Perceptions of Evolution

[evangelicalhumanist]

In a recent thread, a few members suggested that evolution could be understood as a steady progress in a positive direction, possibly towards perfection.

I don't think that this is necessarily the scientific view of the subject, and in fact, this is one of the 5 most common misconceptions usually cited about evolution.

What do you think? Is evolution an "upward progress towards improvement/perfection?"

[gluadys]

Originally Posted by evangelicalhumanist

In a recent thread, a few members suggested that evolution could be understood as a steady progress in a positive direction, possibly towards perfection.

I don't think that this is necessarily the scientific view of the subject, and in fact, this is one of the 5 most common misconceptions usually cited about evolution.

What do you think? Is evolution an "upward progress towards improvement/perfection?"

I think it is not surprising that people have this perception. I can cite four background causes.

1. Since ancient times western philosophy has included the concept of the Great Chain of Being in which all existing things are ranked according to their proximity to the Absolute Spirit---with pure matter being at the opposite extreme. This concept was melded into medieval Christian theology which saw hierarchies everywhere from the hierarchies of angels to the ranking of metals from lead up to gold. It was not difficult to interpret evolution as another expression of the Great Chain of Being and to see the ascent of the life force through species as analogous to the ascent of the soul toward God.

2. The 19th century was the great era of the gospel of Progress, especially in technology. Also, Europeans saw themselves as bringing a new world of progress to the benighted and backward peoples of other lands. In the U.S. the political slogan was "Manifest Destiny" as boundaries extended westward. In European philosophy one has the dominance of Hegelianism. It was in this mix that Darwin's theory was born and it was not difficult to interpret evolution as another manifestation of Progress.

3. Since scientists themselves are not immune to the culture of their time, many biologists of the late 19th and early 20th century brought one or both of the above conceptions into their own work and understood evolution in that framework. So one has genuine scientific publications from that era that speak of evolution in these terms. Darwin himself, notoriously, spoke of higher and lower human races. A term "orthogenesis" was coined to speak of the concept of evolution pursuing a course toward an ideal goal and remained acceptable in scientific circles until about the 1930s. Also popular works such as Teilhard de Chardin's The Phenomenon of Man incorporated these concepts. Scientists were as loathe as any member of the public to adopt the idea that evolution has no teleological aspect.

4. Finally, whatever the theoretical considerations, we also have the indisputable fact of the successive appearance of more complex life forms. Eukaryotes appear after prokaryotes. Multicellular organisms after unicellular organisms. Complex body plans after simpler body plans. Seed-bearing plants after spore-bearing plants and flowering plants after seed-bearing plants. Vertebrates after invertebrates. And complex intelligence/self-awareness after instinctual sentience. In theory, none of this is the goal of evolution and did not come to be because natural forces are directed to this end. But historically, they did come to be.

[shaw-n]

webster: evolution and devolution
Merriam Webster makes me think that the two are different:

evolution:
c (1) : a process of continuous change from a lower, simpler, or worse to a higher, more complex, or better state : GROWTH.
devolution:
Etymology: Medieval Latin devolution-, devolutio, from Latin devolvere
2 : retrograde evolution : DEGENERATION.

[Chippingaway]

Hi EH....

i see evolution as life's attempted adaptation to enviroment. And most of that enviroment is also 'living' so it's a pretty awesome ongoing adjustment.

One of the things i heard about re evolution that made a large impression on me were the small sized Mammoth remains found, if memory serves me, on one of the alutian islands. Apparently these animals diminished in size because of the limited resources to support them. And, they had also become extinct in fairly recent times geologicaly speaking.

Am realising my view may be inexact. Am hoping to maybe learn something from this thread.

[evangelicalhumanist]

Originally Posted by shaw-n

webster: evolution and devolution
Merriam Webster makes me think that the two are different:

evolution:
c (1) : a process of continuous change from a lower, simpler, or worse to a higher, more complex, or better state : GROWTH.
devolution:
Etymology: Medieval Latin devolution-, devolutio, from Latin devolvere
2 : retrograde evolution : DEGENERATION.

Very naughty of you to have left out one of Webster's other definitions, viz.

4 a: the historical development of a biological group (as a race or species) : phylogeny b: a theory that the various types of animals and plants have their origin in other preexisting types and that the distinguishable differences are due to modifications in successive generations; also : the process described by this theory

Notice, 4b is the Darwinian theory of evolution. It says that various living things have their origin in other living things -- not lower or worse, just other. It also says that the differences are due to modifications -- not improvements, just modifications.

