Domination of the species, or how bad genes prosper

For the entirety of human history we have been obsessed with marriage, genes and good breeding. Long before language was first recorded for posterity, kings fought over queens, knights rescued princesses from metaphorical dragons (to avoid dwelling upon uncomfortable sexual subjects), and whole tribes went to war over their genetic legacy. We broadly accept that certain characteristics may be bred into animals, and that specific ‘breeds’ of dogs are developed as much for desirable behaviors as for their overt physical attributes. Dobermans, Rottweilers & Pit Bull Terriers are rigorously interbred for their physical aggression and fearlessness, just as Setters and Labradors were developed for their gentle and child friendly natures. Even the simplest creatures, like insects, inherit certain behaviors. Take for instance the swarming behavior of locusts, the expansive marches of army ants, or the territorial aggression of hornets and bees. Like insects, mammals have been shown to inherit innate behaviors that are passed on without the need for parental instruction or wisdom (although this often helps…) and again, like insects, our complex social behaviors are directed by nervous, hormonal and pheromonal influences. Believe it or not, human behaviors are sublimely, yet strongly influenced by odorless scents called pheromones, and science has already uncovered distinct human pheromones which socially signal aggression, fear, sexual arousal and fertility.

Natural selection is one of the simplest scientific concepts to take on board, and Darwin’s principle holds true whether a single or many underlying genetic elements are involved. Take for example the inheritance of height, a trait that involves the interplay of many genes. Although such environmental factors as food availability, nutrition and social stress all have a bearing, the children of tall parents tend to be as tall (if not taller) than their parents, and those of dwarves likewise, and the offspring of tall and short parents often display ‘blended’ inheritance, even though no single gene may be responsible. Similarly the nature and interactions of the many hundreds of genes that govern human behavior are extremely complex, as they all contribute to our sophisticated endocrine (hormonal), pheromone and neuronal systems. Such complexity however does not refute the notion that much of our inherent behavior is transmitted by genes rather than merely learned, as the blind paradigm of sexual selection works on the flawed premise that the genes of the most successful individuals are most likely to prosper and be passed on, even if they ultimately prove destructive. For instance, imagine a gene which causes more rapid muscular development and aggression in those individuals who inherit it, even though, in later life, that same gene may predispose its carriers to high blood pressure and heart disease. Herein lies nature’s flaw, as the very dominant gene that augurs precocious development and aids those individuals who carry it to compete successfully for mates at an early age, ultimately condemns its carriers to an early grave. However, the gene’s selective advantage was victorious, and a new generation of carriers arises to further its propagation. A simple illustration to serve the purposes of this topic, but love is essentially blind and sexual window shoppers may be so attracted to the goods on display that no background search into family history is usually carried out, unless of course you are trying to marry your local doctor…

So let us take the concept of the transmission of dominant and destructive genes into the world of behavior to allow us to see how certain individuals can become too successful for the good of the species, and to illustrate how genes may arise within a population that ultimately condemn the entire species to destruction. In the light of recent events, such behavioral traits have become all the more pertinent...

It would be difficult to dispute that the recent economic crisis was caused by the worst excesses of human behavior, namely greed, extravagance and gambling. After all too much of a good thing, in this case a tidal wave of easy money, cheap capital, and rising markets only encourages excess, and we all know that excess is generally not a good idea, whether it be in the form of food, sex, drink or borrowing, accompanied as it invariably is by a universal hangover…

The seven deadly sins of human socioeconomic behavior could perhaps be described as greed, promiscuity, aggression, deceit, gambling, sloth, and extravagance. The fundamental problem is that such behaviors, if perceived to be successful and therein desirable, become traits that are selectively passed on, not only through imitation, but also via inheritance. Within any society, the most successful individuals are regarded as being more sexually attractive, whether success is defined in terms of wealth or physical attributes. If high risk behaviors such as gambling on the stock market or ‘dabbling’ in property are perceived to be successful and are thus rewarded both sexually and materially, whether the success is attributed to luck, judgment or sheer exploitation, then the successful individual’s material and genetic legacies will be more likely to be passed on to the next generation.

History is alive and well in our aristocracy, for many of England’s more notable lineages were granted hereditary titles and lands for the prosperity that their forebears brought to the country from their exploits as generals, pirates, merchants or commercial slavers. It does not take too great an exercise in genealogy before the link between the ruling classes, assertive behaviors and hereditary wealth becomes apparent, a legacy that may be seen today in the House of Lords. Sir Francis Drake was a notorious pirate, and was richly rewarded by Queen Elizabeth for “Singeing the King of Spain’s Beard” and raiding his gold convoys, whilst Admiral Sir Henry Morgan was perhaps the most dangerous and bloodthirsty pirate ever to have sailed the Spanish Main. These warmongering noblemen retired to become rich, respectable and revered, although British history is littered with the legacy of many other tyrants and amoral traders whose behavior was passed on to future generations, including the Stuart dynasty, Sir John Hawkins and other principal beneficiaries of the commercial slave trade.

Before you consider that the transmission of dominant genes within a scattering of ruling families and dynasties has little bearing upon the prosperity and genetic legacy of nations (aside from taking them to war), take a moment to reflect upon the legacy of the ruthless dictator Genghis Khan who is well known to have fathered thousands of children across his empire from Mongolia to Afghanistan. So prolific was the sexual appetite of this mighty warlord, that today more than 13% of the male population in parts of central Asia are known to carry his Y chromosome. If male inheritance is transmitted through the Y chromosome, so might many other male behaviors, and it is tempting to speculate that warlike histories of Afghanistan and Pakistan may reflect the mighty Khan’s genetic legacy.

