Minerva in Shakespeare’s The Tempest and John Savage in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World
In today’s world of gene editing, plant and animal cloning, DYI biohacking, and artificial intelligence, the transhumanist movement merits careful thought. Simply put, transhumanism is a philosophical and intellectual movement that advocates for enhancing the human condition and expanding human capabilities through advanced technology.
But when does a Transhumanist’s individual expression of “transcendence” become a movement toward the Singularity? The political ambitions that wish to use science to “enhance” humanity, based on someone’s idea of “perfect” carry dangerous social implications. The transhumanist notion of “self-directed evolution” to recast humanity in the image of “perfection” evokes social Darwinism and the Übermensch. It brings to mind the early American eugenics programs that inspired the fascist sonderweg and Hitler’s aggressive “race hygiene” by application of eugenics in the Holocaust.
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Eugenics: Designing A ‘Perfect Society’ from a ‘Perfect Human’
The eugenics tree (American Philosophical Society)
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Put simply, eugenics is the scientifically erroneous and immoral belief and practice of “racial genetic improvement’ and “selective breeding” (or more currently through genetic manipulation), which gained particular popularity during the early 20th century with key scientific misappropriation (scientific racism).
Eugenics and scientific racism are concepts as old as Plato and have haunted humanity since the biblical portrayal of Adam and Eve. The philosophy and associated practice became increasingly common in the 1870s and 1880s as leaders and intellectuals worldwide argued for policies based on racist and xenophobic attitudes—justifying actions of antisemitism, sexism, colonialism, slavery, and imperialism. Discussions of ‘human improvement’ and the ideology of scientific racism became increasingly common. In 1883, Francis Galton, English statistician and ethnologist (and cousin of Charles Darwin), gave the practice a name. He called it eugenics, which comes from a Greek term meaning “good” or “noble” birth.
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In 1938, German Dr. Bruno Beger measures a Tibetan woman’s head to demonstrate ‘inferior’ characteristics of her race; Beger later works for the Nazi SS to help identify Jews (Wikimedia Commons))
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Eugenics was based on ‘scientific racism’, an ideology that appropriated the legitimate methods of science to argue for the superiority of white Europeans. Misappropriation of advances in medicine, anatomy and statistics during the 18th and 19th centuries (including Charles Darwin’s 1859 theory of evolution and Gregor Mendel’s laws of inheritance) added a false sense of validity to these racist claims.
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The practice of eugenics is based on the notion that not only physical traits but mental and behavioral attributes—like mental capacity, musical ability, insanity, sexual licentiousness and criminality—are inheritable and therefore can be directed through breeding, sterilization and now through genetic manipulation.
(A child’s head is measured to determine his personality and predict his future, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, 1932)
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Historically the ideology of ‘scientific racism’ and practice of eugenics took on two forms: 1) positive eugenics—encouraging people deemed ‘superior’ or ‘fit’ (based on wealth, race or intelligence) to have more children; and 2) negative eugenics—discouraging or preventing people deemed ‘unfit’ (e.g. ethnic minorities, poor or disabled) from having children (most commonly through forced sterilization or murder).
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1926 poster warning that breeding among the unfit creates an unwanted burden on society, Philadelphia, Pensylvania (Wikipedia Commons)
For instance, Work conducted at the Eugenics Record Office (ERO) in Cold Spring Harbor, under the direction of Charles Benedict Davenport from 1910 to 1939, directly led to the forced sterilization of thousands of American citizens and the passage of anti-immigration laws.
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Coldspring Harbor Laboratory in 1920s where American eugenicists used state fairs as a venue for popular education, and judged “human stock” to select the most eugenically fit family in contests such as this one. (American Philosophical Society.
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By the 1920s, eugenics was a global phenomenon, popular with the elite, particularly in countries such as Germany, the United States, Great Britain, Italy, Mexico, and Canada. In the United States, involuntary sterilization, forced institutionalization, social ostracization and stigma have continued well into the 1970s. Concerned over “race suicide” (based on differential birthrates of races), American eugenicists promoted involuntary sterilization of mostly native Americans, African Americans, poor whites and people with disabilities; declaring certain individuals “feebleminded” or anti-social. Over 60,000 people were sterilized against their will by the 1970s.