Originally Posted by Chippingaway

Hi EH....
i see evolution as life's attempted adaptation to enviroment. And most of that enviroment is also 'living' so it's a pretty awesome ongoing adjustment.

One of the things i heard about re evolution that made a large impression on me were the small sized Mammoth remains found, if memory serves me, on one of the alutian islands. Apparently these animals diminished in size because of the limited resources to support them. And, they had also become extinct in fairly recent times geologicaly speaking.

Am realising my view may be inexact. Am hoping to maybe learn something from this thread.

I think you've managed to conflate a couple of stories here. There were certainly mammoths on St. Paul, one of the Aleutian Islands. These mammoths managed, by living on an island separated from the mainland, to escape the extinction pressures of the mainland herds, and survived for another several thousand years, which is interesting.

Fossil evidence has been found of dwarf mammoths on several islands around the world: the Californian Channel Islands (Mammuthus exilis), Sardinia (Mammuthus lamarmorae), and Wrangel Island north of Siberia (don't know the , within the Arctic Circle. There is less food resource on islands, and less room in which to wander in search of food, and so of course they evolved to have smaller body sizes and consequently reduced food requirements.

Your understanding of evolution is actually quite good, probably better than you think. It is true that evolution is change in response to environment or other pressures and competition for scarce resources. What we often fail to appreciate, which you did in your post, is that as species change, they can have an impact on their environment, or become themselves the pressure on other species to evolve to compete. It is truly wonderously complex, wickedly interdependent, and endlessly fascinating.

[statrei]

Originally Posted by evangelicalhumanist

What do you think? Is evolution an "upward progress towards improvement/perfection?"

For this to be true we would have to conclude that earlier lifeforms were all imperfect or ill-fitted for their environment. We know this is not true so neither can this statement be true. We must admit that evolutionists have made things difficult by claiming that sea animals moved to the land and adapted to life on land. Why would sea animals leave their natural habitat to move to a foreign and hostile and environment if no one put them there? "It just happened" is no different from saying "God did it."

[statrei]

Originally Posted by gluadys

4. Finally, whatever the theoretical considerations, we also have the indisputable fact of the successive appearance of more complex life forms. Eukaryotes appear after prokaryotes. Multicellular organisms after unicellular organisms. Complex body plans after simpler body plans. Seed-bearing plants after spore-bearing plants and flowering plants after seed-bearing plants. Vertebrates after invertebrates. And complex intelligence/self-awareness after instinctual sentience. In theory, none of this is the goal of evolution and did not come to be because natural forces are directed to this end. But historically, they did come to be.

But what is lacking is evidence that the less complex life forms disappeared after the more complex life forms appeared or a reason why the transition from these less complex life forms to more complex lifeforms has ceased. Let's face it, we know that infants grow up to become adults and this process of growth continues everyday.

[evangelicalhumanist]

Originally Posted by statrei

For this to be true we would have to conclude that earlier lifeforms were all imperfect or ill-fitted for their environment. We know this is not true so neither can this statement be true. We must admit that evolutionists have made things difficult by claiming that sea animals moved to the land and adapted to life on land. Why would sea animals leave their natural habitat to move to a foreign and hostile and environment if no one put them there? "It just happened" is no different from saying "God did it."

See the mudskipper.

[metis]

Originally Posted by statrei

For this to be true we would have to conclude that earlier lifeforms were all imperfect or ill-fitted for their environment.

Since environments are in a process of continual change, an organism could never logically be perfectly adjusted. On top of that, evolutionary change most often involves compromises.

We must admit that evolutionists have made things difficult by claiming that sea animals moved to the land and adapted to life on land. Why would sea animals leave their natural habitat to move to a foreign and hostile and environment if no one put them there?

There's literally no doubt that aquatic life, at first plants and then animals, moved on to the land. Why did they? That we can never be 100% certain of because we cannot always be aware of the conditions well enough when the first event happened. It's completely normal, as we see with ecological niches now, that organisms often expand into territories they originally were not from, and just because we don't know the details doesn't mean that it didn't happen.

"It just happened" is no different from saying "God did it."

As an anthropologist, I can safely say I've never seen a scientific publication whereas a fellow scientist ever wrote such a thing. We may not always know what the exact causes of an effect may be, but we never assume "it just happened".

[statrei]

Originally Posted by metis

There's literally no doubt that aquatic life, at first plants and then animals, moved on to the land. Why did they?

Today a strange thing happens when we take aquatic life and place them on land. Within a few days they cease to thrive. Why don't they thrive?