Darwinian Imperatives

In biology and evolutionary theory, the "Darwinian imperatives" broadly denote the fundamental biological requirements for individual survival and species propagation—or, more succinctly, survival and reproduction. Frequently, these imperatives are conceptualised at the population level, or reduced to fluctuating gene frequencies over time, abstracted entirely from the organism in which they reside. The primary concern here, however, is the central place of the individual animal, whether human or non-human.

Of these imperatives, individual survival appears straightforward, encompassing the acquisition of food, water, and shelter. Yet the concept expands naturally to include broader self-care routines, extending even to medical and pharmaceutical intervention—what clinical healthcare designates as activities of daily living. Ultimately, all such actions collapse into the single, essential category of personal survival.

Individual reproduction, by contrast, is far more complex. For higher animals, reproduction is never strictly an individual affair; it mandates a sexual partner, even if contact between the pair is fleeting or non-existent. Because the resulting offspring are genetically distinct from both parents, reproduction is accurately understood not as the replication of an individual, but as the transmission and copying of a recombined subset of genetic information.

Crucially, no animal—other than humankind—consciously sets out to reproduce or foresees the creation of offspring. The outcome is neither anticipated nor intended. Instead, what is biologically ingrained—or "programmed"—within the individual is the execution of a "reproductive act". A clear distinction must therefore be drawn between the evolutionary outcome of reproduction and the behavioural system driving the reproductive act.

This programmed impulse can express itself across diverse orientations. It may be directed towards members of the complementary sex, the same sex, or oneself, and occasionally towards other species or inanimate objects. While only the first orientation yields biological offspring, all these manifestations stem from the selfsame underlying neurological and hormonal drive.

This brings us to the status of the "reproductive system" within anatomical and physiological frameworks. Modern medical textbooks frequently isolate this system, often placing it at the very end as if it were an afterthought. This separation is instructive: unlike every other organ system, the reproductive system contributes nothing to individual homeostatic survival. Furthermore, it functions for only a fraction of the organism's lifespan—dormant throughout prepubescence, non-functional post-menopause in females, and subject to senescent decline in males. Thus, one of the two foundational Darwinian imperatives rests upon a physiological system active for only a limited segment of the individual's life.

Two Quotes

Here are two quotes that I consider worth mulling over:

“The greatest of all the accomplishments of twentieth-century science has been the discovery of human ignorance.”

    Lewis Thomas, physician and essayist, quoted in The Boston Globe, May 18, 1998

“For this, indeed, is the main source of our ignorance—the fact that our knowledge can only be finite, while our ignorance must necessarily be infinite.”

    Karl Popper, philosopher of science, in Conjectures and Refutations, 1960

A Growing Level of Respect

Numerous superlatives can be applied to the act of dissecting a human body. When one remains mindful that a cadaver represents the physical legacy of a living person, concepts such as honour, privilege, and responsibility immediately come to mind. In contemporary medical education, students are actively encouraged to humanise the donor to a far greater extent than was customary during my own formative career between the 1970s and 1990s. This transformation is entirely proper and represents the standard that ought to have prevailed historically. Because early anatomical dissections relied almost exclusively upon executed criminals—performed without consent as an extension of judicial punishment—reverence for the deceased was virtually non-existent. Consequently, when voluntary body donation eventually superseded execution, an ethos of formal respect was slow to take root in the dissecting room.

In my own experience, it was not until the early 1990s that tangible manifestations of deep respect towards the dissected dead began to emerge systematically. Initially, a university chaplain would visit the dissecting room—the place where staff, students and cadavers had met—to deliver a few carefully chosen remarks before work commenced. Within a few years, however, this role was transferred to a retired professor who had returned as an anatomy demonstrator. This transition was likely intended to establish a secular, non-religious atmosphere, accommodating a student body—and a donor cohort—comprising diverse faiths and secular worldviews that permit anatomical donation.

