Sometimes in nature, only the friendliest survive, according to Brian Hare, a professor of evolutionary anthropology at Duke University and the director of the Duke Canine Cognition Center. The UA Evolution Working Group hosted Hare as the speaker at this semester’s second “Alabama Lecture on Life’s Evolution,” or ALLELE, seminar, presenting the research and theories of his book, “Survival of the Friendliest,” at North Lawn Hall on Thursday.
Hare said that the common phrase used to describe natural selection, “survival of the fittest,” is not necessarily how nature works. In many cases throughout evolutionary history, the species that is the most friendly is the one that not only survives, but thrives. When an organism finds a new way of being friendly, cooperation is formed, which has led to the evolutionary success of many species, including flowering plants, cleaner shrimp, bonobos, domestic dogs and even humans.
Christopher Lynn is a UA professor of anthropology and a member of the Evolution Working Group. He was responsible for hosting Hare and organizing the seminar.
“For a long time I thought this would be a great ALLELE lecture. I assign his book, ‘Survival of the Friendliest,’ in my Intro to Biological Anthropology class,” Lynn said. “His is one of these theories that knits so many questions that we have about human evolution together so elegantly that you either want to knock it off its pedestal or run with it.”
The main focus of Hare’s research has been the coevolution of humans and dogs. In the seminar, he presented experiments that he and other researchers have done to show that dogs have developed a special cognitive trait to understand human gestures, something our closest genetic relatives, chimpanzees, cannot do. Humans have selectively chosen dogs over thousands of years by how friendly they are. This trait of friendliness is shared by bonobos, another close genetic relative of humans, and may also explain why our species of human survived while others didn’t.
“I thought the lecture was really informative. I really liked that it didn’t go in the direction that I thought it would. It was less about evolutionary science and more about anthropology and culture, bringing it back to present day. I thought that was really cool,” said Monica Lopez, a freshman majoring in biology.
At the end of his presentation, Hare spoke about how human friendliness and our ability to form shared group identities with total strangers is how we have advanced so far, but Hare also said it is the source of our greatest evils. According to Hare, when we feel like our group is threatened, we become the cruelest species on the planet.
“I think people think about evolution and evolutionary science as a study of the past, but it’s all about generating knowledge that can serve society,” Hare said. “There are things we talked about tonight that have major impacts and could solve real problems that we all struggle with. Hopefully that’s something people can take away from tonight.”
Lopez said she found Hare’s example about the xenophilic nature of bonobos and how in experiments they would share food with other bonobos they had never met to be compelling.
“I feel like if bonobos can share food and be friendly, we certainly can,” Lopez said. “I thought it was interesting how agriculture, the industrial revolution, and all these innovations we see as good things have also been part of the really negative side of humanity.”
Lynn said he thought Hare did a great job as a speaker, and he was glad that the room was full to hear what was presented.
“We’ve been doing this for a long time, and we appreciate the community’s support,” Lynn said. “We want our campus to be open to the importance of evolutionary theory because it helps explain all life on the planet.”
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