55 Clive Gamble, Timewalkers: The Prehistory of Global Colonization (London: Alan Sutton, 1993 ). T. Douglas Price and James A. Brown, eds., Prehistoric Hunter-Gatberers: The Emergence of Cultural Complexity (San Diego, Calif.: Academic Press, 1985).
56 Shepard Krech, III, The Ecological Indian: Myth and History (New York: W. W. Norton, 1999), p. 152.
57 V. C. L. Hutson and G. T. Vickers, “The Spatial Struggle of Tit-for-Tat and Defect,” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London B, vol. 348 (1995), PP. 393—404. Kenneth Binmore, Game Theory and the Social Contract. Volume 1: Playing Fair (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1994).
58 Bruce Bower, “Getting Out from Number One: Selfishness May Not Dominate Human Behavior,” Science News, vol. 137, no. 17 (1990), pp. 266—67.
59 Robyn M. Dawes, Alphons van de Kragt, and John M. Orbell, “Cooperation for the Benefit of Us—Not Me, or My Conscience,” in Beyond Self-Interest, ed. Jane Mansbridge (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990), pp. 97—110.
60 James K. Rilling et al., “A Neural Basis for Social Cooperation,” Neuron, vol. 35 (July 18, 2002), pp. 395—404. See also: Kimberly A. Wade-Benzoni et al., “Cognitions and Behavior in Asymmetric Social Dilemmas: A Comparison of Two Cultures,” Journal of Applied Psychology, vol. 87, no. 1 (2002), pp. 87—95. Robyn M. Dawes and D. M. Messick, “Social Dilemmas,” International Journal of Psychology, vol. 35, no. 2, pp. 111—16.
61 Steven R. Quartz and Terrence J. Sejnowski, Liars, Lovers, and Heroes: What the New Brain Science Reveals about How We Become Who We Are (New York: William Morrow, 2002).
62 Ralph Adolphs, “Cognitive Neuroscience of Human Social Behavior,” Nature Reviews Neuroscience, vol. 4 (March 2003), pp. 165—70. R. J. Dolan, “Emotion, Cognition, and Behavior,” Science, vol. 298 (November 8, 2002), pp. 1191—94.
63 Jorge R. Moll et al., “The Neural Correlates of Moral Sensitivity: A Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Investigation of Basic and Moral Emotions,” Journal of Neuroscience , vol. 22, no. 7 (April 1, 2002), pp. 2730—36.
64 Kevin McCabe et. al., “A Functional Imaging Study of Cooperation in Two-Person Reciprocal Exchange,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, vol. 98, no. 20 (September 25, 2001), pp. 11832—35.
65 Katerina Semendeferi et al., “Prefrontal Cortex in Humans and Apes: A Comparative Study of Area 10,” American Journal of Physical Anthropology, vol. 114 (2001), pp. 224—41.
66 Uta Frith and Chris Frith, “The Biological Basis of Social Interaction,” Current Directions in Psychological Science, vol. 10, no. 5 (October 2001), pp. 151—55.
67 Paul J. Zak, “Trust,” Journal of Financial Transformation (CAPCO Institute), vol. 7 (2oo2), pp. 18—24. For general discussions on cooperation and trust see also: Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, Mother Nature: A History of Mothers, Infants, and Natural Selection (New York: Pantheon, 1999). Shelley E. Taylor, The Tending Instinct: How Nurturing Is Essential to Who We Are and How We Live (New York: Times Books, 2oo2).
68 Noble E. Cunningham, Jr., In Pursuit of Reason: The Life of Thomas Jefferson (Baton Rouge, La.: Louisiana State University Press, 1987).
69 LeBlanc, Constant Battles, p. 207.
70 Bernard Lewis, What Went Wrong?: Western Impact and Middle Eastern Response (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), pp. 96—116.
