THE DARWINIAN SIDE OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
The Role of Evolutionary Theory in the Major Theories and Issues of International Relations
Name: Mike Berkenpas, B.A.
Student nr.: 1604597 Course: MA-Thesis
Credits: 20 ECTS
Supervisor: Dr. M.R. Kamminga
Date: July 28, 2011
Word Count: 45.004 words
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M a s t e r T h e s i sTABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction ... 4
- The Central Questions of the Thesis ... 8
1. Chapter One: On Evolutionary Biology ... 13
- Evolutionary Biology and its Disciplines ... 14
- Darwin‘s Revolution, a Theoretical Foundation ... 17
- Connecting Two Biological Schools: The Modern Evolutionary Synthesis ... 22
- Countering Darwinian Selfishness: Evolutionary Ethics ... 24
- Conclusion ... 29
2. Chapter Two: Evolutionary Theory and Realism ... 31
- The Realist Theory, An Overview ... 32
- Ultimate Causations: Egoism and Dominance in Realist Theories ... 34
- Evolutionary Theory and the Ultimate Cause for Egoism ... 37
- The Strive for Ultimate Causations: Dominance and Evolutionary Theory ... 40
- The Place of Realism in Evolutionary Ethics ... 44
- Conclusion ... 47
3. Chapter Three: Evolutionary Foundations of Liberalism... 49
- Inside Liberalism ... 50
- Neo-Liberal Institutionalism and Evolutionary Theory ... 52
- The Role of Evolution Within International Cooperation ... 56
- Liberalism, Ethics, and Universalism: The Roots of Morality ... 59
- Conclusion ... 63
4. Chapter Four: Evolution, Warfare, and International Relations ... 66
- The Nature of War Outside Evolution ... 67
- An Evolutionary Explanation for the Origins of War ... 70
- Selfishness in Primitive and Contemporary Warfare ... 73
- Altruism, Warfare, and International Relations ... 77
- Conclusion ... 80
5. Chapter Five: Evolution, Cooperation, and Foreign Aid ... 83
- Altruism, A Historic Overview ... 84
- Biological Understandings of Altruism ... 87
- Alliance Expansion Within the Biological Context of International Relations ... 90
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M a s t e r T h e s i s- Evolutionary Theory and Foreign Aid ... 93
- Conclusion ... 96
Conclusion ... 99
- Answering Questions ... 99
- From a Body of Knowledge Towards a New Way of Thinking ... 104
Bibliography ... 108
Tables 1.1. Darwinism ... 18
1.2. Evolutionary Ethics ... 25
2.1. Realist Key Assumptions ... 33
3.1. Neo-Liberal Institutionalists Key Assumptions ... 54
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M a s t e r T h e s i sINTRODUCTION
―Strange is our situation here on Earth. Each of us comes for a short visit, not knowing why, yet sometimes seeming to divine a purpose. From the standpoint of daily life, however, there is one thing we do know: that man is here for the sake of other men – above all for those upon whose smiles and well-being our own happiness depends.‖
Albert Einstein
There is a good reason to think that many people on this earth have wondered the exact same thing Einstein describes in this passage. Why are we on earth, what is the purpose and significance of life or our existence? Where people claim to have found the meaning of life, like the influential group known as ‗Monty Python‘ in The Meaning of Life, other people focus more on the aspect we seem to know, as if it is in our human nature: Einstein‘s notion that we are here for the sake of others. Somehow, without actually knowing why, we acknowledge the idea that we cannot survive on our own and need our fellow human beings—
who indeed seem to share the same faith—to make our lives worthwhile and fruitful upon earth. It goes without saying that concepts as interaction, cooperation, competition, compassion, sympathy, and all other human emotions and forms of intercommunication play an important role in humanity. The question of good and evil is central in this idea, the idea of morality; of ethics, and ultimately human nature. Human nature is probably the most significant determinant in how human beings act, but while we know a fair share about our own nature nowadays, its role on an international scale in how we deal with one another—the role of human nature within international relations—is still a limited object of study.
