The Moral Animal
from The Descent of Man Hosted by ABC Radio National and ABC Science Online
Is how we relate and mate all in our genes? Are we humans really governed by the same evolutionary laws that define pirahnas and pond slime? Why are men and women different? Are men really more promiscuous than women? Are women naturally more monogamous than men? Today, the new breed of thinkers called neo-Darwinists, are reviving the doctrine of Charles Darwin, one of the most influential and extrordinary scientists in history. They've plenty to say about the evolutionary origins for the way we live our lives - conduct our relationships, run our governments, and the ticking of our minds and moods. Modern evolutionary psychologists claim that much of our individual and social behaviour can be explained in evolutionary terms - through the genes we've inherited over millions of years from our ancestors. Even the characteristics we think of as distinctively human, they say - from altruism and the desire for justice to enjoying a good gossip - are driven by a ruthless reproductive self-interest. That is, the quest to pass our healthy genes onto as many healthy offspring as we can. They argue that there are certain kinds of behaviour which are 'right' in evolutionary terms, and others which are 'wrong' - that is, run counter to the rationality of the genes. But can the ethical and moral codes we live by really be boiled down to strategies for replicating our genes in our children? And if our genes are so selfish, why can we be so nice? What are the origins of human virtue?
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