Fate of Earth III: Are We Too Smart to Survive?

The Fate of Earth III: The Human Species, Too Smart To Survive?

A few years ago, one of the great figures of contemporary biology, Ernst Mayr, published some reflections on the likelihood of success in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. He considered the prospects very low. His reasoning had to do with the adaptive value of what we call "higher intelligence," meaning the particular human form of intellectual organization. Mayr estimated the number of species since the origin of life at about fifty billion, only one of which "achieved the kind of intelligence needed to establish a civilization." It did so very recently, perhaps 100,000 years ago. It is generally assumed that only one small breeding group survived, of which we are all descendants.

Mayr speculated that the human form of intellectual organization may not be favored by selection. The history of life on Earth, he wrote, refutes the claim that "it is better to be smart than to be stupid," at least judging by biological success: beatles and bacteria, for example, are vastly more successful than humans in terms of survival. He also made the rather somber observation that "the average life expectancy of a species is about 100,000 years."

We are entering a period of human history that may provide an answer to the question of whether it is better to be smart than stupid. The most hopeful prospect is that the question will not be answered: if it receives a definite answer, that answer can only be that humans were a kind of "biological error," using their allotted 100,000 years to destroy themselves and, in the process, much else.

The species has surely developed the capacity to do just that, and a hypothetical extraterrestrial observer might well conclude that humans have demonstrated that capacity throughout their history, dramatically in the past few hundred years, with an assault on the environment that sustains life, on the diversity of more complex organisms, and with cold and calculated savagery, on each other as well.

The year 2003 opened with many indications that concerns about human survival are all too realistic. To mention just a few examples, in the early fall of 2002, it was learned that a possibly terminal nuclear war was barely avoided forty years earlier. Immediately after this startling discovery, the Bush administration blocked UN efforts to ban the militarization of space, a serious threat to survival. The administration also terminated international negotiations to prevent biological warfare and moved to ensure the inevitability of an attack on Iraq, despite popular opposition that was without historical precedent.

Aid organizations with extensive experience in Iraq and studies by respected medical organizations warned that the planned invasion might precipitate a humanitarian catastrophe. The warnings were ignored by Washington and evoked little media interest. A high-level US task force concluded that attacks with weapons of mass destruction (WMD) within the United States are "likely," and would become more so in the event of war with Iraq. Numerous specialists and intelligence agencies issued similar warnings, adding that Washington's belligerence, not only with regard to Iraq, was increasing the long-term threat of international terrorism and proliferation of WMD. These warnings too were dismissed. ( From Hegemony and Survival, Noam Chomsky (Metropolitan: Henry Holt))

See The Fate of Earth Mind Shadows Part I and Mind Shadows Part II.

Fate of Earth II: Our Predisposition to Violence

The Fate of Earth II: Our Genetic Predisposition to Violence

The first piece at 5 May 2004, this is the second of two articles on Jared Diamond, who is a physiologist at UCLA (University of California, Los Angeles). Recipient of a MacArthur Genius Award, he is a man of many interests and passions. In a 1995 video interview for Discover magazine, he revealed their range and depth. Here are some of his comments during that interview.

Medical ethics. Would you conduct experiments on humans with severe mental retardation whose mental capacities are less than chimpanzees? Who are so handicapped that they feel less pain and social distress? Of course not. Then why do it on chimpanzees? ( People have little problem with experiments on mice, but have difficulties with cats and dogs, and so on up the chain.)

Forget Rousseau, the Romantics, and others who revere the "noble savage." Living closer to the earth does not exempt a people from the same ignorance and barbarities as committed by those in advanced civilizations. In fact, they can be worse. Violent deaths are far more common in New Guinea human societies than in European or American society. In fact, per capita violent deaths are more common in tribal societies, than in modern states. Although human beings have a genetic predispostion for violence, modern states are more successful in curbing that predisposition. Of course we had genocides such as the holocaust, but they resulted from a few people without the curbs imposed on behavior by other modern societies. Modern states typically exercise more curbs. The statistical evidence comparing modern states to tribal societies consistently shows modern states dampen the genetic predisposition.

This genetic predisposition is not unique to man. Those species which have the physical or mental ability to inflict genocide on another of their kind will do so. Jane Goodall found one troupe of chimps committing genocide over a few years, completing wiping out a neighboring chimp troupe. Genocide has been documented in hyenas and wolves. Murder has been witnessed in Peregrine falcons. Rape has been recorded in orangutangs, which is easy because the male weighs double the female. Group rape has been documented in mallard ducks.

My Comment: In Iraq, the recent vile abuses at Abu Ghraid prison provide support for the evidence of biologists. We must not forget Stanley Milgram's famous experiments which suggest the torturer in everybody. Nor should we ignore Zimbardo's prison experiments with students at Stanford University. * As Walt Kelly had Pogo say in the cartoon strip, "We have met the enemy and he is us." * ( In my college classes I have assigned these experiments as required reading. To my question, What would you do?, most students say they would never stoop so low. I hope they are right, although statistics suggest that more than a few of them would be wrong.) 

See Fate of Earth Part I and Part III.