It's funny how thoughts and ideas coalesce. As I worked my way through five or six Michael Crichton novels on one of my periodic binges, I noted in The Lost World an astonishing addition to the standard evolution narrative. And then as I trolled my Facebook feed I saw the same idea again in a Psychology Today article, which I read and shared. I didn't quite recognize the relation then. Not until tonight. There is something truly fundamental to humanity about relationships, it seems--and it seems like humanity eschews relationships to a greater degree now than ever.
Many scientists and philosophers have marveled at the evolution of humanity. Since Charles Darwin revolutionized the understanding of biology by showing that some species suffered extinction, and others evolved, a great many ideas have surfaced. For example, rationalists doubting the presence of God and suspicious of religion regarded this new information as another nail in the coffin of superstition, as humanity marched towards a greater and more knowledgeable civilization. This was regarded as an attack against religious institutions, who fought back first by declaring such belief heresy and blasphemy, and second by co-opting evolution as proof that God brought about His likeness on earth through this new biological process.
Interestingly, it seems that when scientists and thinkers began to examine the why of it all, they largely passed over the why as it related to humans. Some claimed that extinction and evolution were a result of "Natural Selection." Species had to adapt (evolve) to cope with changing environments which included new predators and predations, or they suffered extinction. Later, more randomness was inserted with the claim that evolution was a result of gene mutation; namely that species were randomly mutating all the time, and beneficial mutations conduced to survival and became species characteristics, while weakening or harmful mutations resulted in extinction.
These ideas became canon and carried wide influence. It's a neat and tidy explanation, and it has sheltered a comfortable delusion about the supremacy of humans. Anthropologists and sociologists drew a similarly tidy line from our forebearers, who must have evolved oversized brains as a clever response to the dangers of their world. Because we humans alone developed tools, and imposed our will upon certain animals to domesticate them, and upon certain plants to cultivate them, and formed societies for mutual support, we ascended to "the top of the food chain." We evolved to survive, and natural selection has declared us winners.
But there are problems with this canon. One is that our near relatives, chimpanzees and gorillas, survive just fine without walking upright and without our oversized brains. Another is that we are not the only species who use tools and exhibit complex problem-solving and form societies. Most glaring, however, is the problem that has clouded the issue of evolution since it broke upon the world: we assume that we are superior because of our brains, our tools, and our civilizations.
Furthermore, the evolutionary canon usually ignores an essential element in species, which is behavior. It's clear that human behavior--complex problem-solving, for one, and societies, for another, has enabled our race to not only survive but flourish. Interestingly, the behavior of certain animal species (such as gorillas, wolves, and dolphins) has conferred similar advantages. Perhaps my own research has been incomplete, but I have not found much historic literature on evolution which addresses this.
The Psychology Today article noted in passing some recent research that suggests cognitive development happens more efficaciously in social environments--literally, at play. The social environment seemingly must include physical interaction, like eye contact, physical cues, and auditory communication. It may have suggested that the human brain evolved to support more advanced social relationships, or it may have been Mr. Crichton. But that strikes me as a very important piece of information, because it suggests that our large brains are not primarily problem-solving apparatuses that (for example) helped us connive ways to bring down a wooly mammoth. More likely our brains have developed to handle relationships.
If true, this has great implications for our way of life. Whence notions of love, honor, duty, and morality? From an evolutionary standpoint, such notions are of dubious value, because often they result in annihilation (I recognize that that they also result in creation). But in a social context--seeing society as an evolved characteristic which permits adaptation to an environment--such notions actually conduce to the continued presence of the species. Nature is full of examples where an organism sacrifices itself for the good of it's species, and I find it unlikely that humans are that different. Take the common characteristic of mothers to defend their young unto death, if necessary. That is certainly a necessity for the procreation of the species, but it also fits into a description of love and honor and duty, which exist in nearly all human societies and accomplish the same end.
In fact, I've read some evolutionary studies that have remarked upon an accelerated development of species that exhibit complex behavior. Whereas it may have taken a geological epoch for life to move from single-celled organisms to multi-organ mammals, the amount of evolution which has occurred in the last million years has seen the ascendance of incredibly rich biodiversity, many with complex behavioral components (not least humans and their close relatives). Is this a sort of evolutionary arms race? As competitors evolve to survive, they must become more complex and more social in the process. Larger-brained humans could not be born as mature as other animals, some of which can walk and even defend themselves immediately after birth, because the large head containing that brain wouldn't fit through the mother's pelvis. Therefore they were born increasingly helpless, with brains small enough to be housed in a birth-able head--but with increased need of protection as well. Therefore societies had to be formed to protect children until they could survive on their own--misnomer in and of itself, because humans don't generally survive alone.
Which brings up another question: why don't humans fend for themselves? why do we do that in societies? Do we need cooperation to survive, or did we learn that cooperation (and the intangible values and ethics that support it) simply yielded a more successful species?
Taking religion, humanism, and arrogance out of the dialogue, it would seem that the human organism is constructed for societies. Perhaps that's why research shows that cognitive development happens the most in a social environment. Perhaps that's why the majority of our brain runs our 'unconscious,' which provides intuition, directs and interprets body language, and generates moral reasoning, all of which are of great use in helping us get along with our fellow humans, and of less use than our 'conscious' rationality when it comes to solving problems (like bringing down that scary mammoth).
So if science has an answer to the meaning of life, it would appear to be relationships and societies. That's nothing new, of course--the importance of family has been defended by Aristotle, the Bible, and every eastern religion of which I'm familiar. Concepts like freedom, and equality, and virtue, and the rest appear to exist to support our biologic need for society and it's advantages. I'm not diminishing them; such concepts I believe to be essential. Yet they exist to serve our relationships, and not for their own sakes.
I find it a common conception that humanity has marched steadily from primitive beginnings to ever more advanced and meaningful civilization. I disagree with it, however--perhaps our physical quality of life is better now than in the Renaissance, but whether we are happier or better is conjecture, and I believe in doubt. Science tells us that the denizens of hunter-gatherer societies are happier and healthier than we civilized internet-users, by nearly every criteria (objective and subjective). In fact, the current generations are shorter, less healthy, and more prone to mental and behavioral disorders than recent generations, such as those which fought in the Second World War and the baby boomers.
While I don't believe that human societies will ever be perfect--society by it's nature constrains because cooperation requires sacrifice--perhaps the exploding diagnoses of mental illness and disorder in our own can be traced to the breakdown in relationships. I think it no accident that the most destructive humans among us are usually loners, with little in the way of participation in society (there are exceptions to this, of course). It's no secret that our modern world offers a great deal of distraction from the business of relationships, from demanding careers to ubiquitous media to solitary entertainment (like video games). All of which makes it easier to plug away at the office, or watch one's favorite shoe (or sports team) on the television, or develop a virtual life via social media.
It's important to note that relationships and societies are physical things. Studies show that human senses are more stimulated by other humans--our eyes tend to focus on other people, we react more strongly to the smells of other people, we pick out speech more readily than other sounds. In a sense, our oversized brains are a complex communication device meant to connect us with other people. That does not happen effectively via computer (although I admit that deploying away from my wife made me very grateful for the telephone and video chat).
Apparently, the wisdom of religion and of old wives has been corroborated by science: family (and by extension, society) is everything. It is the key to humanity's success, and probably to its happiness as well.
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