A Reflection Paper on The Origin of Species (Charles Darwin)

July 1, 2009

Chapter III: Struggle for Existence

Chapter IV: Natural Selection; Or the Survival of the Fittest

 

The book On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life (shortened to The Origin of the Species) made public Darwin’s ideas, which had a profound effect to the biological sciences, and to a lesser extent today, to the social sciences as well. The book’s effect on the biological sciences is hard to underestimate as it led to its secularization (severing of links with the Church), at least in Britain, and its subsequent reorganization. Today, it is impossible for biologists and scientists from related fields (medicine, biochemistry) to disregard the book, or at least, the theory it espouses.

 

The book did not only affect the biological sciences but also the social sciences. Western society (and other societies and civilizations affected by it) rapidly moved away from one dominated by religious tyranny to one dominated by scientific authority, and Darwin’s theory was used to explain and justify social phenomena.

 

As a student with academic background in the social sciences, I am more interested in the implications of Darwin’s theory on human societies. Evolution, as established by Darwin, has seeped into the social sciences, humanities and philosophy, giving rise to myriads of fields and subfields like sociobiology, evolutionary psychology, and biosocial anthropology (Barkow, 2006). In this reflection paper, I’ll be presenting my takes on natural selection regarding human politics (political science claim that “humans are political animals”), economics (Homo sapiens to Homo economicus) and culture. 

 

 

It seems an imperative that biology has a say even in the social sciences and humanities, which in the past, were remotely connected to the life sciences. Biology is fast becoming the focus of attention with authors like Richard Dawkins, Richard Wrangham and Stephen Jay Gould constantly finding their books on the bestseller lists. People and policymakers are more interested in the results of genetic engineering or biomedicine than astronomy or nuclear physics. Even though bioweaponry has been around for a very long time (antedating nuclear weaponry), it is only today that they have become serious issues; we no longer contemplate of nuclear war but fear of bioterrorism. Darwin’s theories are slowly occluding even Freud, Marx and Weber in the global competition for explaining human nature and society. In this ‘survival of the fittest ideas’, it is apparent that Darwin’s is more adapted to existing conditions.

 

Darwinism is the theory of evolution or systemic change and adaptation by means of natural selection (Yearley & Bruce, 2006). Though I may be incorrect, I presumed that chapters 3 & 4, from their respective titles, constituted the essence of Darwin’s theory. According to what I have read, organisms tend to reproduce more than those that can survive. Applying Malthusian principles, population growth will put a strain on available resources which cannot increase to adequately supply the population. Checks of all sorts are present to keep the numbers down or, at least, just able to cover up the number of members of dying members, stabilizing the population. The death of an individual, in this system, ensures the survival of life on Earth (not life of a particular species or group). However, the checks operate in an intricate and interdependent system that any change in one can change everything, making or breaking the web of life.

 

The struggle for survival is greatest among members of the same species, having similar sets of needs, means to get them, and defenses. However, not all species are created equal – there is bound to be an individual different from the rest. The difference maybe injurious to the reproductive future of a particular individual, or it may be highly advantageous in the survival of its progeny against other members of the same species, other organisms, and the environment. If their differing traits are beneficial, they would live long to pass on these characteristics to their offspring. Over time, small and incremental changes result to a vastly different species adapted to its particular condition. The inevitability of population pressure, the prospect of death, the presence of diversity makes evolution by natural selection possible (and necessary). Natural selection, however, is blind and works only for the species’ success – natural selection can also result to the death, not just of individuals, of whole branches in the evolutionary tree (extinction).

 

Social Darwinism is the extension of the theory of natural selection to the social world (Dickens, 2006). Darwin himself argued that humans are animals too, and like all animals (and other organisms as well), subject to the processes of evolution. Evolution occurs because of two important things: variability and competition. Not all members of the same species are identical but all are locked in a game of survival against each other, other species, and the environment. Herbert Spencer, one of the founders of sociology, an important proponent of social Darwinism, and a contemporary of Darwin, coined the phrase “survival of the fittest”, one of the most well-known concepts in evolutionary theory. Spencer believed that evolution was important in improving mankind by culling out the weakest members, leaving only the most adapted or successful in life, which, in turn, passed on their characteristics to their offspring. Later sociologists related this to the historical development of societies, claiming arrogantly and erroneously that all societies must sooner or later pass through a stage of industrialization (the stage Western civilization was in at the time), or they would die out.

