Human Being

Anthroposociogenesis: Scientific and Worldview Aspects

The theme of human and societal origins (anthroposociogenesis) is vast and serves as a subject for both philosophy and various specialized sciences. Here, we focus primarily on it from a purely worldview perspective. This topic has not always significantly troubled thinkers of the past. Surprisingly, even during the Enlightenment, when worldview questions were sharpened by the opposition between religion and science, the problem of human origins was a peripheral issue. Jean-Jacques Rousseau outright refused to discuss hypotheses regarding human origins on the grounds that "comparative anatomy has made too little progress, and the observations of naturalists are too uncertain to construct a compelling argument on such a basis."

His contemporary, Paul-Henri Holbach, offered even more soothing reassurances to those who might concern themselves with the uncertainty of human origins: regarding the origin of humanity and its eternity, since experience tells us nothing about this, there is no need to be distressed. This mindset reflects not so much a desire to rely on facts for scientific integrity, but rather a certain indifference to the worldview significance of the question of human origins, although the same Rousseau builds rather arbitrary assumptions about "the origin of inequality among men."

Nevertheless, the topic of one’s own origins has always somehow unsettled humanity, a sentiment echoed in all historical types of worldview. In the myths and primitive religions of every people worldwide, there are notions about the emergence of humans. For instance, one myth from the Aranda tribe of central Australia narrates how, in a distant past, two great men lived in the western part of the sky. These were the brothers Numbakulla. One day, the brothers noticed a cluster of helpless, glued-together beings—ina-patua—beneath large rocks by the shore of a salt lake. Their outlines were indistinguishable, so tightly pressed together were they. The inapatua had no hands, no feet, no eyes, no ears; they lacked the ability to see and hear, to move or speak independently. The brothers decided to descend to the earth to transform the inapatua into humans—men and women. They separated the shapeless bodies of these beings, using stone knives to give them a human form, creating arms, legs, and fingers, cutting eyes and mouths, and sculpting noses and ears. After this, the inapatua became true humans—men and women.

In developed religious worldviews (in the form of world religions), the theme of human origins is inevitably preserved. In Christianity, it is illuminated as follows: "And God said, 'Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.' So God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them."

Thus, philosophy and science merely continued the age-old human desire to know oneself. In this regard, the American geneticist of Ukrainian descent, Theodosius Dobzhansky, was undoubtedly correct when he wrote: "Man has confronted the problem of 'know thyself' since he became human, and will continue to grapple with it as long as he remains human." The philosophical worldview approach has always been oriented not toward faith, but toward rationally substantiated thought, striving from the moment modern science arose to rely on objective data from scientific research.

Scientific achievements regarding human origins emerged only when the idea of development, progress, and the sequential qualitative transformation of the plant and animal world on Earth penetrated science. The preparatory work for scientifically framing the question of anthropogenesis was conducted by the English biologist Charles Darwin, who demonstrated that biological evolution through natural selection gradually led the animal ancestors of humans to the emergence of labor as a means of interaction with the natural environment, which subsequently became the primary factor in further evolution. Later, this idea was notably emphasized by Friedrich Engels, whose work "The Role of Labor in the Process of Transforming Ape into Man" was first published in 1896, after the author's death. In it, Engels asserted: "At first, labor, and later, along with it, articulated language became the two main stimuli under whose influence the ape's brain gradually transformed into the human brain."

Since the publication of these ideas, the "labor" hypothesis of anthroposociogenesis has become the most widely accepted and best substantiated compared to others. Numerous well-known fossil discoveries and the tools used by these creatures have enabled a rough reconstruction of the evolutionary process from the earliest human ancestors to modern humans.

Fossil Beings	Time of Appearance and Existence (in years)	Brain Size (in cm³)
Australopithecus (Australopithecus)	5 million - 1 million	450
Homo habilis (Skilled Man; some scholars categorize him as Australopithecus)	2.5 million - 1.5 million	800
Homo erectus (Upright Man)	1.6 million - 200,000	880 - 1100
Homo sapiens neanderthalensis (Neanderthal)	200,000 - 30,000	1500
Homo sapiens sapiens (Modern Human)	100,000	1350 - 1600

Naturally, the emergence of the first hominids (Australopithecus) was preceded by other animal ancestors that occupied a lower level of development. In the pre-human phase, which began approximately 25 million years ago (the Miocene epoch), two evolutionary branches emerged, one leading to the hominids and the other to modern apes. Thus, as most scholars assert, the apes that gradually evolved into modern humans are not the same as those we know today—gorillas, chimpanzees, gibbons, and orangutans.

Proponents of the "labor" hypothesis believe that subsequent physiological changes in hominids occurred primarily in response not to external natural conditions, but to the labor process itself.