When looking at most of the theories and research topics within the field of
international relations we will mostly encounter answers, reasons, and theories formed
through social science. Cultural and political reasons form the basis for most of the dominant
theories within IR: they explain warfare, economics, and cooperation. Indeed, these
researches contribute significantly to our understanding of international relations, but there is
still much to be explored. This is especially the case with regard to evolutionary biology, as
political scientist Bradley A. Thayer notes: the social sciences have largely ignored the
advances within the life sciences, creating a gap between the two and thus leading to an
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M a s t e r T h e s i sartificially limited social science.
1Of course, scientists have contributed extensively to our understanding of human behavior without the application of evolutionary theory to humans.
Important phenomena such as the causes for warfare and the mechanisms of economics have long been studied, far before Darwin and evolutionary theory, creating a process which makes it hard for many political scientists—as Thayer points out—to see the self-evident value the life sciences might bring to the discussion.
2International relations is subject to this limited social science because it deals substantially with human interactions, a field in which evolutionary biology can contribute significantly to our understanding of IR and its concepts such as warfare, decision making, ethnic conflict, and cooperation. With this thesis I intend to further close the gap between evolutionary biology and social science, to try and enrich the social sciences with the life sciences as much as possible, so that human behavior is understood at many different levels within IR: the genes, the mind, and the social actions.
Using the life sciences does not only complement, and possibly even improve, the social sciences, it is also in no way posing a threat for the theories composed through social science or in any way limiting our understanding of human actions. Using the life sciences will balance the theories of IR. This is an argument made by American biologist Edward O.
Wilson since 1975: synthesizing evolutionary theory and social science is important to explain significant aspects of human behavior.
3A central point in his research is that Wilson identifies aspects of human behavior that are universal through evolution.
4Other notable biologists and political scientists such as Roger D. Masters, Irenäus Eibl-Eibesfeldt, and Steven Pinker have followed this idea and lead the way of bringing the life and social sciences closer together. Masters's idea that the origins of the state lies within evolutionary theory shows the power of evolution within the social sciences.
5Eibl-Eibesfeldt is often credited by being the founder of the specialized field of human ethology, the branch of general ethology that deals with the behavior of human beings. Pinker, although he has written several books that shows the link between the two sciences, makes his most important argument in The Blank Slate in which he argues against the tabula rasa models of the social sciences and
1. Bradley A. Thayer, Darwin and International Relations: On the Evolutionary Origins of War and Ethnic
Conflict, Kentucky: The UP of Kentucky, 2009: 8.2. Ibid.
3. Edward O. Wilson, Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge, New York: Knopf, 1998: 8-14, 197-228.
4. Edward O. Wilson, On Human Nature, Cambridge, Mass: Harvard UP, 1978.
5. Roger D. Masters, "The Biological Nature of the State," World Politics 35, no. 2 (1983): 185-189. This topic
is also central in Gary R. Johnson, "The Evolutionary Origins of Government and Politics," in Albert Somit and
Steven A. Peterson, eds., Research in Biopolitics, Vol. 3, Greenwich, Conn.: JAI Press, 1995: 243-305.
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M a s t e r T h e s i sclaims that human behavior is substantially shaped by evolutionary psychological adaptations.
6At this time, there are only a few studies of international relation issues that use evolutionary theory to improve our understanding of human behavior significantly. These include the theory of war by professor Van der Dennen, the idea of the human brain by professor Pinker and the theory of aggression and selfishness by Bradley Thayer. Despite the efforts of some notable scientists I mentioned above, many social scientists throughout the twentieth century have only studied social events in terms of their social (environmental) causes without looking at the possibility of evolutionary causes. Two main reasons for this approach, according to Thayer, are first, the legacy of the renowned sociologist Émile Durkheim and second, the abuse of the concept of "fitness" and other evolutionary ideas.
7Durkheim is often said to have established the basis for social science to study social events only through social causes. In 1895 he advanced his famous argument that social facts may only be explained by other social facts: "the general characteristics of human nature participate in the work of elaboration from which social life results. But they are not the cause of it, nor do they give it special form; they only make it possible."
8Durkheim continues his argument when he claims that the general characteristics of human nature are the
"indeterminate material that the social factor molds and transforms," whose "contribution consists exclusively in very general attitudes, in vague and consequently plastic predispositions which could not take on the definite and complex forms which characterize social phenomena."