 

Probably, it is from this notion that laypeople’s understanding of evolution as a process of improvement came from, that human beings, keeping in line with its traditional reference to itself, as the culmination of millions of years of life on Earth. Whether it is God or Science, man always finds the need to erect a firewall between him and the world of organisms (not other or fellow organisms). Natural selection may be blind and directionless, but in laymen’s interpretation, evolution became a process of perfection, a process towards becoming Man, which animals failed, warranting their lower status.

 

As in the world of other organisms, competition is ever present in human societies and is continually “improving” man towards perfection. An important implication of social Darwinism is that any intervention in the winnowing process is detrimental to society and self-defeating. Darwin, Spencer and other eminent intellectuals of the 19th century argued against too much social care for the sick and the needy – to do so would be a waste of resources and effort. We must not interfere with natural selection – if people die of hunger in a free-trade setting, let them. For individuals with debilitating genes to die is noble. Later on, the idea was extended to societies and even civilizations: it was not individuals competing against each other but nations and that the government should do its best for the welfare of its citizens. In China, Han Chinese nationalists invoked social Darwinist ideas to champion the merits of the “yellow race” and to disgrace the ailing Qing Dynasty, claiming that the Manchus were of non-Chinese origin (therefore, barbarians) and have no right to dominate (or even exist!) in China. In the West, the goal of government, as interpreted by social Darwinism, seesawed from liberal and laissez-faire to greater intervention, depending on the political flavor of the month. A conclusion is that the theory of natural selection, though impersonal when applied to organisms other than man, acquires a political facet when applied to human society.

 

Social Darwinism’s manipulability led to the development of eugenics, “the science of breeding the best” according to Darwin’s cousin, Galton. It was based on the then-emergent science of genetics and evolution – the best should be encouraged to breed while the undesirables should be discouraged or prevented from doing so. Eugenics promised future generations of better people, but, as history as proved, it led to human catastrophes of horrifying scales if not disappointing flops. Racists like the Nazis of Germany appealed to the superiority of their people and the need to root out and eliminate polluting races (like the Jews and Slavs). This has continued today, though on a much lesser degree, among white supremacist groups in the United States and power-crazed tyrants in Africa. Eugenics is not only bad science (if it can be rightfully classified as science) but also an impossible project: who is to know which characteristics are genetic in origin or a product of culture and the environment, and who is to know which characteristics are good and bad? On the whole eugenics was a self-serving enterprise; invariably, the proponents of eugenics put themselves on top of the evolutionary trees they constructed. Modern social science does not consider eugenics, and I doubt that any ethical system in the natural sciences condone it today.

 

Darwin was probably well aware of the social implications of his theory and minimized his use of human examples and restricted them to ones of physical nature (the chapters I read were full of examples from the natural world but none of human culture). It was also difficult, from what little I know of anthropology and sociology (I had only six units of anthropology and three of sociology), because human cultures everywhere are fraught with seemingly useless or maladaptive practices or, in biological terms, ‘traits’. They simply disobeyed the logic of natural selection, and though unfit, refused to die out. An example (though it is forever on the process of being studied and refined) is the curious difference in the foodways of various cultures. Jains and Buddhists stress the sanctity of life and would refrain from eating anything that “moves” (animal life) whereas in other parts of the world, animal meat is acceptable. Jains and many Buddhists are vegetarians, indifferent of meat even when the conditions allow these to flourish, even risking hunger (or protein hunger from inadequate diet). Apparently, their vegetarianism does not enhance their reproductive fitness as much as our eating of meat does not lower our chances of passing on our food preference to our offspring. In fact, strict vegetarianism may even be maladaptive in times of famine or the lack of plant sources of protein. Maybe culture is out of the realm of natural selection after all.

