Cultural evolution and biological evolution
- From: "whitesickle@xxxxxxx" <whitesickle@xxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 30 Oct 2006 01:08:20 -0500 (EST)
Author anonymous
The roots of cultural evolutionism are intertwined with the biological
theory of natural selection--a theory arrived at independently by A. R.
Wallace and Charles Darwin, and made famous by Darwin's book of 1859,
The Origin of Species. Yet biological and cultural evolution each have
"rules of their own"; confusing the two is a grave error--one that
marred the work of thinkers such as Herbert Spencer, and that has
reappeared recently among the sociobiologists (see Harris 1979).
A key difference is that once a species is intelligent enough for its
ways of life to depend greatly on learning, those ways of life can
change far faster than can the species' biological makeup. The steam
engine, the automobile, and the computer scarcely needed to wait on
biological evolution in order to transform how we live! Artifacts,
customs, and ideas can spread rapidly within a generation; biological
evolution happens only over generations. Biological evolution can occur
rapidly, but only in simple life forms, such as microorganisms, that
have very short generation times. Indeed, the rapid evolution of
microbes is what causes our antibiotics to "wear out" so quickly. By
filling certain microbes' environment (our own bodies) with drugs, we
wipe out all those that have no resistance to that drug; but if even a
single "bug" contains a gene making it resistant to the drug, that is
precisly the one that will survive and reproduce, giving rise to a new
strain--a resistant strain for which a new antibiotic will have to be
sought. No end is in sight to this war between bugs and drugs, in which
they fight with the weaponry of biological evolution, we, of cultural
evolution!
Yet biological evolution is a continuing process even within large,
slowly-reproducing species like our own. No generation has exactly the
same genetic makeup as did the previous generation; chance alone is
sufficient to guarantee this. Life, Darwin wrote, is somewhat like a
great, ancient tree in which existing species are the green buds.
Wherever the tree is growing, evolution is occurring.
But are biological changes taking human evolution in any particular
direction? This is a tricky question indeed. Some biological
anthropologists have speculated about humans of the distant future, and
the picture is not one we would consider attractive: wimpy-bodied,
swollen-headed, toothless and hairless creatures with senses so weak
that everyone requires extensive artificial assistance of the kind
pioneered by eyeglasses and hearing aids. But how realistic is this
prediction? Already we can see a new way in which cultural evolution is
overwhelming biological evolution: genetic engineering is beginning to
bring our genetic makeup, as a species, under the direct influence of
science and technology--a "sobering and disquieting prospect," in the
words of astronomer Carl Sagan (1985:26).
It is tempting to believe that history could have developed in a way
quite different from what it has--that if things had been just a bit
different in the past, we would not confront the problems facing us in
the present. According to this view, we would not now face the
"sobering and disquieting prospect" of engineering human genes, for
example, if Darwin had died--as so many in his time did--of some
childhood disease. Cultural evolutionism, however, offers a different
perspective. It is well to remember, after all, that another biologist
of the time, working quite independently of Darwin, hit on basically
the same theory. And in fact history presents many examples of similar
occurrences. Indeed, cultural evolutionists have the impression that
cultural conditions "make use" of individuals. We find this is a more
illuminating perspective than the usual one--conveyed explicitly and
implicitly to schoolchildren--according to which great individuals
mysteriously "produce" history and culture as if by magic. In a related
vein, we regard cultural evolution as a process that defies conscious
control by individuals or groups (White 1949). This insight was well
expressed as early as 1767 by the Scottish writer Adam Ferguson:
Every step and every movement of the multitude, even in what are termed
enlightened ages, are made with equal blindness to the future; and
nations stumble on establishments, which are indeed the result of human
action, but not the execution of any human design. [Ferguson 1980:122]
Ferguson, Adam
1980 [orig. 1767] An Essay on the History of Civil Society. New
Brunswick: Transaction Books.
Darwin, Charles
1958 [orig. 1859] Origin of Species. New York: American Library
(Mentor).
Harris, Marvin
1979 Cultural Materialism: The Struggle for a Science of Culture. New
York: Random House.
Sagan, Carl
1985 Cosmos. New York: Ballantine Books.
White, Leslie A.
1949 The Science of Culture. New York: Farrar, Straus.
.
- Prev by Date: Re: Origin - the wrong word?
- Next by Date: Tabloid Crap
- Previous by thread: May contain magnetite
- Next by thread: Tabloid Crap
- Index(es):
Relevant Pages
|
