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Altruistic traits are in our genes
Let's play a game. You and 10 of your friends are standing
in the marble atrium of my home, in the flickering glow of
the vast amethyst beside a massive white door.
The door is locked. In a moment, I shall turn the key and
invite you to enter the room beyond, one by one.
It is an unusual room. A painted wooden statue of Elvis clutching
a guitar stands sentinel beside a cabinet of polished crystals
and enigmatic pieces of metal, such as a tiny blue figurine,
a talisman from an Egyptian tomb which once materialised on
my table during a meal, decades ago.
In the middle of the room is a low table, heaped with crystals.
In the middle on the table is a glass bowl. In the middle
of the bowl are 11 £20 notes.
I beckon you, and only you, into the room. "These are
the rules," I say. "You may take as much of that
money as you wish. Pocket the lot, if you wish. What you take,
you may keep.
"If you leave any of the notes, I shall say the same
to the next person, and the next, and the next. After the
11th leaves the room, the game ends . . . unless at least
one £20 note remains in the bowl.
"If all 11 of you show restraint, and between you remove
no more than 10 of the notes, I shall reward you."
"What's the catch?" you ask.
"The catch is that at least one of you will have to
walk out of the room with nothing. And if one of you is greedy,
and takes two or more notes, more of you will be left with
nothing."
"What's to stop me trousering the lot, straight away?"
"Nothing, except you'll forfeit my reward, which is
simply a chance to play the game again. And again. All day
and all week if you like.
"I'll keep filling the bowl with money, and as long
as you and your friends ensure there's always at least one
note in the bowl, I'll replenish it."
What do you do? You could take a £20, and hope that
all your friends do the same, and that the last has the sense
to leave the one remaining note alone.
Or you could pick up 10 notes and go: that's not cheating,
it's just the luck of the draw. First come, first served.
Or you could remain empty-handed, allowing each of your friends
£20 apiece . . . and hope none of them gets greedy.
What you decide, according to a professor of psychology at
Hebrew University in Jerusalem, is driven by your genes.
Psychologist Richard Ebstein has identified a genetic variation
in chromosome 11 which promotes altruistic behaviour: human
beings with this twist in their DNA get a surge of feelgood
chemicals called dopamines in their brain when they do something
good, something at their own expense which benefits others.
Ebstein thinks about two-thirds of us are genetically inclined
to altruism, a statistic which confirms my belief that there
are more nice people in the world than meanies.
It's evenly spread between the sexes: women might be expected
to devote themselves selflessly to their families, but men
get just as big a kick out of being kind.
Our altruistic nature has fretted Darwinists for decades.
Looked at logically, altruism ought to have evolved out of
existence in the Stone Age: people who sacrifice themselves
are more likely to end up as dinner for sabre-tooth tigers.
One powerful factor is religion. The laws laid down to Moses
make it very clear that greed and selfishness are immoral.
"You shall not steal" is a law that imposes altruism:
God didn't say, "You shall not steal unless you can definitely
get away with it."
Religion was undoubtedly an influence on Richard Ebstein's
destiny. Born in Brooklyn, New York, and educated at Yale
University, he moved to Israel in 1968.
His wife told him of a professor she was working with at
the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, named David
Samuel, who was investigating the role of chemistry in genetics.
Ebstein was fascinated: "That sounded like what I wanted
to do."
You don't need a PhD from Yale to realise that the mind games
in my sitting-room with the £20 notes have urgent implications
for our planet.
The dilemma was dreamt up in the late 1960s by ecologist
Garrett Hardin, to illustrate how finite resources (such as
Earth itself) can be burned out by a few greed-fuelled maniacs.
Depressingly, Hardin's game usually ends badly. In 65 per
cent of experiments, the bowl of cash is emptied on the first
turn, and so never replenished.
In global terms, that's like giving cars to the richest billion
people, and warning them that the planet will suffocate if
they use their petrol-burning, pollution-spewing engines too
much.
There's a simple strategy for winning the game, though. It's
called co-operation.
You and your friends could start by asking for a bin-liner,
and then agree among yourselves that the first person into
the room will always pick up £200 and leave the 11th
note. The rest will file through and take nothing.
The cash will go into the bin-liner, the bowl will be refilled,
and the experiment will continue, until your bag is bursting
and I am bankrupt. Then you split the proceeds evenly.
Co-operation: it works well in our minds. Our challenge is
to make it work in reality.
Email
him at uri@urigeller.com
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