Wesleyan University

A Brief History of Evolution

Author(s): Albert F. H. Naccache
Source: History and Theory, Vol. 38, No. 4, Theme Issue 38: The Return of Science:
Evolutionary Ideas and History (Dec., 1999), pp. 10-32
Published by: Blackwell Publishing for Wesleyan University
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2678056
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 A BRIEF HISTORYOF EVOLUTION'

ALBERTF. H. NACCACHE

ABSTRACT

I present in this paper a non-reductionistframeworkof eight nested modes of evolution

that have successively emerged to organize the reproductionof all organisms,from the
blue-greenalgae to our societies. The processes of biological, "Darwinian"evolution are
those of drift duringreproduction,and of selection. The key unit of evolutionarytime is
the generation,and its locus is the organisms'life-cycle setup. Different life-cycle setups
supportdifferentmechanismsof reproduction,and thereforedifferentmodes of evolution.
By tracingthe differentlife-cycle setups attestedthroughoutlife's history,we can charac-
terize the successive modes of evolution with which they are associatedas follows: basic;
reptilian; archaic mammalian;progressive mammalian;sociocultural;extrasomatically
enhanced sociocultural;tinkering;and finally parabiological.These successively emerg-
ing modes govern a progressivelyreducednumberof life-forms. The firstfour modes are
"Darwinian"in the strict sense. The fifth, or socioculturalmode, which governs whales
and elephants'societies in additionto hominoids, is alreadynot "Darwinian"in the tradi-
tional sense. The last three modes have emerged with the genus homo, throughthe pro-
gressive extension of its life-cycle setups. The present frameworkis to be used heuristi-
cally, as a prism with which to separatethe evolutionaryspectrumof the constituentele-
ments of humanbehavior.An example of such a behavioralevolutionaryspectrumis pre-
sented in conclusion, and used to comparethe presentframeworkwith those recentlypro-
posed by MaynardSmith and Szathmdryand by Foley.

Those who invoke and heed today's scientific worldview consider that human
history is an indivisible part of the natural history of the world. They therefore
must grant that human history cannot be divorced from life's organizing princi-
ple, evolution. This conclusion is not controversial for most of the human his-
torical trajectory, and no one doubts that homo sapiens' origins are rooted in the
long interplay of "Darwinian," biological evolutionary forces. However, most
historians and social scientists believe that these same forces cannot account for
the last few millennia of dazzling human cultures and social organization.
Moreover, many today, including historians, consider that contemporary condi-
tions are so unprecedented that most of human history, all the premodern human
past, is irrelevant to the understanding of our present predicament. Coming on

1. I dedicatethis paperto ProfessorSuhaylJ. Jabbour,MD, PhD, in gratefulrecognitionof the sim-

plicity with which he agreed, years ago, to teach neurophysiologyto a frustratedyoung sociologist,
and for the graciousnesswith which, during the last decade, he sharedwith me the privileges of his
AmericanUniversity of Beirut librarycard.
 A BRIEF HISTORYOF EVOLUTION 11

the heels of the long period duringwhich humanhistory luxuriatedin its splen-
did isolation, these considerations have reinforced the belief in a deep and
unbridgeablechasm between history and evolution.2
This perceptionis incompatiblewith the contemporary"vision of a grandcon-
tinuity extending across all levels of reality from the physico-chemical systems
to the biosphereand to human societies and our symbols,"3and, furthermore,it
discourageshistoriansfrom contributingto the unravelingof the complex ways
historyemergedfrom biology.4
Awed and humbledby the daily wonders of this collective unweaving of the
rainbow,I presenthere a "prism"throughwhich to look at the nesting of human
history within the naturalhistory of the world. This metaphoricalprism consists
of a frameworkof eight hierarchicallynested modes of evolution that have gov-
erned the evolution of our lineage from the primeval cyanobacteriato present-
day humansocieties. The purposeof this frameworkis to help in separatingthe
evolutionaryspectrumof the constituentelements of human behavior.A brief
review of the history of the nature/nurture question introducesthis presentation,
which is concluded by an example of the analytic power of the framework,fol-
lowed by a brief comparisonwith recent similarlyoverarchingframeworks.

It has long been realizedthat we partakeof two realms, and that thereare behav-
iors we do not share with other animals. This was alreadyclearly expressed in
the account of how "steppe-raised"Enkiduwas broughtinto the folds of human
civilization,5and was encapsulatedin Aristotle'sdefinitionof "manas a political
animal."
By the end of the eighteenthcentury,the nature/nurturedichotomy had start-
ed to be perceived in a dynamic, voluntaristway. Rousseau had presented"the
classic form of the argumentthat the study of humansociety must find its basis
in a portraitof human nature,and specifically in a distinctionbetween what is
originaland fundamentalin man and what is artificialand acquired,"6and James
Burnet(Lord Monboddo)had writtenthat man makes himself, and that there is
no difference between man and brutes "except what culture and education
makes."7 By the early nineteenth century, belief in evolution and cultural
progresshad become widespreadin Europeanintellectualcircles. This belief was
further legitimized by Lyell's evolutionary views, which were based on the
method of scientific inquiry, and in which Earth's geology was understoodas

2. History and Evolution, ed. M. H. Nitecki and D. V. Nitecki (Albany, 1992); A. L. Kroeber,
"Evolution,History, and Culture, " in Evolution after Darwin: The Evolution of Man, ed. S. Tax
(Chicago, 1960), 1-15.
3. W. H. McNeill, "Historyand the Scientific Worldview,"History and Theory37 (1998), 1-13.
4. M. Polanyi, The Studyof Man (Chicago, 1958).
5. Old-Babylonian"Epicof Gilgamesh"(eighteenth-centuryBC).
6. K. Bock, HumanNatureand History:A Response to Sociobiology (New York, 1980), 17.
7. Ibid., 20.
 12 ALBERTF. H. NACCACHE

producedby processes acting throughlong periods of time. It is in this context

that Darwin and Wallaceproposedthe theory of naturalselection as an explana-
tion for the origin of species.
In The Descent of Man, Darwinhad alreadyintroducedcausal principlesspe-
cific to human evolution, but it was HerbertSpencer, who had "introducedthe
term 'evolution'in its presentsense,"8who firstrecognizedthe existence of a dis-
tinct "super-organic(social) evolution." Spencer wrote that social evolution
"musthave come by insensible steps out of the organic . .. (and that) we may
convenientlymark... (it) off as includingall those processes andproductswhich
imply the co-ordinatedactions of many individuals."9
Spencer was an influentialproponentof explanatoryframeworksof societal
change, and "Spencerian"ideas prevailed in anthropologyand spilled over to
history,while the existence of a "superorganic"kind of evolution became gener-
ally acknowledgedin the social sciences.'0This situationlasted until the second
half of the twentieth century, when "Spencerian"ideas were recognized as
Lamarckian and rather teleological in nature, and when the excesses of
"Spencerian"social evolutionism led to its passing away."I
These ideas were dismissed, however, without being subjected to critical
reevaluation.Most social scientists, from traditionalisthistorianswho still adopt
a common-sense, ordinary-lifeontology of action, to "world-system"practition-
ers who do not shun the "e-word"and specifically addressthe issue of the mech-
anisms of social and historicalchange,'2 do not connect theiranalyses to the bio-
logical realm. The consensus today seems to be "thatcultural evolution is no
longer 'checked'for survivalrelevancein the strictlyDarwiniansense, [andthat]
naturalselection cannot be invoked to explain culturalevolution."'13
Meanwhile, evolutionarybiologists had rejectedthe "Spencerian"ideas early
in the twentiethcenturyand ignored the issue of "superorganicevolution"until
the 1970s. At that time they reappliedbiological models to explain human soci-
eties, their many schools'4 undeterredeither by the above-mentioned social-

