long ago the Greeks were of the opinion, which is
still generally received among the barbarians, that the sight of a
naked man was ridiculous and improper, and when first the Cretans
and the Lacedaemonians introduced naked exercises, the wits of that
day might have ridiculed them’.2
If culture changes so fast, how can cultural diversity persist?
Human groups are subject to the whims of fashion, and to the influx
of ideas as well as people from outside. After a while, the whole
world should be an amorphous cultural puree.
One reason for homogeneity within groups is conformity. Nobody
likes to oppose what is held to be right and proper – perhaps even
sacred – among his peers, unless he is either a crank or a leader.
People prefer as friends those who are like themselves, and therefore
the conformist ends up with more friends than the oddball. We are
better off going with the crowd rather than emulating fringe
individuals.3
Another recipe for social learning is to emulate only the successful
members of one’s community. As a result a leader can shape his
followers in his own image, infusing them with his own personal
idiosyncrasies. Hitler homogenized German political culture and
made it different from the political cultures of other European
nations; and the early Confucian philosophers shaped the thinking
of their nation for more than two millennia. In preliterate societies
the influence of a leader ended shortly after his death, when the
memory of his example had faded into nothingness. But with written
traditions, a single individual can resonate through the ages.
Above all, cultural units are maintained by the need to belong. We
form communities whose members are predictable to one another
because they share the same values and beliefs. The Jewish injunc-
tion against the eating of pork is not an attempt to prevent trichi-
nosis, but a means of asserting group identity!
Does all this mean that biological evolution has been replaced by
cultural evolution in our species? Of course not. Genes still mutate
and genetic variants are still transmitted at different rates. Saying
that we are no longer subject to biological evolution because we have
culture is like saying that the law of gravity is no longer valid because
we can build airplanes.
Culture does not replace biological evolution. It speeds it up. In
‘natural’ environments to which we are already adapted, selection
punishes deviations from the golden mean. But in the man-made

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environments in which we live, selection produces directional change

to adapt the organism to the new conditions. The more the condi-
tions of life deviate from the ancestral hunter-gatherer lifestyle, the
faster is the pace of biological evolution.

Cultural selection

Historians will have to face the fact that natural selection

determined the evolution of cultures in the same manner as it
did that of species. (Konrad Lorenz, On Aggression)

Some cultural entities persist, but most don’t. The Jews survived but
the Manichaeans didn’t. Whole tribes were dispersed or extinguished
by warfare in the New Guinea highlands, and the Roman writer
Tacitus reported the same about the Germans. Only recently, many
small-scale traditional societies were wiped out by contact with
Western civilization: physically, culturally, or both. In culture as in
nature, death is the rule, survival the exception.4
Some memes, especially the religious ones, are transmitted from
parents to children almost like genes. Therefore the fate of religions
depends not only on their fit with evolved cognitive structures, but
also on genetic reproduction. Sects and cults imposing celibacy, self-
castration or suicide on their members did pop up from time to time,
but they are no longer with us because their members did not
reproduce their kind.
In the United States, the liberal and moderate Protestant
denominations are stagnating while conservative churches have
increased their membership throughout the past century. This trend
is not due to the greater attractiveness of conservative religion.
Actually, the gains and losses through conversion have been more or
less balanced for all churches. The important difference is the birth
rate. In one survey, liberal Protestants had an average of 2.27 chil-
dren in their lifetime, moderate Protestants had 2.67 children, and
conservative Protestants had 3.12. Without any conversions at all,
conservatives will outcrowd liberals in the course of a few
generations.
Catholics are replacing Protestants as the majority religion in
Northern Ireland because they have more children; in Palestine the
Muslims out-reproduce the Jews, and indeed the Palestinian Arab

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population has grown sixfold over the past half-century; and on a

worldwide scale Muslims out-reproduce Christians.
Differential reproduction has always been important. Tacitus
observed about the Jews: ‘They take thought to increase their
numbers; for they regard it as a crime to kill any late born child.’ The
Jews opposed not only infanticide but abortion and to some extent
contraception as well, and they survived. Christian preachers thun-
dered against all kinds of family planning, and they prevailed over
everyone else. Let’s assume that during the 14 generations from AD
50 to AD 400, Christians raised on average 20 percent more children
than their pagan compatriots because of these religious injunctions.
Without any conversions at all this would have raised the percentage
of Christians in the Roman Empire tenfold, from say 2 percent to 20
percent. This is almost enough to explain the rise of early
Christianity.5
There are three timescales: journalistic, historical and evolu-
tionary. Elections are held and wars are fought on the journalistic
timescale, but the demographic trends and changes in cultural value
systems that determine the growth and decay of nations and religions
are too slow to be newsworthy. These developments take place on
the historical timescale: from one generation to several centuries.
Changes in gene frequencies define the evolutionary timescale.
And how long does it take to change gene frequencies? Skin color is
a simple example. White skin is an advantage in cold and cloudy
climates because it favors vitamin D synthesis, but it could not
evolve in the tropics because it is too sensitive to sunlight. Therefore
the skin color differences that we see today between Europeans and
Africans, or between the Japanese and Melanesians, must have
evolved only recently, after the first advance of modern humans into
the frigid regions of Siberia and Europe 45,000 years ago.
The ability to digest the milk sugar lactose in adulthood evolved
even faster. The frequency of this genetic trait is 90 percent in
northern Europe but only 2 percent in China. And although many
nomads of Africa and the Middle East have a high frequency of the
gene for lifelong lactose digestion, most sedentary farmers in these
countries do not.
The lactose-digestion gene is common only in those populations
that depended on milk in the past. Dairying has been practiced in
Europe for the past 6,000 years or so. During this time, but not
earlier, people who could digest the milk of their animals were a little

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more likely to survive and reproduce than those who couldn’t. A

reproductive advantage of 2 percent in every generation would be
sufficient to explain the current gene frequencies. Unlike cultural
fads and fashions, genetic selection is cumulative over time. Even a
slight selective advantage can produce large effects, provided it is
maintained over many generations.
The hemochromatosis mutation is another example. This mutation,
which enhances the absorption of dietary iron from the intestine,
popped up only 2,000 to 4,000 years ago in a single individual some-
where in Northwestern Europe. Since it can cause the iron overload
disease hemochromatosis, this mutation could not have persisted in
hunter-gatherers who live on an iron-rich diet. However, the early
European farmers depended on a low-iron diet of cereal grains and
milk, and iron deficiency anemia was an important limitation on
female fertility. The hemochromatosis mutation could spread in the
population because it protected its carriers from iron deficiency.
Today, more than 10 percent of people in Britain, Ireland and the
Scandinavian countries carry at least one copy of this mutation.
Above all, however, people adapt to new environments by
inventing new technology and establishing appropriate social insti-
tutions. Therefore we must expect that new environments have
selected not only for those genes that affect physical traits such as
skin color, iron absorption and milk digestion, but also for genes
that affect behavioral traits. This seems to be the case. We know of
several genes that are required for normal brain development.
Crippling mutations in any one of them cause microcephaly, with
grossly reduced brain size and mental deficiency. At least two of
these ‘brain size genes’, the microcephalin and ASPM genes, have
common variants that originated only recently and that have been
selected to high frequency since then. The microcephalin mutation is
about 37,000 years old and is now present in more than 80 percent of
North Asians, Europeans and American Indians. The ASPM
mutation popped up in a single individual about 5,800 years ago and
is now present in 40 percent of people in Europe and the Middle
East. Presumably these genes were selected because they improved
one or another aspect of brain function.6
These examples show that the genetic constitution of free-breeding
human populations can change to some extent within one millen-
nium, and large changes are possible in the course of some millennia.
In most cases, the selective pressures that produced changes on this

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timescale were imposed by cultural practices. We cannot simply

assume that the cave painters of 20,000 years ago, or even the
cathedral builders of 800 years ago, had exactly the same gene fre-
quencies as today’s supermarket builders. Those genes that really
matter for the reproductive bottom line can change very fast.
Genetic selection is aided by people’s tendency to join those cul-
tural groups that suit their genetically influenced inclinations. When
asked whether feminism has a future, I answer with the question,
‘Do feminists have more children than other women, or less?’ If
feminism is culturally transmitted in families or the feminist com-
munity in the way religions are, then feminists will propagate their
faith through their daughters. However, if feminism is not culturally
transmitted from mothers to daughters but chosen by personal
preference, then those genes that predispose a woman to become a
feminist will become common among feminists. The fate of these
genes depends on the number of children produced by the feminists.
Either way, the future of feminism depends on the reproductive
output of the feminists!
The same applies to homosexuality. If you are a bigot who really
hates homosexuals, you should encourage them to cultivate their
own child-free lifestyle. They will breed themselves out of existence,
and the world will finally be freed from this evil. If, on the other
hand, you think that homosexuality is a trait to be valued, you
should encourage homosexuals to marry and have children or at
least volunteer as sperm donors. Gay genes will be transmitted, and
homosexuals will continue to make their wonderful contribution to
cultural diversity.
And if you believe that abortion is a rotten thing, you should
make abortion freely available to every woman. That way you make
sure that the genes that predispose a woman to abortion will not be
transmitted. In due course, abortion liability will be bred out of our
species.
The logic of culture is different from human logic. This is because
our brain did not evolve for reasoning about cultural and biological
evolution. Our ancestors had to solve a more immediate problem: to
control the behavior of other group members. The human psycho-
logic goes somewhat like this:

1. I hate people who act in ways that are bad for me.
X acts in ways that are bad for me.

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Therefore I hate X.
2. I want to make the people I hate unhappy.
I hate X.
Therefore I want to make X unhappy.
3. People are happy when they can do what they want to do.
I want to make X unhappy.
Therefore I prevent X from doing what he wants to do.

Each of these three syllogisms is implemented by a separate pro-

cessing unit, or module, in the brain. The minor premise (the second
line of the syllogism) is the input of the module. The major premise
(the first line) is the processing to which this input is subjected. The
cognitive system treats it as implicit, taken-for-granted knowledge.
The conclusion of the syllogism is the module’s output. The three
modules are arranged in series such that the output of one is used as
input for the next. Going through this programmed sequence, you
can deter people from acting in ways that are bad for you.
Module #1 can be replaced by another one:

1a. I hate people who are unkind to others.

X is unkind to others.
Therefore I hate X.

This module protects us from unkind people. It is engaged when an

abortionist is unkind to a fetus. And there is yet another one:

1b. I hate people who do strange things that I would never do.
X does strange things that I would never do.
Therefore I hate X.

This module protects us from weird and unpredictable people. It is

engaged when homosexuals do strange things that we ourselves
would never do.
Did you ever notice that the natural sciences have advanced in
leaps and bounds during the past century, while the social sciences
have turned in circles? One reason for this is that most of the time,
thinking about human affairs and social relations gets subverted by
special-purpose reasoning routines. These routines are terrific at
solving the problems for which they evolved, but lead us astray when
we use them in our attempts at understanding how the world works.

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Feedback loops

A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its

opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its
opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is
familiar with it. (Max Planck)

Cultural evolution engages three levels. First, there are the genes that
build the brains. Second, there are the brains themselves with their
knowledge, beliefs and preoccupations. And, third, there is the
superstructure of material culture and social institutions that are
produced by these brains.
On a timescale of decades, cultural evolution is driven by feedback
loops between brains and the superstructure. To give an example,
people naturally hate and fear criminals. Therefore they create sys-
tems of criminal justice, and they convince themselves that it is
necessary and virtuous and proper to punish criminals.
Restraints on severe forms of aggression are also programmed
into the brain, as is the readiness to forgive trespasses. This pro-
gramming demands the humane treatment of everyone, including
criminals. People’s treatment of criminals is a compromise between
the competing punitive and humanitarian memes. Punitive memes
prevail when the fear of crime runs high, and humanitarian memes
prevail when the level of fear is low.
Now let’s assume that, at a time of low crime and favored by
historical accidents, a humanitarian meme spreads saying that
criminals are victims of poverty and injustice who suffer from low
self-esteem. Therefore prisons are abolished and criminals are placed
in therapeutic groups where they can cultivate their self-esteem. Thus
a change in people’s brains transforms the cultural superstructure.
However, it turns out that the new system leads to rampant crime.
People are scared, and their fear drives the spread of punitive memes.
The death penalty is introduced for pickpockets, and felons who
have committed more serious crimes are tortured to death slowly.
These new laws finally bring the crime rate down. Fear of crime
diminishes and is replaced by outrage at the cruel treatment of
criminals who, after all, are only victims of poverty and injustice who
suffer from low self-esteem . . .
This is a negative feedback loop in which a state of mind produces
a change in the cultural superstructure that in turn undermines the

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state of mind that produced the change. Negative feedback can

maintain a stable equilibrium, but it can also lead to cycles of
punitiveness and humanitarianism once the equilibrium has been
disturbed. Such cycles actually occur. In the United States, for
example, humanitarian values prevailed during the 1960s but then
gave way to punitive attitudes since the 1980s.
Bright young people are quite good at identifying the follies and
vices of their elders. They have to, because they must distinguish
between good examples that should be emulated and bad examples
that should be used as a warning. This critical approach to social
learning fades after adolescence, and what has been learned early
sticks for a lifetime. The result is a pattern of generational replace-
ment, with old people holding on to the fashions and follies of their
youth while young folks develop their own.
Feedback loops between genes and culture need more time. In
Chapter 6 I argued that the prehistoric inventions of campfires and
of sophisticated hunting and fighting gear created an advantage for
those who were bright enough to use these technologies. This cul-
turally imposed ‘natural’ selection favored high-IQ genes. The genes
made better brains, and the better brains created even more
sophisticated technologies that selected for even better brains. This is
an example of positive feedback between genes and culture. Whereas
negative feedback maintains a stable or mildly cycling state, positive
feedback produces runaway evolution.
Genes and culture can also be opposed. Let’s assume that there is
a bell-shaped distribution of sexual restraint in the female popula-
tion. A few women really like sex, a few avoid it altogether, and most
are somewhere in between. Let’s further assume that both genes and
cultural norms influence female sexual restraint. How will this sys-
tem evolve when married women raise more children than pro-
miscuous women, and spinsters die childless?
In a licentious culture unrestrained women are promiscuous,
restrained women are married, and there are no spinsters. Because
married women raise more children than promiscuous women, genes
for female sexual restraint spread in the population.
People preferentially learn those cultural norms that conform to
their natural preferences. Therefore, as genes for female sexual restraint
become common, cultural norms favoring a high level of female sexual
restraint spread in the population. Eventually we get a culture like in
Victorian England: restrained women are childless spinsters,

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unrestrained women marry early and have children, and there are no
promiscuous women. Now, genes for unrestrained sex again spread in
the population until they throw cultural norms back into the licentious
mode.7 As in the case of ‘short’ feedback loops between brains and the
cultural superstructure, the ‘long’ feedback loops of gene–culture coe-
volution produce a stable or mildly cycling state.
Whether the result of negative gene–culture feedback is a stable
equilibrium or a cycle depends on the tenacity of the cultural value
systems. In prehistoric times, value systems were quite adaptable on
a timescale of a few generations. This short-term adaptability
resulted in long-term stability for genes as well as value systems.
During the past two millennia, however, the major world religions
maintained reasonably stable value systems in many parts of the
world. This stability makes the prolonged directional selection of
genes possible. With negative feedback between genes and culture,
such selection can trigger a gene–culture coevolutionary cycle on a
timescale of one or a few millennia.

Scala culturae

Humans can continue to exist at very low levels of cognitive

development. All they have to do is reproduce. (Arthur E.
Hippler)8

The complexity of human societies ranges from hunter-gatherer

bands with two or three dozen members to modern nations with
hundreds of millions. Social complexity has increased over the mil-
lennia in most parts of the world, but this does not mean that all
human societies become more complex over time. Many complex
societies have regressed to a more primitive condition, and overall
social complexity has increased mainly because the decadent socie-
ties were wiped out by more successful neighbors.
The Tasmanians escaped this fate because their island got cut off
from mainland Australia by rising sea levels 11,000 years ago. Since
that time they not only failed to innovate, but lost a whole array of
useful technologies: bone tools, boomerangs, barbed spears, hafted
stone tools and catamarans. Finally their inventory of manufactured

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goods was reduced to no more than two-dozen items. They never

learned the manufacture of clothes despite the frigid winters on their
island, and they even gave up fishing although they were starving
every year during the winter season.
One problem was that there were only 4,000 Tasmanians. Such
small populations easily lose cultural practices by random trans-
mission failure or by social or ecological upheavals that disrupt
cultural transmission. The Tasmanians could not offset this random
loss by the acquisition or reacquisition of cultural practices from
neighboring groups; and due to their small population size there
were not enough talented individuals capable of making new
inventions. Everything else being equal, the number of inventors is
proportional to the size of the population.9
Also, a large population is required for the extensive cooperative
networks that define complex societies. In the simplest societies, all
the cooperation there is takes place between a few individuals and
families. In the most complex societies, government bureaucracies,
armies and multinational businesses coordinate the activities of
millions. This coordination requires technologies such as writing and
money. But in last analysis everything depends on the brains that
invent these technologies, make use of them, and maintain the social
structures in which they are used. Cultural complexity is the society-
level expression of cognitive complexity. Roughly, the complexity of
a society is determined by its population size and the proportion of
highly talented individuals in the population.
Anthropologists measure cultural complexity with indicators such
as settlement size, political organization, long-distance trade, craft
specialization and the presence of written traditions. Societies that
are complex on some of these measures are usually complex on the
others as well, and much of the overall variability is explained by a
single ‘cultural g factor’.10
Until about 10,000 years ago all human societies were simple
because they were small. Larger settlements became possible only
with the invention of agriculture in the Neolithic revolution, starting
9,000 years ago in the Middle East, 7,500 years ago in China, 5,000
years ago in Mexico and Peru, and 4,000 years ago in Africa south of
the Sahara. Each region cultivated its own indigenous crops: wheat
in the Middle East, rice in South China, maize in Mexico, potatoes in
the Andes, and local millets in North China and Africa. This means
that agriculture was invented independently many times. If, say, the

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Mexicans had learned it from the Egyptians, they would have cul-
tivated wheat rather than maize.
So why did agriculture pop up almost simultaneously in so many
places? One requirement is intelligence. Innovation requires intelli-
gence, and so does planning. The hunter plans ahead for a few days,
but the farmer plans ahead for many months. Does this mean that
12,000 years ago all human populations in every corner of the world
were too stupid for agriculture, and 5,000 years ago suddenly
everyone was bright enough?
Actually, inventiveness and plan-ahead evolved long before the
Neolithic revolution. It started more than 30,000 years ago when
people began manufacturing traps, canoes and sophisticated hunting
weapons that were individually owned and kept over long time
periods. Societies with this economy were prone to invent agriculture
because they had already developed the kind of thinking that is
required for a farming or herding lifestyle.
The Neolithic revolution was synchronized by global climate
change. The Ice Age was not only icy but also unpredictable. Ice
cores from Greenland and other places, and sediments from lake
bottoms all over the world, show that the climate was erratic on a
timescale of centuries to millennia. Even abrupt changes that took
place over a few years were common. Things got better only at the
end of the last Ice Age, between 18,000 and 10,000 years ago.
Compared to the hundreds of thousands of years before, the last
12,000 years have been abnormally stable. Every farmer knows that
even moderate deviations from the usual weather can spoil his har-
vest for the year. Thus farming was nearly impossible during the Ice
Age, but once the climate had stabilized, it developed within a few
thousand years in many places.11
One more question needs to be answered. We know that the early
farmers had lower life expectancy, higher infant mortality and
shorter stature than their hunting ancestors. They were ravaged by
iron deficiency anemia, infectious diseases and early tooth decay.
Why did they ever decide to abandon the healthy life of the hunter
and food gatherer to become farmers?
Of course they never decided to become farmers. Hunter-gatherers
suffer seasonal food shortages when fruits are scarce and game
animals cannot be found. Therefore some of them began cultivating
storable grains and tubers as a sideline. This reduced their mortality
in times of want, with the result that the population soon outgrew

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the supply of wild plants and animals on which hunter-gatherers

depend. Thus population growth was not the cause for the initial
adoption of farming, but it prevented the first farmers from
returning to the Garden of Eden of their hunter-gatherer ancestors.
Female fertility is controlled by the supply of calories. This is an
ancient adaptation to a world where a shortage of calories was
common but deficiencies of specific nutrients were rare. The diet of
early farmers was adequate in calories but deficient in vitamins,
minerals and protein. Therefore their fertility was high and their
populations kept growing despite their poor health. Indeed, the
fertility of simple agricultural populations exceeds that of hunter-
gatherers by at least 10 percent.
As a result the agricultural populations multiplied and soon dis-
placed or absorbed the remaining hunter-gatherers. Europe was
infiltrated by farmers from the Middle East, and the early agri-
cultural Indoeuropeans spread their language and their genes over
an area stretching from the Atlantic coast of Europe to India and
Central Asia.12
With continued population growth the first cities appeared more
than 5,000 years ago in the Middle East and only a little later in
China and the Indus valley. Civilization was born when communities
grew too large for everyone to know everyone else. The face-to-face
leadership of the earlier communities gave way to formal govern-
ment, and custom was reinforced by law. At the same time, occu-
pational specialization produced the variety of industrial, mercantile,
artistic and intellectual activities that define civilized life. Was this
merely the outcome of larger populations and increased settlement
size? Perhaps. But earlier on I speculated that new technologies select
for those genes that make people able to use them. Could it be that
this kind of feedback was triggered by the new farming technology?
We know that in traditional agricultural societies, wealthy men had
more surviving children than the poor. If wealth was related to intel-
ligence, perseverance or other qualities conducive to cultural evolution,
then genes favoring such traits would have spread in the course of a
few millennia. It is even possible that mental ability was depressed by
poor nutrition among early farmers, and that this created a selective
pressure favoring high-IQ genes to compensate for the deficit.13

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Yoyo evolution

Children do not happen, not because children have become

impossible, but principally because intelligence at the peak of
intensity can no longer find any reason for their existence . . .
When the ordinary thought of a highly cultivated people begins
to regard ‘having children’ as a question of pro’s and con’s, the
great turning point has come. For nature knows nothing of pro
and con. (Oswald Spengler, Decline of the West)

Within three or four millennia most of the ancient farming centers

gave rise to truly urban societies. Thus began the age of the agrarian
civilizations: Egypt and Mesopotamia, India, China, Mexico, Peru,
Greece and Rome, and the later civilizations of Islam and Christian
Europe.
Each of these civilizations encompassed millions of people and
had stratified social systems with formal government. Each had
writing of sorts, sophisticated art, philosophy, organized religion,
civil engineering, and the beginnings of mathematics and science.
Urban life, social complexity, formal education and better nutrition
raised the intellectual sophistication of the privileged classes in these
societies. Cultural complexity produces cognitive complexity, that is,
intelligence. In our time, this phenomenon is known as the Flynn
effect. Intelligence, in turn, is the engine that drives societies toward
greater complexity.
Thus there should have been a positive feedback between cultural
complexity and intelligence, and a prolonged Flynn effect should
have carried the early civilizations to ever greater heights. And there
should have been massive population explosions. The Roman
Empire, for example, had reached a stage where peace was universal,
and the threat of famine was defused by public granaries and long-
distance trade. Masses of land-hungry Roman farmers should have
spread over the world, the way their Neolithic ancestors had done a
few thousand years earlier.
But nothing like this happened. All agrarian civilizations but one
finally hit the wall. They all went through a creative stage that lasted
for a few centuries, and then fell into stagnation or decline. Some-
thing must have gone wrong.
One problem was demography. In both Rome and the other
civilizations, the populations expanded before they reached the peak

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of their cultural creativity. The Greeks of the tenth to sixth centuries

BC, for example, were so prolific that they formed colonies from
Spain in the west to the foothills of the Caucasus in the east. So
massive was this population expansion that geneticists can still find
its traces in the populations of the Mediterranean coasts.
Greece was considered overpopulated by writers of the fifth and
fourth centuries BC, at the peak of Greek civilization. Later writers
paint a different picture. Polybius wrote in the second century BC:

In our own time the whole of Greece has been subject to a low
birth-rate and a general decrease of the population, owing to
which cities have become deserted and the land has ceased to
yield fruit although there have neither been continuous wars
nor epidemics . . . For men had fallen into such a state of pre-
tentiousness, avarice and indolence that they did not wish to
marry, or if they married to rear the children born to them, or at
most as a rule but one or two of them.

