Evolution,
The 20th Century Killer

Chapter 1

Evolutionary Psychology

Evolution is one of the most powerful ideas shaping human society today. In addition to its pervasive influence upon popular science, evolutionary thought is experiencing a resurgence in the social sciences, despite the connection between Social Darwinism and genocide. While researchers in the “hard sciences” are finding increasing evidences of intelligent design, researchers in psychology and other social sciences seek to explain human behavior as an evolutionary development. This “new” branch of study is known as evolutionary psychology.

Social Darwinism, the emphasis on “survival of the fittest” in society, is the direct intellectual ancestor not only of Nazi eugenics, but also of evolutionary psychology. While Social Darwinism sought to justify the domination of strong individuals, races and societies over the weak, evolutionary psychology applies natural selection to the most basic level, the gene.

In his book The Selfish Gene Richard Dawkins states “We, and all other animals, are machines created by our genes …We are survival machines …robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes.” Robert Wright adds in The Moral Animal - Why we are the way we are: The new science of evolutionary psychology, “We believe the things—about morality, personal worth, even objective truth—that lead to behaviors that get our genes into the next generation… What is in our genes best interest is what seems ‘right’—morally right, objectively right, whatever sort of rightness is in order.” To the evolutionary psychologist, human behavior and morality are designed by natural selection to have one purpose, the preservation of genetic material.

The implications of evolutionary psychology are enormous. Judeo-Christian values teach that man is a being with free choice, the ability to choose between right and wrong. Evolutionary psychology teaches exactly the opposite, that man’s behavior is predetermined by the overriding need to preserve his genes. Philip Yancey, commentator for Christianity Today, observes that “the evolutionary psychologists have devised a unified theory of human depravity that would make John Calvin blush. Hard-wired for selfishness, we have no potential for anything else.”

Dawkins admits “if you wish, as I do, to build a society in which individuals cooperate generously and unselfishly towards a common good, you can expect little help from biological nature. Let us try to teach generosity and altruism, because we are born selfish. Let us understand what our own selfish genes are up to, because we may then at least have a chance to upset their designs, something that no other species has ever aspired to do.”

While Dawkins holds out hope that man can to some degree thwart his genetically programmed behaviors, other evolutionary psychologists have none to offer. Edward O. Wilson notes: “Human behavior—like the deepest capacities for emotional response which drive and guide it—is the circuitous technique by which human genetic material has been and will be kept intact. Morality has no other demonstrable function.” In this view morality has nothing to do with uplifting mankind to a better way of living, it is merely the “rules” by which human behavior protects its genes.

How have evolutionary psychologists reached these conclusions about human morality and genetic selfishness? Comparing other animal species with humanity is their key to unlocking the secrets of human behavior. Just as Darwin compared human and animal anatomy, so the evolutionary psychologists compare human behavior with that of primates, birds, and even insects to find profound evidence that man’s behavior is an evolutionary construct. Rather than understanding moral behavior in the context of responsibility to a Creator, Yancey observes that evolutionary psychologists “have relocated our primary source for morality and meaning in the beasts… as if in direct fulfillment of Romans 1.”

What kind of society does evolutionary psychology portend? Given the history of Social Darwinism, this is an important question. If increasing the chance of one’s genetic survival is the dominant goal, human society would tolerate sexual infidelity and polygamy (both increasing the chances of passing genetic material on to descending generations), infanticide (eliminating deficient genetic offspring), euthanasia (eliminating the genetically inferior or the aged), eugenics (biologically engineering the survival of the strongest human genes), and violence (husbands, wives and children each competing for resources for their genes). In such a society criminal and deviant behavior, even civil issues like marriage and parental responsibility, would have to be redefined in light of genetic self interest.

As Social Darwinism was once a promising theory to scientists and other leaders and yet it became the forerunner of racism, eugenics, and genocide, what will be the real impact of evolutionary psychology if it pervades human society? Any theory which rationalizes human selfishness is a recipe for anarchy and disaster. For every person to be justified in serving his genetic self interest is to unleash mankind from any moral compass, from any thought of responsibility to his Creator, his community, his neighbor, or even to his family. There exists no better rationalization for self gratification and immorality than evolutionary psychology. Sociogists already observe the destructive tendencies of youth and malcontents who feel no moral obligations to family or community. Educators are concerned about the trends seen among students toward self interest and pleasure and away from duties to their fellow man. While evolution once promised that mankind was climbing the ladder towards utopia, now it offers no more than the acknowledgement that man is born selfish, a prisoner of his genetic material, with little or no hope of improving his lot in life.

Chapter 1 • Chapter 2 • Chapter 3 • Chapter 4