Inheritance: The Evolutionary Origins of the Modern World

by Harvey Whitehouse

How our evolved psychology has shaped the past, present and future of humanity.

Each of us is endowed with an inheritance. A set of ancient biases, forged through countless millennia of natural and cultural selection, which shape every facet of our behaviour.

For generations, this inheritance has taken us to ever greater heights, driving the rise of more sophisticated technologies, more organized religions, more expansive empires. But now, for the first time, it is failing us. We find ourselves careering towards a future of unprecedented political polarization, deadlier wars, and environmental destruction.

In Inheritance, renowned anthropologist Harvey Whitehouse offers a sweeping account of how our evolved biases have shaped humanity’s past and imperil its future. Unveiling a pioneering new way of viewing our collective history – one that weaves together psychological experiments, on-the-ground fieldwork, and big data – Whitehouse introduces three biases that shape human behaviour conformism, religiosity, and tribalism.

These biases have catalysed the greatest transformations in human history, from the birth of agriculture and arrival of the first kings to the rise and fall of human sacrifice and creation of multiethnic empires. Yet today, they are driving us to ruin. Taking us deep into New Guinea tribes, Libyan militias, and predatory ad agencies, Whitehouse shows how the tools we once used to manage our biases are breaking down, with devastating implications for us all.

By uncovering how human nature has shaped our collective history, Inheritance reveals a surprising new path to solving our most urgent problems. The result is a powerful reappraisal of the human journey; one that transforms our understanding of who we are, and who we could be.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Anthropology, Science, Psychology, Sociology, Politics

464 pages, Hardcover

Published June 13, 2024

Reviews

[Cheenu · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book is divided into three sections each of which have three chapters each based on a biological bias.

The biological biases explored are

1. Conformity
2. Religiosity
3. Tribalism

Then each of these biases are explored from 3 angles

1. How they were side effects of evolutionary fitness adaptations

Introducing concepts such as overintimation, wild religion, minimally counterintuitive intuition and mechanisms of non-biological identity fusion.

2. How they were scaled to enable complex societies, organized religion and militaries

Introducing concepts such as ritual routinization, moralizing religions and sacred values.

3. How we (in the author's opinion) can use them for good in a secular world to solve climate change, promote ethical consumerism and end war.

To be honest, I found the author's opinions on these matters painfully naive but YMMV.

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The good parts is that the author references tons of research and his research group has compiled two huge databases over decades, namely

1. Database of rituals collected from ~600 different cultures around the world
2. Database of historical events classified according to various criterias

Using this, the author builds a reasonable cause-effect timelines. If almost all cultures that have X ritual, subsequently exhibit Y behaviour - then we can have a reasonable argument that X caused Y.

Similarly, if the evolution of civilization in multiple of locations have X criteria satisfied, subsequently exhibit Y outcome - then we can have a reasonable argument that X caused Y.

Of course, these are associations and therefore, cannot be 100% conclusive.

Yet, considering we cannot run multiple timelines of history or multiple social cultures with control and independent variables - it is better than pure speculative.

However, we cannot run multiple parallel human cultures or multiple parallel civilizations in a lab tweaking an independent variable keeping all other variables constant.

So, this is better than pure speculation.

Even so, this is still a highly speculative book and one of those book where it is more of read and think flavour rather than a read and learn flavour.

(I guess that's the cause with all evolutionary psychology/biology literature since there is really no way to truly prove a cause-effect in this area, just reasonably speculate)

I would normally rate the book as 4 stars but the last section was pretty weak. I don't think much would be lost if the last section was skipped - the meat is in the first two sections.

[Per Kraulis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Anthropologist Harvey Whitehouse makes the case that the study of humans and human society must take into account both our biological and cultural nature. Using examples from many studies, his own as well as others, he describes how three fundamental propensities of humans constrain the variability of how we live:

1) Conformism, the tendency to copy one another even when the purpose of the behavior is obscure.

2) Religiosity, which Whitehouse views as an inescapable by-product of how our brains work, but which has also changed drastically over the millenia.

3) Tribalism, the tendency to classify persons as part or not part of our group. This has caused not only conflict between groups, but also facilitated peaceful cooperation.

He proposes a number of ideas for policies, some of which are worthy of discussion. Unfortunately, there is a tendency to give advice in the form of "this policy needs to be put into place", with rather weak discussions of how this could be done in a democratically feasible way. Although very interesting examples from history are given, their relevance to the current situation is not adequately discussed.

[Jukka Aakula · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reread the book again. Used lots of time going through some of the research papers linked to this.

The book explains everything really relevant to human existence as I see it. Cooperation between humans to achieve common goals - good goals or bad goals.

Some of the explanations are definitely still work-in-progress, and some may even fail. But this is a good basis. It starts with how we became like this and continues with how we can solve our global and local problems based on that knowledge.

It does not only discuss the Darwinian biology of humanity but the evolution of cooperation through the evolution of more and more complex societies via cultural evolution - steps like tribes with sporadic initiation rituals and "wild" religions, big man societies, the inclusion of routinized rituals in the tool kit of societies, kingdoms with a strict hierarchy and routinized human sacrifice, inclusion of moralizing goods and giving up of human sacrifice. Role of fusion of "individuals" to something more.