Inscriptions from Polybius’s time confirm that many families had

no more than one or two children. There were families with two
sons, but very few reared more than one daughter. The same hap-
pened in Rome. The Romans of the early Republic were embroiled
in perennial wars, but their numbers kept increasing. When 80,000
Roman soldiers were slain by Hannibal’s troops in the battle of
Cannae, the Romans had no difficulty raising a new army. But two
centuries later, during the Augustean age, we hear of a birth dearth
among Roman aristocrats that contemporary writers ascribed to the
aversion of Roman ladies to motherhood. According to Ovid, ‘Rare
is in our time [the woman] who wants to be a parent.’14
The laws passed by Augustus to stem the tide of childlessness
among Rome’s leading citizens were to no avail. Nor did the
emperors set a good example. The Antonines maintained good
government because every one of them remained childless. Rather
than passing the rule to a possibly inept son, they established the
tradition of adopting a capable young man to take their place. By AD
500 many cities of the Western Roman Empire had turned into ghost
towns and large tracts of arable land were abandoned. According to
the most thorough study available on the subject, over the six cen-
turies from the time of Augustus to AD 600 the population of Italy
fell from an estimated 7.4 million to 2.4 million.15

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The family-planning habit had rubbed off from the elites to the
masses. And without the benefit of modern medicine to reduce
mortality in proportion, depopulation was inevitable. The ancients
had simply done what any teenage girl is exhorted to do in our own
day: they took control of their lives by limiting their reproduction.
Pre-civilized people are ruled by custom, religion and superstition.
But every advanced civilization reaches a point where the old cus-
toms are questioned by the cognitive elite, and reason asserts itself
against superstition. Parochial habits of thought give way to a cos-
mopolitan outlook. In India and the Middle East the old folk beliefs
evolved into universalist religions with dogmas and holy scriptures,
and in Greece and China they were replaced by secular philosophies.
This was the time of Socrates, the Buddha, Confucius and the
anonymous authors of the Old Testament.
At this point the members of the cognitive elite acquired a sense of
control over their lives. For the first time in history we find the
conscious renouncement of creature comforts and human relations
in asceticism and monasticism. At the same time, family planning
came to be practiced on a larger scale than ever before.16
Family planning workers in backward countries still encounter the
ancient pre-rational mindset. Francine van de Walle tape-recorded
the following conversation with Maimouna, a 28-year-old mother of
seven children, in the West African city of Bamako:
Q. Maimouna, how many children would you like to have in
your life?
A. Ah, what God gives me, that is it . . . I cannot tell the
number I will have in my life . . . [laughs]
Q. It is true that God is the one who gives the child, but if
God asked the number of children you wanted, how many
would you say?
A. Oh, me, I cannot tell the number of children to God. What
he gives me is good, that’s enough. To say that I can stop and
say the number, to tell God what to give me, I could not do so.17
This mindset prevailed in pre-modern times worldwide. As late as
1848, John Stuart Mill described the English working class attitudes
of his time in these terms:
That it is possible to delay marriage, and to live in abstinence
while unmarried, most people are willing to allow; but when

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people are once married, the idea, in this country, never seems to
enter anyone’s mind that having or not having a family, or the
number of which it shall consist, is amenable to their own con-
trol. One would imagine that children were rained down upon
married people, direct from heaven, without their being art or
part in the matter, that it was really, as the common phrases have
it, God’s will and not their own, which decided the number of
their offspring.18

When people became more rational than this, populations

declined in some of the ancient civilizations, including Greece and
Rome. And less people meant less scientists, artists, inventors, phi-
losophers, statesmen, administrators, engineers and merchants.
In our time family planning has diffused through the whole
population, but in the early civilizations it was limited to the cognitive
elite. This doomed not only their social class and their cultural values,
but also their genes. When bright people fail to have children their
high-IQ genes are lost from the gene pool. What else do you expect?
To sum it up, civilizations evolve through two feedback loops.
First, rising cultural complexity and improvements in the conditions
of life raise people’s intelligence. That’s the Flynn effect. Higher
intelligence further increases prosperity and social complexity, which
raise intelligence even more. This feedback loop works on a timescale
of one to a few centuries.
The brain–culture feedback is embedded in a gene–culture feedback
that takes about one millennium to become fully effective. Under
civilized conditions, the more intelligent and open-minded have less
children because only they limit their family size deliberately. As the
cognitive elite breeds itself out of existence and high-IQ genes become
more thinly spread, the civilization loses its vitality, and eventually the
living conditions start deteriorating. This throws the Flynn effect in
reverse, and declining intelligence leads to further deterioration of the
living conditions. The ancient civilizations did not die by the sword.
Their elites were submerged in an ocean of stupidity. This cyclic
pattern of gene–culture coevolution I call ‘yoyo evolution’.
Our civilization is an extreme example. We have experienced
dramatic declines in the birth rate over the past one-and-a-half
centuries, and most advanced nations today do not reproduce
themselves. We also know that since the fertility transition of the late
nineteenth century the brightest have had the smallest families. This

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fertility differential was greatest in the late nineteenth century and

then relaxed somewhat when birth control trickled down to the
lower classes. But even for the second half of the twentieth century it
has been estimated that, without any environmental changes, the
average IQ of the US population would decline by 0.35 to 0.9 points
per generation as a result of differential fertility.19
During the twentieth century this slow genetic trend was swamped
by the Flynn effect, which raised the average population IQ by 30
points. But in the absence of runaway technological progress and
universal schooling, it is extremely unlikely that the ancient civili-
zations had a Flynn effect of these proportions. And without a
strong Flynn effect, genetic selection of the strength that is taking
place here and now would be enough to wreck any civilization within
a few centuries.

Aberrant cycles

The essence of dramatic tragedy is not unhappiness. It resides in

the solemnity of the remorseless working of things. (Alfred
North Whitehead)

History is not as stereotyped as my model of yoyo-evolving civili-

zations suggests. First, we can discount the earliest civilizations
altogether. Egypt, Mesopotamia and the civilizations of the New
World never reached the age of reason. Therefore they did not die
from internal burnout but succumbed to historical accidents. After
their fall they were succeeded not by a ‘dark age’ but by more
advanced civilizations.
But even those that did reach the age of reason had very different
fates. The decline of Rome was cut short by barbarian invasions and
the adoption of a foreign religion, but in the Muslim Middle East the
slow process of deculturation was allowed to proceed for a whole
millennium. From the eighth to the twelfth centuries AD the Middle
East was one of the most advanced regions of the world. In many
areas of inquiry, including mathematics, astronomy, optics, physics,
medicine and agricultural innovation, the Middle East surpassed the
achievements of China and Europe. But by the thirteenth century the
Muslim world was past its prime, and it has been on a path of
relentless decline ever since.

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Over the past millennium the Middle East not only failed to
develop the way the West did, but actually regressed in all areas of
intellectual inquiry. Of the scientists listed in an encyclopedia of
Muslim scientific pioneers, 64 percent produced their important
works before 1250, 36 percent between 1250 and 1750, and not one
lived after 1750. The first printing press to serve Muslims was
established as late as 1727 in Istanbul although printing had been
widely used in Europe since the fifteenth century. Although the
rapidly developing West was next door, the Muslim world failed to
copy Western technology the way the Japanese did in the late
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In the nineteenth century
the Turkish intellectual Ziya Pasha wrote:

I passed through the lands of the infidels, I saw cities and

mansions;
I wandered in the realm of Islam, I saw nothing but ruins.

In our time the Muslim Middle East remains economically and

socially backward and pathetically unable to defend itself against
foreign invaders. The average IQ in the Muslim countries hovers
around 85, and the per capita scientific output of the Arab world is a
mere 1 percent of Israel’s. It must have something to do with Islam,
because wherever Muslims and non-Muslims live in the same
country the Muslims are the poorer part of the population.
China, by contrast, reached a first peak at the same time as clas-
sical Greece. Since then there have been ups and downs, but no
sustained decline. Only recently, between 800 and 1400 AD, China
came close to an industrial revolution of the kind that took off in
Europe during the eighteenth century. Today the Chinese economy
is vibrant, the average population IQ is 105, and Chinese scientists
make great contributions at home and abroad.
One thousand years ago both China and the Middle East were
highly urbanized, and the Middle East had the added advantage of a
central location in Eurasia, with the opportunity to learn from both
its western and eastern neighbors. Early Islam was, if anything, more
supportive of science, free enterprise and participatory government
than Confucianism and medieval Christianity. It is therefore not
surprising that the advent of Islam gave a powerful stimulus to the
economic development and cultural creativity of the newly islamized
countries. And yet, after a delay of a few centuries this great

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civilization began to crumble. What went wrong? None of the social

and economic explanations that have been offered for the divergent
trajectories of these civilizations seems to make any sense at all.20
Only gene–culture coevolution can explain these large-scale
trends. The most consequential difference between China and Islam
was not in the systems of government and the economic institutions.
It was in the methods of fertility control. Islam was pro-natalist from
the beginning, exhorting its women to make many little holy war-
riors for the struggle against the infidels. However, it nevertheless
permitted contraception. Coitus interruptus, in particular, was
explicitly approved. Muslim scholars only insisted that the woman’s
consent was required, except in the case of a slave concubine.
Also herbal concoctions were known that could be eaten, drunk,
smeared on the penis or stuffed into the vagina. Some recipes – for
example placing dried camel dung into the vagina before intercourse
– were of dubious value, but others were most likely effective. Again,
early Islam had no objections. Also abortion was considered per-
missible by most, but only before ensoulment (120 days after con-
ception). Religious scriptures, medical textbooks, druggists’ manuals
and erotic literature from the medieval Arab world all attest to the
widespread knowledge and use of contraceptive methods. Only
infanticide was a no-no, and the Prophet Muhammad (peace be
upon him) severely condemned the pre-Islamic custom of burying
unwanted newborns alive in the desert sand.
In China (and also India), by contrast, contraception was rare
because infanticide was socially acceptable and was employed as the
principal family planning method. In Chapter 8 I speculated that
infanticide, because of its repulsiveness, was mainly used by women
who were in dire straits and therefore strongly motivated. We do
indeed know that in traditional China wealthy people typically had
more children than the poor, presumably because poor parents
disposed of the newborns they couldn’t raise.21
Contraception requires less motivation but more foresight and is
therefore preferred by intelligent women. As a result, infanticide
selects against poverty, callousness and social failure while contra-
ception selects against intelligence and foresight. We must not forget
that those genes that really matter for the reproductive bottom line
can change rapidly by natural selection. Those genetic variants that
affect the likelihood of effective family planning do really matter for
the reproductive bottom line, and therefore they are under stronger

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selection than any other genes. Their frequencies in the population

are bound to change a lot on a timescale of about one millennium.
Under civilized conditions, the biological evolution of human
populations is no longer driven by the external forces of climate and
subsistence but by the prevalent means of fertility control!
The greatest anomaly in the history of civilization is not the
decline of the Middle East but the rise of Christian Europe. Had
Europe followed the same trajectory as the other high civilizations, it
should have gone into stagnation or decline soon after the Italian
renaissance, but it didn’t.
Unlike the other civilizations, Europe had inherited a well-
structured and power-conscious religion from the spoils of the
ancient world. Christianity originated in the same Middle Eastern
civilization as Islam, but 600 years earlier at a more pristine stage of
cultural evolution. Therefore it is less rational and enlightened than
Islam in its foundational teachings, beset with primitive superstitions
and full of logical inconsistencies.
Because of these inconsistencies, critical thinking was suspect and
the value system was rampantly moralistic. Christian preachers
thundered against contraception, abortion and infanticide because
sex was so sinful that it could be justified only by its procreative
purpose. For religious authorities from Augustine to John Paul II,
contraception was irreconcilable with Christian marriage. Thomas
Aquinas taught that to ‘depart from the inseminating use of the
sexual act is to offend God directly’.
Coitus interruptus was a sin against nature, as serious as sodomy
and bestiality and worse than incest; and the use of ‘poisons of
sterility’ was considered as bad as homicide. Being preached to the
masses for many centuries, these injunctions were so effective that
most of the ancient medicinal knowledge about contraception and
early abortion was lost by the time of the Renaissance. By that time
confessors were advised not to inquire too directly about coitus
interruptus so they wouldn’t give bad ideas to simple folk who for
the most part no longer knew about this practice.
Even when Europe was ready for the age of reason, faith did not
yield at once but the rationalist impulse was deflected into the
Reformation. One little-noticed consequence of this was that con-
traception continued to be condemned by the responsible classes well
into the nineteenth century. The eighteenth century British demo-
grapher Thomas Short complained about ‘nefarious practices used

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by wicked wretches to prevent conceptions from their carnal grati-

fication’. This author seems to have been less outraged by abortion,
for elsewhere he speaks of the ‘bastards, which make one 30th of the
whole, whose procreation and expences licensed public stews might
have prevented’.22
That abortion was considered more excusable than contraception
should not surprise us. In Chapter 10 we saw that when a behavioral
domain is subject to moralistic inhibitions, offensive practices that
express ‘natural’ desires are more readily condoned than overly
rational ones. In our time we see that in many countries abortion is
permitted although the destruction of human embryos for research is
not. The desire of a poor unmarried girl to abort an unwanted
pregnancy is understandable and excusable, but the desire to prevent
conception without any pressing need is not! As a result, efforts at
contraception were rare, abortion was done occasionally, but child
exposure was fairly common in late medieval and early modern
Europe. It is likely that all these practices were more common among
the poor than among the cognitive and moral elite.23
Thanks to the ban on contraception, the contribution of Eur-
opeans and their descendants overseas to the world population rose
from 15 percent during the Middle Age to nearly 40 percent in the
nineteenth century. Fertility differentials favored the well-to-do. In
rural Germany during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries,
for example, the upper classes had an average of seven children and
the lower classes had an average of five. Similar conditions were
recorded for English villages during the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries. The same was true for towns and cities. An Elizabethan
census of 450 poor families in the town of Norwich found an average
of 2.2 children per household. Well-to-do merchants of Norwich and
Exeter had between 4.25 and 4.7 children per household.
Instead of limiting births within marriage, the Europeans devel-
oped a marriage system in which marriage was delayed until the man
had the means to support a family. Many poor men never reached
this point, and therefore the proportion of the population who never
married was fairly high from at least the sixteenth through the
nineteenth centuries. The industrial revolution took place in exactly
those countries where this marriage system had prevailed during the
preceding centuries.24
Today, however, our civilization is no longer driven by an increase
in the size or genetic quality of the population, but by the Flynn

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effect. The Flynn effect seems to have started slowly during the
nineteenth century in Europe, when schooling was extended to a
greater proportion of children and economic development brought
better living conditions and healthier nutrition for many people. This
economic development was triggered by the industrial revolution of
the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
Before the industrial revolution, educated people became philo-
sophers, theologians, statesmen or artists, while technology was left
to semi-literate craftsmen. Only when science and mathematics were
sufficiently developed to be useful in the craftsman’s domain did the
key inventions of the industrial revolution become possible: the
steam engine, railroads, and the factory-based mass production of
goods. Unlike the works of art and the philosophical and theological
systems of the past, these inventions improved the conditions of life
for many (though not all) people.
At this point Europe passed a critical threshold where public edu-
cation, combined with the improved conditions of life, widened peo-
ple’s mental horizons and triggered the Flynn effect. With scientific
thinking and technological knowledge already in place, higher intel-
ligence could be translated into more science and technology. This
created even better living conditions and greater social complexity,
which in turn raised the intelligence of the population even more.
Thus our civilization owes its continuing existence to religious
injunctions that delayed the widespread adoption of effective con-
traceptive practices until after the industrial revolution, when the
Flynn effect was up and running already. Thus the damaging effects
of declining birth rates and adverse genetic selection could be
masked by the effects of rising prosperity, modern medicine and
mass education.

Gene pools and gene streams

Something might be true while being harmful and dangerous in

the highest degree. (Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil)

The feedback loop between culture and intelligence implies that

slightly more gifted populations will tend to achieve a higher stan-
dard of living with a better educational system and more intellectual
stimulation, thereby raising their intelligence even further until large

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differences in intelligence and standard of living are created between

populations. This dynamic predicts, for example, that the genetic
difference for intelligence between European and Middle Eastern
populations is far smaller than the 15-point difference in measured
IQ would otherwise suggest.25
In Chapter 11 we saw that random genetic drift predicts moder-
ately large differences in ‘genotypic’ intelligence between human
populations. With the climate-imposed selection that has been pos-
tulated by some theorists, the differences would be large rather than
moderate. Is there no politically correct mechanism that can make us
all equal?
Such a genetic mechanism exists, and blood pressure is a good
example. All human populations have nearly the same average blood
pressure because everywhere in the world and at all times those with
an average blood pressure were healthier than those with extremely
high or extremely low blood pressure. Thus natural selection pun-
ished deviations from the golden mean.
Yoyo evolution implies that intelligence is selected like blood
pressure. Too little can lead to early death or failure to secure a mate
and raise children. Too much leads to contraception. Ideally, we
should be bright enough to survive but too stupid to control our
fertility! If this kind of selection applies species-wide, then all human
populations will gravitate toward the same genotypic intelligence.
This process of stabilizing selection is the only plausible genetic
mechanism that might have equalized genotypic intelligence across
populations in the past.
Culture amplifies this mechanism by ensuring that selection
against low intelligence is strongest in backward populations where a
good brain is needed for survival, while selection against high
intelligence is strongest in the more advanced populations where
family planning is practiced by a substantial proportion of people. In
a system of yoyo-evolving agrarian civilizations, gene frequencies
should fluctuate only mildly around a stable mean.

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 13
Ideologology

Every man, wherever he goes, is encompassed by a cloud of

comforting convictions, which move with him like flies on a
summer day.
(Bertrand Russell, Sceptical Essays)

Every society is based on fundamental assumptions about the world

and man’s place in the world. Although these assumptions vary
somewhat in different times and places, the invisible hand of human
nature attracts us to certain beliefs but not others. Even infants have
intuitions about the properties of physical objects, intentional action,
emotional expressions and the fundamental kinds of human rela-
tions. In last analysis, all knowledge that we acquire in a lifetime is
an elaboration of this innate knowledge. But humans do not see it
that way. Being able to think as well as talk, they cook up expla-
nations in a verbal code. These explanations take the form of reli-
gions, political ideologies and moral philosophies. The study of these
ideational systems is what I call ideologology.1

The truth seekers

A purely theoretical worldview, the systematic, conscious

renouncement of all relationships between objective under-
standing and human feeling and action, is a very late phe-
nomenon in the history of thought. (Ernst Topitsch)2

We can only understand the unknown as an extension of the known.

All pre-literate people explained the world that way: as a disk with a

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wall all around, or an island surrounded by an ocean, with the sky as

a tent or dome erected over the earth and an angel with a crank
moving the stars across the sky. There are two traditional ways of
explaining the origin of the world. In technomorphic myths the world
is the creation of a divine artificer; and in biomorphic myths it is the
product of a sexual act. If artifacts can be made by craftsmen, it is
plausible that God made the earth and the first humans that way, too.
And if living things are created by sexual acts, why not the Earth?
But why do simple folk imagine the Creator as an engineer or
father rather than a physical force? One reason is that under pristine
conditions, mistaking a physical cause for an intentional one is less
dangerous than the reverse. Mistaking a stick for a snake won’t kill
you, but mistaking a snake for a stick might. And mistaking the
sounds of an approaching enemy for the rustling of the wind in the
leaves won’t increase your life expectancy either. Therefore the brain
is constructed to make the less dangerous mistake. We tend to see
intentional action in physical events, but we rarely explain inten-
tional action as the effect of physical causes. Only scientists do that.
And so our ancestors filled their world with purposeful agents:
gods and demons, elves and spirits. The community of the Olympic
gods mirrored the human communities in which the mythmakers
lived, and the Jewish god was created in man’s image.3
Imagining God as a person rather than an impersonal force allows
us to direct human feelings at him: awe and wonder, fear and
deference, and above all love. These feelings assume a sacred char-
acter when they are freed from their attachments to body and world.
Therefore those in search of spiritual perfection always live celibate
lives. God is jealous. He feeds on the feelings that common people
extend to their partners. Through meditation and medication – LSD,
for example – the spiritual truth seeker detaches feelings from their
customary objects, purifying them and redirecting them to God.4
This is how the fifth/sixth-century Hindu sage Bhartrhari saw it:

In this vain universe a man

Of wisdom has two courses: first, he can
Direct his time to pray, to save his soul,
And wallow in religion’s nectar bowl.
But, if he cannot, it is surely best
To touch and hold a lovely woman’s breast,

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 Ideologology

And to caress her warm round hips and thighs,

And to possess that which between them lies.

People try to explain human nature, too. They perceive their body
as a physical entity, but feelings, thoughts and dreams are something
else: fluffy, shapeless, lacking mass and weight. The experience of the
‘I’ as transcending the material world is overwhelming and ines-
capable. There must be a psychic essence, a soul. Besides explaining
thoughts and feelings, the soul enables us to face the greatest of all
challenges: our mortality. We can accept the death of the body while
the soul continues its existence in another body or enters into an
eternal afterlife.
Being made for action rather than contemplation, the brain is full
of intuitions about how we ought to behave. Religious people
explain their moral intuitions the way they explain the world: as
emanating from God. Religion has two functions for the individual:
explaining who we are, where we come from and where we go after
death; and telling us how we ought to act. It also has functions for
society: creating a sense of solidarity, and justifying existing
hierarchies.

The birth of science

There exists in the soul . . . a cupidity which does not take

delight in the carnal pleasure but in perceptions acquired
through the flesh. It is a vain inquisitiveness dignified with the
title of knowledge and science . . . To satisfy this diseased
craving . . ., people study the operations of nature which lie
beyond our grasp when there is no advantage in knowing and
the investigators simply desire knowledge for its own sake.
(Augustine Confessions X, 35, 54–55)

Religion is created by those parts of the brain that deal with human
relations, and is therefore concerned with ethics, with man’s place in
the natural order, and his relationship with the gods. Science,
however, is produced by those brain parts that reason about physical
events. Therefore science did not evolve from religion. It evolved
from magic. Like science, and unlike religion, magic is concerned
with forces acting on matter. Astronomy evolved from astrology,

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and chemistry from alchemy. In Greece, the mystic approach of

Pythagoras gave rise to geometry and mathematics; and something
similar happened much later in medieval China, when the Chinese
variety of algebra was developed from Taoist number mystic.
Like magic, science often comes into conflict with religion. This
conflict tends to escalate as science advances. Once people reach a
certain level of critical thinking, they recognize religion as unfounded
as well as dangerous. They demand empirical proof for religious
beliefs, eventually abandoning religion in favor of science. Science
does not fulfill spiritual needs by providing a home for free-floating
emotions the way religion does. Nor does it offer moral guidance. It
only satisfies the frivolous desire to know how the world works. Its
most fundamental principle is known as Galileo’s knife: when
observation contradicts theory, you trust your senses and kick out
the theory.
Science is compatible with spirituality but not with religious
dogma. The scientist does not believe in God. He estimates the
probability of God’s existence. Sometime in the future the gulf
between scientific theory and religious belief is bound to close, and
science and religion will be one. But we are still at a primitive stage of
cognitive evolution, and this point will not be reached for a long,
long time.
Popular religion consists of lively analogies between the known
and the unknowable and is therefore accessible for everyone. Science
is hierarchically ordered conceptual knowledge and principled
deductive reasoning, and its teachings are bland. It can thrive only at
an advanced stage of cognitive evolution and is quickly abandoned
when cognitive evolution goes in reverse.5
Science can never compete with religion. Religion stands secure on
the two pillars of worldview and ethic. Science with its worldview
and missing ethic is limping on one leg. But the brain is designed to
treat knowledge as a guide to action. And so it scans the teachings of
science for elements that can guide its actions.

The struggle for existence

I have received in a Manchester newspaper rather a good squib,

showing that I have proved ‘might is right,’ and therefore that

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 Ideologology

Napoleon is right, and every cheating tradesman is also right.

(Charles Darwin)6

Some great scientific ideas, such as Einstein’s theory of relativity, are

intelligible only for a select few. Darwin’s theory was nothing like
that. It had two parts, and both of them were ridiculously simple: the
idea that life forms change over geological time, and the idea of
natural selection.
The idea that life changes over time was not new. Darwin’s
grandfather, Erasmus Darwin, had already written about evolution.
Darwin’s truly original contribution was natural selection. He got
the idea in 1838 after reading Malthus’ Essay on Population, in which
Malthus had postulated that human populations grow exponentially
until their growth becomes limited by the food supply. Darwin’s
conclusion was simple enough: if an excess of offspring is produced
in every generation and individuals compete for scarce resources,
then only those who are best equipped for the competitive struggle
will survive and reproduce.
Darwin also assumed that survival-relevant traits are inherited
from parents to children. This was pure speculation because the
science of genetics did not yet exist at his time. Nor did he know how
genetic variation originates. Gregor Mendel’s insights about the
indivisible nature of genes, published in an obscure journal in 1865,
remained unnoticed until their rediscovery in 1900; and mutations as
the origin of genetic diversity were discovered only in the early
twentieth century. Therefore Darwin never quite abandoned the old
Lamarckian idea that acquired traits can be biologically inherited.
In The Origin of Species, published in 1859, Darwin avoided the
charged issue of human evolution altogether, but he elaborated on it
in The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex, published in
1871. Darwin’s speculations about the evolution of human behavior
stood unsurpassed for the next hundred years.
Predictably, the first opposition to Darwin’s theory came from
traditional religion. To the present day, simple-minded Christians
reject evolution because it contradicts the biblical story of creation.
Creationism persists because we have an evolved theory of mind to
understand intentional action, but we have to fall back on general
intelligence to understand natural selection. You can teach divine
creation to a retardate, but not evolution by natural selection.
Sophisticated Christians do not believe in the literal truth of their

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creation myth, but they object to the implication that there is no

purpose in evolution – that is, no purpose in life. They also maintain
that only humans (actually only males, but nobody stresses the point
nowadays) were created in God’s image. The Catholic Church
accepts evolution but also insists on the special status of humans as
spiritual beings.7 Evolution is more congenial to the Hindu and
Buddhist traditions where all creatures are equipped with souls,
although these souls evolve by a Lamarckian rather than Darwinian
mechanism.
Social theorists and philosophers were more open to Darwin’s
idea. Herbert Spencer, the most renowned philosopher of his time,
had already developed views about human society that stressed
competition for the means of subsistence. It was Spencer, not Dar-
win, who coined the catchphrase ‘survival of the fittest’. Darwin used
the term ‘struggle for existence’ although he adopted Spencer’s
‘survival of the fittest’ into the fifth edition of the Origin in 1869.
For Spencer, the elimination of the unfit in the struggle for exis-
tence was desirable because it led to the advancement of society.
Spencer had been an advocate of laissez-faire economic policies long
before appropriating Darwin’s theory as an extension of his own. As
a diehard liberal he opposed the use of tax money to support the
poor, but he did approve of private charity both because it relieves
the misery of the poor and because it hones the altruistic instincts of
the giver. Spencer believed in the inheritance of acquired traits.
Therefore the practice of altruism was bound to lead to greater
altruism in future generations.
Like Darwin, and like today’s mainstream science, Spencer
believed that moral sentiments are based on evolved predispositions,
but unlike today’s scientists he had the ambition to develop a pre-
scriptive system of ethics. His conclusion was that moral systems
must be based on evolved predispositions, especially the predis-
position to avoid disagreeable consequences. In this he anticipated
both the behaviorist emphasis on conditioning and the neo-
conservative emphasis on individual responsibility. However, he
thought that responsible behavior, brought about by conditioning,
could be inherited by one’s offspring.
Many of Spencer’s epigones and critics understood his philosophy
as endorsing the naturalistic fallacy: it’s natural, therefore it’s
morally right. If the elimination of the unfit is natural, then it is
okay. In reality, the naturalistic fallacy makes no sense for

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evolutionists. It makes sense only for creationists who see God as a

benevolent creator.
And, ironically, it makes sense only if we see humans as passive
victims rather than the fighting machines of Darwinian lore. If you
glorify our adaptation for struggle, why don’t you demand that we
struggle against the cruelty of natural selection by substituting a
more benign system for human advancement? Spencer’s friend
Thomas Huxley said so much: ‘Let us understand once and for all,
that the ethical progress of society depends, not on imitating the
cosmic process [of evolution], still less in running away from it, but
in combating it.’8
The idea that compliance with the natural order is a good thing
taps into an established reasoning routine because compliance with
the social order is usually the best way to get ahead in life and keep
out of trouble. Likewise, the survival of the fittest fits on the tem-
plates for competition and social dominance. Therefore many a
fuzzy thinker has read into Darwin’s idea a prescription for com-
petition, war and social inequality.9
Like traditional religion, these lines of thought link statements
about what is with statements about what should be done. Marxism
was another such attempt. Marx analyzed the economy of nine-
teenth-century England and mapped it on the us-and-them and
dominance templates as an exploitative relationship between
antagonistic social classes. Conflict calls for struggle, and Marx
exhorted his followers to identify with the proletariat in its struggle
against the bourgeoisie.
Thus we actively search the grab bag of science and pseudoscience
for features – the ‘key stimuli’ of ethology – that fit our cognitive
templates and make good fodder for the modules. Once we find a
few good morsels, the modules activate emotions and cognitive knee-
jerks – indignation and the sense of justice, for example – and focus
our attention on related inputs. Marx focused on lopsided economics
and the social Darwinists on lopsided biology, but aggressive and
xenophobic reflexes were engaged in both cases. Spencer glorified the
struggle between individuals, Marx drew the line between social
classes and Hitler between races.

