Homo Deus: a brief History of Tomorrow

Homo sapiens also likes to think that it enjoys a superior moral status, and that
human life has much greater value than the lives of pigs, elephants or wolves.
This is less obvious. Does might make right? Is human life more precious than
porcine life simply because the human collective is more powerful than the pig
collective?  The  United  States  is  far  mightier  than  Afghanistan;  does  this  imply
that American lives have greater intrinsic value than Afghan lives?
In  practice,  American  lives  are  more  valued.  Far  more  money  is  invested  in
the  education,  health  and  safety  of  the  average  American  than  of  the  average
Afghan.  Killing  an  American  citizen  creates  a  far  greater  international  outcry
than  killing  an  Afghan  citizen.  Yet  it  is  generally  accepted  that  this  is  no  more
than an unjust result of the geopolitical balance of power. Afghanistan may have
far less clout than the USA, yet the life of a child in the mountains of Tora Bora is
considered every bit as sacred as the life of a child in Beverly Hills.
In contrast, when we privilege human children over piglets, we want to believe
that  this  reflects  something  deeper  than  the  ecological  balance  of  power.  We
want  to  believe  that  human  lives  really  are  superior  in  some  fundamental  way.
We  Sapiens  love  telling  ourselves  that  we  enjoy  some  magical  quality  that  not
only accounts for our immense power, but also gives moral justification for our
privileged status. What is this unique human spark?
The  traditional  monotheist  answer  is  that  only  Sapiens  have  eternal  souls.
Whereas  the  body  decays  and  rots,  the  soul  journeys  on  towards  salvation  or
damnation, and will experience either everlasting joy in paradise or an eternity of
misery in hell. Since pigs and other animals have no soul, they don’t take part in
this  cosmic  drama.  They  live  only  for  a  few  years,  and  then  die  and  fade  into
nothingness. We should therefore care far more about eternal human souls than
about ephemeral pigs.
This  is  no  kindergarten  fairy  tale,  but  an  extremely  powerful  myth  that
continues  to  shape  the  lives  of  billions  of  humans  and  animals  in  the  early

---

twenty-first century. The belief that humans have eternal souls whereas animals
are just evanescent bodies is a central pillar of our legal, political and economic
system.  It  explains  why,  for  example,  it  is  perfectly  okay  for  humans  to  kill
animals for food, or even just for the fun of it.
However,  our  latest  scientific  discoveries  flatly  contradict  this  monotheist
myth. True, laboratory experiments confirm the accuracy of one part of the myth:
just  as  monotheist  religions  say,  animals  have  no  souls.  All  the  careful  studies
and painstaking examinations have failed to discover any trace of a soul in pigs,
rats or rhesus monkeys. Alas, the same laboratory experiments undermine the
second  and  far  more  important  part  of  the  monotheist  myth,  namely,  that
humans  do  have  a  soul.  Scientists  have  subjected  Homo  sapiens  to  tens  of
thousands of bizarre experiments, and looked into every nook in our hearts and
every  cranny  in  our  brains.  But  they  have  so  far  discovered  no  magical  spark.
There is zero scientific evidence that in contrast to pigs, Sapiens have souls.
If that were all, we could well argue that scientists just need to keep looking. If
they  haven’t  found  the  soul  yet,  it  is  because  they  haven’t  looked  carefully
enough. Yet the life sciences doubt the existence of soul not just due to lack of
evidence,  but  rather  because  the  very  idea  of  soul  contradicts  the  most
fundamental  principles  of  evolution.  This  contradiction  is  responsible  for  the
unbridled hatred that the theory of evolution inspires among devout monotheists.
Who’s Afraid of Charles Darwin?
According  to  a  2012  Gallup  survey,  only  15  per  cent  of  Americans  think  that