In this blog post, we will look at how Darwin’s theory of evolution has been misused, starting with the question, “Is evolution progress?”
Darwin’s theory of evolution invariably appears as the ideological foundation of imperialism in the late 19th century. Darwin’s concept of “survival of the fittest” justified the domination of the strong over the weak or the powerful over the weak. In particular, this survival was perceived as “better” or “more advanced,” which led to concepts such as the Nazi “race cleansing.” Is this a misuse of the concept of evolution, or does evolution really mean progress?
To discuss whether evolution means progress, we must first look at the concept of progress. The meaning of progress can be briefly described as “becoming better than before,” but the standard for “better” is very vague. There are many candidates that can be used as a standard for improvement in a natural state, but in order to establish one standard here, human values must be involved. When values are involved in this way, it is already outside the realm of science.
However, if we use the term “progress” in a broader sense, we can have a meaningful discussion. That is, we can redefine progress as “directionality.” If the evolution of a living organism is occurring in a consistent direction, we can define it as progress. The teams led by Dawkins and Gould in the book are sharply divided on the topic of whether there is directionality in the evolution of living organisms.
The Dawkins team argues that all living organisms evolve in the direction of increasing complexity, and the Gould team presents the drunk model. The drunk model is that a drunk person walks while stumbling, with a wall on the left and a ditch on the right, so that the actual drunk person will inevitably fall into the right ditch even if he or she moves left and right. Of course, this is not wrong. However, the process of evolution involves not only the movement of the drinker, but also the action of the wall. In other words, if the movement of the drinker is considered a mutation, the wall can be seen as natural selection. Therefore, in a complete model of evolution, the wall (selection) is included, so the direction of the mutation (where the drinker was originally moving) is not important.
The Gould team also argues that there is no direction of evolution through the story of the mode value. In other words, bacteria are still the dominant life form when looking at the mode value, and they argue that there is no direction of evolution in terms of the fact that complex life forms have fewer individuals and are difficult to survive in extreme environments. However, this is an argument based on a wrong sample. When discussing whether evolution has a direction, the subject must be limited to before and after evolution. In other words, it must be considered conditionally. We must look at whether the life forms that underwent evolution had a direction before and after. In this case, the current minimum value of the life forms is meaningless. In the “actual” evolutionary process, we can clearly find a consistent direction of increasing complexity.
In response, the Gould team again cites “regression” as an example. In other words, there is also a form of regression in which complexity decreases. This is certainly a very meaningful counterexample to the directionality. However, it is not enough to refute that evolution has directionality due to the following two reasons. First, as mentioned by the Dawkins team, reversible evolution occurs in microevolution, but it is never found in macroevolution. This means that evolution has a direction in the big picture. Second, when discussing living organisms, a statistical approach is essential. Given the complexity of living organisms and the physical limitations of natural selection during the process of evolution, there is no single proposition that is 100% consistent. Everything is discussed probabilistically. Isn’t modern medicine also ultimately a statistical approach? Let’s take the spread as an example. Individual molecules may indeed move in the opposite direction of diffusion. However, this does not mean that the statement “the molecules are spreading in a wide direction” is false. This is because, in conclusion, all molecules are spreading from a macroscopic point of view, and they will eventually spread uniformly as a whole. Therefore, the fact that an individual entity has undergone reverse evolution (or degeneration) cannot be used as a basis for denying this proposition.
As we have seen, it is true that evolution has a certain directionality in which complexity increases. Of course, what is true here is true as a statistical proposition. Since there is no way other than statistical understanding for living things to exist due to their complexity, it is safe to say that there is directionality in this debate.
As such, the debate over evolution and progress leads to philosophical questions that go beyond simply scientific facts. Humans not only understand themselves as part of nature through scientific facts, but also form social and ethical values based on that understanding. Therefore, it is important to be cautious about how the interpretation of the theory of evolution extends to social and political ideologies, while not distorting its original scientific meaning. This will be the way to fulfill social responsibility while maintaining the purity of scientific inquiry.