9What this means for social science is that differences between societies, individuals, and humans in general can be best explained through social causes.
The heart of this tabula rasa idea is that all individuals are born essentially the same, as John Locke famously argued, like blank slates waiting to be defined through the effects of social phenomena like culture and the politics of the state. No doubt human beings are born almost exactly the same. Of course, social factors will determine how humans will behave and will have an enormous impact on the life of individuals. There is, however, more to it. It is not the case, as Thayer points out, that "culture rules once humans have passed through infancy, childhood, and adolescence. Here is the flaw in the standard social science model: it does not
6. Steven Pinker, The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature, New York: Viking, 2002.
7. Bradley A. Thayer, Darwin and International Relations: 14-15.
8. Émile Durkheim, The Rules of Sociological Method, trans. by Sarah A. Solovay and John H. Mueller, New York: Free Press, 1938: 105-106.
9. Ibid., 106.
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M a s t e r T h e s i sacknowledge Darwin's Revolution."
10As I already touched upon, Steven Pinker also argues against Locke's tabula rasa model used in the social sciences. What is important for the social science model is that it acknowledges the forces of evolution that are active within human beings and thus human nature. Human behavior is simultaneously affected by the environment (social phenomena) and by the genotype through evolution by natural selection, a construction which needs us to understand both phenomena in order to completely grasp the idea of human behavior.
The second reason why social scientists are reluctant to refer to evolutionary theory in their researches is the abuse of the concept of "fitness" and related evolutionary ideas. Social Darwinists in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries have used a Darwinian wordage to support their own ideologies. This Darwinian rhetoric often provided an aura of scientific certainty for racist immigration, education, ideas of ancestry, and other government policies, especially in the United States of America.
11Probably no scholar will deny the link of social Darwinism and racism throughout the history of the United States, this idea alone is sufficient to make scientists wary to use evolutionary theory in their researches. And as if this is not enough, social Darwinism also contributed to the Nazi policies prior and during the Second World War. Social Darwinism's contribution to the horrendous eugenics policies pursued by the Nazi's, and more importantly its ultimate contribution to the Holocaust itself, was for many social scientists the main reason to discard the use of evolutionary theory on human beings and the social Darwinian ideas became universally condemned.
12The abuse of the concept of social Darwinism had such a negative impact on the whole of Darwinism that many social scientists still feel reluctant to use evolutionary theory on Homo Sapiens.
The suspicion social scientists feel when looking at evolutionary arguments is understandable, but more importantly their suspicion is also appropriate when looking at these historical issues. For obvious reasons, using social Darwinism for one's own prejudiced policies is not to be tolerated. Fortunately, however, the conditions have changed as the knowledge of evolutionary theory has advanced. Again, what is important is that new information and breakthroughs within evolutionary theory are crucial in order to produce a non-prejudiced synthesis to explain human nature: human behavior is determined both by evolutionary forces and social environmental forces. Masters captures this idea perfectly
10. Bradley A. Thayer, Darwin and International Relations: 15.
11. Richard Hofstadter, Social Darwinism in American Thought, Boston: Beacon Press, 1955.
12. Stephen L. Chorover, From Genesis to Genocide: The Meaning of Human Nature and Power of Behavior
Control, Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1979: 77-109.8 |
M a s t e r T h e s i swhen he writes that: "the first requisite for a rigorously scientific approach to human nature is willingness to abandon the belief that answers are either/or: our behavior can be both innate and acquired; both selfish and cooperative; both similar to other species and uniquely human."
13In order to achieve this complete explanation of human nature, it is time for the field of IR to upgrade its set of research tools permanently.
The Central Questions of the Thesis
International relations is subject to this limited social science because it deals substantially with human interactions and therefore human nature. Evolutionary theory might then contribute significantly to our understanding of IR, its theories, and the causes for warfare and cooperation—the two most important concepts of the language of states. This is in essence the topic I want to discuss in my master thesis.
