Boehm credits Darwin for speculating on the evolutionary origins of the human conscience from his very first thoughts on evolution in “On the Origin of Species” and the “Descent of Man”. Darwin, in fact, conducted a far-flung anthropological survey, across the British colonies, that proved that blushing to show shame was cross-culturally universal and, therefore, an intrinsic trait. However, culture does play on genes through group selection and sex selection and thus has effects on evolutionary biology. Humans evolved into egalitarian bands. This occurred primarily as proto-humans divvied up the meat from large animal kills: an activity that required large group cooperation and required all members of the group to be adequately nutritioned to contribute. Capital punishment of non-egalitarians had dire effects on aggressive gene selection, whether they be of bullies (alpha-males), cheats, or thieves. This had the effect of both a debilitation of aggressive responses and strengthening inhibitory controls in surviving genotypes. Through many generations genes that selected for altruism were selected for both by group selection, the groups with higher altruistic propensity outcompeted more selfish groups, and within group sex selection, as females picked the altruistic males within the group and aggressive individualists were labeled as deviants or effectively shamed into repressing their aggressive tendencies. In this way humans gradually developed a more mature conscience that valued empathy and group cohesion.
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