Caveman Logic: The Persistence of Primitive Thinking in a Modern World (29 page)

While certain forms of discrimination may come easily to us, they are not necessarily good things and, with a little work and social support, they can be eradicated. Two points are worth making: speciesism is still alive, well, and quite prevalent among us, and that may not be an entirely good thing; in addition, speciesism is probably one more instance of Caveman Logic. It certainly appears to be the default setting for our minds. If we are motivated, we can get beyond it. But it will take work as well as social support. Without both, we will simply default to our Pleistocene settings.

This is not a polemic against speciesism. But I think we can use speciesist attitudes as a way to understand Pleistocene thinking in general. To do that, it is useful to share a speciesist moment. We can experience what an evolutionary predisposition feels like in terms of emotions and cognitions. First, we should replace those fancy academic words with plainer terms. Instead of “cognitions and emotions,” let’s talk about “thoughts and feelings.” Instead of “evolutionary predispositions,” think in terms of what comes naturally to you. In fact, think about what comes so naturally that you cannot imagine it being any other way. This is certainly what happens in other forms of Caveman Logic: alternative thoughts or beliefs do not even seem to be options until they are explicitly called to our attention.

In a shopping mall not far from my home, I found a store called something like “Nature’s Ways.” It was a welcome respite from the endless array of clothing stores geared to teenagers. And so I went in.

I found a wall full of third world products like wooden masks, animal carvings, and primitive-looking pottery. Most were imported en masse for distribution and sales in North American outlets to people like me. Among the animal art, I found pieces of plastic in which actual insects had been encased. They were called “Bug Art.” Most of them contained small specimens, including many varieties of beetles. But some did not. The plastic cases contained scorpions and spiders and were as large as 6 by 6 inches. What does it mean to find a tarantula encased in a 6-by-6-inch piece of plastic? I observed shoppers as they encountered these items. Many reacted in revulsion to the sight. Some (usually young males) picked up the display item—carefully, I might add—and teased their companions (usually young females), who reacted with varying degrees of horror and glee. I discussed the items with the sales staff and was told that they made “unusual and challenging gifts.” None was purchased in the time I observed, but from the quantity on hand, I would assume they are a successful item.

Arachnophobia is widespread in the population. It may actually be the most common phobia and is generally held to be a vestige of our evolutionary heritage. As with any trait in the human genome, you will find a normal distribution of expression. Some people are utterly blasé about the creepy crawly things that terrorized our ancestors; others are absolutely phobic with a response that borders on panic. Certainly, I could induce a healthy demonstration of arachnophobia by projecting an image of one of those encased tarantulas onto the large screen in the lecture hall where I teach Introductory Psychology to six hundred undergraduates. But I don’t want to buy the item. The truth is, I don’t want to support the cottage industry in trapping these creatures that has sprung up in the third world.

Like many or most persons, I react with some revulsion to the sight of a large and hairy spider, even when it is encased in plastic. I don’t enjoy finding the occasional wolf spider loose in my home in the woods. When swimming or boating in the lakes of northern Ontario, I don’t enjoy sudden meetings with what we call “dock spiders.” But—and this is an important “but”—I have worked very hard to get past my first line of response to these creatures, which is to shudder or squish them. I have to consciously take a deep breath, count to ten, and force myself to stay in their vicinity. When I find spiders, large or small, I make a point of capturing them alive (a large-mouthed glass placed over them quickly and a sheet of cardboard slipped under them will usually work) and transporting them back to the great outdoors.

It takes work, but I have overcome my “natural” emotional response with one that is more reasoned. I believe this is a good thing for any number of reasons, but this is not about morality. The most important point here is simply that it is possible to transcend Pleistocene default settings, even on something as emotional as encountering an unexpected and large creature in one’s home. The revulsion toward a large spider or scorpion is not unlike many of the other examples of Pleistocene logic we have discussed in this book. If you give into those Pleistocene default settings, you will find all kinds of social support for your beliefs and actions.

Let’s return to the concept of speciesism. Imagine, for a moment, that the store in question also sold small mammals encased in plastic. Imagine looking down at a 6-by-6-inch piece of plastic and finding a mouse or a baby squirrel looking out at you. What might your reaction be? Note that the store does sell rodent art, but it consists of ceramic replicas or wood carvings. Why is it not OK to encase a squirrel in plastic and sell it? The answer lies in speciesism, which, in turn, stems from deep inside our evolutionary predispositions. Once you avoid the revulsion, the whole business (literally) of encasing animals in plastic raises new questions. For example, how were these spiders killed? Just how were they transferred into that solid block of plastic? Are they gassed and encased while still alive? That seems a hell of a way to die. Why is it OK for tarantulas but not squirrels or chipmunks?

Despite my occasional save-the-spider missions, I am still a speciesist. I may live-trap mice and (less frequently) bats, but I also swat mosquitoes and black flies with impunity. My rationale is simple: mosquitoes and black flies are actually trying to dine on my blood. Moreover, these bites bring discomfort and the potential for disease. Tarantulas (which are not native to southern Ontario) and wolf spiders (which are) are not actively pursuing me as a food source. So, armed with this rationale, I save some and swat others. By definition, then, I am still a speciesist, although my boundaries may be different from yours. The important thing is that I have taken control of the process and moved those boundaries in a direction that suits my own value system. The impulse to flee or squish may have served my ancestors well, but, like much of what served them, it is something I do not need in my life.

Because our minds evolved here on Earth, they reflect all the physical and psychological realities of human life on this planet. Both your perceptions and your behavior are earthbound. If and when we have to make accommodations to understand or interact with extraterrestrials, it will require both knowledge and effort.

