This is the last video in the series produced by PBS and “It’s Okay to Be Smart”. And this one seems fine to me, dispelling the myths of evolution as a progressive process and of humans as the pinnacle of evolution. As for the notion that we should feel good about all that, well, tell that to the theists!
12 Days of Evolution. #12: Does evolution have a point?
January 1, 2016 • 1:00 pm
I think this was just about the clearest of the segments.
His comment that we should feel good about the lack of purpose makes sense in light of the last remark – “that’s the best we can do”. But, you can hear a little resignation in his voice. Feeling neutral about purposelessness is a viable option, but feeling bad only makes you feel bad…and that’s not so good.
How wonderful to be aware in a universe so immense we can’t comprehend, with particles we have yet to identify.
Believing there is a reason, a purposes, may help drive our lives and this is important, for others, our ancestors etc, and their drives and instincts allows our brief moment in the sun. So enlightenment by science dismissed god, lets face it all 3,000 or so currently doing the rounds are too small.
It is a good finish! Seeing your comment, maybe he should have clarified the difference between absolute (cosmological) purpose and relative (personal) purpose. I don’t feel neutral about my own goals and strategies!
“I don’t feel neutral about my goals and strategies” Well said.
How many times do we encounter the ‘Oh but how can you continue without some divine reason or purpose’. Well the answer is that’s what we choose to do, marvelling at the whole process. How much better than having goals and strategies based on illusions and delusions and misinterpretations of our environmental triggers.
Grasping the neutral nature of evolution, that it has no ‘end point’ is tricky, even in the video the presenter states that we are “definitely going somewhere”. No, sorry we are not definitely going anywhere, history and evolution will determine the future, but we are definitely not a requirement.
It’s the journey that matters, not the destination. That is why religion is such a waste of time or at least one reason.
Good point. Theists waste their lives concentrating on the destination. Which would be bad enough if the destination actually existed.
“. . . dispelling the myths of evolution as a progressive process and of humans as the pinnacle of evolution.”
Exactly!
However, when I tried to make this point on this blog a few years ago, I seem to remember Dawkins refuting it. I don’t believe that he placed humans at the pinnacle, but he did say that species improve with time.
Perhaps I misunderstood him. If so, I’d like to be set straight.
A correction seems unnecessary now. But perhaps it had to do with exact wording.
Species under selection ‘improve’ in small amounts, under a give selection regime. That seems a reasonable but highly constrained way to say that evolution is progressive.
But once the selection regime abates, that particular direction of evolution can be one that heads away from improvement.
Did I miss something?
Are you saying that evolution has direction?
It doesn’t seem to me that progress (or improvement) is incompatible with my being teleological. Indeed, evolution by natural selection is all about the fact that things that woe will be reproduced at a greater rate than things that don’t. We should expect improvement from evolution. Of course, “improvement” is a context-dependent concept. You can’t just say a sparrow is an improvement over a turkey, but you can say that there are birds who are better adapted to flight than other birds. Some design programs use a process of evolution by natural selection to take a given design and improve it according to some set of parameters.
But does evolution have goals? No. That’s not inconsistent with what I’ve just typed above.
“my being teleological” = “not being teleological”
woe = work
Unless you are lucky enough to enjoy your work 😉
Semantics is out to get us.
There is a chasm of difference between adapting to changing conditions within the limitations of any given lump of genes and a continuous process of “improvement” over time.
Yes, it is a semantic issue, which was a large part of my point: Dawkins could have used the words “improvement” or “progress” without implying anything teleological. In fact, it would seem to me to be a little perverse not to describe “things that work getting reproduced at a grater rate than things that don’t work” as improvement. We use “improve” without implying agency/foresight all the time. After a storm passes and the sun comes out you can say “the weather has improved”.
Indeed. Those who always jump in whenever they see any mention of progress or improvements in discussions of evolution are just the PC police of biology, IMO.
(I may not be an improvement on a stromatolite, but I think of myself as slightly more advanced…)
Given the nature of natural selection it’s very likely that the maximum level of complexity will increase at some point in time. Even a random walk can bring you in places you have never been before.
