Human Nature - Matt berkowitz - Zday 2012 Vancouver

There are essentially two human nature myths that I've come across: The first is that certain differences among particular groups of humans are innate, and this has given rise to much bad science in the fields of evolutionary biology and genetics, promoting sexist and racist practices. The second is that particular characteristics are an inevitable part of being human. I do think that most people are sincere about their assertion that humans have a fixed 'human nature'. If we examine the historical record of the human species, we find an endless series of wars, power abuses and corruptions. Since we recognize this pattern in history, it is very simple to assume that it is somehow 'instinctual', or part of 'human nature', to behave in historically recurring patterns. More specifically, it is common for people to attribute human behaviour to their genetic configuration. That is, we are slaves to our genes, which predispose us and predetermine us to an inescapable set of behavioral, psychological and mental characteristics. Human nature, really though, cannot be generalized as a set of fixed, pre-programmed sets of behavioral and psychological characteristics that all people share, irrespective of the environment. As Dr. Gabor Maté says in the first part of 'Zeitgeist: Moving Forward', the only way we can accurately and meaningfully speak of 'human nature' is by looking at our basic human needs. On the one hand, if our basic human needs are met (meaning the bare necessities of food, water, shelter, clothing; to the psychological support, which is really no less important) we can more so expect human beings to develop into caring, compassionate, and socially-aware individuals. On the other hand, if these basic human needs are not met, which is the overwhelming majority of cases within our present society, we get a different set of characteristics that matches this environment: greed, violence, insecurity, and countless other psychological distortions. Also, the word 'instinct' really is an empty idea, and this word essentially needs to be eliminated from our vocabulary and understanding of human behaviour. People use the word when they cannot account for the source of a behaviour or biological response. The word 'instinct' masks this ignorance, exactly the same way in which 'free will' is used to mask ignorance about the 'choices' we make or the sources of them and in which God is used to explain a lack of knowledge with how the universe operates, broadly speaking. Rather than using these words, our disposition should be to find the mechanism that's actually responsible for the behaviour. Physiologist Jacques Loeb condemned the use of the word 'instinct' back in the early 20th century, when conducting research on animal and plant tropisms, meaning biological responses to environmental stimuli. I will get back to this point later. James Gilligan, in his book 'Violence', likewise condemns the word, explaining similarly that it is a cop-out excuse to explain behaviour. The first part of 'Zeitgeist: Moving Forward' addresses this thoroughly, and we're showing parts of it tomorrow, so I will focus on a few sources not discussed in the film. Dr. Robert Sapolsky, who is featured in the film, wrote a book called 'The Trouble With Testosterone' in which he documented the essentially negligible effect that hormones have between the wide spectrum of behavioural responses that human beings elicit, including passivity vs. aggression, irrational emotion vs. logic and so forth. We cannot explain, for example, the differences between the sexes by hormonal balances. Rather, we have genes that produce proteins that can be switched on or off by triggers from the environment. In other words, neurochemicals in the brain do not instruct us how to behave. They set propensities which must be triggered by the environment. Sapolsky uses numerous case studies including [his] studies with baboon troops. There was an incident among a troop he studied where all the alpha males in a competitively-oriented troop were killed off. The result was that within a few months the competitive tendencies in the troop died off, and whenever new baboons were introduced to this troop, it took about 6 months [for them] to learn that competition was not a viable method of interaction. This simply re-affirms that it is the environmental conditions that produce behavioural tendencies like competition, which I’ll go more into later. In a fascinating lecture that examines the roles of genes and environment on our behaviour, biologist Dr. Bruce Lipton explores the newest available evidence on this classic nature/nurture debate. Since the 1950s, the view of biological determinism that genes control our behaviour and emotions has maintained dominance in many scientific circles. What this has led to is a feeling of powerlessness and lack of responsibility for changing ourselves. If you are a victim of your genes, why even bother try to change yourself. It’s inevitable, right? Then came the Human Genome Project which ran from 1990 to 2000, in an attempt to determine the DNA responsible for the complexity of human functionality. The original presumptions about genes, serving as a blueprint for our behaviour, resulted in the estimate that there is 1 gene for every protein in our body. At the time, the estimate was 100,000 proteins, so that means 100,000 genes. Then there is “Regulatory DNA” that controls other genes, estimated at a minimum of 40,000. That’s 140,000 genes. In 2001, the results were released showing there were only 34,000 genes, only 25% of the original estimate, which means the remaining genes that were expected to be found do not even exist! Biologist and Nobel Laureate in Physiology, David Baltimore, reflected on the implications of this finding: “Unless the human genome contains a lot of genes that are opaque to our computers, it is clear that we do not gain our undoubted complexity over worms and plants by using many more genes.” So, with all this research, we should ask ourselves why do these superstitious beliefs about human nature persist? To address this, we should ask another question: Who benefits? That is, who in society would want to perpetuate this dogmatic belief that humans are innately any such way? Human nature arguments are used as a way to silence dissent of the status quo. Any such criticism of the established way of doing things in society is rendered immediately invalid because it has supposedly been legislated by nature. It’s just the way it is, and we can’t do a thing to change it.