The main question this thesis wants to answer is the following: to what extent can evolutionary theory enhance and contribute to some of the major theories and issues in international relations? To answer this question I will look at several secondary questions:
first, what is evolutionary biology? Second, how can evolutionary theory improve the theories posed by realists in international relations? Third, to what extent is evolutionary theory able to enhance the theories of liberalism within IR? Fourth, to what extent can evolutionary theory help to understand the issue of warfare and ethnic conflict in human evolution and IR? Fifth, how can we explain the ultimate cause of international cooperation and foreign aid through evolutionary theory within international relations?
The fact that I apply evolutionary theory to the theories of realism and liberalism does not mean that other theories cannot benefit from it. It simply means that I am limited in space to discuss all of the major theories of IR. More importantly, realism and liberalism are the most influential theories in the field of IR and portray the most extreme limits of human nature within IR: from the self-centered, egoistic view on humans by realists, to the altruistic, cooperative human behavior portrayed by liberals. Human behavior for other major theories will almost certainly fall in between the two theories I will discuss. This does not mean that any researches on the role of evolutionary biology for other theories will be fruitless, the contrary. I discuss the issues of warfare and cooperation because they are the two most used forms of the "language of states." Both issues depend on social interaction, an act in which
13. Roger D. Masters, The Nature of Politics, New Haven: Yale UP, 1989: 1.
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M a s t e r T h e s i shuman nature plays a central role. By covering warfare and cooperation a great deal of the international relations sphere is covered, and in turn explained through evolutionary theory.
My central hypothesis is that evolutionary theory can contribute significantly to international relations, its theories, and to help understanding the causes of war and cooperation. To gain the benefits of this interdisciplinary approach, I will first need to spread out the fundamental basis to understand evolutionary theory in chapter one. As I stated earlier, the central question of chapter one is the following: what is evolutionary biology? The disciplines of evolutionary biology I discuss to answer this question are: genetics, cognitive neuroscience, human ethology, human ecology, and evolutionary theory. I will briefly explain these concepts and use them to study international relations. Of special importance is evolutionary theory because it forms the intellectual basis for evolutionary biology and also serves as the main intellectual foundation of many of my arguments throughout the paper.
Indeed, Darwin and his idea of natural selection is central within the discipline of evolutionary theory. I will discuss his five theories—evolution, the common descent of life, the gradualness of evolution, the multiplication of species, and natural selection—that form the core of Darwinism in great detail, because they are the theoretical foundation upon which I build my paper.
In order to complete the realm of evolutionary theory, I will also discuss the concept of evolutionary ethics in chapter one. The seemingly selfishness character of the Darwinian paradigm is complemented and counteracted by several principles of altruism. At first it may seem ill-suited that evolution, driven by natural selection, could explain the feeling and compassion human beings possess because it does not directly contribute to our survival or preservation of genes. There are, however, circumstances in which genes ensure their own survival by influencing organisms to behave altruistically.
14The circumstances fall into two main categories: kin altruism and reciprocal altruism. These are the two main pillars of evolutionary ethics and are the basis for two important secondary structures which rests upon them: reputation and conspicuous generosity. These four concepts of altruism form the basis of evolutionary ethics and will conclude the intellectual foundation for my research conducted in the paper.
In the second chapter I will discuss how evolutionary theory could benefit social science by answering the chapter's main question: how can evolutionary theory improve the theories posed by realists in international relations? With this idea in mind, I will apply
14. Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion, London: Transworld Publishers Ltd, 2007: 247.
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M a s t e r T h e s i sevolutionary theory to the main theory used in international relations: Realism. Evolutionary theory might contribute greatly to realism when it is able to explain the ultimate causes of egoism and the strive for power realists of international relations build upon. An ultimate cause of egoism is not likely to counter or deny the proximate causes often mentioned in social sciences, they are perfectly in sync with each other. Secondly, evolutionary theory could provide realists with a scientific basis for their argument.
15The ideas of famous realists such as Niebuhr and Morgenthau are mainly based on noumenal ultimate causes which are based on premises that do not use the senses (egoism and domination grounded in theology as argued by Niebuhr, for example). In this respect I will also look at the moral elements within realism, a topic which is not represented in Thayer‘s work. Evolutionary theory, if applicable, might be a solid concept that could explain why egoism and domination evolved as human traits, an idea which has the power to influence the realist theory of international relations.
