To: politics.editor@guardianunlimited.co.uk
Re: Human language and social behaviour evolved to serve the family and clan, not society at large
Date: Monday 20 December 04

Dear Mr Radford,

". .  nobody knows why language evolved, or why humans developed bigger brains," you write in today's Guardian ("Baby talk key to evolution").

Evolution hardwired us to be members of a group (giving us, among other things, the need to "belong"), because only in groups do we realise our potential for survival and advantage in the natural environment. Individually, humans are relatively weak (in some respects virtually helpless), but in groups we are more than a match for any other animal (and in recent times have achieved wonders). The better the group functioned the greater its advantage in the struggle for survival. The quality and complexity of communication within the group was of vital importance. This surely is what drove the evolution of language.

However, together with our social behaviour, it evolved to serve the family group and clan, not the much larger social units of the modern world, let alone global society as a whole. This is why our efforts to address national, international and, more recently, global problems, which are now threatening our very survival, have been so hopelessly inadequate.

Any objective history of the world shows it to be the story of human blindness, stupidity and greed. Not surprisingly when one considers our origins. We are the planet's "Greatest Ape ", still dominated by our "more animal than human " nature, in which, naturally enough, our society and economy are deeply rooted.

We have the choice between continuing as we are, and soon becoming extinct, or creating a new, alternative socio-economic order based on our more enlightened human nature.

At the moment - in the blindness, stupidity and greed that characterise our animal nature - we seem set on continuing as we are.

But the alternative is slowly emerging.

Roger Hicks

www.spaceship-earth.org