71 At the April 2003 annual conference of the Atheist Alliance International, at which I spoke and discussed the labeling problem, a new label was proposed by Paul Geisert and Mynga Futrell of Sacramento, California, who note that, by analogy, homosexuals used to suffer a similar labeling problem when they were called homos, queers, fruits, fags, and fairies. Their solution was to change the label to a more neutral term—gay. Over the past couple of decades, gays have won significant liberties for themselves, starting with gay pride and gay marches that have led to gay rights. Analogously, instead of calling ourselves nonbelievers, nontheists, atheists, and the like, it was suggested that we call ourselves Brights. “A Bright is a person whose worldview is naturalistic—free of supernatural and mystical elements. Brights base their ethics and actions on a naturalistic worldview.” “Bright” is a good word, meaning “cheerful and lively,” “showing an ability to think, learn, or respond quickly,” and “reflecting or giving off strong light.” Thus, it is a positive word, and myself, the evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, the philosopher Daniel Dennett, and the magician and paranormal investigator James Randi all signed up to be Brights (the Brights is not an organization; it is a constituency which, if it grows large enough, may one day be capable of wielding political influence; for more information go to www.the-brights.net). Unfortunately the brand name Bright was never market-tested on those who might want to use it. When I announced to the 25,000 readers of our electronic e-skeptic newsletter that I was a Bright, I received hundreds of e-mails, roughly 95 percent of which were emphatically negative about the term and indicated that in no uncertain terms would they call themselves Brights. The primary reason given was that the word sounds elitist, especially since the natural antonym is “Dims.” Subsequently, I organized a focus group of a dozen people unaffiliated with skeptics or atheists in which ten out of the twelve rejected the term outright as being too snobby and off-puttting. Nevertheless, the Brights Web page continues to log new members, already numbering in the thousands in seventy-five countries, so it remains to be seen whether the Brights as a new meme will take hold. For more information write Paul Geisert and Mynga Futrell at P.O. Box 163418, Sacramento, CA 95816, e-mail: [email protected].
72 Robert Ingersoll, Ingersoll’s Greatest Lectures (New York: The Freethought Press Association, 1944).
Appendix I
1 Cited in Robert K. Merton, On the Shoulders of Giants (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1965). See also Richard Hardison, Upon the Shoulders of Giants (Baltimore, Md.: University Press of America, 1988). Astronomer and historian of science John Gribbon is convinced that Newton intended the comment to be read sarcastically in an attempt to attenuate any credit being given to one of his arch rivals, Robert Hooke. See John Gribbon, “On the Shoulders of Midgets?” Skeptic, vol. 10, no. 1(2003), pp. 36—39.
2 Quoted in Paul H. Barrett, ed., Metaphysics, Materialism, and the Evolution of Mind: Early Writings of Charles Darwin (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974), pp. 57, 63.
3 This term was coined by Larry Arnhart in his book of the same title. As Arnhart explained: “When morality is thus understood as part of human nature, moral conduct does not require religious belief or any belief in transcendent moral norms. Morality is important to us because as social animals who try to act in the light of past experience and future expectations, we need norms of right and wrong conduct to secure the social cooperation required to satisfy our natural desires” (Larry Arnhart, Darwinian Natural Right: The Biological Ethics of Human Nature [Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998 p. 34).
4 See, for example, my analysis of religious beliefs and attitudes in Shermer, How We Believe.
5 Darwin. The Descent of Man, pp. 71-72.
6 Ibid., pp. 165-66.
7 Alfred R. Wallace, “Evolution and Character,” Fortnightly Review, vol. 83 (1908), pp. I—24.
8 Alfred R. Wallace, “The Limits of Natural Selection as Applied to Man,” in Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection (London: Macmillan, 1870), pp. 391-392.
9 Ibid.
10 Alfred R. Wallace, “The Origin of Human Races and the Antiquity of Man Deduced from the Theory of ‘Natural Selection,’” J. ASL, vol. 2 (1864), p. 173.
11 Ibid., p. 174.
12 Ibid., pp. 177—78.
13 Ibid., pp. 185—86.
14 Herbert Spencer, The Principles of Ethics, vol. I (Indianapolis: Liberty Classics, 1893), p. 31.
15 David Duncan, ed., Life and Letters of Herbert Spencer, 2 vols. (New York: D. Appleton, 1968).
16 Herbert Spencer, Social Statics; or The Conditions Essential to Human Happiness Specified, and the First of Them Developed (London: John Cha
pman, 1851), pp. 29, 93, 121.
