While humanity has made many strides toward progress, as of late, our culture seems to be in a regression. Why do human beings make the same mistakes? This is the question we brought to the evolutionary biologist and author Dr. Peter Corning.
Dr. Corning has long voiced concern for our mounting global crisis. He defines the crisis as a compilation of several factors: climate change, plus droughts, floods, pandemics, desperate illegal migrants, ever more violent conflict among human groups (who possess catastrophic nuclear, chemical and cyber weapons), and, not least, our increasing economic interdependence. Dr. Corning, along with many of his colleagues, has warned that we are on a road to collective self-destruction unless we make a radical change.
Editor’s note: This interview was conducted before the 2024 Presidential election.
Even with the uptick of wildfires and severe weather patterns, the dramatic increase of glacial melt and rising ocean levels, as well as significant damage to our coral reefs and the Amazon Rain Forest, there is still denial of climate change. Why?
Dr. Corning: Donald Trump seems to be confused. Rising sea levels are sinking sea levels. He seems to think that rising sea levels will increase beachfront property. Denying climate change is very self-serving for a lot of people, especially for corporate interests. If people or businesses are not immediately impacted by it, if the rising sea level is not rising on their front porches, it serves their economic interests to continue to deny climate change.
Why do you think there was no mention of climate change during the 2024 Presidential election campaign?
Dr. Corning: There has been mention of climate change by Kamala Harris. She is concerned about it.
Do you think that recent presidential administrations have taken an anti-science stance?
Dr. Corning: It’s hard to put your finger on it. There is certainly some anti-science rhetoric on part of MAGA Republicans and the rejection of the agencies charged with acting in a non-partisan way dealing with specific problems. E.g., FEMA. There is a desire to dismantle these agencies and there is an implicit hostility.
When it comes to climate change, why are the greatest scientific minds of our century being ignored?
Dr. Corning: If you’re anti-science or a denier of climate change, you are going to deny the people who are experts. They are the enemy. These programs are defined by law and separate from one another—recent MAGA efforts to discredit the things that government does in this country.
I was born in the New Deal Age. Our programs in the civil service were a part of the learning experience. We learned to build a country and a government that services the country. My experience with these services has always been positive.
There is a lot of self-interest in not wanting to be constrained by governmental regulation, which can be onerous, but by and large if your food has a virus in it, you would like an agency that can catch, fix the problem and get the product off the market. What would happen with food poisoning if they do away with the FDA? It’s in the self-interest of very wealthy business people not to have any government oversight.
Do you think that American democracy will be destroyed by super PACs (composed of extremely wealthy individuals) influencing our elections and our free press?
Dr. Corning: It’s happened in other countries before. What is mystifying is that we’re a relative affluent country, but if you look at the economic data put out by the bureau of labor statistics and other government agencies, we have a two-tiered economy.
People in the lower half have been left behind economically. That is a breeding ground for dissatisfaction drawing people who are anti-democratic. We have a long history of societies that started out by being democratic but shifted over to a authoritarian model. It might happen here if we don’t do some things to fix these things.
The super PACs want to maintain the lower half who have been left behind economically. Things are going well for people who own stocks and who are the top of the economic ladder. There is a broader issue—some of what is going on with the MAGA movement and Trumpism relate to things that are part of our human nature.
When it comes to economic inequality, governance, and climate change, humanity seems to be repeating the same mistakes. Why?
We evolved in small, close knit tribes of hunter gatherers who were antagonistic to other groups. Identify them as the other versus we. This combination of close cooperation with a powerful leader, coupled with intense warlike competition, is part of human nature. We’re dealing with psychological traits that are part of human nature. They emerge at stressful periods, such as a Covid epidemic and economic downturns.
What has two millions years of evolution taught us?
Dr. Corning: The human experience is a combination of cooperation, competition and conflict. We are most effective in cooperating when we are in conflict with others. E.g. WWII this country was never more united.
What is your vision for a roadmap to the future?
Dr. Corning: I would avoid the word road map; it’s too specific in outcome. We can talk about some of the possibilities that might or might not happen.
Biologically?
Dr. Corning: There are some very interesting things happening in the biological sciences that suggest there may be some ways to make improvements in human life. Some diseases might be eliminated. There is greater intervention in human physiology. There are hopeful things there.
Economically?
Dr. Corning: I’m a adherent to a Fair Society. Economic and political systems need to satisfy fourteen basic needs. Societies going forward are going to need to provide for these basic needs, especially as there are increasing threats to our food and water supplies. These are important reasons for making political changes. We have to have a basic needs guarantee and our dependence on others is based on those needs. We cannot satisfy those needs by ourselves, that is why we are fundamentally interdependent.
Politically?
Dr. Corning: We’ve tried the strong man authoritarian model of governance. That hasn’t worked out very well. Going back to Plato, the founding father of our democracy, who posed an important question—how do you control the controller? The rule of law and democratic power structure, where all of the different interests have a say—that is a superior method.
Winston Churchill said it well, “Democracy is the worst form of government that has ever been invented except for all of the others.”
And Democracy is now under threat. People with their own self–interests are using money and power to undermine our system.
Environmentally?
Dr. Corning: Clearly the human species and all living species are dependent on a natural environment that evolved over millions of years and we have been seriously abusing that environment. We have to make drastic changes if we are going to have a future. That would be the task of a global system of governance.
Within the context of our current political landscape what can be done to restore and revitalize our democracy?
Dr. Corning: The personalities of leaders with integrity have an important effect on the culture of society. We’ve been fortunate that as a society we had so many people who accepted and adhered to the principles of democracy. The constituencies for those principles are still in the majority.
You have often spoken of global governance, i.e., expanding the United Nations by according it genuine strength and power, but is that possible?
Dr. Corning: Humans invented democracy in the first place. It is possible for human societies to change and for their leaders to change. It’s in the self-interest of countries to be part of a larger community. Hopefully, the depletion of resources that is happening in individual nations at this time, including rising sea levels, droughts, extinction of species, and disease, will create the incentive for global cooperation.
About Dr. Peter Corning
Peter Corning is currently the Director of the Institute for the Study of Complex Systems in Seattle, Washington. He was also a one-time science writer at Newsweek and a professor for many years in the Human Biology Program at Stanford University, along with holding a research appointment in Stanford’s Behavior Genetics Laboratory.
In addition to some 200 professional papers, Dr. Corning has published the following books Superorganism: Toward a New Social Contract for Our Endangered Species (Cambridge University Press 2023); Evolution ‘On Purpose’: Teleonomy in Living Systems (the MIT Press 2023); Synergistic Selection: How Cooperation Has Shaped Evolution and the Rise of Humankind (World Scientific 2018); The Synergism Hypothesis: A Theory of Progressive Evolution, New York: McGraw-Hill 1983; Nature's Magic: Synergy in Evolution and the Fate of Humankind, New York: Cambridge University Press 2003; Holistic Darwinism: Synergy, Cybernetics, and the Bioeconomics of Evolution, Chicago: University of Chicago Press 2005; and The Fair Society: The Science of Human Nature and the Pursuit of Social Justice, Chicago: University of Chicago Press 2011.
Please see his website Institute for the Study of Complex Systems.
Peter Corning
Peter Corning is currently the Director of the Institute for the Study of Complex Systems in Seattle, Washington. He was also a one-time science writer at Newsweek and a professor for many years in the Human Biology Program at Stanford University, along with holding a research appointment in Stanford’s Behavior Genetics Laboratory.