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 In God’s Image?

A scientific religion

We do our utmost to check the process of elimination; we build

asylums for the imbecile, the maimed, and the sick; we institute
poor-laws; and our medical men exert their utmost skill to save
the life of every one to the last moment . . . Thus the weak
members of civilised societies propagate their kind. No one who
has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt
that this must be highly injurious to the race of man. (Charles
Darwin Descent of Man)

Man is gifted with pity and other kindly feelings; he has also the
power of preventing many kinds of suffering. I conceive it to fall
well within his province to replace Natural Selection by other
processes that are more merciful and not less effective. (Francis
Galton)10

Not all ideologues fit their science on the templates for aggression

and competition. Darwin’s illustrious half-cousin Francis Galton is
one example. Galton was one of the most versatile scientists of his
time. As a young man he led geographic expeditions in Africa. He
drew the first weather maps, introduced the use of fingerprints in
forensics, and pioneered composite photography. He developed
statistical tools, investigated the effectiveness of prayer (he found it
to be ineffective), and drew up a beauty map of Britain by noting the
frequency with which he saw attractive women in the towns.
He even used blood transfusions to test Darwin’s speculation that
the hereditary material circulates throughout the body before
entering the gonads. His observation that gray rabbits transfused
with the blood of white rabbits still bore only gray offspring refuted
Darwin’s hypothesis. His special interest was in anthropometric
measurements and the study of human heredity. He developed
methods for the testing of sensory and motor functions, and he was
the first to use twins in the study of heredity. No other Victorian
genius made contributions to as many different research areas as did
Galton.
Galton understood, correctly, that humans are subject to natural
selection and that this entails much suffering for the ‘unfit’. And so
he proposed to take selection into our own hands: ‘What nature does

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blindly, slowly, and ruthlessly, man may do providently, quickly,

and kindly. As it lies within his power, so it becomes his duty to work
in that direction; just as it is his duty to succour neighbours who
suffer misfortune.’11
As early as the 1860s, Galton rejected the inheritance of acquired
traits. This went against the scientific mainstream of his day, for it
was not until the 1880s and 1890s that the German cytologist August
Weismann supported it with his theory of an early separation
between the germ line and the rest of the body. Weismann attributed
inheritance to the chromosomes that he had discovered in the cells of
the gonads.
Galton explored heredity statistically, by studying similarities
between relatives. He used anatomical and physiological measure-
ments, but much as he tried, he never managed to develop useful
tests of ‘talent’ (intelligence) and ‘character’ (personality). He was
nevertheless convinced that nature is more important than nurture
for these traits. Only the behavioral geneticists of the 1980s would
settle the point conclusively by showing that genes and environment
are about equally important for variations in intelligence and
personality.
Other premises were of an ethical nature. Galton considered some
traits desirable and others undesirable. He pictured a zoo where the
animals disagree about the value of most traits, but ‘All creatures
would agree that it was better to be healthy than sick, vigorous than
weak, well fitted than ill-fitted for their part in life.’12 In other words,
he believed that being strong, healthy and bright is better than being
weak, sick and stupid.
Like most Victorian intellectuals Galton endorsed the utilitarian
philosophy of Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill, with its pre-
scription that people should pursue the greatest happiness of the
greatest number. John Stuart Mill had written in 1859: ‘Causing the
existence of a human being is one of the most responsible actions in
the range of human life. To undertake this responsibility – to bestow
a life which may be either a curse or a blessing – unless the being on
whom it is to be bestowed will have at least the ordinary chances of a
desirable existence, is a crime against that being.’13 Galton simply
grafted this moral stance on his understanding of genetics and nat-
ural selection.
This transgenerational altruism looks suspiciously Christian, but
Galton was an agnostic. He did recognize its affinities, though. In

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one of his lectures he described the means by which his goals could
be implemented:

The means that might be employed to compass these ends are

dowries, especially for those to whom moderate means are
important, assured help in emergencies during the early years of
married life, healthy homes, the pressure of public opinion,
honours, and above all the introduction of motives of religious
or quasi-religious character. Indeed, an enthusiasm to improve
the race is so noble in its aim that it might well give rise to the
sense of a religious obligation.14

Like Mill, Galton extended the ancient Christian ethic of love to

those who are not yet born. Ethics not only precede the worldviews
to which they are linked; they outlive them as well. Also, Galton’s
view of science and technology was very different from ours. For us,
they are there to create goodies for our enjoyment and profits for our
businesses. For Galton, they created moral obligations: ‘As it lies
within his power, so it becomes his duty’.
Galton even invented a name for this secular religion. He called it
‘eugenics’, after a Greek word that can be translated as ‘well born’.
He described it as ‘the science which deals with all influences that
improve the inborn qualities of a race; also with those that develop
them to the utmost advantage’.15 Eugenics was to be implemented in
two ways. Positive eugenics encouraged the reproduction of the
more desirable elements of the population; and negative eugenics
discouraged the reproduction of the less desirable elements.
By the turn of the twentieth century Galton’s idea had caught on
with the intellectual avant-garde, and it soon took the shape of a
social reform movement. The British Eugenics Education Society
was founded in 1907, and the American Eugenics Society in 1923.
Membership in these societies was always small. The British society
never had more than 1,700 members, and its American counterpart
had even less.
Eugenics attracted the leading minds of the intellectual elite and
the medical profession, but it never had the mass appeal that the
abolitionist movement had in the nineteenth century or the tem-
perance movement in the early years of the twentieth. Only geneti-
cists endorsed its basic ideas well into the 1960s, when its popular
appeal had long waned.

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 Ideologology

Eugenics must not be confused with racism. Racists believe in

more or less immutable differences between races. For the eugenicist
the races are evolving anyway, and even the worst race can be
improved by proper breeding. The American arch-eugenicist Charles
Davenport wrote in 1913 in the context of immigration control: ‘The
fact is that no race per se, whether Slovak, Ruthenian, Turk or
Chinese, is dangerous and none undesirable; but only those indivi-
duals whose somatic traits or germinal determiners are, from the
standpoint of our social life, bad.’ Davenport did not claim that the
frequencies of bad ‘somatic traits and germinal determiners’ (phe-
notypes and genotypes, in our jargon) are exactly equal in each race.
This belief became fashionable only at a later time.16
However, both racists and eugenicists believe that at least some of
the variability in socially valued traits is genetic. And so racism and
eugenics became confounded after World War I, when many social
scientists began denying the importance of heredity altogether.
People think in simple dichotomies where my enemy’s enemy is my
friend, and in the nature–nurture wars, racists and eugenicists found
themselves in the same camp.
During the first third of the twentieth century, eugenics attracted
intellectuals of all shades. The British statistician Ronald Fisher and
the American geneticist Charles Davenport were conservatives, but
George Bernard Shaw and the sex researcher Havelock Ellis were
socialists, and the geneticists Hermann Muller and J.B.S. Haldane
were rock-solid communists.
Interestingly, eugenics flourished at a time when evolution was no
longer taken seriously by many biologists. In 1929, D.M.S. Watson
stated in his presidential address to the Zoology Section of the
British Association for the Advancement of Science: ‘The only
‘‘theories of evolution’’ which have gained any general currency,
those of Lamarck and Darwin, rest on a most insecure basis; the
validity of the assumptions on which they rest has seldom been
examined and they do not interest most of the younger zoologists.’
They didn’t sequence genomes in those days!17
Only during the 1930s and 1940s were the seeming contradictions
between Darwinian evolution and Mendelian genetics finally laid to
rest in what became known as the Modern Synthesis. Ever since, the
combination of genetics with evolution by natural selection has been
the bedrock on which all biology is built.
The first methodologically sound studies of test intelligence in

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twins and adoptees were reported only during the 1930s. They
showed what all behavior genetic studies have shown ever since: both
genes and environment are important. Eugenics flourished when its
scientific assumptions were shaky, and went out of fashion as soon
as these assumptions were shown to be correct!
There were scientific dead ends. The United States produced a
semi-scientific cottage industry of extended family studies that pur-
ported to show the inheritance of various forms of ‘degeneracy’
(mutational load, in our jargon), such as pauperism, feebleminded-
ness and crime.18 And Charles Davenport studied not only genes for
eye color, hemophilia, polydactyly and otosclerosis, but also for
eroticism in wayward girls, feeblemindedness and nomadism.
Psychiatrists, in particular, were interested in preventing the dis-
eases they couldn’t cure. By 1900 it was known that 30–40 percent of
the insane in asylums had a family history suggesting heredity.
Therefore discouraging the reproduction of those with a family
history of mental disease seemed to make sense.
Feeblemindedness was another concern. The first IQ test was
introduced in the United States in 1908 by Henry H. Goddard,
director of research at the Vineland Training School for the Feeble-
Minded in New Jersey. After trying it at Vineland, Goddard proceeded
to examine prisoners, prostitutes and immigrants on Ellis Island, with
appalling results. Low intelligence was seen as a risk factor for social
deviance, and thus was born the ‘menace of the feebleminded’.
IQ tests were focusing the attention of many psychologists
on intelligence, and behavioral problems that would have been
attributed to bad character and bad breeding (meaning poor
upbringing) during the nineteenth century were now attributed to
‘feeble-mindedness’ and bad breeding (now meaning bad genes).
That new technologies change the way we think about problems
should not surprise us. In our time, the wizardry of molecular
genetics is transforming the way we think about our individuality
and the causes of our troubles.
Goddard proposed to keep the feebleminded in institutions
through their reproductive years, but others preferred the surgical
solution. Sterilization was more cost-effective, and it permitted the
patient’s reintegration into the community. In many American states
(and the Scandinavian countries but not Britain), laws permitting the
involuntary sterilization of mental patients were enacted from 1908
well into the 1930s. About 60,000 sterilizations were performed

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under these statutes between 1907 and the 1960s in the United States.
Of those operated on 60 percent were female, although the operation
is far easier in males, and most of them were institutionalized
although community-living patients have more opportunity to
reproduce than those in captivity. Obviously, most ‘eugenic’ ster-
ilizations were not done for eugenic reasons at all.19
Interestingly, the voluntary sterilization of normal people for
contraception was either illegal or legally ambiguous in most states
until the 1960s. Vasectomy and tubal ligation should be used only
for serious medical and eugenic indications, but not for frivolous
reasons such as contraception for healthy people!

Logical consequences

Logical consequences are the scarecrows of fools and the bea-

cons of wise men. (Th.H. Huxley)

The essential scientific assumptions of eugenics were that humans are

subject to natural selection and that at least some of the variability in
those traits that people consider important is heritable. Neither of
these claims is contested today. If these assumptions are correct, then
eugenic practices can be effective.
Actually, there seems to be only one example for a truly effective
eugenic policy. After a steady rise since the 1960s, the crime rate in
the United States finally took a nose-dive during the 1990s. Many
explanations have been proposed for this decline, but John Donohue
at Yale University and Steven Levitt at the University of Chicago
came up with a real interesting one: the legalization of abortion in
1973.
Crime began declining exactly at the time when the aborted fetuses
of 1973 would have reached the crime-prone age, and it declined
most in the states with the highest abortion rates. This makes sense.
Most women who seek an abortion are either single or poor or both.
We know that the children of these women commit more than their
fair share of crimes. If you reduce the reproduction of those whose
children are most likely to commit crimes, you’re bound to reduce
the crime rate. What else do you expect? The numbers suggest that
about half of the drop in crime during the 1990s was caused by
legalized abortion.20

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 In God’s Image?

Donohue and Levitt believe that abortion reduces crime because it

reduces the number of children who have to grow up under awful
conditions. They are certainly right, but perhaps this is only part of
the story. In Chapter 10 we saw that moral intuitions are produced
by inhibitory controls on aggressive and other socially inappropriate
impulses. It is likely that the same inhibitory brain circuits that keep
people from committing crimes can also cause them to reject abor-
tion, at least in countries like the United States where abortion is
considered immoral. The strength of these inhibitory circuits is no
doubt influenced by genes. Therefore the selection against abortion-
liability genes that was legally imposed on the United States in 1973
was bound to select against crime-liability genes as well. This
hypothesis can be tested by comparing the frequencies of crime-
predisposing genes in large cohorts of newborns and aborted fetuses.
It’s easy, isn’t it?
If you object to eugenic effects of abortion, there is a simple
remedy: make abortion so expensive and so difficult to obtain that
only rich and educated women can get it. The children of these
women have a low crime rate, and abortion under these conditions
will actually increase crime. The right of legal abortion is preserved
but the evil of eugenics is avoided. Good idea?
The old-time eugenicists would rotate in their graves if they knew
that we achieve eugenic outcomes through abortion. The American
Eugenics Society regarded abortion as murder unless performed on
strict medical grounds.21 The big issue in those days was not abortion
but contraception. Many people believed that contraception would
loosen sexual morals and lead to promiscuity and unstable mar-
riages. Of course we now know that these concerns were totally
unfounded!

The new age

For base men it is indeed possible to withhold belief from

strong proofs. (Empedocles, Fragment 55)

The odyssey of early twentieth-century eugenics is now history. As a

popular reform movement it was losing ground quickly during the
1930s, and today the term is used only by editorial writers to warn

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against the abuses of genetics, or as a rhetorical device to slander

those to whom the label is attached.
It was not because of the science. The extended pedigree studies
popular at the time were soon laughed out of court, as were the naive
ideas about single genes as causes of complex traits such as intelli-
gence and eroticism. And yet, we are once again hunting genes. One
group, for example, has recently described a fairly common ‘teenage
daughter gene’ that is said to predispose to high aggressiveness, low
academic achievement, early reproduction and pregnancy-induced
hypertension. Eugenicists would be thrilled at this discovery! And,
believe it or not, even a ‘gene for nomadism’ has suddenly reap-
peared.22 Of course, by now we know that complex traits are influ-
enced by many genes and that every gene has effects on many traits.
The science of eugenics was as good as Columbus’s geography.
Columbus was wrong, for he believed he had reached India when he
was actually in the Caribbean. But his belief that India can be
reached by sailing west was correct. According to one historian,
eugenics is ‘a doctrine that was never defeated in the scientific arena
but rather submerged by political and social events’.23
We have inherited our science from the early eugenicists, but we
do not share their values. When I was a student in Germany back in
the 1970s, one day one of the biology students mentioned that since
stupid people have more children than smart people, soon there will
be only idiots left. The immediate response was: ‘That will take many
generations. It won’t affect us. And besides, by then we’ll blow
ourselves up in a nuclear war anyway.’ Everyone agreed, and that
settled the matter.
The student’s afterthought that we will not survive anyway was
widely shared at the time. The British philosopher Arthur Koestler
wrote in 1978: ‘From the dawn of his consciousness until this August
day in 1945 man had to live with the prospect of his death as an
individual; but since the day when the first nuclear bomb darkened
the sky over Hiroshima he must live with the prospect of his exter-
mination as a species.’24
Galton’s humanitarianism was a misapplication of kin-selected
altruism: the kind that evolved for family members who share some
of our own genes. For us today, extending this kind of altruism to
future generations is an abomination. There is a conflict of interest
between people living now and people who are not yet born. In such
conflicts, for example between the right of the child to be born to

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 In God’s Image?

competent parents and the right of incompetent parents to have

children as they please, we are expected to take the side of those who
are alive already.
The eugenicist must attend to individual differences. But the
human brain is programmed to be suspicious of those who are dif-
ferent and unfamiliar, for they might be enemies or social parasites.
Therefore the humanitarian memes of eugenics easily get swamped
by xenophobic memes, as in the ‘menace of the feebleminded’. Thus
most people can only understand eugenics as a dogma of race and
class prejudice.
Also, people can respond to illness with compassion but not to low
ability or bad character. They feel impelled to help those who are far
worse off than themselves, but do not feel obliged to improve the lot
of normal people. On the contrary, the good fortunes of others do
not rouse sympathy but envy.25 Therefore eugenics could survive in
the form of medical genetics, with the aim of preventing diseases, but
not as a social reform movement with the aim of making people
brighter and more ethical.
The Nazis, finally, saw the ‘unfit’ as an impediment in the struggle
of the Aryan race against its enemies. Therefore they implemented a
eugenics program under which 400,000 people were sterilized (but
not killed) between 1933 and 1939.26 As we saw in Chapter 3, when
faced with emotionally charged issues we form our judgments not by
deductive reasoning but by associative thinking and analogy. Thus
Hitler discredited eugenics the same way that Robespierre had dis-
credited democracy during the French Revolution.
The academic ecosystem was transformed during the twentieth
century. With increasing knowledge, science became fragmented into
self-contained subdisciplines. We live in an age of experts who know
only what they need to know, and nerds who know only what they
like to know, not an age of sages who integrate in their minds the
accumulated knowledge of their time. As a result, biosocial theories
that integrate the knowledge of the natural and social sciences are no
longer viable.
The nature–nurture controversy of the twentieth century was not
about genes and environment, but about immutability and change-
ability. Aside from the few eugenicists, people perceived genes as
immutable and environments as changeable. Therefore those who
wanted to change society preferred to believe in the power of the
environment, and those who wanted to keep it as it is preferred

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genes. Most intellectuals are self-deluded jerks who believe to be true

what they wish to be true.
Nature versus nurture had never been an issue during the nine-
teenth century when most people believed in the inheritance of
acquired traits. The two became opposed only at the turn of the
century when Lamarckian inheritance was thrown out in favor of
hard heredity. Once people understood the nature of heredity, most
of them preferred environmental over genetic explanations.27
Today the frontlines have reversed. We have recognized the
environment as a conservative force that perpetuates old evils, while
genes are no longer perceived as immutable. We know their struc-
tures, propagate them in our test tubes, and attempt to treat diseases
by bringing new genes into our ailing cells. We test embryos for
messy genes, and before long we will tinker with the genes in our
germ cells the way we already do it with farm animals and laboratory
mice.28 If you want to keep the world as it is, you must oppose
genetics; and if you want to create a better world, you must apply
genetics!
Ironically, this change follows on the heels of James Flynn’s great
discovery. When there was no evidence for environmental influences
on intelligence, everyone was a staunch environmentalist. Once
Flynn had proved the importance of the environment, everyone
became fascinated by genes. Remember, the same had happened to
the old-time eugenicists. History is repeating itself.

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 14
A Conversation with Dr Stein

– What is it, then?

– A man is in the making . . .
Begetting as men used to do,
Both vain and senseless we declare . . .
Whereas delighted with it still the beast may be,
Man with his supreme gifts must henceforth win
A higher, nobler origin.
(Goethe, Faust)

Unlikely things do happen in life, and my last encounter with my old

friend, Dr Stein, was one of them. I knew him when he was a medical
student at the same university where I studied biology. Then we went
our separate ways, and we lost touch for more than 20 years. I
thought I would never see him again, and yet, one day I had him on
the phone in my office. He was in Dominica, and someone at his
hotel had mentioned my name. The next evening we met at the time
of sunset, on the terrace of the Blue Bay bar overlooking the Car-
ibbean Sea.
After the preliminaries and the inevitable order of a rum punch, I
said:
‘What a coincidence to have you here on this beautiful island! Did
you come on one of the cruise ships?’
‘No. I’m here on business. I am working for a company, Repro-
Tech, International.’
‘ReproTech, International? Last time I saw you, you were a
promising young physician. And now you are selling copy machines
in the Caribbean? Lost a malpractice suit?’
‘Nope. I’m not selling copy machines. It’s about assisted

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reproductive technology. In-vitro fertilization, mainly. We have a

whole chain of IVF clinics.’
‘I see, some sort of franchise, like McDonald’s. Sounds interesting.
Do you have a sperm bank?’
‘Sure. You’ll find it on the Internet.’
‘With real Nobel Prize winners? I told my teenage daughter to take
a Nobel Prize winner from the sperm bank as father for her children.’
Dr Stein lifted his finger in mock threat: ‘Hm, what you are doing
with your daughter is called directive genetic counseling. Does she
like your idea?’
‘No, she doesn’t. But it’s good for the girls to learn the rational
approach to reproduction. Keeps them out of trouble.’
‘No, we don’t have Nobel Prize winners. They’re too old. Even if
they can still crank up a donation, chances are the sperm count is too
low, or sperm motility is bad. And there is a risk of new mutations
when the father is too old.1 We don’t take chances. Our age limit for
donors is forty years.’
‘Does this mean a man should bring his sperm to your sperm bank
while he is still young, get it frozen, and then use it when he is ready
for a child, perhaps twenty or thirty years later?’
‘Yes. But so far we haven’t seen a lot of customers like that.’
‘You mentioned this thing with directive genetic counseling. Is
that the same as in education? In the early days, teachers used to tell
the children that it is wrong to steal. But then, during the 1960s and
1970s, teachers were told they must not impose their own value
systems on the children. I bet non-directive counseling became
fashionable at that time.’
‘Actually, it did. But in medicine, it only means that we don’t tell
our patients what they should do. We don’t give advice. We explain
the options, and let them choose. We don’t want to be paternalistic.
We are supposed to respect the patient’s autonomy.’2
‘Counsel the patient without giving advice? Is that done by all
doctors?’
‘Most doctors don’t bother. They still tell their patients to quit
smoking. But in theory they should do it like the Surgeon General.
The Surgeon General doesn’t say ‘‘Don’t smoke’’, but ‘‘Smoking is
hazardous to your health’’.’
‘Makes sense. Humans are stubborn animals who never do what
they are told to do. And to stop the AIDS epidemic, the Americans
should not tell their women to avoid sex with HIV-infected men.

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That would be paternalistic. They should tattoo a skull and cross-

bones on the penis of every HIV-infected man, to inform their sex
partners without telling them what they should do. Same as with the
cigarettes.’
‘Perhaps HIV-infected men wouldn’t like that.’
‘But the feminists would like it. You said you have to respect the
patient’s autonomy? Sounds suspicious. You said you are not sup-
posed to give advice to your patients, but what if you give advice and
it turns out that your advice is bad?’
‘Then the patient can sue.’
‘So you give him the statistics about his disease and the treat-
ments, let him choose his treatment, and make him sign the informed
consent form. Keeps you out of trouble!’
‘It’s good both for the patient and the doctor. Most of the time, at
least. Sure, there are those little dilemmas. What about this one: a
deaf couple comes to the doctor. The woman is pregnant, and they
want to know if the fetus is deaf. They want a deaf child, and they
want to terminate the pregnancy if the child is hearing.3 In that case
we are supposed to comply. It’s the patient’s choice.’
‘Of course. If hearing parents have the right to abort a deaf fetus,
then deaf parents have the right to abort a hearing fetus. I’m sure the
Supreme Court would rule that anything else would be discrimina-
tion against the deaf. But there is a better solution: don’t terminate
the hearing fetuses. Wait until they are born, and then make them
deaf! Pierce the eardrums, or take out the ear ossicles, or something.’
‘Perhaps our institutional review board wouldn’t like that.’
‘Why not? You said the doctor is expected to terminate the
hearing fetuses and let the deaf ones live. My method achieves the
same. There will be happy parents, and there will be a deaf child.
And we don’t even have to terminate hearing fetuses. The anti-
abortionists will like that!’
‘Some lawyers say making a child deaf is legal before birth but
illegal after birth. If the parents say that otherwise they would termi-
nate the pregnancy, it is protected as part of their reproductive
freedom. But if they say it’s optional, it’s not.’
‘You mean it’s like religious freedom and cannibalism? If you say
you eat your mother-in-law because that’s part of your religion, it’s
protected; but if you say it’s because of the juicy taste, it’s not. The
states can legislate against gourmet cannibalism but not ritual
cannibalism.’