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Ultimately, these same beliefs inspired the Nazis to exterminate people with disabilities and “lessor” ethnic or philosophical backgrounds. At least 400,000 victims were sterilized and over 70,000 adults and 5,000 children euthanized.
Nazi propaganda poster
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“Perhaps more than any other science, biology has consistently been employed as an accomplice to moral claims because it has tremendous social utility in translating scientific findings into political imperatives,” says Cosima Herter, science consultant for the TV show Orphan Black (which covers the topic of eugenics well.) “Deeply embedded in the public consciousness is the hope that social problems can be solved with ‘scientific panaceas’,” Herter adds. “…Science can as easily act as an ally to existing institutions and justify pernicious prejudices – racism, sexism, homophobia, and class disparity to name a few – as it can produce wondrous, beautiful, and beneficial fruits in the service of a better world.”
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Eugenics remains alive and well in North America. Much of it lies buried under beneath medical well-being, gene manipulation research or detainment, incarceration of illegal immigrants, or even the “metaeugenics” of AI. In her 2024 book Menace to the Future: A Disability and Queer History of Carceral Eugenics, Jess Whatcott introduces the term “carceral eugenics” which she defines as: “a concept that analyzes how state confinement functions to control the reproduction and life choices of groups of people who have been deemed biologically undesirable.”
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Eugenics & Transhumanism
In 1929, Cambridge crystallographer J.D. Bernal, speculated on radical changes to human bodies and intelligence through bionic implants and cognitive enhancement. Two years before that, Fritz Lang’s expressionist SF film Metropolis introduced the first robot depicted in cinema: the Maschinenmensch, the machine-human.
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Aldous Huxley’s 1932 dystopian novel Brave New World describes a ‘utopia’ based on eugenic principles. It is a stratified genetic caste society where the lower orders are deliberately stunted both mentally and physically. The destiny of its five main strata is determined from an early age. The strata consist of Alphas, destined for leadership positions; Betas, who hold less exalted but still intellectually demanding jobs; Gammas and Deltas, who occupy roles needing some intelligence; and finally Epsilons, happy and easily-controlled morons capable of only the most menial and unskilled tasks.
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Biologist Julian Huxley, brother of author Aldous Huxley, first used the word Transhumanism in a 1957 article, where he presented the concept of the technological singularity, or the ultra-rapid advent of superhuman intelligence. Julian Huxley defined Transhumanism as “man remaining man, but transcending himself, by realizing new possibilities of and for his human nature.”
The founders of Transhumanism were educated wealthy individuals of mostly British and European descent. They were an elite ruling class, who considered themselves the forward-thinking intelligentsia. Transhumanismis an intellectual and cultural movement that promotes eugenic principles through science & technology to improve human mental and physical characteristics and capacities. Transhumanists seek to expand technological opportunities for people to live longer and healthier lives and enhance their intellectual, physical, and emotional capacities through the use of synthetic biology: genetic, cybernetic and nanotechnologies. From the transhuman perspective, “in time the line between machines and living beings will blur and eventually vanish, making us part of a bionic ecology.”
While early Transhumanists advocated the elitest pseudoscience of eugenics or “racial hygiene”, many of today’s Transhumanistsargue that market dynamics and individual choice will drive twenty-first century eugenics. However, this argument contradicts the movement’s own dialectic: that of achieving the Singularity. The Transhuman quest for the Singularity of the Übermenschconsists of the ability to upload the minds of all individuals to a Hive Mind, a symbiotic collective consciousness, in which all peoples can link to an artificial “brain” or global hard drive, to achieve super-intelligence. The Mind Upload Research Group (MURG) is currently researching this possibility.
