Dark Nature: A Natural History of Evil

Rating:
Summary: A scientific approach to a religious riddle: evil.
Review: Anyone interested in grappling with the all the hate in this world (and in their own hearts) should read this book. Watson breaks down human aggression into something our genes command us to do to keep themselves alive -- who's really in control here? Only by understanding our genetic enslavement, Watson argues, will we ever be able to rise above it. The book is wonderfully free of new age b.s and religious moralizing; it casts a bright light on a dark and slimy subject. The end result for the reader (at least this one) is a deep understanding of what makes our dark hearts tick.

Rating:
Summary: The
Review: Biologist and naturalist Lyall Watson's *Dark Nature: A Natural History of Evil* begins promisingly. Watson provides empirically sound support for the proposition that so-called "good" and "evil" are not simple antitheses, but instead are inextricably linked to each other within nature. "Good" and "evil", to the extent that they exist at all, are best defined as interdependent by-products of physical, not metaphysical, forces. Further, Watson states that a world without "evil" (defined as that which "is inimical to the 'goals' of survival of a certain species of individuals") would be-to use the eco-shibboleth of the moment-completely unsustainable.

Watson falters, however, when he strays from his area of expertise into the murkier regions of higher primate behavior. In particular, his forays into moral philosophy terminate in what can only be described as a colossal failure of nerve. Instead of a sustained attempt to apply the insights of sociobiology to the peculiarities of advanced species, Watson offers his readers the words of the Christian missionary in The African Queen: "Nature [...] is what we are [...] in this world to rise above". It seems that for Watson-imbedded firmly, despite himself, in the naïveté of the Christian world-view-human morality alone can defy the iron dictates of the natural world.

Watson recoils especially from what he calls the "strong" force of "evil". He defines this "strong force" as "morally depraved" behavior, such as rape or murder (what we would term rape, of course, is common even among lower species, an inconvenient fact that Watson ignores). So shaken is he by such acts that he falls into easily avoidable errors of fact. For instance, he refers to Hungarian aristocrat Erzebet Bathory as an English countess. He further states, categorically and without support, that "we have the power to *defy* the genes" (emphasis added).

Impelled by his blind and mounting horror of the "strong" force of "evil", the author rapidly reaches the stage where he no longer pretends to be objective, or even rational, about his subject. For instance, Watson conveniently reduces young children who have murdered their peers to mere sub-humans who are "missing something" from their moral fabric. Watson reaches this scientific conclusion via a rigorous experimental protocol that consists of looking into the children's eyes. According to Watson, these simple-minded categories, procedures, and conclusions "just feel right". A better definition of "rube epistemology" would be difficult to craft.

Watson's efforts to call Western philosophy to his aid yield equally risible results. Whereas Robert Wright's book on evolutionary psychology, *The Moral Animal*, absurdly evokes Mill's long-dead philosophy of Utilitarianism as a bulwark against the inner beast, Watson keeps Fenris at bay by retreating into the tepid shallows of Aristotle's "golden mean":

"Aristotelian ethics is the ethics of 'just enough'. [...] If 'good' can be defined as that which encourages the integrity of the whole, then 'evil' becomes anything which [sic] disrupts or disturbs such completeness. [It is] [a]nything unruly or over the top. Anything, in short, that is bad for the ecology. [...] It [natural law] looks less like 'survival of the fittest' and far more like 'the fitting of as many as possible to survive'".

Unlike Watson, Hegel, who defined evil as "the form in which the motive force of historical development presents itself", clearly understood his subject. The obvious fact that every advance in art, philosophy, medicine, and technology has "disturbed or disrupted" the "ecology" of the times in various ways, great and small, seems to elude our author. He also appears to find the concepts of perspectivism and value-judgments to be completely incomprehensible. Instead, like all egalitarian ideologues, he ignores inconvenient facts, presents evidence selectively, and then cheerfully offers us a recipe for evolutionary mediocrity, one that would thoroughly justify Nietzsche's trenchant critique of Darwin. Oddly enough, Nietzsche's name fails to appear in Watson's bibliography or index, a fact that leads one ultimately to wonder about the survival value of selective perception.

Rating:
Summary: Rambling, but interesting
Review: Generally speaking, a "conservative" is someone who believes "human nature" is "bad" and society is "good" because it represses that huge ocean of biological human nature. A liberal is generally just the opposite: society is bad and human nature is good. Watson clearly falls (as least concerning his ideas of evil) into the conservative camp. However, he really doesn't address that fact that one of the purposes of society (which conservatives see as extremely fragile) is to hold down the instinctive bestial evil that we all possess (a popular philosopher who does discuss this is Robert Pirsig). Still, this is a fascinating book--he ranges all over the place, discussing Aristotle, Jung, Robert Louis Stevenson and Freud. An instructive read for anyone interested in how easy it is for humans to become evil.

