Our Kinder, Gentler Ancestors

"The once-popular killer ape theory is crumbling under its own lack of evidence, with 'Ardi' putting the last nail in its coffin. On the other side of the equation, the one concerning our prosocial tendencies, the move has been towards increasing evidence for humans as cooperative and empathic. Some of this evidence comes from the new field of behavioral economics with studies showing that people do not always adhere to the profit principle. We care about fairness and justice and sometimes let these concerns override the desire to make as much money as possible. All over the world, people have played the 'ultimatum game,' in which one party is asked to react to the division of benefits proposed by another. Even people who have never heard of the French enlightenment and its call for égalité refuse to play along if the split seems unfair."<p>Both the title, which I didn't think related as far back in time as it does, and the publication (the Wall Street Journal) made me guess wrong about what this submitted article is about. It's actually quite a thought-provoking read, by a scientist known for provoking thought about these issues, Frans De Waal.

So, in the 4-8 million years since <i>H. sapiens</i> began to diverge from what would become chimpanzees and gorillas, we gained the ability to walk and run, use tools, and use language. The females of our species stopped having estrus, the males' penises got bigger, we lost an amazing amount of hair, gained a fair bit of height, domesticated a bunch of animals and crops, and started the long process of irreversibly modifying our environment.<p>Despite this massive divergence from a common genetic ancestor almost 20-40 times longer ago than our species has even existed, folks still want to base what it means to be a human on what it means to be a gorilla or a chimpanzee.<p>To make an easier point: do you think you could be typing on a keyboard designed and manufactured by humans using a computer designed and manufactured by humans which communicates with other computers using protocols designed, implemented, agreed upon, and re-implemented by humans in order to use a service provided by a human so that humans could meet and talk about a tiny slice of the things humans meet and talk about <i>if humans weren't embarrassingly social and cooperative?</i>

I don't understand how the pendulum can swing from one end of the spectrum to the other so quickly in the social sciences?

&#62;the move has been towards increasing evidence for humans as cooperative and empathic ...<p>Just walk with me into any museum in Europe and I will show you the counter evidence or let's go and interview the locals in Afghanistan or the sharks .. sorry traders in wall street.