Gaia and evolution

Neither Darwinism, nor the neo-Darwinism of Bateson and Weissman, nor its latest version, the 'Synthetic Theory', provides an evolutionary theory that is reconcilable with our knowledge of the structure and function of the world of living things. This is particularly so if the biosphere is seen as a single living system, whose constituent parts co-operate in achieving a specific strategy - the maintenance of its basic features or organisation in the face of internal or external challenges, that is to say its stability or homeostasis.

Little attempt has been made to provide any serious evidence for the Darwinist theory. This has been noted by a number of critics, for example Karl Popper, who considered that

"neither Darwin nor any Darwinian has so far given an actual causal explanation of the adaptive evolution of any single organism or any single organ. All that has been shown - and this is very much a hypothesis - is that such explanations might exist, (that is to say, they are not logically impossible)."

Popper does not, for that reason, consider Darwinism scientific theory - though he does not necessarily reject it.

Michael Polanyi accepts that "neo-Darwinism is firmly accredited and highly regarded by Science ... there is little direct evidence for it". Ludwig von Bertalanffy makes the same point. In the debate on evolution, he writes, there has been no more concern with proof "than in the operation of a Tibetan prayer wheel".

These criticisms apply equally to the role that random variations or random mutations, or indeed randomness itself, are supposed to play in the evolutionary process, and to the role which is supposed to be played in that process by natural selection.

Randomness

The notion that the biosphere is the product of random variations could not be stated more equivocally - and indeed dogmatically - than by Jacques Monod;

"Chance alone was the source of every innovation, of all creation in the biosphere. Pure chance, absolutely free but blind is at the very root of the stupendous edifices of evolution. This central concept of modern biology is no longer one among other conceivable hypotheses. It is the only conceivable hypothesis, the only one that squares with observed and tested fact. And nothing warrants the supposition - or the hope - that on this score our opposition is likely ever to be revised."

In the same way, non-human animals are seen as learning by random trial and error and humans by 'induction', which involves making naive correlations between random observations. Human history is seen as composed of random events and historians such as H. A. L. Fisher pour scorn upon historicists such as Arnold Toynbee and Spengler who sought to introduce a pattern into our historical experience.

To tell us, as Monod does, that the thesis of randomness is the only conceivable thesis "that squares with observed and tested fact" is untenable. There is no possible way of determining empirically whether an event is random. All that we can say of an event that appears to be random is that we do not know the circumstances that brought it about.

Lamarck noted this: "Le mot hazard n'exprime que notre ignorance des causes" ["The word 'chance' expresses only our ignorance of causes"]. Poincare said the same thing in slightly different words: "Le Hazard n'est que le mesure de notre ignorance" [Chance is but the measure of our ignorance]. Waddington also considered that gene mutations may only appear to be random because of our present lack of knowledge.

"A gene mutation which consists of some alteration in the sequence of nucleotides in the DNA is from a chemical point of view presumably not wholly at random. There may be quite considerable regularities in the processes by which the alterations come about: however, we know very little about them as yet."

The important role attributed to random mutations appeared more credible in the days when the genome was seen as a random assortment of genes. It makes far less sense, however, now that the genome is known to be a highly sophisticated and elaborately regulated organisation, capable, among other things, as Lerner has shown, of maintaining its own homeostasis. Dobzhansky and Waddington stated the same principle in slightly different words.

But this concession changes very little. Randomness necessarily means randomness vis-a-vis a specific process. An event cannot be random to all processes, as this would mean that it had occurred spontaneously, which would violate the principle of causality that is critical to the paradigm of reductionist science.

Indeed, if an event is seen as the product of a 'cause', it cannot be random to the causal process of which it is the effect. The official position is thus still very close to Jacques Monod's and it is an untenable one - one that is in complete conflict with our knowledge of life processes in the world we live in.

Randomness: fact or fiction?

Indeed, even ordinary cultural phenomena with which we are all acquainted, and which, in terms of the paradigm of reductionist science, are interpreted as random, are not, in reality, random at all. For instance, art styles do not develop at random, but closely reflect the cultures in which they developed. The clothes people wear are indicative of the image of themselves they wish to communicate to others. The way people walk, eat, light cigarettes, blow their noses, do up their shoelaces, all convey some information as to the personality of the individuals concerned.

