TL;DR
- Humans likely selected for reduced aggression and increased cooperation—“survival of the friendliest”—starting in the late Pleistocene.
- Fossil gracility, genomic data, and domestication-syndrome traits echo patterns seen in tamed animals.
- Self-domestication provides a plausible backdrop for the rise of language, culture, and prosocial personality architecture.
Overview#
How the “survival of the friendliest” shaped our species—and what it means for language, consciousness, and personality.
Darwin and Baldwin: Early Ideas (and a 100-Year Hiatus)#
In the 19th century, some evolutionary thinkers proposed that humans might have domesticated themselves through social selection. Charles Darwin, a keen observer of domestication in animals, speculated that our ancestors’ social habits could drive their evolution. In The Descent of Man (1871), he even suggested that “those animals which were benefited by living in close association” would thrive, whereas more solitary individuals would perish. Darwin believed traits like the moral sense and even language might have emerged under social selection pressures in human prehistory. However, Darwin’s era was also rife with racial hierarchies. He infamously predicted that “the civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate the savage races throughout the world,” widening the gap between humans and apes, which he placed between “man in a more civilised state … and some ape as low as a baboon, instead of … between the negro or Australian and the gorilla.” This disturbing assertion reflected a common view then: that “higher” (usually European) humans would replace “lower” ones. James Mark Baldwin around 1896 introduced what later became known as the Baldwin effect, suggesting that learned behaviors could eventually become innate via natural selection. In essence, Baldwin anticipated gene–culture coevolution: if a species can learn something vital (like a new skill or social habit), individuals genetically predisposed to learn it more easily will have an advantage, potentially spreading those genes. Both Darwin and Baldwin thus saw culture and social life as evolutionary forces shaping our biology – an early form of the self-domestication hypothesis.
These ideas, however, became entangled with toxic concepts of “higher” and “lower” human groups. Early anthropologists, including Darwin at times, argued that gene-culture evolution had produced significant racial differences, even claiming that “higher races” would eventually wipe out “lower” ones. Not only was this morally repugnant, it also lacked scientific grounding. The backlash was so strong that for about a century scientists largely avoided studying human behavioral evolution – especially any suggestion of ongoing differentiation among populations. This 100-year moratorium stemmed from fears of justifying racism. Only in recent decades have researchers cautiously revived the question of how culture and biology intertwined in our recent evolution, reframing it with modern evidence and without the old prejudice.
The Encultured Genome: Are Humans Still Evolving?#
One major line of evidence supporting self-domestication is that human evolution did not stop in the Paleolithic. In fact, it may have accelerated. A landmark paper dubbed “The Encultured Genome” surveyed human DNA for signs of recent selection and found a surprising pattern: over half of detectable genetic selection events in our genome occurred in the last 10,000 years. As one science writer noted, this challenges the comforting assumption that human evolution somehow “stopped between 50,000 and 100,000 years ago” to keep all groups identical. In reality, as humans developed agriculture and complex societies, new selective pressures emerged. Genetic variants affecting neurotransmitters, brain development, disease resistance, and digestion show evidence of spreading rapidly in different populations over the Holocene (the last ~12,000 years). For example, one large-scale analysis found that nearly 75% of all protein-coding variants in humans arose in just the past 5–10 millennia. Traits like adult lactose tolerance or adaptations to high altitude are well-known cases of cultural practices (dairy herding, living in mountains) driving genetic change.
Perhaps most intriguingly, recent studies using ancient DNA and polygenic scores (which aggregate the effects of many genes) suggest continuing selection on complex traits well into historical times. For instance, a 2024 analysis of ancient European genomes found consistent shifts in polygenic scores for educational attainment, intelligence, and impulse control from the Stone Age to today. The data indicate positive selection – however mild – for cognitive ability and social cooperation traits over the last dozen millennia. In plain language, as societies grew, individuals with genetic tendencies for higher social and cognitive aptitudes apparently had a slight reproductive edge. This aligns with economist Gregory Clark’s hypothesis that in stable agrarian societies, the most cooperative and rule-abiding people had more surviving children. It also echoes Darwin’s point that pro-social individuals tend to thrive in a community. In short, modern genomic evidence resoundingly refutes the old notion that human evolution stagnated in the Ice Age. Our genomes bear the marks of gene–culture coevolution: changes that likely reflect the self-domestication process, as we selected ourselves for thriving in ever-larger, more complex social groups.
