The Evolution of Evolution
The neo-Darwinian idea of evolution by chance mutation coupled
with natural selection has from its inception been welcomed as an extremely
powerful tool of explanation. It has travelled far from being used merely to
explain physical heredity and the development of biological characteristics. It
has been adopted by some of the most distinguished scientific and philosophical
minds of the twentieth century to explain phenomena as diverse as animal and
human behaviour, social movements and trends, and the progressive development of
inanimate objects ranging from the elements to the stars, to galaxies and even
the universe itself.
This is powerful, heady stuff. But if the idea of
neo-Darwinian evolution is unsupported by evidence or experiment when applied to
the heredity of plants and animals, what factual basis is there for applying the
concept to other natural phenomena?
You don't have to look very far in your local public library
to find examples of Darwin's ideas being pressed into service in this or that
field. The Dewey decimal catalogue has been almost taken over by Darwinisms:
from astronomy to linguistics and from anthropology to law and even religious
thinking.
Writing in 1955, Julian Huxley said that;
The concept of evolution was soon extended into other than
biological fields. Inorganic subjects such as the life histories of stars
and formation of the chemical elements on the one hand, and on the other
subjects like linguistics, social anthropology, and comparative law and
religion, began to be studied from an evolutionary angle, until today we are
enabled to see evolution as a universal and all-pervading process.
A little later in the same anthology of science, Huxley goes
even further;
Furthermore, with the adoption of the evolutionary
approach in non-biological fields, from cosmology to human affairs, we are
beginning to realise that biological evolution is only one aspect of
evolution in general. Evolution in the extended sense can be defined as a
directional and essentially irreversible process occurring in time, which in
its course gives rise to an increase of variety and an increasingly high
level of organisation in its products. Our present knowledge indeed forces
us to the view that the whole of reality is evolution - a single
process of self transformation.
So, in Huxley's view, evolution is not merely a theory, it is
the whole of reality. If true, this would certainly be a fundamental
scientific discovery of momentous importance to our understanding of the world.
But let's take a moment or two to examine Huxley's definition with the benefit
of hindsight. Remember, we are looking for signs of a universally pervasive
process that is directional, irreversible, increases variety and produces higher
levels of organization. Is that what we find in nature?
Even a quick glance through the evidence is enough to show
that it is not. First, evolution is not directional or irreversible. The kind of
primary physical evidence offered for evolution is that of
horses, which are always depicted as an unbroken chain of fossils that
become progressively larger and more highly adapted through the ages.
The originator of this sequence as a popular illustration, George
Simpson of Harvard, asserts that, for instance, the species Archaeohippus
is a descendant of the ancestral Mesohippus from the earlier Oligocene
period. Yet the chief characteristic of the more recent Archaeohippus is
that it is a dwarf or pygmy horse, a major reversal of the previous trend toward
steadily increasing size.
This example can be multiplied a hundredfold. Highly ornate
extinct shellfish such as ammonites are succeeded in more recent geological
strata by simpler and less ornate forms. Many later forms
of dinosaur were less ornate in their anatomy than their ancestors.
Turning to the extended meaning of evolution, outside of
biology, an often-quoted example is the evolution of chemical elements in the
nuclear processes in the interior of stars. The energy radiated by stars comes
from the fusion of hydrogen atoms into helium, helium into carbon and so on,
until heavier and heavier elements such as iron are finally produced. At the end
of their lives, many stars detonate in cataclysmic explosions that return these
newly formed heavier atoms back to interstellar space where they may later
become part of a second and further star systems, in a repetitive process. Some
astronomers think it highly probable that a single stellar lifetime is not long
enough for substantial amounts of the heaviest elements to be created and
several stellar lifetimes are necessary to accumulate the quantities of heavier
elements, such as lead and uranium, that we find on the Earth. Thus these
elements are said to have evolved.
Since our own bodies contain heavier elements such as iron and
manganese, then this chemical evolution is an important precursor to biological
evolution.
While it is perfectly true that hydrogen atoms are transmuted
into heavier and heavier elements in the fusion processes occurring within
stars, this process is not irreversible. On the contrary, at the end of their
lives many stars explode in a burst of energy that will rip apart a large
quantity of heavier atoms, returning them to elementary forms.