8. On the EvolutionaryUniquenessof Man, ed. T. Dobzhansky(New York, 1972), 428.

9. H. Spencer,Principles of Sociology (London, 1885), 4.
10. V. G. Childe, Man Makes Himself, 3rd ed. (London, 1956); A. L. Kroeber,The Nature of
Culture (Chicago, 1952); B. G. Trigger, "Archaeology and Epistemology: Dialoguing across the
DarwinianChasm,"AmericanJournal ofArchaeology 102 (1998), 1-34; J. L. Boone and E. A. Smith,
"Is it EvolutionYet?"CurrentAnthropology39, supplement(1998), 141-173.
11. T. B. Bottomore,Sociology: A Guide to Problemsand Literature(New York, 1971), 53.
12. C. Chase-Dunnand T. D. Hall, Rise and Demise: ComparingWorld-Systems(Boulder, 1997).
13. P. A. Corning, "Politics and the Evolutionary Process," in Evolutionary Biology, ed. T.
Dobzhanskyet al. (New York, 1974), 276.
14. R. Boyd and P. J. Richerson,Cultureand the EvolutionaryProcess (Chicago, 1985); Boyd and
Richerson,"WhyCultureis Common,butCulturalEvolutionis Rare,"in Evolutionof Social Behaviour
Patterns in Primatesand Man, ed. W. G. Runcimanet al. (Oxford, 1996), 77-93; J. N. Davis and M.
Daly, "EvolutionaryTheoryand the HumanFamily,"QuarterlyReviewof Biology 72 (1997), 407-436;
W. H. Durham,"Advancesin EvolutionaryCultureTheory,"AnnualReviewofAnthropology19 (1990),
187-210; S. T. Emlen, "An EvolutionaryTheoryof the Family,"Proceedingsof the NationalAcademy
of Sciences USA92, no. 18 (1995); J. Horgan,"TheNew Social Darwinists,"ScientificAmerican273
(1995), 150-157; C. J. Lumsden and E. 0. Wilson, Genes, Mind and Culture:The Coevolutionary
Process (Cambridge,Mass., 1981); E. 0. Wilson, "Epigenesisand the Evolution of Social Systems,"
 A BRIEF HISTORYOF EVOLUTION 13

science consensus, or by specific warnings,'5from considering that the mecha-

nisms of biological evolution-random mutationand selection-are enough to
accountfor culturalevolution.
Recently, interdisciplinaryapproachesto the study of humanorigins,'6and to
the development of intelligence and/or languages have mushroomed.Yet, the
evolutionaryforces specifically responsible for humankind'sorigin and destiny
are still shroudedin confusion:
1. They lack a recognized name, being variously referredto as superorganic,
superorganicsocial, cultural,sociocultural,noetic, psychosocial,exogenetic, exo-
somatic,or metabiological.
2. The estimatesabouttheironset time, which traditionallyclusteredaroundtwo
million years ago),'8now rangefrom five million'9to thirtythousandyears ago.20

Journal of Heredity72 (1981), 70-77. The analogy drawnbetween biological and culturalevolution
is particularlyclear in C. F. Swanson, Ever-ExpandingHorizons: The Dual InformationalSources of
HumanEvolution(Amherst,Mass., 1983).
15. F. Jacob, "Evolutionand Tinkering,"Science 196 (1977), 1161-1166.
16. R. Foley, "Causes and Consequences in Human Evolution," Journal of the Royal Anthro-
pological Institute(n.s.) 1 (1995), 67-86; D. Pilbeam,"MajorTrendsin HumanEvolution,"in Current
Argumenton Early Man (Oxford, 1980).
17. Among many: L. C. Aiello, "Terrestriality,Bipedalism and the Origin of Language,"in
Runciman,ed., Evolutionof Social BehaviourPatterns;Aiello, "TheFoundationsof HumanLanguage,"
in The Origin and Diversificationof Language,ed. N. G. Jablonskiand L. C. Aiello (San Francisco,
1998);L. C. Aiello andR. I. M. Dunbar,"NeocortexSize, GroupSize, and the Evolutionof Language,"
CurrentAnthropology34 (1993), 184-193; D. Bickerton,Language & Species (Chicago, 1990); R.
Burling,"PrimateCalls, HumanLanguage,and NonverbalCommunication,"CurrentAnthropology 34
(1993), 25-53; M. Chazan,"TheLanguageHypothesisfor the Middle-to-UpperPaleolithicTransition:
An ExaminationBased on a MultiregionalLithicAnalysis,"CurrentAnthropology36 (1995), 749-766;
D. L. Cheney and R. M. Seyfarth,"Functionand Intentionin the Calls of Non-HumanPrimates,"in
Runciman,ed., Evolutionof Social BehaviourPatterns,59-76; N. Chomsky,"Languageand Nature,"
Mind 104 (1995), 1-61; T. W. Deacon, The SymbolicSpecies: The Co-evolutionof Languageand the
Brain (New York, 1997); K. R. Gibson, "ToolUse, Languageand Social Behaviourin Relationshipto
InformationProcessingCapacities,"in Tools,Languageand Cognitionin HumanEvolution,ed. K. R.
Gibson and T. Ingold (Cambridge,Eng., 1993), 251-269; D. F. Jonas and A. D. Jonas, "Gender
Differencesin MentalFunction:A Clue to the Originof Language,"CurientAnthropology16 (1975),
626-630; J. L. Locke, "Why Do InfantsBegin to Talk? Languageas an UnintendedConsequence,"
Journal of Child Language 23 (1996), 251-268; P. Marler,"Animal Communicationand Human
Language,"in Jablonski and Aiello, ed., Origin and Diversification, 1-19; M. Maxwell, Human
Evolution:A PhilosophicalAnthropology(New York, 1984); R. G. Milo and D. Quiatt,"Glottogenesis
andAnatomicallyModem Homo Sapiens:The Evidence for andImplicationsof a Late Originof Vocal
Language,"CurrentAnthropology34 (1993), 569-598; S. Mithen, The Prehistoryof the Mind: The
CognitiveOriginsofArt, Religionand Science (London,1996); S. Pinker,TheLanguageInstinct(New
York, 1994); M. S. Seidenberg,"LanguageAcquisitionand Use: Learningand Applying Probabilistic
Constraints,"Science 275 (1997), 1599-1603; I. Tattersall,Becoming Human:Evolutionand Human
Uniqueness(New York, 1998); I. Stewart and J. Cohen, Figments of Reality: The Evolution of the
CuriousMind (Cambridge,Eng., 1997);W. H. Thorpe,Biology and the Natureof Man (London,1962).
18. Dobzhansky,ed., On the EvolutionaryUniquenessof Man; T. N. Timbergen,"Ethology in a
Changing World,"in Growing Points in Ethology, 507-527, ed. P. P. G. Bateson and R. A. Hinde
(Cambridge,Eng., 1976).
19. K. R. Gibson, "The Ontogeny and Evolution of the Brain, Cognition, and Language," in
Handbookof HumanSymbolicEvolution,ed. A. Lock and C. R. Peters (Oxford, 1996).
20. W. Noble and I. Davidson, Human Evolution, Language and Mind: A Psychological and
ArchaeologicalInquiry(Cambridge,Eng., 1996).
14 ALBERTF. H. NACCACHE

3. Even theirnumberis still in doubt,some proposalsdistinguishingtwo phas-

es or levels,2' while one distinguishesthree phases, two within "metabiological
(cultural)evolution"-corresponding to the emergence of the human mind and
of the humancultures-and a third,called "teleobiological,"resultingfrom the
emergence of "globalvalues."22
This is my excuse for the boldness of the present attempt, which required
roaming over the "grand,evolving story featuring spontaneous emergence of
complexity that generates new sorts of behavior at every level of organization
from the minutestquarksand leptons. .. to the symbolic universes of meaning
within which humanbeings live and labor,"23looking for patternsthroughwhich
present-dayhuman culturalevolution might have evolved from biological evo-
lution.

II

Duringthe firstone-ten-thousandthof a second afterthe universestartedexpand-

ing from its original singularity,matterexisted only as subatomichadrons,and
its evolution was governedby the force of stronginteraction.Duringthe next ten
seconds, the electronsand otherleptons appeared,and the force of weak interac-
tion took over as the governing factor in the behavior and reaction of the uni-
verse. Then, radiationgoverned for roughly one million years, till the hydrogen
atoms formedand the cooling universeenteredits fourthand still ongoing Stellar
Age, in which gravity presides over the cosmic carousel of stars and galaxies.
Seven to eight billion years into the Stellar Age, a succession of stellar life
cycles had seeded a local interstellarcloud in the peripheryof the Milky Way
galaxy with all the elements, from helium to uranium.This cloud was dense
enough to startcontractingunderits own gravity.The nascent solar system went
throughdistinct phases of varying rates until, some 4.55 billion years ago, the
rocky innerplanets-Venus, Earth,and Mars-had formed. Initially,these three
dense-coredsisterplanetshad very similaratmospheres,and on theircooling sur-
faces watercondensedto form oceans and glacial deposits. However,Venus was
close enough to the Sun for a runawaygreenhouseeffect to vaporize all its sur-
face water,and Marswas both far enough from the Sun for all its waterto freeze,
and of a mass too small to retainmuch of an atmosphere.Of the threesister plan-
ets, only Earthcould retainits oceans. The marginwas slim. Had Earthformed
5% closer to the Sun it would have suffered Venus's fate. Had its orbit been
pushed 1%fartheraway, runawayglaciation would have set on its surface, as it
did on Mars.
This cursory look at the first two-thirds of the history of the world should
remindus that even the physical mechanismsof change have a history,and that
they are contingentand condition-bound.
21. T. Dobzhanskyet al., Evolution(San Francisco, 1977); D. C. Johanson,"TheHumanCareer,"
Humanist(1983), 22-24; P. Teilhardde Chardin,Laplace de l'hommedans la nature(Paris, 1956); J.
C. Eccles, Evolutionof the Brain: Creationof the Self (London, 1989), 220.
22. J. Salk, TheAnatomyof Reality (New York, 1985).
23. McNeill, History and the Scientific Worldview,13.
 A BRIEF HISTORYOF EVOLUTION 15