“Survival of the Friendliest”: Brian Hare’s Hypothesis#
If we consider what kind of selection our ancestors might have imposed on themselves, tameness and sociability jump out as key. Biologist Brian Hare and colleagues (including Richard Wrangham and Michael Tomasello) argue that humans underwent a process much like the domestication of dogs or foxes. In his book Survival of the Friendliest (2020), Hare lays out the idea that starting in the late Pleistocene, humans began preferentially mating with individuals who were less aggressive and more cooperative. Those who were better at getting along in large groups had an advantage – they formed stronger alliances, shared resources, and innovated together. Over many generations, this led to biological changes characteristic of domestication: a syndrome of traits seen in many domesticated animals (from dogs to guinea pigs) such as a more juvenile appearance, reduced reactive aggression, and enhanced social cognition. Hare points to evidence of Upper Paleolithic “feminization” of humans: compared to earlier hominins and even early anatomically modern humans, humans after ~40,000 years ago show slightly gracilier (slighter, more childlike) facial features and skulls – a trend also noted by paleoanthropologists. This could indicate lower testosterone levels or delayed development, consistent with selection against aggression. In Hare’s view, our species succeeded not by being the smartest or strongest alone, but by being the friendliest. Cooperation became our “secret sauce,” allowing groups of dozens, then hundreds, then thousands of individuals to live and work together. This is sometimes reframed as “self-domestication”: we essentially bred ourselves for nicer temperaments.
One compelling analog is the famous Belyaev fox experiment. Soviet scientist Dmitri Belyaev selectively bred silver foxes for tameness – allowing only the most docile ones to breed. Within just a few decades, the foxes not only became dog-like in behavior (friendly and eager to please), but they also developed physical changes: floppier ears, curlier tails, smaller snouts, and juvenile facial expressions. Many of these traits were side effects of selecting for low aggression, a package known as the “domestication syndrome.” Hare argues humans show a similar package: compared to Neanderthals or even early modern humans, Homo sapiens today have more gracile skulls, reduced brow ridges, shorter faces, and (relative to our body) a smaller brain volume – all traits seen in domesticated animals. Behaviorally, we are far more tolerant of strangers than any other ape. Even our closest relatives, chimpanzees, rarely cooperate beyond their family or small tribe, whereas humans routinely cooperate with unrelated strangers in huge networks. According to Hare’s hypothesis, sometime after about 200,000 years ago (once H. sapiens had emerged), individuals who were less prone to reactive aggression and more inclined toward social learning became preferred partners and leaders. Over time, genes promoting a calmer, more trusting disposition spread. This self-domestication process “began in earnest” in our species and accelerated as we formed larger bands and tribes. It may even have been a precondition for cultural explosions like the creative flourishing of the Upper Paleolithic (~50–40k years ago), by enabling greater knowledge sharing.
It’s fascinating that Darwin himself foreshadowed this idea. He wrote that in social animals, “the individuals which took the greatest pleasure in society would best escape various dangers; whilst those that cared least for their comrades … would perish in greater numbers.” In other words, friendly, prosocial animals survive better together – a notion Darwin applied to early humans. Hare’s “survival of the friendliest” reframes this as core to human evolution. By selecting each other for kindness and cooperativeness, humans overcame the “survival of the fittest” (narrowly defined) and turned it into a team sport. The benefit was not only peace in the village, but also the cumulative power of teamwork: cooperative hunting, shared child-rearing, and later, full-blown civilization.
