Human Uniqueness 1
A New Theory of Human Uniqueness
Humans are unique. We have gone where no other organism has gone before, accomplishing marvelous deeds. There is no place better to see this than in our greatest accomplishments including the Pyramids of Giza, the Great Wall of China, the lighthouse of
Alexandria, Stonehenge and many, more. So what makes us so different?
The answer to this may lie in a new theory of human uniqueness, stating that humans are distinct from all other organisms in that they practice non-kin cooperation, a mutualistic relationship in which unrelated members of a species cooperate for the benefit of both parties.
The wonders of the world aforementioned, as well as daily tasks are built upon cooperation between distantly related humans. Other organisms are unable to cooperate this way and can only cooperate with close relatives. This is because genes are selfish. The goal of genes and thus the organisms they build is to reproduce themselves (Dawkins, 1976). Close kin share a large percentage of genes and thus by helping a relative, the organism is helping reproduction of its own genes. If an organism helped a non-related member of its species, it would be helping other genes reproduce, and the genes building the “helping” organism would suffer if the non-related member does not give back.
So how have humans overcome this conflict of interest to allow non-kin cooperation?
Professor Paul Bingham (1999, 2000) of Stony Brook University believes he has the answer.
During non-kin cooperation, there is a chance that the “helper” organism will be cheated over spoils of interaction. Therefore “cheater” would be successful in two ways. First, it has new resources given by the “helper” and secondly, it has deprived its competitor, the “helper”, of resources. The way to prevent this is if the potential cheater can be coerced to do the “right thing”…to cooperate. However, for non-human animals, coercion is costly. In order to coerce the

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“cheater”, there must be a negative consequence that outweighs the positive benefits of cheating.
The negative consequence non-human organisms have is close-combat. However, close combat is risky, where any injury can lead to death, steering organisms away from coercion. Therefore, in order for cooperation to exist there must be a readily available, cheap, and low-risk method of coercion, and humans have such a method…remote killing. According to Bingham (2000), humans can do one thing better than any organism; they can lift a stone and throw it with deadly speed and accuracy. In fact, investigation revealed humans are anatomically structured for throwing. It appears to have been naturally selected. According to the theory, our ability to kill from a distance has allowed humans to cooperate by suppressing the innate conflict of interest present in all life. Cooperation only occurs if the perceived punishment has a high chance of success (Boyd & Richardson, 1992). By killing from afar, multiple member of a species can target a “cheater” simultaneously. Based on Lanchester’s Square Law, which calculates strength and ability of military forces, the danger risk to the attackers is reduced by the number of attackers squared (Lanchester Equation, n.d.). For example, if 10 attack 1, the risk to the attackers decreases 100-fold, since 10
2
=100, but the risk to the attackers also decreases since the
“cheater” would be terminated faster. This is called coalition enforcement, and may be responsible for everything we are today.
Coalition enforcement and non-kin cooperation may have led to developments in brain size and function. Astoundingly, brains size saw a dramatic increase following the development of the ability to throw and coalition enforcement two million years ago. Complex organisms with large brains like humans require time for development. Therefore, an organism taking longer to develop would require more resources than it could output. For only two parents, it would be extremely difficult, probably impossible, to supply necessary resources and still be able to

Human Uniqueness 3 survive and compete against other organisms. Therefore, an organism that takes long to develop would be selected against and thus genetic mutations leading to larger, more complicated brains would be malignant. However, through non-kin cooperation, mature members of a large unrelated coalition help raise young developing members, thus paving the road for larger brains with longer development periods.
Larger brains would only be selected for if there were an adaptive advantage. In a nonkin cooperating environment with many individuals all exchanging information, the ability to generate, store and process information efficiently would be a great advantage. Large brains would also be implicated in developing a complex system of symbols and sounds to transfer that information between individuals (Corballis, 1999). Communication has continued to lead to the sharing of information and therefore even the highly modern Internet can be thought to be rooted in this ancient principle.
Our ability to throw was only the beginning. Over time humans have built on this common theme starting with the development of the spear, followed by the atlatl, a leverage tool allowing long-ranged throwing, bow and arrow, and so on. Each advancement increased the ability of humans to coerce each other and thus expanded our ability to cooperate. Today we have coercion on an international scale using nuclear weapons, our latest and most powerful punch from a distance. It is amazing to think that the coercion strategy behind throwing a rock and launching a nuclear missile are one in the same.
The ability to cheaply and effectively coerce an unrelated member of the species may have allowed non-kin cooperation to arise for the first time. This concept appears to be the bain of our existence for two million years, allowing us to come and work together as a collective group and giving us friendship, language, music, technology, art, peace, and war. Everywhere we

Human Uniqueness 4 look, humans are cooperating with unrelated humans. It is inescapable. A single day is the result of 1,000,000’s of interactions between unrelated individuals, and to think, it all may be rooted in an act as simple as lifting a stone and throwing it.
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Works Cited
Bingham, P. M. (2000). Human evolution and human history: A complete theory. Evolutionary
Anthropology 9, 248-257.
Bingham, P.M. (1999). “Human uniqueness: A general theory.”
Quarterly Review of Biology 74,
133-169.
Boyd, R. & Richardson, P. J. (1992). Punishment allows the evolution of cooperation (or anything else) in sizable groups. Ethol Sociobiol 13, 171-195.
Corbllis, M. C. (1999). The gestural origins of language. Am Sci 87: 138-145.
Dawkins, R. (1976). The Selfish Gene. Oxford: Oxford University Press
The Lanchester Equation. (n.d.).Retrieved November 29, 2007, from Computer Science at the
University of Iowa.. Web site: http:// www.cs.uiowa.edu/~dsidran/Lanchester
%20Alternative.pdf.