 

It must be added that Darwin didn’t talk of hierarchy in the natural world, that one animal was higher than another one. But social scientists of the time bent the theory to explain, and, worse, justify existing social inequalities. Darwin’s theory lacked a sense of direction, of what evolution ought to lead to, whereas social scientists used the theory for their own concepts of social “advancement” or “progress”. Marx draws from Darwin a scientific basis for class struggle (survival of the fittest of another sort?), Spencer the law of progressive differentiation and functional specialization, and Ernst Haeckel the idea of a “master race” (Baldus, 2006).

 

If anything, I stand that humans are the only beings that are conscious of their evolution. This has profound effects on the way we approach the subject, unlike other organism where the subject does not exist at all. Biologists, biochemists and other scientists may like to think that evolution is an external agency that the individual organism cannot control. But for humans, evolution cannot be external alone. We alone may the only organisms to possess consciousness and culture (different from those grown in Petri dishes) and our possession of it complicates our future. I once read that if humans were still around for another hundred of thousands of years, they would certainly larger heads compared to those living today. The author presumes that the past is the future (there is certainly a trend for larger heads) but, for me, it is incorrect. Larger heads may not be fashionable, and people, with whatever cosmetic science they can afford, may try to maintain beautiful, smaller heads. Of course I may be wrong. But I stand against the idea that evolution is “outside’ of us. It is both “in” and “out”, probably with more “in”.

 

Textbooks talk about animals adapting through genetic change and humans through culture. It is wrong. It is my contention that humans evolved to organisms that required greater social interaction and adaptation that genetic change alone may provide, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a genetic basis for everything that we are, including our behavior. Generally, natural selection worked for us – not towards greater competition against each other, but towards greater cooperation – hardwiring our constitution for brains that can do more than respond instinctively to stimuli. It’s not always adaptive, but at some point, it must be (we’re not going to burn everything and accelerate global warming, are we?)

 

It smacks of parochialism but there is a great rift between mainstream social science and the “hard sciences”, with the social sciences traditionally resistant of reducing Man to man and mindful of such lofty and intellectually-grinding concepts as metanarratives and objectivity. To go presenting these ideas is too much for a reflection paper and bare my failings as a social science student from the UP (I haven’t understood them fully).

 

 

It may be preposterous, but we are indeed the preeminent organism in this planet. We have much control if our planet continues to be an Earth or a cosmic tragedy (this is what happens when organisms evolve to think) on the risks of “evolving to perfection”. Man should not be the ending dot on the story of life, of which our yet brief chapter is a very important part. As the Chinese say, tiān xià wéi gōng (天下为公), the world belongs to everyone, and it is high time we recognize that we share the world with organisms other than humans. I hope that by learning more about the evolution of life on Earth, and how man came to be, I gain insights to reconcile the differences between the life and social sciences and be informed in making democratic decisions on how life would continue and improve, not only for our nation, not only for humanity, but in consideration of our fellow organisms as well.

 

 

References

 

Baldus, B. (2006). Evolution, Agency, and Sociology. In Barkow, J. H. (Ed.), Missing the Revolution: Darwinism for Social Scientists (pp. 269-294). New York: Oxford University Press.

 

Barkow, J. H. (Ed.). (2006). Missing the Revolution: Darwinism for Social Scientists. New York: Oxford University Press.

 

Darwin, C. (1859). On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life.

 

Dickens, P. (2006). Social Darwinism. In Turner, B. (Ed.), The Cambridge Dictionary of Sociology (pp. 572-573). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

 

Yearley, S., & Bruce, S. (2006). The Sage Dictionary of Sociology. London: SAGE Publications, Ltd.

 

 

For Natural Science 50: Molecules to Man

UP Manila 2009.

 

***

 

2,280 words. My NS 50 professor never said anything about essay length or format. Long, intellectually-packed and literary “essays” – this is the greatest legacy to me of our most distinguished area studies professor, now my default mode.

 

Stringing thoughts to meet academic demands. Nevertheless, true thoughts.