If innate values are embedded in the DNA of Homo sapiens, then there will be certain characteristics that statistically would prove their existence.
The primary question to ask is this, “What are the commonalities of all humans for the last 200,000 years, today, and into a far distant future?” It is with this question that the puzzle will begin to unfold.
Criteria of these Characteristics
If, as the author has proposed, the subsequent behaviors that develop from decision-making and the values that underlie those decisions would be common to all humans past, present, and future, then those values should exhibit certain common characteristics.
If these values are truly common to all members of the Homo sapiens species past and present then they would be:
Timeless, meaning that these values, as exhibited by decisions and behaviors, existed in humans 200,000 years ago, in us today, and in our progeny for the next umpteen generations. Archeological evidence should be present that identify those values from the behaviors of prior civilizations, cultures, and nations;
Universal, meaning that they exist in all humans of every race, gender, ethic group, culture, nationality, and in every person who ever lived, is alive now, and those who will be born in millennia to come. Archeological and present evidence should show that these values would be expressed in cultures and civilizations worldwide at any and all eras of human existence;
Irreducible and Immutable, meaning that when we put a name on of the values underlying our decision-making as evidenced by our behaviors, that we will come to the awareness that there are no other values that underlie these values and behaviors. In other words, these values would not be interpretations of other more basic values, but that these values would be proven to be the only basic values that are common to all humans;
Self-evident, meaning that these values and subsequent behaviors would be so obvious that they have been overlooked, ignored, and not recognized for themselves. They would be so intrinsic to our own personal being that we would not have identified them except in extreme situations, as those that resulted in the United States Declaration of Independence, “We hold these truths (values) to be self-evident, that all [people] are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”