Moreover, when the heavier elements that are returned to space
condense under gravity to form the nucleus of a new star, some of the heavy
elements are pulled apart at high temperatures to form the hydrogen plasma that
fuels the stellar fusion process once again.
If evolution is not irreversible, perhaps it leads to greater
variety as Huxley claimed? David Raup, professor of palaeobiology at the
University of Chicago, has made a special study of extinctions. He has pointed
out that;
"Countless species of plants and animals have existed
in the history of life on Earth. Estimates of the total progeny of
evolution range from 5 to 50 billion species. Yet only an estimated 5 to 50
million species are alive today - a rather poor survival record. With, at the
most, only one in every thousand species surviving, what happened to the
others?"
Far from increasing the variety of creatures on Earth, the
progress of evolution seems to have had the effect of thinning out the
population - and indeed that is the very basis of Darwin's concept; only the fit
survive. Evolution in this Darwinian sense can be said to have increased variety
if, and only if, you begin with the Darwinian concept of a single or a few
organisms as the ancestors of all living things - once again the argument is
circular.
Finally, we have the Huxleyan idea that evolution leads to
higher levels of organization. Again the real world of natural observations
provides plenty of evidence that this idea cannot be correct.
A virus is not a more highly organized organism than a self-replicating cell, it
is less highly organized. Yet viruses must have evolved after cells not before,
because they can reproduce themselves only by taking over the replication
mechanism of a host cell. A snake is not more highly organized than a lizard, it
is less so because it lacks legs and arms and moves like the primitive worm; yet
Darwinists believe that snakes have evolved from lizardlike creatures - and
there are many similar examples of regressive development.
None of Huxley's criteria for a generalised theory of evolution, applicable
to virtually everything, turns out to be true in fact. Yet the theory
marches unstoppably on, just as though Huxley had really made his case, ceasing
to be merely a theory and becoming instead an ideology.
The replacement of Darwinism the scientific theory by
Darwinism the ideology has been an important part of twentieth-century political
thinking just as it was important to the politics of the nineteenth century. In
Darwin's day the theory was accepted partly because it supported the racism and
European chauvinism on which the mercantile empire of Britain's ruling class was
built and maintained. Today, Darwinism the ideology is one of the principal
bulwarks of free-market economic theories and right-wing political thinking. It
represents perhaps the most complete absorption of Darwinian thinking outside of
the realms of biology.
In a free market, according to economic Darwinists, the factor
which guarantees the consumer the lowest prices and highest quality of goods and
services is competition. But in any competition there have to be winners and
losers (Darwin's struggle for survival). Moreover, there has to be a constant
supply of new ideas, new products and services to provide the variety on which
the natural selection of the market place will operate. Thus, in free-market
capitalist economies some people must fail (companies go under; employees become
unemployed) in order for the community to thrive and prosper. The question is,
what is the cause of this success and failure?
Darwinists, and supporters of free-market economic policies,
say that those who succeed are those who are best fitted or best adapted to the
economic environment - in other words the best and the brightest. Those who fail are the weak, the slow, the
not so good. This idea is cruel; but it has a certain stark magnificent grandeur
about it, a kind of noble savagery. Equally important, it
is a perfectly natural mechanism. It is merely an extension into human
society of the great Darwinian principles of natural selection and the survival
of the fittest. Failure in competition may be cruel, but it is fair and just and
inevitable, because it is nature's way.
Most important of all, not only is competition a natural
process, it is also a healthy one - one that benefits the whole community, in
the long run, because it ensures the 'evolution' of the most efficient means of
producing goods and bringing them to market when and where consumers want them.
The human cost of this 'evolution' is merely a necessary part of the process and
the price that we in western countries pay for the prosperity we enjoy in
comparison with the disastrous performance of the managed economies of Eastern
Europe in the recent past.
Many right wing politicians and economists harbor these ideas
in a sort of half-secret way. Because of their innately cruel and antihuman
tenor they may not be spoken of directly and aloud except in the sanctity of the
political club bar or in the privacy of government office. To speak aloud of
these matters would be alarming and frightening to ordinary people, for they
smack of Hitler and Nietzsche and ideas of racial purity, and the elimination of
specimens that weaken the breed.
Right-wing politicians soften the stark reality of these
Darwinian ideas by paying lip service to the need to protect the weak, the ill,
the old and the unfortunate from the ravages of fate. All the while, however,
they continue to believe that such 'losers' are a necessary part - indeed, an
inescapable, essential part - of the economy.
