by Huss, John
Who’s on Top
But back to Planet of the Apes. For me as a philosopher of science, one who specializes in evolutionary theory, the obvious issues are about evolution, specifically with respect to progress and degeneration. Will evolution always push upwards? Suppose humans mess it all up and become pathetic shadows of their former selves—similar themes are explored in the movie based on H.G. Wells’s story the Time Machine—does this mean that other organisms will move in? As it happens, this is a very hotly contested issue today among evolutionists, some (like Simon Conway-Morris, paleontologist of the Burgess Shale) thinking that we will rise again, or if not us some facsimile, and others (like the late Stephen Jay Gould, paleontologist and popular writer) thinking that degeneration and extinction are for keeps. Once we’re gone, that’s it.
Planet of the Apes, with its subpar humans and its intelligent apes, plunges us right into this debate. And as a bonus, there are all of the racial issues that it raises. The gorillas, the black thugs of the movie. The chimpanzees, the highstrung, intelligent, but in some respects childlike actors in the drama. And the orangutans, in charge and confident that they should be in charge. This in fact is all a bit ironic, because phylogenetically we know that orangutans are off to one side a bit and not quite as bright as the others, with chimps, gorillas, and humans all going it alone, until the gorillas go their way and then finally comes the human-chimp split. We also know that orangutans are a bit anti-social so they would not have functioned well in a society. And finally we know that the pygmy chimpanzees, the bonobos, obviously the species of this movie, spend huge amounts of their time copulating. This is how they form social bonds. Hugh Hefner would be a celibate compared to the average member of a bonobo troop. I doubt that the two chimp heroes, Zira and Cornelius, would have had time or inclination for much scientific investigation.
Dangerous Knowledge
But there are other things raised in the movie, and I want here to think about the topic of forbidden knowledge. It’s one of the themes that emerges later in the movie, and, you’ll remember, is focused on the Forbidden Zone, that area outside the ape-occupied territory that is under taboo and where no self-respecting primate is allowed to go. It turns out that Cornelius has already visited the Zone and in a cave found artifacts that he does not know or understand. He takes the Heston figure (“Taylor”) and his girlfriend Nova to the cave, where they encounter the leader of the orangs, Dr. Zaius, who it turns out, knows exactly what’s going on and what the significance of the artifacts in the cave is. As Taylor identifies and ponders over them—dentures, spectacles, a child’s doll—Zaius explains that they are evidence of a long-ago human civilization that destroyed itself and its land.
The Forbidden Zone, now desolate desert, used to be a land of milk and honey. He knows this and is determined to keep it secret: the possibilities it opens up of repetition are too dangerous. As the movie ends, Zaius blocks off the cave once and for all and at the same time the truth of his claims about human madness are made apparent. Taylor discovers that humans had indeed destroyed their own world.
This whole question of dangerous knowledge, knowledge that should be banned and not explored or exploited, was not new to cinema (Planet of the Apes appeared in 1968). World War II, and in particular the discovery, building, and use of atomic power for weapons, hovered over a generation. It was bad enough that we in the West had such knowledge, but then the Soviets got it too (admittedly mainly through spies and traitors from the West) and that really was dreadful. As it happens, that time around, it led to the Cold War and a standoff, but it wasn’t much fun. And so naturally it led to the movie theaters.
One particularly striking early movie was The Day the Earth Stood Still. Here the theme was not so much the use of dangerous knowledge but the threat that it posed. In this particular case, other extra-terrestrial intelligent beings decided that humans were a threat to everyone and so a stern warning was issued to Earth about the consequences if it was so foolish as to use its knowledge.
Another striking movie was the Japanese film Godzilla. Here atomic testing had brought about threats and destruction through the creation of a monster from the sea. Clearly a metaphor for the atomic destruction itself, Godzilla wreaks devastation on the cities of Japan, causing untold harm to the people, especially children. The monster is stopped by a heroic scientist who has discovered a way of depriving matter of oxygen. The scientist dies in the act of killing Godzilla and, as important, intentionally through his death destroys his own knowledge about his own discovery. A present and a future threat are simultaneously eliminated.