Nowadays we are trying to build things that are more intelligent and capable than humans, and given enough time it’s likely we will succeed. Some may see these new machines as part of evolution and evidence of its progress.
Some might say that “nine-tenths of the hell being raised in the world is well-intentioned.”
“The Road to Homo Sapiens
“What were the stages of man’s long march from apelike ancestors to sapiens? Beginning at right and progressing across four more pages are milestones of primate and human evolution as scientists know them today (Howell, F. Clark. Early Man. Time-Life Books, 1965.)”
Thus begins the introduction to the famous (or infamous) illustration that, intentionally or unintentionally, has summarized evolution in the minds of the multitudes.
The above quote was from Chapter 2 of Early Man. Chapter 3 is entitled “Forward from the Apes.”
My original question here was “Are there any evolutionary biologists who believe that evolution is a progressive process?” (or words to that effect).
Many years ago when my wife was being interviewed on radio by an “intelligent design” host, he asked her something about Neanderthals being inferior to modern humans. “They were not inferior, they were just different,” she said.
I believe that it is crucial that evolutionary biologists keep clarifying their position on this question. I believe, for example, that evolution is ultimately a process through which organisms change to match their ecological context as closely as their genes permit. I also remain eager to be set straight with respect to this belief.
“. . . dispelling the myths of evolution as a progressive process and of humans as the pinnacle of evolution” is an excellent start. Go forth and multiply it.
Good points.
There seems to be a hangup on words like “progress” when applied to evolution. This can be defined as evolution toward a more perfect form. But then what is more perfect? More fit to the environment, which is usually a moving target. So, it is clearly not teleology which requires (I think) some sort of forethought or anticipation of a future where form matches environment.
Another definition of progress can be just complexity. Do organisms become more complex through time? Not always, but there is a sense in which this is true. For example if you start with a very simple, one celled replicator, there is a lot more evolutionary space available in the direction of complexity than stasis or regression to something even less complex. So, on probabilities alone, you have a shift toward complexity.
It’s not a simple question so it does have to be discussed more. Starting with definitions can help.
If i were digging for quibbles I would point out that the concept of ‘living fossils’ like the Coelocanth is problematical. They are not identical to their fossil cousins, and the group did evolve several species lines with different morphologies.
Species do what they can, when they can, where they can. Absent changes in context, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
The series is in the box and there has been not a word about the evolution of behavior. This is actually par for the course in explications of evolution and the theory thereof. I’m pretty sure that neither Dawkins (e.g., Greatest Show on Earth) nor Jerry (WEIT) mention the subject. For what it’s worth, I (a hobbyist) have never seen behavior as such addressed by an evolutionary biologist.
Let’s for a moment assume I am right in my allegation. How can this be? Is behavior not the most important thing to us, if it is not objectively such. Are we not interested in the evolution of appendages because theses organs are the means of swimming, walking, running, flying, etc., that is, behaving We are regaled with scenarios of the beginnings of behavior. Like the fish with stout fins that visits the shallows, clomps around in the shallows occasionally raising its head above the waterline, and decides to take a step onto the land. And so on. But where does this behavior come from, this clomping around and head raising. This is a single instance of behavior, but, of course, behavior is infinitely varied. And where in the world does all or any of this behavior come from.
Evolutionary biologists obviously think they have been given a pass on the question of the evolution of behavior. Can this omission (of the subject of behavior)be really unintentional?
What about the mating behavior of, say, peacocks? The preferences of peahens for certain male decorations? What are the female’s preferences composed of and how do they come about? (This is more mental than behavioral, but still in the ballpark of behavior.)
Psychology as a science has been around for 150 years. It’s subject matter includes behavior. At times it has been exclusively behavior. Do you have any idea of how many studies of rats in mazes have been done by psychologists? For psychologists behavior is not nothing. And that is the case for most people. For biology, behavior and mind are nothing, things to be avoided at all costs.
One final nag. Will the present situation (describe herein) go on indefinitely? Are we going to live indefinitely with this elephantoporous in the room?