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Futurist Ray Kurzweil, author of The Age of Spiritual Machines and co-founder of the Singularity University, predicts that humans will be uploading their minds to computers by 2045 and that bodies will be replaced by machines—essentially achieving “immortality”—before the end of the century. “We’re going to become increasingly non-biological to the point where the non-biological part dominates and the biological part is not important any more,” says Kurzweil. “In fact the non-biological part – the machine part – will be so powerful it can completely model and understand the biological part. So even if that biological part went away it wouldn’t make any difference.”
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If such an existence were even desirable—which it isn’t to me—such a utopia would not be available to everyone; it would remain the domain of a wealthy aristocracy, creating yet another class system. I’m reminded of William Gibson’s pithy proclamation: “The future is already here—it’s just not evenly distributed.”
Kurzweil admits: “Humans who resist the pressure to alter their bodies by becoming part-cyborg or are unable to afford such procedures will be ostracized from society. Humans who do not utilize such implants are unable to meaningfully participate in dialogues with those who do.”
In Kurzweil’s brave new world of biological and non-biological intelligence, immortal software-based humans, and ultra-high levels of intelligence will expand outward in the universe at the speed of light. Will such an elite see the mass of humanity as worthless parasites and either prevent them from reproducing via mass sterilization programs or simply slaughter them outright?
The smell of eugenics remains ever-present.
Its oppressive aroma lingers in the biocapital frontier. In the neo-eugenic ‘marketplace of genetics’ encouraged by current advances in genetic screening and gene editing. In the continued confabulations of “designer babies” for the wealthy. In the neoliberal commodification of “human capital,” and rebranding of the “unfit.” In the biopolitics of disabled populations. In the persistence of white-supremacist movements throughout the world.
A class studies the Bertilon method of criiminal identification, based on measuring body parts, Paris, France, 1910-15
In the introduction to their 2000 paper in Nature Reviews Genetics entitled “Engineering American society: the lesson of eugenics”, researchers David Micklos and Elof Carlson write: “We stand at the threshold of a new century, with the whole human genome stretched out before us. Messages from science, the popular media, and the stock market suggest a world of seemingly limitless opportunities to improve human health and productivity. But at the turn of the last century, science and society faced a similar rush to exploit human genetics. The story of eugenics—humankind’s first venture into a ‘gene age’—holds a cautionary lesson for our current preoccupation with genes.”
A phrenologist demonstrates how to measure a person’s head for their mental energy, UK, 1937
What is perfect and how do we measure it? What is the risk of even suggesting a recipe for such a thing? A perfect society? Isn’t a Utopia an oxymoron of unresolvable paradox? Science fiction literature has given us many visions of where so-called utopias may descend (e.g., Brave New World, 1984, Fahrenheit 451, A Stranger in a Strange Land, The Handmaid’s Tale, The Matrix, The Hunger Games, Elysium, Divergent, Clockwork Orange, Delirium, and so many more). The very act of being an individual provides complexity and diversity that promotes stability in change.
Stable chaos.
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Perhaps, one day, when we are done hubristically tampering with things we shouldn’t be, we may find that the mess that is humanity fits rather nicely in this wonderfully messy world—and we’ll leave it all well alone.
More likely, that will be done for us by a world no longer patient with us.
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Nazi propaganda poster
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Glossary:
Der Übermensch (‘superman’): a philosophical concept introduced by Friedrich Nietzsche in his 1883 book Also sprach Zarathustra in which his character Zarathustra posits as a goal for humanity the Übermensch: a higher, self-mastering individual who creates their own values, affirms earthly life, and transcends the limitations of traditional morality and religion.
Transhumanism: a philosophical and intellectual movement that advocates for enhancing the human condition and expanding human capabilities through advanced technology.
Sonderweg: “special/unique path”; historically the term refers to the German/Teutonic belief that Germans were entitled to a distinct, separate historical development from the rest of Western Europe, ultimately leading to the rise of Nazism and the events of World War II. Historically, some German thinkers proudly viewed their special path as superior. They argued that Germany possessed a uniquely deep culture, strong statehood, and efficient bureaucracy that stood above “superficial” Western liberalism and parliamentary democracy
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References:
Micklos, David and Elof Carlson. 2000. “Engineering American society: the lesson of eugenics.” Nature Reviews Genetics 1: 153-158.