As it happened,four billion years ago Earthhad weatheredthe major aster-

oids' impacts, and its oceans were being seeded by organic molecules from the
protoplanetarydust and energizedby lightningand by solar ultravioletradiation.
Underthese conditions,the evolution of molecules on Earth'scrust startedbeing
dominatedby the processes of organicchemistry.The story of the emergenceof
various macromolecules,from which eventually developed the first autocatalyt-
ic, self-replicating,and self-assembling macromoleculeable to reproduceitself
faster than it would naturallydegrade in an aqueous environment,is progres-
sively being uncovered.In synergy with lipid membranes,and catalyzed by the
environment,one such macromoleculeentered the bootstrappingpath of near-
perfect reproductionunder environmentalsanction. With the emergence of this
polynucleotide, the abiotic eons had ended, and the history of life on Earth
begun.
Over the following 3.8 billion years, life's realm extended from blue-green
algae to human societies. Life's basic components being the physicochemical
elements of the inorganic world, all of life's denizens obey the fundamental
physicochemicallaws that govern their components'behaviorin nonliving mat-
ter.However,the physicochemicalmechanismsonly set limits to life, and do not
govern its blooming. Clearly, within today's scientific worldview, the
"Darwinian"mechanismis the only candidateconsideredfor thatgoverningtask.
But, as clearly, the ability of this latter to account, on its own, for all of life's
efflorescence, up to and including the developmentof human societies, is what
is being debated.
The guiding intuitionof the presentsearch was that, when looked at in histor-
ical perspective,the "Darwinian"mechanismof evolution should turnout to be,
like the physical laws, contingentand condition-bound.In other words, the intu-
ition was that there are intermediary,historically unfolding, hierarchicalmodes
of evolution within the overarching"Darwinian"evolutionarybiological mech-
anism, and that uncovering these intermediarymodes might help bridge the
chasm between historicaland biological evolution.
The viewpoint adopted for this historical survey is that of the "Darwinian
metaphysical research program,"24which has amply proved its productivity.
Naturalselection, the "law"of the Darwinianmechanismof biological evolution,
is powered by differentialreproductivefitness, and is thus a function of the var-
ious factorsaffectingreproduction.I thereforenarrowedmy searchto look at the
factors that have affected how the successive organisms have managed their
reproduction.Even thoughbiological evolution is implementedthroughprocess-
es that occur over geological time, its key unit of time is the generation,and its
locus is the organisms'life-cycle setup (the way its reproductiveprocesses and
behavioralrepertorycontributeto the productionof offspring).25
The evolutionarysequence thathas led to Homo sapiens sapiens is character-
ized by increasingly complex organisms endowed with increasingly complex

24. K. Popper,UnendedQuest:An IntellectualAutobiography(London, 1986).

25. Foley, "Causesand Consequences,"77.
16 ALBERTF. H. NACCACHE

behavioral repertories and engaging in increasingly complex reproductive

processes. Skirting the general issue of evolutionary progress,26for which we
still have no convincing account,or even a satisfactorydefinition,27I acceptedas
primarydata the advances in complexities displayed by the organismsthat con-
stituteour particularlineage,28and attemptedto discernpatternsin the historyof
their life-cycle setups.
During a period stretching over roughly three and a half billion years, life
forms evolved from the primitive"mother"molecule, whose phenotypeconsist-
ed of only one catalytic enzyme, to the exuberantlife forms participatingin the
trophicchain of the Cambrianera. Sexual reproductionemergedduringthatperi-
od, as well as multicellularorganismsendowed with centralnervoussystems that
could sustain more than simple reflex activities.29It is to the earliest organisms
displaying exceedingly simple sense organs that we can trace the roots of our
intellectual abilities. The senses that developed in order to mediate the pre-
Cambrianorganisms'interactionswith their environmentshad an inherentten-
dency to "organizethe sensory field into groups and patternsof sense-data, to
perceive forms ratherthana flux of light-impression.... This unconsciousappre-
ciation of forms is the primitive root of all abstraction,which in turn is the
keynote of rationality."30Towards the end of that period, organisms might
alreadyhave acquiredforms of associative learning.31
Yet, the life-cycle setup of all the organismsreproducingduring the eons of
that period, despite their diversity,is defined by the following two characteris-
tics: 1) the variationfrom one generationto the next has its sole sourcein the ran-
dom mutations,recombinations,and errors of reproductionthat happen to the
genetic material,the genome, during its replication;2) the behavioral strategy
pursuedby all these organismswas one of fending solely for themselves, even
aftertheir internalconditionshad become right for their genome's replicationto
happen,thatis, they followed an individualisticsurvivalstrategythatdid not take
into accounttheir offspring.
This life-cycle setup defines the "Basic Mode of Evolution"(MoE) represent-
ed in Figure 1,32 in which the phenotype stands for the total morphology and

26. "Theotherwise inexplicabletendency of organismsto adopt ever more complicatedsolutions

of the problemof remainingalive," P. Medawar,TheArt of the Soluble (London, 1967).
27. T. Dobzhansky,"Chanceand Creativityin Evolution,"in Studies in the Philosophyof Biology:
Reductionand Related Problems,ed. F. J. Ayala and T. Dobzhansky(Berkeley, 1974), 310.
28. F. J. Ayala, "TheConcept of Biological Progress,"in ibid.
29. W. H. Thorpe, "Reductionismin Biology," in Ayala and Dobzhansky, ed., Studies in the
Philosophy of Biology, 118; G. 0. Mackie, "The ElementaryNervous System Revisited,"American
Zoologist 30 (1990), 917.
30. S. K. Langer,Philosophy in a New Key: A Study in the Symbolismof Reason, Rite, and Art
(Cambridge,Mass. 1941), 89.
31. E. A. Arbaset al., "Evolutionin Nervous Systems,"AnnualReview of Neuroscience 14 (1991),
9-38; T. J. Carew and C. L. Sahley, "InvertebrateLearning and Memory: From Behavior to Mole-
cules," AnnualReview of Neuroscience 9 (1986), 435-487.
32. J. T. Bonner,Size and Cycle: An Essay on the Structureof Biology (Princeton,1965), 12; see
also Boyd and Richerson,Cultureand the EvolutionaryProcess, 5-6 and 21.
 A BRIEF HISTORYOF EVOLUTION 17

DN
A ; At0 Phenotype.: |

Sexual reproduction

Innovation Elimination

Genome DNA
Phen~~~~~~otype

Figure 1. Life-cycle setup for the Basic Mode of Evolution

3.8 billion years ago
behavioral repertory of the organism,33 and the arrows linking genotypes and
phenotypes stands for the whole chain of causation leading from one to the
other.4
Sexual reproductionmultipliedthe potentialof variationfrom one generation
to the next, but did not affect the source of variation,which remainedisolated in
the genome . Even though organismsendowed with new biological functionali-
ties emergedduringthat period, and engaged in purposeful,"intelligent"behav-
ior that increasedtheir chance of achieving reproduction,3they still engaged in
the same individualisticsurvival strategy.Thus these two otherwise momentous
developmentsdid not affect the life-cycle setup of the basic MoE, which is still
followed today by organismsrepresentinga largepercentageof Earth'sbiomass.
They did, however, increase the potential for producingorganismshaving ever
more complex phenotypes adapted to more and more specialized environments.
J. Eccles, refining Karl Popper's differentiation between "passive" and
activev" Darwinism, defined the latter as having appearedsome 200 million
years ago when highly developed organisms started to explore their environ-
ment.36 Lumsden and Wilson used five "grades of cultural behavior" as an orga
nizing principle for their "evolutionary classification."37 Keeping to our birds'-
eye view, we note a qualitativedevelopmentin the life-cycle setup when the par-
ent phenotypestartedcontributing,in an organic way, to the organic growth of
the next generationgenome. This happenedwith the emergence of the amnniote
egg, a protectedenvironmentprovidedby the parentphenotype for the expres-
sion of the offspring'sgenome.
Trying to tag the behavioralcorrelateof this physiological developmentto a
specific stage in the long process of mind's emergence,we follow G. Edelman's

