Evolving (part 2) - progress and human ascendency

Part 1 of Evolving started my exploration of our everyday use of the words evolving and evolution.

Part 1 showed that when we¹ talk about evolution, we tend to use concepts of agency (some who acts), intention, purpose. This means our everyday use of the words evolve and evolution contradicts the very theory of evolution: the unpredictable favouring of random, undirected, purpose-less changes leads to the Earth's vast biodiversity.  

We use the words this way because we understand the world through stories rather than bits of information, and to tell stories we have to impose the features of storytelling - who, how, why!   

The other common feature of storytelling is morality. And sure enough, morality turns up in the way we use the words evolve and evolution. 

This post will explore how the idea of progress and human ascendency came to be seen as the 'purpose' of evolution (while Darwin rolls in his grave for the 100th time).

Dictionary reveals the contradiction

It's well past time to check some formal definitions; according to (selected text from) the dictionary, evolution is:

♦️ descent with modification from pre-existing species; cumulative inherited change in a population of organisms through time leads to the appearance of new forms

♦️ a process of change in a certain direction; a process of continuous change from a lower, simpler, or worse to a higher, more complex, or better state.  

Part 1 explored what the first meaning 'descent with modification' entails. What it does NOT entail is progress, concepts of lower to higher, and definitely no concept of better states, which is the second meaning.

So, we find ourselves with a word with two meanings - a technical and a non-technical meaning - that directly contradict each other. 

Interestingly, it is the second meaning that came first. 

Etymology reveals Darwin's conundrum

The word evolution was first recorded in the 1620s as meaning 'an opening of what was rolled up' from the Latin evolutionem meaning 'unrolling (of a book)'. The verb evolve is from the Latin evolvere meaning 'to unroll'. In common use, it meant 'growth to maturity and development of an individual living thing'.  

So, over 200 years before Darwin, the concepts of growth, development and progress were embedded in the word evolve. By the time Darwin was pondering birds' beaks in the Galapagos, the meaning was formalised in medicine, mathematics and general writing to mean 'to develop by natural processes to a higher state'. 

As mentioned in Part 1, Darwin used the word evolved only once in On the Origin of Species, in the very last word of the last sentence on the last page (page 490): '... 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.' I interpret this as the common romantic or emotional flourish to finish a book. 

On the other 489 pages, Darwin used 'descent with modification'. He would not have chosen the word evolution or evolve to describe his ideas, for at least two reasons. Firstly, the words were associated with the homunculus theory of embryological development² which was considered laughable by the 1800s. Secondly, the meaning was just wrong; the words evolve and evolution carried the concepts of purpose and progress in biological processes that were directly contradicted by Darwin's theory. The absence of any purpose driving change is what made it his theory revolutionary.

Imposing human ascendency with the word evolution

Nonetheless, the word evolution chose Darwin. 

The Enlightenment belief in progress³ conveyed by the existing word 'evolution' proved much more appealing (or perhaps less threatening) than an agent-less, intention-less and purpose-less theory of change called 'descent with modification'. (Also perhaps a lesson in branding: ensure your revolutionary theory has a catchy name people can say!)  

Western philosophers and biologists (and others) quickly 'rebranded' Darwin's work with the word evolution and re-interpreted his complex ideas to incorporate existing assumptions of progressive development and improvement toward higher states. While the secular belief in the inevitable progress in the human condition may have been behind this, it also removed any potential conflict with the dominant belief about the ascendency of humans (or rather, men) over all other lifeforms. Pressure from others led to Darwin adding the concept of a Creator to later editions of the book.

It seems people simply imposed their existing beliefs on the new theory and carried on. 

In fact, many of Darwin's contemporaries and many since have referenced his ideas solely to add a sciencey veneer to their existing values and beliefs about hierarchies of lifeforms on earth, and human ascendency in particular. All it involved was slightly altering the Christian belief that humans were the peak of creation to a new belief that humans were the peak of evolution. 

Simple really!