17 Herbert Spencer, The Principles of Ethics, vol. 2 (New York: D. Appleton, 1891), p. x.
18 Huxley, Evolution and Ethics.
19 G. E. Moore, Principia Ethica (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1912), p. 38.
20 Thomas H. Huxley and Julian S. Huxley, Touchstone for Ethics 1893—1943 (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1947), p. 136.
21 Ibid., p. 137.
22 E. O. Wilson, Sociobiology: The New Synthesis (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1975), p. 562.
23 Ibid., p. 563.
24 Ibid., p. 564.
25 Ullica Segerstråle, Defenders of the Truth: The Battle for Science in the Sociobiology Debate and Beyond (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000).
26 Recounted in detail in Shermer and Grobman, Denying History.
27 Segerstråle, Defenders of the Truth.
28 Wilson, On Human Nature, p. 7.
29 Richard D. Alexander, Darwinism and Human Affairs (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1979), and Alexander, The Biology of Moral Systems (New York: Aldine De Gruyter, 1987). Axelrod, The Evolution of Co-operation. Dawkins, The Selfish Gene. De Waal, Good Natured. Paul Lawrence Farber, The Temptations of Evolutionary Ethics (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994). W. D. Hamilton, Narrow Roads of Gene Land, vol. I: Evolution of Social Behaviour (New York: W. H. Freeman, 1996). Philip Kitcher, Vaulting Ambition: Sociobiology and the Quest for Human Nature (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1985). John Maynard Smith, Did Darwin Get it Right? (New York: Chapman and Hall, 1992). Robert J. Richards, Darwin and the Emergence of Evolutionary Theories of Mind and Behavior (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987). Michael Ruse, Taking Darwin Seriously: A Naturalistic Approach to Philosophy (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1986). Donald Symons, The Evolution of‘Human Sexuality (New York: Oxford University Press, 1979). Paul Thompson, Issues in Evolutionary Ethics (Albany, N.Y.: SUNY Press, 1995). Robert Trivers, Social Evolution (Menlo Park, Calif.: Benjamin/ Cummings, 1985). James Q. Wilson, The Moral Sense (New York: Free Press, 1993). Robert Wright, The Moral Animal (New York: Random House, 1994).
30 Wilson, Consilience, pp. 238—65. For a concise summary, see also Wilson, “The Biological Basis of Morality,” pp. 53—70.
31 Ibid., p. 241.
32 Wilson, “Nonzero and Nonsense,” pp. 84—89.
33 Wilson, Darwin’s Cathedral. Sober and Wilson, Unto Others.
34 Ernst Mayr, “Where Are We?” Cold Spring Harbor Symposium on Quantitative Biology, vol. 24 (1959), pp. 409—40. Reprinted in Ernst Mayr, Evolution and Diversity of Life (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1976); Ernst Mayr, The Growth of Biological Thought, p. 595; Mayr, Toward a New Philosophy of Biology (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1988), p. 79; Mayr, This Is Biology (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1997), p. 202.
35 Michael Shermer and Frank Sulloway, “The Grand Old Man of Evolution. An Interview with Evolutionary Biologist Ernst Mayr,” Skeptic, vol. 8, no. 1 (2000), pp. 76—83.
36 Stephen Jay Gould, The Structure of Evolutionary Theory (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2002).
37 Ibid., p. 73.
38 Some of those critiques, however, have been aimed not at Darwin’s Duomo, but at Gould’s Pinnacles. To his credit, Gould unhesitatingly allows his critics to speak, but the price they pay is facing the buzz saw of his rhetorical brilliance and literary erudition, as in this maximally insulting cut of one critic—the philosopher Dan Dennett who penned a fiftypage critique of Gould—when he quotes Schiller: “Mit Dummheit kampfen die Götter selbst vergebens”—“even the gods cannot fight with stupidity” (Gould, The Structure of Evolutionary Theory, p. 1009). One persistent misunderstanding about Gould’s remodeling of Darwin’s Duomo stems from what I call the “paradigm paradox” (Michael Shermer, The Borderlands of Science: Where Sense Meets Nonsense [New York: Oxford University Press, 2001], p. 98).
39 Gould, The Structure of Evolutionary Theory, pp. 71, 652.
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