33. R. Dawkins, The ExtendedPhenotype:The Long Reach of the Gene (Oxford, 1989), 230.
34. To avoid visual cluttering, the recurrentmentions have been indicated only the first time.
Furthermore,time indices for successive generations(such as gI and g2, orfl andf2), and the con-
stant factors, such as energy and chemical compoundsinputs,have not been represented.
35. S. R. Hameroff,"Did ConsciousnessCause the CambrianEvolutionaryExplosion?"in Toward
a Science of ConsciousnessII, ed. S. R. Harneroffet al. (Cambridge,Mass., 1998), 421-438.
36. Eccles, Evolutionof the Brain, 217.
37. Lurnsdenand Wilson, Genes, Mind and Culture.
18 ALBERTF. H. NACCACHE

"Theoryof NeuronalGroup Selection," which correlatesbetter with morpholo-

gy than any of the competing schemes.38The evolutionarydevelopment of the
sensory fields' ability to organizedatainto patterns(Langer)or "self-categoriza-
tion"(Edelman),and, from there,progressivelyinto scenes, led to the emergence
of "primaryconsciousness,"which "providesa means of relatingan individual's
presentinput to its acts and past rewards."39This enhancedbehavioralplasticity
and adaptabilitynot only increased the individual organism's fitness, but it
enabled the oviparousreptiles that possessed it to choose a favorable environ-
ment in which to lay theireggs. This greatlyimprovedthe chances of survivalof
their offspring who were ready to carry on in the appropriateenvironmentas
soon as they hatched. Note that these developments took place without any
noticeableenlargementof the brainbetween amphibiansand early reptiles.
The amnioteegg, in conjunctionwith primaryconsciousness (and a scaly skin
protection),opened to vertebratesall the terrestrialenvironmentsalready colo-
nized by plants and insects. Currentlyestimatedto have emerged some 300 mil-
lion years ago, these developmentsof the life-cycle setup affectedthe survivalof

~DNA Phnotype

DNA(em; : Phenotype

Figure2. Life-cyclesetupfor theReptilianModeof Evolution

(Reptiles)300 millionyearsago ..

the next generationphenotypemassively enough to justify consideringthat,with

them, a new ME had emerged. I call it the "Reptilian ME," and represent it in
Figure 2, in which the highlighted solid arrow,linking the parentphenotype to
the organicgrowthof the next generation'sphenotypedevelopment,indicatesthe
characteristicof the reptilianlife cycle setup.
The next development of the reproductivelife-cycle setup that qualitatively
modified the processes of survival of the second-generationphenotype was the
emergence of a parentalbehavioral contributionto the organic growth of the
next generationgenome. The morphologicalcorrelateof this developmentis the

38. G. M. Edelman, The Remembered Present: A Biological Theory of Consciousness (New York,
1989); Edelman, Bright Ait; Brilliant Fire: On the Matter of the Mind (New York, 1992); P. M.
Churchland,The Engine of Reason, the Seat of the Soul: A Philosophical Journey into the Brain
(Cambridge,Mass. 1995); see also The Handbookof Brain Theorym and Neural Networks,ed. M. A.
Arbib (Cambridge,Mass. 1995), and The CognitiveNeurosciences,ed. M. S. Gazzaniga(Cambridge,
Mass., 1995).
39. Edelman,BrightAi; Brilliant Fire, 118-123.
 A BRIEFHISTORYOF EVOLUTION 19

emergenceof mammalianviviparity,40its behavioralcorrelateis parentalprotec-

tion and care of the offspring.
To be able to sustain the highly complex processes involved in parentalcare
of offspring, the phenotypes of these early mammals must have had the ability
for "conceptualcategorization,"thatis, the ability to correlatein novel ways the
scenes or images of primaryconsciousness. Edelmanproposes neuroanatomical
supportsfor this ability,without,however,proposinga chronologicalframework
for when it originated.To succeed as a reproductivestrategy,viviparitymust nec-
essarily be pairedwith parentalcare, and, for extendedparentalcare to be possi-
ble, the brain must have the ability to use concepts. We thereforepropose that
"conceptualcategorization"emergedsome 200 million years ago, in conjunction
with the emergence of viviparity and the allometricincrease in encephalization
detectablein archaicmammals.
The additionof viviparityand parentalcare to the life-cycle setup usheredin
the emergence of the "ArchaicMammalianMoE," representedin Figure 3, in
which the highlighteddashed-linearrowconnectingparentand offspringpheno-
types standsfor the parentalcare providedto live offspring.

=
.D.
. ..E.... enoty

DANA henotype

Figure 3. Life-cycle setup for the Archaic Mammalian Mode of Evolution

200 millionyearsago -0
(Mammals)
Like all features of evolutionary change, the development of parental care
behavior is traceable from a rudimentary expression at its inception among the
primitive viviparous amniotes, such as the mammal-likereptiles,41to its fuller
expression as displayed among today's higher mammals. How such a sigmoid,
S-shapedgrowthcurve42 would appear,smoothly grainedor rough and saltatory,
would depend on the time scale at which it is observed.
Today,parentalcare of offspringis not restrictedto the mammalianbehavioral
repertory. Many species of birds, at least one species of toads, and even some
insects engage in it.43 The evolutionarypressurefor engaging in parentalcare
40. J. P. Wourmsand I. P. Callard,"A Retrospectto the Symposium on Evolution of Viviparityin
Vertebrates,"AmericanZoologist 32 (1992), 251-255.
41. D. W. Dilkes and R. R. Reisz, "FirstRecord of a Basal Synapsid ('Mammal-likeReptile') in
Gondwana,"Proceedings of the Royal Society of LondonB 263 (1996), 1165-1170.
42. J. T. Bonner, The Evolutionof Culturein Animals (Princeton,1980), 167.
43. D. W. Tallamy,"ChildCare among the Insects,"ScientificAmerican280:1 (1999), 72-77.
20 ALBERTF. H. NACCACHE

depends on environmentalconditions, and this behavior must have been inde-

pendently developed in various phyla and classes. Mammalian and avian
parentalcare behaviors do not stem from similar morphologicaland cognitive
bases, and while some birdsmighthave the ability for conceptualcategorization,
all toads and insects do not. Most probablythe parentalcare behaviorof insects
andbirdsis "hardwired,"and thereforeits potentialfor developmentis much less
than that of mammals.
The morphological underpinningsof the next stage are not as obvious as
oviparityand viviparity,andhave to be inferredfrom the new enlargementof the
behavioralrepertoryto which they gave rise. This apparentlytook place only
among the mammals, and can be characterizedas the emergence of parental
behavioralinterventionin the expressionof the behavioral repertoryof the next
generation'sphenotype. There is much anecdotal evidence for such behavior,
usually referredto as "teaching,"for instance among cats44or lions.45The con-
servative conclusions of a recent review of this hotly debated subject46are
enough to supportthe presentargument,althoughthe growing realizationof the
dependenceof epigenesis on interactionwith the environment47lends some cre-
dence to the claims for a greaterrange for this behavior.48
Teaching should be distinguishedfrom less specific forms of social learning
such as social facilitation and local enhancementor imitation, and is normally
understoodas directed instructionof one individual by another.The selective
advantageof this behavioris that the pupil "acquiresknowledge or learns a skill
earlierin life and more rapidlyor efficiently thanit might otherwisedo, or thatit
would not learnat all."49Among mammalsit is usually a parent,and more specif-
ically the mother,that teaches its offspring.
At its inception at least, this novel way to increase the offspring's survival
chances did not requireof the tutoreitherthe possession of complex intentional-
ity, or the ability to attributemental states to her pupils. These abilities would
develop later,and only in a few species.
The impactof the MoE thatemergedwith this new developmentof the behav-
ioral repertoryis illustratedby the victory in the encephalizationrace won by the
predatorycarnivores,who engaged in this behavior,against their ungulateprey,
who did not.50This mode, which we propose to refer to as the "Progressive