Teleological thinking adds a goal to evolution

From their self-proclaimed pinnacle of evolution, folk in the 1800s could accept that biodiversity was explained through natural mechanisms (the 'how') as Darwin proposed. However, they still wanted an explanation for 'why' - something science cannot answer. Many did this by positing a divine designer working toward a goal of perfection through evolution. Even for the secular thinker, the idea of change having no driving force or purpose was unthinkable. 

So, as soon as people came to understand the theory of evolution (the rebranded 'descent with modification'), they just added the concept of ultimate purpose or 'end goal' to it. Surely, all this evolutionary change must have a purpose! 

Thinking that change must be able to be explained by a purpose is a called teleological thinking. The word teleology is from Greek telos meaning 'end' and logos meaning 'reason' and means explaining what and why things have happened by referring to some purpose, end, destination, goal, or function. 

Teleological thinking about evolution entails explaining change over time as if arriving at the current time and functioning is the purpose and the destination. 

As a result, despite being a complete misinterpretation of Darwin's theory, we talk about evolution as occurring when an individual organism (an agent) sees a need or a niche (intention) and 'evolves' in order to fill it (purpose).

"I need to reach those leaves!"

I provided lots of examples of how our descriptions of evolution are full of purpose and goals in Part 1. Another example is when we say such things as, 'giraffes evolved their long neck to reach high leaves'. We imagine maudlin and hungry short-necked giraffes looking longingly at all those uneaten leaves higher up, and coming to the conclusion that longer necks are called for. This description reflects the perspective of humans, trying to make sense of the world. We need to see that change happens for a purpose. (In fact such explanations for evolutionary change are flawed in many other ways; see this explainer.) 

It stems from a belief in purposeful change (caused by god or 'nature' seeking to achieve perfection perhaps). But I think the way we talk about evolution mainly results from the satisfying familiarity of 'teleological language' - describing the world through explanatory stories with agency, intention and purpose. It allows us to briefly and simply describe things that are very complex.

Kant says you can't say that 

So, despite removing the need for purpose and end goals from explanations of biological changes and biodiversity, Darwin's theory did not manage to eliminate 'purpose' and other teleological language from scientific (and other) discussions. 

A long time before Darwin, the philosopher Kant cautioned that teleological thinking must be viewed as a short cut for thinking about the world (a heuristic), rather than an actual representation of reality. This means that teleological language (using agents, intention, purpose, end goals, etc.) in the biological sciences is not to be taken literally. Kant described such thinking as essentially a using a set of useful metaphors for description. 

So, we can view our explanatory stories about evolution as helpful metaphors. They reflect how humans make sense of the world, not what actually happens. 

But we tend to take our stories about the world quite literally.

Tree metaphors for time

We treat the metaphoric 'stories of purposeful change' as the reality of evolution, and then we¹ reinforce our beliefs about evolution by misusing another metaphor - the tree as a metaphor for time. 

You will be familiar with phylogenetic trees - the fascinating theoretical diagrams that scientists produce to illustrate the emergence and disappearance of species over eons. They are called evolutionary 'trees' because they look similar to the branching pattern of actual trees. 

The horizontal lines represent time, the nodes or points (with letters) represent species. On an evolutionary tree, a line or branching point further to the right represents later in time. 

However, from our assumption that biological change is always toward a purpose, in everyday interpretations, we often tend to conflate later in time with concepts of progress, improvement, perfectibility.  

 We see modern species that we are familiar with as 'improvements' on earlier or extinct species.

Humans might judge the 17 or so species of the Hipparion genus as an evolutionary 'improvement' on those in the Echippus genus, but each was perfectly fine (perfectly fit) as it was. What they show is difference. What they exhibit is change. It is deeply flawed to interpret later in time as representing progress and the extant species as the 'improved models'. But we do this all the time.¹ It's our very human teleological tendency.

This flawed interpretation is fueled by illustrations of actual trees (the plant), used as a metaphor for evolutionary change provided for public education ('Oh, a tree, right!)

Using a tree as a metaphor involves representing time vertically (pretty weird conceptually), and it changes the concept of time passing to mean progress and improvement - going up to the top!!  

And in the ultimate act of hubris, we put homo sapiens up the top of the metaphorical evolutionary (but actual) tree. The fact that homo sapiens sapiens draw images of homo sapiens sapiens in our self-proclaimed perch at the 'top' of the evolutionary (vertical) tree is just the old homo sapiens sapiens' egos and teleological metaphors getting in the way.  

