The Ape That Understood the Universe: How the Mind and Culture Evolve

The Ape That Understood The Universe, How the mind and culture evolveSteve Stewart-Williams, 2018What would happen if an alien scientist came from another planet and decided to study the behavior of the prominent earthly species; humans? That is the premise of Williams book; To look at human behavior apart from cultural bias and determine how this “collection of atoms”, “this vast colony of single-celled organisms” known as a human being came to evolve and how did these beings come to form huge organized competing groups or tribes that have come to dominate this small rocky planet? No surprise that the Alien’s conclusions would mirror some of Darwin’s evolutionary conclusions and also those of Richard Dawkins theories of selfish-genes and of the evolution of cultural memes. “A chicken is an egg’s way of making another egg” This is in essence explains the gene’s view of evolution which is that reproduction is the only thing that matters in the competition of what genetic behaviors and traits will reproduce and predominate over the long run. From this premise one can surmise that in evolutionary psychology innate reproductive behavior is extremely determinate. Because of sexual differences in reproductive potential and parental investment, male and female reproductive strategies differ. In choosing mates women seek not only fitness but also resources, status and committed parental investment. Males in contrast can maximize reproductive success by not only acquiring wealth and status to attract females but also by seeking multiple mating opportunities without parental investment. This subject along with sexual dimorphism, polygyny, kin bias, the Cinderella syndrome, altruism are all explained in the context of why they exist and are evolutionarily favored behaviors.The most interesting part of the book from my perspective was the section on cultural memes and how cultures evolve along the same principles as biologic evolution. A meme is an idea or unit of culture that can reproduce itself inside multiple human brains. “The core idea of memetics is that, like genes, memes are subject to natural selection, and that selection favors “selfish” -memes that, through accident or design, are good at getting themselves replicated and keeping themselves in circulation in the culture. This applies not only to chain letters and hoax virus warnings, but right across the board”.Language, for example, is also a meme and “Dominant languages and dialects spread widely, and lead to the gradual extinction of other tongues… A struggle for life is constantly going on amongst the words and grammatical forms in each language. The better, the shorter, the easier forms are constantly gaining the upper hand, and they owe their success to their own inherent virtue”. Science is another cultural meme that is also subject to the laws of evolution. “Science involves the two key elements of Darwinian evolution; variation and selection”. “In effect, the scientific method establishes a struggle for existence among theories, which ultimately in the survival of the fittest theories: those that best explain the facts”. The power of cultural evolution in effect explains human dominance of the planet. “Our superpower as a species is not our intelligence: It’s our collective intelligence and capacity for cumulative culture; our ability to stockpile knowledge and pass it down from generation to generation, tinkering with it and improving it over time. Biological evolution can give rise to the eye, but cumulative cultural evolution can give rise to entities every bit as complex as the eye; airplanes, smart phones, legal systems and the internet”.Unfortunately, all memes are not true or beneficial to humans or human societies. The author explains how religions, while fostering societal cohesion and cooperation, can also become parasitic to a society, sucking off resources to build huge cathedrals and supporting non- productive activities as well as fostering sometimes disastrous interreligious conflicts. The internet has facilitated a way for memes that appeal to the human base emotions such as fear, anger, resentment and shock to proliferate across the globe at the speed of light with consequences to societal political and social order still not totally understood. Cultural evolution can also change biological evolution. The acquisition of lactose tolerance in herding pastoral societies is cited as one example. A possible consequence of birth control technology could be the gradual extinction of deceptive promiscuous behavior as it would become a nonviable reproductive strategy.This is a great summary of what this book is about: “Like every aspect of human nature, our knack for culture evolved initially as a gene copying strategy – unlike any other gene copying strategy – our culture opened up an entirely new arena for evolution by natural selection. It brought into existence a new replicator: the meme. And memes had a very different agenda than the genes that made them possible. As memetic evolution picked up steam, humans were transformed. No longer we were devices designed solely to pass on our genes. Suddenly, we became hybrid creatures, torn between passing on our genes and passing on our memes. This vision of our species helps to explain much of what most puzzled the alien scientist: our religions, our art, music and science. Cultural evolution is the key to unraveling the deepest mysteries of the human mind”. “What’s next? What does the future hold for the gene-meme hybrids we call human beings? Will we escape the earth and colonize other worlds, or will we drive ourselves to extinction? Will we engineer ourselves into a species of Einsteins, or will our intellectual faculties deteriorate, like our ability to make vitamin A? Will we cast off our superstitions by exposing them to rational scrutiny, or will our superstitions evolve into more virulent forms like bacteria in response to antibiotics? Will we tame our inner demons – our tendency to scapegoat, our proneness to moral panics – or will we just keep swapping one fashionable prejudice and mass delusion for another until the end of time”?“The evolution of culture has been the ultimate game changer for our species. It has enabled us to understand ourselves and the world to a degree far beyond what a neutral observer couid reasonably expect of an ape. It has allowed us to start reshaping the world in accordance with our wishes and whims. And it has begun to entrust us with the power to direct our own evolution but the evolution of all other life on this planet. This is an awesome responsibility, and one we may or may not be fit to carry. Whether we like it or not, though, our evolving culture is pushing our species ever-more firmly into the driver’s seat of our planet Earth as a whole. For better or for worse – perhaps for better and for worse - this appears to be the destiny of the strangest animal in the world: the ape that understood the universe”.This is a great readable compendium of evolutionary psychology and cultural evolution. If you’re not familiar with these subjects you will get a new perspective on human behavior, possibly your own, and an understanding of political and social behavior including those of a certain orange politician and his accolades.

