Social scientists continue to build the case that humans are more often wired for altruism than to be selfish. Today’s Science Daily News features Social Scientists Build Case for ‘Survival of the Kindest’.

Last week, we touched this same subject — with different researchers — in Science Redefines Innate Human Behavior. There’s no doubt that brain science and endocrinology are helping us understand what it is to be human, with far-reaching implications.

If human beings aren’t fundamentally ‘bad’ but ‘good’ instead — or at the least, significant numbers of us are biologically ‘good’ — humanist and secularist values ascend in importance.

Sensual awareness is a key part of humanism, which requires us to be open to receive information and experience through our senses. Think of it as perception and awareness of our surroundings by listening, smelling, seeing, tasting and feeling.

Perhaps the fundamentalist whip isn’t required to keep large numbers of women and men ‘in line’ after all.

In contrast to “every man for himself” interpretations of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection, Dacher Keltner, a UC Berkeley psychologist and author of “Born to be Good: The Science of a Meaningful Life,” and his fellow social scientists are building the case that humans are successful as a species precisely because of our nurturing, altruistic and compassionate traits.

They call it “survival of the  kindest via Science Daily

Scientific research adds an immense update of new understanding about humanity that religion cannot. We are not suggesting that religion and science are fundamentally opposed to each other. But science seeks to confirm what monotheism alleges: that humans are as fundamentally “sinful” because Eve couldn’t control her mind, lacked self-discipline and succumbed to the devil’s sensual offering of the apple.

What if neuroscience demonstrates in a wide range of studies that our physiology is typically prewired for goodness and benevolence?

It’s my personal belief that — especially among women — guilt and self-loathing over our allegedly sinful nature may prevent us from maximizing our spirituality. Living in a dutiful state of existence that’s monitored and guided by men to insure our salvation, potentially keeps women from expressing our inherently positive nature through self-love and caring for others.