I’ve just started a book called Brilliant Blunders, by Mario
Livio. He brings up a point that I
thought I’d throw out there. He says
that “natural selection does not have any long-term ‘strategic plan’ or
ultimate goal. (It is not teleological.)” Diagrams of species' ancestors and evolutionary
journey is more like a bush than a ladder.
Whereas Gerald Schroeder argues that DNA gives parameters within which
randomness can happen, Livio argues that “natural selection leaves quite a bit
to be desired in terms of design.
(Wouldn’t a visual field covering all 360 degrees or having four hands
be nice?...) So even if certain
characteristics confer a fitness advantage, as long as there is no heritable
variation that achieves this result, natural selection could never produce such
characteristics. Imperfections are, in
fact, natural selection’s unmistakable fingerprint.” It’s like a failed ontological argument.
1. I can think of a ‘better’
body to have; a better design.
2. I can’t achieve
this better body with my existing genes.
3. We are either
created by a poor designer, or have come to our existing bodies via a different
path.
In other words, we’ve gotten this far because, by chance,
our journey of survival has led us this far.
Other species, such as bacterias, Livio argues have been just as successful at
existing. He even points out that,
genetically, humans have been outdone.
He gives the example of a water ameboid named Polychaos dubium that has 670
billion base pairs of DNA compared to our 3 billion or so.
So is it wrong to think of life as having teleology? I can definitely see Livio’s point. However, don’t leaps up complexity
(social/psychological/moral) imply a direction towards something—even if that
something defies definition? If we are
evolving towards pre-intellectual reality of Quality laterally, might that not by
definition mean we will evolve and approach ‘higher’ planes of existence non-linearly?