Chapter three focuses on the second important instance in which evolutionary theory might benefit social science and is build around the following main question: to what extent is evolutionary theory able to enhance the paradigm of liberalism within IR? Here I will apply evolutionary theory to the theory of liberalism in international relations. To determine how evolutionary theory might contribute to liberalism, I will follow the structure laid out in chapter one: I use evolutionary theory to find an ultimate cause of altruism and morality that are central to the liberal view of international relations. Secondly, just as with realism, evolutionary theory might be able to provide liberals with a new scientific foundation for their argument of human and state behavior. Reputation and reciprocal altruism should be the central elements in this discussion. If evolutionary theory proves to be able to explain why these human traits have evolved and how they are visible within international relations, it will most likely alter the ideas within the theory of liberalism significantly.
Furthermore, it is important in chapter three to search for universal morals that break through geography, culture, and religion. If such common morals are indeed perceptible at the base of human nature, liberals possess over solid evidence concerning their ideas about morality. Following the evolution of ethics, we should be able to find some sort of universal basis that the whole of humankind shares. Universal values are important because they lie at the foundation of human behavior within liberalism and are an important aspect of an evolutionary view of the liberal theory. Probably the best way to discover and reveal shared values and morals is through game theory. In this way, morality is explained as ―universal
15. Bradley A. Thayer, Darwin and International Relations: 12.
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M a s t e r T h e s i sgrammar‖ which, in such a form, might influence international relations from the inside out within the liberal paradigm.
Chapter four discusses the first major issue of international relations and an important part of the language between states: warfare and ethnic conflict. The main idea of chapter four revolves around the question: to what extent can evolutionary theory help to understand the issue of warfare and ethnic conflict in human evolution and IR? Evolutionary theory and human ecology could provide an ultimate basis of why our ancestors fought wars, both for offensive and defensive reasons: acquiring and protecting resources in the egoistic sense, and kinship altruism and reputation in the ethical sense. Wars over resources were centrally important in human evolution and remain so today. Although political, cultural, and economic factors that are emphasized in present scholarship are still of utmost importance in studying war, evolutionary theory is likely to allow a better understanding to comprehend the origins of war and its role in human evolution and behavior. An evolutionary perspective is likely to offer scholars a new and greater scope of grasping the issue of warfare within the domain of international relations.
In chapter five I will look at the second major issue between states in international relations: cooperation between states and foreign aid. While evolutionary theory could be an explanation for warfare, it is fair to ask whether it is also able to explain cooperation between countries and the increase of worldwide development aid. The main question is the following:
how can we explain the ultimate cause of international cooperation and foreign aid through evolutionary theory within international relations? The need for resources is always present in human evolution, so why should states cooperate and risk losing resources? In this chapter I will look at the evolutionary ultimate cause for cooperation and development aid within IR.
Of central importance are the concepts of reputation and conspicuous generosity described in the evolutionary ethics chapter. These two secondary structures of evolutionary theory might give great insight in how and why human beings are willing to share (and lose) resources on a global level, instead of the continuous hunt for them through warfare in order to ensure their survival.
In my conclusion I will shortly go through the answers of all my sub-questions in
order to formulate the answer to the main question posed in this paper: to what extent can
evolutionary theory contribute to some of the major theories and issues in international
relations? I will emphasize again the need to incorporate the great advances in the life
sciences within social sciences so that both may benefit from this fusion. Furthermore, I will
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M a s t e r T h e s i slook at other problems within IR that could benefit from an interdisciplinary approach through
evolutionary biology that I have not touched upon. Finally, I will end with a future note on the
role of evolutionary theory for the field of international relations.
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M a s t e r T h e s i sCHAPTER ONE: ON EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY
"What can be more soul shaking than peering through a 100-inch telescope at a distant galaxy, holding a 100-million-year-old fossil or a 500,000-year-old stone tool in one's hand, standing before the immense chasm of space and time that is the Grand Canyon, or listening to a scientist who gazed upon the face of the universe's creation and did not blink? That is deep and sacred science."