Bednarik’s Warning: Was Self-Domestication a Detriment?#
Not everyone casts self-domestication as an unequivocal good-news story. Robert G. Bednarik, a rock art researcher, offers a contrarian take: he argues that while humans did self-domesticate (becoming what he calls “gracile” humans), the net effects were largely negative for our lineage. In his book and articles (e.g. “The Domestication of Humans,” 2020), Bednarik reviews the suite of human changes in the last ~50,000 years and concludes that most are detrimental from a strict evolutionary perspective. He notes, for example, that modern humans (graciles) have seen a rise in genetic disorders, brain abnormalities, and vulnerabilities compared to our robust ancestors. Traits like our reduced cranial volume and smaller teeth might be neutral, but our susceptibility to complex diseases (from autism to schizophrenia) and the prevalence of lower fitness traits would normally be “weeded out” by natural selection – yet they proliferated in the Upper Paleolithic and later. Bednarik interprets this as evidence that natural selection was partially overridden. In his view, around 40,000 years ago cultural factors (learned behaviors, mating preferences, rituals) started dictating who reproduced, in effect replacing natural selection with artificial selection imposed by humans themselves. The result was a “Mendelian” process (selective breeding for certain traits) rather than a Darwinian one of adaptive fitness.
What traits were selected? Bednarik emphasizes neoteny – the retention of juvenile characteristics into adulthood. He points out that many “anatomically modern” human features (a flat face, large round braincase, soft and reduced body hair, playful curiosity) look like paedomorphosis, as if we took a chimpanzee infant’s features and never fully grew out of them. Crucially, he proposes this was driven by sexual selection: our ancestors began favoring mates with more youthful, gentle features, especially in females. He correlates an archaeological boom in paleoart depicting voluptuous or pregnant female figures (e.g. the “Venus” figurines of 30–40kya) with this shift in mate preference. In essence, as human culture advanced, people started valuing traits like female fertility and graceful appearance, leading to selection for those traits and the associated tameness. Over thousands of years, the “gracile” humans – with smaller, more childlike faces and perhaps more docile temperaments – replaced the earlier, more robust humans (and also outlasted other human species like Neanderthals).
Where Bednarik diverges sharply from Hare is in evaluating the outcome. Bednarik argues that “the greater part of the changes brought about by [self]-domestication have been detrimental to our lineage.” He lists problems such as our propensity for brain degeneration, psychological disorders, and the puzzling fact that natural selection did not eliminate many harmful mutations during this period. From his perspective, human self-domestication was an evolutionary trade-off: we got increased creativity and cultural complexity “as a side effect” of a playful, neotenous mindset, but we paid for it with a suite of maladaptive issues and a general weakening of the human organism. He even calls the Upper Paleolithic transition “a significant deterioration of the human genome” in terms of raw fitness. This is a provocative claim. It contradicts the usual triumphalist narrative of human evolution as progress toward a “crown of evolution” – a contradiction Bednarik acknowledges as “unwelcome” but, he insists, supported by empirical evidence.
Bednarik’s view serves as a critical counterpoint. It reminds us that domestication in animals often involves reduced robustness (domestic animals are typically less hardy than their wild counterparts). Applied to humans, it raises the question: did becoming “tamer” make us biologically weaker in some respects even as it enabled cultural domination of the planet? Bednarik would answer yes. Critics of his view, however, note that what humans lost in brute fitness, we more than gained in adaptability. Our cultural evolution – made possible by cooperation and learning – allowed us to thrive in virtually every environment and even leave the Earth (via technology). The fact that humans “broke” the usual link between natural selection and survival is precisely what made civilization possible. Nonetheless, Bednarik’s warning is worth considering: self-domestication was not an unabashed good; it was an evolutionary experiment with costs. His research also underscores that self-domestication was not just behavioral – it left a tangible mark on our skeletons and genes. For example, Bednarik highlights a graph of cranial robusticity in Europe from 40kya to recent times, which shows female skulls becoming delicate (gracile) first, with male skulls lagging perhaps by millennia. This suggests that female-attractive traits (neotenous features) spread first, then males followed, consistent with sexual selection for youthful-looking partners. Such details enrich the self-domestication picture, even if one disagrees with his bleak assessment.
