What does science tell us about what it means to be human?

 

Scientific Foundations of a Process-Based Conception of Humanity

A process-based conception of humanity is supported by converging insights from several scientific and philosophical disciplines. This convergence does not imply complete agreement or definitive proof. It consists of partially overlapping findings that make a relational and process-based understanding of human beings increasingly plausible. Such findings must always be assessed in relation to the phenomenon being studied, the relevant explanatory level, remaining uncertainties, and the conclusions that can reasonably be drawn[1].

Modern science is gradually moving away from reductionist explanations that attribute complex phenomena to a single dominant cause. Process-oriented and systemic approaches instead emphasize interaction, emergence, context, and change. Human identity and behavior can therefore be understood as outcomes of continuously interacting biological, psychological, social, cultural, and ecological processes. Human diversity represents variation within shared conditions of existence, not a hierarchy of development.

Developmental psychology shows that cognitive, emotional, and social development results from long-term interaction between individuals and their environments. Development continues throughout life[2], making identity an ongoing process of reinterpretation and adaptation rather than a completed state. Freedom and autonomy are similarly developed within social and cultural contexts rather than possessed from the outset. Because access to supportive relationships and institutions is unequal, opportunities for personal development are also unevenly distributed.

Social neuroscience demonstrates that cognition and emotion are deeply connected to interpersonal interaction and social regulation. Human brains develop through relationships, while prolonged isolation is associated with stress, impaired cognitive development, and emotional or psychosocial difficulties. Social interaction is also essential for learning norms, values, and moral expectations. Empathy functions as a fundamental neuropsychological capacity that supports cooperation, care, moral development, mutual recognition, and social stability[3].

Evolutionary biology explains how capacities such as language, cooperation, and empathy have partly emerged through biological evolution, but human development cannot be reduced to genetic adaptation[4]. Biological evolution must be distinguished from cultural and technological evolution, as well as from co-evolutionary processes in which biological, cultural, technological, and ecological developments influence one another. Human societies follow multiple historical pathways shaped by environmental circumstances, innovations, and cultural choices. Evolution therefore provides no justification for ranking cultures or populations according to human worth or presumed levels of civilization.

Genetics and epigenetics further challenge a strict separation between nature and environment. Gene expression can be influenced by psychological, social, and ecological conditions, meaning that genetic predispositions function as context-dependent possibilities rather than fixed determinants. Human development is biologically constrained but remains open to change through relationships, upbringing, culture, and material living conditions. Genetic diversity is a constitutive feature of humanity and offers no scientific basis for hierarchical evaluations of people[5].

Narrative identity develops through interpretative life stories that create meaning and continuity amid change. These stories are shaped not only by individuals but also by cultural traditions, symbolic systems, and social expectations. The ability to reinterpret personal narratives contributes to human freedom, while also revealing that identity remains socially and culturally embedded. Narrativity is nevertheless not universal: some people experience themselves in more episodic or fragmented ways. It should therefore be understood as a widespread interpretative resource rather than a necessary structure of every identity[6].

Complexity theory explains human development as an emergent outcome of interactions across multiple levels of organization. Cognitive, social, and cultural phenomena cannot be reduced entirely to biological mechanisms, although they cannot be separated from them either. Human beings develop within dynamic networks of relationships, institutions, cultures, and ecosystems whose interactions generate properties that cannot be explained by examining their individual components alone[7].

Phenomenology[8] and process philosophy provide complementary conceptual resources. Phenomenology emphasizes that experience is embodied, situated, and formed through engagement with other people and the world. Process philosophy treats continuity as an achievement within change rather than as evidence of an unchanging substance. Neither tradition supplies empirical proof of a relational conception of humanity; together they help interpret the anthropological significance of findings from psychology, neuroscience, biology, and the social sciences.

The combined evidence supports a conception of human beings as dynamic, relational, embodied, and context-sensitive. Equal worth can be grounded in shared conditions of vulnerability, relational dependence, and developmental potential. Freedom can be understood as a capacity that develops through supportive relationships and institutions. Diversity reflects multilinear variation rather than differences in human value, while empathy enables cooperation, moral growth, and social cohesion.

No individual discipline establishes a complete theory of humanity. Their cumulative convergence nevertheless provides a credible foundation for a process-based conception in which identity and behavior emerge through interactions among biological predispositions, social relationships, cultural meanings, and ecological circumstances. This synthesis must remain open to revision as scientific knowledge develops and must integrate different explanatory levels without reducing one to another or sacrificing conceptual coherence[9].

 

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[1] Debbie A. Lawlor, Kate Tilling, and George Davey Smith, “Triangulation in Aetiological Epidemiology,” International Journal of Epidemiology 45, no. 6 (2016): 1866–1886, https://doi.org/10.1093/ije/dyw314; Mitchell, Biological Complexity and Integrative Pluralism. These sources support convergence or triangulation while emphasizing that agreement does not eliminate shared bias or conceptual mismatch.

[2] Paul B. Baltes, “Theoretical Propositions of Life-Span Developmental Psychology: On the Dynamics between Growth and Decline,” Developmental Psychology 23, no. 5 (1987): 611–626, https://doi.org/10.1037/0012-1649.23.5.611; Bronfenbrenner and Morris, “The Bioecological Model of Human Development.”

[3] John T. Cacioppo and Louise C. Hawkley, “Perceived Social Isolation and Cognition,” Trends in Cognitive Sciences 13, no. 10 (2009): 447–454, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2009.06.005; Julianne Holt-Lunstad, Timothy B. Smith, and J. Bradley Layton, “Social Relationships and Mortality Risk: A Meta-analytic Review,” PLOS Medicine 7, no. 7 (2010): e1000316, https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1000316. Editorially, replace “demonstrates” with “research across developmental psychology and social neuroscience indicates.”

[4] Tomasello, Why We Cooperate; Boyd and Richerson, Not by Genes Alone; Laland, Odling-Smee, and Myles, “How Culture Shaped the Human Genome.”

[5] Meaney and Szyf, “Environmental Programming of Stress Responses through DNA Methylation”; Gottlieb, “Probabilistic Epigenesis.” Add an explicit qualification that epigenetic findings vary by species, tissue, developmental period, and study design and do not establish unlimited malleability.

[6] McAdams and McLean, “Narrative Identity”; Strawson, “Against Narrativity.”

[7] Mitchell, Biological Complexity and Integrative Pluralism; Melanie Mitchell, Complexity: A Guided Tour (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009).

[8] Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception, trans. Donald A. Landes (London: Routledge, 2012 [1945]); Varela, Thompson, and Rosch, The Embodied Mind.

[9] Mitchell, Biological Complexity and Integrative Pluralism; Lawlor, Tilling, and Davey Smith, “Triangulation in Aetiological Epidemiology.” These sources justify a plural and revisable synthesis rather than a claim of definitive scientific proof.