This book follows the path charted by Richard Dawkins' "The Selfish Gene" and Robert Wright's "The Moral Animal". The book covers a lot of the same material exploring evolutionary psychology with elaborate examples. Where it primarily differs from the two is in the evolutionary explanation of human behaviors (including differences between the sexes) contrasted with the 'Blank Slate' position taken by by several sociologists - the claim that human behavior including gender differences are purely a function of culture. Stewart-Williams makes a compelling argument for why the 'culture only' theory cannot be a satisfying explanation for many of the most common ubiquitous behaviors and gender differences and where an evolutionary approach is the only reasonable explanation.It's commendable how Stewart-Williams treads on the subject of gender differences - a landmine esp. in the current socio-political environment: he's uncompromising on his passionate advocacy of the evolutionary drivers of differences but balances this with the abundant caution needed to prevent readers from drawing incorrect conclusions and worse, using it as evidence to perpetuate social inequality and nullify hard won gains on that front.The final chapter on Memetics is also new territory (not covered in detail in the other two books), but lacks the readability of the rest of the book.While several reviewers find the "Alien assessment" construct instructive it didn't work for me: I was left bewildered and could not get past the assumption that a super intelligent alien would either not be a product of natural selection itself or unaware of the concept.Overall a worthwhile read - to use an idea from the book, demonstrates sufficient inclusive fitness to survive on my rather small bookshelf at the expense of some other hapless book that will now be donated to the local library.

The most exciting chapter in this book is the last where we learn that in 1976 a scientific genius named Richard Dawkins discovered that human beings have this thing called a “brain” and that this brain can generate “ideas” and other things, such as music and pictures. Naturally a new name was required to summarize this revolutionary new discovery so Dawkins called the products of the mind a “meme” and his study one of “memetics.” We then learn that these “ideas” or other memes can take on a life of their own, not because there is anything valuable about them, but just because they are so darned crafty about taking advantage of or febrile brains. For example, we hear over and over again about those annoying “earworms” which can take over our minds when we hear a catchy tune, although not so much about the evil people who create these ear worms, evildoers such as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart or Ludwig Beethoven. There is nothing really great about what they produced, they just were oh so tricky about creating such really good “earworms” that all of our gosh darned subsequent minds just can’t help but want to hear over and over, for century after century. To quote this good author: “is music a parasite that evolved to survive in the ecological niche of the human brain? Maybe so.” In short, these “earworms” are just “informational parasites” and thus “music parasitizes the brain.” Up until the last chapter I would have said that this was an interesting book that effectively summarized how evolution impacted human behavior and society, but certainly such daft “insights” as this in the last chapter made me want to re-think that conclusion.

If you've ever been told something is a "social construct" or offered "the patriarchy" by way of an explanation then you might wonder what scientific weight these concepts hold. The Ape that Understood the Universe tests common assumptions against the evidence and examines the forces that drive cultural change.What sets the book apart is the genial writing style; even the paperback version is fairly sturdy and can seem a bit daunting at first, but once past the introduction all formalities are out. As we begin, we take the view of an alien anthropologist studying earthly business from above, this serves as a neat device for considering broader trends while providing opportunity for some Douglas Adams style wit.For added interest, much of the detail is kept relevant to the everyday, even as we get up to speed with Darwin and "the greatest idea anyone has ever had" we rarely lose sight of how it fits with common experience -and once acquainted with the dynamics of natural selection we're ready to explore the evolution of the mind.Those allergic to jargon need not be put off, the clarity of reasoning keeps the ideas accessible. Instead of feeling swamped with technical clauses and data, our time is rewarded with a crisp, clear view of society and how it takes shape, conspiracy theories and political constructs seem quaint as we apply the principles of natural selection to ideas and behaviour.It's somewhat cathartic to learn that much of human society is a lot of monkey business, and here we have the ideal field guide, because not only do we find out "how mind and culture evolve" we soon discover how mind and culture have not nearly evolved enough.

I have increasingly become interested in evolutionary psychology. I am a social worker, and our training is heavily steeped in socio-cultural explanations for psych-social development, but I am realising how much relevance ideas from evolutionary psychology has for understanding human development and behaviour. In this book Steve Stewart-Williams provides a highly accessible, engaging and informative overview of evolutionary psychology. He does an excellent job of providing a balanced and fair overview, exploring the counter-arguments to evolutionary ideas, namely those who consider nurture to be the only influencing factor on human development. As someone who is relatively new in developing my understanding of the field I found this book superb. Highly recommend.

Very enlightening book - well researched and well argued yet with an almost conversational style of writing that makes it more accessible to non academics.

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Quality read