In fact, behaviour exhibits so little 'randomness' that it is questionable whether living things are in fact capable of behaving in a random way, even if they make a determined attempt to do so. This appears to be confirmed by various experiments such as those described by W. R. Ramsay and Anne Broadhurst, who experimented with a panel of 72 people by asking them to repeat in time to a metronome a series of numbers between 1 and 9, in as random a manner as possible. They found that

" ... in accordance with other studies on randomness and response in human subjects, the result of this experiment shows that even when subjects try to be random, there is a high degree of stereotype."

In a world of living things, randomness is so rare that to achieve a state which even approximates it, it has to be 'manufactured' artificially. Stafford Beer points out the absurdity of such a situation:

"It really is ludicrous that we should have gone so far with Epicurus as to manufacture chaos where none exists, in order to provide ourselves with the properly certificated raw materials for system building. Take my own case.There are a random number of tables on my bookshelf; there are computer tapes for producing pseudo-random numbers next door; there is a large electronic machine for generating noise upstairs; down the road there is a room full of equipment designed to hurl thousands of little metal balls about in a random way; and I use ten-sided dice as paper-weights. The upkeep of this armoury is considerable. Think of all the time we spend trying to ensure that these artefacts produce results which are 'genuinely random' - whatever that may mean. This tremendous practical problem of guaranteeing disorderliness ought to be enough to satisfy any systems man that nothing is more unnatural than chaos."
  [Note: the word 'chaos' is used here in its old sense, not the modern scientific sense in which 'chaos' describes phenomena which appear to be random, but are not, exhibiting a degree of orderand predictability under careful analysis.]

Indeed, living things actively seek to eliminate randomness. We know, for instance, that mutant genes tend to be eliminated. Lerner has shown us how a genome tends to maintain its structure, thereby countering random changes. We know that random bodies within a biological organism are eliminated by the immune system; and that in all known vernacular societies, people whose behaviour is socially random, in that it diverts from the traditional norm, are ostracised.

We know too that the ability of natural systems to eliminate randomness increases as they develop or evolve, and that climax ecosystems are very much better at doing this than pioneer ecosystems. Natural systems are, in fact, committed to the elimination of randomness by virtue of the fact that they function cybernetically to maintain the basic features of their order - and hence their stability or homeostasis. Life, in fact, develops and indeed evolves at the expense of randomness.

Natural selection: the motor of evolution?

Randomness is essential to the Darwinian notion of natural selection. Yet, it is hard enough to demonstrate that natural selection from random variations is even one of the mechanisms of evolution, as Darwin maintained, since the term 'natural selection' is a very vague one - indeed Darwin actually admitted that he used it metaphorically. To demonstrate that natural selection is the only mechanism of evolution, as is maintained by the neo-Darwinists is still more difficult.

How do neo-Darwinists know that no other factors are involved? In particular, how do they know that no 'internal factors' are operative, that living things, in fact, do not evolve as a result of their own behavioural efforts and ontogenic adaptations? There is no epistemological justification for maintaining such a thesis. Neo-Darwinists simply assume that living things do not evolve in that way.

That natural selection is operated by the 'environment' is a further unjustified assumption. Why should the environment behave in that way? What motivates it to do so? How is it capable of displaying such highly discriminatory and indeed highly teleological behaviour? These questions have never been answered, nor can they be since the term 'environment' is never defined, it is simply taken to be that which is 'out there' - some strange mystical entity to which all the dynamic, creative and intelligent features of life have somehow been delegated.

Selection as God

If natural selection from random mutations is indeed the only mechanism of evolution, then the most sophisticated achievements must be attributed to it - and indeed they are. Thus, according to Ruse, natural selection can act not only to cause evolutionary change "in the sense that it can cause change in generations", it can also act "as a conservative force preventing change, that is keeping gene ratios stable".

Merrell tells us that natural selection "will tend to operate in such a way as to minimise interspecific competition". It is also capable of deciding, if we are to believe MacArthur and Wilson, whether to favour "increased reproductive rates" (K selection) or "the greater efficiency of conversion of food and other resources into offspring" (R selection).

Selection can also decide, if we are to believe Lerner, whether it should be "intensive" or "less intensive". It has the ability to eliminate deviants and thereby favour stability, hence Waddington's "stabilising selection". According to Dobzhansky, it is responsible "for directedness of the general as well as for the grouping of particular evolution".

