Shaping a ‘moral landscape’ through science – a basis for equality from the Human Genome Project?

Image by Gordon Johnson from Pixabay

A few thoughts on how science might help us create more effective and relevant ethical codes, with reference to Adam Rutherford’s A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived and Sam Harris’ The Moral Landscape.

I’ve just finished reading Adam Rutherford’s The Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived, the forerunner of his 2020 How to Argue With a Racist: History, Science, Race and Reality (now a definite entry on my to-read list).

Adam’s careful and intricate analysis of the vast findings from the Human Genome Project and related studies make it clear we can no longer think of our evolution, particularly our family histories, in terms of ‘trees’. They more resemble thick bramble patches, with genetic lines twisting back, forth and around each other, than the neat linear branching of an acer. But even a bramble patch, as a metaphor, doesn’t begin to sum up the complex weaving of genetic variation throughout the history of Homo Sapiens. Really, we need to leave behind images of flora and try to wrap our heads around a geometric image so complex as, perhaps, a near-infinite hectogonal matrix with many random indices missing - something so impossible to visualise as to be entirely useless. All this is to say the obvious: that, as with so many other important scientific findings, the prevailing public view of genetics (and therefore of our own species and all other life in general) is vastly over-simplified.

For example, one of the most fascinating revelations in the book is that the shared ancestor of everyone alive today could well have lived as recently as 3,600 years ago (p.151 - 2013 study by J Chang using mathematical models rather than DNA sequencing). Another, that when tracing the lineage of everyone alive in Europe today, we could well ‘be able to select a line that would cross everyone else’s around the time of Richard II.’  (p.148) (i.e. C14th). Or that:

‘85 per cent of human variation, according to the genetic differences in blood groups, was seen in the same racial groups. Of the remaining 15 per cent, only 8 per cent accounted for differences between one racial group and another… Genetically, two black people are more likely to be different to each other than a black person and a white person’. (p. 233, findings from blood type study by R Lewontin).

This last idea keys into arguably the most important finding of the book, particularly in terms of how we might progress from our current oversimplified and misguided view of the perpetual segregation of our species: the fallacy of ‘race’. As Adam points out, the findings from the HGP show that our genetic lines of descent are so mixed, with so much intermingling – with even other hominids - that the idea of ‘race’ is meaningless in these terms. We can point to no human being alive today and say definitively that they belong to this group, or that group – even members of the most isolated island tribes. As Adam points out, ‘no population is known to have remained isolated over a sustained period of time’ (p.151).

By now, this information will be quite commonplace, at least within the scientific community. Given that the book came out in 2017, I am far behind the curve pointing this out when further studies may already have superseded these ones. If you want to know more about the findings in detail, I would highly recommend reading Adam’s book (and, as I now intend to, his 2020 How To Argue with a Racist, for a more up-to-date and in-depth exploration of the topic).

But what the book put me in mind of most was how such ideas might connect to Sam Harris’ 2010 book The Moral Landscape, in which he dares broach the heresy(!) that science alone could potentially provide a code of ethics more meaningful, and more relevant, for our modern way of life than those previously accepted, or more often imposed, throughout history. A way of considering our current systems of wrongs and rights, our shoulds and should nots, and calculating if they are indeed still as useful as we believe.

For Sam, the ultimate aim behind this exercise is to improve the ‘well-being’ of societies and individuals. Of course, agreeing on a definition of ‘well-being’ is a contentious subject from the very start. The differences in human values (at individual or group level) are well documented and easily observed with just the briefest scroll through Twitter, without much need to test them empirically. Once you get deep into the nitty-gritty of defining ‘well being’, much disagreement will unavoidably erupt. Each individual’s own personal hierarchies of ethical needs and wants will never match entirely with any other’s. Each group (be it religious, political, or even interest based) will have its own hierarchy of priorities on what ‘well being’ might mean; which ethical constraints should be retained, and which ones we could happily throw out.

Such considerations are never simple. Our existing ethical codes emerge from a colossal spectrum of sources and intentions: from, at the upper-end, an honest concern for individual and social health; through the values some parents might imbue in their children to make their own lives a little more peaceful; all the way down to the many nifty and unscrupulous tactics employed by those in positions of power throughout the centuries that allow them to cling onto it a little longer. What does a universal idea of ‘well-being’ really mean for the modern human race, and how can knowledge gained through the scientific process allow us to achieve it?

Growing up, I formed the belief that everyone is an individual (maybe I watched Life of Brian too many times), so I’m fortunate enough to be able to shake off (for the most part) the misguided attempts by others in society to link how people behave to how they look. It isn’t easy though. We are bombarded with stereotypes and loose-thinking through media representations and the easy, but ill-considered, grouping of individuals in our everyday conversations. But I would argue that, as a basis for defining well-being, a reasonable starting point would seem to be that every individual be afforded the same treatment and respect as all others would want to receive, regardless of how they look. Equality, if you like - on at least one set of criteria. Of course, this might need to be adjusted on a per case basis depending on the behaviour of any individual – crime, for example (though what constitutes ‘crime’, the factors behind such behaviours, and the right to rehabilitation, would all, in Sam’s model, need to come under scrutiny as well).