I’m not sure where you get the idea that biology ignores behavior. Which science has studied schooling behavior in fish, flocking behavior in birds, lekking in ungulates, sexual selection in any number of taxa? Which has elucidated bird migration, phototaxis in protists, aggregation in slime molds? Defensive strategies, mating behavior, reproductive strategies (e.g., “r” vs. “k” selection), resource division, feeding strategies, tool use, cultural transmission, concept-of-self, mating behavior, intra- and inter-specific dynamics, population dynamics, habitat use, colonization, dispersal, parental care, hibernation, spawning…the list goes on and on and on.
“Do you have any idea of how many studies of rats in mazes have been done by psychologists?”
I shudder to think…
My comment is about the EVOLUTION of behavior. Your inability to apprehend that concept provides more evidence of the problem that exists in biology.
Virtually everything Diane mentioned has received evolutionary treatment: flocking, migration, aggregation, mating behaviors and sexual selection, and so on. You appear to be totally ignorant of the literature; any biologist could tell you that there are reams of books and papers on the evolution of behavior. And yet, instead of admitting your ignorance, you not only flaunt it, but insult another reader.
Go away, David Sohn; go away and educate yourself. You are ignorant in the worst sense: WILLFULLY ignorant.
I can’t think of a paper in any of the areas I mentioned that hasn’t, in its discussion section, made an effort to suggest possible explanations for the behavior observed, and such explanations are almost always expressed by how the behaviors might be adaptive, which is to say that this is why they were selected for–i.e., why they evolved. Frequently such discussions will refer to previous studies that have researched similar behaviors in similar organisms that likely represent intermediate or subsequent steps in the evolution of certain behaviors.
(Just how much similar evolutionary behavioral work has come from mice-in-mazes studies?)
An absolutely extraordinary statement. There is a vast amount of literature on the evolution of behaviour. The field of behavioural ecology is explicitly concerned with understanding how behaviour relates to fitness in an evolutionary sense. Major debates in evolutionary science such as the relative importance of group selection versus individual selection have focussed on behavioural quetions (eg the evolution of apparently altruistic behaviour).
You describe yourself as a hobbyist – well the good news is that you obviously have plenty of reading ahead of you still to enjoy. See the work of Tinbergen, Dawkins, Krebs, W D Hamilton, J Maynard-Smith, N B Davies, Orians, Trivers, E O Wilson amongst others.
Very little evidence that evolutionary biologists “think they have been given a pass on the evolution of behaviour”.
Tinbergen wrote amazing work. His chapter ‘ethology and the Human sciences’ (the animal in its world) is interesting.
As we mention Tinbergen can I ask is Lorenz suggested. His ‘On Aggression’ is fascinating.
Lastly, and now my knees are knocking, dare we read Ardrey?
Mr. Sohn, you have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about. There are tons of papers, books, and studies about the evolution of behavior. Diane G. has mentioned some of them, and of course evolutionary psychology and sociobiology are explicitly fields that take as their subject the evolution of behavior. It’s one thing for you to ask whether such studies have been done, another entirely for you to declare that they haven’t. I suggest (indeed, insist) that you go away and read some of that literature before you post here again.
It’s clear that you have made no attempt to even see if there is a literature on this subject. Google would reveal that in a few seconds.
May I suggest, as part of your new reading regime: ‘The Ant and the Peacock’: Altruism and Sexual Selection from Darwin to Today, by Helena Cronin, and: ‘The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature’ by Matt Ridley. Hardly new (1993 & 2003 I think?), but both very accessible.
That was the best one. Naturalism is the game. We play it as well as anything else.
My first day of ecology lab, about 58 years ago, consisted of a single planarian on a layer of slimy mud in a Petri dish. With only a single nerve for a brain, the planarian “knew” to wiggle away when I put a single drop of saline solution on the edge of the dish. I still use this demonstration, probably every day. But I am still working on my ignorance. Behavior. Diffusion. Osmosis. Potential. Etc.
Nothing wrong with being a hobbyist, I reckon, but a “serious amateur” would be better. Serious amateurs have a long and admirable tradition–in England at least.
“The most important thing to know is what you don’t know.” –Margaret Mead
No mention of http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4358723/ ?