Diplomats, Monkeys, and the New Biology
| Published date | 01 March 1967 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070206702200108 |
| Author | Lionel Tiger |
| Date | 01 March 1967 |
| Subject Matter | Review Article |
REvIEw
ARTICLES
87
Lionel
Tiger, University
of
British
Columbia
Diplomats,
Monkeys,
and
the
New
Biology
A
long time
ago
Aristotle
announced:
"Man
is
by
nature
a
political
animal.
The
key
phrase
in
the
statement
is
"by
nature"
yet
relatively
few
of
the
tools
of
modern
social
science
have
been
deployed
to
under
stand
this
nature,
and
most
work
has
concentrated
on
elaborate
descrip-
tion
and discussion
of
the
adjective
"political" The
arid
simple-minded
mechanicism
of
Pavlov and
his
American
successors
has
led to
an
over
whelming
emphasis
on
learned behaviour
as
the
chief
factor
in
social
relations.
In
man, Instinct
and
instincts
are
dead.
Free
Will,
belief
in
education,
the liberty
of
the
individual,
the
changeability
of
all
men,
institutionalized
positivist optimism,
are
all
facets
of
a
belief
system
which
denies
the
importance
of
the
genetic
substratum
in
defining
social
behaviour
and
which
has tended
to
abstract
man
from
his
bio-environ-
ment and
his
evolutionary
history
Even
those
fond
of
stressing
the
force
of
history
and
the
deep
roots
in
the
past
of
contemporary
action
curiously
overlook
the
much
longer prehistoric
period
of
man.
1
Worse
still,
persons
who
have sought
to
argue
that
"human
nature"
is
an
important
basis
and
concomitant
of
social
action
are
regarded
as
reac-
tionary-who
but a
reactionary
could
bear
a
status
quo
of
two
million
years' standing?
ThIs
must
change,
if
not
because
of
the
findings
and
analyses
of
action-oriented
social
scientists themselves,
then
because
of
the
weight
and implication
of
new
data from
archeology
paleoanthropology,
gen-
etics,
behavioural
biology
(ethology)
medicine,
anatomy
and
related
studies.
It
is
always
difficult
for
members
of
a
profession to
admit
the
relevance
of
new
data
to
their
work,
particularly
when
the
use
of such
data
necessitates
revision
of
the
intellectual
framework
within
which
their
work
is
customarily
carried
on.
But
very recent
studies
of
pri-
mates,
particularly
and
other
animals
in
their
natural
environments
have
made
it
clear
how
sophisticated
and "cultured"
their
social lives
are
and
at
the
same
time
how
subject
to
predictable
genetic
control
are
these
complex
social
systems.
Post-war excavations
and carbon-
dating
techniques have
provided
a
considerable
amount
of
fossil
evi-
dence
about
protohommids
and
early
man;
it
is
now possible
to
say
that
probably
man's
most
important
evolutionary
specialization
was
his
abil-
ity
to
hunt
co-operatively
large
animals.
This
behaviour
preceded
the
development
of
his
brain
and,
biologically
speaking,
is
more
basic
to
the
central
nervous
system
and
thus
in
the
human behavioural
reper
toire.
We
are
beginning to
appreciate
mechanisms
of
genetic
transfer
which
underlie
the
selective
processes
of
evolution. Our
understanding
of
computers
allows
us
to
conceptualize
a
genetic
programme
and an
electrically alive
system
subject dynamically to
internal
and
external
1
See
Robert
Erwin
"Civilization
as
a
Phase
of World
History"
American
His-
torical
Review,
Volume
LXXI:4,
June
1966.
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