Prejudices and Interests: The Unpublishable Taboo

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David Rabadà

Humans are apes burdened with prejudices. This presents a particular problem: the specialists who interpret and narrate the evolution of our lineage are also human. Paradoxically, this reality is profoundly stimulating, as prejudices and interests are often treated as taboos, shunned by administrations, universities, and publishing houses. Writing about this subject in the face of widespread informational distortions is therefore a bold and timely endeavour. As Einstein famously noted, it is a sad epoch when It is harder to crack a prejudice than an atom.

The question of prejudices and interests in the study of human evolution remains similarly taboo. Scientists are expected to be objective and analytical, yet reality frequently deviates from this ideal. To speak from prejudice is to speak from emotion, and it seems inevitable that emotions obscure analysis when we discuss our own evolution—especially when that discussion presumes human superiority over other groups of organisms, which is itself a prejudice. However, all evolutionary processes must be interpreted through a reflective and objective analysis of available data. Evolution—the changes in the form of living beings—is rooted in inherited developments from ancestors; natural selection acts subsequently and in relation to the functionality of the constructed organic form. Thus, the primary question should not be “What is this structure for?”—and even less should we assume a priori that every change must be adaptive. The first step is to analyse what has been inherited—phylogeny—and then evaluate the functional repercussions of these changes, whether they yield adaptive outcomes or not. Form dictates function, not the other way around, a notion reminiscent of Lamarckian thought. Lamarckism, with its implicit teleology, is surprisingly pervasive in the media and even in educational contexts, particularly concerning the origins of our species.

For instance, assertions such as “intelligence can only be anthropomorphic” or “if humans went extinct, chimpanzees would become intelligent” stem from prejudice rather than objective analysis. These claims also dismiss the myriad forms of intelligence found across life, from the collective intelligence of social insects to the individual consciousness of cetaceans and the learning abilities of octopuses. Moreover, our species—consciously destroying the only planet on which it can survive—hardly exemplifies true intelligence. In my subjective opinion, in this regard, we are an evolutionary failure of the highest order.

Equally prejudiced assertions abound: humans are said to have reduced their dentition after cooking food or lost their body hair upon adopting clothing. Such dogmas reflect a worrying ignorance of the evolutionary mechanisms affecting all living beings, blatantly confusing cause and effect. For this reason, writing about prejudices and interests in any field of knowledge is audacious and pertinent, even knowing that administrations, universities, and affiliated publishers are unlikely to support books addressing such topics. We believe we have evolved, yet we are arguably regressing.

Searching online for “Human Evolution” yields around 800,000 results, giving the impression that much of humanity has made substantial progress. In contrast, searching for “Human Involution” garners a mere 3% of the initial results, suggesting that only a minority are reconsidering the dominant narrative. Examining how our prehistory is described reveals that we may be closer to involution than evolution.

Discussing human evolution is so deeply entrenched in our self-perception that many palaeoanthropologists succumb to their darker inclinations—their involution, prejudices and interests. Numerous scientific interpretations of our origins are riddled with subjective visions. The critical question remains: Why are humans so prone to prejudgment? The answer is as tangible as the fossils we unearth. A prejudice arises from emotion rather than reason. We, the modern humans, consider ourselves rational animals, yet we are far more emotional than rational. In other words, we feel more than we think—or, put differently, we prejudge more than we analyse. Consider the behaviour of a crowd at a football match, impulsive purchases, or voting patterns—does the majority genuinely scrutinise each political party’s platform? The truth is that we possess an emotional brain, evolved over 300,000 years ago, which was never designed—except under rigorous training—for analytical methods.

The human mind evolved from that of socially foraging apes to emotionally driven hunters. This evolution ensured that our perception of reality is neither unequivocal nor homogeneous. Subjectivity reigns among us, leading us to wield swords against the religion of the unknown, the ideology of the foreigner, and those we perceive as encroaching on our territory. We remain primitive and primate-like, no matter how rational or advanced we proclaim ourselves to be. Few humans critically analyse and contrast reality; the majority rely on intuition without prior analysis. Those who opt for rigorous cross-examination of information often distance themselves from mainstream society, yet in doing so, they come closer to the genuine reality. In other words, those who fail to analyse judgments are more susceptible to their own prejudices.

The proof lies in individuals historically deemed ahead of their time—those who, armed with profound knowledge, analysed rather than merely felt the realities of their era. Think of Plato, Galileo, Da Vinci, Kant, Darwin, Einstein, Simpson, Seilacher, or Ramón y Cajal. These figures became pioneers of their epochs, overcoming the limitations of the brains they inherited.

By doing so, they achieved groundbreaking human advancements, avoiding the two major obstacles that cloud objective observation: interests and prejudices—our egoism and our perception. These figures excelled by harnessing reason over emotion, surpassing the Paleolithic brain that preceded them. Today, the romantic pedagogy enshrined in our educational laws is more laden with prejudices and interests than with empirical realities and rationality.

Source: educational EVIDENCE

Rights: Creative Commons