Evolution is not progress: There’s no goal, no purpose, no plan, no direction. Easy to say, hard to believe. We humans are the last to see the randomness of evolution because we think we’re special. As the late anthropologist Ruth Benedict said, “Fish are the last to see the water.” True, humans have qualities possessed by no other species. From our inevitable anthropocentric point of view, it may seem that skills such as technology, language, writing and the ability to survive in any climate (even the non-climate of space) make us the top dogs here on Earth. That’s the message of the accompanying “Pedigree of Man” illustration from 1879, in which we occupy the spot usually reserved for the angel on top of the Christmas tree.
From an alien visitor’s point of view, we are indeed special, if the exponential growth of our species’ numbers and wholesale manipulation of the global environment count for anything. But maybe ETs would deem other qualities more important if they got around to comparing species. For instance:
Longevity: Compare our mere 200,000 years to that of ants, who have been unchanged for nearly 100 million years and who don’t have the self-destructive tendencies we do.
Ecological balance: While we ravage our planet, other species maintain a rough equilibrium with their environment.
Co-existence: While other animals fight for resources or mates, they rarely kill. We go to war.
So if evolution isn’t progress, what is it? It’s the random process by which living organisms diversified from earlier forms. And it’s dependent on three operations:
Heredity: Passing on genes via mitosis or sexual reproduction.
Variation: Random mutations when the reproductive process from one generation to the next isn’t perfect.
Selection: “Survival of the fittest,” that is, the largely non-random process by which those mutants better suited to their environment than their fellows have better reproductive success.
This can all be summed up on a T-shirt: “Life Results from the Non-Random Survival of Randomly Varying Replicators” (from biologist Richard Dawkins).
So nothing in how evolution works implies purpose or progress; instead it’s opportunistic, moment-by-moment, day-by-day, year-by-year and generation-by-generation. There’s no plan, no end goal. If you’re unconvinced, consider what is sometimes termed the “de-evolution” of cetaceans. Some 50 million years ago, a hippopotamus-like creature (Pakicetus, perhaps) returned to the ocean from which its ancestors had emerged a couple of hundred million years earlier. Arms and legs morphed into the fins and vestigial hindlimbs in today’s whales and dolphins. (The up-and-down motion of their tails belies their mammalian ancestry — fish swim side-to-side.) So where’s the progress? Leaving the water? Returning to the water? Evolving limbs? Reabsorbing limbs?
If you really think the fact of our cetacean cousins losing their limbs is “de-evolution,” you’re still stuck with that “tree of life” model wherein each successive generation is an improvement on the previous one. Pakicetus returning to the ocean to become whales and dolphins is as much evolution as Homo erectus morphing into Homo sapiens. It’s all non-directional evolution and it doesn’t necessarily lead to greater complexity. Only when we see ourselves as special, as the pinnacle of nature’s 4 billion years of experiments, are we stuck with the fallacious notion of “progress.”
Next time, we’ll look at “one of the most intriguing, and most misleading, drawings in the modern history of science.”
Barry Evans (barryevans9@yahoo.com) is glad he won’t be around when gene editing becomes commonplace. He prefers he/him pronouns. His newly published fifth compendium of these columns, Curse of Field Notes, is at Eureka Books, Booklegger and Northtown Books.
This article appears in The 25 Days of Crustmas.
The statement in the opening line of this article is seriously flawed.
“There’s no goal, no purpose, no plan, no direction”
This is a naive regurgitation of a popular bit of folklore which has not been thought through.
While there is indeed no evidence of any (long-term) goal, or of purpose (except if the term is used in the sense of “function”) or of a plan, there is abundant evidence of directionality. It is, in fact, the very essence of evolution. Let me explain further:
There is absolutely no evidence to suggest that there any “end” to which (biological) evolution points. Other than, in the short term, replication, and in the longer term, increased intricacy. Both well established phenomena.
However, biology is but one phase of a much broader evolutionary process which can be traced at least as far back as the formation of chemical elements in the first stars. And, contrary to a popular dogma, it very observably does exhibit directionality. Our universe is characterized by a marked gross increase of intricacy.
Beware of some common logical errors: 1. Directionality does not imply the existence of a “planner” or “designer”. 2. Although driven by random inputs the gross evolutionary outputs cannot be said to be random. In the case of biology the inputs are mostly mutations (random) but natural selection filters the phenotypes such that those having more successful replicative ability prosper.
That is, in fact, the crux of biological evolution. Randomness alone won’t do it!
Evolution is not always in the direction of increased complexity. Snakes have lost their legs, and so have whales. Fleas have lost their wings, as have some birds. And bacteria are still very simple, and they constantly ‘try’ to lose genes that they do not need.
Increased reproductive success cannot be equated to increased complexity.
Hey Peter, I think Alan John Clark addressed your confusion (a common one). Again, evolution is totally opportunistic. Intricacy, simplicity…nothing to do with it. All that matters is better adaption to environment leading to more successful gene transmission.
Thanks for this article. I caused a stir at a dinner party when I pointed out the fallacy of equating evolution – biological or otherwise – with progress. Ongoing adaptation and change, that’s it. Whether the change is “good” or not is a function of subjective storytelling, mostly to quell human fear and anxiety about not being in control, and in fact a bit player. I’ve come to understand my own body as less “mine” than a fleshy vessel/vector for microbial life.
JJF: “ Human cells make up only 43% of the body’s total cell count. The rest are microscopic colonists.”
BarryEvans: Thanks for percentage breakdown. Noted.