Rutherford, Adam. 2022. “Control: The Dark History and Troubling Present of Eugenics.” WW Norton. 384pp.
Torres, Mark. 2025. “Long Island and the Legacy of Eugenics: Station of Intolerance.” The History Press. 240pp.
Whatcott, Jess. 2024. “Menace to the Future: A Disability and Queer History of Carceral Eugenics.” Durham & London, Duke University Press. 248pp.
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Nina Munteanu is a Canadian ecologist / limnologist and novelist. She is co-editor of Europa SF and currently teaches writing courses at George Brown College and the University of Toronto. For the lates on her books, visit www.ninamunteanu.ca. Nina’s bilingual “La natura dell’acqua / The Way of Water” was published by Mincione Edizioni in Rome. Her non-fiction book “Water Is…” by Pixl Press (Vancouver) was selected by Margaret Atwood in the New York Times ‘Year in Reading’ and was chosen as the 2017 Summer Read by Water Canada. Her novel “A Diary in the Age of Water” was released by Inanna Publications (Toronto) in June 2020.You can read her just released eco-fiction thriller Gaia’s Revolution by Dragon Moon Press.
From Anne in Monument Valley, Arizona, to George in Brighton Pier, UK … from Heather coasting on the Ohio River to Noah gliding in a BC Ferry and Jo-Anne basking in the Gulf Islands of BC Canada … from Honoka in Kyoto’s Higashiyama District and Mika in Kyoto’s Bamboo Forest to Rick in his cozy Alberta home and Viviann in a cozy café … from Anne with her favourite dog in Ladner Marsh and Margaret with a favourite ale in an outdoor pub to Carina beside her favourite Buddha and Cathy by her favourite pool …and Noah wearing his hat …
People are reading Darwin’s Paradox.
Nina Munteanu is a Canadian ecologist / limnologist and novelist. She is co-editor of Europa SF and currently teaches writing courses at George Brown College and the University of Toronto. Visit www.ninamunteanu.ca for the latest on her books. Nina’s bilingual “La natura dell’acqua / The Way of Water” was published by Mincione Edizioni in Rome. Her non-fiction book “Water Is…” by Pixl Press(Vancouver) was selected by Margaret Atwood in the New York Times‘Year in Reading’ and was chosen as the 2017 Summer Read by Water Canada. Her novel “A Diary in the Age of Water” was released by Inanna Publications (Toronto) in June 2020.
In 2007, when I started my first blog, The Alien Next Door, I wrote an article that explored the term “Darwin’s Paradox”—it’s not just the title of my science fiction thriller Darwin’s Paradox released that year by Dragon Moon Press—but a term coined by scientists to describe the paradoxical phenomenon exhibited by coral reefs.
Defying The Laws of Thermodynamics
Darwin described coral reefs as oases in the desert of the ocean. Coral reefs comprise one of the richest ecosystems on Earth, in apparent violation of the laws of thermodynamics (high productivity in a low-productivity environment). Productivity ranges from 50 to 250 times more than the surrounding ocean. How do they thrive in crystal-clear water, largely devoid of nutrients? Part of the answer lies in the coral’s efficiency in recycling nutrients like nitrate and phosphate.
First, the rough coral surface amplifies water turbulence at a microscopic level, disrupting the boundary layer that usually settles on objects under water and lets the coral “hoover” up the sparse nutrients. I stumbled upon a similar phenomenon during my grad work on temperate streams and published my serendipitous discovery in the journal Hydrobiologia. I was researching how periphyton (attached “algae”) colonized submerged glass slides and observed that the community preferred the edges of the slides because the micro-turbulence there provided more opportunity for attachment and nutrition.
Second, lots of corals also function symbiotically with specialized algae (called zooxanthelae), which provide the coral with food (through photosynthesis) and, in turn, get food from the wastes created by the coral.