There are other examples on or around the theme. But the point is made; or rather the issue is raised. Knowledge can be extremely dangerous. Should we therefore, following Dr. Zaius, rule certain kinds of knowledge off limits? Meaning, presumably, that people should not be encouraged or should even be forbidden to follow certain lines of inquiry, and if such knowledge is acquired it should not be disseminated. It should rather be sequestered and perhaps even destroyed. Knowledge is in a very important sense a virus—not a meme, as Richard Dawkins has suggested, and thus something that infects minds—but in the sense of something very dangerous, like smallpox. It spreads and can harm. Better therefore to nip it in the bud or to contain and destroy it. Not all knowledge, obviously, like not all viruses, obviously. But knowledge and viruses that are dangers to humankind.
The Specter of Frankenvirus
I don’t think this is a silly position to take. Knowledge can be dangerous. Nuclear weapons show this only too clearly. But the problem is not confined to physics. In the 1970s, molecular biology came to the fore. As Stephen Stich has discussed, the new techniques of recombinant DNA (rDNA), where one could shift genes around, shift the parts of genes around, move genes from one organism to another very different, and all of these things that came from our new understanding of the molecules of life—understanding that dates famously to the discovery in 1953 of the double helix, the structure of the DNA molecule—seemed to threaten human safety. Could some mad dictator—as I remember, Idi Amin was just then doing his worst in Uganda—run up a poison organism on the cheap, something that could go in an aerosol or be popped into the water supply? Concerns have also been raised about unforeseen and unintended consequences of gene therapy and genetic enhancement—some of which come to fruition in Rise of the Planet of the Apes.
As it happens, over the rDNA issue, saner heads soon prevailed. The people who delighted in running up ghastly scenarios, especially on the national evening news shows, tended to be laboratory-bench scientists. That is to say, people who had not the faintest idea about epidemiology, as Bernard Davis has pointed out. As soon as the relevant experts weighed in, it was realized just how difficult it is to make a Frankenvirus and the big worries subsided. Not that there was no danger or that the danger from biology has lessened. In 2012 there was concern about research on the bird flu virus and whether the results could end in lasting harm. Scientists agreed to pause their research for a while, although it picked up again later. As Donald G. McNeil reported in the New York Times, matters were not helped by the comments of one of the lead scientists:
Some of the early alarm was fed by Dr. Fouchier speaking at conferences and giving interviews last fall in which he boasted that he had “done something really, really stupid” and had “mutated the hell out of H5N1” to create something that was “very, very bad news.” He said his team had created “probably one of the most dangerous viruses you can make.”
Fouchier said afterwards that his comments had been overblown and taken out of context. That is a little bit like Jerry Sandusky saying that his activities in the showers were only spurred by hygiene issues to do with boys’ bottoms.
One can also think of ways in which knowledge from the social sciences can be dangerous. The 2012 presidential election showed very clearly that those interested in polls—forecasting results, spotting points of weakness, suggesting moves to improve standings—have rea
ched a level of sophistication never seen before. (At least, those on the winning side have reached such a level!) One might well think that, even if your candidate did well this time around, the knowledge acquired could be very dangerous in the wrong hands. Manipulation of people’s intentions is easy given the right tools. The Nazis showed us this. Imagine if a present-day Dr. Goebbels with present-day techniques and knowledge got involved in matters.
So let’s agree that knowledge can be dangerous and that this is a serious problem. I think that over the years we’ve grown so used to the nuclear threat that we don’t worry as much as Rod Serling did when writing the Planet of the Apes screenplay. Also the fall of the Soviet empire should be factored in. But the threat is certainly there, and perhaps—worry or not—even worse. It was one thing for the Soviets to have nuclear bombs. It’s a very different thing that the North Koreans have the bomb. And if Iran gets the bomb, what price a little flare-up with Israel?
