Chapter 3: Origins of Skill

Chapter 3

Origins of Skill

Look around you at human society: you will see many people—almost everyone—equipped with one skill or the other, often with multiple skills. We are routinely classified as Homo sapiens, but we might as well be described as Homo skillians. Skill is our species characteristic, our zoological essence. That is, we are a species whose salient trait is expertise acquired by learning, practice, and training—as opposed to instinct or abstract rationality. Know-how and physical dexterity are our species hallmarks. We are amazingly good at tying shoelaces and plumbing, among other things. The question naturally arises as to how we got this way: how did skill as we know it evolve? What biological purpose does it serve? What made it possible? Why don’t other species match us in acquired dexterity?

First, we should not doubt that other animals possess skills—acquired, taught, useful skills. They learn how to hunt, forage, fight, raise infants, make nests, and so on. Parents teach offspring how to do these things. Some learn social skills, living in packs and groups. They may even learn mating skills. Skill isn’t unique to humans. But the extent of it is—the sheer amount of skill acquired by a normal human. We are ten times more skilled than our nearest rivals, monkeys and apes (though less hairy). A hundred times even. Why? How? We may not look like much, but we are excellent at getting stuff done, skillfully. Probably (certainly) our skill set is what enabled us to survive and prosper—to become the most dominant species on the planet. Skills are clearly useful and we have them in spades; we are collocations of skills. The survival of the skillfulist. Those among us with the best skills are the ones who live longer and reproduce more. We are genetically set up to acquire skills of many kinds; we have “the skill gene”. We are born that way. We are instinctual learners of skills. Our brains and bodies are designed to make skill acquisition possible. We were born to bowl (inter alia). Not that these individual skills are themselves innate, but our propensity to acquire them and our general capacity to perform them are genetically programmed. Empiricists think we are born to acquire ideas by perception (and not much else); their skill analogues think we are born to acquire skills (call them “skillists”). We have the skill instinct alongside the language instinct.[1]

But how did this come about? The answer is not far to seek and was anticipated by Charles Darwin in The Descent of Man (1871). Our ancestors lived in the trees and spent their lives gripping, climbing, and brachiating. For this they needed suitable hands (try gripping without them). They already had quite skillful hands as a combination of innate endowment and individual learning. But then it became necessary to descend from the trees and make our living on earth, probably because of climate change. Luckily, we had hands to hand, and soon we were making tools. That was the turning point: we gradually developed skills centered on the hands. The feet were mainly used for locomotion, but the hands were relatively free and already adept enough at manipulation. Once up on two legs we were free to indulge our newfound predilection for manual activity—hand skills, hand jobs, hand hobbies. The fingers, in particular, demonstrated their utility by enabling us to perform delicate tasks, the thumb and forefinger being the stars of the show. We could out-skill each other in manual dexterity. It was a biological revolution, a momentous evolutionary discovery.[2] Skills thus evolved from hands, liberated from locomotion duties. Skilled brains came along for the ride, providing the necessary control machinery. If the brain is a computer, then its program is written in hand-skill-ese. Initially, the skilled hand-brain stuck to simple tasks, like picking things up or throwing and catching them, but in the fullness of time it went nuclear—it became a weapon in the fight for survival. Skilled hands made weapons and used them, leading up to nuclear weapons themselves. As an offshoot, they produced pianists and pool players, carpenters and tennis players. Skills are thus centered on the hand, though the feet too can get pretty handy-skilly (though markedly less so than the hands). Without the hands our ascent to our current transcendent skillfulness would have been cramped, if not precluded, but with them skill came into its own as an evolutionary development. They were the platform, the springboard.

We may suppose that hunting and fighting were among our first serious skills (not nose picking). If so, skill is steeped in blood and guts. Punching and strangling, poking and squeezing—these were our early skills. Also, stabbing and spearing, then dismembering and slicing up. Just think of the violence wrought by those skillful appendages! Mayhem and murder were among our earliest achievements as a skillful species (sadism came as a side benefit). The moral side of skill accordingly came into being. Our greatness as a species owes a lot to the dark side of skill; it isn’t all sweetness and light, patting and stroking. Skilled hands can help and comfort, but they can also destroy. We are right to fear skill in the wrong hands (so to speak). It is like this with most biological adaptations: they exist because of their destructive potential (teeth, talons, poison). Skilled hands are caught between good and evil, with evil right at the root. Still, skill chose the path of righteousness eventually (though partially); our skills enabled us to avoid extinction and flourish as a species. Skill produced human culture, art, science, sport, ballroom dancing, and music—not a bad record for something that began in violent crime.

It should be emphasized that skill acts as a separate evolutionary pathway. There aren’t just the body and the mind but also the skills that these two things permit. Bodies evolve by mutation and natural selection, and so do minds; but in addition, skills evolve by the same mechanisms. There are bodily traits, psychological traits, and that peculiar hybrid, skill traits. Just think of the throwing skill; it evolved from primitive beginnings to what we see today. First, chucking stones around aimlessly, then throwing spears in hunting, and finally all the types of throwing we observe today (discus, Frisby, darts). Can any species compare to us as expert throwers? Have you ever seen an ape throw a Frisby or a discus or a dart? We are a million times better at throwing than our animal brethren, wonderful as they are. Evolutionary biologists should reserve a special place for the evolution of skills.[3]

[1] See Steven Pinker, The Language Instinct (1994).  Sex, skill, and language: the human instinctual package.

[2] See my Prehension: The Hand and the Emergence of Humanity (2015).

[3] It is a good question why skills are not overtly acknowledged in contemporary science (and philosophy). I think it is because they are perceived as shadowy pseudo-entities, proscribed by empiricism and positivism. I don’t share these prejudices, so I am happy to accept skills at face value. I might even accept a skill metaphysics (like process metaphysics).