Michael Shermer
Without a doubt, in this exquisite passage Shermer captures the deeper idea behind science perfectly: the thrill for the search of something new, the possibilities that discoveries could actually be soul shaking. There have certainly been discoveries throughout history that were simply unbelievable and astonishingly groundbreaking that people had no other option than to be awed by this new information. Examples which comes to mind are the elliptical orbits of the planets within the galaxy, the laws of motion and universal gravitation, atomic theory, and penicillin to name a few groundbreaking discoveries. Arguably the most soul shaking discovery, however, is Darwin's theory of evolution through natural selection. Philosopher of science Daniel Dennet captures Darwin's idea elegantly: "if I were to give an award for the single best idea anyone has ever had, I'd give it to Darwin, ahead of Newton and Einstein and everyone else" because "in a single stroke, the idea of evolution by natural selection unifies the realm of life, meaning, and purpose with the realms of space and time, cause and effect, mechanism and psychical law."
1In this chapter I will look at Darwin's ideas of evolutionary theory in great detail because it serves as the intellectual foundation of evolutionary biology, as well as of most of my research questions. The central question of this chapter, in order to create a fundamental basis to understand evolutionary theory, is the following: what is evolutionary biology?
To answer this question I will first look at five disciplines of evolutionary biology that are important in my thesis: genetics, cognitive neuroscience, human ethology, human ecology, and evolutionary theory. Especially the field of evolutionary theory is important in my research, because it serves as the main intellectual foundation of the questions I want to answer. Of special importance within evolutionary theory are the ideas of Charles Darwin that
1. Daniel C. Dennet, Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life, New York: Simon and
Schuster, 1995: 21.
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M a s t e r T h e s i sare still considered as the foundation of the theory of evolution. This "Darwinian revolution"—the intellectual shift in common belief after his soul shaking discoveries—will be explained in great detail. Since Darwin's original theory of evolution, modern science greatly improved upon his theory. This advancement is discussed in the next paragraph where I will discuss the modern evolutionary synthesis in which Mendelian genetics complements Darwin's natural selection. While this Darwinian paradigm emphasizes the survival of organisms in a seemingly selfish way, there is another side to evolutionary theory in which genes influence organisms to behave altruistically: the concept of evolutionary ethics. I will discuss this concept, with its four major theories, in detail because it shows the other side of evolution and completes the field of evolutionary theory as a whole. I will end the chapter with a conclusion, in which I will come back to the main question.
Evolutionary Biology and its Disciplines
At its simplest level, evolutionary biology is a sub-field of biology that is concerned with the studies of the origin of species from a common descent and the descent of species, as well as their change, multiplication of species, and their diversity over time. At a deeper understanding, however, evolutionary biology consists of several related disciplines that taken together may be seen as the life sciences. The disciplines I will discuss are genetics, cognitive neuroscience, human ethology, human ecology, and most importantly evolutionary theory.
The ideas and concepts from these disciplines will be used extensively in my research to analyze international relations, its theories, and its major issues.
Genetics, at its core, is the study of inheritance patterns of specific traits, heredity, and the variation within living organisms.
2Although this idea of heredity was already used in prehistoric times—mainly to improve crop plants and domesticated cattle through selective breeding—the modern science of genetics began much later with the work of Gregor Mendel in the mid-nineteenth century. Mendel observed that organisms inherit traits via discrete units of inheritance but lacked the physical basis for heredity to complete the scientific basis for his results.
3These discrete units that contain the inheritance patterns of specific traits are now known as genes. The best way to think of a gene is that it is basically the holder of the information that is needed to build and maintain an organism's cells, and that it is passing
2. William M. Griffiths, Jeffrey H. Miller, David T. Suzuki, et al., eds. "Genetics and the Organism," An
Introduction to Genetic Analysis, New York: W.H. Freeman, 2000.3. Franz Weiling, "Historical Study: Johann Gregor Mendel 1822-1884," American Journal of Medical Genetics
40, no.1 (1991): 1-25.
