Monkeying with evolution

Some on the left join the religious right in twisting the science of humanity's origins

To honestly assess the role of genes is to recognize that every trait - structural, physiological, behavioral - comes from the interaction of genes and experience. Contrary to Prospero's description of Caliban in Shakespeare's The Tempest, there is no one "upon whose nature nurture can never stick."

Just as the Catholic Church brought great discredit on itself for its persecution of Galileo, political ideologues of all stripes do themselves no favors by politicizing biology. Speaking of the church's blindness, a devout Blaise Pascal wrote that "if the Earth moves, a decree from Rome cannot stop it." In terms of evolutionary biology, if we are the products of natural selection, with consequences for behavior no less than morphology (and we are), the disapproval of my fellow leftists will not stop it.

Admittedly, there is an important difference: Whereas celestial dynamics are unaffected by whether earthlings adopt a Ptolemaic or Copernican worldview, social reality can be influenced by the prevailing attitude toward our behavioral tendencies. If it is concluded (falsely) that women are fit only for reproduction, or that African-Americans can jump but can't cogitate, unfortunate social consequences are bound to follow - and in the past, conservatives have shown themselves all too eager to make exactly these fallacious connections.

Indeed, ideologues of both stripes seek to have it both ways: denying evolution when they choose but, when convenient, twisting its insights to support their causes. Accordingly, some on the political right have endorsed aspects of sociobiology, claiming that evolution's "selfish" individualism and the way it rewards and amplifies personal fitness accords comfortably with laissez-faire capitalism. At the same time, liberals are willing to enthusiastically support sociobiology when it suggests that gene-based "selfishness" frequently operates in nature by way of an altruistic sacrifice on behalf of others - social altruism being a leftist's dream.

But cherry-picking science is as bad as ignoring it. It may not sit right with modern descendants of the bishop of Worcester's wife, but wouldn't it be nice if everyone - regardless of political preference - simply tried to understand what is true, and stopped trying to fit evolution into ideologic pigeonholes?

David P. Barash is an evolutionary biologist and professor of psychology at the University of Washington. This article originally appeared in the Los Angeles Times.