Evolution and the Origin of Community
On the Origin of … Community
Community is obviously an integral part of our human existence today, but how far back in human history do our ‘groupish’ tendencies go?
Two years ago, I listened to an interesting episode of the Canadian Broadcasting Company’s Quirks and Quarks radio program which specifically highlighted the role of evolution in the original formation of human communities. In the program, the radio host was interviewing evolutionary biologist Dr. David Sloan Wilson about his then ‘new’ book Evolution for Everyone: How Darwin’s Theory Can Change the Way We Think About Our Lives.
Charles Darwin, what a man he was; His ideas completely revolutionized the way we think about our world. But can you apply his theory of evolution to the social tendencies of humans to form communities? Dr. Wilson would argue ‘yes’.
Let’s start with an experiment – because this is exactly what Dr. Wilson does when he’s teaching his evolution classes at Binghamton University, and, well, I figure he’s a smart guy, so we should follow suit and start with the same experiment!
Step #1
Make a list of the traits or words you would associate with an ‘evil’ person.
Step #2
Make a list of some traits or words you would associate with a ‘good’ person.
What do you get?
For evil, you might get ‘murderer,’ ‘thief,’ ‘selfish,’ ‘greedy’ etc.
For good, maybe you came up with ‘selfless,’ ‘altruistic,’ ‘compassionate’ etc.
Now let’s pretend we have two isolated islands (much like Darwin’s famous Galapagos Islands). On one of those islands put a bunch of ‘evil’ people, and on the other island, put a bunch of ‘good’ people.
Which group do you think would survive in the long run?
The ‘good’ group, obviously. The ‘evil’ individuals would murder, steal, cheat, and lie their way into extinction.
The conclusion? We humans are biologically predisposed to forming tight knit groups -ahem, communities – where we can rely on and support one another.
Dr. Wilson goes on to point out that culture is also an adaptation we’ve acquired to help us cultivate our communities. Artwork, music, dances, traditions, languages, even religion are all evolutionary adaptations to bring us together into groups of well meaning, ‘in-it-for-the-good-of-all individuals.’ Interesting food for thought.
So there you have it. Nature never intended for all humans to live apart from one another. From our beginning days as cavemen to our current technology-gorged society, we are meant to live in tribes, in groups, in communities, and (I suppose) in online social networking websites. Community is a part of our genetic makeup!
Dr. Wilson does a much better job than I do explaining his and Mr. Darwin’s ideas, so please check out his interview on Quirks and Quarks yourself: CBC Quirks and Quarks Interview with David Sloan Wilson.