Alister Hardy notes too that "moral and aesthetic qualities in man are not infrequently said to be explained by the operation of natural selection". This is true of the sociobiologists who even see natural selection as giving rise to altruism (kinship selection). Similarly, Waddington, when it was suggested to him by Piaget, that it might be difficult for such a crude mechanistic device to create complexity, answered that Piaget greatly underestimated the capacity of natural selection.

Selection is thus invoked to explain everything - which indeed it must be, if we are to accept the neo-Darwinist thesis. Julian Huxley explicitly states:

"The hoary objection of the improbability of an eye or a hand or a brain being evolved by 'blind chance' has lost its force because natural selection, operating over stretches of geological time, explains everything."

Lewontin claims to have established this principle experimentally:

"There appears to be no character - morphogenetic, behavioural, physiological or cytological, that cannot be selected in Drosophila".

Selection, like God, is thus omnipotent. Neo-Darwinists may laugh at Lamarck's idea that if an animal needs some organ, that need will somehow call the organ into existence. Dawkins regards this notion as

"so obviously mystical to the modern mind that it is fairer to Lamarck for us to concentrate on those parts of his theory that at least seem to have some chance of explaining evolution."

But the neo-Darwinists introduce a mysterious and undefined intermediary natural selection into the circuit which seems just as mystical.

The question that needs to be asked is how does 'natural selection', supposedly a purely mechanical process, like a sorting machine in a post office, that does no more than sort the 'fit' from the 'unfit', - achieve this omnipotence? How can this mechanical sorting machine create complex living things?

One can understand that by selecting the most viable living things and allowing them to reproduce themselves, their characteristics will be transmitted to the next generation, which will become correspondingly more viable, but this is only possible if living things can transmit such characteristics to the next generation. Billiard balls cannot, and it is difficult to see how they might be made to evolve by natural selection however much variability they might exhibit.

Whitehead noted this:

"A thorough going evolutionary philosophy is inconsistent with materialism. The aboriginal stuff or material, from which a materialistic philosophy starts, is incapable of evolution."

Woodger made the same point. The Darwinian doctrine, he noted,

"Is committed to ascribe to 'bits of matter' properties which they do not exhibit today, instead of searching for an adequate conception of organism."

Popper also pointed out that

"only an organism which exhibits in its behaviour a strong tendency or disposition or propensity to struggle for its survival will in fact be likely to survive."

But to compete is to exhibit goal-directedness. Indeed, as Popper notes, goal-directedness is one of the conditions for evolution. But there are many other such conditions. Indeed, one can draw up a whole catalogue of conditions which must be obtained before a sorting machine could conceivably be used to bring about constructive changes in the structure and function of living things, however great the diversity of random or non-random variations which it may have the privilege to select from.

Von Bertalanffy notes this:

"Selection presupposes self-maintenance, adaptability,reproduction, etc of the living system. These therefore cannot be the effect of selection. This is the oft-discussed circularity of the selectionist argument. Proto-organisms would arise, and organisms further evolve by chance mutations and subsequent selection. But, in order to do so, they must already have had the essential attributes of life."

The subterfuge consists in noting that adaptation has occurred and then quite brazenly taking such adaptation as constituting evidence of natural selection at work. Instead of demonstrating that natural selection leads to adaptive change, it is simply assumed to do so by the expedient of equating natural selection with adaptation. It thereby suffices to show that adaptation has occurred, in order to prove, in the eyes of neo-Darwinists at least, that the corresponding adaptive characteristics have been selected.

Thus on the subject of the finches of the Galapagos that so impressed Darwin, Ruse writes, "we find that all the different species show the effects of selection". What are these effects, we might ask?

"Peculiar characteristic after peculiar characteristic has some special adaptive function. Some finches have evolved in such a way that they are ideally suited to the consumption of plant food; some mainly for the consumption of animal food; some solely for animal food. Then there are beaks for cactus eating, beaks for insect eating on the wing, beaks for general scavenging. One species has even developed the ability to probe with twigs for insects in hollow parts of trees."