It is entirely reasonable to contend that many behaviors are transmitted both genetically and culturally by dominant individuals. Take for instance William the Conqueror who brought feudal law to Anglo-Saxon Britain, causing the loss of many personal freedoms, the fruits of the forest, and much of England’s tribal heritage. His successful Norman line instituted such legal niceties as prima nocta (a nobleman’s right to demand conjugal rights with a commoner’s wife), the Forest Law (the nobleman’s ownership of all wild forest game [1]), and the idea of feudal service in exchange for access to land, traditions which perpetuate to this day in one form or another. Thus it came to be that the ruling classes had the right to bear children by the wives of other men, and this could only enhance the spread of their genes and behaviors. The celebrated territorial aggression of Norman kings such as William the Conqueror, Richard the ‘Lion heart’ and their descendants laid the cultural foundations of the largest empire the world has known. Their behaviors gave rise to the spread of feudalism, the crusades, slavery and ultimately the corporate empires of today. Their natural tendency towards risk taking was evidently richly rewarded, and generations of expansive and territorially aggressive ‘alpha’ males have since fathered children who themselves were more likely to become leaders and aggressive risk takers in their own right. In contrast those whose natures are risk averse or impoverished are less likely to be successful, as are those who are less cunning and resourceful risk takers, and men of such traits were naturally less likely to prosper or to reproduce in their turn. However, we can hardly afford to celebrate the bio-logical consequences of a legacy of aggressive, territorial and warlike behaviors in this our crowded, resource-strained 21st Century.

Of course we can’t simply blame all of human behavior upon a handful of tyrants or regents. Most behavior is enacted by those with more modest power and resources, although the principles of cultural and genetic inheritance still apply. Greed, risk taking, promiscuity and extravagance may be viewed as discrete vices, but they are often associated behaviors and their roots lie within the mid brain where neural systems that reinforce risk taking and reward associate. The neural basis of addiction, risk taking and hedonistic (pleasure) seeking behavior is now fairly well understood, but we have only recently begun to realize that certain individuals are genetically more susceptible to addiction (including drugs, pleasure, video games, sex and other ‘vices’) than most others, and that the tendency towards risky behaviors (such as gambling, fighting and stealing) and addiction may be highly correlated in certain individuals. This is to say that some individuals will be more likely to steal, lie, cheat or gamble to obtain rewards such as money or sex. Moreover such behaviors may be reinforced and rewarded as prevailing social and legal structures such as communities and the judicial system decline and are thus no longer able or willing to prevent or punish such deviant behaviors. Thus such rogue behaviors may ultimately be reinforced in certain individuals who effectively become rewarded materially or sexually for stealing, lying, cheating or raping, encouraging the transmission of such behaviors. If these rogue behaviors are allowed to flourish under a veil of social tolerance, or even outward respectability (as Robert Louis Stephenson classically foretold in his epic tale of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde), ultimately they will be more likely passed on to offspring as ‘successful’ traits. Take, for instance, the recent spate of bank collapses caused by senior individuals, whose extreme risk taking behaviors had previously earned large profits for their employers, resulting in a corporate tolerance towards their high risk strategies. In a bull market with rising property and equity prices these individuals had enjoyed a run of success leading to a relaxation of due diligence procedures and ‘natural proportionality’ in hedging bets on stocks, shares and derivatives. In the course of a generation, the leaders of the financial services sector had prospered and gained in social power and political influence to the point where they had persuaded governments to relax banking and trading laws. They became free to gamble ever larger sums on stocks and shares without leaving their losses at the table, or even having to have the assets they were gambling on deposit. A financial house of cards duly accumulated, each debt card propped up by another until eventually assets could not be quantified, and any demand for liquidity (i.e. the removal of a single card) would (and did) lead to a collapse of the entire banking system. The result of allowing those with extreme risk taking and avaricious natures to dominate our financial system has now led to an issuing of government bonds on a scale not seen since the last world war, resulting in massive governmental debt and the prospect of daunting recession.

Like the genes which encode for risk taking, hedonistic and addictive behaviors, those genes that foster deceit and social aggression may also be preferentially passed on within modern society. For instance, psychopaths are known to have disrupted communication between their decision-making prefrontal cortex and their amygdala, a region of the brain which confers emotional or empathetic reasoning. Psychopaths thus reason without human ‘conscience’ and are often ruthless, cunning and calculating individuals, although rarely violent. Regrettably such behavior confers an advantage amid the anonymity of the modern urban jungles of the 21st Century, as those who do not adhere to the mantras of socialist, religious or law abiding behaviors are able to ‘steal’ a competitive advantage. As these individuals, estimated to represent over 1% of the population, are more likely to be successful and therefore to have the opportunity for procreation, it is more than reasonable to assume that certain psychopathic traits may be passed on to future generations.

Let us hope that our society is able to reorganize itself, to recognize that deviant behaviors are transmitted, and to weed out its pathological risk takers, psychopaths, and addicted hedonists before such traits lead to an apocalypse of an overcrowded human species…

[1] "It is allowed to our sovereign lord the king, in respect of his continual care, and labour, for the preservation of the whole realm, among other privileges, this prerogative, to have his places of recreation and pastime, whatsoever he will appoint. For as it is at the liberty, and the pleasure of his to the reserve the wild beast, and the game to himself, for his only delight and pleasure, so he may also at his will and pleasure, make a forest for them to abide in. A forest is a certain territory of woody grounds and fruitful pastures, privileged for wild beasts and fowls of the forest, chase, and warren, to rest and abide there in the safe protection of the King for his delight and pleasure....."1598, Manwood in his Treatise of the Laws of the Forest.