Can the science of symbiosis teach us something about another Darwin’s Paradox?
The Evolution of Compassion
In a September 2013 article in the Jewish World Review, Boston Globe reporter Jeff Jacobywrote:
“Charles Darwin struggled with a paradox: If evolution is a struggle for survival, how could generosity, compassion, and other altruistic virtues have spread through natural selection? Darwin could see the clear evolutionary benefit to groups that inculcated ethical values in their members. Imagine two competing primitive tribes, equally matched — except that ‘one tribe included a great number of courageous, sympathetic, and faithful members, who were always ready to warn each other of danger, [and] to aid and defend each other.’ (Darwin, “The Descent of Man”). There was little doubt that tribes highly endowed with such virtues ‘would spread and be victorious over other tribes.’”
“How did any tribe evolve such ethical qualities in the first place?” asks Jacoby. Brave individuals who risked their lives for others “would on average perish in larger numbers than other men.” It hardly seemed possible, Darwin conceded, that, “such virtues … could be increased through natural selection, that is, by the survival of the fittest.” So, how did it and why?
Jacoby quotes Sir Jonathan Sacks, Britain’s Orthodox chief rabbi, who pointed to “the central drama of civilization: Biological evolution favors individuals,” says Sacks. “But cultural evolution favors groups.… Selfishness benefits individuals [only in the short-term and only in a limited way—my comment], but it is [ultimately] disastrous to groups, and it is only as members of a group that individuals can survive at all.”
Jacoby describes the vast literature in evolutionary psychology and sociobiology that have demonstrated humanity’s hard-wired moral capacity. “We are born with an aptitude for empathy and fairness,” said Jacoby, citing recent neurological experiments that have demonstrated that an act of generosity triggers a pleasurable response in the brain.
Abraham Lincoln summarized it in seven words: “When I do good, I feel good.” Psychologists call it the “helper’s high”. Neuroscientists and behavioral scientists are demonstrating unequivocally the benefits of altruism to our health and happiness. Scientists have designed experiments that actually trace altruism—and the pleasure we gain from it—to specific regions and systems in the brain. Key studies now provide striking evidence that our brains are wired for altruism.
The Social Brain and the Seat of Compassion
In a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (Moll et al, 2006), a team of neuroscientists lead by Dr. Jordan Grafman, reported that, “when people made the decision to donate to what they felt was a worthy organization, parts of the midbrain lit up—the same region that controls cravings for food and sex.” The brain experiences a pleasurable response when we engage in good deeds that benefit others.
Dr. Grafman found that the subgenual area in the frontal lobe near the midpoint of the brain was also strongly active when his study subjects made the decision to give to charity. The area houses many receptors for oxytocin, a hormone that promotes social bonding. “The finding suggests that altruism and social relationships are intimately connected—in part, it may be our reliance on the benefits of strong interpersonal connections that motivates us to behave unselfishly,” reports Elizabeth Svoboda in the WallStreet Journal. The team also found that the nucleus accumbens, which contains neurons that release the pleasure chemical dopamine, was triggered when a person chose to help another.
A 2007 study headed by neuroscientist Scott Huettel and reported in Nature Neuroscience(Tankersley, et al., 2007) connects altruism to the posterior superior temporal cortex (pSTC), an area in the upper rear of the brain that lets us perceive goal-directed actions by someone or something else. Results suggest that altruism depends on, and may have evolved from, the brain’s ability to perform the low-level perceptual task of attributing meaning and motive in the actions of others.
“Our findings are consistent with a theory that some aspects of altruism arose out of a system for perceiving the intentions and goals of others,” said Dr. Huettel. “To be altruistic, you need to see that the people you’re helping have goals, and that your actions will have consequences for them.”
Research led by Michael Platt reported in Nature Neurosciencein 2012, showed that the anterior cingulate gyrus(ACCg) is an important nexus for the computation of shared experience and social reward. That same year researchers at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York published research in the journal Brainthat suggested that the anterior insular cortexis the activity centre of human empathy.
