Evolution For EveryoneHow adaptation, consequences and heredity explain absolutely everything you ever wanted to know about what it means to be a human being.On the cusp of the 150th anniversary of Charles Darwin’s Origin of the Species next year, American biologist David Sloan Wilson has written Evolution for Everyone as an open invitation to the party. Be you sports jock or pet bird enthusiast, armed with an evolutionary mindset and a "roll up your sleeves" approach to the topic at hand, you too can get a publication in Nature or Scientific American. That’s right folks, neo-Darwinism is the key to unlocking every door within the "ivory archipelago" (Wilson’s description of the ivory towers that populate a university and are happy to leave biology to the biologists). The experts, you see, are usually so preoccupied with their own narrow fields of interest that they fail to keep abreast of important developments in other disciplines like, uh, biology. David Wilson assures us that any dilettante can make the big grade with the help of an online scholar search engine and a judicious literature review. It’s worked for him, and it can work for you too! Sorry? Does it seem like this has little to do with evolution? Much like the swirls of DNA of which we are made, Evolution for Everyone strings together interesting science and a lot of junk biography (the penultimate chapter should have either been deleted or dumped on Facebook). The importance of this book, however, lies in its claim that every human endeavour – art, religion, literature, humor -- needs to be reinterpreted in the light of evolution. Once that happens we will not only come to see how the obvious has been sitting under our noses, we will also be able to make enormous leaps and bounds in our self-understanding and in the quality of policy prescriptions! Wilson puts Billy Graham to shame in his zeal for converts. Welcoming Darwin into our hearts is not just an option, it’s an imperative. We are called upon to adopt the attitude of the Prodigal Son, to be humble, to come to our senses and leave behind husks of theories that say human beings are special. In short, we should "change the way we think about our lives". To that end he even recalls the lamentation of a colleague at non-believers’ hardness of heart: "Don’t they know that lives are at stake!" Like Nietzsche’s madman carrying a lantern in the middle of the day and crying out to a disbelieving public that there is no God, David Wilson recognises that Joe Public is still only paying lip-service to evolution. He has yet to realise that evolution is not confined to science – Darwinism is metaphysical: it is part of the building blocks of being. When he says that capital E "Evolution" is for everyone, he means everyone. Any attempt to defend, say, an analysis of 17th Century French poetry without making use of the Darwinian triumvirate of "adaptation, consequences and heredity" is hubris and special pleading. Wilson is well acquainted with the ivory archipelago’s opposition. Postmodernists refuse to extend to science the tolerance they show to Native American spirit worship. Indulging in his own deconstructing, Wilson pooh-poohs envious opponents who are afraid of methods and learning that they do not possess. Does this mean that Dante’s Inferno or Calvin’s Institutio Christianae Religionis are intimately connected to gene replication? The answer is "Yes!" He gives us the following justification. Wilson would have us believe that humans are 100 percent the product of evolution. The study of birds, businessmen and bacteria should therefore be "seamless". What is more, there is no such thing as an individual, only societies. Human beings are the eukaryotic (complex structures formed of cells) collection of single-celled organisms. Indeed, human society itself is little different to the diffused intelligence of a beehive. Hence when it comes to the "body politic", Wilson is a literalist. Intelligent decisions are the results of pheromones and feedback thresholds that have randomly mutated and led to success. "Individuality" is simply the name we give to an organised group that has been especially successful in resolving "within group" conflict. In a more chilling vein, Wilson then redefines ethics. Ethics is a cosmic battle of good vs. bad. Good decisions altruistically favour other members of a group; bad decisions selfishly benefit oneself over the others. This battle is of cosmic proportions because it affects all life. The slime mold dictyostelium discoideum is a solid citizen and should be enrolled among the saints; chimpanzees are more selfish; and cancers are fatally so – for themselves and for their hosts. Ethics has nothing to do with freedom. Beginning with DNA and building all the way up to human beings, ethics is all about achieving a "between group" altruism and "within group" selfishness that allows an organism to flourish and replicate. This is how nature develops. We are not the alpha-male dominated society that chimps live in, because our cavemen ancestors learned to throw stones – and so allow groups of weaklings to ward off alpha males without having to resort to hand-to-hand combat. Adaptation, consequences, heredity. Hey presto, hunter-gatherers and other small-scale societies are egalitarian. They survive through playing down macho self-assertion in the interests of the group, enforced by religious and social sanctions that are purely evolutionary. Human beings do share much with other living organisms, both plant and animal. We need to take cognisance of the subconscious influence of biology on our desires and motivations. But it is equally true that we differ from other multicellular organisms because of our rationality. Our freedom and awareness even influence our appetites in such a way that they are different to animal appetites. We can grow in virtue or diminish in humanity according to vice – if I want to lose weight I can choose to eat less. Wishful thinking, Wilson would say. Human rationality, he contends, is just the last room to be added in a mansion of many rooms. Ah, but what a room! The last room to be added is an observatory equipped with a telescope that allows us to take in all things. It is because of