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M a s t e r T h e s i sgenetic traits to offspring. According to political scientist Bradley Thayer the advancement in genetics have led to three important scientific projects crucial for evolutionary biology: first, the Human Genome Project which mapped all of the genes of the human genome. The mapping of human genes is an important advancement within the discipline of genetics, because it is a significant step in the development of medicines and other aspects of health care and pharmaceuticals. Second, the project of cloning which potentially brings many advancements in battling various terminal diseases in the future. And third, the advancement within the field of human history which will greatly help us to understand how human beings evolved.
4The genetic analysis of human DNA gives us a great insight in the guilt or innocence of criminals, of establishing paternity, and for solving certain historical mysteries.
Indeed, genetic analysis comes close to being the real life version of CSI we know from television.
Cognitive neuroscience is the second discipline of evolutionary biology that I will briefly discuss. Cognitive neuroscience is an academic field that is concerned with the study of complex structure of the human brain. It addresses the questions of how the brain develops, the way it processes information, and how psychological and cognitive functions are produced by the brain. Central in the idea of cognitive neuroscience is the view that specific cognitive functions correspond to specific areas of the brain. Moreover, cognitive neuroscience also helps to define the mind, as one of the leading scholars in the field Steven Pinker argues.
Pinker defines the mind as a "system of organs of computation, designed by natural selection to solve the kinds of problems our ancestors faced in their foraging way of life understanding and outmaneuvering objects, animals, plants, and other people."
5The idea and use of the term natural selection in this definition suggests that the process of human evolution is important in explaining the brain's workings. This means that by studying the brain, scholars can improve our understanding of central human features such as intelligence, imagination, and emotions, which in order leads to a better understanding of social policies, the origins of human culture, and aesthetics, among other issues and behaviors.
Human ethology, as I already touched upon in the introduction, is the branch of general ethology that deals with the behavior of human beings. The application of the principles and arguments of general ethology to the human being helps to search for the physiological causes of universal human behaviors. One such behavior, as is revealed by the
4. Bradley A. Thayer, Darwin and International Relations: 3.
5. Steven Pinker, How the Mind Works, New York: Norton, 1997: 21.
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M a s t e r T h e s i sclassic work of Eibl-Eibesfeldt, is the need for human beings to identify with a community.
6It goes without saying that such issues are important to fully understand how humans behave within groups, states, and within societies in general. If certain behaviors are universal traits, advancements within the specialized branch of human ethology can be extremely useful in explaining state policies and its effects. Comparative cultural analysis will be far more thorough and will help us to understand behavioral issues much better.
The discipline of human ecology, or behavioral ecology, is sometimes seen as a sub- category of human ethology. Whereas ethology is the study of animal behavior, ecology is the study of the relationship between organisms and their environment. Human ecology—as the name already suggests—studies the relationships between human beings and their natural and social environment. The most fundamental concept of human ecology is interaction. The interaction between humans and their environment is the basis for analysis within human ecology. This interaction is crucial in understanding human behavior according to Thayer:
"the scarcity of resources in the environments in which humans evolved significantly shaped [our] behavior."
7By studying this connection we are able to understand the role of the environment within the concept of warfare, cooperation, and ultimately international relations.
Finally, the most important discipline of evolutionary biology: evolutionary theory.
Evolutionary theory serves as the intellectual foundation of evolutionary biology, it acts as a union of specialized biological ideas that provide a widely accepted account of evolution.
When stating that Darwin's theory of evolution is one of the most important discoveries ever made, it is fair to say that this statement is not exaggerated. Despite all the new major advances within the field of evolutionary theory, all the criticism and praise, all the additions to Darwin's theory, he still remains the preeminent theorist of evolution. It is not surprisingly when the distinguished biologist Ernst Mayr argues that the theory of natural selection as developed by Darwin is the most revolutionary theory in history because of the ideas it refuted, as well as those that it advanced.
According to Mayr, Darwin dispatched three important ideas with his theory of evolution that would radically change the ideas of how we look at ourselves
8: the first and most important dispatched idea, Mayr argues, is the idea of creation. The belief that the diversity of life on earth was the result of divine creation is rejected by Darwin when he states
6. Irenäus Eibl-Eibesfeldt, Human Ethology, New York: Aldine de Gruyter, 1989: 618-629.
7. Bradley A. Thayer, Darwin and International Relations: 6.
8. Ernst Mayr, Toward A New Philosophy of Biology: Observations of an Evolutionist, Cambridge, Mass.:
Harvard UP, 1988: 193.