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 In God’s Image?

‘That’s true if you eat your mother-in-law after she died of a heart
attack. You still don’t have the right to kill her in order to eat her.
One problem is that the unborn child cannot claim damages because
if the parents had not made it deaf, they would have aborted it.4 If
the child doesn’t like it, there is still the option of suicide. Not
everyone likes that kind of reasoning. I would rather let the hearing
child hear, wait until she is eighteen years old, and then let her decide
whether she wants to be hearing or deaf. Provided the Supreme
Court has no objection.’
‘But it makes sense. Many years ago when I was traveling in India,
somewhere between Delhi and Varanasi, I noticed in the villages
some people with real weird deformities, with the knees bent for-
ward, or the feet pointing backward. The guy who was traveling with
me explained that these were the children of very poor people. When
they were babies, their parents tied their joints with wires to turn
them into more effective beggars.’
‘I like to think that we are more civilized than that.’
‘As long as parents have to raise their child without outside help,
they can claim the exclusive right to decide about the child’s edu-
cation, religion, occupation and marriage partner, and to turn the
child into a cripple. Only if somebody else has an obligation to help
raising the child, does that somebody else have a right to interfere.
That kind of reasoning applies to rights and duties as it does to
apples and oranges. If, say, the government helps the parents with
free health care and schooling, then it can claim a right to ban
mutilation and infanticide. Otherwise it cannot.’
‘Yes, there is a horse trade with rights and duties, and we are going
to see more of that sort. In the old days it was nobody’s fault when a
child was born with a problem. Now we can prevent many diseases
and disabilities with genetic screening and prenatal testing. But many
parents don’t go for genetic screening even when it is offered, and
they don’t show up for prenatal checks. And sometimes we diagnose
a real bad disease in a fetus and the parents still decide to have the
child. Now, if the parents are given the choice and they opt for a sick
child, who is going to pay? Some people say that if the parents have
the right to opt for a sick child, then they should have the obligation
to pay for the medical expenses or special education.’
‘Well, that’s not the usual choice between sickness and health but
a package deal between sickness and existence versus no sickness and
non-existence.’

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‘What do you think are parents going to do when we tell them

their fetus has a terrible disease, and they abort? Will they remain
childless?’
‘No, I guess they will try again.’
‘That’s exactly what they do. They will have a healthy child
instead of a sick child. The choice is not between a child and no
child, but between a sick child and a healthy child.’

My friend was right. You can compare two lives for their length,
happiness and achievements, but you can’t compare existence with
non-existence.
And so I said:
‘Your talk reminds me of my friend from Mars. A little fellow who
crash-landed on this island, and now he is stuck. Sometimes I meet
him here at the bar.’
‘Drinking rum punch, I suppose.’
‘Well, one day he asked me what it is that we humans value most. I
told him, ‘‘Most of all we value human life.’’ He turned thoughtful,
and after a while he asked, ‘‘And what do you do with all the peo-
ple?’’ At first I did not know what he meant, but then I understood.
He thought that if we value human life, we would feel obliged to
make as many people as we can, so we would have to dispose of the
excess. So I told him that we don’t really consider human life
valuable but that we only want to stay alive and that we are reluctant
to kill people. We don’t feel obliged to make as many as we can.
Now, your horse trade with the sick fetus and the parents making a
healthy child instead makes sense. That means, parents who have a
handicapped child should kill their child and make a healthy child
instead!’
‘Now tell me, why does everyone say we shouldn’t kill people? As
far as I know they have that rule everywhere.’
‘I guess it’s because people are smart enough to understand that if
everyone were allowed to kill everyone else, they would all be in
trouble.’
‘So it’s because we want to live and we acknowledge that others
want to live, too. But would we still have this rule if nobody had the
desire to stay alive?’
‘In that case it wouldn’t make sense.’
‘So it is because of people’s desire to stay alive that we have this
rule. Does a fetus have a desire to stay alive? Or an embryo?’

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‘I guess there isn’t enough brain for that. Anyway, a desire to live
would be useless for a fetus because its brain cannot control the
forces on which its survival depends.’
‘So we consider the killing of a human being wrong because we
respect people’s desire to stay alive, but a fetus has no desire to stay
alive. So can it be wrong to kill a fetus?’
‘No, because it has no feelings and desires.’
‘Exactly. It doesn’t matter if we dump an embryo or abort a fetus,
but if we do something to it that has consequences later, when it has
feelings and desires, that counts! Killing disabled children and
replacing them with healthy ones is a different matter. Handicapped
people will be scared because they are afraid someone could decide
their lives are not worth living. Even children who come down with
the flu will panic because they think now they are going to be ter-
minated. That’s why we don’t kill disabled children although we
abort sick fetuses. There’s nothing special about a fetus. We can even
take the nucleus from a blood cell and put it in an egg and grow it
into a baby. Does this mean we should treat blood cells the way we
treat people?’5
‘Doesn’t that have implications for blood transfusions? If blood
can become a baby then it has a soul, and mixing up souls is a serious
matter! Jehovah’s Witnesses will say they have been right all along.’
‘Mother Nature is very, very wasteful with things that can become
people. Even a young woman who is exposed to the risk of preg-
nancy has only a twenty percent chance of getting pregnant every
month. That’s not because no embryo is formed, but because most
embryos don’t make it. They are genetically defective, or otherwise
unable to develop.’6
‘But isn’t that terrible?’
‘What’s so terrible about that?’
‘But don’t you know? In the old days, babies who died after birth,
before they could be baptized, had to be buried outside the
churchyard because their souls went straight to hell. And now you
are telling me that eighty percent of all souls go straight to hell
because they are never born?! If I were in charge in the Vatican, I
would demand that all embryos are made by IVF and get baptized
before they are implanted!’7
‘Not that I’m likely to get the offer, but I think I wouldn’t want
that job. You know, that whole business with heaven and hell, that’s
a rumor. Even worse, it’s a pernicious dogma. Look at the guys who

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killed themselves crashing hijacked airliners into the World Trade

Center.’
‘And now they are sitting in heaven, served by beautiful virgins.
Really, they got a good deal!’
‘Only religions that believe in heaven and hell burn heretics and
fight holy wars. These days, it’s mainly religious people who start
wars and run terror attacks. Forget about heaven and hell! Once you
are on the other side, there is no body and no brain. There can be no
pleasure and pain without that. No. All those little souls go to the
waiting room.’
‘The waiting room?’
‘That’s where they go. And after a while they get picked up and
are put into a new body, and they start all over again. And when an
embryo doesn’t implant or a fetus is aborted, then the soul bounces
right back into the waiting room, and it doesn’t even notice.’
‘So no hellfire and heavenly pleasures?’
‘If I were an almighty God who rewards the good and punishes the
wicked, I would not tell my creatures about heaven and hell.’
‘Perhaps he leaked out the rumor in order to test us. Those who do
weird things because some holy book tells them that will bring them
into heaven will actually go to hell, and those who flaunt the rules to
do good works will go to heaven.’
‘Your God is a devious God.’
‘I judge him by the world he made.’
‘Don’t judge him too harshly. There are things he cannot do. He
needs us to do them for him. He couldn’t make people without
making germs, he couldn’t run evolution without bad mutations,
and he couldn’t create life without death. He couldn’t even make
pleasure without pain. We are here to kill the germs and weed out the
mutations and to struggle with pain and death. He put us here to add
the finishing touches to his creation.’
‘Doesn’t that mean we are playing God?’
‘As a biologist, you should know better. They say man was created
in God’s image.’
‘God as a male primate?’
‘Creation is not yet completed. We have evolved and keep evol-
ving and will go on evolving forever and ever. It’s not playing God,
but evolving into his image. That’s what we are here for.’
‘That’s too philosophical for me. Let’s get another rum punch.’

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And while we were sipping our rum punch, I realized that I still knew
nothing about the reasons that had brought my friend to this tro-
pical island.
‘Are you working as some sort of genetic counselor?’
‘No. I do mostly IVF. Ten percent of all couples cannot have
children the old-fashioned way, but most of them can have children
by IVF. One to two percent of all children in the Western World are
conceived by assisted reproductive technologies these days.’8
‘I used to think what people really want is sex and money, and
they do their best to avoid children.’
‘That’s not true for our clients. They are desperate for a child.’
‘IVF must be a pretty complicated procedure.’
‘Getting the eggs is the hard part. With hormone stimulation, we can
harvest more than ten eggs at a time if we are lucky. We mix eggs and
sperm in the test tube. Then we place the embryos in the uterus, at least
two or three at a time because less than ten percent of them implant. If
there are embryos left, then the extras go into liquid nitrogen.’
‘And they survive freezing in liquid nitrogen?’
‘Most of them survive. And they make normal babies.’
‘What about eggs? We have a lot of female medical students here
who will never have time for a family until they are old. Can they put
their eggs in the freezer and use them 30 years later, when they are
ready for children?’
‘In principle, yes. Only the ovaries shut down at menopause, not
the uterus. With the right hormone pills, even a woman in her fifties
can still give birth. And why not? A fifty-year-old woman can expect
to live another thirty to thirty-five years. That’s plenty of time to
raise a child. Freezing eggs isn’t easy. Your students could freeze
embryos, but chances are they would no longer want their present
sperm donor thirty years from now. So let them try it with eggs.
Methods for egg-freezing have improved a lot lately.’9
‘And what about lesbians? An egg has a single set of chromo-
somes, just like a sperm, so you can make a baby girl with two
mothers and no father. Just fuse the two eggs! Only, two women
cannot make a son because they have no Y chromosome.’
‘I got some requests like that, but I had to tell the clients, sorry, no
way. It’s because there are a few genes that are expressed only when
they come from the father, and others only when they come from the
mother. That’s called imprinting. There’s no way to get normal
embryonic development if you try to make a baby from two eggs.’

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‘So there are limits. But isn’t IVF terribly expensive?’

‘About ten thousand dollars per treatment cycle. If the patient
doesn’t get pregnant in the first cycle, we have to do two or three or
even four cycles. Sometimes it doesn’t work at all.’
‘Is that paid by the health insurance?’
‘In the US, usually not. Actually, few people ever need IVF.
Therefore it wouldn’t add much to the overall cost of medical care if
infertility were covered like any other medical condition. But put
yourself in the position of the insurance company. If it offers cov-
erage, then all infertiles will flock to that insurance. The company
has to pay a lot for IVF, premiums have to be raised, and the
company can no longer attract the less expensive customers. That’s
called adverse selection. Also, only one-third of the voters in the US
are active parents. Therefore you cannot expect parent-friendly laws.
In most countries with national health care systems, the insurance
pays but they treat only married people, or they have age limits so
the treatment is used only when there is a high chance of success.’
‘And in the US you treat everyone who comes up with the money?’
‘More or less, including singles and lesbians. We know that their
kids do just as fine as others, and that’s what counts.’10
‘And now you want to ply your trade in the Caribbean? They have
a clinic here where they offer Viagra, the pill for the morning after,
and paternity testing. I guess that’s all the reproductive technology
the locals can afford.’
‘No, we don’t plan an IVF clinic for Caribbean customers. I am
trying to locate a site for a nuclear transfer facility.’
‘Nuclear transfer? I suspect that has nothing to do with nuclear
energy or technology transfer.’
‘We create embryos by fusing an enucleated egg with the nucleus
of a cultured cell.’
‘You mean, cloning? Now I know why you are coming to this
remote island! Of course nobody wants a cloning lab in the neigh-
bourhood. What if one of your monsters goes on a rampage?!’
‘Come on. It’s the old-fashioned method that’s real scary, because
you never know what you get. That’s how Osama bin Laden, Sad-
dam Hussein and George W. Bush were made!’
‘But what if somebody locates tissue samples from Hitler in a
freezer at the Academy of Science in Moscow? If he thinks Russia
needs a strong leader, he can clone Hitler!’
‘He could clone five hundred Hitlers, and all he would get are five

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hundred cranky mediocrities. We can clone genomes, but we cannot

clone life histories. Anyway, copying an adult wouldn’t be safe.
When the cells of the body develop into nerve cells and skin cells and
brain cells and the like, some genes get switched on and others
switched off. Sometimes that’s lasting, like the imprinting of genes in
the egg and sperm. Only a few kinds of cell can be used for nuclear
transfer at all. Even worse, mutations build up in the body’s cells as
we get older and there will be problems, especially when you try to
clone an old guy.’
‘But why nuclear transfer if you don’t want to copy people?’
‘It’s for genetic screening. Two percent of all children are born
with a serious birth defect or a chronic disease. Many of the risks are
genetic and therefore avoidable. The same is true for many diseases
that develop later in life, like asthma and diabetes and heart disease
and Alzheimer’s. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could reassure parents
that their child is going to be okay? In IVF we can check the genes of
every embryo and implant only those who are likely to be healthy.
That’s called pre-implantation genetic diagnosis, and it’s already
done in cases where a disease gene is known to run in the family. But
it is difficult because we have to work with DNA from one or two
cells that are pinched off the embryo. Only now are we learning to
screen for thousands of genes at a time. That makes sense even when
there is no family history of a genetic disease.’
‘How can you test embryos for thousands of genes?’
‘With DNA chips. A DNA chip is only the size of a microscope
slide, but it tests for tens of thousands of genes. This is important
because the risk for common diseases such as diabetes and Alzhei-
mer’s does not come from a single gene. It is the combination of
genes that is important.’11
‘But if you dump most of your embryos because their genes are
not good enough, then there won’t be enough left. You said less than
ten percent of those that you put in the uterus ever make it. So when
you find an embryo with real good genes, chances are it won’t
implant and you have to start all over again.’
‘That’s where nuclear transfer comes in. Instead of implanting the
embryo, we grow the fertilized egg into a cell culture and screen the
cells with DNA chips. If the genes are okay, then we use the cells for
nuclear transfer. That way we can make hundreds of embryos, all
with the same genes. Chances are that at least one of them will make
it. It’s tricky. You have to use exactly the right culturing conditions

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and growth factors. After the creation of Dolly the sheep in 1997 it
took more than fifteen years of animal experiments to work out safe
procedures that can be used for humans.’12
‘So if I get that right, you make a few dozen cell cultures, screen
them for as many genes as you can, and pick only those with the best
genes for baby-making?’
‘Yes, except that the parents are the ones who do the picking. We
make a genetic profile for each cell line. Then the parents can flip
through the genetic profiles and select the genome for their child.
This child will have half of its genes from each parent, as in the
traditional method. The only advantage is that risks are minimized.’
‘But you can never be sure?’
‘Only for simple genetic diseases like sickle cell or Tay-Sachs. For
complex diseases it’s like looking in the crystal ball. We can only
estimate the risk.’
‘And if you make a baby that way and the parents love it so much
that they want another one just like it, then you can make them
another one? An identical twin born years after the first?’
‘No problem. We can keep the cell cultures in the freezer indefi-
nitely. Predictability is the big advantage of nuclear transfer. There is
still not an awful lot we can do right now with our DNA chips, but
it’s already a lot better than a horoscope. The list of diseases we can
test for grows every year. And when a first child grows up we can see
how it develops. So we have an additional assurance that at least the
risk of birth defects and early-onset diseases is not too bad.’
‘So that’s for infertile people who have to use IVF anyway and
who are ready to shell out a few thousand bucks on top of the money
they have to pay for IVF, so they can have a child with extra good
genes? But what about people who don’t have to use IVF? Can they
also get genetically screened babies?’
‘Only if they go through the hassle of IVF. Most people will not
find that worthwhile, but a few will.’
‘And what about old career women who didn’t freeze their eggs
when they were still young?’
‘Even a woman in her fifties can still give birth, but we need
donated eggs. That way she can have a child, but not one with her
own genes. We can offer her a child made by nuclear transfer with a
proven genome, with predictable traits and low disease risks. We can
even show our clients pictures, so they get an idea of what their child
will look like.’

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 In God’s Image?

‘So you can make cells from the eggs of a beauty queen and the
sperm of an Olympic gold medal winner, screen them with DNA
chips, make embryos from those with the right combination of
athletic genes and beauty genes, and sell the embryos to old career
women?’
‘That would be possible.’
‘Not bad. And when the children grow up they will all meet for a
clone reunion every year, perhaps on the anniversary of the fertili-
zation that created their cell line. You should make jolly clones,
good-natured, sociable and with a sense of humor! And then think of
all that social inequality. I bet you can eliminate some of that if you
make all your clones to the same standard. Karl Marx wrote in the
Communist Manifesto that all men are created equal, but of course
we know that’s all bunk.’
‘I don’t think it was Marx who said that.’
‘Okay, it’s not from Marx, it’s from Star Wars. But no, it cannot
be American. It’s not gender neutral.’
‘Right now, reducing social inequality and making jolly clones for
the annual clone reunion are not really our priorities. We want to
reduce health risks.’
‘But isn’t there a problem when you serve old career women? You
need a donated egg every time you make an embryo.’
‘That’s the bottleneck. We will have to use paid donors, initially at
least.’
‘That would be a boon for the Dominican economy. The gov-
ernment tries to attract investors with the low wages for local labor,
but in your case it’s more the egg donors.’
‘Eventually we will have to find something better. We are trying to
culture ovarian tissue, to mature the eggs in the test tube. Others are
trying to make eggs from cultured embryonic cells, or to use eggs
from genetically modified animals as recipients for the nucleus.13 But
you are right. As long as we depend on human oocyte donors we can
work only on a fairly small scale, and it keeps the cost high. Now, do
you think the Dominican government will give us a concession for
this kind of business?’
‘They are a bit old-fashioned here. Perhaps they let you set up
your factory, but under condition that you don’t sell your products
to the locals.’
‘You mean, like in Monte Carlo where citizens of Monaco are not
allowed to gamble in the casino?’

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‘Yes. You should get in touch with the Dominica Medical Board.’
So we got the phone directory, and looked up the numbers of
some of the physicians from the Dominica Medical Board. And
besides, it was time for the next rum punch.

‘Isn’t there a big brouhaha about these new technologies, especially

cloning?’
‘After the cloning of Dolly, a committee of the European Union
concluded that ‘‘the deliberate creation of genetically identical
human beings is contrary to human dignity’’. UNESCO said pretty
much the same. The funny thing is that only a few years before that
time everyone had been adamant that genes are totally unimportant.
But then they complained that clones have no individuality because
they have the same genes. Suddenly everyone turned out to be a
rabid genetic determinist.’14
‘I guess all these moralists are hypocrites. Telling people what they
want to hear, because their careers are all they care about. But does
nobody object to sexual reproduction?’
‘IVF is pretty well accepted by now, although the first test tube
baby in 1978 was a big scandal.’
‘I don’t mean IVF. I mean the yucky, old-fashioned method.’
‘Oh, I don’t think anybody will object to that.’
‘In that case, cheers! Long live our porcine dignity! Long live our
internationally guaranteed right to breed like swine!’
‘You are right. Animals don’t even know that there is a connection
between sex and babies. Only after people had figured that out could
they take account of the reproductive consequences when they made
decisions about mating. And still, it was only recently when they
started controlling their fertility wholesale. But contraception only
permits people not to have children. With assisted reproduction,
even infertiles can choose to have children. Now we are getting ready
for the next step. People will be able to choose what kind of child
they want. Each of these transitions has made us a bit more human,
for the difference between humans and animals lies in the extent to
which we control our destiny. At each point there has been resistance
to change. In the US they had state laws against the distribution and
use of contraceptive devices until the 1960s when these laws were
declared unconstitutional; and even now fertility treatment is barely
tolerated. Otherwise it would be covered by the insurance.’

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 In God’s Image?

‘Now, you said that with your DNA chips you can screen thou-
sands of genes at a time?’
‘There are a few million spots in the genome where the DNA is
different between people. Most of them are what we call single-
nucleotide polymorphisms. But only some of them, a few thousand
perhaps, do anything interesting at all.’
‘So finally we can get rid of all that genetic garbage that gives us
headaches and colds and flat feet and pimples! From the earliest
beginnings people had to suffer and die, for that’s the only way to
flush bad mutations out of the gene pool. Now you do away with
that. Rather than letting people suffer and die, you dump embryos.
You take the pain out of natural selection!’
‘It’s not so easy. We will have a catalog of common DNA varia-
tions, but most of them make only subtle effects. Freak mutations
with bigger effects remain rare because they get selected out of the
gene pool. Because they are rare they are harder to find. We would
have to scan each of the 30,000 genes in the genome to detect any
possible mutation. And when we find one that has never been seen
before, we cannot be sure what it does.’15
‘Does this mean it is easier to scan for normal variation than for
diseases?’
‘Most likely.’
‘So you may never be able to predict diseases very well although
you can make fairly good predictions about normal-variation traits.
It will be easier to offer your customers babies with red hair and high
intelligence than with resistance to heart attacks and strokes. All the
time you are talking about disease risks. You can do a lot more than
that, and you know it. Prophets and philosophers and revolution-
aries have tried to create more ethical human beings and more
equitable societies. They tried religious teachings and political pro-
paganda and all kinds of social reforms, but nothing worked. People
remained selfish and stupid. Science, technology and universal edu-
cation did a little better. They made us wealthier and more rational.
Some of the cruder superstitions are gone. We don’t burn witches
any more. But we could not truly change the way people treat each
other. Now we have resigned ourselves to our impotence. We have
given up on the grand world-improvement schemes. And you know
why it was bound to fail? Because of human nature. You cannot
defeat human nature. Going with it is better than fighting it. That’s
what we are doing today. But it can bring us only so far. We’re

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hitting the wall already. No, we must change human nature itself.
The prophets and revolutionaries of the past couldn’t do it, but you
with your DNA chips, you can!’
‘If it’s human nature, then it’s in everyone. The geneticists won’t
be able to help you.’
‘You’re getting that wrong. I don’t mean that Mother Teresa had
exactly the same nature as Hitler; and the nature of a Nobel Prize
winner is not the same as that of a high school dropout. What we call
human nature is only a statistical average. So take the saint genes
and the genius genes and mix them together and send your creatures
to a place where they can build a better society! Or else, scatter them
all over the planet! Their good works will benefit others, and they
will be shining examples for everyone.’
‘You seem to think that we can breed for goodness and wisdom
the way the farmer breeds chickens for higher egg production and
corn for higher yield per acre.’
‘Chickens have been selected for high egg production over thou-
sands of years. Their genetic variability for that trait has been used
up. And crop plants cannot be selected for more efficient photo-
synthesis because they have been naturally selected for that trait for
millions of years. But there has never been strong selection for
human altruism or intelligence. There is still a huge amount of
genetic variation. Therefore selective breeding is far easier for
humans than it is for farm animals and crop plants.’
‘If you want to get rid of crappy genes, better think twice. Those
genes that are fairly common most likely are there for a reason. See,
there are lots of folks with hay fever, and we know that much of the
liability is genetic. Perhaps we can throw out the genes, and nobody
gets hay fever any more. But the type of allergic response that makes
hay fever is also needed to fight parasites, such as worms and scabies.
Perhaps the hay fever genes are there to protect us from parasites.’
‘And when you select them out of the gene pool, the human race
will be wiped out by an epidemic of scabies!’
‘The genes we can throw out safely are those that make late-onset
diseases like Alzheimer’s. Such diseases do not prevent reproduction,
and there is no selection against the genes that favor them. Therefore
there is no reason to suspect that these genes do anything useful.’
‘What about genes that make people mean and selfish? The reason
why there are so many assholes in the world is that being an asshole
can increase a man’s chance of making a woman pregnant.16 That’s

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why there are more male than female assholes, by the way. There is
no reason to suspect that asshole genes do anything that we would
consider useful.’
‘That’s a special case. But I feel more comfortable preventing
diseases rather than making saints.’
‘You make babies from cultured cells. Don’t they use that method
to make transgenic animals, such as cows with human insulin in their
milk and pigs that can be used as organ donors? As far as I
understand they put genes into the cells. Then they put the cells into
animal embryos or use them for nuclear transfer. Can you engineer
people that way?’
‘We can insert genes into the germ line. We can also put artificial
chromosomes into the egg cell, with genes of our choice. In some
cases we can even repair defective genes. Right now it’s not safe
enough for use in humans, but it looks promising. Cancer-resistant
mice have been made already. Our genome naturally has tumor
suppressor genes that prevent cancer. When one of the body’s cells
loses its tumor suppressor genes through mutations, then it becomes
a cancer cell. We already have cancer-resistant mice with an extra
copy of a tumor suppressor gene, without bad side-effects. Chances
are it can work in people.’
‘Then all that’s missing are immortality genes.’
‘Where do you expect us to get those from? The Olympic gods?
No, but transgenic mice with a longer lifespan have been made
already. Sooner or later we will be able to do it in humans. But don’t
expect too much too soon.’17
‘Can’t you put these genes into adults? And genetic diseases
shouldn’t be a problem either. Now that the human genome project
has nailed down all the genes, can’t we use gene therapy to replace
the bad genes with good ones?’
‘That will work only for a few rare diseases, like hemophilia and
muscular dystrophy. No, there will be no miracle cures. It’s mainly
to predict and prevent the diseases. But why do you want to make
sick people and then treat them? Why not make healthy people in the
first place?’

