Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-j824f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-05T16:17:51.754Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Unnatural Selection

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 April 2001

Abstract

This paper shows how the last twenty-five years of vocal human Darwinism (human sociobiology and evolutionary psychology) directly rejects the ‘selfish gene’ theory it is supposedly based upon. ‘Evangelistic sociobiology’, as Dawkins has called it, argues that humans evolved to be ‘the altruistic ape’. Using selfish gene theory this paper shows that we are born just another selfish ape. Given the ‘gross immorality’ (George Williams) of natural selection, one implication is that modern genetics has yet to face up to our true genetic code. The ultimate conclusion of this paper is that culture makes civilisation possible because it overwrites, or ‘manipulates’, our genetic heritage. We are born ape, but made human.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
© The Royal Institute of Philosophy 1998

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)