Language, logic, and emotion are all aspects of human nature that may be studied scientifically to learn more about its origins and mechanisms, employing evolutionary biology, genetics, and neuroscience techniques. But not all things that make us human are hardwired from birth. Many seemingly permanent aspects of human existence are relatively malleable. Not our genetics, but our collective past provides us with them. Marriage, sports, and war are all elements of the human experience that defy scientific analysis and need a more humanistic approach to study.
Understanding the distinction between these two branches of anthropology requires going beyond the importance and seeming universality of certain qualities in today's human communities. A trait may be typical of human existence as we know it, but this does not prove that the feature originates from human nature or is inherent to homo sapiens as a species.
Frequently it is obvious. Despite its pervasiveness and significance in our evolutionary past, no one would claim that cooking is inherent to the human condition since it is an innovation that calls for using tools and materials that are not part of our natural environment. Similarly, sport is not inherent to human nature. However, academics have been baffled by some aspects of human existence for quite some time. I'll focus on three contentious issues: armed conflict, religion, and the role of women in society.
So, what exactly is war? It's essential to recognize that warfare is a human construct that offers swift rewards to those who adopt and master it and swift punishments to those who remain on the outside. Instead of being the direct result of our DNA or the universal iron rules of economics, it is part of the history of humankind, mediated through our human experience.
Most people believe religion is something apart from the rest of humanity, with a history and methods that can be studied scientifically. The religion gene' in human DNA has been the focus of much scientific attention, and brain scans of persons in prayer have been used to attempt to catch the religion brain module' in action. The premise of this study is that religious belief is solid enough to survive scientific analysis.
The more scientists try to find religion inside us, the more the package appears to unravel; therefore, it is no surprise that they have failed. They might have spared themselves a lot of time and effort by consulting cultural anthropologists, whose studies have shown that the present notion of religion is a very recent human creation and that even in the contemporary world, it is by no means universally held.
Belief in a higher power, in magic, in origin myths, in holy rites and locations, in euphoric experiences, and so on are all behaviors compatible with religion and may have their roots directly in human nature. The essentialists' response to this criticism is to expand their definition of religion to include these groups by appealing to a 'family resemblance' (just as those who insist that war is essential to expand their definition to encompass all forms of interpersonal violence).
I believe it's reasonable to suspect this add-on's motives from the get-go. Such features only appear in pieces (not as the complete religious package'), and it's not apparent why we'd term them holy if we weren't already so intent on grouping everything under one umbrella. It doesn't seem to be cutting nature at the joints as a proper scientific category should, given that one might reasonably include communist ideology, vegetarianism, Western consumerism, and general benevolence in such a broad family of religious' qualities.
Since there are noticeable anatomical and physiological differences between the sexes, the application of this distinction to the study of gender is both intriguing and contentious. Here I want to focus on the widely held view that existing gender norms are mostly hardwired and, thus, natural.
The researchers point out that sexism is pervasive in human society, citing facts like how women care more about the emotions of others than males do, even in the supposedly egalitarian West. They also point out that, in several ways, men's and women's brains are physically different. They then invest considerable effort into attempting to establish a connection between the two.
As the adage goes, "You can't change human nature," thus, if they are correct, this disproves many key feminist ideas scientifically. Therefore, initiatives to encourage women to flourish (such as awarding Nobel awards to women in fields other than literature) are futile attempts at social engineering. We would be better off if we came to terms with the fact that men and women have distinct but complementary interests and skills, such as by ensuring that 'women's professions' are given their due respect and financial reward.
However, can we trust these scientific findings? The natural essence method is based on correlation searching rather than mechanism testing; specifically, it seeks to find physiological or 'evolutionary strategy' distinctions that would explain the 'truth' that men and women are intrinsically different. Because of this prejudice, the answers it provides are not entirely objective.
Differences that occur naturally are not conclusive proof of any practical significance. The fact that men and women are biologically different in some ways is no more critical to their talents than having long hair or being bald is to be a good cobbler, as Plato pointed out thousands of years ago in Book 5 of The Republic.
Whether or not specific academic sub-fields are constructed on basic mistakes and hence a waste of time (hardly news) is one of many consequences of the divide between human nature and the human predicament. It has consequences for how we see ourselves now that we made the fundamental mistake of presuming that certain qualities prevalent among modern humans are accurate of H. sapiens and hence true of all of us. Much of the naturalizing process lacks sufficient critical thinking or an authentic scientific attitude of inquiry. It's all too easy to fall into the trap of believing that appearances are, in fact, accurate.
For instance, many think religion should be given exceptional importance and autonomy in our communities and our educational, civic, and political institutions since they feel that to be human is to be religious — or at least to have a 'hunger for religion. Thus, all faiths are engaged in a similar process of looking for the divine and deserve equal respect, a tenet that may be considered to underpin the so-called secularism practiced in the United States. This harmful assumption suggests that non-religious people (distinct from atheists) are deficient in some fundamental human skill and need to be pitied or helped to fill the yawning void in their life.
Although our bodies have altered little in the last 200,000 years, our minds have undergone profound transformations. Humans function in the biologically given natural world and the world we have constructed for ourselves. Individuals build new systems that serve their needs in the human world, such as religion, war, slavery, and passionate love. We get conditioned to accept the reality these innovations produce because of their widespread adoption and success, and it eventually appears as though it could not have been any other way.
Understanding that the human state results from human efforts allow us to examine it, think about it, and change it for the better. Some individuals are inherently servile, and Aristotle felt compelled to explain this fact since slavery was once so pervasive in our human society. However, we stumbled onto a superior innovation in the form of a market economy, which has rendered inefficient slavery almost extinct. But it doesn't mean the new technology is without flaws. Humans, as we are, are what the human condition focuses on, not what we have to be.
Art: midjourney.com