My friend had always been a bit naive. Didn’t he realize that people
can’t think like that? They have compassion with the sick, but
making people cancer-resistant or longer-lived is something else,

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especially if they are not yet alive and cannot pay us for our services.
We don’t have the instincts for that.
And so I said:
‘The politicians who approve billions of dollars for genome
research won’t like that. They expect miracle cures, not well-selected
embryos and genetically modified people.’
‘It’s not only for that. In the best of all worlds, the DNA of every
child will be tested and the results are deposited in a central data-
bank. When the child turns eighteen, she gets the access number and
can call up the information. Or better, she asks her doctor to do it
for her because chances are she herself couldn’t make much sense of
the printout.’
‘But are the data safe? That’s the kind of information that can be
used for paternity testing, isn’t it? Let’s assume one of the databank
employees is one of those old-fashioned types, one who thinks
people should always tell the truth and women should always be
faithful to their husbands. And now that guy gets all the mismatches
between mothers, children and husbands. Next thing, he makes a list
with all the names, millions and millions and millions of them, and
posts it on the Internet. And perhaps the computer can even spit out
the names of the real fathers. That would rock at the foundations of
our social life!’
‘I’m sure there are ways to build safeguards into the system. But
wouldn’t it be nice to know something about your health risks? If
you are genetically prone to heart attacks, you know you had better
eat the right kinds of fat and don’t smoke, and if you know you are
at risk of osteoporosis, you make sure you get enough calcium and
vitamin D. Genes are merely risk factors for diseases, like smoking
and greasy hamburgers.’
‘And if someone doesn’t want to know?’
‘Then he doesn’t call up the information.’
‘And if someone sees that he is full of stupidity genes, then he
knows he shouldn’t shoot for a career in theoretical physics but do
something useful instead? People won’t like the idea of predicting
and preventing stupidity and antisocial tendencies. These are not
diseases.’
‘Do you think we should keep our children out of school because
ignorance is not a disease? No, being educated is better than being
ignorant. And being born with high-IQ genes is better than being
born with low-IQ genes. Some people insist that it’s okay to treat

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and prevent diseases and disabilities, but not those traits that vary
among normal people.18 But there is no natural cut-off between
normal and abnormal. Only look at the folks who gobble Prozac and
Viagra! Every one of us has his weaknesses and disabilities and
disease liabilities. We must accept these limitations in us and in
others, but we must also struggle with them. If we insist on an
artificial cut-off, we only stigmatize those who are labeled abnormal.’
‘So we should select embryos with genius-genes and give them
longevity-genes?’
‘No. We should home in on those problems that can really wreck
people’s lives, not as a matter of principle but of priorities. Thirty
years ago, as a conscientious objector back in Germany, I did
community service in a home for handicapped children. Everything
mixed up. Deformities of all kinds and spastics and paraplegics and
all degrees of mental deficiency. One evening I entertained them with
a story about a fairy and three wishes. And then I made a blunder I
will never forget. I asked the children, ‘‘Now, when this fairy comes
to you and asks you for your wishes, what would you wish?’’ Never
again did I feel that embarrassed. Everyone in that place knew that
the first wish of any handicapped child is to be normal like the other
children. Everyone knew, except me.’
‘But what about the parents? Aren’t parents supposed to love their
children no matter how bad their genes are and how sick and dis-
abled they are?’
‘That sounds like the old religious argument that we need poor
people so the faithful can prove their generosity by giving alms. Let’s
simply assume that parents are prepared to love their child even if
the child has a problem. But we shouldn’t force them to prove it.’
‘But if everyone designs his children, and diseases and disabilities
become rare, we would no longer value the sick and disabled.’19
‘Half a century ago there were lots of people who were paralyzed
from polio. Then someone came up with a vaccine, and polio became
rare. Now it’s almost eradicated worldwide. Do you think it was
wrong to immunize against polio because it devalued the paralyzed?
When you ask handicapped people if they wish that others get their
disability, do you think they will say yes? And unless they themselves
wish that others share their fate, the argument makes no sense.’
‘Indeed. We cannot tell the disabled, ‘‘We are going to make so-
and-so-many people with your disability per year. That’s good for
you.’’ That would be paternalistic. But perhaps they do want others

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to suffer their own fate, but don’t tell. Nobody wants to admit that
he wishes bad things on others.’
‘That’s it. Claiming that the prevention of disability is an affront
against the disabled means slandering them. You imply that they
have a bad character on top of their disability. I never quite
understood why many of those who want to help the sick and dis-
abled are so critical of disability prevention. Helping the disabled
reduces human suffering, and disability prevention also reduces
human suffering. Therefore any humanitarian should be in favor of
both.’
‘No. It’s a matter of liking and disliking. Either we like the dis-
abled and are nice to them and want a lot of them around; or we
dislike them, are nasty to them, and don’t want them to exist. And
besides, the disabled are a federation of small tribes that are fighting
the evil empire of the normals. Preventing disability would be
genocide!’
‘Never looked at it from that angle.’
‘Now, if the parents are the ones who choose their child’s genes,
wouldn’t they want a competitive and unscrupulous child who can
make a lot of money?’
‘Gene effects are too fuzzy for that. Now, would any parent want
an antisocial child? No, next to health, most parents would want a
nice child with an agreeable personality even if that’s sometimes bad
for money-making. If we leave it all to the parents, the nice genes will
win out.’
‘So there will be only nice people left. After a while, we will all be
alike.’
‘No. Most parents want a child who has their own good traits,
only more of it. Parents who like music want a musical child, those
who are good at sports want an athletic child, and scholars want a
child who can learn a lot. Parents who already have a slant in one or
another direction will want a child who is even more extreme. We
create more diversity, not less.’
‘But only rich people can afford your services. If the insurance
companies don’t even pay for fertility treatment, they sure won’t pay
for designer babies.’
‘There are three ways of handling this. Ideally, the insurance
would pay. But that won’t fly. Americans don’t have that kind of
solidarity. Or you can prohibit it for everyone. That would please the
bigots but it would perpetuate preventable illnesses and disabilities.

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The third option is to allow it for those who are willing and able to
pay for it.’
‘So only the poor will still have children with all those preventable
problems?’
‘One hundred years ago only the rich could afford a car. But soon
cars were mass-produced and everyone could buy one. All new
technologies start out expensive, but then the price goes down. You
soon reach a point where it becomes affordable for everyone.’
‘Many people still won’t like what you are doing. They will say it’s
unnatural.’
‘Treating infections with penicillin is also unnatural. We prevent
heart disease with a healthy diet and AIDS with condoms. What’s so
special about genetic diseases?’
‘I don’t know. Perhaps people think that by engineering genes you
are engineering the soul.’
‘That’s fuzzy thinking. This morning in my hotel room I turned on
the radio and guess what I heard? A story about some Arctic bird
that ended in the assertion that evolution can never explain how that
bird is so well designed to survive on the Arctic ice.’
‘That was Voice of Life Radio: Creation Moment with Ian Taylor.
They bring that every morning at seven.’
‘So your children must be devout creationists.’
‘That’s how they start out. Until they grow older and understand
how the world works. It’s like with Santa Claus.’
‘And do the Dominicans believe all that? Or do they believe in
evolution?’
‘They all are creationists. Perhaps it’s because the average IQ on
this island is only 70.’
‘How do you know?’
‘I measured it.’20
‘Sure. Every thinking person sees that creation and evolution are
two different issues altogether. Creation is a cosmological problem:
why is there something rather than nothing? Evolution is about how
the world works. Saying that living things cannot evolve because
they were created by God is like saying that the planets cannot be
held in their orbits by gravity because they were created by God. If
people equate that with religion, it discredits religion.’
‘I think I know what you mean. When my daughter was twelve
years old, she wondered what she should believe: science or religion.
She settled for science.’

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‘Most Americans know about as much about reproductive medi-

cine and genetics as the Dominicans know about evolution. Worst of
all, ignorant people get weird ideas. It is amazing how many
Americans believe that the government created the AIDS virus to
wipe out the Black community!21 People get paranoid when there is
something new and they don’t know what’s going on. The only
remedy is to make sure the new generation grows up literate enough
to understand it.’
‘But Americans learn in order to earn. That’s what I gathered
from the college commercials when I was visiting the States. They
don’t want better judgment. They want money.’
‘True. And as long as that attitude prevails, people will have
bizarre ideas and we won’t be able to make good use of new
technology.’
‘Isn’t that the problem everywhere? In Germany they threw out
nuclear energy because the people didn’t like it. They want to burn
more coal instead. Now, there are safety issues for the nuclear plants
and accidents in the coal mines and air pollution and greenhouse
warming. Only a handful of experts can weigh the risks and benefits.
Everyone else depends on gut feelings. It’s the same with your
technology. Nobody cares how many children are born with dis-
eases. If it doesn’t feel right, they won’t want it.’
‘When the first railways were built, people said, it’s unnatural. We
are not meant to travel at that speed! And still, they got used to it.
Same with airplanes and contraception and heart transplants and
IVF. People need time to think about it, or at least get used to it if
thinking is not their forte. And if they don’t get used to it, their
children will. When my son was a little boy he used to visit me in the
lab. He knew that this was the place where babies are made. Later,
we had to tell him that there is also another method. But for him, the
laboratory with the incubator and the sperm centrifuge will always
be the most natural place to make babies.’
‘And if they prohibit your baby-making? Then nobody has a
chance to think about it or get used to it.’
‘Some people want to do exactly that. They say it worked so fine
with recreational drugs that we should do it with reproductive
medicine, too.22 But who would benefit from such a ban?’
‘Nobody. It’s because of the ethics. It means, ‘‘I don’t care what
good or bad it does. I don’t like it.’’ People weigh the pros and cons
when their decisions affect themselves. When they make decisions

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about others, they don’t care about consequences. They do what

feels right, and they call that ethics.’
‘That’s the primitive variety. It used to be a matter of obedience
and conformity, but now we are more individualistic. Now people
glorify their gut feelings as moral principles. Worst of all are those
who speak of sacred values. But sanctity is only a feeling. It is a very
personal thing, and it is different for different people. Patriotic and
religious feelings are held sacred by many, and they produce all the
wars and terror and genocide we see in the world. People who try to
force their own sanctity on others are dangerous psychopaths.’23

That sounded familiar. The world seems to be ruled by those guys.

In the past they used to keep busy with holy wars and the burning of
heretics. Today they seem to take a special interest in reproductive
medicine. But there was something else.
And so I said:
‘Now, in your case there is a special problem: parents love their
children.’
‘That’s what we are banking on. People who love their children go
out of their way to give them the best possible education. So why
should they not go out of their way to give them the best possible
genes?’
‘You are working at the tail end of a bell-shaped distribution. At
one end of the bell curve are those who really don’t want children.
They remain childless or have children only by accident. At the other
tail are those who really want children. That’s the kind you see in
your IVF clinics. In between is the large majority who take it as it
comes. It’s only the five percent or ten percent at the extreme end of
the distribution who would go out of their way to pick the best genes
for their children. The others are not sufficiently motivated. But they
still love their children, and they want to give them an edge over
other people’s children. Now, when you come along and make
perfect babies, these babies will have an unfair advantage over the
majority children. People will be alarmed. They will say you are
breeding a master race, or something of that sort. And it’s not only
high-IQ genes that are suspect. Even extra good health can be seen as
an unfair advantage. As you said, we all have our little disabilities.
Another problem is that people cannot love a child before it exists.
It’s designed only for existing children, and it parallels the repro-
ductive value of the child.24 Spending fifty thousand dollars for

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genetic screening of embryos may well be of greater value for the

child than spending fifty thousand dollars for a college education.
But the money for the college education is paid when the child’s
reproductive value and the parents’ love for their child are at their
peak. The money for embryo screening has to be paid long before
the child is born.’
‘People have imagination. They can predict the effects that their
present actions will have on their child’s future, even before the child
is born.’
‘People are driven by present emotions, not anticipated future
emotions.’
‘Don’t you think we are smarter than that? And don’t you think
we should use our smarts to create a better future?’
‘Of course we can create a better future, but nobody wants it.
People want to live and spend money and have fun. It’s enough that
they are asked not to step on their neighbors’ toes. We cannot ask
them not to step on the toes of people who will live twenty or fifty or
a hundred years from now. It’s not covered by kin-selected altruism
and not by reciprocity, and that’s where our social instincts end. And
besides, since Adam Smith we all know that it is selfishness that
produces the wealth of nations. Wealth is what everyone wants.
Therefore we must be selfish!’25
‘I’ll tell you what counts. Remember the waiting room?’
‘The waiting room for all those little souls?’
‘You know, that waiting room has two doors. One is for those who
will be born by the technology we are creating: screened for thousands
of genes and implanted only when chances are good for a healthy and
happy life. The other door is for those who are going to be born the
traditional way: the children of chance. Now, when you are sitting in
that waiting room, through what door do you want to leave?’
‘Well, I guess that depends on the life on the other side of that
door. If your designer babies are really healthy and wealthy and
wise, then that’s the way to go. But if it’s a scam to fill the doctors’
pockets and there are only extra risks, then better nail that door
shut.’
‘If the door from the waiting room to my factory is at least as
attractive as the other door, then I know what I am doing is right.
When we do IVF the old-fashioned way, there are extra risks. We
make a lot of twins and triplets, and they have a greater risk of
complications. But I also know that all our clients are desperate for a

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child. As you said, they are at one end of a bell-shaped distribution.

On balance, these children are better off than the rest of the crowd
because they are assured of loving parents.26 When I’m in the waiting
room, I’ll take the door to the IVF clinic, if they let me choose. But if
there is a door to a place where they implant only well-selected
embryos, that will be my very first choice.’
‘What if they don’t let you choose, and you don’t go to the embryo
factory but they dump you into the first womb that passes by?
Wouldn’t that be a terrible let-down? You would still have all these
crappy genes, and you would have to live with others who are
healthier and wealthier and wiser than you because somebody did a
good job making sure they get good genes.’
‘Would it make you any sicker, living with others healthier than
you?’
‘No, but perhaps they would make me pay more for health
insurance.’
‘Not if it is a world where the healthy care for the sick. You would
pay less, not more. Would it make you any poorer, living with others
wealthier than you?’
‘Perhaps they would turn their wealth into power, and use that
power to suck me dry altogether.’
‘Not in a world where wealth comes from honest work and people
work together and share their proceeds. In that world you would be
wealthier, not poorer. And would it make you any more ignorant,
living with others wiser than you?’
‘They can take advantage of my ignorance.’
‘In a world where knowledge is put to good use and wisdom is
shared freely, you would be wiser.’
‘I might be envious. I would still have all those genes that make
people envious of others. Actually, without your gene screen I could
be born chock full of asshole genes: a real psychopath. But when
there are others around with better genes and they create a lot of
wealth, then there is more for me to beg, borrow and steal. And if I
kill somebody, they won’t put me on death row. If the guys who run
the show were selected for wisdom genes in your factory, they will
not be bent on revenge. They will put me in some sort of hotel where
I can no longer harm others and they’ll still let me have fun there.
You’re right. I would be better off, even as a psychopath.’
‘People have to make up their minds. They have to decide into
what kind of world they would want to be born.’

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‘Your talk sounds familiar. I remember some obscure philosopher

who talked about waiting rooms. He called it the ‘‘veil of ignor-
ance’’.27 But as far as I remember, he didn’t care about the good
doors. He preferred a waiting room where the worst door was not all
too bad. He wasn’t the kind of gambler who would look over all the
doors and say, ‘‘Let’s take a chance’’.’
‘Nor am I. But I am only a technician. I build better doors.’
‘And you think they will let you?’
‘I have to try.’
This was my last encounter with my old friend, Dr Frank N. Stein.
If he ever found an island for his factory, I do not know. And I was
wondering: how can he be so naive? People will be appalled at the
unnaturalness of his work. Not the unnaturalness of his baby-
making technique. No, they will be appalled to see people who care
about the welfare of children who are not yet born. This is what is
truly unnatural. No, we can use our knowledge of genetics only when
it serves our own narrow self-interest: to make ourselves healthier
and wealthier and wiser, or to make money by selling the technology.
We are obeying our selfish genes.

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 15
Yoyo Evolution and Noah’s Ark

God and nature first made us what we are, and then out of
our own created genius we make ourselves what we want to
be . . . Let the sky and God be our limit and Eternity our
measurement.
(Marcus Garvey, 1887–1940)

Science makes predictions that can be falsified by observation or

experiment. If social scientists and biologists cannot predict the
future trajectory of our cultural and biological evolution, then their
science is worthless.
Some twentieth-century futurologists observed that science and
technology were advancing exponentially. Extrapolating from this
trend, they predicted enormous scientific and technological progress.
Most likely we will start colonizing the galaxy soon. We will have to.
The human population grows by 1.5 percent per year. This means
there will be 7.3 billion people on Earth in ten years, 28 billion in 100
years, and 11 trillion in 500 years. Our planet will be too small for us.
This is an example of a projection: the extension of a current trend
into the future. Projections are cheap substitutes for predictions,
used by those who do not understand the causes of the current
trends. Most projections are useless on timescales beyond a few years
or decades. Predictions of long-term trends require an understanding
of causes, and the causes of social and biological developments lie in
human behavior. After 14 chapters about human behavior, let’s see
what we have learned!

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The prophets of doom

Can a society in which thought and technique are scientific

persist for a long period, as, for example, ancient Egypt per-
sisted, or does it necessarily contain within itself forces which
must bring either decay or explosion . . .? (Bertrand Russell,
Lloyd Roberts lecture, 1949)

We have learned that the population bomb is a false alarm. In

Chapters 5 and 8 we saw that our ancestors never evolved a reliable
desire for children because they did not know how child-making
works. They only evolved a love for their existing children. This love
backfires today, for we have grown bright enough to know that
having many children dilutes the material and emotional resources
available for each child. Therefore parental love keeps us from
having many children. And, more importantly, we know that chil-
dren interfere with the pursuit of sex and money.
Runaway population growth only occurs at a brief intermediate
stage of cultural evolution, when people have already learned to
reduce infant mortality but have not quite learned that having lots of
children is bad for parents and children alike. In countries that are
past this stage, from Spain and Germany to Hong Kong and Japan,
fertility has plummeted far below replacement. Population decline
rather than population growth is the normal condition for advanced
societies!1
Or are we going to destroy our civilization or even exterminate our
species through an ecological collapse? It’s also a false alarm. Air
and water pollution are likely to shorten life expectancy only mar-
ginally. Soil erosion is not a fatal problem either because it affects
only part of the arable land on this planet, most of it in the tropics.
And species extinctions will not jeopardize the survival of civilization
or our survival as a species.
Greenhouse warming is more serious. Experts expect a tempera-
ture rise of 1.5–68C and a sea-level rise of 13 to 30 centimeters by the
end of the twenty-first century. Further sea-level rises, possibly of
several meters, are likely during the twenty-second and twenty-third
centuries. In the worst-case scenario, Manhattan will become the
New Venice, and 5 million Dutch will be resettled in Greenland and
500 million Bangladeshis in Antarctica.
The economy will be affected by the depletion of mineral

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resources. Oil production is expected to peak sometime between 2010

and 2025, and by the middle of the twenty-first century even the
resources of the Persian Gulf will run low. Presumably, at that time
the American military will leave the Middle East, the oil sheikhs will
retire to their Swiss mansions, and the Middle Eastern states
will finally become democracies. Tar sands and coal will last for
another 400 or 500 years, but by the middle of the third millennium
all readily exploitable fossil fuels will be gone for good while
Greenland and Antarctica will be on the way to becoming ice-free
due to global warming. If human inventiveness is high at that time,
people will cope through innovative technologies. If not, economies
will collapse.2
But an all-out nuclear war would certainly exterminate our spe-
cies, wouldn’t it? No, it wouldn’t. Even if all existing nuclear war-
heads were exploded optimally spaced over the major population
centers of the Earth, a majority of the human population would
survive although many of the survivors would die in the aftermath.
With a world population of some billions, millions are bound to
survive. Civilized life as we know it would collapse worldwide, but
we would not go extinct. Nature does not count the casualties
but the survivors! The speed with which civilization re-emerges after
a nuclear holocaust depends entirely on the genetic constitution of
the survivors: their capacity for higher intelligence, and their capa-
city to establish efficient societies free from rampant corruption.
Or will we exterminate ourselves by allowing the build-up of
damaging mutations? When fruit flies are kept under conditions of
relaxed natural selection, their viability declines by 0.2 percent to 2
percent per generation depending on whether viability is assessed in
a favorable or a harsh environment. We have relaxed natural
selection in our species through modern medicine, and the build-up
of mutations is likely to become serious in as little as one millennium.
We will be increasingly dependent on medicine for survival and
reproduction, and even without nuclear war most of our degenerate
descendants will perish if civilization crashes at this point. But it
won’t be enough for species extinction.
This scenario assumes that human populations remain at their
present cognitive and moral level for one millennium: bright enough
for high-tech medicine but not bright enough to prevent the build-up
of damaging mutations; compassionate enough to care for their sick
but not compassionate enough to protect their children and

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 In God’s Image?

grandchildren from genetic health risks. But we know already that

the intelligence of human populations is unstable over time.3 The
same might be true for moral traits as well.
The important point is this: The future of human societies depends
not only on the physical resources of our planet but above all on the
human resources. How many people are there? How intelligent are
they? What purpose do they see in life?

Cultural change

‘Cheshire Puss,’ she began . . . ‘Would you tell me, please,

which way I ought to go from here?’
‘That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,’ said
the cat.
‘I don’t care much where –’ said Alice.
‘Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,’ said the cat.
(Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland)

Both human ingenuity and the attitudes, beliefs and values that
define ‘culture’ are changing continuously. According to experts:

economic development tends to propel societies in a roughly

predictable direction: Industrialization leads to occupational
specialization, rising educational levels, rising income levels,
and eventually brings unforeseen changes – changes in gender
roles, attitudes toward authority and sexual norms; declining
fertility rates; broader political participation; and less easily led
publics.4

International surveys reveal two major dimensions of this change.

The first is the move from traditional religion to a secular and
rational worldview. The traditional mindset is marked by religious
faith, respect for elders, national pride, an emphasis on family
loyalties and male dominance, an aversion to euthanasia, abortion,
divorce and contraception, and the belief in absolute standards of
right and wrong. These traditional values are opposed to ‘modern’
values. The modern value system is directly related to the average IQ
of the population. It is, therefore, in all likelihood a consequence of
the Flynn effect. As people get brighter and understand how the

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world works, they see the arbitrariness of the old religious dogmas
and the fallibility of earthly authority.
The second trend is the move from survival-oriented values to self-
expressive or ‘postmodern’ values. People in survival-oriented
societies value hard work, are concerned about economic and phy-
sical security, have confidence in technology but not in people, and
object to homosexuals, foreigners and people with AIDS. People in
postmodern societies give priority to the pursuit of happiness. They
have no objection to prostitution and homosexuality, trust people
and insist on gender equality but are opposed to new technologies.
They are individualists who value the opportunity to use initiative on
the job and in their communities and who believe that people should
take responsibility to provide for themselves rather than relying on
the government. While the modern mindset depends on high IQ, the
postmodern value system is most closely related to a low level of
corruption. Corruption, in turn, is most closely related to poverty. By
and large, in our time the poorest countries are also the most corrupt.
Historically, modern values began spreading in Europe since the
time of the Enlightenment philosophers in the eighteenth century.
The French Revolution was carried by this new worldview. Inter-
estingly, this coincided with a decline of French fertility, more than
half a century before fertility declined in the other European coun-
tries. Modern values kept rising in Europe and North America until
the late twentieth century, but the trend has peaked out by now. In
the most advanced societies we are seeing not only the end of the
Flynn effect, but also a revival of the old-time religion and possibly a
more willing subordination to authoritarian leadership.5
Although the modern mind creates prosperity, a social safety net
and a sense of security, it does not lead to greater happiness and
satisfaction. Rational people are bound to see the pointlessness and
inevitable suffering inherent in the human condition, and they are
aware of their personal shortcomings and those of the societies in
which they live. They see what is, and compare it with what could be.
Worst of all, rational thinking deprives people of their favorite
opiate: religion.
While modern values represent the emancipation of reason from
the bonds of custom and religion, postmodern values represent the
emancipation of pleasure-seeking and social emotions from the need
to survive in a hostile world. The touchy-feely emotional approach
to life with its consumerism, pleasure-seeking, individualism and

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 In God’s Image?

escapism defines the postmodern fun society. And it works. The

higher people’s scores on the postmodern values factor, the happier
they are.
In any society that has reached a high level of wealth and social
security, people can forget the bare necessities and tackle the all-
important task of maximizing their enjoyment of life. This trend has
reached full force only in the wake of rising prosperity after World
War II. It gave us pop culture and the sexual revolution, spawned
grassroots movements against nuclear energy and genetically engi-
neered food, and killed off the socialist movement.
Personality tests show the change. There have been large rises in
scores for neuroticism (negative emotions) and extraversion (positive
emotions) during the second half of the twentieth century, at least in
America. The shift toward the emotional approach to life is a uni-
versal human response to favorable external conditions and there-
fore it is seen in all societies that have achieved a high level of
prosperity and social security. Even zoo monkeys that are freed from
the daily chores of foraging and anti-predator defense show emo-
tional and self-expressive behaviors in the form of intensified social
interactions – the monkey equivalent of extraversion.6
The pursuit of happiness requires freedom and the downsizing of
traditional loyalties. Rights must be maximized and obligations
minimized. Anxiety, shame and guilt are treated as mental disorders,
rather than being cultivated as guides to a socially responsible life.
And, as we saw in Chapter 7, people now insist on romantic love for
marriage, and on divorce when love has run its natural course.
The reciprocity principle demands that individualists who claim
the right of unimpeded self-expression should support the same right
for others. Therefore some self-realizers support liberal politics.
Others are only bored by politics, for in postmodern society politics
has a hard time competing with other forms of entertainment. Moral
values change accordingly. The ethos of the modern world was uti-
litarian. Its core prescription was that we judge our actions by their
consequences, the way Dr Stein does. This was the heyday of soci-
alism, eugenics, and other social reform movements. Today this
utilitarian approach has given way to an emotionally guided ethos
that insists on the sanctity of this-and-that with little concern for
consequences – at least as long as there are no bad consequences for
ourselves. In postmodern society the self-expressive ethos merges
with a new spirituality that gradually reverts to religious dogma.