I find it both interesting and exciting that these studies link different brain regions to altruistic and compassionate behavior. “There are certain to be multiple mechanism that contribute to altruism, both in individuals and over evolutionary time,” added Huettel. This is the nature of the brain, whether we look at intelligence, motivation or physical characteristics. And I am convinced that we will someday find that many other areas—if not the entire area—of the brain are involved. Moreover, researchers have shown that engaging—or even witnessing—generous acts can reduce stress, increase immunity (e.g., increased antibody levels), and longevity.
Emiliana Simon-Thomas, science director for the Greater Good Science Center at the University of California, Berkeley, explains the chemical activity that happens in our heads when we commit acts of altruism. “There are multiple reward systems that have been tied to pleasurable feelings when people help others or contribute to the well being of the people around them,” she notes. These reward systems are comprised of three main chemicals that are released when we commit an act of kindness and feel pleasure: Dopamine, Oxytocin and Serotonin. According to Simon-Thomas, Dopamine is most closely related to hedonic pleasure — or pleasure derived from self; oxytocin is tied to more social pleasure — especially with regard to physical contact; and serotonin is implicated in a more broad mood state. “All three of these, again, are sort of intersecting and interacting, and depending on the context that you’re in, represent feelings of pleasure in different context,” she explains. “All these systems are activating and parallel, and sort of influencing one another as you go through life.” So when I do a good deed, I am rewarding myself with a cocktail of wonder drugs that please me and make me smile.
So, what I’ve known since I was a child is now proven: doing good deeds is mutually beneficial to the giver and the receiver.
Path through winter forest in the fog, ON (photo by Nina Munteanu)
Altruism in All Beings
The notion that all aspects of life on this planet—not just humanity—have the capacity to act altruistically remains controversial—even among professional scientists and researchers. We are not unique in experiencing or practicing altruism, in acting altruistically and benefiting from our own altruistic acts. It is however a matter of perspective, bias and open-mindedness. Many examples of altruistic behavior and empathy exist in the rest of the living world on our planet.
Nature’s Heroes
Scientists have been demonstrating for years that cooperation among organisms and communities and the act of pure altruism (not reciprocal altruism or kin/group selection) is, in fact, more common in Nature than most of us realize. Valid examples of true altruism in the wild in many species exist. The key here is “in the wild”—not in captivity, where inherent behavior is often modified (see my Alien Next Door article “The SamaritanParadox Revisited: The Karma Ran Over the Dogma”).
Despite the overwhelming evidence for altruism in every aspect of our world, some researchers continue to design experiments and then draw sweeping conclusions based on animals in captivity to suggest that only humanity possesses the ability to behave altruistically—and then again only by social-instruction (aka “the Selfish Gene” of Richard Dawkins vs. the “Social Gene” of Lynn Margulis).
Examples of altruism abound and range among mammals, birds, invertebrates and even Protista. Some examples include: dogs, cats, ducks, squirrels, wolves, mongooses, Meer cats, baboons, chimpanzees, vampire bats, dolphins, walruses, lemurs, African buffalo—to name a few.
de Waal explained that “evolution favors animals that assist each other if by doing so they achieve long-term benefits of greater value than the benefits derived from going it alone and competing with others” (de Waal 2006). The prevalent phenomenon of altruism is Nature’s answer to the Prisoner’s Dilemma. “Empathy evolved in animals as the main … mechanism for [individually] directed altruism,” said deWaal. And it is empathy—not self-interest—that “causes altruism to be dispensed in accordance with predictions from kin selection and reciprocal altruism theory.” deWaal further proposed that the scientific community has become polarized between evolutionary biologists on the one side, and, on the other, a discrete group of economists and anthropologists that “has invested heavily in the idea of strong reciprocity,” which demands discontinuity between humans and all other animals.