The realistic tree provides a flawed metaphor for evolution. It introduces the concept of 'higher' which can be too easily interpreted as 'higher states' or better.

Images of the phylogenetic trees featuring right trending branching or outward branching circles more accurately represent biodiversity through evolution (descent with modification) over time. But they don't capture the public imagination. They are a bit small. And humans are just one tiny blip.

For a larger image, go to the source

For us non-biologists, these more accurate diagrams of phylogenetic trees are lacking in the familiar concepts of agency, purpose, improvement and progress. They are not as engaging as stories and (actual) trees. 

The problem is that we forget both the stories and the trees are metaphors.

Ideas of progress and improvement introduce morality

So, we think and talk literally about evolutionary changes having a purpose when we describe spitting cobras, long-necked giraffes, and human as the peak of evolution. (I am sure Darwin would be most annoyed.) 

Source

As you will recall from part 1, Darwin's work explained how evolution involves the random favouring of randomly available features in living beings. Species that occurred earlier in an evolutionary line were perfectly fine, and 'fit' for their environment at that time. It's just that genetic variation 'threw up' some new ways to 'fit' to that environment or the environment changed. Or perhaps some mutation in genes allowed the next species in the evolutionary timeline to take advantage of an previously untapped energy resource (food, light, water, etc.) that allowed it to proliferate as a new species.  

Assuming there is a purpose to evolution brings up ideas of progress and improvement. 

However, that interpretation is a purely fanciful notion that humans impose upon evolution. It also introduces some morally loaded concepts such as good, benefit, better, and more.

It brings moral judgements into a supposedly scientific theory. 

For example, it is a moral judgement to claim that humans are 'superior' to other animals. We used to see ourselves as the peak of creation; now we are the peak of evolution. Perfect and at the top of the tree!

Improvement and progress toward perfectibility are moral judgements made by humans, they are not part of evolutionary theory. They result from our all-too-human need to see a purpose in evolutionary change. 

Humans prefer criteria that justify human ascendency 

We humans are 'fit' for our environment (though we're changing it so rapidly that we may no longer 'fit' in it), but we're not 'perfect'. 

For example if our skin could photosynthesise energy from the sun (like plants) that would reduce our need to grow food. If our noses and ears could close when we go under water (like the platypus) that would reduce infections and make the beach much more pleasant. And if our birth canals could better accommodate a newborn's head, that would reduce perinatal maternal trauma and death. There's a lot we could improve.

But that's not how evolution works. Evolution doesn't identify potential genetic improvements and work toward them.⁴ 

Evolution also makes no claims that some species are better than others. And yet, that's how we often talk about it. We are quite comfortable describing ourselves as the 'peak' of evolution, surviving when previous species of homo did not, dominating non-human animals, using our 'evolved' brains to out-compete everything else... tedious chest-pounding assumptions. Because, when it comes to the criteria by which to judge evolution, humans⁵ have decided that being like a human is the most important criterion of 'success'.

What if we used other criteria? For example, if we adopted evolutionary 'success' criteria of being fit for the largest number of environments and surviving unchanged for the longest time, we can't go past the tardigrade. They are found everywhere on the planet and survive in conditions which would kill humans (including outer space). Maybe the tardigrades have decided that being like a tardigrade is the peak of evolution. We just don't ask them. Or perhaps the tardigrades don't suffer from as much hubris as us.  

But we humans do like to make evolution all about us. 

We⁵ start from the belief in human ascendency, so we place ourselves on the 'top' of our supposedly scientific evolutionary tree. 

What we can't really say about evolution, but do all the time 

In summary, given that humans need to understand the world through explanatory stories, it's no surprise that we struggle with the randomness and lack of purpose inherent in a scientific understanding of evolution. 

Source: SMBC

The way we¹ use the words evolve and evolution reveals our human needs to understand life and change as purposeful. We might refer to scientific theories and diagrams, but we interpret them through storytelling and metaphor. Humans relate best to stories, featuring an agent (someone who acts), intention, purpose, a goal through improvement (or a moral about not improving). We think about evolution as the way that living beings get better, improve or achieve superiority.