44. P. Medawar,"Does Ethology ThrowAny Light on HumanBehaviour?"in Bateson and Hinde,

ed., GrowingPoints in Ethology, 503.
45. C. PackerandA. E. Pusey, "DividedWe Fall: Cooperationamong Lions," ScientificAmerican
276:5 (1997), 52-61.
46. T. M. Caro and M. D. Hauser,"Is ThereTeachingin NonhumanAnimals?"QuarterlyReview
of Biology 67:2 (1992), 151-174.
47. C. Blakemore, "How the EnvironmentHelps to Build the Brain," in Mind, Brain, and the
Environment,ed. B. Cartledge(Oxford, 1998), 28-56; H. J. Chiel and R. D. Beer, "The Brain Has a
Body: Adaptive Behavior Emerges from Interactionsof Nervous System, Body and Environment,"
Trends in Neurosciences 20:12 (1997), 553-557; J. L. Elman et al., Rethinking Innateness: A
ConnectionistPerspective on Development(Cambridge,Mass., 1996).
48. D. R. Griffin,Animal Thinking(Cambridge,Mass., 1984).
49. Caro and Hauser,"Is There Teachingin NonhumanAnimals," 153.
50. H. J. Jerison,Evolutionof the Brain and Intelligence (New York, 1973).
 A BRIEFHISTORY
OFEVOLUTION 21

l DNA l~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~Phenotype.

t;-ff:00:!::;t-(kom
offspring ph ;;:-:;<:0X:0-DNA)i
+ .Teaching , /
: : Phenotype,--::
.....,
....E.. 00
Fiur4. Lif-ccl setu fortePorsieMmaan odof Evlto

Figure4. Life-cycle setup for the ProgressiveMammalian Mode of Evolution

(Highermammals)30 million years agoe e sa s
MammalianMoE," is representedin Figure 4. In this figure, teaching is depict-
ed by the highlighteddashed-line straightarrowrunningfrom the parentto the
offspring phenotypes.
Without providing a distinct neuroanatomicalcorrelate, Edelman speculates
that, on the road to higher-orderconsciousness, "conceptualcategorization"was
followed by the emergenceof "new forms of symbolic memoryand new systems
serving social communicationand transmission.ll5i A parentneeds these abilities
in order to teach its offspring. Inferringback from the distributionof teaching
behavior among present-dayspecies, and from the fossil record,5pI submit that
it is the appearanceof neocorticalizationin the mammalianbrain,with its atten-
dant flexures and fissures, that provides the morphological underpinnings of
parental teaching behavior. These "apparently revolutionary changes" occurred
during the Upper Eocene epoch some thirty million years ago in conjunction
with an upward displacement of the brain to body ratio shared among many
mammalian species.5 We note that the primates, cetaceans, and proboscides
underwent a further upward deviation on top of this basic mammalian shift, that
is, thatat every growthstage they display a regularlyhigherratioof brainto body
size than do othermammals.54We also note that this latterincreasein encephal-
izationnow seems to have occurrednot underthe pressureof cognitive demands,
but, more prosaically,as the result of a shift in postcranialgrowthprocesses.55
This increase was partof a largertrendtoward slower maturationand greater
longevity, linked to larger body size, enhanced learning and sociality, and
increased parental investment.56Social communication among members of a

51. Edelman,BrightAi; Brilliant Fire, 125.

52. R. G. Northcuttand J. H. Kaas, "The Emergence and Evolution of MammalianNeocortex,"
Trendsin Neurosciences 18 (1995), 373-379.
53. Jerison,Evolutionof the Brain, 319.
54. T. W. Deacon, "WhatMakes the HumanBrain Different?"AnnualReview of Anthropology26
(1997), 342.
55. Ibid:,343; see also P. Rakic,"ASmall Step for the Cell, a GiantLeapfor Mankind:A Hypothesis
of NeocorticalExpansionduringEvolution,"Trendsin Neurosciences 18 (1995), 383-388.
56. B. H. Smith and R. L. Tompkins,"Towarda Life History of the Hominidae,"Annual Review
of Anthropology24 (1995), 257-279.
22 ALBERTF. H. NACCACHE

species had existed for eons.57However, slower maturationand greaterlongevi-

ty enabled and propelledan increasein intergenerationalinteraction.This devel-
opment,which, on the basis of the evidence at hand,took place only among some
families of elephants,whales,58and hominoids, led to a radicalextension of the
"pre-humanlanguage"communicationsystem. Projectingback from its devel-
oped state, this extension is seen to have the following characteristics:
1. Its content, though still embodied in individualphenotypes and depending
on their direct interactionsfor its transmission,is sustainedby a social group as
a whole, and not by an individualphenotype.It has individualcarriers,but since
it can outlive each one, it has a certainautonomy.
2. It can carry emotional, behavioral, and/or cognitive information over a
much longer time span than an individuallife, and across great social distances,
giving rise to what is conservativelyreferredto as culture.59
3. The body of knowledge that it carries submits to differentcognitive, com-
municative, and accumulativelimitations than to those imposed on the knowl-
edge of individualphenotypes-among other things, its intrinsicdevelopmentis
"Lamarckian."60
4. Finally,it affects the life-cycle processes because it enhances and amplifies
parentalbehavioralinterventionsin the organic and behavioraldevelopment of
the offspringphenotype.
Organismshad long shared,even multigenerationally,the physical extension
of their phenotypes,61such as a beaver's dam, but what we have here is qualita-
tively different.How might this developmenthave come about?Extended life-
spans in a tightly knit small group createdthe opportunityfor elders to keep on
doing what they had been doing, only now to teach not theirchildren,but grand-
children. Great apes of six million years ago had the neural prerequisiteto use
their shared prelinguistic "grammar"of action to intentionally communicate
information through voluntary oro-facial or gestural signals.62 The increased

57. N. K. Humphrey,"The Social Function of Intellect," in Bateson and Hinde, ed., Growing
Points in Ethology, 303-517; N. Rescher,A Useful Inheritance:EvolutionaryAspects of the Theory
of Knowledge(London, 1990).
58. D. Reiss, "Cognition and Communicationin Dolphins: A Question of Consciousness," in
Hameroff,ed., Towarda Science of ConsciousnessII, 551-560; H. Whitehead,"CulturalSelection and
Genetic Diversity in MatrilinealWhales," Science 282 (1998), 1708-1711; P. Mackenzie, "Elephant
InformationRepository,"<www.elehost.com> (1999).
59. C. Boesch, "The Emergence of Cultures among Wild Chimpanzees,"in Runciman, ed.,
Evolutionof Social BehaviourPatterns,251-268; W. C. McGrew,"Culturein NonhumanPrimates?"
Annual Review of Anthropology27 (1998), 301-328; A. Whiten et al., "Culturesin Chimpanzees,"
Nature 399 (1999), 682-685.
60. Or rather"Spencerian";see M. Ruse, TakingDarwin Seriously:A NaturalisticApproach to
Philosophy (London, 1986), 125.
61. Dawkins, The ExtendedPhenotype.
62. Two recent studies make this point: G. Rizzolatti and M. A. Arbib, "Languagewithin Our
Grasp,"Trendsin Neurosciences 21 (1998), 188-194; R. Worden,"TheEvolution of Languagefrom
Social Intelligence,"in J. R. Hurfordet al., Approaches to the Evolution of Language: Social and
Cognitive Bases (Cambridge,Eng., 1998). See also M. Jeannerodet al., "GraspingObjects: The
CorticalMechanismsof VisuomotorTransformation,"Trendsin Neurosciences 18 (1995), 314-320;
F. Aboitiz and V. Ricardo Garcia, "The EvolutionaryOrigin of the Language Areas in the Human
Brain:A NeuroanatomicalPerspective,"Brain ResearchReviews 25 (1997), 393.
 A BRIEF HISTORYOF EVOLUTION 23

potential for multigenerationalcontacts opened up the possibility for vigorous

senior females to have more descendantsboth by contributingto the survival of
their weaned grandchildren,and by freeing their daughtersto become pregnant
sooner.63Such a context would provide the selective pressure for language to
evolve.
Priorto the emergence of this extension in communication,behavioralpheno-
types had remainedbound to one organism.With it, temporallyand geographi-
cally distantmembersof a social group could affect, throughphenotypicaltraits
they had acquired,the life-cycle setup between any parentand offspring in the
group.64We refer to this extension as "social memory,"a more descriptiveterm
than "culture,"or "collective," or "group memory" and one less loaded than
"memes,"65or "World3,"66 and proposeto call the MoE to which it gave rise the
"socioculturalMoE." This mode is representedin Figure 5, in which the exten-
sion in communicationis depictedby a verticalbox of the same "kind"as that of
the phenotypes,and independentof, but connecting with both, parent'sand off-
spring'sphenotypes.

