Altruism, Evolution and Religion?

Back in July 2006 I watched a BookTV interview with Francis Collins, talking about his book The Language of God. At the time, Collins was Director of the National Human Genome Research Institute; the massive government project to map the human genome, initiated by President Clinton. Privately funded projects actually reached much of the goal first, though not entirely.

Collins said that as a biologist he was not especially religious and that he firmly believed in evolution. But one day he had an epiphany: Evolution could not account for altruism. People who sacrificed for the good of others would be eliminated from the gene pool in favor of those who are selfish.

At that moment I had an epiphany: The director of one of the largest publicly funded research projects in history… had never heard of “Google”! A simple Google search at the time for “altruism” and “evolution” would have revealed millions of hits!

I was reminded of this recently while listening to an interview by Skeptics Society Executive Director Michael Shermer with Chris Anderson, who is CEO of TED Talks. TED Talks are a forum for leading minds in Technology, Entertainment and Design. Their slogan: “Ideas Worth Spreading.” To attend a TED talk, you have to be personally invited. And you then have to pay tens of thousands of dollars for the privilege of attending.

Or, you can watch them free online! How is that possible? Anderson was born to British parents living in Pakistan. His father was an eye surgeon and evangelical Christian. Anderson never questioned his belief in God, because he needed that to explain altruism. Until, apparently, he discovered Google and realized there were other explanations!

Anderson evangelizes his discovery in his new book Infectious Generosity: The Ultimate Idea Worth Spreading. It turns out there are many ways that evolution favors altruism.

In 2009 neuroscientist Sam Harris issued his commentary “The Strange Case of Francis Collins,” which is free online. Collins claimed that humans uniquely obey “moral law.” Harris wrote, “While no other species can match us for altruism, none can match us for sadistic cruelty either.”

Harris went on: “What if mice showed greater distress at the suffering of familiar mice than unfamiliar ones? (They do.) What if monkeys will starve themselves to prevent their cage-mates from receiving painful shocks? (They will.)”

Such religious exceptionalist nonsense leads to our obsessing over a few human cells in a Petri dish (obstructing stem cell research) or uterus (absurd abortion bans) – while happily eating factory farmed animals suffering horrific cruelty.

So, how did altruism evolve? One might ask how we evolved to write poetry or send rockets to the moon. These are secondary effects of evolving other valuable traits. Helping others often takes little away from ourselves.

Living in a community, there is a mutual benefit of altruism, benefiting all genes in that community. “Free riders” (see my recent article) may even be kicked out of the community. Meaning, if you are not altruistic, you may die.

In small communities, many neighbors are also relatives, as my wife experienced growing up with hundreds of relatives in the area. Helping your community is a form of evolutionary “kin selection.”

Harris noted that Collins uniquely picked the Christian sect of “a Methodist minister who lived down the street.” Collins didn’t bother to investigate other world religions. At the time, Collins was up for nomination to head up the $30 billion a year budget of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). He got the nomination. Do you think that would have happened if Collins had picked evangelical Islam or Hinduism instead?

Some claim that to be truly altruistic, an action has to be anonymous. It can’t be about virtue signaling to boost your ego and reputation. But Sam Harris points out that public acts of altruism can inspire your friends to altruism. Magnifying your altruistic act.

When I donate blood, I feel good about directly helping others. When I donate to “Health Care for All” I feel good about helping others in the long run. Does that make me selfish? I don’t think so. I am just fulfilling my evolutionary destiny!