The most radical hypothesis is to create a global tribe. And I mean really creating a hypothesis "global tribe with global rituals is possible and important for solving our problems" even without Martians attacking us. I am slightly skeptical but certainly reading his studies on it.

Quite radical is also the idea of integrating prisoners to society must include integration of them to some tribe outside the prison. Western societies are poor when it comes to tribes outside the family and criminal gangs but such tribes exist https://www.twinningproject.org/ Liberal people may see football as a platform for hooliganism only but when it comes to integration of former prisoners foot ball clubs are doing a contribution. Let's see how it works.

[Cher 'N Books · Rating 2 out of 5]

For a few weeks, it helped me get to sleep.

[Shonna Robertson · Rating 4 out of 5]

An engaging and informative read. I normally take a fairly structured approach to reading non fiction - aiming to finish a chapter in a specified time period, but with this book found myself reading on beyond my planned chapter because I was caught up in the examples and explanations of how societies (or groups) work to build cohesion and a sense of self worth.

This is not a dry, academic work. I felt like I was in the midst of a conversation that invited me to question, try new perspectives, learn from other cultural perspectives and importantly showed that there is still the opportunity to tackle current problems by applying some of these different perspectives.

[Peter Wood · Rating 2 out of 5]

What an awful book! (By coincidence I am reading a book on a not dissimilar subject which is hugely enjoyable and interesting: The Righteous Mind - Jonathan Haidt).

Frequent use of “I”, constant references to an experience in Papua New Guinea 40 years ago much of which could be established by interviewing british army generals? Whilst the title is “origins” , it felt patronising with lengthy explanations of human behaviour which has been documented in many other books
Lessons lost in the verbose style.
I have found the principle of “Fusion” explained better elsewhere by using “Us and Them”. (I think “ingroup” and “outgroup” is used instead…)

P252 on candidate criteria for newsworthyness is good and Religiosity on Sale has interesting thoughts on Social Media.
Useful observations on the ineffectiveness of the Criminal Justice and how to change it.

The discussions on climate change and how to do more about it, felt that it was missing some basic elements of human nature (and how these can be overcome (such as making life easy, emotion tending to drive decisions).

It is possible these points are lost somewhere in the book…

[Jose Luis · Rating 3 out of 5]

El autor habla de tres conductas q marcan el comportamiento humano. El conformismo, q es conformismo q tiene q ver con la cultura imitadora, el sentirse parte del grup9. hacer lo q hacen todos para no sentirse afuera. marca como esto se hace muchas veces con cosas q no tienen ningún objetivo. la religiosidad, habla de la religión salvaje. uno respeta o ahora al mas grande, al q tiene poderes sobrenaturales, al q no se ve. todas las religiones importantes tienen los mismos valores morales. y la tercera es el tribalismo. como el hombre se siente parte de un grupo a través de los rituales. en lanultima parte del libro propone una nueva forma de gobernanza distinta al capitalismo con el objetivo supremo de cuidar el medio ambiente

[Imaduddin Ahmed · Rating 5 out of 5]

Repetitive ritualism without rationality both increases consumers' discipline as well as pliability. A modern set of rituals is required to respond to environmentally destructive capitalism and consumerism. This can be initiated by apps or receipts that inform us of our carbon footprint from transactions; government cafeterias not offering meat on their menus, government departments reducing air travel and electricity and gas consumption; and socialising new norms at home through schoolchildren, whom have been effective vectors of reducing domestic fire hazards.

[Iang95ify . · Rating 4 out of 5]

Whitehouse explains the three factors of human evolutionary bias: conformity, religiosity and tribalism and how they have shaped humanity to what it is today. He goes back to his experience with the Kivung tribe in Papua New Guinea and suggests that we can adopt a more ground-up approach to solving global problems together like climate change, while tapping into our shared humanity.

[Jim Witkins · Rating 4 out of 5]

Filled with interesting studies and data driven observations demonstrating human biases and evolutionary based intuitive thinking that has shaped our species, culture, history, and future. Can we harness these beliefs and behaviors to nudge humanity toward better, desired outcomes or will we succumb to age old prejudices and us vs them tribalism? Our success as a species depends on the answer.

[Shirley White · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting and fascinating book. Took me on a grand tour of exploration of how tribes and societies form and grow, with an optimistic conclusion as to how we might develop our cohesion and reduce our divisive tendencies to assure our survival as a species on this very small planet in a vast universe.

[Jack · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting (if somewhat reiterative) look at the development of civilisation and how human behaviour influenced it. The author then attempts to show how different behaviour would lead to a better and more sustainable world, without actually explaining how this could realistically be achieved.

[Celia Chang · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kinda boring at times, but definitely some interesting points and loved the emphasis on importance of climate change. Interesting take on how using routine/cultural routine aspects can impact climate change.

[Badal]

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- Someone from the EV group