..........~ ~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~'"-.''.','i.-.000
. 1 0 0 ; -- 0 -- ~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~ -
.
God ;.g A_!-;-n,# ..... ... ...~
...

f.0.f--,;
~~~~~~~~.,..................................
/ 4... 44444444444444;4....... ..........^
;3i

~~~~~~~~~~~... ,g'S>...........z.
: ,.S..

, ...A . , .> . ........ ' ' : i

armi ~~~~~N'' '---' CEn-;o.

Figure 5. Life-cycle setup for the SocioculturalMode of Evolution

(Hominoids,Whales, Elephants)5 million years ago -

A comparisonof the proboscides' and hominoids' phylogenetic trees places

the onset of the socioculturalMoE sometimes before six million years ago, the
time of the last pongid and hominid common ancestor.Its neuroanatomicalcor-
relatewould be, amongthe hominoids,the increasein brainsize displayedby the
great apes over that of the baboons.67Similar increases are found in the ele-
phants'fossil record.68

63. K. Hawkes et al., "Grandmothering, Menopause,and the Evolution of HumanLife Histories,"

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 95 (1998), 1336-1339; B. Wood and A.
Brooks, "WeAre What We Ate," Nature400 (1999), 219-220.
64. C. Boesch and M. Tomasello, "Chimpanzeeand Human Cultures,"CurrentAnthropology39
(1998), 591-614.
65. R. Dawkins, The Selfish Gene (Oxford, 1976).
66. K. Popper,ObjectiveKnowledge:An EvolutionaryApproach(Oxford, 1972).
67. Jerison,Evolutionof the Brain and Intelligence, 394.
68. Ibid., 342-351. The whales and dolphinsmighthave achievedtheirmodernenlargedbrainsear-
lier, in Miocene times, about 15-20 million years ago (ibid., 348).
24 ALBERTF H. NACCACHE

Partly because of the contingent aspect of its accumulativemechanism, and

partly because of structuralcauses, such as differentecological adaptations,the
socioculturalMoE has not affected to the same extent all species of the three
families. Still, modern-dayelephants and many species of whales have been
greatly empowered by it, today displaying the most advancedof the prehuman
communicationsystems, and being the only nonhumanbeings for which thereis
evidence of reverencefor dead family members.
Among otherbehaviorsenhancedby the socioculturalMoE is tool use, thatis,
using naturalobjects lying aroundin orderto help performan action. This is so
because social memory facilitates the acquisition and transmission of such
behavior,as illustratedby the elephants' developed aptitudefor it,69in spite of
their morphologicallimitations,and the streamlineddolphins'manipulativeten-
dencies.70
As for the hominoids'lineage, it enjoyed a most favorablecontingentpreadap-
tation.Its ancestorshad made, some fifteen million years ago, the transitionfrom
life in the trees to life on the ground.71 Then, some five to six million years ago,
some of its species72had developed a bipedal stance.73The progressive freeing
of the hands74evolved independentlyof the socioculturalMoE, but in conjunc-
tion with it, was decisive in shapingthe furtherevolution of the lineage.
Culturallypropelledtool use and manufactureamong the hominoids evolved
from preparedtwigs to the two-and-a-half-millionyear-old Oldowan choppers
recovered in Gona, Ethiopia. This development must have been gradual.
Chimpanzeesnot only use tools, but display rudimentarytool preparation,the
first stage of industry,75and the earliest lithic industry,achieved some two mil-
lion years after the freeing of the hominoids'hands, was still within the compe-
tence of an "ape adaptivegrade."76
With lithic culture,the hominoid phenotypehad acquireda power-enhancing
and durableextrasomaticextension thatcould be sharedacross generations.The
incorporationof this extrasomatic extension to the life-cycle setup greatly
increased the potential ability of the hominoid phenotype to interact with its
environment,and thus led to the emergenceof a second stage in the sociocultur-
al MoE. This second stage is representedin Figure6, in which the solid line link-
ing the parentand offspring phenotypes to the social memory extension stands
for this sharedextrasomaticextension of the phenotype.

69. Mackenzie, "ElephantInformationRepository."

70. Reiss, "Cognitionand Communicationin Dolphins."
71. B. R. Benefit and M. L. McCrossin, "Miocene Hominoids and Hominid Origins,"Annual
Review of Anthropology24 (1995), 237-256.
72. B. Wood and M. Collard,"TheHumanGenus,"Science 284 (1999), 65-7 1; P. V. Tobias,"Ape-
like Australopithecusafter Seventy Years:Was it a Hominid?,"Journal of the Royal Anthropological
Institute4 (1998), 283-308.
73. J. L. Bradshaw,HumanEvolution:A NeuropsychologicalPerspective (Hove, Eng., 1997) 26-
32.
74. R. L. Susman,"FossilEvidence for EarlyHominidTool Use," Science 265 (1994), 1570-1573.
75. Bradshaw,Human Evolution, 123-143; Gibson and Ingold, ed., Tools, Language and Cogni-
tion; see also note 59.
76. T. WynnandW. C. McGrew,"AnApe's View of the Oldowan,"Man (n.s.) 24 (1991), 383-398.
 A BRIEFHISTORY
OFEVOLUTION 25

......;..
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~.

(Homo)
2.6 millin L0year!ao

o ife-yl
Thegworking theeuo e
"extrasomatically nhanced
scoutrlME"wt t

"Lamarekianly"germinating social memory and its extrasomatic extensions,

favored augmented and intensified parental behavioral interventions in the
organic and behavioral growth of the offspring phenotypes. The effects on the
evolution of the humanlineage of these interventionswere such that some con-
sider homo sapiens to be a self-domesticated species.
The morphological correlate of this second stage in the socioculturalMoE
could have happenedeither with the increase in encephalizationof the australo-
pithecines over that of the pongids,7 or with the furtherincrease in brain size
registeredwith the emergence of the first species of the genus homo.79We can-
not be more precise since hominid brain evolution continuedwithout any major
reorganizationduringall thatperiod,80 and "thedetails of humanbrainevolution
are still largely obscure.":81
After five million years and more of the workings of the sociocultural MoE,
during the last half of which the extrasomatic extension played its enhancing
role, some artifacts were intentionally made to carry a specific reference to a
social memory shared by a group, that is, to carry a symbolic message. The
appearanceof artifactsspecially made to carry elements of social memory ush-
ered in the emergenceof a distinctnew extension of the hominid life-cycle setup
because:
1. Even thoughthe artifactsstill needed to be "read"or activatedin, or by, an
individual,the transmissionof their messages no longer requiredchronological
or social contiguity between their makers and their readers or carriers.This

77. K. Lorenz, Essais sur le comportementanimal et humain(Paris, 1970), 367.

78. Jerison,Evolutionof the Brain and Intelligence, 389.
79. Wood and Collard,"TheHumanGenus."
80. H. Jerison, "Fossil Evidence of the Evolution of the Human Brain," Annual Review of
Anthropology4 (1975), 42.
81. T. W. Deacon, "RethinkingMammalianBrainEvolution,"AmericanZoologist 30 (1990), 698;
see also H. P. Killackey, "Evolution of the Human Brain: A NeuroanatornicalPerspective," in
Gazzaniga,ed., The CognitiveNeurosciences, 1243-1253.
26 ALBERTF. H. NACCACHE