Today, the level of respect demonstrated within my former department is profound. Observing contemporary practices reveals an institutional ethic strikingly distinct from the environment of my earlier years. The institutional attitudes of my generation now feel exceedingly distant, leaving me with the distinct sense of being a product of a bygone era—a conclusion that is, in all likelihood, entirely accurate.

Desmond Morris (1928-2026)

Desmond Morris (1928–2026) died earlier this year. I have always admired his ability to view human beings through a purely biological and evolutionary lens. Such an undertaking required a degree of detachment from one’s own species that is by no means easy to achieve. It brings to mind a rather risqué anecdote regarding a Martian visiting Earth whose interests, without divulging too much, were not dissimilar to those of Masters and Johnson—who were themselves, perhaps, less scientifically detached than is commonly assumed. It is frequently the mythical Martian who is invoked in jokes and literary conceits whenever a profound sense of detachment from ourselves is called for; the Martian’s perspective forces us to pause and look afresh at human nature.

Morris, however, could not rely upon the device of a Martian perspective, but instead employed the rigorous framework of a serious scientist. When his landmark work, The Naked Ape: A Zoologist's Study of the Human Animal, was published in 1967, it met with predictable criticism from within the scientific establishment. Yet it was the reaction of the general public that proved particularly revealing—especially when viewed from a "Manwatching" perspective (to borrow the title of one of his subsequent works). Religious and moral commentators viewed The Naked Ape as a direct challenge to humanity’s position within a divinely instituted order. They judged its descriptions of reproductive physiology to be excessively explicit, even pornographic, prompting widespread demands for the book to be banned from school libraries. Naturally, such condemnation served only to fuel sales.

A distinct yet complementary methodology had previously been adopted by the American cultural anthropologist and sociologist Horace Miner (1912–1993). In 1956, he published an article in American Anthropologist entitled "Body Ritual among the Nacirema". The essay remains one of the most widely assigned texts in introductory sociology and anthropology courses, serving as a foundational instrument for introducing students to cultural relativism and the necessity of objective observation prior to undertaking fieldwork. Beyond this, however, I must refrain from further exposition, offering not even a spoiler alert.

What Morris achieved was a systematic interrogation of ordinary human behavior from a specific ethological perspective. This prompts consideration of a contemporary phenomenon that remains equally perplexing: how has the act of self-display—standing motionless in various artificial poses to be scrutinised or photographed—come to be regarded as a virtue? Why has it evolved into a lucrative profession, commanding extraordinary remuneration? What drives so many individuals to pursue the status of a model? Stated in more fundamental terms, why do people aspire to make a living by standing still, or to be photographed without clothing? These questions apply equally to male and female subjects, though male and female observers may well arrive at divergent conclusions. While one might propose answers along classic ethological lines, the questions are worth posing precisely because they are so rarely asked. Indeed, one wonders what Morris would have made of modern social media, saturated as it is with individuals uploading repetitive photographs of themselves. Why is a single image deemed insufficient? What impels the uploading of multiple, virtually indistinguishable iterations of the same pose? We routinely overlook these peculiarities despite—or perhaps because of—their omnipresence on our digital screens.

Consider, for instance, how many Instagram images are captured in public toilets. Such locations are frequently selected simply because they offer readily accessible full-length mirrors. Yet this raises a prior question: why the overwhelming impulse to capture and display full-length representations of oneself in the first place?

This impulse towards visibility exists in tension with the nature of modern digital observation. Cyberstalking is formally defined as the persistent use of digital communications to monitor, harass, or intimidate an individual, constituting a fixated and illegal pattern of behavior intended to induce fear or distress. But what of instances where harassment and intimidation are absent? What if the interaction consists solely of "following" or repeatedly visiting a specific profile in complete silence? Does this constitute a form of "silent cyberstalking"? And conversely, what psychological and behavioral effect does it have on an individual to know that they are being observed by thousands of unseen eyes?

One wonders what reaction would meet these "Desmond Morris-like" inquiries today. What impact might an updated version of The Naked Ape achieve if directed at the digital, social-media-saturated era?