Figure: Upper Paleolithic Self-Domestication in Action. Inferred changes in human skull robusticity over time, based on fossil data. The black line (female) shows a sharp decline ~40,000–30,000 years ago (indicating females became much more gracile), while the gray line (male) declines more gradually, lagging behind females. This supports the idea that cultural mate preferences (for more “domesticated” traits) first affected female appearance, with males catching up later. Data reprinted from Bednarik (2020).
Language Evolution: Did Self-Domestication Enable Speech?#
Could the taming of human temperament have anything to do with the emergence of language? A growing number of scholars think so. The link might not be obvious at first, but consider: language is a highly cooperative endeavor – it requires trust and tolerance to share symbolic signals. Some researchers argue that only once humans became socially tolerant enough (through self-domestication) could complex language blossom.
James Thomas, in his 2014 doctoral thesis and a later paper with Simon Kirby, puts it this way: Two big ideas currently resurging – (1) that language evolved culturally (through use and learning) and (2) that humans are self-domesticated – “have much to say to each other.” Thomas examines how the behavioral and cognitive outcomes of self-domestication (like increased social learning, playfulness, and reduced aggression) might have been preconditions for language to evolve. Language evolution research suggests that if individuals have the right social biases (like interest in others’ intentions and the capacity to imitate or teach), then cultural transmission can turn a simple communication system into a complex language over generations. Self-domestication could furnish exactly those biases: a tolerant, curious, and social mindset. Thomas points to analogies in domesticated animals: for example, Bengalese finches (domestic strain of white-rumped munia birds) have more complex learned songs than their wild counterparts, seemingly because domestication relaxed the selective pressures that normally keep their songs simple. In captivity, without the need to, say, defend territory or evade predators, the finches’ song culture became more elaborate – essentially, more creative. Likewise, dogs are better than wolves at reading human communicative cues (like pointing or eye-gaze). Some experiments show even dog puppies (with little human contact) outperform wolf pups at social tasks, suggesting domestication hard-wired dogs for communication with us. By analogy, did self-domesticated humans become especially adept social learners, enabling the rise of language? Thomas and colleagues argue yes: a “suite of skeletal, behavioral, and cognitive changes” – the domestic phenotype in humans – set the stage for the cultural evolution of language.
Linguist Antonio Benítez-Burraco and others have taken this further by examining the genetic and neuroanatomical correlates. Modern human brains are distinctively globular (rounder) compared to Neanderthals’ elongated skulls. This globularization, fully achieved by ~40kya, is associated with changes in brain development that may underlie advanced cognition (sometimes called “cognitive modernity”). Benítez-Burraco’s team has intriguingly linked those changes to the same biological pathways involved in domestication. In a 2018 paper titled “Globularization and Domestication,” they document “numerous links between the genetic changes… that brought about [human brain] globularization and neural crest cells,” which are central to the domestication syndrome in animals. In other words, the genes that made our skulls rounder (and perhaps our brains wired for complex thought) might overlap with genes that make domesticated species docile and baby-faced. If that connection holds, it suggests the evolution of a “language-ready brain” could be a facet of self-domestication. Our tamer temperament and our capacity for language may stem from the same underlying developmental tweaks – tweaks that kept our heads round and our behaviors juvenile-flexible.