meantthat the chronologicaland social reachof social memorywas considerably

extended;82
2. Being inorganicallysupported,and thereforepotentially durable,the sym-
bolically loaded artifactslent social memory a semi-autonomyfrom humanphe-
notypes;
3. Groupssharingthese artifactshad the cognitive, communicative,and accu-
mulative capabilities of their phenotypesradically augmented;
4. The aggregationof symbol-bearingartifacts,or "exosomatic social memo-
ry," interacts and has functional relationships with the previously established
intergenerationalsocial memory.83
It is difficult to pinpoint the neuroanatomicalsubstrateof symbolic behavior
and the exosomatic social memory.The fossil recordis still quite incomplete, and
there is no consensus yet on how to disentanglethe branchesof our family tree
and confidently correlate gross neuroanatomyand behavior among the various
homo sapiens species.84 Fossil brain endocasts provide only minimal informa-
tion,85and even assuming that we were able to define the cognitive processes
underlyingthe intentionalproductionof symbolic artifacts,86we would still need
to correlate these processes with aspects of brain architecture.This last is a
dauntingtask, judging by the extremely complex picturewe alreadyhave of the
much simpler anatomicalorganizationof the macaque visual system.87For the
time being we can only glimpse the emerging pictureof cerebralactivities relat-
ed to language and cognition.88And finally, we should not forget that the human
82. R. Whallon, "Elements of CulturalChange in the Later Palaeolithic,"in The Human Revo-
lution: Behaviouraland Biological Perspectives on the Origins of ModernHumans,ed. P. Mellarsand
C. Stringer(Edinburgh,1989), 444.
83. T. F. H. Allen and T. B. Starr,Hierarchy: Perspectivesfor Ecological Complexity(Chicago,
1982), 218.
84. C. L. Brace,"BioculturalInteractionandthe Mechanismof MosaicEvolutionin the Emergenceof
'Modem' Morphology,"AmericanAnthropology97 (1995), 711-721; F. D'Errico et al., "Neanderthal
Acculturationin WesternEurope?"CurrentAnthropology 39, supplement(1998), 1-44;A. Mann,"Modern
Human Origins:Evidence from the Near East," Paleorient 21 (1995), 35-46; P. Mellars et al., 'The
NeanderthalProblemContinued,"CurrentAnthropology 40 (1999), 341-346;J. H. Relethford,"Geneticsof
ModemHumanOriginsandDiversity,"AnnualReviewof Anthropology27 (1998);J. J. Shea,"Neandertal
andEarlyModemHumanBehavioralVariability," CurrentAnthrmpology 39 supplement(1998),45-78; M.
C. Stiner,"ModernHumanOrigins-Faunal Perspectives,"AnnualReviewof Anthropology22 (1993); I.
Tattersall,"Outof AfricaAgain ... andAgain?"ScientificAmerican276, no. 4 (1997), 60-67; E. Trinkaus,
"NearEasternLateArchaicHumans,"Palkorient21 (1995), 9-24; B. Vandermeersch, "Lerole du Levant
dans1'6volutionde l'humanit6au Plistocene Superieur," PaMorient21 (1995), 25-34.
85. R. L. Holloway, "Exploringthe Dorsal Surfaceof Hominoid Brain Endocastsby Stereoplotter
and DiscriminantAnalysis,"in TheEmergenceof Man, ed. J. Z. Younget al. (London, 1981), 155-166..
86. P. A. Mellars, "TechnologicalChanges across the Middle-UpperPalaeolithicTransition:Eco-
nomic, Social andCognitivePerspectives,"in Mellarsand Stringer,ed., TheHumanRevolution,338-365.
87. D. C. Van Essen and E. A. Deyoe, "ConcurrentProcessing in the PrimateVisual Cortex,"in
Gazzaniga,ed., The CognitiveNeurosciences, 388.
88. T. Beardsley, "The Machineryof Thought,"ScientificAmerican 277, no. 8 (1997), 78-83; G.
D. Jacksonand J. S. Duncan, MRINeuroanatomy:A New Angle on the Brain (New York, 1996); J. J.
Jaegeret al., "A PositronEmission TomographicStudy of Regularand IrregularVerbMorphologyin
English," Language 72 (1996), 451-497; C. J. Mummery et al., "Generating'Tiger' as an Animal
Name or a WordBeginning with T: Differences in BrainActivation,"Proceedings of the Royal Society
of London B 263 (1996), 989-995; C. J. Price et al., "The Neural Regions Sustaining Object
Recognition and Naming" Proceedings of the Royal Society of LondonB 263 (1996), 1501-1507.
 A BRIEF HISTORYOF EVOLUTION 27

brain only sets general limits to the human behavioralphenotype and does not
dictateparticularimplementations,which are socioculturallydetermined.89
Therefore,in orderto determinethe date of onset of the exosomatic memory,
we have to find the oldest artifactthat could reliablybe consideredintentionally
made to carry a symbolic message, the first artifactclearly producedprimarily
for its symbolic function or value. Clearly,many of the humanintellectualcapa-
bilities, includingthe use of symbols, predatewriting,90but by how much?What
is the oldest symbolic artifact?Is it the 50,000-year-old "depictiveimage,"91or
the 100,000-year-old "exquisite nonutilitarianoval plaque,"92or the 250,000-
year-old "figurine"?93 Or might it be some artifactthat appearsto be utilitarian,
such as the consummatelycrafted400,000-year-oldwooden spearsfound recent-
ly nearHanover?The use of these powerful weapons must have been "symboli-
cally loaded," but it is also arguablethat the extraordinarycare and attention
needed to produce artifacts having such magical properties could only be
expendedin the context of a succession of symbolic acts. This is so because man-
ufacturingtechnology had to be coaxed from a magical contact with the materi-
als and theirproperties,and not, like today,deducedfrom a body of scientificand
technologicalknowledge.
If some 400,000 years ago, artifactsintentionallycarryingsymbols were man-
ufacturedwith such care, their first appearancecould well be correlatedwith the
emergence of archaichomo sapiens, and the neuralcorrelateof the exosomatic
social memory would be the brainenlargementassociated with it.
Ourperceptionof the world is so deeply embeddedin and dependenton sym-
bolic systems that it is hard to realize that these, like all emerging phenomena,
must have followed a growthcurve, and thatthey must have had, therefore,very
humble beginnings. Humble beginnings they had, but levered on top of the
"Lamarckian"socioculturalMoE, the growth rate was explosive. So explosive
that it is perceivedlike a succession of nested, ever-acceleratingrevolutions:
1. The Upper Paleolithiccognitive revolutionsome 30,000 years ago;
2. The symbols'revolutionof the LevantineEpipaleolithicthatusheredthe first
permanentsettlementsand then agriculturesome 14,000 years ago;94
3. The urban revolution5,000 years ago;
4. The scientific revolution500 years ago;
5. And now a burstingrevolutionso far-reachingthatit is usheringin the emer-
gence of a furtherMoE right underour eyes, a mode that I will attemptto char-
acterizein the next section.
89. Rescher,A Useful Inheritance, 124.
90. See amongmanyothers:R. G. Bednarik,"Concept-mediated Markingin the LowerPaleolithic,"
CurrentAnthropology36 (1995), 605-634; A. Belfer-Cohen,and N. Goren-Inbar,"Cognitionand
Communicationin the LevantineLower Palaeolitthic"WorldArchaeology26 (1994), 144-157.
91. A. Marshack, "A Middle Paleolithic Symbolic Composition from the Golan Heights: The
EarliestKnown Depictive Image,"CurrentAnthropology37 (1996), 357-364.
92. Idem.
93. A. Marshack,"TheBerekhatRam Figurine:A Late AcheulianCarvingfrom the Middle East,"
Antiquity71 (1997).
94. J. Cauvin,Naissance des divinitis, Naissance de agriculture: La Revolutiondes Symbolesau
Njolithique (Paris, 1997).
28 ALBERTF. H. NACCACHE

But before doing that, I still have to propose a name for the MoE that has
definedhumanhistory,and which is characterizedby the presence in the human
life-cycle setup of an inorganicallysupported,exosomatic social memory. We
could call it the "exosomatic socioculturalMoE," but let us try to find a more
suggestive name. We note that the workings of this mode have allowed the fol-
lowing modifications of homo sapiens' life-cycle setup:
1. The progressive elimination of the causes of "naturalselection" in human
populations(throughhygiene, medicine, and populationmovements);
2. The growing potentialto control the genome's reproduction(up to genetic
engineering);
3. The furtheramplificationof all behavioralinterventionsin the organic and
behavioral development of offspring phenotype (throughtechnology and engi-
neering).
These modificationshave not yet run their full course, and all three might not
be traceableall the way back to the onset time of this mode. However, they have
sufficientlyalteredthe underlyingbiological mechanismsof the life-cycle setup
to be consideredcharacteristicof this mode. All three modificationshave come
aboutas the resultof unskilledand/orexperimentalrepairor adjustmentmade by
homo sapiens to basic biological processes. That is, all three are cases of "tin-
kering,"which is why I propose to refer to this mode as the "tinkeringMoE."95

Genorne~ - DNA ; 0!7S;

0Phenotype

GenomeN Phentotype..

is~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~*i

Figure 7. Life-cycle setup for the TinkeringMode of Evolution

(Symbolic representation)400,000 years ago -
This mode is representedin Figure 7, in which the "exosomaticsocial memory"
is depictedemergingfrom and interactingwith the "social memory."
Therehas been such an increaseand so much refiningof knowledge carriedby
the exosomatic social memory,so much progressin its inorganicsupport,that it
might soon achieve full autonomy.96In the not-so-distantfuture, inorganically
embodiedinformationcould become endogenouslyactivatedand auto-reproduce
itself. Such a development might be engineered,97following the "principleof

95. Tinkeringis more appropriatelyapplied to shortsightedhumanvoluntaryinterventionthan to

evolution's randomways, as in Jacob, "Evolutionand Tinkering."
96. N. Wiener,God & Golem, Inc. (Cambridge,Mass, 1964).
97. 0. Sporns,"NeuralModels of Perceptionand Behavior,"in 1993 Lecturesin ComplexSystems,
ed. L. Nadel and D. L. Stein (New York, 1993).
 A BRIEF HISTORYOF EVOLUTION 29

organizationalinvariance,"98or it might happen "spontaneously,"propelled by

the ever-growing interaction with the environmentof complex computational
systems endowed with perceptual and effectual means.99Charles Babbage's
"AnalyticalEngine" and the "ABC" (Atanasoff-BerryComputer)would have
been fast flowering seeds....
I propose to refer to this still-emerging MoE as the "parabiologicalMoE"
(para-being less limiting and committing than exo-, extra-, trans-, or meta- ). I
will not presume to define the setup of this nascent MoE, but simply note in
Figure8 a possible basic configuration.It is characterizedby a fully autonomous
inorganicmemory,as well as by a potentialoutcome of an actualtrend,which is
the jettisoning of the organic and behavioralparticipationof parentphenotypes
in the growth of the next generationphenotype.I will not venturehere to guess
at whatthe relationshipbetween the organicandinorganicconsciousness will be,
if, or ratherwhen the latterwill emerge.

