Sonntag, 10. Dezember 2023

Humans as Altruistic Animals:

“Do you believe humans are kind and altruistic animals and why/why not?”

Steve Stewart-Williams: "We are and we’re not. It’s a little like asking if H2O is a liquid. It is in certain circumstances, but not in others; sometimes it’s a solid or a gas."

"Humans come factory equipped with the brain areas involved in caring and empathizing, and with the brain areas involved in hatred and aggression. But these brain areas – these evolved propensities – are activated by environmental circumstances. They have to be; the only alternative would be that they’re activated permanently or at random, neither of which would very useful. Instead, we have an evolved tendency to react to the environment in ways that were typically adaptive for our ancestors."

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