EVOLUTION, BIOLOGY, AND POLITICS

It took 2.5 million years to put these three words in the same title.

Something remarkable has happened over the past few years in biology. I will use endocrinology as an example. Endocrinology is the science of biological cybernetics or cell-to-cell communications as well as organism-to-organism communication. As opposed to nerves, hormones are chemicals produced and released within our bodies that mediate the communication. The new realization has to do with our concept of the scope and range of hormonal effects. Let me explain.

Like most significant changes in concepts, it started because of results that happened in many research laboratories around the world. After several scientific disciplines came together in an attempt to understand the diverse results—consilience, or unity of knowledge—scientists realize that we knew more than we did originally. We have known for a long time that hormones have at least two general functional areas; they function in ontology or development and in behavior.  From evolutionary science, we know our physical development, as well as personal and social behavior, are both the result of adaptation by natural selection. Now, we are using these two thought to explain our uniquely human physical brain development, which scientists felt developed over 2.5 million years. Of course, the nervous system and the endocrine systems have a much longer evolutionary history; some even go so far as to say that behavior shapes our brain development, which is not true; they co-developed from the time of the primordial pools.

Testosterone, the male sex hormone, along with a large array of other hormones influences our physical development just as in all animals. The relatively small steroid hormone influences muscle mass, fat distribution, beard growth and public hair, and obviously genitalia development. This remarkable little molecule, again in concert with a large array of other chemical hormones, also causes us to be sexually aggressive, is part of our propensity to fight, as well as effect a wide range of other behaviors.

Highly sophisticated brain scans, some forms of which scientists refer to as functional nuclear magnetic resonance, reveal activities associated with “male” behavior can be located in certain anatomical areas in the brain. Although not yet scientifically proved, the implication is the hormone testosterone is associated with physical brain development just as our physical environment is associated with evolving on the savannas of Africa. Our evolution shaped our brain. In other words, our social evolution that is our response to one another is what gave rise to the adaptive evolution of our brains by selection followed by the trail and error of survival millions of years of maintain in trans-generational memory—DNA/RNA. Mentioning of DNA/RNA brings in over 50 years of knowledge accumulated though nucleic acid chemistry, which is obviously more consilience. Somewhere in these brain shaping events we transitioned from mindless organisms to mindful organisms and then from mindful organisms to animals with humans values.

We know that steroid structure, fatty acid structure, and protein structure are untimely depends on trans-generational DNA/RNA codes—protein codes are the most directly linked to DNA/RNA code transcription. We know our cells produce hormones through a long series of metabolic reactions mediated by enzymes and we know that enzymes are proteins; thus related to DNA/RNA. In addition, we know that cells have hormone receptors, which are specific proteins embedded in the cell membranes that recognize the hormone in question. Once cell recognizes a particular hormone, the cell responds metabolically in someway.

The testosterone example and an example is all it is, points out a few of the ways receptor cell respond to the small steroid molecule. There are 46 protein hormones, six-classes of steroid hormones, and a broad family of prostaglandins that the body makes and the cells respond to in a similar way; permutations and combinations are limitless. Regardless of what the hormones, we also know survival regulates the amount produced as well as the number of cell receptors and the type and number of cells that have receptors but each step in the process has a limited range—one of my favorite witticisms is that biology does not like extremes. If a change is incompatible with life, it cannot be trans-generational. This gives rise to constrained biological variation. This is evolution. This is what makes us so much the same physically and behaviorally, yet so different. This is what contributes to making us Republicans and Democrats, for example. We can only understand it through the unity of knowledge: consilience.

I just finished reading a remarkable book edited by +Peter Hatemi and +Rose McDermott. The title is telling; Man Is by Nature a Political Animal: Evolution, Biology, and Politics, Chicago Univ. Press, 2011. This blog post is not a book review but is a way of calling attention to the broadening landscape of study dealing with, of all things, our politics and us. It is well to note that McDermott is a political scientist but Hatemi is an associate professor of political science and biochemistry; he is the embodiment of a concept new to science: a new breed. The book consists of 10 chapters written by scientists of different persuasions and a conclusion written by the editors. What the book screams load and clear is that our politics is biochemical and a product of evolution—something I have repeatedly said, our behavior has a genetic foundation; thus, our politics may be modified by learning but it is in our genes.

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