Rating:
Summary: Rambling, but interesting
Review: Generally speaking, a "conservative" is someone who believes "human nature" is "bad" and society is "good" because it represses that huge ocean of biological human nature. A liberal is generally just the opposite: society is bad and human nature is good. Watson clearly falls (as least concerning his ideas of evil) into the conservative camp. However, he really doesn't address that fact that one of the purposes of society (which conservatives see as extremely fragile) is to hold down the instinctive bestial evil that we all possess (a popular philosopher who does discuss this is Robert Pirsig). Still, this is a fascinating book--he ranges all over the place, discussing Aristotle, Jung, Robert Louis Stevenson and Freud. An instructive read for anyone interested in how easy it is for humans to become evil.

Rating:
Summary: Rambling discussion sometimes hits the mark.
Review: In Dark Nature Lyall Watson rambles from one species to another, from one culture to another, sometimes making sense, sometimes not. More often than not his wanderings all over the globe and his observations of people and various animals are interesting, if not always enlightening about the nature of evil. For anyone studying ethics, this book offers a variety of non-philosophic points of view about right and wrong, good and bad. Watson does mention Aristotle as he relates to Watson's Goldilocks Principle of good and evil, "not too much, not too little, just right." I read on to the end and was engaged often by Watson's novel point of view.

Rating:
Summary: not uninteresting
Review: One of Watson's basic ideas is that "evil" is something that introduces chaos into the ordered structure of the universe. One example he provides is that anything that decreases diversity of life (say, anything that results in species extinction) is inherently evil. This makes Maoris (who exterminated dozens of species within a century of their landing on NZ) evil, as well as those Americans, who managed in the 19th century to kill off billions of passenger pigeons (and almost managed to exterminate the buffalo)... opening the question of the potential dichotomy between conscious and unconscious evil. Where I'd agree with Watson is that the planet-destroying, profit-seeking timber industry, corporations and evangelical Republicans fit the category of evilness rather well.

On the whole the book does not deliver what was promised. The notion of evil in particular does not address the possibility of "conscious" intention to harm life If you're looking for an analysis of psychopathology, you will be dissapointed. The naturalist Watson cannot plunge into the depths of the psychopathic personality and into the origin of selfishness, separation, spite and fear.... which are wrecking the life on this planet as we speak. Moreover, there is no discussion of the relativeness of evil - what may be evil for the goose may not be evil for the gander. After all, everything, including the forces of chaos, has a purpose...evil, after all, is on some level just unconscious energy seeking to manifest itself without regard to the universal principles that sustain life. If you're looking for metaphysics, therefore, you will be disappointed. Still, the book is worth picking up for its interesting naturalistic trivia.




Rating:
Summary: Why do good people do bad things?
Review: Why do men murder each other in acts of random violence? Why do
stepfathers abuse or even kill their stepchildren? One may come
up with theological or moral answers, but for Lyall Watson in
Dark Nature, part of the answer in found in biology. It is for
the same reason that a newly dominant male baboon kills all of
the youngest infants and all those born in the next five months
after he takes over. It is for the same reason that the bull
elephant seal attacks and kills other males. In studying our
biological heritage, we discover our basic evil genetic makeup
and our power to overcome it.

In the first part of the book, he studies the animal kingdom to
discover the parallels with human behavior. Human generosity and
selfishness, for example, also have their natural counterparts.
Watson describes a group of young penguins he observed on the
edge of an ice floe. At first the leaders rushed to the water,
but then seemed to have second thoughts. The water was dark, too
dark to see through; could a leopard seal be waiting for a tender
meal? They backed away. The next group rushed to the edge, and
they too backed off. This process continued until those in the
back got impatient and started shoving. At last one penguin fell
in. The others all waited-yep, there was a leopard seal! All
stood quietly as the pup was consumed. After a while, the same
process continued until a second penguin made the second course
for the seal. Again, a third time. The fourth time, however, the
seal had apparently eaten enough, for the new swimmer was not
molested. After a while, the entire group jumped in and swam
happily. Selfish behavior-just like people.

But animals can also be unselfish. Vampire bats have a rich diet,
but the blood digests quickly so the bat must feed at least once
every three days. But how can one be sure he will always succeed?
When those who are successful return to the nest, they
regurgitate part of their meal to share with the less fortunate.
The practice has survival value, but it is also a form of
generosity. Thus he says, "Being good and being bad are simply
part of being human."

In the second part of the book Watson studies more primitive
human societies, ranging from the headhunting Asmati to the
totally nonviolent Samai. Each culture attempts to deal with the
issues previously examined in the animal kingdom, and both have
reached "good" solutions. He doesn't advocate we become

headhunters, but he does feel their solution has worked for that
society.

But this does not mean that we are simply slaves to our genes. On
the contrary: Watson feels that we can overcome our baser nature.
He discusses the horrors of the Holocaust and finds the causes in
our humanity; but the solutions are also in our humanity and in
our ability for free action.

This is a fascinating book, both for its argument and for its
glimpses of animal and human behavior. It is not light reading,
but if you watch nature programs or wonder why people act the way
they do, I think you will find it enjoyable.