Part 5 (2/2)

* Two hikers are pursued by a bear. One hiker runs away, the other stops to put on his running shoes. 'Are you mad? Even with running shoes, you can't outrun a grizzly.' 'No, but I can outrun you.' Two hikers are pursued by a bear. One hiker runs away, the other stops to put on his running shoes. 'Are you mad? Even with running shoes, you can't outrun a grizzly.' 'No, but I can outrun you.'

* Or she. The particular case of lions is complicated by the fact that females do most of the hunting, but males tend to get 'the lion's share' in any case. Don't get hung up on 'lions' in my hypothetical example. Think of a generalized predator species, and imagine 'prudent' individuals who refrain from over-hunting, and 'imprudent' individuals who break away from the agreement. Or she. The particular case of lions is complicated by the fact that females do most of the hunting, but males tend to get 'the lion's share' in any case. Don't get hung up on 'lions' in my hypothetical example. Think of a generalized predator species, and imagine 'prudent' individuals who refrain from over-hunting, and 'imprudent' individuals who break away from the agreement. Loose talk about Darwinian adaptation frequently founders on the fallacious a.s.sumption (not made explicit, and the more pernicious in consequence) that evolution has foresight. Sydney Brenner, hero of the Loose talk about Darwinian adaptation frequently founders on the fallacious a.s.sumption (not made explicit, and the more pernicious in consequence) that evolution has foresight. Sydney Brenner, hero of the Caenorhabditis Caenorhabditis section of Chapter 8, has a sardonic wit to match his scientific brilliance. I once heard him lampoon the 'evolutionary foresight' fallacy by imagining a species in the Cambrian that retained in its gene pool an otherwise useless protein, because 'It might come in handy in the Cretaceous.' section of Chapter 8, has a sardonic wit to match his scientific brilliance. I once heard him lampoon the 'evolutionary foresight' fallacy by imagining a species in the Cambrian that retained in its gene pool an otherwise useless protein, because 'It might come in handy in the Cretaceous.'

CHAPTER 13

THERE IS GRANDEUR IN THIS VIEW OF LIFE

UNLIKE his evolutionist grandfather Erasmus, whose scientific verse was (somewhat surprisingly, I have to say) admired by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Charles Darwin was not known as a poet, but he produced a lyrical crescendo in the last paragraph of his evolutionist grandfather Erasmus, whose scientific verse was (somewhat surprisingly, I have to say) admired by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Charles Darwin was not known as a poet, but he produced a lyrical crescendo in the last paragraph of On the Origin of Species On the Origin of Species.Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death,* the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved. the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.There's a lot packed into this famous peroration, and I want to sign off by taking it line by line.

'FROM THE WAR OF NATURE, FROM FAMINE AND DEATH'

Clear-headed as ever, Darwin recognized the moral paradox at the heart of his great theory. He didn't mince words but he offered the mitigating reflection that nature has no evil intentions. Things simply follow from 'laws acting all around us', to quote an earlier sentence from the same paragraph. He had said something similar at the end of Chapter 7 of The Origin The Origin:it may not be a logical deduction, but to my imagination it is far more satisfactory to look at such instincts as the young cuckoo ejecting its foster-brothers, ants making slaves, the larvae of ichneumonidae feeding within the live bodies of caterpillars, not as specially endowed or created instincts, but as small consequences of one general law, leading to the advancement of all organic beings, namely, multiply, vary, let the strongest live and the weakest die.I've already mentioned Darwin's revulsion widely shared by his contemporaries in the face of the female ichneumon wasp's habit of stinging its victim to paralyse but not kill it, thereby keeping the meat fresh for its larva as it eats the live prey from within. Darwin, you'll remember, couldn't persuade himself that a beneficent creator would conceive such a habit. But with natural selection in the driving seat, all becomes clear, understandable and sensible. Natural selection cares naught for any comfort. Why should it? For something to happen in nature, the only requirement is that the same happening in ancestral times a.s.sisted the survival of the genes promoting it. Gene survival is a sufficient explanation for the cruelty of wasps and the callous indifference of all nature: sufficient and satisfying to the intellect if not to human compa.s.sion.Yes, there is grandeur in this view of life, and even a kind of grandeur in nature's serene indifference to the suffering that inexorably follows in the wake of its guiding principle, survival of the fittest. Theologians may here wince at this echo of a familiar ploy in theodicy, in which suffering is seen as an inevitable correlate of free will. Biologists, for their part, will find 'inexorably' by no means too strong when they reflect perhaps along the lines of my 'red flag' meditation of the previous chapter on the biological function of the capacity to suffer. If animals aren't suffering, somebody isn't working hard enough at the business of gene survival.Scientists are human, and they are as ent.i.tled as anyone to revile cruelty and abhor suffering. But good scientists like Darwin recognize that truths about the real world, however distasteful, have to be faced. Moreover, if we are going to admit subjective considerations, there is a fascination in the bleak logic that pervades all of life, including wasps homing in on the nerve ganglia down the length of their prey, cuckoos ejecting their foster brothers ('Thow mortherer of the heysugge on y braunche'), slave-making ants, and the single-minded or rather zero-minded indifference to suffering shown by all parasites and predators. Darwin was bending over backwards to console when he concluded his chapter on the struggle for survival with these words:All that we can do, is to keep steadily in mind that each organic being is striving to increase at a geometrical ratio; that each at some period of its life, during some season of the year, during each generation or at intervals, has to struggle for life, and to suffer great destruction. When we reflect on this struggle, we may console ourselves with the full belief, that the war of nature is not incessant, that no fear is felt,* that death is generally prompt, and that the vigorous, the healthy, and the happy survive and multiply. that death is generally prompt, and that the vigorous, the healthy, and the happy survive and multiply.Shooting the messenger is one of humanity's sillier foibles, and it underlies a good slice of the opposition to evolution that I mentioned in the Introduction. 'Teach children that they are animals, and they'll behave like animals.' Even if it were true that evolution, or the teaching of evolution, encouraged immorality, that would not imply that the theory of evolution was false. It is quite astonis.h.i.+ng how many people cannot grasp this simple point of logic. The fallacy is so common it even has a name, the argumentum ad consequentiam argumentum ad consequentiam X is true (or false) because of how much I like (or dislike) its consequences. X is true (or false) because of how much I like (or dislike) its consequences.

'THE MOST EXALTED OBJECT WHICH WE ARE CAPABLE OF CONCEIVING'

Is 'the production of the higher animals' really 'the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving'? Most Most exalted? Really? Are there not more exalted objects? Art? Spirituality? exalted? Really? Are there not more exalted objects? Art? Spirituality? Romeo and Juliet Romeo and Juliet? General Relativity? The Choral Symphony? The Sistine Chapel? Love?You have to remember that, for all his personal modesty, Darwin nursed high amb

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