Benítez-Burraco has also speculated on a concrete scenario of co-evolution: Did the domestication of another species – dogs – help spur our language? Humans and dogs likely formed a partnership by ~30kya. In a 2021 paper, Benítez-Burraco and colleagues ask “Did Dog Domestication Contribute to Language Evolution?”. They note that domestication (whether in dogs or humans) tends to enhance certain social-cognitive abilities, like following gaze or interpreting pointing – skills also useful in language. It’s possible that as humans domesticated dogs, the close collaboration required (e.g. in hunting) further selected humans for better communication and emotional control. This is a speculative idea, but it underscores the emerging consensus: social domestication processes were intertwined with how we became a speaking, cultural species. Language didn’t evolve in a vacuum; it likely required a particular social atmosphere – one where tolerance, curiosity, and teaching could thrive, all products of self-domestication.
Chomsky vs. Pinker: A Note on the Language Debate#
It’s worth noting that not all scholars agree on how language arose or whether it’s an adaptive product of evolution at all. The self-domestication view tends to side with those who see language largely as an outgrowth of social evolution (and thus adaptive). Steven Pinker and colleagues famously argue that language is “a complex adaptation for communication which evolved piecemeal” under natural selection. In this view, language is like a biological trait fine-tuned by Darwinian forces because it aided survival (e.g. by allowing cooperation and information exchange). On the other side, Noam Chomsky has contended that language (specifically the ability for recursive grammar) might have arisen as a kind of spandrel or accidental byproduct of other changes. Chomsky and co-authors (Hauser & Fitch, 2002) suggested that the core language faculty could have appeared suddenly (perhaps via a single mutation) and was not directly selected for communication. He often emphasizes how different human language is from any animal communication, implying a singular leap rather than gradual adaptation. How does this relate to self-domestication? Interestingly, Chomsky himself has acknowledged the self-domestication hypothesis in recent years, agreeing that humans exhibit domestication-like traits. But he might argue that while self-domestication made us nicer and maybe smarter, the qualitative leap of syntactic language is separate – perhaps a freak innovation that culture then spread. Pinker, conversely, would likely see language and self-domestication as part of one continuous evolutionary narrative (since being friendlier and smarter would both improve communication, which feedbacks into survival). The contrast highlights an open question: did language require a special trigger, or was it simply the inevitable blossom of an increasingly sociable, intelligent hominin? The truth may lie in between. Self-domestication could have paved the road by providing big brains and cooperative social groups, upon which a small genetic change (as Chomsky suggests, like a capacity for recursion) had an outsized effect and was then strongly selected for. Thus, language evolution might be seen as biology and culture colliding – with self-domestication smoothing the way for that collision.
Consciousness and Personality: Other Perspectives#
The self-domestication hypothesis is one of several recent theories grappling with what truly makes humans unique. Two other concepts, touching on consciousness and personality, deserve comparison:
EToC (Evolutionary/Eve Theory of Consciousness): This is an unconventional theory proposed by data scientist Andrew Cutler (among others) that suggests human self-awareness was not a gradual genetic evolution but rather a cultural invention – a meme. In Cutler’s colorful narrative (sometimes called the “Eve Theory of Consciousness”), women in prehistory pioneered the concept of the introspective self, perhaps through a kind of creative or ritual breakthrough, and this new mental ability spread memetically through society. In other words, consciousness (the inner voice, the sense of “I”) was discovered, like fire or agriculture, and once societies adopted it, it transformed human life. How does this relate to domestication? Interestingly, Cutler ties it in: he notes that if a fundamental psychological change occurred after humans left Africa (~50kya), its rapid global spread would likely have been via culture, not genes. He considers the human condition – including recursive language and self-conscious thought – a recent development, aligning with the “sapient paradox” that behavioral modernity really blossomed in the last 10% of our species’ existence. EToC thus complements biological self-domestication by emphasizing a cultural “domestication” of the mind. Cutler even links the biblical story of Eve gaining knowledge to this moment of attaining self-awareness. In his blog writing, he identifies two key “vectors” in human evolution: the Golden Rule and human self-domestication, which together set the stage for moral consciousness. Essentially, by becoming more cooperative and internalizing social rules (the Golden Rule being “treat others as you want to be treated”), humans primed themselves for an inner moral voice – the conscience – which is a building block of conscious thought. EToC is a speculative framework, but it underscores something important: self-domestication alone doesn’t explain subjective awareness or creativity. It tells us how we got gentler and perhaps smarter, but not how we became reflective, self-aware beings. That’s the leap EToC tries to address, proposing it was a memetic leap rather than a genetic one. Whether or not one buys the specifics, EToC usefully shifts focus to cultural evolution as a force that can produce qualitatively new traits (like conscious reasoning) even without immediate genetic change.
