A Darwinian understanding of culture begins with the observation that the arts appear in every human society and yield intense delight. When evolutionary psychologists detect those qualities, bells start ringing. Universal appearance of a behavior, for example, walking upright, sometimes leads scientists to infer that it evolved before our ancestors" diaspora from Africa 60,000 years ago. Andintense pleasure is often how our genes encourage some advantageous behavior.【F1】
But where an upright manner of walking and a varied diet had obvious survival advantages for our forefathers, it"s far from clear that the same went for something as energy-consuming and apparently useless as the arts.
Denis Dutton, the author of a new book about creativity and evolution, sees evolution generating an art instinct in two ways. First, creative capacities would have helped our ancestors to survive in the hostile conditions of the Pleistocene, the epoch beginning 1.8 million years ago, during which Homo sapiens evolved in Africa【F2】
An ability to invent and absorb stories, for instance, would have helped early humans work out "what if" situations without risking their lives, pass along survival tips and build capacities for understanding other people around the campfire.
The best storytellers and best listeners would have had slightly greater odds of survival, giving future generations a higher percentage of good storytellers and listeners, and so on.
【F3】
Second, on those long, dull nights after the day"s hunting and/or gathering was done, a big vocabulary and a creative characteristic would have improved a man"s chances of pursuing a lover
—just as an amusing woman would have been more likely to entice the guy to stay. According to this view, which Dutton derives from the psychologist Geoffrey Miller, evolution turns the brain into "a gaudy, overpowered Pleistocene home-entertainment system" for winning and keeping lovers.
【F4】
Over the thousands of generations of our prehistory, then, the pressure from these two processes would have led to what Dutton calls the survival "not just of the physically strongest but of the cleverest, wittiest and wisest."
By the dawn of civilization 10,000 years ago, our ancestors" brains would have been hard-wired to collaborate and use tools, as well as to create and enjoy art. Thus our tastes are not blank slates filled in entirely by our societies:【F5】
they are shaped in part by the distant ancestors whom we unknowingly take with us every time we go to the museum, the playhouse and the concert hall.
All in all, it"s a lovely vision. I just wish somebody could convince me that it"s true.