Biology, Politics, and the Emerging Science of Human Nature | Science

James H. Fowler and Darren Schreiber:

In the past 50 years, biologists have learned a tremendous amount about human biology and its genetic basis. At the same time, political scientists have been intensively studying the effect of the social and institutional environment on political attitudes and behaviors. However, biologists and political scientists have been working largely in isolation of one another. Little cross-disciplinary work has been done.

This must change for two important reasons. First, recent evidence is making it increasingly clear that genetic variation plays an important role in explaining variation in human political behavior. Second, additional evidence in neuroscience indicates that the human brain may be adapted particularly to solve social problems that are explicitly political. Much of this evidence is associational, and we therefore should be cautious in using it to build causal theories. However, if the need for sophisticated social cognition drove the evolution of the human brain, then a new science of human nature will require comprehending human biology in a sociopolitical context.

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