Colloquium: In the light of evolution IV: The human condition
PNAS 2010 107 (Supplement 2) 8897-8901; doi:10.1073/pnas.1003214107
May 11, 2010
Supplement to the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, which includes articles from the Arthur M. Sackler Colloquium of the National Academy of Sciences In the Light of Evolution IV: The Human Condition.
The complete program is available on the NAS Web site at www.nasonline.org/SACKLER_Human_Condition .
PNAS Website: http://www.pnas.org/content/107/suppl.2
“….The year 2009 marked the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin’s birth and the 150th anniversary of his most influential publication. Darwin
“…..In The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex, published in 1871, Charles Darwin wrote: “I fully … subscribe to the judgment of those writers who maintain that of all the differences between man and the lower animals the moral sense or conscience is by far the most important.” I raise the question of whether morality is biologically or culturally determined.
The question of whether the moral sense is biologically determined may refer either to the capacity for ethics (i.e., the proclivity to judge human actions as either right or wrong), or to the moral norms accepted by human beings for guiding their actions. I propose that the capacity for ethics is a necessary attribute of human nature, whereas moral codes are products of cultural evolution.
Humans have a moral sense because their biological makeup determines the presence of three necessary conditions for ethical behavior:
(i) the ability to anticipate the consequences of one's own actions;
(ii) the ability to make value judgments; and
(iii) the ability to choose between alternative courses of action.
Ethical behavior came about in evolution not because it is adaptive in itself but as a necessary consequence of man's eminent intellectual abilities, which are an attribute directly promoted by natural selection. That is, morality evolved as an exaptation, not as an adaptation. Moral codes, however, are outcomes of cultural evolution, which accounts for the diversity of cultural norms among populations and for their evolution through time….” From The difference of being human: Morality - Francisco J. Ayala
Table of Contents
Introduction
Colloquium Paper: In the light of evolution IV: The human condition
PNAS 2010 107 (Supplement 2) 8897-8901; doi:10.1073/pnas.1003214107
John C. Avise and Francisco J. Ayala Extract - Full Text - Full Text (PDF)
Colloquium Papers (free online)
Colloquium Paper:
Reconstructing human evolution: Achievements, challenges, and opportunities
Bernard Wood Abstract - Full Text - Full Text (PDF) - Figures Only
Colloquium Paper:
Terrestrial apes and phylogenetic trees
Juan Luis Arsuaga Abstract - Full Text - Full Text (PDF) - Figures Only
Colloquium Paper:
Phylogenomic evidence of adaptive evolution in the ancestry of humans
Morris Goodman and Kirstin N. Sterner Abstract - Full Text - Full Text (PDF) - Figures Only
Colloquium Paper:
Human adaptations to diet, subsistence, and ecoregion are due to subtle shifts in allele frequency
Angela M. Hancock, David B. Witonsky, Edvard Ehler, Gorka Alkorta-Aranburu, Cynthia Beall,
Amha Gebremedhin, Rem Sukernik, Gerd Utermann, Jonathan Pritchard, Graham Coop, and Anna Di Rienzo
Abstract - Full Text - Full Text (PDF)- Figures Only - Supporting Information
Colloquium Paper:
Working toward a synthesis of archaeological, linguistic, and genetic data for inferring African population history
Laura B. Scheinfeldt, Sameer Soi, and Sarah A. Tishkoff
Abstract - Full Text - Full Text (PDF)- Figures Only - Supporting Information
Colloquium Paper:
Uniquely human evolution of sialic acid genetics and biology
Ajit Varki Abstract - Full Text - Full Text (PDF) - Figures Only
Colloquium Paper:
Bioenergetics, the origins of complexity, and the ascent of man
Douglas C. Wallace Abstract - Full Text - Full Text (PDF) - Figures Only
Colloquium Paper:
Genome-wide patterns of population structure and admixture among Hispanic/Latino populations
Katarzyna Bryc, Christopher Velez, Tatiana Karafet, Andres Moreno-Estrada, Andy Reynolds,
Adam Auton, Michael Hammer, Carlos D. Bustamante, and Harry Ostrer
Abstract - Full Text - Full Text (PDF) - Figures Only- Supporting Information
Colloquium Paper:
Human skin pigmentation as an adaptation to UV radiation
Nina G. Jablonski and George Chaplin Abstract - Full Text - Full Text (PDF) - Figures Only
Colloquium Paper:
Footprints of nonsentient design inside the human genome
John C. Avise Abstract - Full Text - Full Text (PDF) - Figures Only
Colloquium Paper:
How grandmother effects plus individual variation in frailty shape fertility and mortality:
Guidance from human–chimpanzee comparisons
Kristen Hawkes Abstract - Full Text - Full Text (PDF) - Figures Only
Colloquium Paper:
Gene-culture coevolution in the age of genomics
Peter J. Richerson, Robert Boyd, and Joseph Henrich
Abstract - Full Text - Full Text (PDF) - Supporting Information
Colloquium Paper:
The cognitive niche: Coevolution of intelligence, sociality, and language
Steven Pinker Abstract - Full Text - Full Text (PDF)
Colloquium Paper:
A role for relaxed selection in the evolution of the language capacity
Terrence W. Deacon Abstract - Full Text - Full Text (PDF)
Colloquium Paper:
Adaptive specializations, social exchange, and the evolution of human intelligence
Leda Cosmides, H. Clark Barrett, and John Tooby Abstract - Full Text - Full Text (PDF) - Figures Only
- Supporting Information
Colloquium Paper:
The difference of being human: Morality
Francisco J. Ayala Abstract - Full Text - Full Text (PDF) - Figures Only
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