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M a s t e r T h e s i sthat diversity is the result of the process of natural selection. The second long standing idea that Darwin defeated, according to Mayr, is Lord Kelvin's argument that life on earth was relatively new. By successfully estimating life on earth to be at least several thousand million years old, Lord Kelvin's idea lacked the scientific basis to sustain his arguments. Finally, as Mayr argues, Darwin overcame anthropocentrism by showing that humans are not a separate creation but rather the product of a common evolutionary process.
The most important idea Darwin advanced with his theory of evolution was the seminal idea of evolution by natural selection. For Mayr this idea is centrally important because Darwin primarily uses this process to explain the origins of life and human evolution.
9Within a broader context evolutionary theory at its core explains why—and maybe even more important how—life changes over time. It explains, as Bradley Thayer describes, the "great diversity of life that now exists on this planet and all that has lived in the past, from single-celled organisms and trilobites to dinosaurs and primates."
10Indeed, Darwin's evolutionary theory is the most important facet within evolutionary theory. His ideas are among the most important, if not most innovative, in human history. To completely understand the importance of evolutionary biology and its use for the theories and issues within international relations—Darwin's ideas are the theoretical foundation upon which my paper builds—a thorough discussion of Darwin's thought is needed.
Darwin's Revolution, a Theoretical Foundation
Modern evolutionary theory begins with the ideas Charles Darwin proposed in his classic On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life published in 1859. Together with his other writings, Darwin proposed several theories that form the core of Darwinism. Until now, I continually referred to the evolutionary theory as proclaimed by Darwin—and I will continue to do so throughout my thesis for reasons of simplicity. This simplification, however, is not entirely correct because the Darwin paradigm actually consists of a total of five theories: evolution, the common descent of life, the gradualness of evolution, the multiplication of species, and natural selection.
11Table 1.1 summarizes Darwin's ideas that together form the core of Darwinism.
9. Ibid., 194.
10. Bradley A. Thayer, Darwin and International Relations: 22.
11. Ernst Mayr, The Growth of Biological Thought: Diversity, Evolution, and Inheritance, Cambridge, Mass.:
Belknap Press of Harvard UP, 1982: 505-510.
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M a s t e r T h e s i sFurthermore, I will discuss each theory in turn to continue the theoretical foundation needed for the arguments in my paper.
Table 1.1. Darwinism
The Core Idea of Darwinism Mid-Nineteenth-Century Intellectual Thought 1. Evolution: The world is neither constant
nor perpetually cycling, and organisms are transformed steadily over time. Mayr describes this as the first Darwinian Revolution.
2. Common Descent: Every group of organisms descends from an ancestral species.
3. Gradualism: Evolution proceeds relatively slowly, gradually rather than in jumps.
4. Multiplication of Species: Great diversity of life expected at present and in the past.
5. Natural Selection: The mechanism of evolutionary change. Heritable modifications that assist its ability to survive and reproduce are passed to subsequent generations. Mayr terms this the second Darwinian Revolution.
1. Belief that the world is constant, ordered, and young.
2. Belief in the essentially unchanging nature of species perfectly adapted for the
environment.
3. Belief in no change or change by saltations, Lamarckism, or orthogenesis.
4. Belief that only the known extant species have ever existed. Fossil evidence is proof of the Great Flood.
5. Once Darwin's idea was advanced in 1859, it met great popular and academic resistance.
Quoted from: Bradley A. Thayer, Darwin and International Relations: 23.
Sources: Ernst Mayr, The Growth of Biological Thought: Diversity, Evolution, and Inheritance, Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard UP, 1982: 426-525; Ernst Mayr, Toward a New Philosophy of Biology:
Observations of an Evolutionist, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard UP, 1988: 198-212; and Ernst Mayr, One Long Argument: Charles Darwin and the Genesis of Modern Evolutionary Thought, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard UP,