Genome DNA
Ph~~~~~~~~enotype,~

Figure8. Life-cyclesetupfortheParabiological
Modeof Evolution

(Babbage)150years ago
III

I have now provided summary definitions of the eight hierarchically nested

modes of evolution that, accordingto the present proposal, have progressively
emerged to govern the evolution of our lineage from primitivecyanobacteriato
-today'shuman societies. Many issues, such as the specific operation of the
modes, their processes and rates of development,the natureof their emergence
or coalescence, or the cumulativenessbetween modes, have not even been men-
tioned. Yet, what I have discussed should be suggestive of how the present
frameworkachieves the aim it was designed for, that is, separatingthe human
behavioralspectrumalong the nature/nurture continuum.Let us analyze an arbi-
trarily selected behavior, here the "biological" predisposition of young adult
males "to homicide relativeboth to older males and to coeval females across the

98. D. J. Chalmers,"ThePuzzle of Conscious Experience,"ScientificAmerican273, no. 6 (1995),

80-86.
99. Hameroff,et al., ed., Towarda Science of ConsciousnessI.
30 ALBERTF. H. NACCACHE

range of human societies."'100 The resulting spectrumis presentedas a series of

vignettes describingan imaginaryoccurrenceof such a behavior:10'
1. His bout of hay-fever makes him sneeze, an immunologicalprocess hark-
ing back to the basic MoE;
2. His perception of a threatto his physiological needs and values triggers
intense neuronalactivity across his limbic-brainstem system, throughprocesses
laid down underthe reptilianMoE;
3. He takesmentalnoteof his territorythathasjust beeninvadedby anothermem-
berof his species,usingprocesseselaboratedunderthe archaicmammalianMoE;
4. A quick side look shows him thathis brothersand cousins have joined him,
in a social strategydevised underthe progressive mammalianMoE;
5. He burstsforth,having to maintainhis inheritedsocial rank,a development
acquiredunderthe multigenerationalsocioculturalMoE;
6. He is alternativelythrustingandbrandishinghis spearwhile charging,in the
ways of his tribe, developed underthe extrasomaticallyenhanced sociocultural
MoE;
7. On his spearare engravedthe symbols of a potentincantationthat will give
him victory over his enemy, if he can just hit the latter'sback without inflicting
otherharm,as decided underthe tinkeringMoE;
8. He stumbles and falls. The inorganicconsciousness lets out a virtual sigh,
and slightly modifies the parametersbefore replaying the scene, all the while
thinkingthat it was much more fun when there were fully functionalhumansto
play with.
An incidentaladvantageof this series of vignettes is that it facilitatescompar-
ison with competingframeworks,such as the following two prominentand well-
documented recent proposals.102Maynard Smith and Szathmairypropose a
frameworkof eight "majorevolutionarytransitions"definingthe following nine
"stages":103
1. The origin of simple autocatalyticsystems with limited heredity;
2. The origin of polynucleotide-likemolecules, providingunlimitedheredity;
3. The origin of the genetic code in the context of the RNA world, before trans-
lation;
4. The origin of translationand encoded proteinsynthesis;
5. The replacementof RNA by DNA as the genetic code;
6. The emergence of hereditaryregulative states in prokaryotesand simple
eukaryotes;

100. W. G. Runciman,"Introduction,"in Runciman,ed., Evolutionof Social BehaviourPatterns.

101. Caricature'swide informationbandwidthwill hopefully excuse the whimsicality of these
vignettes.
102. F. Spier's frameworkpresented in The Structureof Big History: From the Big Bang until
Today(Amsterdam,1996), "cannotcarrythe load placed on it," as pointed out by B. Mazlish in his
review, "Big Questions?Big History?"History and Theory38 (1999), 244.
103. J. MaynardSmith and E. Szathmdry,The Major Transitionsin Evolution (Oxford, 1995); E.
Szathmdryand J. MaynardSmith, "The Major EvolutionaryTransitions,"Nature 374 (1995), 227-
232.
 A BRIEF HISTORYOF EVOLUTION 31

7. The evolution of epigenetic inheritancewith unlimitedheredity:the emer-

gence of animals,plants and fungi;
8. The emergence of proto-languagein Homo erectus-a culturalinheritance
system with limited potential;
9. The emergence of human language with a universalgrammarand unlimit-
ed semanticrepresentation.
Though both frameworksrange from organic chemistry to human societies,
andthoughthe two approachessharethe same axiomaticidea thatthereare "lev-
els of organization, and hence levels of selection,"104Maynard Smith and
Szathmairy'saim is not the same as that of our framework.With its six succes-
sive "stages"where ours has one "basic MoE," their frameworkfocuses on the
analysis of the emergence of biological evolution, and does not reveal a princi-
ple of continuityin the integrationof humanevolution. In their frameworkthis
integrationseems almost arbitrary,based on the analogy that "change in lan-
guage whereby informationis transmittedand in the physical medium that car-
ries thatlanguage"105 is involved both in the transitionfrom RNA to DNA and in
the origin of specifically humansocieties.
Foley proposes a "phylogeneticand chronological context for human social
evolution"that identifiesthe eight "key 'events' and time periods":106
1. 35 million years (35Myr):the anthropoidsand the origins of society;
2. 25Myr: finite social space and the kinship as the basis for social organiza-
tion;
3. 15Myr:catarrhinesocial phylogeny and the evolution of male kin-bonding;
4. 5Myr: savannasocioecology;
5. 2Myr: expensive [sic] offspring and the socioecological basis of encephal-
ization;
6. 300,000 (300Kyr):the 1000 gram brain and evolution of humanlife histo-
ry strategy;
7. lOOKyr:dispersal,group size, and territoriality;
8. 30Kyr: demographyand the agriculturalrevolution.
Foley's timetablestartswith our fourthMoE and encompassesevolution only
since the advancedmammaliangrade. The two frameworksare roughly in step
for Foley's time periods4, 5, and 6, which correspondto our fifth, sixth, and sev-
enth MoE, but Foley is more detailed at the two extremes. The difference stems
from the fact that Foley's phylogenetic context is aimed at showing "whereand
when did the benefits of particularhuman traitsexceed the costs and provide a
selective advantage," 107 while our frameworkis designed to classify the mecha-
nisms responsiblefor "particularhumantraits."

104. MaynardSmith and Szathmdry,TheMajor Transitionsin Evolution, 12.

105. Idem.
106. R. A. Foley, "An Evolutionaryand ChronologicalFrameworkfor HumanSocial Behaviour,"
in Runciman,ed., Evolution of Social Behaviour Patterns, 95; Foley, Humans before Humanity:An
EvolutionaryPerspective (Oxford, 1995). I follow here the articleand not the slightly differentbook.
107. Foley, Humansbefore Humanity,207.
32 ALBERTF. H. NACCACHE

If we now comparethe three frameworks,it should be clear that they are not
methodologicallyexclusive of each other.By focusing upon the origins of bio-
logical reproduction,MaynardSmith and Szathmarywere able to uncover the
successive mechanisms and modes of evolution that bridged, throughreplace-
ment or addition,chemistryand biology. By focusing upon hominid social evo-
lution, Foley was able to uncover specific demographic,biological, environmen-
tal, and social contexts that have molded it. By taking the overall perspective,
and basing it systematicallyupon the principleof reproduction,we hope to have
achieved a prism for the study of human behavior that, while not yet properly
polished, will be judged worthy of revision and improvement.

Lebanese University
Beirut