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Cultural diversity still persists in our world. The United States, for
example, is an aberrant case. Material wealth and self-expressive
values are high in this country, but religion and superstition are still
as prevalent as in Third World countries despite a relatively high IQ
of 98. About half of Americans believe in witches, ghosts, extra-
sensory perception, angels, the Devil, and the literal truth of the
book of Genesis.7
We can only speculate about the reasons for the American
anomaly, but many unique cultural patterns in traditional societies
are related to history and religion. Predictably, most of the tradi-
tional differences between Christian, Muslim, Hindu and Confucian
societies will crumble when traditional religion yields to rationalism,
rationalism yields to consumerism and New Age mysticism, and
everyone imbibes a homogenized world culture through the mass
media.
Some cultural traits are hard to explain as historical accidents.
There is, for example, an East Asian value orientation that has been
called Confucian work dynamism. Confucian work dynamism is the
cultural expression of a personality trait: the willingness to work for
delayed rewards. If this personality trait is influenced by genes, and if
these genes are more common in East Asia than elsewhere, then
Confucian work dynamism will persist. If not, it will disappear.
Likewise, East Asian culture has been described as holistic and
Western culture as analytic. In IQ tests, Westerners excel in verbal
tasks and Asians in visuospatial and mathematical tasks. Indeed,
East Asians use visual areas of the brain to solve mathematical
problems, whereas Westerners use language-related brain areas for
the same tasks. Does this mean that culture determines how people
think? Or do genes shape thinking and thinking shapes culture?8

Brain gain and brain drain

Human history becomes more and more a race between edu-

cation and catastrophe. (HG Wells, The Outline of History,
1920)

Soap and education are not as sudden as a massacre, but they

are more deadly in the long run. (Mark Twain, A Curious
Dream)

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Knowing the changes in value systems that occur with the Flynn
effect and rising prosperity, we can try to predict the trajectory on
which modern societies will evolve during the next millennium. In
Chapter 12 we saw that our civilization is driven by a feedback loop
between brain and culture. Human intelligence produces technology,
prosperity and an efficient educational system, which in turn boost
intelligence even more, and this creates even more technology and
prosperity. The intelligence part of this loop is called the Flynn
effect. Our civilization will advance as long, and only as long, as this
feedback is maintained. But can it be maintained?
Of course it cannot be maintained, because human intelligence is
subject to biological constraints. We cannot make our children grow
ten feet tall by giving them better food, we cannot live for 150 years
through vitamin pills and regular exercise, and we cannot turn
everyone into an Einstein by better schooling and educational video
games. The Flynn effect is rapidly becoming history, at least among
young people in the most advanced societies.9
And what if things go badly, for example after a nuclear war or a
political meltdown? If the disruption lasts for at least two or three
decades, the Flynn effect will go in reverse: deteriorating living
conditions will reduce intelligence. Sagging intelligence will cripple
the population’s ability to maintain technology, social complexity
and the school system, and this will depress intelligence even more.
We no longer have a Flynn effect but an anti-Flynn effect.
As long as a meltdown like this can be avoided, developments
after the end of the Flynn effect depend on the slow workings of
genetic selection. But what are we selecting for? The authors of a
twin study in Denmark conjectured that with the introduction of
effective contraception, natural selection favors the desire to have
children. Effectively, we are selecting for feminine women with
strong maternal instincts. Others have noted that a traditionalist,
conservative and religious worldview with a preference for sharply
divided gender roles favors large families. Genes that support this
value system may therefore be under positive selection. In a few
centuries we will all be pious, obedient and conservative!10
The ‘first’ demographic transition, which peaked during the sec-
ond half of the nineteenth century in most European countries, was
triggered by the spread of a rational, ‘modern’ value system, which in
turn was the consequence of rising intelligence. During the late
twentieth century, Europe and virtually all other advanced societies

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experienced a second demographic transition, which brought sub-

replacement fertility for the first time in history. This second
demographic transition is not caused by the spread of postmodern
values. The culprit is money. Once the fertility-busting effect of
rising wealth is taken into account, postmodern values no longer
reduce fertility. In worldwide comparisons between nations, wealth
is about as powerful in reducing fertility as is IQ. Presumably, people
learn to prefer the pleasures of consumerism to the pleasures of
parenthood.
These effects are observed in comparisons between countries. But
when we compare individuals within countries, we again find that in
most countries the pious and obedient tend to have more children
than others. Also, in most countries and at most times since the
fertility transition of the late nineteenth century, the most educated
people had the smallest families. In the few studies that measured
intelligence, the stupid usually had more children than the bright. In
Europe and North America these effects were strongest at the height
of the fertility transition during the late nineteenth century, when
intelligent and open-minded people were the first to limit their family
size on a large scale. By now fertility differentials by education and
intelligence are very small in Northern Europe, but in most other
parts of the world the bright and educated still have fewer children
than the poorly educated.
Genetic selection in the late twentieth-century United States is
expected to reduce intelligence by 0.35 to 0.9 IQ points per genera-
tion assuming a constant environment. This adds up to a puny 1.2 to
3 points per century, but 12 to 30 points per millennium – yet
another trend that cannot continue indefinitely. For comparison, the
IQ difference between Black and White Americans is 15 points, and
between the Zimbabweans and the British 30 points.11
These fertility differentials create a ‘long’ feedback loop between
genes and culture that I described as ‘yoyo evolution’ in Chapter 12.
It means that the intellectually most advanced nations shrink due to
their low fertility, and that little by little, the brightest sections within
these populations breed themselves out of existence. Thus genotypic
intelligence erodes slowly in the course of about one millennium.
But are these fertility differentials going to persist for a whole
millennium? Let’s have a closer look at the mechanisms. To begin
with, when nobody wants children, only those who are too stupid to
prevent them will have any. The main reason why so many people

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want only a few children or none at all is that watching movies,

eating out, visiting friends and traveling are more satisfying than
changing diapers. On the work–fun continuum, children are far on
the side of work. Modern technology has blessed us with fancy cars,
international travel, cable TV, home videos, computer games and the
Internet. Consumer goods get better as technology advances. Only
children have not been improved by technology. They still wet their
diapers and they still throw their tantrums, and when they grow up
they become liable to alcohol, crime, messy sex affairs and school
failure. Perhaps Dr Stein can re-engineer them, but do you want to
let him do it?
To make matters worse, children are an enormous financial bur-
den, especially for parents who want to send them to college. The
only remedy would be a massive redistribution of wealth from the
childless to parents. But how do you persuade the childless to pay
horrendous taxes to support other people’s children? That’s not the
kind of campaign issue that gets a president re-elected!
But doesn’t this mean that children become unaffordable for the
poor? If only rich people can afford children and rich people are
brighter than the poor, then we can select against stupidity by
making the rich even richer and the poor even poorer! A sudden
change from affluence to poverty does indeed deter people from
childbearing. The East German birth rate plummeted when uni-
fication brought high unemployment and uncertainty about the
future. The same had happened before during the Great Depression
of the 1930s. Although universal affluence depresses fertility, people
who perceive themselves as worse off than before, or as worse off
than others, are reluctant to have children.
One problem with this argument is that the relationship between
income and intelligence is not strong. Even worse, if children are
unaffordable for a large section of the population, then only the less
intelligent among the poor will still have children. Indeed, today
selection against high intelligence is substantial in stratified societies
such as the United States but not in more egalitarian societies such as
Denmark and Sweden.12
Another problem is that we present our women with the choice
between motherhood and career. Women with good career oppor-
tunities are likely to opt for a career, and those with unattractive jobs
are likely to opt for family life. What advice would you give to a
female college student who fails all her courses? You tell her, ‘You

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better find a husband!’ No wonder that selection against high intel-

ligence is greater in women than in men.13 And I don’t think feminists
will support a proposal to keep bright women out of lucrative careers.
More generally, people feel comfortable with those who share
their own preferences and experiences and their own approach to
life. A child is more similar to a stupid than a bright woman.
Therefore the company of a child is more desirable for a stupid
woman, and the least educated women do indeed desire the most
children. While the joys of consumerism are responsible for the
fertility-reducing effect of wealth (at least in comparisons between
nations), the like-attracts-like effect appears to be a major reason for
the observation that high intelligence reduces fertility even in many
of the most advanced societies.
This does not mean that fertility is moving steadily toward zero.
Like all female primates, women are attracted to infants. For most
women, the compromise between their nurturant instinct and the
grim reality of parenting is to have one or two children but no
more.14
But we don’t need zero fertility to eradicate the population. If
current fertility levels persist for 200 years, the population of Britain
will shrink to 19 percent of its present size. Only 6 percent of the
Japanese, and 3 percent of Russians and Italians will be left at that
time. The only major industrialized nation that maintains its num-
bers with its current birthrate (and is gaining by immigration) is
America.
This trend leaves only two choices: either depopulation in the
course of two or three centuries, or the gradual replacement of the
native populations by immigrants. Replacement migration is wel-
comed by some because the work of youthful immigrants is needed
to support the locals in their old age; and it is abhorred by others
who fear the loss of their national and cultural identity. But how can
there be national and cultural identity when the population itself is
disappearing?
Also, we do not know to what extent the large IQ differences
between countries are caused by genetic differences. We have no
direct evidence from molecular genetics as yet, but many scholars
believe that the genetic differences are substantial. If this is the case,
migration from low-IQ countries to high-IQ countries will have two
important consequences. One consequence is that economic
inequalities in the high-IQ countries become greater, both because

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there is a greater spread of intelligence and money-making ability in

the population and because social solidarity tends to be low in multi-
racial societies. Effectively, there will be an underclass that is
recruited mainly from the descendants of immigrants. The other
consequence of replacement migration would be a reduction of the
average IQ and educational achievement in the high-IQ countries,
which eventually leads to stunted economic development.15
In the countries that supply the migrants, fertility is declining with
the introduction of mass education, job opportunities for women,
and a brisk Flynn effect. Massive fertility declines have already
occurred in most Asian countries, but fertility is still high in Africa.
Most likely, migration into Europe and North America will be
dominated first by Asians and later by Africans.

Science and its discontents

Every change is a menace to stability. That’s another reason

why we are so chary of applying new inventions. Every dis-
covery in pure science is potentially subversive; even science
must sometimes be treated as a possible enemy. Yes, even sci-
ence . . . Science is dangerous; we have to keep it most carefully
chained and muzzled. (Aldous Huxley, Brave New World)

We stand at the end of the Age of Reason . . . A new era of the

magical explanation of the world is rising, an explanation based
on will rather than knowledge. There is no truth, in either the
moral or the scientific sense . . . Science is a social phenomenon,
and like all those, is limited by the usefulness or harm it causes.
(Adolf Hitler)

At early stages of industrial development science and technology are

hailed for their promise of a better life. But as development pro-
gresses, the benefits of the older technologies are taken for granted.
New technologies are still appreciated, especially in the key domains
of medicine and entertainment, but are no longer seen as essential for
a better life. Most of the newer technologies, from solar cells and
nuclear reactors to genetically modified food and reproductive
cloning, are perceived as optional.
In postmodern societies, judgments about these matters are

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determined by emotional responses rather than a utilitarian calculus.

The vast majority of the public cannot judge the pros and cons
anyway. In 1988 only 34 percent of the British knew that nuclear
power plants are not a source of acid rain, and only 23 percent
recognized a link between the burning of fossil fuels in coal-fired
power stations and the problem of global warming. Without sound
knowledge, judgments depend necessarily on gut feelings and the
opinions that are disseminated by the mass media. According to
surveys, popular support for innovations in medical and agricultural
biotechnology is strongly related to their perceived ethical and moral
acceptability, moderately related to perceived usefulness, and barely
at all to perceived risk.16
Still, gene-enhanced tomatoes and heart transplants from geneti-
cally engineered pigs will eventually be accepted. Emotional revul-
sion and moral outrage deflate once people get used to these
technologies, and given enough profit opportunities and consumer
demand, special-interest groups are likely to push them through. But
without lobbying by special-interest groups, gut feelings prevail and
the technology is outlawed.
Research in basic science that threatens cherished worldviews is a
different matter. Do you like the idea of studying differences in
intelligence-related genes among races? This research maps on cog-
nitive templates for social dominance and in-group–out-group
antagonisms, triggering disturbing emotions and moralistic inhibi-
tions. These are the kinds of inhibition that prevent nasty actions
against stigmatized groups, but they also produce an anti-science
response when the results of scientific research are expected to trigger
the inhibited emotions.
Science is totalitarian. It is thoroughly undemocratic, for by
separating falsehood from truth it leaves its customers no choice. If
people are free to choose their groceries, hobbies, religion and
politicians (though not their drugs), why should they not be free to
choose their ideas about how the world works? If you prefer a
dependable eyewitness report of divine creation to the ‘Just So
Stories’ of evolutionary biologists, simply don’t believe the biolo-
gists! The dinosaurs didn’t die out 60 million years ago because an
asteroid jammed into the Earth but 4 thousand years ago because
they were too big to fit into Noah’s ark! Postmodern philosophers
tell us that there is no objective knowledge, but only socially situated
narratives about the world. Translated into a practical philosophy

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for everyone, it reads: never mind if it’s true, as long as it makes you
feel good.
As a consequence, research funding will be withheld from con-
troversial research. This is already the case. In America, for example,
embryo research is not supported by federal funds. The break-
throughs that we see in this field today are funded by commercial
interests; and politically incorrect research in behavioral genetics
during the 1980s depended in large part on private philanthropic
support. We don’t burn scientists at the stake any more, but we cut
off their funding.17

Noah’s Ark

[As a result of genome mapping] we will be able to increase the

complexity of our . . . DNA without having to wait for the slow
process of biological evolution. It is likely that we will be able to
completely redesign [the human genome] in the next 1,000
[years]. (Stephen Hawking)18

The sequencing of the human genome makes it possible to

envisage for the first time the creation of a genetically more just
society, one in which the most fundamental kind of wealth – the
genes that confer health and fitness – would for the first time be
accessible to all. (Nicholas Wade, Life Script)

The dynamic of gene–culture coevolution implies that there will be

another one or possibly two good centuries. IQs will no longer rise
the way they did during the twentieth century, and scientific progress
will slowly grind to a halt. The value system will be postmodern, with
a high level of individualism and subjective well-being. The flight
from science and reason will leave people vacillating between the
instant gratification of consumerism and the deeper joys of mysti-
cism and religion. Within two centuries many populations in the
most advanced parts of the world will have been partially replaced
by migrants. Cultural creativity will be lost by this time, and people
will find it increasingly hard to hold on to the knowledge and
technology of their ancestors. This course of events is inevitable
because of creeping depopulation and the insidious effects of genetic
selection for lower intelligence. In some places the local populations

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will be partially extinguished through nuclear war or genocide, but

eventually even the civilization of the survivors will collapse through
a terminal anti-Flynn effect.
There is a window of one or a few centuries when science and
technology can, in theory, turn things around by making people
brighter and more ethical. Raising human intelligence with a better
school system or with nutritional interventions could definitely
prolong the lifespan of our civilization. Ethical traits such as com-
passion, fairness and the ability to forgo immediate rewards in favor
of delayed rewards, and personal gain in favor of the common good,
are far more complex than intelligence. Their genetics is poorly
understood, and we know next to nothing about their trends over
time in modern societies. Predictably, they will also be far harder to
control than intelligence.
What about an intelligence pill? Historians who read these lines
100 years from now may hold their bellies laughing, but I don’t think
an intelligence pill for adults is round the corner. Brain boosters for
children are more likely: natural growth factors or synthetic drugs
that are applied either before or after birth. If used on a large scale,
such treatments can bring us to a cognitive level where we can
develop even more powerful self-improvement technologies.
People would happily accept growth factors and drugs to boost
their own mental powers, but they will object to their use for chil-
dren. Such treatments are perceived as less ‘natural’ than vitamin
pills and educational computer games. Also, they are too powerful.
Children on whom these treatments are used will have an unfair
advantage over other children. It’s like in competitive sports, where
doping is perceived as unfair. We have no instincts to advance
civilization, but we do have instincts for competition and fairness.
Therefore such technologies are likely to be outlawed unless the
companies marketing them make truly heroic lobbying and PR
efforts.
And what about Dr Stein? Unless embryo research and research
on the genetic basis of psychological traits become proscribed
worldwide, we will soon be able to select pre-implantation embryos
for altruism, intelligence and other desirable traits, and even to alter
the genes of our children. Unlike brain boosters this only requires
technologies that are in the pipeline already, including DNA chips,
reproductive cloning and artificial chromosomes. Even if such

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practices are used only by a minority, they can offset undesirable

selection effects in the rest of the population.
But what does the public think about designer baby technology?
At my school, a little more than 20 percent of medical students want
it prohibited; 40 percent think it should be permitted but people
should pay for it themselves; and 20 percent think it should be
covered by the health insurance. The rest are undecided. Only 20
percent would use this technology for their own children. Opposition
to designer babies is related to a moralistic attitude of ‘respect for
nature’ that considers the interference with natural processes unac-
ceptable. It is also related to high religiosity in Christians and
Muslims, though not Hindus.
Still, a relative majority of our respondents favored the free-
market principle over prohibition. Apparently moralistic inhibitions
on coercive and manipulative tactics with people favor tolerance of
the technology, while the application of such inhibitions to natural
processes favors prohibition.
The outcome is everyone’s guess. Perhaps genetic selection and
germline gene engineering will be permitted for disease prevention
but outlawed for the production of children with high intelligence
and balanced personality. Disease prevention is supported by com-
passion, but high intelligence is an unfair advantage in the struggle
for sex and money. Most likely we will end up compiling lists of
genes for which selection and improvement are outlawed, the way we
compile lists of illegal drugs. If you want a genius child or one with
extended lifespan, you will have to do it illegally.
And what if the free market prevails? In that case only rich and
intelligent people with a genuine concern for the welfare of their
children will go out of their way to pick the best genes for their
children. Those who already have more than their fair share of
desirable genes will secure an even greater advantage for their chil-
dren. These children will perceive designer baby technology as per-
fectly ‘natural’, and most of them will again use it for their own
children. For the first time in history there will be a true genetic elite.
Historically, overachieving groups were prime targets of genocide.
German Jews were vastly over-represented in the academic profes-
sions; the Armenians who were slaughtered by the Turks during
World War I were wealthier than their Muslim neighbors; Stalin
targeted the economically successful sections of the population; and
under Pol Pot in Cambodia, the educated were singled out for

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liquidation. Although people in postmodern societies abhor violence

close to home, the chances are that any new genetic elite would soon
be exterminated by the free-breeding majority.
The same applies on the international scale. What would happen if
the Chinese set up sperm banks where only the very brightest are
accepted as donors, and embryo factories where they clone their
greatest scientists and engineers from stem cells saved at birth?
Sooner or later they will be able to challenge America with space-
based nuclear weapons. This is genetic warfare! And what can we do
about it? Nuke ’em, of course, before it is too late!
Of course it’s nonsense. Even if the Chinese clone their greatest
scientists and use only genius sperm in their sperm banks, it will take
some centuries to make them much smarter than the Americans.
Genetic policies cannot be maintained on this timescale because
there will be civil wars and revolutions, massacres of intellectual
elites, and an endless sequence of governments with conflicting
agendas. And besides, if current demographic trends continue there
will be no Western populations left for the Chinese to rule.
Still, the genetic warfare fantasy is a strong meme. We all remember
the pitiful sight of a powerful country like America turning xeno-
phobic in response to a minor terrorist threat. The more ominous
prospect of genetic warfare can lead to far more destructive responses.
To prevent this from happening, there must be a worldwide consensus
that gene-improving technologies are unacceptable both for one’s
own people and for rival nations. If this consensus is enforced per-
manently and worldwide, then yoyo evolution is inevitable.
Still, there is a chance that somewhere in the world a deviant
minority endeavors to enhance itself genetically. This deviant group
could be the intellectual or business elite of a major nation, with each
member of this elite motivated by the desire to provide their own
children with a special advantage.19
Or else, a rogue nation such as China could try to adopt genetic
enhancement practices, moved by the altruistic desire of its leaders to
create a better future for everyone. This is Galton’s model. Or per-
haps a rogue state such as Israel will use genetic enhancement for
patriotic reasons, to enable itself to dominate others. This is Hitler’s
model.
Yet another possibility is that a New Age religion uses genetic
enhancement in an attempt to bring people closer to God. Too
crazy? Not at all! The Raelians were among the first to announce

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plans for human cloning, and it would make perfect sense for a
religious group to pioneer gene technology for the production of
saints. It also makes perfect sense for a religious group to favor large
families. In fact, because religions are transmitted mainly in the
family, religious groups with pro-natalist values are the only ones
that will survive the present bout of civilization at all. In order to
escape yoyo evolution, a population must have two characteristics:
the use of genetic enhancement technology, and high fertility.
Needless to say, such groups can only exist on the margins of
postmodern society. Even if some of these gene-enhanced, child-
friendly deviants survive the threat of genocide, they will be a tiny
minority unable to stem the tide of cultural decline. But in time they
will create a new civilization after the collapse of the old order. This I
call Noah’s ark.

The port of heaven

The end of our foundation is the knowledge of causes, and the

secret motions of things; and the enlarging of the bounds of
human empire, to the effecting of all things possible. (Francis
Bacon, New Atlantis)

What is the essential difference between humans and other life

forms? Is it the possession of language, moral sense, intelligence or a
soul? And what are our unique accomplishments? Are we human
because we use tools? Or because we use tools to make tools? Or
because we use nuclear energy? Is there a true threshold between a
mere animal and an intelligent creature?
Several animal species use tools; many have communication sys-
tems, though not as complex as human language; our moral intui-
tions are mere instincts that are superimposed on older instincts; and
intelligence comes in all gradations. And yet there is a discontinuity
that marks the transition from common animal life to intelligent life.
This transition takes place when a species learns to control its own
evolution: when it proceeds to become what it wants to be.
We are barely approaching this threshold and are still held back
by three constraints. First, sheer stupidity limits our ability to assess
our place in the scheme of biological and cultural evolution. The
Flynn effect, at least in its later stages, has boosted our reasoning

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skills with little change in the ability to acquire and integrate

knowledge. It has made us clever but not wise.20 A second limitation
is imposed by selfishness, and by those moral intuitions that are
oblivious of the welfare of others. Finally, there are large individual
differences in moral values and mental abilities. This makes it
impossible to arrive at a consensus on anything that is either
important or complex or both.
If you were on a committee that has to decide about future human
evolution, what would you propose? Should the human project be
continued, or should we opt for extinction? If we continue, should
we revert to the simple, natural life of the Stone Age hunter? In that
case we will have to reduce both population size and intelligence.
And we have to build in safeguards against the re-emergence of
higher intelligence and the civilized lifeways that excessive intelli-
gence produces.
If we opt for intelligent life, should we continue as one species, or
should we split up? Splitting up into several species is a safeguard
against biological extinction, the same way that cultural diversity is a
safeguard against deculturation. Nature does not count the casual-
ties, but the survivors!
Also, human species diversity increases the probability that at
least one species takes off on the track to goodness and wisdom –
only, chances are it will be exterminated by one that does not. In the
competition between human species, it is not the wisest but the
weirdest that is likely to survive. No, we must eliminate our patriotic
instincts first, before we can even think of splitting up! And we will
need safeguards against their re-emergence.
Once this has been done we can finally split up. We can form an
artistic species that pursues esthetic enjoyment, a scientific one that
solves the mysteries of the universe, a sexy one, and a religious
fundamentalist species that pursues salvation. And when things go
wrong, a species can still change. If the fundamentalists become too
obnoxious to each other, they can still decide to get rid of their
fundamentalist genes and procure genes from the sexy species!
And what kind of mating system should we adopt? Is it desirable
to desire stable pair bonds? Or is it more desirable to desire pro-
miscuous sex? Certainly a universal desire for promiscuous sex is
more humane because it avoids grief from messy and frustrated
attempts at pair bonding!
Feminists may want to de-emphasize the males. We should

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definitely make the men physically smaller than the women, so they
cannot rape them any more. We can also reduce male intelligence.
There is no compelling reason why a sexually reproducing species
should have high intelligence in both sexes. Some marine inverte-
brates have dwarf males that consist mainly of testicles and are
about the right size to creep into the vagina. We can also opt for
reduced female intelligence, and we may even achieve this with
minimal interference. Selection against female intelligence occurs
naturally in modern societies,21 and if it’s natural it’s morally right,
isn’t it?
The problem is that our cognitive system is designed to manipulate
the outside world. It has the greatest difficulty representing its own
built-in motivations as objects of conscious control. We never
evolved the ability to decide what our desires should be, or what we
should judge as right and wrong. These value judgments are pro-
grammed into the brain to control our thinking, but they are not
accessible to conscious manipulation. And so we can only base our
judgments on our present desires. Someone who already likes pro-
miscuous sex will opt for a promiscuous species, and someone who
finds greater satisfaction or a greater sense of moral righteousness in
pair-bonded relationships will opt for pair bonding.
We have no awareness of and control over the modules that
produce desires and moral intuitions. Without this form of self-
awareness, the cognitive system is still a slave that executes the
orders of its invisible masters. It needs to be emancipated. In the
halfway house of evolution where we find ourselves, ethics is needed
to establish habits of interpersonal conduct that safeguard every-
one’s evolved needs and preferences. For a fully intelligent species, it
is needed to decide what these needs and preferences shall be.
We don’t even know why the universe exists. Why is there
something rather than nothing? Nor do we understand the nature of
feelings and subjective experience. To close these gaping holes in our
knowledge, we must enhance our intelligence first. Then we can open
up our motivation modules, and finally we can negotiate a better
breeding system for our species and figure out the meaning of life.
For now we are too stupid for that. At least, I am.
If you don’t like the idea of engineering people for greater wisdom,
what about building intelligent machines instead? Once we know
how the brain works, we can copy human intelligence and some of

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our nobler motivations into a computer, complete with emotions,

desires, and introspection.
If we give this computer a body along with the desire and ability to
build copies of itself, we have a fully synthetic species capable of
evolution. As long as the programming calls for identical replication,
it will behave like an asexually reproducing biological species. With
the added capability, motivation and control systems for self-
initiated self-improvement, we have a fully intelligent species. We
wouldn’t even have to worry about breeding systems! Only, we do
not know how self-programming value systems evolve in intelligent
creatures. We are no longer dealing only with random mutations and
natural selection, and the evolutionary dynamics will be very dif-
ferent from those that apply to non-intelligent life forms.
Only the very first attempts at self-replicating electronic devices
have been made so far.22 If this technology succeeds, then humans
will no longer be needed. They can be phased out. And perhaps one
of the robotic life forms that take our place will figure out why there
is something rather than nothing. It will be the one that evolves into
God’s image.

