Flux

March 30, 2011

FLUX

Darwin, Arnold and Wordsworth.

On The Origin of Species Charles Darwin. Written 1844; Published 1859.

Darwin is best known for his theory of Descent with Modification, or Natural Selection. Here is a quick summary of this theory, elucidated at length in The Origins of Species:

(1) In an environment of limited resources, all organisms produce more offspring than can survive to adulthood; (Malthus)

(2) although offspring resemble their parents, there are minor variations among them;

(3) those variations better adapted to their environment are the more likely to survive and reproduce in their turn;

(4) thus such favourable variations are likely to be preserved in subsequent generations.

On The Origin of Species was and remains a seminal work. Darwin’s theory of evolution through natural selection is well-understood today but in 1859 it was so revolutionary that a detailed explanation was necessary. Many grade 12 Biology students can sum up Darwin’s theory in less than a page, but Darwin had to back up his hypothesis with facts and figures from his lifetime of examining nature. (For those who have not read the book and don’t appreciate Darwin’s specificity and depth of knowledge, he published two volumes on the topic of barnacles totalling about 1,000 pages!) I enjoyed reading this book for Darwin’s knowledge and insight, and the endless remarkable examples that bolster his theory.

Not the most scholastic student in his younger years, Darwin found his true passion and vocation in Natural History. Early on, Darwin was convinced by William Paley’s Creationist arguments (Paley was the author of Natural Theology). He formed the “Watchmaker” analogy (arguing for an intelligent designer… although anthropologists Richerson and Boyd argue that one human could not make a watch on their own and therefore a watch does not have a designer…interesting rebuttal!)

Thanks to the work of geologist Charles Lyell, Darwin viewed the world as millions of years old, not mere thousands of years old, as was believed prior to his work. Although not even close to the true figure of ~4.5 billion years old, these millions of years gave Darwin the time he needed to make his theory make sense. It is truly amazing to think just how recent our knowledge of our world is - particularly in the field of geology. It was not until the early 1900s that Wegener’s hypothesis of plate tectonics was proposed and the theory was not generally accepted until the 60s in view of the wealth of evidence supporting it.

In Darwin’s day, knowledge of the natural world was growing exponentially and the study of Natural History was gaining popularity the world over. It’s not really unexpected, then, that “it was time” for the notion of “Descent with Modification” to be proposed. Naturalists and scientists were seeing more of the world, documenting their sights, and piecing together information, seeing the world wholistically. Patrick Matthew seems to have been the first to publish the idea of Natural Selection, although Darwin published and promoted it when another bloke named Wallace wrote to him about it. So, very much like the formation of the “eye” in the long history of animal evolution, the theory itself was generated independently, in different countries (Scotland, England and Australia).

Evidence for this elegant theory is continually being unearthed. I recall one anecdote that Darwin predicted the existence of a flying insect with a proboscis inches long because that’s what was required for the fertilization of a species of flower that had its stamens and pistils (gynoecia) deep within a narrow tube of petals. Such an insect was found and catalogued after Darwin’s death.

Another interesting one is that of Africans who survived the horrific boat ride from Africa to the New World during the slave trade. Although this is not “nature” selecting per se, the action is similar to that of “Natural” Selection. Africans with naturally higher blood pressure were able to survive dehydration, as such a condition would maintain at least the minimum blood pressure required even though fluids (blood volume) was low; (they were selected by their environment). It has been proposed that consequently many African Americans suffer from high blood pressure and related conditions.

Darwin was troubled by “race” and had difficulty explaining it in terms of his theory. What one person mentioned in seminar was that the children of parents from different races are generally considered more attractive. This can also be attributed to Natural Selection because by mixing different gene pools, a population is less likely to develop hereditary (genetic) defects. (Contrast this with isolated communities where interbreeding is common. There have been instances of soaring rates of blindness, deafness, Huntington’s disease, haemophilia etc… in such communities due to the unmasking of recessive genes).

The theory can be likened to that of “trial and error” and can be imposed onto certain sociological phenomena to explain social evolution. Think of communities – in their evolution and coming into being – it could be that those that survived were selected through a process similar to natural selection. (For example, disorganized societies that lacked something akin to a militia did not survive, just as those that did not recognize how farming is affected by the seasons starved and were removed from the “pool of communities”…)

Unfortunately, it has been stated that people who should be having kids (those with “intelligent genes” are not having them, while the converse is true. Moreover, whenever I hear of someone having to be rescued because he was stupid enough to go backcountry skiing despite the abundance of visual and aural signs and warnings, I can’t help but wonder if we are working against the millions of years of evolution that strove towards the eradication of the “stupidity gene”.

As the above example states, there are physical as well as mental applications of this theory. Another example given in class was from World War II, when sailors from torpedoed ships were stranded on the high seas. It was found that older sailors survived while younger ones died (possibly because they younger ones had lost hope and could not foresee rescue. Mention of this was very reminiscent of Viktor Frankl and his struggle to maintain meaning in the face of a bleak outcome. One must be physically as well as internally strong.

However, one must be careful when applying this theory to anything sociological… To think that people would extrapolate from this theory to every dimension of humanity (in order to justify sexism or slavery, for example) is actually not that astounding. People can be stupid and self-interested, in search of justifying for their behaviour. Although Darwin was referring to animals and their physical characteristics, his observations were bastardized by others who had an agenda to press forward:

“When he turned to humans, Darwin’s view of the differences between men and women was entirely of his time. Thus, he states, the result of sexual selection is that man is ‘more courageous, pugnacious and energetic than woman and has a more inventive genius. His brain is absolutely larger . . . the formation of her skull is said to be intermediate between the child and the man’. Nineteenth-century biologists’ understanding of the differentiation between the sexes was crucial in providing a biological basis for the superiority of the male and the subordination of women. Darwin’s androcentricity was not missed by feminist intellectuals at the time.”

“Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.” (307).

Famine, death, disaster… and survival of the “higher animals” are all implicated as part of the natural program in Darwin’s final paragraph. A bleak worldview, but beautiful too.

I think it is striking that the world - as static as it may seem to be - is in constant flux. No animal today is any more “perfect” than any other that existed in the past. We are adaptable and constantly evolving, changing with the environment.

However, humanity’s “reason” sometimes gets in the way and one of humanity’s most pressing issues as a species is ominously presented within this statement: “What experience and history teaches us is that people and governments have never learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it” (Hegel)