this human capacity to know and to carry out science for the sake of knowledge itself that philosophers have described the human soul as being, in a certain way, all things. Unlike, for instance, slime mould or guinea pigs. We are so unlike these that the late David Stove, an Australian philosopher, said in his book Darwinian Fairytales that the application of neo-Darwinism to ourselves is a "ridiculous slander": "If a Darwinian writer, in giving an account of fly life, were to mention the existence of fly hospitals, everyone would see the absurdity at once. Similarly, if a Darwinian writer, in giving an account of pine life, were to tell us that there is a pine priesthood, or unemployment relief for "disadvantaged" pines." It may interest the neo-Darwinian apostles of atheism, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennet, Christopher Hitchens and their ilk, that Wilson shows that religion does not tend to "poison everything". (He has even written a book defending it in his own way: Darwin's Cathedral: Evolution, Religion and the Nature of Society.) However, he likes religion because it has high practical benefits for the individual and for social behaviour. This reduction of all culture and religious explanation to so many "proximate" mechanisms for the "ultimate" goal of survival and replication is an a priori belief that blinds Wilson from appreciating the truth or falsity of those proximate mechanisms. Wilson occasionally admits that the Gospel of Darwin is not infallible -- but not with great conviction. No matter how much he might roll up his sleeves and monitor human behaviour he will only ever rediscover his own a priori categories of adaptation, consequences and heredity – never the idea that humans have such unique dignity that they should never be used as a means. Dr Richard Umbers is a Catholic priest. He lectures in philosophy in Sydney. |
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B.N said...Australia | Friday, 11 January 2008 at 9:00 pm
Mike Gomez said...I hope you don't mind my replicating it for others to read.
Too many people need to be set free from the abuse wrought by short-sightedness. As Alexander Pope wrote: "A little learning is a dangerous thing."
Philippines | Saturday, 12 January 2008 at 2:19 pm
Barry Morgan said...How anybody can look at the enormity of space, which no matter how much of it our technology 'explains, continues to present further mysteries, or as we delve into inner matter how it also looks more like a reflection of the outer cosmos; both presenting more challenges than answers. The almost infinite variety of life on our earth, the miracle of conception, not just among humans, but throughout nature; all these things and so many more point to an intelligence beyond our imaginations.
To me Darwinism is defeatist claptrap; an admission by its proponents that it is all too hard and rather than swallow their pride and accede to common sense, that there just might be a Creator, prefer to wallow in a self justifying fantasy; a fairytale for aetheists and agnostics.
Australia | Saturday, 12 January 2008 at 3:29 pm
Ton Postmes said...The evolution Darwin thinks he discovered? An evolution that "creates" even human beings? Human beings able to understand they are just particles of dust without dignity, unless they are loved by the Creator? And unless loving their Creator? And Saviour?
I hope, believe and love evolution is an unbelievable wonderful creation of God. You too?
Netherlands | Sunday, 13 January 2008 at 1:35 am
barry morgan said...Australia | Sunday, 13 January 2008 at 8:46 am
David Fairthorne said...Darwin's discovery was evolution by natural selection. There are two parts to this; evolution is the random mutations. Natural selection refers to the systematic (non-random) failure to survive of those random mutations (most of them) that are not in some way advantageous.
Darwinian evolution is generally accepted by the scientific community; the only serious objections come from those who accept religious dogma on blind faith.
Canada | Sunday, 13 January 2008 at 2:17 pm
barry morgan said...To argue that the cosmos, the earth and all its fecundity and variety was all an accident and then try to catergorise this as science never ceases to amaze me.
I read recently that there is growing support within the scientific community that it did just suddenly happen. There was nothing and then suddenly an unbelievable burst of energy occured and apparently is still occurring with the universe expanding at a tremendous rate.
Go out into the Nullabor or somewhere deserted away from all artificial light and gaze at the heavens, at the unimagineable vastness of space, at the carpet of the Milky Way and the vast twinkling endless panorama of planets, stars, nebula stretching into infinity and try convincing yourself it is all just an accident. It is no wonder that primitive civilizations instinctively had to create gods to try and explain it.
Now of course in our technological world in the artificial environment of city life it is to become a sophist sneering at religious 'dogma' but what about the facts.
Australia | Sunday, 13 January 2008 at 7:11 pm
David Fairthorne said...There is no better explanation than Darwinism of how life developed, and there is plenty of evidence for it including the fossil record. To explain anything by divine intervention stifles enquiry based on observation and reason.
"Logic and common sense demand there has to be a first cause behind creation and that first cause can only be God."
Sorry but I don't see anything resembling logic in that statement. Observation and reason tell me that there is no evidence for the existence of God or gods, except in peoples' imaginations. The first cause argument for the existence of God begs the question: "what was the cause of God?".
"Religious dogma applies to the essentials of the Catholic faith and belongs to the discipline of its teachings."
That discipline was imposed by the Roman Emperor Constantine and his propagandist Eusebius; they convened the Council of Nicaea to decide what was to be included in Christianity and what was to be rejected as heresy. Why should we be bound by what was politically expedient in the fourth century?