345
 Notes

Introduction

1. Maynard Smith, 1990.

Chapter 1

1. From a debate at Tufts in 1978, as recalled by Daniel Dennett: Dennett,

1995, p. 387. Chomsky was professor of linguistics at MIT.
2. Hume, 1975 [1748], section vii, part 1, p. 62.
3. Responses of cells: Quiroga et al., 2005. Patient A.T.: Jeannerod et al.,
1994. Patient D.F.: Goodale and Humphrey, 2001.
4. Perrett et al., 1987.
5. Faces: Perrett et al.; 1987; Quiroga et al., 2005; Rhodes et al., 2004. Pro-
sopagnosic infant: Farah et al., 2000. Letters and numbers: Polk and
Farah, 1998.
6. Binding: L.C. Robertson, 2003. Speed of perception: Efron, 1970; Posner
and Dehaene, 1994; Wolfe et al., 2000. EEG activity: Müller and Gruber,
2001.
7. The classical account of modularity is Fodor, 1983.
8. Libet, 1993.
9. Blindsight: S. Kohler and Moscovitch, 1997. Subliminal perception:
MacLeod, 1998. Surgery: Bonebakker et al., 1996.
10. Attentional mechanisms are reviewed in Posner and Dehaene, 1994; Shipp,
2004.
11. Bisiach and Luzatti, 1978.

Chapter 2

1. Cited from Paradis and Williams, 1989, p. 14.

2. Corkin, 2002.
3. Vargha-Khadem et al., 1997.

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 In God’s Image?

4. Schott et al., 2005.

5. The idea that the hippocampus serves as a cognitive map was proposed by
O’Keefe and Nadel in 1978. Hippocampus-dependent learning: Redish,
1999. Sleeping hippocampus: Louie and Wilson, 2001.
6. Maguire et al., 1997. See also Ekstrom et al., 2003.
7. Plane crash: Crombag et al., 1996. Political attitudes: Markus, 1986.
Eyewitnesses: Sheck et al., 2000. Memory flaws are reviewed in Schacter,
1999.
8. Associations with a time delay: O. Jensen and Lisman, 2005. Eyeblink
conditioning: Green and Woodruff-Pak, 2000.
9. R.E. Clark and Squire, 1998.
10. Green and Woodruff-Pak, 2000.
11. This idea has been most eloquently defended by Endel Tulving and his
associates who speak of ‘autonoetic consciousness’: Wheeler et al., 1997.
Similar views are presented in Suddendorf and Corballis, 1997.
12. Hippocampus size: Stephan et al., 1988. Episodic memory and navigation
in the environment: Rolls et al. 2002.
13. Childhood amnesia: Howe, 2000. Delayed imitation in amnesics: McDo-
nough et al., 1995.
14. Hampton and Schwartz, 2004.
15. Language: Pinker, 1994. Self-awareness: Wheeler et al., 1997. Mental time
travel: Suddendorf and Corballis, 1997. Generativity: Corballis, 1991.
Therefore we can eat them: Sorabji, 1993.
16. Grammar is learned and used implicitly although the mental dictionary is
part of declarative memory: Ullman et al., 1997.
17. The rule is named after William of Occam, a dissident theologian and
philosopher who lived 1284–1350.
18. A more elaborate version of this argument is found in de Waal, 1996, pp.
64–5.
19. Boswell and AN–1033: Damasio and Tranel, 1993. The category-specifi-
city of semantic knowledge is reviewed in Caramazza and Mahon, 2006.
20. A more scientific formulation of the idea of linguistic determinism, now
partially discredited, is known as the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. See Pinker,
1994, pp. 59–67.
21. Cited from Topitsch, 1972, p. 16.
22. Luria, 1976, pp. 48–99.

Chapter 3

1. Oberauer et al., 2003.

2. Cited from Hardin, 1999, p. 114.
3. Ashton and Esses, 1999.
4. Kahneman and Tversky, 1972.
5. Harvard physicians: Casscells et al., 1978; Cancer screening: Gigerenzer,

348
 Notes

1998. The mathematical procedure for problems of this kind is called

Bayes’ Theorem.
6. Tversky and Kahneman, 1974.
7. Sutherland, 1992, p. 23.
8. People overestimate risk of violent death: Lichtenstein et al., 1978. News
coverage: Combs and Slovic, 1979.
9. Forecasters and Linda: Tversky and Kahneman, 1983. Frequency format:
Gigerenzer, 1998.
10. Gick and Holyoak, 1980.
11. Shepard and Cooper, 1982.
12. Johnson-Laird, 1999.
13. Restaurant example: Oakhill et al., 1989. Satisficing reasoning: Selten,
2001.
14. Johnson-Laird and Savary, 1996.
15. Fodor, 1987, p. 132.
16. Four-card problem: Cosmides and Tooby, 1992. Grass-cutting and cats:
J.S.B.T. Evans, 1989, p. 68.
17. Gigerenzer and Hug, 1992. But see Staller et al., 2000.
18. People zoom in on premises: J.S.B.T. Evans, 1989, pp. 41–64. Deontic
routines: Cosmides and Tooby, 1992. Deontic reasoning in children:
Cummins, 1996. Special-purpose routines win out: Fiddick et al., 2000.
19. Antinucci, 1990, p. 159. Animal learning is reviewed in Moore, 2004.
20. Luria, 1976, p. 108.
21. Call and Tomasello, 1996.
22. Rakison and Poulin-Dubois, 2001.
23. Joint attention: Deaner and Platt, 2003. Understanding knowledge and
belief requires intelligence: Hughes et al., 2005. Adults imputing their
knowledge to others: Ross et al., 1977.
24. Deception: Kummer et al., 1997. Cross-cultural theory of mind: Lillard,
1998.
25. Autism: Baron-Cohen, 2000. Attentional deficit: Bara et al., 2001. Face
processing: Pierce et al., 2001. Geniuses: Baron-Cohen et al., 1999; Fitz-
gerald, 2002.
26. Moore, 2004.
27. Damasio, 1994, pp. 140–42.
28. Deglin and Kinsbourne, 1996.
29. Habib et al., 2003.
30. Bisiach et al., unpublished. Cited from Shallice, 1988, p. 397.
31. Vauclair et al., 2006.
32. Fuster, 2003, pp. 213–47.
33. Tabula rasa: Pinker, 2002. Oddly enough, in his 1981 bestseller The Mis-
measure of Man, Stephen Jay Gould attacked the idea of a unitary intel-
ligence structure on the grounds that it implied genetic determinism. By the
time of Gould’s writing, the weight of the scientific evidence supported
both the concept of a general intelligence factor and the idea that much of
the variability in intelligence among individuals is genetic. The academic

349
 In God’s Image?

battle lines had to be redrawn because most of those who believed in

unitary intelligence also believed in the importance of genes.
34. Language instinct: Pinker, 1994. Evolutionary psychology: Barkow et al.,
1992.
35. Pearson, 1906.
36. Data on intelligence and brain size are reviewed in McDaniel, 2005. Most
popular books about the subject claim that brain size is unrelated to
intelligence, always with reference to Stephen Jay Gould’s The Mismeasure
of Man. Gould simply claimed that early investigators had fudged their
data, and ignored the more recent results that were available at his time.

Chapter 4

1. Face cells: Perrett et al., 1987; Quiroga et al., 2005. Smile center: Damasio,
1994, pp. 140–42.
2. Imprinted geese: Lorenz, 1957, pp. 102–5. Imprinted goats: Kendrick et al.,
1998.
3. Brain stimulation in rats: Olds and Milner, 1954. Humans: Heath, 1964.
Dopamine cells: Montague et al., 2004; Ungless et al., 2004.
4. Lottery winners and accident victims: Brickman et al., 1978. The ‘‘hedonic
treadmill’’ model is reviewed in Diener et al., 2006.
5. Heritability in humans: Lykken and Tellegen, 1996. See also Roysamb et
al., 2002. Heritability in chimps: Weiss et al., 2002.
6. Fear circuitry: LeDoux, 2000. Evolution of emotional systems: D.M.
Tucker et al., 2000.
7. Children’s fears: Maurer, 1965. Snakes: Öhman and Mineka, 2003.
8. Drevets and Raichle, 1998; Pochon et al., 2002.
9. Eslinger and Damasio, 1985; Damasio, 1994.
10. Duncan, 1995.
11. Damasio, 1994.
12. Damasio (1994) speaks of ‘somatic markers’. However, the privileged state
of somatic states for emotion is questionable. Evaluations (‘appraisals’) of
emotional value are too fast to depend on the slow process of eliciting a
somatic response and analyzing the feedback to the brain from the elicited
somatic state.
13. B.H. Price et al., 1990. Similar cases are reported in Eslinger et al., 2004.
14. Criminals: Brower and Price, 2001. Drug addicts: Bechara, Dolan and
Hindes, 2002.
15. Gazzaniga and LeDoux, 1978, pp. 146–51.
16. Libet, 1985; Libet et al., 1983. See also Obhi and Haggard, 2004.

350
 Notes

Chapter 5

1. The gene-centered view of evolution has been popularized by Richard

Dawkins: Dawkins, 1989 [1976]. It is based on earlier work by Ronald A.
Fisher: Fisher, 1930.
2. Mutational load: Crow, 2000; Kumar and Subramanian, 2002. Schizo-
phrenia: El-Saadi et al., 2004.
3. The second law of thermodynamics states that entropy (randomness)
increases in closed systems. Living organisms use metabolic energy to keep
the entropy low, for example through energy-dependent mechanisms of
DNA repair.
4. As first pointed out by Ronald A. Fisher (Fisher, 1930), a new mutation is
more likely to be favorable if its phenotypic effects are small. In an already
fairly well-tuned organism, mutations with large effects are virtually
always destructive.
5. Further examples of suboptimal design are presented in Olshansky et al.,
2001.
6. Kruska, 1987; Leach, 2003.
7. Savolainen et al., 2002.
8. Malinowski, 1929.
9. Oystercatchers: Tinbergen, 1969. Runaway sexual selection: Fisher, 1930.
Good genes: Jennions et al., 2001.
10. From a letter written to Leonard Darwin in 1929. Cited from J.H. Bennett,
1983, p. 25.
11. Hamilton, 1971.
12. Kin selection: Hamilton, 1964. Familiarity: Korchmaros and Kenny, 2001.
Similarity: Rushton and Bons, 2005.
13. Tit-for-tat: Axelrod and Hamilton, 1981. Human bahavior: Trivers, 1971.
14. Kin selection: Silk, 2006. Reciprocity: de Waal, 1996: de Waal and
Brosnan, 2006.
15. Wilkinson, 1990.
16. Gratitude and indignation: Trivers, 1971. Deservingness: Carlsmith,
Darley and Robinson, 2002.
17. Dawkins, 1989 [1976], p. 2.
18. Lorenz, 1963.
19. Maynard Smith, 1976; Sober and Wilson, 1998.
20. Most of these examples are borrowed from Diamond, 1992 and Ridley,
1996.
21. Cavallo, 2005; Kerr, 2005.
22. Drevets and Raichle, 1998; Pochon et al., 2002.
23. Many early sociobiologists succumbed to this fallacy. The classical
sociobiological approach is criticized in Barkow, Cosmides and Tooby,
1992.

351
 In God’s Image?

Chapter 6

1. Cited from Dennett, 1995, p. 62.

2. Lorenz, 1963.
3. Whale hybrids: Xu and Arnason, 1996, p. 693. Monkeys: Purvis, 1995.
Chimpanzee genome: Chimpanzee Sequencing and Analysis Consortium,
2005. Many factors other than chromosomal changes can lead to hybrid
sterility.
4. Sociality and predation risk: Dunbar, 1996; van Schaik, 1996. Starving
orangutans: Galdikas, 1995, pp. 235–56.
5. Valeggia and Ellison, 2001.
6. Reichard and Boesch (eds), 2003.
7. Bittles, 2005. Inbreeding is bad because it brings damaging mutations into
the homozygous state.
8. Galdikas, 1995, pp. 293–4.
9. Gorilla families: Robbins et al., 2001. Infanticide: Janson and van Schaik,
2000; Palombit, 1999. Men prefer childless women: N.G. Bennett et al.,
1995. Yanomamö and Tikopia: Daly and Wilson, 1984.
10. Cooperative hunting: Mitani and Watts, 2001. Cultural diversity: Whiten
et al., 2001. The most readable accounts of chimpanzee behavior are
Goodall, 1988 [1971] and 1990.
11. Kin-selected cooperation: Pusey, 2001. But see also Vigilant et al., 2001.
Chimpanzee politics: Goodall, 1988, 1990; de Waal, 1989. Friendship: de
Waal, 1996; D.P. Watts, 2002.
12. Schjelderup-Ebbe, 1922.
13. Gomendio et al., 1998.
14. Sex tourism: Pusey, 2001. Promiscuity and infanticide: Wolff and Mac-
donald, 2004.
15. de Waal and Lanting, 1997; Stanford, 1998.
16. Early origin: Patterson et al., 2006. H. erectus: Antón, 2003. Fire: Goren-
Inbar et al., 2004. Flores dwarves: Morwood et al., 2005. Larger-brained
humans: Rightmire, 2000; Stringer, 2002. The family hominidae includes
both humans and the African apes while humans and their ancestors are
placed in the subfamily homininae. Nevertheless, the term ‘hominids’ is
commonly used for humans and human ancestors after the human–chimp
split.
17. Genes: Garrigan and Hammer, 2006. Fossils: Mellars, 2006a, 2006b. Race
differences: Cavalli-Sforza and Feldman, 2003; Barbujani and Belle, 2006.
18. Mellars, 2006a.
19. South Africa: Caldwell and Caldwell, 1993, pp. 230–31. Northern Ireland:
O’Grada and Walsh, 1995. Palestine: Khawaja, 2003.
20. Lalueza-Fox et al., 2005.
21. Brain size: Rightmire, 2004. Metabolic cost: Aiello et al., 2001. Obstetric
problems: Rosenberg and Trevathan, 1995/96. Brain size and intelligence:
Gibson et al., 2001; Reader and Laland, 2002. Food for thought: Milton,
1993. Machiavellian intelligence: Kummer et al., 1997.

352
 Notes

22. Rilling, 2006; Stephan, Baron and Frahm, 1988.

23. Kako, 1999; Savage-Rumbaugh and Levin, 1994.
24. Reconstruction of vocal tract: Fitch, 2000. Fire and H. erectus: Goren-
Inbar et al., 2004. Backward hunter-gatherers: Hewes, 1994.
25. Recent brain evolution: Kappelman, 1996. Living human populations:
Beals et al., 1984.

Chapter 7

1. Cited from Sklansky, 1999, p. 131.

2. Walsh, 1995, pp. 211–12.
3. Humans: H.E. Fisher, 1989; Harrell, 1997. Other primates: van Schaik and
Kappeler, 2003. Desert baboons: Kummer, 1995.
4. Marlowe, 2000.
5. I am exaggerating. In a recent survey, 49 percent of adult Dominicans
reported that they grew up with mother and father (or stepfather). Only 35
percent grew up with their mother alone, and the remaining 16% were
farmed out to relatives or unrelated people (Meisenberg et al., 2006). See
also Quinlan, 2006.
6. Quote: J.K. Brown, cited in Mackey and Coney, 2000. Economics and
female status: Whyte, 1978.
7. Hurtado and Hill, 1992; Marlowe, 2003.
8. Colom and Lynn, 2004.
9. C.M. Jones et al., 2003; Silverman and Eals, 1992.
10. Chimpanzee wars: Goodall, 1990, pp. 98–111.
11. Shih and Jenike, 2002.
12. Family planning in preliterate societies: Himes, 1936. Traditionalist
societies: Coney and Mackay, 1998; Atoh, 2001.
13. This description has been adapted from Spiro, 1979.
14. Spiro, 1979; Tiger and Shepher, 1975.
15. Crime in the kibbutz: Spiro, 1979, p. 4. Corruption, IQ and income
inequality: Meisenberg, 2004.
16. The notion that the male–female division of labor stabilizes marriage goes
back to the sociologist Talcott Parsons. For a review, see Goldin, 2006.
17. Shostak, 1981, p. 268.
18. Mead, 1928. Cross-cultural study: Jankowiak and Fischer, 1992. Modern
societies: Hatfield and Rapson, 1996.
19. H.E. Fisher, 1989. Father presence and child survival: Hurtado and Hill,
1992. Arranged marriages: Hatfield and Rapson, 1996.
20. International comparisons: Levine et al., 1995. American study: Simpson
et al., 1986. Changing value systems: Inglehart and Baker, 2000; Meisen-
berg, 2004.
21. Goodall, 1988, p. 86. A systematic study of this issue is reported in
Hemelrijk et al., 1999.

353
 In God’s Image?

22. Divorce in traditional societies: Betzig, 1989. Low copulation rate of

monogamists: Kleiman, 1977. Sex and divorce: Teachman, 2003.
23. Sexual and political freedom: Ollman, 1979. Judging a theory by the
emotional needs it fulfills is an example of the genetic fallacy: inferring the
truth of a proposition from its origin.
24. Cross-cultural survey: Buss, 1989. Age preferences: Silverthorne and
Quinsey, 2000. Aristotle, Politics VII, 16.
25. Waist-to-hip ratio: Singh, 1993. But see also Marlowe and Wetsman, 2001.
Milk yield: Hytten, 1954. Breasts: Caro, 1987. But see also Jasienska et al.,
2004.
26. Beautiful averages: Langlois et al., 1994. Good-genes selection: Møller and
Alatalo, 1999.
27. Tallness: Pawlowski et al., 2000. Dominance: Martin, 2005.
28. Buss, 1989; Pawlowski and Dunbar, 1999. Medical students: Townsend,
1989. Rich men: Udry and Eckland, 1984. Fat wives: Lipowicz, 2003.
29. Buston and Emlen, 2003; Mascie-Taylor, 1988.
30. Alexander et al., 1979; Kleiman, 1977; Trivers, 1972.
31. Ideal number of sex partners: Buss, 1998. Invitation for sex: R.D. Clark
and Hatfield, 1989. Gays: Symons, 1979. Intelligence of sex partners:
Kenrick et al., 1990.
32. Ethnographic atlas: Murdock, 1967. Polygamy and subsistence: Marlowe,
2000. Benefits of polygamy: W. Tucker, 1993. Female aggression: Bur-
bank, 1987.
33. Barber, 2003. Female literacy and labor market participation: South and
Trent, 1988. Shortage of men among African Americans: Barber, 2001.
Interracial marriage: Heaton and Albrecht, 1996.
34. Parental investment: Trivers, 1972. Race differences: Rushton, 1995.
35. Preference for low sexual activity: Sprecher et al., 1991. Pragmatic
approach: Shell-Duncan and Hernlund, 2000. International survey: Buss,
1989.
36. Experimental evidence: Buss et al., 1992; Fernandez et al., 2006. Anthro-
pology: Betzig, 1989.
37. College rapists: Rapaport and Burkhart, 1984. Rape victims: W. Wilson
and Durrenberger, 1982. These studies are reviewed in Berkowitz, 1992.
Menstrual cycle: Chavanne and Gallup, 1998.
38. Quote: Palmer, 1989. Punishment: Otterbein, 1979.
39. MacCoun and Reuter, 1997; Zimmer and Morgan, 1997.
40. Mating opportunities: Lalumière et al., 1996. Raping soldiers: Gottschall,
2004. Thrill of raping: Scully, 1990.
41. Ellis, 1991, p. 632.
42. Bernat et al., 1999.
43. K.G. Anderson, 2006. However, Jewish priests enjoyed a 99 percent
paternity confidence during the past two millennia: Boster et al., 1999.
European study: Agnes Laville, personal communication. The project was
an epidemiological study about apoE genotypes funded by the European
Community. The rate of paternity exclusion was about 9 percent in Italy.
The apoE polymorphism consists of only three variants of a single gene.

354
 Notes

Therefore the actual rate of misassigned paternity is substantially higher

than the exclusion rate.
44. Bellis and Baker, 1990. Ovulation takes place 12 to 14 days after the start
of the last menstrual period.
45. McGue and Lykken, 1992.
46. Diekmann and Engelhardt, 1999.

Chapter 8

1. Allman et al., 1998.

2. McCracken and Gustin, 1991.
3. Cited from Langlois et al., 1995.
4. Harlow’s monkeys: Harlow et al., 1971. Carried babies cry less: Hunziker
and Barr, 1986.
5. Monkeys: Harlow et al., 1971. Humans: O’Connor et al., 2000.
6. Trivers, 1974. Actually, the child should value itself more than twice as
highly as a younger full sibling and more than four times as highly as a
younger half-sibling because the older child, having survived through the
most dangerous period of its life, is more likely than the younger sibling to
survive to the reproductive age.
7. Goodall, 1988, pp. 83–4, 159.
8. Daly and Wilson, 1990. The Oedipus complex was first described by Freud
in 1899 in The Interpretation of Dreams.
9. van der Dennen, 1987.
10. Male genes do best with little parenting: Geary, 2000. Low interest in
infants: Maestripieri and Pelka, 2002. Low emotional responsiveness:
Hrdy, 1999, pp. 205–34. Childcare is women’s work: Hewlett, 1992;
Whyte, 1978.
11. Caldwell, 1982, p. 240. See also Coney and Mackay, 1998.
12. Crawford et al., 1989. For a study of grief after the death of a real child,
see Littlefield and Rushton, 1986.
13. Abuse of handicapped children: S.R. Morgan, 1987; Westcott and Jones,
1999. Twin study: Mann, 1992. See also Bereczkei, 2001.
14. Crandall, 1995. I am using Crandall’s data, but my interpretation of them
deviates from his.
15. Rindfuss et al., 1996; Retherford and Luther, 1996. Corresponding figures
for Sweden: Hoem et al., 2006. The effect seems to be due to education
itself, rather than intelligence: Retherford and Sewell, 1989.
16. Chagnon, 1977, pp. 75–6.
17. Daly and Wilson, 1984.
18. Cited from Hrdy, 1999, p. 452.
19. Hrdy, 1999, pp. 288–317; Langer, 1974; Oliverio, 1994.
20. Humans: Scheper-Hughes, 1985. Other primates: Fairbanks and McGuire,
1995; Maestripieri and Carroll, 1998.
21. Robson and Kumar, 1980.

355
 In God’s Image?

22. This pattern has been documented most thoroughly for child abandon-
ment in early modern Europe: Lynch, 2000.
23. Cited from Hrdy, 1999, p. 376.
24. Mentally ill or retarded killers: Daly and Wilson, 1984, p. 500. The
licensing of parents has its proponents: Lykken, 2000.
25. David et al., 1988.