Alongside the emergence of humanity, there unfolded a parallel process of forming social life, which had its roots in primitive, purely animal forms of "social" organization. Ethologists, who study animal behavior, provide rich material, especially concerning primates, allowing us to draw conclusions about the general behavioral elements from which the most ancient modes of distinctly human social life may have evolved, transformed by culture. By employing the chimpanzee community as a model for the relationships among early hominins, we can identify a crucial characteristic: the tendency to form quasi-closed groups, founded on mutual antagonism among adult males, while allowing adult females full freedom of movement between groups. This correlates with an ancient human communal feature, namely the exchange of women between groups. It is possible that early humans did not invent this exchange but merely continued an established practice, transforming it into a system governed by certain rules akin to various prohibitions against incest and legalized systems of kinship. Regarding the emergence of communication systems through language, which significantly reshaped animal-like connections into human ones, contemporary higher primates do not utilize language; however, experiments demonstrate that chimpanzees can create symbolic gestures with their hands and manipulate similar objects of various shapes and colors, indicating some, albeit weak, capacity for communication through symbols. Most likely, the linguistic system of communication first emerged in Homo erectus, whose brain size significantly surpassed that of the australopithecus. The capabilities of such a system remain unknown, perhaps not very significant, for even in Neanderthals, as some argue, the vocal tract was not yet adapted to produce the entire range of linguistic sounds.

Regardless of the specifics of these developments, one thing is clear: a transitional form replaced the animal community, which was subsequently transformed into a genuinely social tribal structure. Norms emerged that constrained and quelled natural instincts. The earliest norms were purely negative in nature (prohibitions, taboos). The primary prohibitions concerned sexual relations, establishing exogamy—the custom that forbids marriage between individuals of the same blood group. Another norm prohibited the killing of one’s tribesmen, necessitating the support of relatives, while the severity and extreme rigor of these initial prohibitions prevented the primordial human from reverting to a purely animal state.

The labor theory of human origins is not the only perspective among scholars and philosophers. For instance, the French philosopher and scientist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin offers a different approach. He views the emergence of humanity within the context of a universal evolutionary process, progressing from the "pre-life" stage, through "life," and culminating in the "phenomenon of man." Humanity, as a bearer of consciousness, is merely a concentrated embodiment of spirituality, which is inherently present in the cosmos. In the "fabric of the universe," there exist two equally valid aspects: the physical and the spiritual. Thus, the spiritual is pervasive throughout the universe; however, it only assumes a psychic form in humans. Throughout evolution, from the cell to the thinking animal, as from the atom to the cell, the same process of psychic concentration has continued unabated, culminating in a sudden transformation of the subject. Teilhard de Chardin asserts that humanity entered nature and the world silently and imperceptibly, thanks to universal and long-term preparation, which makes it challenging for science to pinpoint the emergence of the "phenomenon of man."

The second approach belongs to the American philosopher and sociologist Lewis Mumford. He argues that defining humanity as a tool-using animal merely reflects the current relationship between humans and technology, retroactively imposing this fact on antiquity to illustrate the role of tools in anthropogenesis. However, the mere discovery of fossilized hominid skulls alongside primitively crafted stones is not compelling evidence that the evolution toward humanity stemmed from the making and use of those stones. It is also a fact that, for the subsequent million years, there was little noticeable improvement in the technology of stone shaping, and the capacity to manufacture such tools did not require or create an advanced cranial structure in early humans. Mumford posits that there was nothing uniquely human in ancient technology until it was transformed by linguistic symbols, social organization, and aesthetic designs. At this stage, the production of symbols greatly outpaced the production of tools, subsequently fostering the development of a more pronounced technology. Thanks to an extraordinarily developed, constantly active brain, humans possessed greater mental energy than was necessary for mere survival at a purely animal level. Thus, they were compelled to channel this energy not only in the pursuit of food and reproduction but also in ways of life that directly and creatively transformed this energy into corresponding cultural, that is, symbolic forms. Such cultural "work" held greater significance for the transformation of the entire corporeal and psychophysiological structure of the ancestors of modern humans. Humans are primarily tool-using animals who engage reason, produce symbols, and self-improve, with the focus of their activity centered on their own organisms. Until humans transformed something within themselves, they could achieve little in their environment. Mumford concludes that the creation of significant types of symbolic expression, rather than merely more efficient tools, formed the foundation for the further development of Homo sapiens from the outset.

Thus, these authors do not deny the gradual evolution in anthropogenesis; they diverge from proponents of the labor theory regarding the origins and factors that underlie the foundation and mechanism of evolution.

Does biological evolution continue in humans today? Until recently, among domestic philosophers and scientists, the prevailing view was that with the emergence of humanity and society—when our ancestors shifted from adapting their corporeal nature to each substantial environmental change to transforming the surrounding world through the use of productive means—their biological evolution ceased. However, such conclusions are no longer as categorical. It is more likely that in some forms, the biological nature of humanity is indeed changing. Scholars identify the evolution of humanity in several directions:

• The enhancement of the brain (increased stress resistance, faster reaction times);
• Brachycephalization, or the broadening of the head (an increase in instances of individuals with spherical skulls, which does not pertain to facial changes);
• Gracilization (thinning of the cranial cavity).

These evolutionary trends pertain to the brain and are directly influenced by the growing informational potential of society, which in turn exerts pressure on individuals. There are also indications of rapid evolution in the morphology of the dental system, dating from a period that was already quite recent, approximately 10,000 to 8,000 years ago. The special role of bacterial, viral, and other flora within the body’s internal environments, in cells, and in genetic structures is becoming clearer, as adaptive mechanisms change.

It is possible that other transformative processes are underway, especially through mutations and ecological factors impacting human health (soil and atmospheric pollution, degradation of plant and animal life, thermal and radiation pollution, electromagnetic radiation, noise, vibration, etc.). However, a complete panorama of modern human evolution can only be compiled after long-term, large-scale, and meticulous research.