Us and Them: Understanding Your Tribal Mind

Stephen Jay Gould was a paleontologist who is the enemy of many Darwinian fundamentalists for his controversial “punctuated equilibrium theory” that evolution progresses in random spurts, not smoothly. Darwinian fundamentalists object to his theories because he claims scientists cannot explain much of evolution by general natural selection principles. Gould believed species’ environmental adaptations are accidental. Darwinian fundamentalists dogmatically believe that general principles of natural selection explain evolution. Berreby elaborates, “Gould’s frequently made point is that it is far easier to imagine a trait is adaptive than to prove it, so refusing alternative explanations is a mistake” (285-86). Darwinian fundamentalists reject any notion that species evolve through accidents: “They want principles, whose operations can be relied on, whatever the messy details. And one of those principles is that everything in life has a function” (286).

Gould split one human kind (Darwinists) into two newly formed, bitterly opposed human kinds (Darwinian Fundamentalists and Punctuated Equilibrium Theorists) by proposing a new idea which slightly alters the original idea. Five hundred years prior, no human-kind group called “Darwinist” or “Darwinian,” or even “Evolutionist” existed, then it did and it existed as one human-kind for a long time, until it became two different human kinds as allegiances were formed around Gould’s new idea. Scientists now hold strong emotional connections to which human kind they belong: Darwinian Fundamentalist or Punctuated Equilibrium Theorist, and they feel hatred for the opposing group; they ascribe stigma based on such beliefs. Berreby explains, “At first, an idea defines the trait. […] Human-kind feelings kick in and the idea becomes the banner we wave to rally those feelings and the shibboleth used to test other people’s commitment” (288).

Tribalism does not inform which idea is correct. Darwinians seek “ultimate causes”—why it exists. This is as opposed to “proximate causes”—how the trait works and what brain functions it involves. Determining ultimate causes requires assembling many separate pieces of information into one complete theory. Proximate causes are the separate pieces of information. Berreby concludes, “For human-kind problems, that’s an attractive prospect” (289). Scientific research is conducted at many different levels, and theories utilized in one field don’t always match those in others. Berreby’s refrain is, “Ask a different question, you get a different answer” (290): Scientists conducting research across multiple levels of discipline encounter differences in the way “disciplines interrogate the world” (290).

Neither approach is “right” or “wrong;” each viewpoint is not neatly related to the others. This is the scientific error “race-realists” or “racial scientists” make—attempting to reach conclusions in one level of discipline based on research from a separate level of discipline. Science does not support the connections they draw in the relevant level of discipline. Human-kind research is difficult partly because it requires combining multiple levels of discipline into one study. Human-kind researchers “are mixing anthropology with biochemistry, brain scans with psychology” (291). Darwinian fundamentalists believe theories will one day fit perfectly among every scientific discipline. Many scientists believe this goal is unattainable. Scientists conduct most research within one discipline to ensure its results are applicable solutions to real problems.

E.O. Wilson coined the term “consilience:” a probabilistic approach to the relationship between scientific disciplines and their respective levels of analysis which dictates “[t]heories that agree on several levels are more likely to make good predictions and lead to further work than theories that contradict each other” (294). However, scientific research shifts consensuses in different disciplines, so they cannot achieve a stable consensus among varying disciplines. Different disciplines inform each other, but don’t determine each other’s conclusions. Two disciplines agreeing today does not mean they will agree tomorrow. Cross-discipline applicability of scientific theories is why Gould advocated “pluralism,” in which differing theories coexist in different disciplines.

People practice pluralism daily, applying different approaches to different purposes. Berreby relates, “The different camps in science stimulate and correct one another. Disunity, that constant struggle of different traditions, in the absence of some ultimate Truth to settle everything, is what makes science strong and lively” (296). Pluralists believe in standards but recognize that problems create standards and humans establish problems. Scientists must account for the “human context” of problems in their solutions. Darwinian Fundamentalists believe the opposite: Context is irrelevant, and eventually all disciplines will share one universal truth. Scientific certainties don’t exist. Science utilizes theories, not conclusions. Science claims probability, not certainty. If scientific certainty is impossible, so is the notion of a universal truth which spans scientific disciplines.