None of that stops us from creating fantasies about extraterrestrials. Of course, they are extraterrestrials who have been invented by human minds. With all the science fiction that has been created in the past century, why has none of it dealt with truly alien creatures with nonhuman consciousness? The answer is quite simple: It would bore the socks off us. Science fiction as we know it is written for local consumption. Sir Arthur Eddington, an early twentieth-century physicist, wrote, “Not only is the universe stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we
can
imagine.”
⁴
The essential elements of successful science fiction must be recognizably human, even if the events occur on alien worlds and the protagonists have green skin and two heads. Think of this as the
Star Trek
syndrome. Gene Roddenberry, who created the iconic science fiction series, often professed to be writing westerns set in outer space. The behavior of aliens encountered by Captain Kirk or Captain Picard is rooted in what we know about life on Earth. It is doubtful that a science fiction writer could think outside the assumptions of the human mind to write truly alien stories. Adventures about Martians had better be written by earthlings if they are to succeed on this planet.

When I was a counselor in summer camp, my ten-year-old campers used to ask me to tell them a story before they went to sleep. What they really wanted was for me to make something up. If I had pulled out a collection of works by Charles Dickens or Mark Twain, it just wouldn’t have been the same. On most nights I could create some kind of tale, often continued from night to night, about a detective or baseball player or space traveler, and they would listen with droopy-eyed pleasure until we hit the “To Be Continued” point. It turns out, I was pretty good at it. I never knew where the material was coming from, but there seemed to be an ample supply of it. The stories made sense. There were heroes and bad guys. There was justice and unfairness. There were conflicts and resolutions. When the story took a turn for the boring or incoherent, I knew it as quickly as they did. Putting the events into evolutionary terms, there was selection pressure on what I did. Because I shared some very important cognitive architecture with these ten-year-old kids, it was natural for me to keep the stories on target without laboring to do so.

If Camp Ferosdel had employed an actual Martian counselor, it’s a safe bet that his or her (or its) stories about Mars would have left something to be desired. Assuming hypothetical Martians are very different creatures from us, their stories would probably not have entertained the campers; much of it might have been imponderable to a human consciousness. For example, humans do their everyday counting in what is called “base 10.” (We use ten digits between 0 and 9.) We also happen to have ten fingers, which is probably more than a coincidence. If Martians turn out to have two arms, each containing three fingers, their counting system may be built on base 6. That’s the least of the differences we might find, and it alone might pose some interesting communication problems. If you want to hear stories about life on Mars, it’s a much better plan to get someone on Earth to make them up. They may not be accurate, but they sure will be satisfying.

Think about these things when you examine the deities who populate the world’s religions.

There is no shortage of creation myths. Virtually every culture and religion has one. They approach a common question (Where do we come from?) and, as any anthropologist will tell you, they provide a dazzling array of answers. If one of these myths is correct, which I doubt, then all the rest (which provide conflicting details) must be wrong.

But even if creation myths provide social cohesion and the illusion of understanding one of life’s mysteries, it is quite telling that they all get it wrong. You’d think some portion of human groups would stumble on an accurate answer, but they do not. Almost every human mind on the planet has, individually or collectively, addressed a common question and come up with the wrong answer. That is quite an indictment of this piece of evolved software with which we process information. There is so much that our minds do well, yet in certain domains we find it difficult to rise above our Pleistocene default settings. This is not to say that questions about origins or starting points can never be answered. Of course, they can. We can ask, “Who was the first president of the United States?” and expect an uncontroversial answer.

But when the topic shifts from the first president to the first human, or at least to the origin of humans, the results become controversial. Is it simply because opposing belief systems—in this case, religion versus science—are involved? Would the “first president” question be equally controversial if religion and American history each had a strong stake in the issue? This seems unlikely. Instead, the problem seems to lie in the
kinds
of accounts offered by science, in this case, versus religion and how well those accounts fit within our minds.

Consider what science has to offer: evolution, the fossil record, and anthropology. The simple truth is that none of these offers a particularly good story. Compared to the average creation myth, they’re downright unmemorable. Even if one culture or generation were to get it right, these are not the sort of stories that transfer well between listeners. Pascal Boyer, Daniel Sperber, and Susan Blackmore have convincingly shown that certain types of stories contain elements that are well remembered and transmitted between individuals and generations.
⁵
Our minds are not unbiased receivers and transmitters of information. They are highly selective in what they are likely to understand and repeat. All variations—or, to use Richard Dawkins’s term, all
memes
—are not created equal. They do not stand an equal chance of retention and transmission. The parallels between memetic and genetic evolution are striking. Just as some phenotypes will thrive and spread throughout the species, so too will certain ideas, stories, or myths be highly successful in the telling and remembering.

All the creation myths out there today are already evolutionary winners. Like a child’s game of “telephone,” they have all been shaped into a form that is most likely to be transmitted and retained. Although evolution is difficult to imagine because we can rarely see the losers, there were many alternate myths that did not have what it took to move from person to person and pass through succeeding generations with a minimum of change. Like unsuccessful physical mutations, most of them are no longer available for examination. They were “selected out.”

Creation myths have a decided advantage over genetic mutations. The latter are simply copying errors in an organism’s DNA and there is no guarantee that they will confer any selective advantage on the individual. In fact, most of them will not. However, myths are quite another story, so to speak. They are not drawn from a random array of possibilities. On the contrary, they hold a very strong advantage. Myths and stories were all created by human minds. That guarantees that some filtering has already taken place. Just as the human mind is only capable of grasping and transmitting certain kinds of information, so too is it limited in what it can invent. There is a strong likelihood that this creativity will lie squarely within the range of what the mind can comprehend.