Only the Pronoid Survive

Natural-Born Cooperators

Altruism has been hardwired into us; it's right there in the genes. When economies become larger, richer, and more interdependent, conditions that favor the unselfish genes increase -- similar to the conditions that increased the numbers of dark moths and dark cats in smoggy England.

"We have a propensity for altruism, for wanting to give, for hating to renege, for forgiving, for feeling indignant," says Cronin. "These are part of our machinery for altruism. If we set up an environment to evoke what is most altruistic from us, then it isn't at all difficult to evoke altruism and increase it, because altruism grows on altruism, and reneging grows on reneging. We don't have to change human nature to change society. The environment evokes from a given human nature more or less cooperative behavior."

We are born altruists in two areas. The first is by kin selection. " We are finely tuned to offer altruism to others who share the same genes," Cronin says. "A mother is self-sacrificial to her children." The other source is reciprocal altruism -- tit for tat at its most crude level. "If you're playing over a long period, it's worthwhile to keep cooperation going," says Cronin.

Darwin himself hated conflict. When Alfred Russel Wallace, a young naturalist, wrote Darwin a year before Origin of Species was to be published and outlined word for word what was apparently Darwin's own idea, Darwin wrote to a colleague asking whether he should publish his own work: "I would rather burn my whole book than he or any other man should think that I had behaved in a paltry spirit." His colleague insisted that he publish his book. But a year before he did, Darwin published a joint paper with Wallace.

Altruism breeds altruism, and reciprocal acts breed reciprocal acts. "If we feel that other people are only out for themselves, one is wary of being altruistic. If we feel other people are not giving, we say, 'I'm not going to be a sucker,' " says Cronin. "The more people understand that we are evolved altruists, and the more people feel that no one is taking advantage of another, the more we will become altruistic, and the more we won't take advantage of one another."

Living by the Laws of the Unselfish Gene

Darwin had a great gift: curiosity. He saw nothing as ordinary. Helena Cronin has the same gift. The big mystery about Darwin is how this wealthy country boy, far from brilliant as a youth, became a genius. Helena Cronin has a similar mystery about her.

When she began studying Darwin, the field was not fashionable. In fact, Cronin has a background much like Darwin's: She was left out of the mainstream for years, thinking she would study English literature. She studied philosophy, but with no great passion. "I have three degrees in philosophy, but I never really enjoyed it," she says. "I never quite decided what I wanted to do when I grew up, but in the meantime, I was studying philosophy." Throughout her career, she was driven by others' direction. "Basically, I got a PhD because my adviser thought I should. This is a typical woman's story."

It's one of Cronin's less-than-politically-correct Darwinian theories: In a Darwinian world, women don't have the competitive direction of men. "The problem with Darwinism is that it is a male-advantaged science," she says. "Darwinists explain males as peacocks, strutting and displaying their advantages. The men were killing elk or giraffe while the women were catching rabbits. What is it to be the rabbit catcher? The colorless creatures. What is it to own that? There's a theory of the peacock, but where is the theory of the peahen?"

In the spring of 1963, Cronin was reading the philosophies of Karl Popper in a library much like the great reading room of the British Museum. "I still remember how the light was streaming in on the page," Cronin says. What struck her was the explanatory power of science. From there, it was a small step to getting hooked on Darwin. She was drawn to Darwin at a time when philosophers were saying that Darwin was bad science, and survival of the fittest was a tautology. On the other hand, Cronin says, "It was the foundation of all biology. It needed reexploring. I thought I would take a new look at evolutionary theory." She wrote a book, "The Ant and the Peacock," chosen by the New York Times as one of its top books of 1992. The subject: the innate altruism of animals.

Is it possible to give in to the altruism gene in your career? Darwin's own career is practically a study in submission to the altruism gene. He never seemed to have any clear sense of ambition or determination. His father, a wealthy, successful doctor, despaired for his son's future. The younger Darwin, meanwhile, never ardently pursued degrees or honors.