True, this is what evolutionary neuroscience says.

The thing is, do you know what kind of training is involved in becoming an evolutionary neuroscientist?

At no point in graduate or post graduate training for the vast majority of neuroscientists, is there ever direct investigation of consciousness. There is only examination of neural correlates of conscious experience.

Without first person reports (the basis of which is not studied in any depth in most graduate programs) we would not even know of the existence of consciousenss.

Therefore, what an evolutionary neuroscientist has to say about the origin of consciousness (or what my peers in the world of academic psychology would say) has little or no value beyond what the average person would say who hasn't given it much if any thought.

Nobody knows of any state of existence in which consciousness is absent. By definition, it is impossible to provide even one scintilla of evidence fo this.

The fact that what I wrote in the previous paragraph is utterly baffling and seems like nonsense to most people pretty much proves James' point!