General Factor of Personality (GFP) and the “Primary Social Axis”: In personality psychology, it’s observed that desirable traits often correlate – people who are conscientious also tend to be agreeable, emotionally stable, etc. This has led to positing a General Factor of Personality (sometimes nicknamed the “nice guy/girl factor” or just one primary personality dimension). Andrew Cutler’s work in machine learning and psychometrics touches on this: by analyzing language (what people say about personality), he found evidence for a dominant first factor he calls the Primary Factor of Personality (PFP). Qualitatively, this factor is basically “what society wants from you” – being kind, trustworthy, cooperative, and not antisocial. In Cutler’s words, “the primary latent factor represents the direction of social selection that made us human.” In other words, the single biggest axis along which personalities vary could be a result of self-domestication: those who score high on the GFP/PFP are essentially exemplars of domesticated humans (prosocial, rule-abiding, empathetic), whereas those low on it are more antisocial or aggressive (closer to what wild-type humans might have been). This is a bold interpretation, but it intriguingly bridges biology and psychology. If indeed a universal “friendliness” factor underlies human personality structure, it might reflect the very trait that was selected during our self-domestication. Cutler even connects this to ancient moral insights: both Rabbi Hillel and Darwin, he notes, highlighted the Golden Rule as humanity’s defining moral instinct. The Golden Rule (“do unto others as you would have them do unto you”) essentially requires putting oneself in another’s shoes, a capacity reliant on empathy and self-control – hallmarks of high GFP. Thus, the GFP could be seen as the psychological imprint of selection for social harmony. Some researchers caution that the GFP might partly be a statistical artifact (people simply rating socially desirable traits together). But even if that’s true, it’s telling that “socially desirable” is basically synonymous with “domesticated” behavior. Evolution made us social, and society rewards the social. The GFP concept reinforces that the human personality may have a dominant axis (ranging from altruistic to exploitative, or constructive to destructive) which likely has evolutionary roots. Those roots could lie in the survival advantage of being a good community member – the very essence of self-domestication.
In comparing these perspectives, we see that self-domestication theories (like Hare’s, Bednarik’s, Thomas’s) excel at explaining how we became an unusually cooperative and cognitively flexible ape. They marshal evidence from bones to genes to show a biological trajectory toward tameness and teamwork. Meanwhile, EToC and related ideas address what truly sets human minds apart: qualities like introspective consciousness, complex language, and cumulative culture. EToC suggests some of those may be the result of cultural “selection” (memes, not genes), whereas the GFP argument suggests our entire personality architecture was tilted by the long process of social selection. Together, they paint a richer picture: becoming “domesticated” was not just a matter of growing tamer; it had deep ramifications for our mental world. It enabled new forms of communication, new senses of self, and new ways of relating (and, admittedly, new problems too). In the end, humans may be a self-domesticated species, but that is only the beginning of the story of why we’re so different from other animals. Self-domestication theories answer how we became human; theories like EToC and GFP attempt to pinpoint what it means to be human.
FAQ#
Q1: What exactly is the self-domestication hypothesis? A: It’s the idea that humans evolved by selecting ourselves for more domesticated traits – much as we bred dogs from wolves. In practical terms, our ancestors started favoring less aggressive, more social partners. Over many generations, this led to biological changes (smaller faces, more juvenile traits, hormonal shifts) akin to those seen in domesticated animals. We essentially “tamed” ourselves, becoming more tolerant and cooperative. This hypothesis explains why we differ from earlier humans (and other apes) in having an extraordinary capacity for social learning and large-scale cooperation. It’s supported by evidence from genetics (many recent mutations linked to brain and behavior), anatomy (our skulls show childlike features compared to archaic humans), and comparisons to domesticated species.
