This seems false since humans have killed off huge numbers of species throughout prehistory and history. Moreover, it’s very difficult to get this kind of selection to work, you need very tight group/kin selection which can’t really exist at the scale of entire ecosystems.
It doesn’t need to happen at the scale of entire ecosystems
Prey killed in one area means less prey in that area for a long time. Even migrating prey might return to specific areas after a migration cycle.
Morals like empathy extend beyond kin
Lots of humans behave morally if and only if the system is “fair” and everyone else has to behave morally too. Moral values determine what you force others to do, instead of your own behaviour. Typical humans ignore their morals values if the stakes are high and if “it’s not being enforced on others.”
This means human moral views evolved to serve the best interests of a tribe (which may have hundreds of people), rather than the best interests of an individual. Someone might have empathy for another tribe member who got injured in tribal warfare, even if it benefits his inclusive fitness to just let that person die. It benefits the tribe’s fitness to compensate injured warriors, because failing to do so means no one has any reason to defend the tribe.
We would have killed off huge numbers of species anyways,
even if we did have strong motivation against killing them off.
Prehistoric humans, like all animals, starved to death all the time in a Malthusian world. Populations inevitably increased until finally there’s not enough resources to sustain the population, causing death one way or another.
The motivation against killing young prey or female prey may be strong, but not enough to starve to death instead of hunting. It only works when the tribe is well fed and killing young prey becomes wasteful.
Some hunter gather societies in recent history apologize to the animals they hunt. But they have no choice.
This seems false since humans have killed off huge numbers of species throughout prehistory and history. Moreover, it’s very difficult to get this kind of selection to work, you need very tight group/kin selection which can’t really exist at the scale of entire ecosystems.
It doesn’t need to happen at the scale of entire ecosystems
Prey killed in one area means less prey in that area for a long time. Even migrating prey might return to specific areas after a migration cycle.
Morals like empathy extend beyond kin
Lots of humans behave morally if and only if the system is “fair” and everyone else has to behave morally too. Moral values determine what you force others to do, instead of your own behaviour. Typical humans ignore their morals values if the stakes are high and if “it’s not being enforced on others.”
This means human moral views evolved to serve the best interests of a tribe (which may have hundreds of people), rather than the best interests of an individual. Someone might have empathy for another tribe member who got injured in tribal warfare, even if it benefits his inclusive fitness to just let that person die. It benefits the tribe’s fitness to compensate injured warriors, because failing to do so means no one has any reason to defend the tribe.
We would have killed off huge numbers of species anyways,
even if we did have strong motivation against killing them off.
Prehistoric humans, like all animals, starved to death all the time in a Malthusian world. Populations inevitably increased until finally there’s not enough resources to sustain the population, causing death one way or another.
The motivation against killing young prey or female prey may be strong, but not enough to starve to death instead of hunting. It only works when the tribe is well fed and killing young prey becomes wasteful.
Some hunter gather societies in recent history apologize to the animals they hunt. But they have no choice.