the trouble with evolution

Evolution is one of the most misunderstood concepts in science. Even biologists often get it wrong. Part of the blame goes to the word itself: evolution. It evokes images of moving ahead, getting better, optimization. It lends itself well to a world view that is very prevalent and reassuring. So reassuring that all major religions have adopted it. It is a view where humans stand on top of everything else as the most "evolved" species. Although the religions put us there by the act of creation and not by some act of speciation. But that is besides the point. It is the view of us on top that matters. And it is wrong of course, very wrong.

The second problem is the idea that evolution somehow stops when a new species develops. While many would disagree with this statement, it is clear that they subscribe to it. For example, they will not flinch at explaining human behavior in terms of caveman ecology. You have heard such statements before. Whenever people explain our behavior they say, this evolved because our ancestors blah blah blah. And that is silly.

Why ? Because in doing so they act as if humans, once established, became static items. It is very much the view of creationism that many scientists try to battle. Man was created and voila, here we are, to stay the same forever. And the same applies to monkeys, cats, dogs, etc. Once these develop they are forever stuck with their inheritance. Until either the end of time, or the birth of an even better species. For humans that species is often called superman. The static view is wrong too.

We are evolving every day of course, and the more of us there are the faster we evolve. Human evolution is speeding up, not slowing down. That by the way was the "shocking" conclusion of a recently published study. A study that went into PNAS, a prestigious journal. Probably because people were so amazed at these findings. But why? It is entirely logical and expected. The more humans there are, the more opportunities there are for us to change. Because every individual is a role of the dice. Every new one is different, and every one has the chance to express a new mutation, a new rearrangement, a new insertion or deletion. And every one can be the beginning of a new branch.

Let's set the record straight for a minute. Biological organisms change. They change all the time. What is so amazing is not that different species develop, but the fact that species stay species for a while. I.e. it is not the change but the fact that things stay constant enough that is remarkable. And we can only stay similar because strong forces keep us there.

Most of the changes are irrelevant and many are detrimental, but a fair number are beneficial. Not beneficial in the sense of making progress or getting better, but beneficial because they allows us to temporarily outwit the parasites. Competition is what drives evolution and competition is ever present. The microbes change and so we have to change to outwit them. That change is not directional. It goes back and forth. We change an important protein and it makes us immune to attack. But then the microbe changes or we become susceptible to new ones that can now take advantage of us, and so we have to change again. After a while we may end up where we were before. We run around in circles a lot.

This happens at all levels but it is controlled at all levels too. Controlled in a sense that changes at a lower level may not make much of difference at the next level up. One reason is that we consist of robust circuits. Robust or immune to change that is. And that part is important too. Otherwise we would never see a multi-cellular organism. But occasionally changes break through levels. These are most always detrimental. It is just the law of large numbers here.

Everything on the planet evolves all the time. All living species today are as evolved as we are by definition. You may think the tigers outlived their welcome, and that may well be possible. We are destroying their habitats and they may not recover. But we are destroying our own habitat at an even faster rate. But then again, everything alive is dying by definition. It just matters how quickly.

There are limits to what species can do, and so they invariably go extinct after some time. One way to go extinct quickly is to fully exploit your niche. Use it all up or pollute it out of existence. That is what we are doing right now. Our problem is that we are too successful. We are so good at exploiting our niche that we will outrun ourselves. At some point conditions will change abruptly and like a big aircraft carrier, we won't be able to turn around quickly enough.

The unfortunate fact for us as individuals is that our aircraft carrier is totally bloated. It is bloated with waste and overindulgence. And that makes it much more vulnerable and a lot more likely to crash much sooner than it would have to.