Ban the Books?
What should we do about such knowledge? One obvious solution is that of Dr. Zaius. Stop the inquiry right now and lock up anything we’ve already discovered. Just declare the topic off limits. This was the kind of position that used to be taken by people like Harvard geneticist Richard Lewontin in the 1970s, as Ullica Segerstrale discusses in The Sociobiology Debate. Work on areas like the sociobiology of humans, that is to say work on the underlying, selection-fashioned, genetic nature of humans—can only lead to prejudice and harm—Jews, women, and blacks being declared inferior and that sort of thing—so stop it, ban it, right now. But things are not quite this simple and there are two immediate and obvious responses.
First, it’s all very well saying that we should stop inquiry and shut away that which has already been done, but that is a lot easier said than done. As soon as the Americans had the knowledge to make the atomic bomb, it was leaked to Russia, and we have seen similar patterns since. The Pakistani scientist who gave secrets to North Korea and other countries comes at once to mind. Especially in this day and age of the Internet and other means of instant communication, it’s really implausible to suggest that anything can really be kept secret for all that long. It doesn’t follow that having the knowledge means you can do anything with it, but as North Korea shows—possessing both the Bomb and intercontinental missiles—poverty-stricken, despot-ruled groups, with enough desire, can go a long way, longer than most of the rest of us would want.
Second, there are good pragmatic reasons why we might want to extend and expand the knowledge that we already have. Suppose someone has made, or knows how to make, some particularly dangerous organism. I certainly would want more research on the topic, to find out if this organism is a one-off or part of a series. I would want more research to find out whether the organism could be countered, perhaps by artificially manufactured predators or parasites. I would want . . . Well, you can see how the discussion goes. Having gone this far, the last thing I would want is a ceasing of all activity in this direction. If anything, we might make the case for increased effort, at least for a while.
New Knowledge Is Good in Itself
Simply trying to contain new knowledge, the Dr. Zaius approach, might be problematic—perhaps both impossible and undesirable. There’s also the other side to the matter, whether in principle we should ever restrain the search for new knowledge, including especially new empirical knowledge. “And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:32). Is there not something inherently good about the search for knowledge, whatever the consequences? At a glance, I’m inclined to think that there is.
Would I want to stop a biologist looking at the reproductive behavior of a new species of lizard? Would I want to stop a mathematician deriving a new theorem? Would I want to stop a philosopher finding a new proof for the existence of God? If I were footing the bill, I might be a little wary of signing a blank check. I rather doubt that, at this stage of the debate, anyone is going to come up with much new in the God proof business—although perhaps enthusiasts for the anthropic principle would disagree. That discussion is over whether the physical laws of nature are so exactly tuned and necessary for the existence of life that they cannot be pure chance. As best I know, this is a fairly recent discussion—see Barrow and Tipler’s 1986 The Anthropic Cosmological Principle—although perhaps it had a precursor in some speculation by the Scottish philosopher David Hume in his Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (1779).
The Doubtful Cases
I’m not entirely sure that all search for knowledge is necessary. Suppose somebody wanted to see if having a large nose is genetically linked to being sharp in business. I confess I would be very wary of this, suspecting anti-Semitism somewhere down the line. Although perhaps the issue here is not the knowledge as such but the search for it, and my feeling both that (from what we know about genetics) it’s highly improbable that such a link exists and that someone engaged in such an inquiry is motivated by less than admirable intentions. I realize however that at this point I’m walking on thin ice that may give way to controversy.
Many gays are worried about the possible effects of research into the genetic basis of sexual orientation—find a gay gene and the next thing is that we’re into selective abortion against such genes and gays become unfortunate people whose parents were too lazy to get the appropriate genetic counseling. On the other hand, we might argue that knowing about the genetic bases of sexual orientation could be another nail in the coffin of thinking that gay people have made a deliberate decision not to live the life and thoughts of heterosexuals: yet another reason to ignore Saint Paul’s admonitions on the subject.