To achieve this, we meld the two contradictory dictionary meanings of evolution (discussed above) into a hybrid concept of 'descent with modification (technical meaning) toward improvement and a better state (non-technical meaning)'. 

We imbue a random, undirected, aimless process with agency, intention, purpose and then impose a moral judgement about who or what creature is 'better'. We misuse the concept entirely to create a hierarchy of species, with those we describe as 'more evolved' considered better or more valuable. 

Upon examination, it's obvious this way of thinking is bizarre. The idea of the cobras brainstorming and coming up with spitting poison to defend from humans is laughable (Part 1). The moral judgement that humans are 'better' than other species is also ludicrous. In evolutionary terms, we are no different from every other species, and deeply interdependent with many of these species in a complex web. 

But thinking about 'evolutionary progress' with a moral overlay becomes even more bizarre when we use the words evolve and evolution to describe things that Darwin's theory was never intended for, like societies and languages. 

Part 3 continues this increasingly scary story.   

Footnotes

1. My area of exploration is the everyday use of words and what they reveals about humans; I'm not commenting on scientific use. I'm definitely not asserting that evolutionary biologists talk like this, but I have noticed many evolutionary psychologists sure do!!
2. In the history of embryology, the homunculus was part of the Enlightenment-era theory of generation called preformationism. The homunculus was the fully formed individual that existed within the germ cell of one of its parents prior to fertilization and would grow in size during gestation until ready to be born. 
3. For the theorists of the Enlightenment, progress did not simply mean that life was getting better in certain respects. It meant that the human condition was moving toward a specific destination that could be discerned by reason. Read more here. 
4. Although humans have tried to make it so, through eugenics, an awful idea favoured by fascists and people who believe in 'race hygiene', etc. leading to suffering and misery for many.  
5. Well, western white humans anyway. Exploring this further is the focus of Part 3.

Images

• Tree of life from Imgur https://imgur.com/XF7GGNK [No credit, source, or account link. Let me know if it’s yours]. 
• Finches by John Gould (14Sep1804-3Feb1881) via Wikimedia Commons https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Darwin%27s_finches_by_Gould.jpg [Public domain]
• Keep Calm image made by the author with a template from Postermywall.com and adding the skull crown from https://www.vector4free.com/free-vector-grunge-skull-30182 [Free use]
• Giraffe image from public UK educational resources KeyStage wiki at https://keystagewiki.com/index.php/Evolution_by_Natural_Selection [Fair dealing]
• Kant by Johann Gottlieb Becker (1720-1782), via Wikimedia Commons https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f2/Kant_gemaelde_3.jpg [Public Domain]  
• Phylogenetic tree from Khan Academy https://www.khanacademy.org/science/ap-biology/natural-selection/phylogeny/a/phylogenetic-trees# [Used under terms; personal, non-commercial purposes]
• Ancestors of the horse by Phil Schatz at https://philschatz.com/biology-concepts-book/contents/m45491.html [CC-BY]
• Humans in tree of life, snipped from social media and amended by the author [No source]
• Circle phylogenetic diagram By Ivica Letunic: Iletunic. Retraced by Mariana Ruiz Villarreal: LadyofHats via Wikimedia Commons https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tree_of_life_SVG.svg [Public domain] 
• This circular phylogenetic tree of life shows the relationship between species whose genomes had been sequenced as of 2006. The very center represents the last universal ancestor of all life on earth. The different colors represent the three domains of life: pink represents eukaryota (animals, plants and fungi); blue represents bacteria; and green represents archaea. Note the presence of Homo sapiens (humans) second from the rightmost edge of the pink segment (this author has added an arrow). 
• Darwin bemoans human ignorance from A-Z quotes https://www.azquotes.com/quote/1379579 [Used under terms]
• Tardigrade by Bob Goldstein and Vicky Madden, UNC Chapel Hill via Wikimedia Commons https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Waterbear.jpg [CC BY-SA]
• Pruney hands by SMBC at https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/pruney [No information about reproduction for personal use; it's too good not to use]