An Evolutionary Anniversary

By Romana Annette 02/12/2009

Today is the two-hundredth birthday for a great man.  Charles Darwin was born on February 12, 1809.  His name alone conjures images of animals evolving into new species.

The Theory of Evolution is still referred to as Darwinism, and its proponents are still called Darwinists, despite the fact that many of Charles Darwin’s conclusions were just a verification of the prior ideas of others.  Many of Darwin’s insights were phenomenal for the time, but much of the story is just modern urban legend.  In fact, many of Darwin’s conclusions were wrong (especially concerning the relation of the fossil record to living animals), and it often took a long time for Darwin to reach those Aha moments, because he needed help from a variety of contemporary biologists.
Darwin’s very name has evoked admiration and revulsion for 150 years.  Opponents and proponents are divided into various camps, where intense feelings can abound.  I also have strong feelings about these ideas and refer to myself as a neo-post-modern Darwinist, and I am opposed to many of the conclusions made by more classical Darwinists, such as Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett.
Darwin did not coin the term Survival of the Fittest, as is often thought; he simply referred to the processes of evolution being driven by Natural Selection.  Instead, it was an acquaintance of Darwin, the controversial sociologist Herbert Spencer, who used the Fittest description for the driving force behind evolution.  That only the fittest survive creates all sorts of problems.  For instance, large dinosaurs seemed totally fit for over a hundred million years, but at the end of the Cretaceous period, they all died out; yet, environmentally-sensitive animals such as frogs did not die out.

Many of Darwin’s own observations caused a great deal of consternation for his fellow Victorian scientists.  Darwin often documented what is called the disturbing messiness and wastefulness of diversity, especially all the adornment in the animal world that exists mostly just to drive reproduction.  Darwin correctly described sexual selection and rituals that could be driven equally by males and females, but, while Darwin found the variety of sexuality somewhat annoying, it was way too much for his contemporaries.
Darwin was not assigned to the Beagle, a surveyor ship, as a resident naturalist.  It was a role he grew into, after the captain, through one of Darwin’s contacts, asked him to come on the voyage for free.  Darwin speculated that the many fossils he found during the voyage were ancestors of living animals.  Most were not; they were just evolutionary dead-ends.
Ships like the Beagle did not carry much in the way of provisions, so the crew was forced to live off the land at each landfall.  It is now disconcerting how little feeling was shown to resident wildlife everywhere, since anything that moved could be shot and cooked for dinner, or preserved for later examination.  A completely utilitarian regard for all of nature was a fact-of-life in the nineteenth century.

There were three major problems that could not be solved during Darwin’s lifetime: the Earth did not seem to be old enough for all the time evolution required, there was an extremely incomplete fossil record, and the underlying mechanism seemed mysterious.  He never even deduced how the laws of inheritance were operating and driving evolution.
The twentieth-century brought new discoveries in atomic physics.  Using decay of natural radio-active elements, the age of the Earth was gradually pushed 4.5 billion years back, which was way more than enough time.  In 1940, a chain of events started by one of Darwin’s contemporaries finally led to the development of the science of modern genetics.  Up to this time, visual taxonomical differences were the only means for classifying species and for documenting evolutionary sequences.  Now science was vindicating Darwin in a way that he had never dreamed as being possible.  Evolution is still a theory, like all scientific theories, but it is the most comprehensive explanation for biological process ever conceived.  DNA, and its four standard genetic markers, can be used to describe the chemical makeup of all forms of life on Earth, as well as the relationship of any form of life to any other form of life.  Genetic classification now supersedes visual taxonomy for all living things.
The fossil record is literally being updated weekly.  Apparent intermediate links are being uncovered all the time.  However, the idea of essential missing links is a misnomer, since the fossil record documents gradual transitions, rather than a series of abrupt changes.  Remember, the idea of a fixed species is a human invention.

The twenty-first century has brought even more insights and advancements.  Many organisms, including ourselves, are in the process of being thoroughly mapped.  However, no organism-specific genes have ever been found.  There are no distinct genes for mice, for fish, or even for human beings.  In fact, the same basic cluster of 21,000 genes seems to be the same for all living organisms.  The only difference between any current forms of life seems to be trigger sequencing and the duration of activation for genetic sequences during gestation.
There has even been research into reverse-engineering extinct forms of life.  For instance, studies have shown that chickens still have all the genes of their dinosaur ancestors, including those for teeth, for arms instead of wings, and for scales instead of feathers.

The very latest findings now indicate that all advanced lifeforms are descended from sponges that evolved in the ice-covered shallows around the super-continent, Rodinia, at the time of the so-called Ice World Earth.  When the ice that enshrouded the entire planet melted, it led to what is called the Cambrian explosion of organisms about 550 million years ago.
This disturbed Darwin, since it seemed too abrupt.  However, it was just evolution brought up to speed, after waiting billions of years for the Earth to turn more hospitable.

I am an analyst and a Process Philosopher.  Process Philosophy is a discipline that seeks to describe all of reality in a logically-consistent and scientifically-correct manner.  I want to combine genetics and modern physics to create an even larger and more comprehensive model of reality.  Call it Darwinism on a cosmic scale.  Evolution ends up not being just a feature possessed by organic molecules; it can be expanded to embrace all of reality, where time spans can grow to billions or even trillions of years.  Measurements that can seem constant over millions of organic life-times end up not being eternally constant at all.
Furthermore, reality can contain no isolated or independent processes or entities.  There is so much interrelatedness and complexity that it ends up being beyond measure.  Even our Universe ends up not being a unique or isolated entity, since one now has to allow for the existence of other universes that are somehow all interrelated. 

Ever since we became intelligent and learned that we all have to die, we have been trying to figure out how we can ever fit into a scheme with so much creation and perishing going on.  It can seem hopeless, especially if we view ourselves being apart and extremely special.

Not evolution, not Process Philosophy, and not even religion have so far been able to supply the hope and meaning that so many people seek, despite the fact that there has been a clear biological imperative in operation for more than half a billion years.  Evolution on the cosmic scale can be even more depressing than evolution on the biological scale.  Referring to lifeforms as convenient accidents can compound the problem, since it creates a dualism between the inanimate and the animate.  As pessimistic as I am by nature, I find it strange how little faith so many have about the presence of life throughout the Universe, as they assign probabilities based on so many negative arguments.

In prior essays, I have discussed all the feedback that is necessary to hold reality together, and how we too are likely the recipients of various kind of knowledge through experiential feedback.  However, we can end up looking like sophisticated parasites feeding off objective processes.  So, what good are we?
That was a pessimistic question.  I think it is unfounded, and that each and every living thing contributes to the whole.  While we only seem to take, I think that we do give.  We can also supply feedback too.  I suspect that reality cannot function without our sensory input.  Without living things, the Universe has no eyes, ears, noses, or senses, and has no means self-examination.  I did not invent this idea; it has been a subtle but seldom-stated feature of Process Philosophy for a long time.

Darwin saw hints of relatedness between living and extinct lifeforms.  I believe this can be expanded to cosmic scales.  Still, we (and likely other intelligent species) seem to be preoccupied with the Why (the resolution) rather than the enjoyment of the journey.  After the voyage of the Beagle ended in 1836, Darwin gave up his original plans to be a country parson.  Instead, he became a recognized scientist, and he settled down with a new wife to raise a family, thereby becoming an actual participant in the evolutionary processes he was documenting.