My general feeling therefore is that knowledge is a good thing and the search for knowledge is consequently a good thing. So overall therefore on both pragmatic and intellectual grounds I’m opposed to Dr. Zaius. But I can see that sometimes it might be necessary to make a special case for the knowledge search, especially if it’s expensive or inconvenient and there is no good reason to cherish whatever knowledge might be discovered. Even more is it necessary to make a special case when there are prima facie reasons to think that a proposed search seems unlikely to prove profitable and may well be motivated by less than seemly factors.
However there is one uncomfortable thought that does strike me. It does tie in rather nicely with what I said was part of the main message I extract from the Planet of the Apes.
I said that I found the movie stimulating (and fun to teach) because of the assumptions about the nature and course of evolution. Humans were clearly top dogs—or primates rather—and then they messed things up and the apes stepped into their place. Evolution is ever pushing upwards and the top position will be occupied and reoccupied as it becomes vacant. But what is the top position? Humans yesterday, apes today, who knows what tomorrow? The lurking question is whether this is the limit, the highest possible point of evolution. If the apes could move up the ladder from a lower status to a higher status, does this imply that that is the upper point of evolution? Surely not! Could not the apes, or if not the apes some other animal on the ladder, just keep climbing and so at some point in the future we will get super-beings? Isn’t this at least implied or presupposed in the movie?
I think it is, but I think something else important is not so much implied as flung right in our faces. The kind of animals that humans are (or, in the movie, were) does not bolster confidence in our emotional or social stability. Humans blew up their civilization! We evolved as social beings but not as perfect social beings. We are the products of evolution which means that we are as good as we need to be, at least until a new factor intrudes. In this case, the frightening new scientific knowledge and the appalling possible technology-fired consequences. In the Planet of the Apes, making the fairly reasonable assumption that a perfect society would not blow itself to bits, humans’ abilities to find new knowledge is balanced by—or more precisely tipped over by—humans’ inabilities to function as a perfect social society.
Dr. Zaius
knows this. “You are right, I have always known about man. From the evidence, I believe his wisdom must walk hand and hand with his idiocy. His emotions must rule his brain. He must be a warlike creature who gives battle to everything around him, even himself.” Moreover, given Dr. Zaius’s determination to suppress the dangerous knowledge, the movie rather suggests that now that the apes have taken over things are not much improved in that direction. There are still tensions and conflicts. (It is interesting to compare this with The Day the Earth Stood Still. In themselves the aliens may not be socially perfect, but they have put themselves under the suzerainty of robots that ensure that they will behave in a socially perfect way.)
We’re Doomed Anyway
What this all suggests to me is something that I suspect is really true. The search through the galaxies for super beings is probably doomed to failure. Humanoids—human-like beings—may have evolved again and again. But the success carries the seeds of failure or at least of limitation. We have evolved big brains because biologically that is a good thing to have. We have also evolved socially because biologically that is a good thing to do. My suspicion (and this would be shared by today’s evolutionary psychologists) is that the two are connected. While intelligence is very important for exploring the world around us, it’s also very important for dealing with our fellow humans. And there is probably a cause and effect situation here. As I have argued in The Philosophy of Human Evolution, those who were better socially were brighter and the brightness led to being better socially.
However neither intelligence nor sociality is an absolute. We’re as good as we need be to get along. In fact biologists point out that neither is necessarily the best in a certain situation. Having big brains requires lots of high-quality fuel, that is to say lots of protein, and getting this (in the old days at least meaning getting large chunks of dead animal) is expensive in itself. If food is scarce, you might be better off on an all-grass diet even if the cost is being intellectually challenged. In the immortal words of the paleontologist, the late Jack Sepkoski, whom I interviewed for Monad to Man: “I see intelligence as just one of a variety of adaptations among tetrapods for survival. Running fast in a herd while being as dumb as shit, I think, is a very good adaptation for survival.”