"It is no wonder that primitive civilizations instinctively had to create gods to try and explain it."
I entirely agree! Primitive civilizations created gods. But nowadays we should be able to recognize them (gods) for what they are: the creations of primitive societies.
Canada | Monday, 14 January 2008 at 7:13 am
F.C said...There is scientific evidence in favour of evolution as life progressed throughout the centuries. However, how can experimental evidence be used to determine the origin of the universe when no matter preceded it? This question belongs to the realm of philosophy - a philosophy of being.
The experimental sciences are indisputably valuable to attain knowledge about the universe. But they cannot answer these fundamental questions about its origin and only discredit science if they try.
New Zealand | Monday, 14 January 2008 at 11:59 am
George Sim Johnston said...First, the origin of the universe. Why is there something rather than nothing? Science cannot answer what is essentially a metaphysical question.
Second, the origin of life. In the late fifties, Stanley Miller, a graduate student at the University of Chicago, created much excitement by creating a few amino acids in a glass flask that supposedly recreated the primordial soup. But that was as far as anyone got. No scientist has come close to creating a biologically functioning protein, and Miller several years ago published an article in Scientific American admitting that scientists had quietly given up the quest of creating life from inorganic chemicals. Life seems only to come from life.
Third, the human person, who in his language and art-making abilities differs qualitatively from the rest of the animal kingdom. The human race did not need to write "Hamlet" or compose Don Giovanni in order to compete with baboons. While the idea of evolution, which has been around since the ancient Greeks, is an interesting idea to be explored, neo-Darwinism's explanation of that process is in a state of bankruptcy, but the news has yet to be broken to the public.
United States | Monday, 14 January 2008 at 12:48 pm
David Fairthorne said...The origin of the universe is considered quite speculative by cosmologists, although the prevailing view is that there was a period of "inflation" lasting for a tiny fraction of a second, about 13.7 billion years ago, since when the universe has continued to expand but at a more modest rate. Another possibility is that there was no beginning of time; just as many cosmologists think that the topology of space is such that it has no boundaries. To understand this fully requires some advanced mathematics, an understanding of the curvature of space (general relativity), and of how time and space are inter-related.
There are several hypotheses about the origin of life on earth, but there is no general agreement among scientists; this falls within the scope of organic chemistry. It is considered highly unlikely that life in its present form (involving chromosomes, DNA and RNA) was the original form of life on earth. Early forms of life must have been much more primitive.
To your third point, the differences between homo sapiens and our nearest relatives are differences of degree; there is no difference in principle. It's just that in many important respects humans are more advanced. (Actually some chimpanzees are better at certain human tasks than we are!)
Canada | Tuesday, 15 January 2008 at 4:53 am
Jim said...“There is no better explanation than Darwinism of how life developed, and there is plenty of evidence for it including the fossil record. To explain anything by divine intervention stifles enquiry based on observation and reason.”
That there is no better explanation than Darwinism would perhaps imply that we have no explanation at all! The fossil records are fascinating as findings of previous forms of life, but offer little to no value as data to explain or support Darwinian evolution. There is as much if not more evidence in the fossil record that would, and does, lead scientists to look away from Darwinism. Many of the evolutionary claims of Darwinism that have held an elevated position in academic texts have been discredited. Ideas, explanations, hypotheses, and would be theories that have been and continue to be touted in high school and college level textbooks have been found to be wishful thinking. The most notable from my training in Developmental Biology is the teaching or “theory”, though this in my opinion does violence to the term, that “Ontogeny recapitulates Phylogeny”. I believe that many in the scientific community are truly stuck trying to defend Darwinism and the scientific community as a whole will quite rightly suffer a loss of prestige for this persistence.
We who believe in the Bible believe that God created all from nothing. Rather than stifle “enquiry based on observation and reason” I would posit that the inspiration that drove, or drives, scientists over the centuries is the question “How did that happen?” or more directly “How did He do that?” Furthermore, one of the beauties of Catholicism is that we are free, if not also commanded, to make a union or one-ness of Faith and Reason.
United States | Wednesday, 16 January 2008 at 6:43 am
Fr Richard Umbers said...Australia | Wednesday, 16 January 2008 at 8:32 pm
R.S.CRESPI said...DNA is a long chain inanimate molecule the component molecules of which constitute a triplet code of instructions to living cells as to what kind of proteins to create so that the cells can grow, develop, and propagate themselves. If any such kind of code could come into being without being DESIGNED is totally unexplainable by Darwinism and is just simply ignored by them. To us, there is a MIND at work here. Some sort of evolution might have come into existence later but it is the origin of life and the biochemical mechanisms that are involved that need an explanation. They are clueless on this.
United Kingdom | Thursday, 17 January 2008 at 1:58 am
David Fairthorne said...In reponse to Fr Richard Umbers, I am pleased to learn that the Church, after a century or so of opposition, has now accepted Darwinian evolution, or at least left it to the scientists. I am sorry if I missed your main point; perhaps I should read the book (Evolution for Everyone) before saying any more!
Canada | Thursday, 17 January 2008 at 5:50 am
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