Q2: What evidence shows that humans self-domesticated? A: Several lines of evidence: (1) Fossil morphology – Over the past ~50,000 years, human skulls became gracile (thin-boned) with reduced brow ridges and smaller teeth, which parallels domestication in animals. (2) Genetics – Many genes under selection in recent human evolution are involved in neural development and behavior; there are even overlaps between genes selected in humans and those in domesticated animals. (3) Endocrine changes – Comparisons of modern humans to Neanderthals suggest differences in testosterone regulation; and within Homo sapiens, population studies indicate reduced reactive aggression over time (for example, lower prevalence of a gene variant linked to aggression in recent millennia, though research is ongoing). (4) Archaeology & culture – Starting ~40kya, artifacts like figurines and musical instruments point to playful, creative behaviors exploding, consistent with a more neotenous (child-like, exploratory) mindset. Also, the fact that humans could form ever-larger communities without constant violence implies selection against hyper-aggressive individuals. No single piece of evidence “proves” self-domestication, but the convergence of skeletal, genetic, and cultural changes strongly supports it.
Q3: How does self-domestication relate to language? A: The connection is that a domesticated, tolerant temperament made it possible for language to emerge. Language requires individuals to share attention, imitate each other, and learn cooperatively – things that are hard to imagine in a group of highly aggressive, asocial creatures. By becoming more playful and less fearful of each other, humans created a niche where cultural evolution could take off, including the evolution of complex language. Researchers note parallels like domesticated birds that rely more on learning for their songs, suggesting reduced stress and aggression can lead to more complex communication. In short, self-domestication provided the social and cognitive preconditions (e.g. extended childhood, curiosity, empathy) that likely allowed language to evolve. Some even propose that certain language-specific abilities (like reading social cues or controlling vocalization) were directly selected as part of our domestication.
Q4: Is self-domestication considered “good” or “bad” for humans? A: It depends on the perspective. From a survival standpoint, it was very good – it enabled large-scale cooperation, leading to agriculture, civilizations, and all the advantages of collective effort. The phrase “survival of the friendliest” captures that our sociability was our superpower. However, some (like Bednarik) argue it also brought biological costs: increases in disorders, weaker natural selection filtering our genes, and possibly a decline in robustness. Domesticated species often trade physical robustness for docility (compare a bulldog to a wolf, for example). Humans might have done the same. We became more vulnerable in some ways (needing protected environments, prone to certain chronic diseases), yet enormously successful in terms of population and innovation. So, in an evolutionary sense, self-domestication was adaptive for our species’ success, but it wasn’t an unmitigated “improvement” in every trait – it was a trade-off. From an ethical view, one could also question: domestication involves control – in our case, culture controlling biology. That raised issues when misguided attempts were made in historical times (social Darwinism, eugenics, etc., which are now discredited). But natural self-domestication, as scientists describe it, is simply what happened, for better and worse, to make us human.
Q5: What do theories like EToC and GFP add to this picture? A: They add depth by addressing human cognition and personality. The EToC (Eve Theory of Consciousness) suggests that beyond our biology, a cultural leap – possibly driven by women innovating new social rituals – gave us true self-awareness and reflective consciousness. This highlights that some uniquely human traits might be memetic (taught or imitated) rather than genetic. It complements self-domestication by saying: “Yes, we became friendlier apes, but then we also culturally ‘woke up’ to introspection,” which accelerated things like moral systems and complex planning. The General Factor of Personality (GFP) perspective, on the other hand, empirically shows that many positive social traits align on one axis – essentially measuring how “domesticated” one’s personality is. This implies that the process of self-domestication is still visible within our species: people vary, and those higher on the cooperativeness/empathy scale resemble the ideal outcome of that process. It underscores that evolution likely favored a package of traits – kindness, honesty, patience – which all go together. So these theories don’t contradict self-domestication; rather, they enrich it. They explain how our minds and social values were shaped by or alongside the biological taming. Together, they try to answer both “How did we become human?” (through self-selection for friendliness) and “Why are humans so special mentally?” (perhaps due to a cultural spark and a unified prosocial disposition).