Central to these beliefs and this kind of thinking is the idea
that in commerce - as in all things in life - strength, skill, talent,
intelligence, bravery, are all desirable qualities because they lead on to
success in any endeavor. 'Fortune favors the brave'. 'None but the brave deserve
the fair'.
Thus right wing politicians - most notably in recent years,
Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan - were able to equate their political ideas
with what they like to describe as the old-fashioned Victorian values.
Like the rest of Darwinism, these ideas seem self-evidently
true, until you dig a little deeper. What this thinking disguises is the awkward
fact that in commerce, just as in nature, it is impossible to define or test any
concept of fitness of purpose because it is impossible to define the fit in any
way other than as those who succeed. The fit survive and those who survive are
the fit. Just as in evolutionary biology, the 'survival of the fittest' is no
more than a rationalization made retrospectively after the event.
In reality commercial ventures succeed for a whole variety of
reasons. Sometimes it is because the entrepreneurs who run the businesses, and
the people who work for them, deploy all the desirable Victorian capitalist
qualities - hard work; bright ideas; giving the customers what they want.
Sometimes it is because the suppliers are protected by a completely artificial
and unfair monopoly or near monopoly - like the nuclear power industry, or Bell
Telephone before deregulation. Sometimes it is because of a great stroke of good
luck - as when the oil companies found huge oil and gas deposits in their
backyard.
Failure of businesses can also occur for a variety of reasons.
Sometimes, as predicted by the Darwinist model, it is because of laziness,
stupidity, bad management or other failure to compete effectively. But it may
also be because legislative changes force costs up, or raw materials become
unexpectedly more expensive (perhaps because of war or revolution in some far
away country) or because of some stroke of bad luck - as when disease strikes
down the farmer's prize dairy herd.
Politicians are reluctant to accept the implications of this
unpleasant fact (just as biologists are). It is that the world is fundamentally
chaos-related and its effects on our political and economic systems are
unpredictable. There are just as many entrepreneurs of intelligence and skill
who fail as there are bad managers. And there are just as many wealthy morons
who succeed as there are hardworking, thrifty, virtuous entrepreneurs. What
economic Darwinists do not wish to acknowledge even to themselves, is that their
theories are quite incapable of predicting which individuals, or which companies
will be the losers and which will be the winners.
This paradox lies at the very heart of a free-market economy,
in its stock markets. If Darwinist theories of economic competition were true
then they would yield reliable predictions and it would be perfectly possible
for investors to invest in companies who would always yield a high rate of
return. In reality it remains impossible to obtain consistently such a high rate
of return because the companies that compose the market are subject to random
fluctuations in their fortunes which are essentially unpredictable.
Even with centuries of such experience, economic Darwinists
still continue to believe that their theory does predict the outcome of
competition, even though every day of the week some of them are losing their
shirts on the stock exchanges of the world.
It is not only politicians of the right that have espoused
Darwinist ideas. Karl Marx was a devout Darwinist and his political descendants
on the left have retained a strongly Darwinist flavor in their political
beliefs. In Das Kapital, Marx called Darwin's theory 'epoch making' and said;
"Darwin has interested us in the history of Nature's
Technology, i.e., in the formation of the organs of plants and animals, which
organs serve as instruments of production and of sustaining life. Does not the
history of the productive organs of man, of organs that are the material basis
of all social organisation, deserve equal attention?"
In this respect, Marx saw himself as applying the same
reductionist analysis to a material world in which everything from chemistry to
economics to human behavior was ultimately purely mechanical and could be
reduced to its elements through rational analysis. The final social outcome of
Marx's thinking has been the planned economies of the former Soviet Union which,
unsurprisingly, have turned out also to be chaos-related and incapable of
rational management.
Charles and Karl, alike in their ideological domination of
much of twentieth-century reductionist thinking, share much the same fate as
that century comes to an end.
Darwinists of every stripe (biological, economic, political
and sociological), should celebrate their belief in nineteenth century values by
hanging a Victorian-style embroidered sampler over their beds reading 'The value
of shares can go down as well as up'. And each night as they say their prayers
and climb into bed, they should reflect that no matter how plausible their
theory may seem, it is quite incapable of predicting the behavior of anything or
anyone.