“One of the most striking consequences of the study of animal behavior,” says anthropologist Robert Sapolsky, “is the rethinking … of what it is to be human.” He notes that, “a number of realms, traditionally thought to define our humanity, have now been shown to be shared, at least partially, with nonhuman species.” (Sapolsky 2006). This makes some of us uncomfortable. To some, it threatens to make us less special. The corollary is that this demonstrates that we possess intrinsic virtue, not something “painted” on through cultural teaching or diligent personal effort. Of course, it also means that all other beings possess intrinsic value too. In the final analysis, what we generally “know” is colored by what we believe and want to continue believing.
First big snow in Thompson Creek marsh, ON (photo and dry brush rendition by Nina Munteanu)
Universal Altruism and Gaia
What does all this mean? Does the very existence of altruism demonstrate the connectivity of all life on Earth? Let’s not stop there. Does the grace of altruism reflect a fractal cosmos imbued with meaning and intent? Was it the grace of altruism that allowed it all to happen in the first place? Don’t we all come from grace?
Despite struggles with acceptance for some of us, we are emerging enlightened to the fractal existence of grace and altruism embedded in the very nature and intentions of our universe.
I come full circle to my book Darwin’s Paradox, a tale of fractal intelligence and universal cooperation. A tale of emerging awareness of Self and Other as One…Evolution through cooperation… Creative DNA…Manifestation through thought and intent…Self-organization and synchronicity…A hero’s journey…and coming Home…
In this season of gratitude, we celebrate altruism in giving and in receiving graciously.
Merry Christmas!
First snow over Thompson Creek outlet, ON (photo by Nina Munteanu)
Bradley, Brenda. 1999. “Levels of Selection, Altruism, and Primate Behavior.” The Quarterly Review of Biology, 74(2):171-194.
De Waal, Frans, with Robert Wright, Christine Korsgaard, Philip Kitcher, and Peter Singer. 2006. “Primates and Philosophers: How Morality Evolved”. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Goodall, Jane. 1990 Through A Window: My Thirty Years with the Chimpanzees of Gombe. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Moll, Jorge, Frank Krueger, Roland Zahn, Matteo Pardini, Ricardo de Oliveira-Souza, and Jordan Grafman. 2006. “Human fronto-mesolimbic networks guide decisions about charitable donation.” In: Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci., USA, 103(42): 15623-15628. http://www.pnas.org/content/103/42/15623.full
Sapolsky, Robert M. 2006. “Social Cultures Among Nonhuman Primates.” Current Anthropology, 47(4):641-656.
Svoboda, Elizabeth. 2013. “What Makes a Hero? The Surprising Science of Selfishness.” Current.
Tankersley D et al. 2007. “Altruism is Associated with an Increased Response to Agency.” Nature Neuroscience, February 2007, Vol. 10(2), pp. 150-151.
Warneken, F. & Tomasello, M. 2006. “Altruistic Helping In Human Infants and Young Chimpanzees.” Science, 311, 1301–1303.
Warneken, F., Hare, B., Melis, A. P., Hanus, D. & Tomasello, M. 2007. “Spontaneous Altruism By Chimpanzees and Young Children.” PloS Biology, 5(7), e184.
de Waal, F. B. M. 2008. “Putting the Altruism Back Into Altruism: The Evolution of Empathy.” Annu. Rev. Psychol., 59, 279–300.
de Waal, F. B. M., Leimgruber, K. & Greenberg, A. R. 2008. “Giving Is Self-rewarding for Monkeys.” Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci., USA, 105, 13685–13689.
Nina Munteanu is a Canadian ecologist / limnologist and novelist. She is co-editor of Europa SF and currently teaches writing courses at George Brown College and the University of Toronto. Visit www.ninamunteanu.ca for the latest on her books. Nina’s bilingual “La natura dell’acqua / The Way of Water” was published by Mincione Edizioni in Rome. Her non-fiction book “Water Is…” by Pixl Press(Vancouver) was selected by Margaret Atwood in the New York Times ‘Year in Reading’ and was chosen as the 2017 Summer Read by Water Canada. Her novel “A Diary in the Age of Water” was released by Inanna Publications (Toronto) in June 2020.
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