Sources#
Darwin, Charles. The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex. London: John Murray, 1871. (See Chapter VI for Darwin’s discussion on human races and future evolution)
Baldwin, James M. “A New Factor in Evolution.” American Naturalist 30.354 (1896): 441-451. (Proposes the Baldwin effect: learned behaviors can influence evolutionary change)
Chen, C. et al. “The Encultured Genome: Molecular evidence for recent divergent evolution in human neurotransmitter genes.” Oxford Handbook of Cultural Neuroscience. Oxford University Press, 2016. (Summarizes genetic evidence of recent human evolution, e.g. selection in last 10k years)
Piffer, D. & Kirkegaard, E. O. W. “Evolutionary Trends of Polygenic Scores in European Populations From the Paleolithic to Modern Times.” Twin Research and Human Genetics 27.1 (2024): 30–49. (Ancient DNA study showing selection for cognitive/social trait genes over last 12,000 years)
Hare, Brian & Woods, Vanessa. Survival of the Friendliest: Understanding Our Origins and Rediscovering Our Common Humanity. Random House, 2020. (Develops the human self-domestication theory and its implications for society)
Turke, Paul. Review of Survival of the Friendliest. Evolution, Medicine, and Public Health 9.1 (2021): 68–69. (Review outlining Hare’s thesis and its roots)
Bednarik, Robert G. “The Domestication of Humans.” Encyclopedia 3.3 (2023): 947–955. (Open-access article by Bednarik summarizing his argument that human self-domestication around 40kya led to gracility and many maladaptive traits)
Bednarik, R. G. The Domestication of Humans. Routledge, 2020. (Bednarik’s book, arguing cultural practices altered human evolution; covers paleoart, sexual selection, etc., in detail)
Thomas, James G. & Kirby, Simon. “Self-domestication and the evolution of language.” Biology & Philosophy 33.9 (2018). (Explores how self-domestication may have created conditions for language’s cultural evolution)
Benítez-Burraco, Antonio, Theofanopoulou, Constantina, & Boeckx, Cedric. “Globularization and Domestication.” Topoi 37.2 (2018): 265–278. (Connects genetic changes for modern human brain shape with the neural crest/domestication pathway)
Benítez-Burraco, A., Pörtl, D., & Jung, C. “Did dog domestication contribute to language evolution?” Frontiers in Psychology 12 (2021): 621112. (Hypothesizes that interacting with domesticated dogs affected human social cognition in ways relevant for language)
Cutler, Andrew. “The AI basis of the Eve Theory of Consciousness.” Vectors of Mind blog, June 7, 2023. (Blog post where Cutler links personality structure, the Golden Rule, and a memetic origin of self-awareness in his EToC framework)
Cutler, A., & Condon, D. “Deep Lexical Hypothesis: Identifying personality structure in natural language.” arXiv preprint arXiv:2203.02092 (2022). (Research using AI to derive personality factors from language; provides evidence for a dominant prosocial personality factor aligning with the effects of self-domestication)
Pinker, Steven, & Bloom, Paul. “Natural language and natural selection.” Behavioral and Brain Sciences 13.4 (1990): 707–784. (Classic paper arguing language is an adaptive product of evolution, contra non-adaptationist views)
Hauser, Marc D., Chomsky, Noam, & Fitch, W. Tecumseh. “The faculty of language: What is it, who has it, and how did it evolve?” Science 298.5598 (2002): 1569–1579. (Proposes that the key aspect of human language – recursion – may have evolved for non-communicative reasons, introducing the spandrel idea in this context)