Why? The members of the selfish group are looking out only for themselves, and if others in their group fall, they see it as strengthening their own survival within it: One less competitor to worry about. In contrast, groups consisting of mainly “survival of the kindest,” compassionate people will succeed more than they fail. If you overlay their logic onto sports teams, local communities and nations, both Darwin and the Wilsons are arguing that groups made up self-interested people will fail more than they succeed. The Wilsons are not saying that selfishness, ruthlessness, and meanness play no part in evolution or reality instead, they contend that compassion, altruism, generosity, and cooperation play greater roles.

Wilson (no relation) have recently doubled down on Darwin’s argument, stating that “our ability to function as team players in coordinated groups enabled our species to achieve worldwide dominance, replacing other types of hominid and a range of other species along the way.” One of the main reasons that compassion helps people succeed is called “group selection” in science or “teamwork” in sports and business. Although selfishness may have been an advantage during the Paleolithic Era, when Homo sapiens lived more independently of each other, Wilson contends that it is “innately dysfunctional” in our highly interconnected societies and world. Wilson calls our “selfish activity” in interpersonal relations “the Paleolithic curse” that “hampers” success at all levels where groups of humans interact. Wilson, who is known for his studies of ants and bees that have yielded insights into human existence, has shown that our evolution from tribal into a global society increasingly favors compassionate and cooperative over callous and competitive approaches to human interaction. Since Darwin’s fieldwork and writings, researchers from various fields have supported his perspective. The bumper-sticker way of teaching and labeling Darwin’s ideas as exclusively focused on the “survival of the fittest” is not only misleading it completely misses his idea that humanity’s success hinges on its level of compassion or sympathy. In other words, Darwin believed that compassion was a natural instinct that we all share. He even calls compassion “the almost ever-present instinct” when a fellow human witnesses the suffering of another.

He writes that as the human race evolved from “small tribes” into large civilizations, concern about the well-being of others extended to include not just strangers but “all sentient beings.” HarperOne Darwin goes so far in his compassion argument as to tie the success of human evolution (and even “lower animals”) to the evolution of compassion.

The kindest lie