But Adam’s work in unpicking the findings of the HGP in relation to what we think of as neat and obvious segregation of ‘race’, showing that they are in fact anything but neat or obvious, is surely a scientific basis for a vital fundamental tenet of ‘well being’? Would any right-minded individual, when shown such evidence, refute this? Well, of course, that depends on what we mean by ‘right-minded…’  As noble an idea as Sam’s science-based moral landscape is, it would require universal acceptance by the entire human race, over a very long period of time, to be truly effective. And alas, I am sure there are many people who would baulk at the idea that ‘equality’ should even be considered as a starting point, regardless of whether it is evidence-based or not. For example, those who are afraid to lose standing, economically or politically, or those whose nostalgic servitude to traditional ideas form an important part of what they consider their identity.

 And for those individuals who do conclude, in the face of such evidence, that an important part of ‘wellbeing’ is not the ability of each and every human to view and treat every other human as deserving of the same respect and concern as themselves, would it not be a temptation for the rest of us to strike their opinion from the record, for the greater well-being of the species? After all, the inability to accept this basic sameness of difference (i.e. we are all, as individuals, similarly different to one another), and the importance of co-operation between us (surely another undeniable stable strategy in terms of the ‘well being’ of individuals and societies?) would be a self-confessed indicator they are less deserving of this right. If they do not believe in it, why should they benefit from it?

This would be a mistake though: claims for the ‘greater good’ have often been the cause of horrific acts against groups and individuals. Besides, by accepting this equality as a fundamental tenet of our ethical code, that same tenet would be there to catch them, support them, and help educate (rather than condition) them. In fact, it is arguably more important that they are still afforded it, in the hope that the benefits would then become clear to them.

Even in writing this, I’m aware it attests to my own existing set of ethical biases* and that, should unbiased scientific findings prove this wrong, I would have no choice but, having tied my horse to the cart of scientific process, to accept it. That is a bet I am willing to take though. And what are our ethical codes really, at root level, but a bet? ‘I think future scenario y is a distinct possibility, and to avoid/achieve it, I believe I should do x’ (or even ‘I think future scenario y is not a distinct possibility, but I can afford to put a small amount of effort into doing x to improve/lessen it’) – not so different to any other behavioural cost/benefit decision**. On these terms, scientific data and statistical models on such possibilities become invaluable.

But still the fears of many humans who, in the long term, would likely benefit from such an exercise remain a major obstacle to remodelling of our ethical codes - as do those of the minority who would stand to lose a little power and influence, effectively bringing them closer in status to the rest of the population. As ever, nothing is simple, but regardless, the immense and vital work of the scientific community, the opportunities for education and dissemination required - well, all of this happens anyway, and (funding allowing!) will continue to happen. The more that projects like the HGP, and Adam’s wonderfully descriptive analysis of it, can be brought to the forefront, in a manner both available and accessible for public scrutiny, the better the possibility such ideas might gradually be taken on board and accepted.

We can only hope that, while Sam’s science-based moral landscape might seem idealistic and over-complicated to achieve, a universal definition of well-being, along with fundamental supporting ideas such as the meaninglessness of ‘race’, might be absorbed and acted upon by people without need for any formal introduction. After all, nowadays there are a lot more of us outside the scientific community with both a fervent interest in it and greater access to it than ever before in our history (thanks mostly to the writing skills of scientists like Adam and Sam).

But there will always be many, many others who want, or even have no choice, but to keep things simple (for some, this might include forming value judgements based purely on how other people look -  a sign perhaps of an over-functioning amygdala / under-functioning pre-frontal cortex, but more likely of dubious environmental conditioning!). The necessary complexities of the scientific process itself, let alone specific studies emerging from it, are likely to ward away such people from the very start. But in those cases, we can at least resort to snappy one-liners and quotes to engage them and encourage them to think more about the subject - and Adam’s epic book contains plenty such quotes, (some of which would have been highly appropriate for the intro page of Struggle To Make Sense Of It All).

Here are three of my favourites:

 ‘For every complicated problem, there is a solution that is simple, direct, understandable, and wrong.’ (H. L. Mencken)

 ‘Ignorance is the position from which we work out what is correct.’ (Adam Rutherford)

 ‘…as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns – the ones we don’t know we don’t know.’ (Donald Rumsfeld) 

*For a start, I can find no merit in non-overlapping magisteria, the idea that the domains of science and religion/morals are separate entities and should forever be held apart as such. The scientific process is about understanding our world/lives/universes better, using rigorous testing and data. That is the point of it. It is not separate from anything else. It seeks to uncover all aspects of our environment, inside and out. The fact that there might be aspects it cannot yet reach does not automatically raise other ways of thinking and exploring the world, such as imagination and stories, to a position of authority on them. So, for those wondering why we would even want or need a science-based ethical code, I hope this makes my own position on the matter very clear.

**I use the word ‘decision’ loosely - these are not necessarily conscious decisions, but here isn’t the place for a consideration of ‘free’ will (though it will likely will feature in future posts, being the main theme of my second Stank and Bohdrum book, Revolution of the Mind).