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Where is the link between what is and what ought to be?

What is our duty to evolve? Many times in recent months I have come across personal websites which are written by people, well, by men, who share the unspoken assumption that there is a duty to evolve. We are the product of evolution therefore we must evolve, therefore we must anticipate evolution and accelerate it. Where has this idea come from? This false link between what is and what ought to be?

I think the best way to demonstrate the stupidity of this idea is by analogy with another natural and inevitable process; coastal erosion. Evolution and coastal erosion are both processes that happen; without a purpose, without a plan, without any possibility of either. There is no end goal for evolution or erosion, no designer is using them to achieve a particular goal. They have no driver, no spirit, no purpose. Any non-deluded person must see this. But why has the evolutionary destiny meme grown among otherwise logical and scientific people? Most people accept that coastal erosion is natural and inevitable. Most people also see that trying to fight it is futile, the best we can do is manage an orderly retreat. But where are the groups of fanatics who want to accelerate erosion, celebrating its natural power, its destiny? Where are the people planting dynamite at the bases of cliffs that are destined to be eroded?

There should be no logical link between what is and what ought to be. Evolution happens. But it is not in the interests of anything, not even the replicators themselves. Replicators want to survive, not to mutate to survive. This is following conventional shorthand of ascribing wants to replicators, always remember to treat every statement about the desires of replicators, genes or memes, with the caveat as if. Replicators that behave as if they want to survive are the ones that are found to survive. But really you need to do the as if trick on the word behave as well, and even on the whole concept of the existence of replicators, in reality both genes and memes are abstractions. But that does not mean that they are not real.

Perhaps the reason for the evolutionary destiny meme and the idea that evolution is a good thing is linked to the progress memeplex. Progress is good. Progress is what gives little boys new toys on a regular basis so it must be good. Progress is capitalism and science. The fruits of progress are deemed to be good so the process is deified, or at least reified. Evolution is seen as the ultimate underpinning of progress and so the fallacy of evolutionary destiny is created and the desire to accelerate the inevitable.

In reality there is no destiny. No fate. Nothing must happen. Even if something is likely to happen if present trends continue that fact does not make that force a force for progress.

What is progress? There are several meanings for this word and misinterpreting progress is a very common error. The pure meaning of the word is the trend to go from the past to the future, linear, one-way travel through time. There is no value judgement that is inevitably attached to progress. It might be good, it might be inevitable, it might be bad. There is no fundamental force of progress that raises complexity out of chaos and leads to better and better living standards for ever. The trend to greater living standards and higher consumption is a short term trend. Most men in most ages could expect to live a very similar life to their fathers.

Modern industrial progress of living standards is good while it lasts, but it is not inevitable or preordained. There is quite a good chance that as natural resources are used up, especially fossil fuels, the progress of mankind will no longer seem inevitable, we may yet enter a real dark age again.

Evolution has happened. Evolution will continue to happen. The question as to whether it ought to happen is irrelevant.

Human evolution will not progress much. Virtually everybody breeds. Infant mortality is falling. Differentials in family size have very little to do with genetic advantage, perhaps even an inverse relationship is developing. A century ago the German right wing could see white or "Aryan" genes spreading rapidly across the planet. That this was due to their natural superiority was taken as read. Now this view seems very misguided. The white races are losing out. Look at any school playground across the USA or Europe. The whites are no longer winning the genetic race.

You don't need to be white to be a big player in the modern world. Two thousand years ago people found you didn't need to be born in Rome to be civilized. In another two generations the burst of white genes that issued out of Europe on an unsuspecting world backed by guns, ships, cotton, white bread, corned beef and water closets will be swallowed up by the rise in the other races. The whole world will be civilized. Civilized, just like progress, is a word that should not carry any baggage or value judgements. For some people being civilized is an improvement, for others it is not.

The challenge is to make civilization better for us all. I believe that means we must spread the culture of democracy, liberalism, equality of opportunity, environmental concern and respect for science. In a world in which most of the breeders are infected with religion we need to work hard to strike a better balance.

The Ku Klux Klan see the rise of the black man as a threat to the white race. I see the rise of the poor of all creeds and colours as a challenge to our civilization. A challenge that can be met, but only as long as we see the real enemies; religion, intolerance, tribalism, nationalism, jealousy, superstition. The smart suited white Mormon is more of a threat than the hard working Nigerian. The lapsed Jewish lawyer is much less of a threat than the Catholic housewife who has a baby every year for the Pope. Race is a minor issue, culture matters.

© 1999 - 2008 by Martin Willett.

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