In this passage, Ruse's identification of selection with adaptation is quite explicit. The fact that he is assuming what he set out to prove could not be more evident. That evolution and natural selection are synonymous, so that to prove that the former has occurred provides proof of the effectiveness of the latter, is also assumed by Charlesworth:

"Probably the most general relevant prediction of the theory of natural selection is that episodes of rapid evolution should coincide with periods when the direction of selection is changing; this seems to beborne out at many different levels of evolution. Insecticide resistance evolves in populations exposed to a new insecticide. The mollusks of Lake Turkana changed when the level of the lake altered. The drosophila of Hawaii evolved an array of diverse species as they colonised an archipelago with numerous vacant ecological niches. And modern mammals underwent their period of most rapid evolution and diversification after the dominant land reptiles of the Cretaceous era went extinct."

But how do we know that these instances of rapid adaptation to new conditions are the result of natural selection? We do not, unless that is we have already assumed as does Charlesworth, that natural selection and adaptation are one and the same - unless in fact, we start out by assuming what we set out to prove. Von Bertalanffy was fully aware of this subterfuge:

"The principle of selection is a tautology in the sense that the selectionist explanation is always a construction a posteriori. Every surviving form, structure or behaviour however bizarre, unnecessarily complex or outright crazy it may appear - must, ipso facto, have been viable or of some selective advantage, for otherwise it would not have survived. But this is no proof that it was a product of selection."

Neo-Darwinsm: the dogma of reductionist science

Since there is absolutely no evidence for the neo-Darwinist thesis, and since it fits in so very poorly with our knowledge of the world of living things, the only reason why it should prove so durable seems to be that it fits in so well with the paradigm of reductionist science and hence with the world view of modernism that the latter so faithfully reflects.

This was the view of Michael Polanyi, who wrote:

"Neo-Darwinism is firmly accredited and highly regarded by science though there is little direct evidence for it because it fits in beautifully with the mechanistic system of the universe and bears on the subject - the origin of man - which is of the utmost intrinsic interest."

This was also the view of Ludwig von Bertalanffy, who considered:

"that a theory so vague, so insufficiently verifiable and so far from the criteria otherwise applied in 'hard' science, has become a dogma, can only be explained on sociological grounds. Society and science have been so steeped in the ideas of mechanism, utilitarianism, and the economic concept of free competition that instead of God, selection was enthroned as ultimate reality."

Many biologists are now involved in developing a new post-Darwinian evolutionary theory. Such a theory, if it is to be a realistic one, is likely to clash with, rather than conform to, the paradigm of reductionist science, for which reason it is unlikely to be accepted until such time as that paradigm itself undergoes considerable change - and indeed itself become more realistic.

This process is already under way. The paradigm of reductionist science is under assault across a broad front. Its transformation is indeed necessary because, among other things, it faithfully reflects the world view of modernism, which serves above all to rationalise and hence to validate the Promethean enterprise to which modern society is committed, a path that is leading to the systematic annihilation of the world of living things.

Indeed, if humans are to survive for very long, one of the requirements of their survival will be the replacement of the paradigm of reductionist science by a new ecological paradigm. This new paradigm would also reflect a very different world view, one that would serve to rationalise and hence validate a society committed to systematically reducing the impact of our economic activities on the ecosphere and, thereby, to the extent that this is still possible, of restoring the proper functioning of the Gaian process that can alone assure that our planet remain habitable.

A post-Darwinian evolutionary theory

According to the Gaia hypothesis, the biosphere, together with its atmospheric environment, forms a single entity or natural system. This system is the product of organic forces that are highly co-ordinated by the system itself. Gaia has, in effect, created herself, not in a random manner but in a goal-directed manner since the system is highly stable and is capable of maintaining its stability in the face of internal and external challenges. It is, in fact, a cybernetic system, and for this to be possible, Gaia must display considerable order, indeed, she must be seen as a vast co-operative enterprise,very much as nature was seen by the 'natural theologists' of the 19th century.

Such a view of the world of living things is, needless to say, totally incompatible with neo-Darwinism. Indeed, an evolutionary theory that would be consistent with this view of the world would be the very negation of neo-Darwinism. I shall suggest what some of its features might be:

Gaia as the unit of evolution

If Gaia is a single natural system that has created herself in a co-ordinated and goal-directed way, then Gaia is clearly the unit of evolution, not the individual living thing as neo-Darwinists insist.

Gaia is Evolution:

Gaia is not just a contemporaneous organisation of living things. She is a spatio-temporal system. It is difficult for us to grasp the notion of a spatio-temporal system as our language makes a clear distinction between things and processes and our thinking is clearly influenced by our language. It is nevertheless essential that we realise that all living things have a temporal as well as a spatial component. They exist in time just as much as in space. This means that Gaia is not only an entity but also a process, and what is that process if it is not evolution?