Chapter 9

1. Unhappy parents: Twenge et al., 2003; Marriage and happiness: Inglehart

and Rabier, 1986. Psychiatric hospital admissions: Bloom et al., 1979. Old
women with children: Beckman, 1981.
2. Traumatic bonding: Painter and Dutton, 1985. Fleeing toward the source
of the threat has been described even in baboons: Kummer, 1995, pp. 37–
47.
3. This is only partially true. Even in chimpanzees a high-ranking individual
(usually the alpha male) takes on the role of the ‘control animal’ to resolve
disputes among subordinates: de Waal, 1996, pp. 128–32.
4. Nishida et al., 1992.
5. Children: Geary et al., 2003. Adults: Fournier et al., 2002.
6. Mental representation of dominance: Chiao et al., 2004; Schubert, 2005.
Professors: Hensley, 1993. Other animals: Ellis, 1993.
7. Height and status: Persico et al., 2004. Height and intelligence: A.R. Jensen
and Sinha, 1993.
8. Social exclusion: Kurzban and Leary, 2001. The link between self-esteem
and acceptance is strongest for people with low self-esteem: Baldwin and
Sinclair, 1996. Parenting styles: Maestripieri, 1999.
9. R.W. Byrne, 1995, pp. 156–7.
10. The young male syndrome is described in M. Wilson and Daly, 1985.
11. Baumeister, 1997, p. 284.
12. G.F. Miller, 1999.
13. Self-deception: Nettle, 2004. Prosocial self-esteem: Donnellan et al., 2005.
Narcissistic and grossly inflated: Hare, 1993. Multi-talented super-
achievers: Scully, 1990.
14. Black pride: Crocker and Major, 1989. Murder: Baumeister, 1997, p. 138.
Rape: La Free, 1976. Threatened egotism: Baumeister et al., 1996.
15. De Waal, 1996, p. 97.
16. Social exchange as a recent invention: de Waal, 1996. Attachment and
commitment: De Vos et al., 2001. Dominance and reciprocity: Cummins,
1999.
17. This example is from Lakoff, 1996, pp. 54–5. However, my explanation
differs from Lakoff’s.
18. Nowak and Sigmund, 1993.
19. Mach scale: Christie and Geis, 1970, pp. 3–4. The term Machiavellianism is
used inconsistently. Ethologists understand it in the broad meaning of

356
 Notes

‘social skills’, including such skills as alliance formation and reciprocity:

Kummer et al., 1997. Psychologists define it in the narrow sense as self-
serving manipulativeness. Social dominance and Machiavellianism: Alte-
meyer, 1998. Different audiences: Barber, 1994. Social conflicts: Babcock
and Loewenstein, 1997. Rapists: Scully, 1990.
20. Cited from Fung and Bodde, 1962, p. 72. Mencius was a Confucian
philosopher.
21. Machiavelli, 1952 [1532].
22. Boehm, 1997; Woodburn, 1982; Ember et al., 1997.
23. Fung and Bodde, 1962. Confucius did not preach promiscuous love. All-
embracing love was extolled by his contemporary Mo-tzu who applied an
egalitarian rather than family-based model to society.
24. Lewontin et al., 1984.
25. Religion and economic threat: Sales, 1972. Lynchings: Hepworth and
West, 1988. There is also ample evidence that experimentally induced
awareness of death causes people to defend their cultural worldview:
Landau et al., 2004.
26. Braithwaite, 1998.
27. Human warfare: Otterbein, 1994. Treatment of captives: Otterbein, 2000.
28. Goodall, 1990, pp. 98–111.
29. Monkeys: Cheney, 1987; Sterck et al., 1997. Humans: Otterbein, 1968.
Anthropologists describe cliques of co-resident males as ‘fraternal interest
groups’.
30. Male and female friendships: Aukett et al., 1988. Vietnam veterans: Elder
and Clipp, 1988. Battle of Leuktra: Athenaios, Deipnosophistae 13,602a.
31. P.C. Price, 2000.
32. Wrangham, 1999.
33. Paranoid thinking: Haselton and Nettle, 2006.
34. Yanomamö: Chagnon, 1988. Warfare and IQ: Pitt, 1978.

Chapter 10

1. Davis, 1989. This experiment, and also the experiments on rule inter-
nalization by dogs, are reviewed in de Waal, 1996. de Waal’s book is the
prime reference for the ethological basis of morality. Moral development:
Piaget, 1965 [1932].
2. Hippocampus and consciousness: O’Keefe et al., 1998. Dogs: Freedman,
1958. Criminals: Mealey, 1995, p. 538.
3. This anecdote is re-retold from de Waal, 1996, p. 106.
4. Cited from Baumeister, 1997, p. 305. Ted Bundy was a serial killer.
5. Moral emotions: Haidt, 2003. Childhood attachment and obedience:
Matas et al., 1978.
6. de Waal, 1996, p. 60.
7. Goodall, 1990, p. 171.
8. Children: Krueger et al., 1996. Teenagers: Wulfert et al., 2002. Self-control

357
 In God’s Image?

and crime: Pratt and Cullen, 2000. Self-control and cooperation: Dewitte
and de Cremer, 2001.
9. Greene et al., 2001.
10. John Paul II, 1997.
11. These experiments are described in Milgram, 1974.
12. Ruse, 1986, p. 106.
13. Brandt and Sigmund, 2005.
14. Agreeableness and feeling: McCrae and Costa, 1989. The questionnaire
items are from the NEO PI-R and the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. Gift
exchange: Mauss, 1954.
15. Tetlock, 2003.
16. The poor are more advantaged than the rich: Lane, 2001.
17. Lerner, 1980, pp. 39–53.
18. Hafer, 2000.
19. Kummer, 1995, p. 188. The importance of expectations as a basis for
incipient ‘moral’ systems in primates is elaborated in de Waal, 1996.
20. These examples are from Baron, 1988, Chapter 19.
21. In Kohlberg’s theory, the postconventional stages are considered the
‘highest’ levels of moral reasoning: Kohlberg, 1981.
22. Monkeys: de Waal, 1996, p. 46. Humans and Chimpanzees: Warneken and
Tomasello, 2006.
23. Empathy and altruism: Batson et al., 1999, 2004. Importance for social
exchange: Trivers, 1971.
24. Haidt, 2002, p. 54. The intuitionist model I am espousing is described in
detail in Haidt, 2001.
25. Cited from Muuss, 1988, pp. 235–7.
26. Monroe et al., 1990, pp. 103, 114. See also Monroe, 2001.
27. Haidt, 2001.
28. Batson et al., 2002.
29. Wulf, 1960, pp. 25–6. My translation.
30. Original affluent society: Sahlins, 1972. Old Europe: Gimbutas, 1999.
31. Cited from Menzel, 1986.
32. Historically, the utilitarian tradition in moral philosophy was represented
by Adam Smith, Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart Mill and others.
33. Punishment in animals: Clutton-Brock and Parker, 1995. Laboratory
studies in humans: Carlsmith et al., 2002; Feather, 1999. Non-
consequentialist philosophies: J.L. Anderson, 1997. Kant and Hegel are
examples of deontological philosophers. Most British philosophers of the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were utilitarian, but most German
philosophers embraced an idealist or deontological approach.
34. Kass, 1997.
35. Kurzban and Leary, 2001.

358
 Notes

Chapter 11

1. A.R. Jensen, 1998. The g factor was first described by Charles Spearman in
1904.
2. Fuster, 2003.
3. Kyllonen and Christal, 1990.
4. Lubinski and Humphreys, 1997.
5. Schmidt and Hunter, 2004. $178.2 billion: Hunter and Schmidt, 1982.
6. Delinquency: Ellis and Walsh, 2003. Single mothers: Murray, 2002. Cor-
relations of other outcome variables with IQ and socio-economic status are
reviewed in Herrnstein and Murray, 1994.
7. Heritability: Plomin and Spinath, 2004. Adoption studies: Teasdale and
Owen, 1984; Plomin et al., 1997.
8. What is additive about genes and environment is not the standard devia-
tion but the variance components. Variance is the square of the standard
deviation. With 70 percent heritability and a variance of 225 (152), the
variance contributed by genes is 157.5 and the variance contributed by the
environment is 67.5. The square roots of these numbers are 12.5 and 8.2,
respectively. IQ genes: Meisenberg, 2005.
9. Personality genes: Savitz and Ramesar, 2004. Heritability of personality
traits: Bouchard and Loehlin, 2001. Social attitudes: Alford et al., 2005.
10. W.M. Williams and Ceci, 1997.
11. Earnings of siblings: Murray, 2002. Adoption effects: van Ijzendoorn
et al., 2005. Children become more similar to biological parents: Teasdale
and Owen, 1984.
12. Meritocracy: Herrnstein and Murray, 1994. Overpaid managers: Morris
and Western, 1999.
13. Importance of kin-selected altruism: Flynn, 1999. Workers are an anon-
ymous crowd: Wallerstein, 1999. Narrowing IQ gap: W.M. Williams and
Ceci, 1997. Assortative mating: Mascie-Taylor, 1988.
14. Knowledge base in the twentieth century: Neisser et al., 1996.
15. In the case of homosexuality, Americans who believe in genetic causes are
more tolerant than those who believe that homosexuality is either learned
or a matter of free choice: Tygart, 2000. However, in Nazi Germany
homosexuals were prosecuted because they were thought to be genetically
inferior.
16. Barnett, 1995; Garces et al., 2002; Spitz, 1999.
17. A.R. Jensen, 1969. The citation is from pp. 1 and 2.
18. Rioters: A.R. Jensen, 1998b, pp. 197–8. Scholars: Hearnshaw, 1979;
Kamin, 1974; Lewontin et al., 1984.
19. Magnitude of IQ gains: Colom et al., 1998; Flynn, 1984, 1987, 1998; Lynn
and Hampson, 1986. IQ gains in the early twentieth century: Tuddenham,
1948; Loehlin et al., 1975, pp. 137–9. Differential gains at different ability
levels: Spitz, 1989; Teasdale and Owen, 2000.
20. Zindi, 1994.
21. Selection for stupidity: Lynn, 1996. My calculation assumes an additive

359
 In God’s Image?

heritability (h2) of 0.5 for adult intelligence. The average IQ in the upper
half of the bell curve is about 112, and with an h2 of 0.5 the next generation
would regress halfway to the population mean.
22. Schooling effects: Ceci, 1991. Pre-school IQ gains: Flynn, 1984b; Lynn and
Hampson, 1986. Britons in 1892: Flynn, 1998b, p. 33. Nutrition: Benton,
2001; Bigger brains: Miller and Corsellis, 1977.
23. Dominica: Meisenberg et al., 2005. Norway: Sundet et al., 2004. Denmark:
Teasdale and Owen, 2005.
24. Flynn, 1987, p. 187; Holloway, 1999, p. 37.
25. Importance of IQ: Herrnstein and Murray, 1994. Job performance and
delinquency: Neisser et al., 1996, p. 83. The ‘percentage variance explained’
is not the correlation coefficient r but the square of the correlation
coefficient.
26. United States: Herrnstein and Murray, 1994, pp. 276–80; A.R. Jensen and
Reynolds, 1982. Asians: Flynn, 1991. International comparisons: Lynn,
2006; Lynn and Vanhanen, 2002, 2006. Spatial/mathematical and verbal
ability: Lynn, 1987; Wainer, 1988. IQ and skin color: Meisenberg, 2004;
Templer and Arikawa, 2006.
27. IQ, race and crime: Gordon, 1987. IQ, race and breeding habits: Herrn-
stein and Murray, 1994, pp. 329–31. The most thorough review of
empirical findings about race, personality and reproduction is Rushton,
1995.
28. White prejudice against Blacks is greatest in those states with the highest
proportion of Blacks in the population: Taylor, 1998. Segregating people
out: Kurzban and Leary, 2001. Dogs: Antinucci, 1990, p. 159.
29. Cavalli-Sforza’s calculation: Cavalli-Sforza and Feldman, 2003. Jensen’s
calculation: A.R. Jensen, 1980, p. 43.
30. The average IQ in the upper half of the bell curve is about 12 points above
the population mean, and the average IQ of the lower half is 12 points
below. With an estimate of 50 percent for the additive component of IQ
heritability, children would on average be halfway between the averaged
IQs of their parents and their own population mean.
31. 1.1 standard deviations: Illegitimate-versus-legitimate childbirth can be
treated as a multifactorial threshold trait for which the liability is con-
tinuously distributed in the population. It is based on data in Farley and
Hermalin, 1971, Table 5. The more recent data presented in Herrnstein
and Murray, 1994, p. 331 yield a difference of 1.5 standard deviations
without controlling for IQ, and 1.3 standard deviations with IQ held
constant, but the sample has an average age of only 29 years. African
breeding systems: Caldwell et al., 1989; Draper, 1989. The citation is from
Draper, 1989, pp. 145–6.
32. Lynn, 1991, 2006; E.M. Miller, 1994; Rushton, 1995. The theories of these
authors are not mutually exclusive, and therefore I took the liberty of
collapsing them into one.
33. Popper, 1964 [1935].

360
 Notes

Chapter 12

1. Octopus: Fiorito and Scotto, 1992. Chimpanzees: Whiten et al., 2001.

2. Plato, Republic. Cited from Galton, 1985 [1909], p. 97.
3. Conformist learning: Boyd and Richerson, 2001.
4. New Guinea highlanders: Soltis et al., 1995. Germans: Tacitus, Germanica.
5. Religion is more readily transmitted in families than most other cultural
traits: Cavalli-Sforza et al., 1982. Protestants in America: Roof and
McKinney, 1987. Catholics and Protestants: O’Grada and Walsh, 1995.
Palestine: Khawaja, 2003. Muslims and Christians: Coney and Mackey,
1998. Christian and Jewish practices: McLaren, 1990; Noonan, 1986;
Riddle, 1992; Stark, 1996. Tacitus citation: McLaren, 1990, p. 52.
According to Stark, the preferential conversion of women who transmitted
the faith to their children was another important factor in the spread of
early Christianity.
6. Lactose digestion: Coelho et al., 2005. Hemochromatosis gene: Distante
et al., 2004. Brain size genes: P.D. Evans et al., 2005; Mekel-Bobrov et al.,
2005.
7. The concepts of positive feedback (‘enhancement’) and negative feedback
(‘opposition’) are discussed in Durham, 1982.
8. Hippler, 1981, p. 394.
9. Edgerton, 1992.
10. Chick, 1997; Denton, 2004.
11. Neolithic revolution: Zeder et al., 2006. Complex hunter-gatherer societies:
Woodburn, 1982. Global climate change: Richerson et al., 2001.
12. Transition to agriculture: Keeley, 1995. Nutritional deficiencies: Larsen,
1995. Calories and female fertility: Frisch, 1988. Higher fertility of agri-
culturalists: Bentley et al., 2001; Sellen and Mace, 1997. Demic diffusion:
Diamond and Bellwood, 2003.
13. Wealth and reproduction: Cronk, 1991; Hayami, 1980; Lamson, 1935;
Scott and Duncan, 2000; Voland and Chasiotis, 1998; Weiss, 1990.
Nutrition and intelligence: Benton, 2001.
14. Greek genes: Cavalli-Sforza, 1998. Family planning in the ancient world:
Eyben, 1980/81; Hopkins, 1965/66; McLaren, 1990; Riddle, 1992. Poly-
bius: cited from Oliverio, 1994, p. 108. Ovid citation: Simkhovitch, 1916, p.
233: Raraque in hoc aevo quae velit esse parens. Inscriptions: Simkhovitch,
1916, pp. 233–4; Tarn and Griffith, 1953, pp. 98–103.
15. Most thorough study available: Russell, 1958. See also Chambers, 1963;
Hopkins, 1983, pp. 69–107; Kagan, 1962; Simkhovitch, 1916.
16. Crude contraceptive methods were known in many pre-literate societies
but were not used on a large scale. Infanticide was more common than
contraception: Himes, 1936.
17. van de Walle, 1992, pp. 491–492.
18. Mill, 1976 [1848], p. 155. Cited from van de Walle, 1992.
19. Below-replacement fertility: Billarri et al., 2004; Caldwell and Schindl-
mayr, 2003; H.P. Kohler et al., 2002. IQ drop of 0.35 points: Retherford

361
 In God’s Image?

and Sewell, 1988; 0.5 points: Vining, 1995; 0.8 points: Loehlin, 1997; 0.9
points: Lynn and van Court, 2004. See also Kiernan, 1989; Loehlin, 1998;
Lynn, 1996; Rindfuss et al., 1996; Udry, 1978; Vining, 1986.
20. Middle East: Kuran, 1997. China: Elvin, 1973; Needham, 1954. Muslim
science: Huff, 1993. Population IQ: Lynn, 2006; Lynn and Vanhanen,
2002, 2006. Explanations that don’t make sense: Goldstone, 1987; J.A.
Hall, 1985; Kuran, 2003; Sivin, 1984; Wright, 2000.
21. Arab contraception and abortion: Musallam, 1983; Omran, 1992; Riddle,
1992. Chinese infanticide and contraception: Lee et al., 1992; Wolf, 2001.
Differential reproduction in traditional China: Lamson, 1935; Notestein,
1938.
22. Lost contraceptive knowledge: McLaren, 1990; Noonan, 1986; Riddle,
1992. Aquinas quotation: Musallam, 1983, p. 24. Thomas Short quotation:
Kuczynski, 1938, p. 292.
23. Child abandonment: Hrdy, 1999. Contraception and abortion: McLaren,
1990; Riddle, 1992.
24. Differential fertility in rural Germany: Voland and Chasiotis, 1998. Other
examples: Weiss, 1990. European marriage system: Flinn, 1981.
25. A similar argument has been presented in Dickens and Flynn, 2001.

Chapter 13

1. ‘Innate knowledge’: Gergely and Csibra, 2003; Hirschfeld and Gelman,

1994; Rakison and Poulin-Dubois, 2001.
2. Topitsch, 1972, p. 13.
3. Examples of mythological thinking can be found in Topitsch, 1972. Pre-
ference for intentional explanations: Haselton and Nettle, 2006.
4. Boyer, 2001. Attachment and religion: Kirkpatrick, 1998. Medication for
spiritual transcendence: A.W. Watts, 1962. An individual-difference mea-
sure that captures the tendency to de-contextualize feelings is reported in
Piedmont, 1999.
5. Religion and science: McCauley, 2000. Chinese algebra: Elvin, 1993, p.
193. An example of cognitive evolution in reverse is the end of the classical
Greek and Roman epoch when scientific explanations were quickly
abandoned in favor of religion.
6. Cited from Hofstadter, 1944, p. 68.
7. John Paul II, 1997.
8. Paradis and Williams, 1989, p. 141 [83].
9. Social Darwinism: Hawkins, 1997; Hofstadter, 1944.
10. Cited from Blacker, 1952, p. 17.
11. Galton, 1985 [1909], p. 42. For a recent biography of Galton, see Gillham,
2001.
12. Galton, 1985 [1909], p. 36.
13. Cited from Lykken, 1997, p. 267.
14. Galton, 1985 [1909], p. 25.

362
 Notes

15. Galton introduced the term ‘eugenics’ in his 1883 book Inquiries into the
Human Faculty. The definition is in Galton, 1985 [1909], p. 35.
16. Eugenics societies: Kevles, 1985, pp. 59–60. Geneticists endorsing eugenics:
Paul, 1998, p. 12. Davenport citation: Davenport, 1913, p. 222.
17. Many eugenicists did actually appreciate the importance of the environ-
ment: Cooke, 1998. The history of eugenics is described in Haller, 1963;
Kevles, 1985; Lynn, 2001; Paul, 1995. Watson quotation: J.H. Bennett,
1983, p. 1.
18. Twins: Newman et al., 1937. Adoptees: Leahy, 1935. In the United States,
family studies had been popular long before the eugenics movement, but
the hereditarian explanation of family resemblance is typical for the early
twentieth century. See Rafter, 1988.
19. Goddard’s views: Zenderland, 1998. It has been claimed that most
‘eugenic’ sterilizations were actually performed to keep the superintendents
out of trouble: Carey, 1998.
20. Donohue and Levitt, 2001. There is also evidence that children who were
born because their mothers’ requests for abortion had been denied have
poor social outcomes, including an above-average crime rate: David et al.,
1988.
21. Kevles, 1985, p. 92.
22. Teenage daughter gene: MacMurray et al., 2000. Gene for nomadism: C.
Chen et al., 1999.
23. Paul, 1998, p. 29.
24. Koestler, 1978, p. 1.
25. Royzman and Kumar, 2001.
26. Proctor, 1988.
27. History of the nature–nurture debate: Cravens, 1978. Political views and
nature–nurture beliefs: Pastore, 1984.
28. Gene therapy: Verma and Weitzman, 2005. Embryo testing: Fiorentino et
al., 2006. Germ line manipulations: Coates et al., 2005; Irvine et al., 2005;
Kolb et al., 2005; Urnov et al., 2005.

Chapter 14

1. Crow, 2000; El-Saadi et al., 2004.

2. Biesecker, 2001; Smith, 1997; C. Williams et al., 2002.
3. Stern et al., 2002. In this study, a minority of less than 5 percent of deaf
people would consider prenatal diagnosis with the aim of having a deaf
child.
4. J.A. Robertson, 1996, 2000. Deaf-making is an example of diminishment.
Enhancement, by contrast, refers to measures that are aimed at improving
a child’s health, appearance, or abilities.
5. Charo, 2001. Mice have been cloned from blood cells already: Hoche-
dlinger and Jaenisch, 2002.
6. Delhanty, 2001.

363
 In God’s Image?

7. The Catholic Church does object to IVF, not because of the lost souls but
because reproduction without copulation is ‘outside the bonds of mar-
riage’: H.W. Jones and Crockin, 2000. This is the flip side of the Church’s
stance against contraception.
8. Andersen et al., 2005.
9. Oktay et al., 2006.
10. Singles and lesbians: Chan et al., 1998.
11. Pre-implantation genetic diagnosis: Fiorentino et al., 2006. DNA chips:
Hoheisel, 2006.
12. Rhind et al., 2003.
13. Dennis, 2006; Oktay et al., 2004; Master et al., 2006. Using animal oocytes
as acceptors for human nuclei is difficult because the non-human mito-
chondrial genes are not always able to cooperate smoothly with the human
nuclear genes.
14. Caulfield, 2001. The sudden shift from total environmental determinism to
total genetic determinism is evident by comparing the EU document on
cloning with the Seville Statement on Violence which had been drafted in
1986 and adopted by UNESCO in 1989: See Silverberg and Gray, 1992,
pp. 295–7. The radical shift to genetic determinism took less than one
decade!
15. Polymorphisms: Hinds et al., 2005. Genetic testing: Hoheisel, 2006.
16. Linton and Wiener, 2001.
17. Cancer: Garcı́a-Cao et al., 2002. Longevity: Blüher et al., 2003; Holzen-
berger et al., 2003. Gene insertion: Pathak, 2003. Artificial chromosomes:
Irvine et al., 2005. Gene repair: Coates et al., 2005. Urnov et al., 2005.
18. Baylis and Robert, 2004.
19. Parens and Asch, 1999.
20. Meisenberg et al., 2005.
21. Crocker et al., 1999.
22. Fukuyama, 2002.
23. Personal preferences glorified as moral principles: Rozin, 1999. Sacred
values in reproductive medicine: Kass, 1997.
24. Crawford et al., 1989; Littlefield and Rushton, 1986.
25. Ratner and Miller, 2001.
26. IVF children: Golombok and MacCallum, 2003.
27. Rawls, 1971, pp. 136–42.

Chapter 15

1. Billari et al., 2004; Caldwell and Schindlmayr, 2003; S.P. Morgan, 2003.
2. Global warming: Kerr, 2006. Fossil fuels: Cavallo, 2005; C. Hall et al.,
2003.
3. Nuclear war: Ehrlich et al., 1983; Smil, 2005. Fruit flies: Shabalina et al.,
1997. Human mutations: Crow, 2000; Gleicher, 2003; Kumar and Sub-
ramanian, 2002. Unstable intelligence: Flynn, 1987.

364
 Notes

4. Inglehart and Baker, 2000, p. 21.

5. Modern and postmodern values: Meisenberg, 2004. French contraception:
Flinn, 1981.
6. Historical trends: Inglehart and Baker, 2000; Meisenberg, 2004. Extra-
version and neuroticism: Twenge, 2002. Monkeys: Kummer, 1995, pp.
132–43.
7. Argyle, 2000; Gallup and Castelli, 1989; Pinker, 1997, p. 554. Argyle
presents comparisons between the United States and Britain.
8. Confucian work dynamism: Chinese Culture Connection, 1987; Difference
in behavioral inhibition between Chinese and Western children that are
likely to be related to a preference for delayed rewards: X. Chen et al.,
1998. Holistic and analytical culture: Nisbett, 2003. Verbal and visuos-
patial-mathematical abilities: Lynn, 1987, 2006.
9. Sundet et al., 2004; Teasdale and Owen, 2005.
10. Desire for children: Foster, 2000; H.P. Kohler, Rodgers and Christensen,
2002. Traditionalism and family size: Krishnan, 1990. Religion: Roof and
McKinney, 1987. Heritability of traditionalism and religiosity: Alford
et al., 2005.
11. IQ selection: Loehlin, 1997; Lynn and van Court, 2004; Retherford and
Sewell, 1988; Vining, 1995. The historical relationship of reproduction to
intelligence and education is reviewed in Lynn, 1996. Even the much-
discussed birth order effect for intelligence is caused mainly by less intel-
ligent parents having more children: Rodgers et al., 2000. The situation in
the less developed countries is reviewed in Jejeebhoy, 1995. Black and
White Americans: Herrnstein and Murray, 1994, pp. 269–315; British and
Zimbabweans: Zindi, 1994.
12. East Germany: Kreyenfeld, 2003. Income and fertility: Caldwell, 1982.
Income and intelligence: W.M. Williams and Ceci, 1997. Selection in
egalitarian societies: Lynn, 1996.
13. Motherhood and career: Hakim, 2003; Kemkes-Grottenthaler, 2003.
Selection against female intelligence: Lynn and van Court, 2004; Rether-
ford and Sewell, 1988; Vining, 1995.
14. Education and desire for children: According to data from the World
Values Survey (Inglehart et al., 2004), in most regions of the world the
correlation between educational level and the stated ideal family size is
about 0.100. Biology and desire for children: Foster, 2000.
15. Below replacement fertility: Billari et al., 2004; Caldwell and Schindlmayr,
2003; S.P. Morgan, 2003. In Europe, only the Icelanders have sufficiently
high fertility to maintain their numbers. Replacement migration: Coleman,
2001. In the US, for example, non-Hispanic Whites are expected to become
a minority shortly after 2050: Pollard and O’Hare, 1999. Genetic differ-
ences: Lynn, 2006.
16. Science knowledge: Durant et al., 1989; J.P. Miller and Pardo, 2000.
Morality, benefits and risks: Gaskell et al., 1997; Meisenberg, 2007.
17. Postmodern science: Gross and Levitt, 1994; Sokal and Bricmont, 1998.
Embryo research: Annas et al., 1999. Behavior genetics: Weyher, 1988.
18. Cited from Science (2000), 290, p. 2249.

365
 In God’s Image?

19. The individualist use of genetic enhancement technologies is described in

Silver, 1997.
20. Flynn, 1987.
21. Lynn and van Court, 2004; Retherford and Sewell, 1988; Vining, 1995.
22. Lipson and Pollack, 2000; Sipper and Reggia, 2001.

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