If this is so, then the Gaian process - or evolution - must display the same fundamental structure as Gaia does when seen as a spatial entity). If the latter is a biological, social and ecological structure, then the Gaian process cannot possibly be merely physical and mechanical as the neo-Darwinists tell us; it must clearly also be seen in biological, social and ecological terms.

Gaia as a total spatio-temporal system

But what part of the temporal process must be seen as evolving? We assume that it must be the contemporaneous process, the one occurring before our eyes. But how do we justify this assumption? I suggest that the total process is involved, stretching back into the mists of time. The reason for suggesting this is that the information passed on from generation to generation of living things must, if the system is to display continuity and stability, reflect the experience of the total spatio-temporal system involved and not just part of it.

This information appears to be organised hierarchically, the most general information, that which reflects the longest experience, being particularly non-plastic, the more particular information, that which reflects the more recent experience, being very much more plastic and hence more easily adaptable to short-term environmental contingencies. This arrangement is clearly that which best assures the continuity or the stability of the total spatio-temporal Gaian system. If this is so, this means, among other things, that evolution is a long-term strategy not just a set of ad hoc adaptations.

Evolution as a living process

If Gaia creates herself, then the living world must be seen as dynamic and creative, not as passive and robot-like. The qualities that are tacitly attributed to the vague undefined 'environment' must be ascribed as well to the living things which it is seen as managing. Evolution is thereby no longer the mere product of natural selection from random variations or genetic mutations, but of living things exhibiting all those features whose involvement in the evolutionary process neo-Darwinists have been at such pains to deny.

Evolution as a cybernetic process

If Gaia is evolution, then evolution must also be a cybernetic process. Lovelock's 'Daisy World' model is a cybernetic process but a very rudimentary one. One must suppose that the cybernetic process that led to the development of a system as complex as Gaia herself must be very much more sophisticated.

Now we are beginning to understand how living cybernetic processes operate. Human behaviour, as Kenneth Craik was the first to show, is mediated on the basis of a mental model on an individual's relationship with his environment, in the light of which diversions from the appropriate pattern of behaviour are corrected.

Gerardo Reichel-Dolmatoff and others have shown how the behaviour of tribal groups in Amazonia is controlled in similar fashion, the model of the tribe's relationship with its environment being formulated in the language of its mythology. I do not think that it is too outlandish to ask whether Gaia herself is not endowed with a similar model?

What is certain is that a cybernetic system must be capable of monitoring its responses otherwise it could not correct diversions from its optimum course, and hence maintain its homeorhesos and thereby its stability. How then is evolution monitored? There can only be one answer and that is ontogenetically and behaviourally.

That such feedback must occur has been clear to serious students of evolution for a long time. Baldwin, Lloyd Morgan, Goldschmidt, Waddington and Schmallhausen have all proposed mechanisms that might achieve this. The case for such feedback is put very forcefully by Piaget in his excellent book, Le Comportement Moteur de I 'Evolution. The whole issue becomes much clearer, of course, once it is realised that the information that serves to mediate evolution is not just genetic but is formulated in different informational media including the cultural medium.

Evolution is a goal-directed process

If evolution is a cybernetic process, then it must be goal-directed. The reason should be clear. To say thata process is under control means that it is maintaining itself on its optimum course or 'chreod' as Waddington referred to it, that which will enable it to achieve its optimum end-state or goal - a baby in the case of the embryological process, the climax ecosystem in the case of an ecological one. This implies that there is an optimum course and also that there is an end-state or goal. If there is not, then the very notion of control becomes meaningless.

Once a system has achieved its end-state, then to say that it is under control is to say that it is capable of maintaining itself at that end-state or thereabouts, that it is in fact homeostatic. Again, this implies that there is an end-state. If there was not, then clearly it could not maintain itself there. It seems to me that one has to overcome the scientist's irrational attitude towards goal-directedness or purposiveness. Teleology is a fact of life, a fundamental feature of life-processes, including evolution.

Stability is the goal

To say that a cybernetic system maintains its homeostasis, and that its constituent parts co-operate with it in this enterprise, is to say that its goal is the maintenance of its homeostasis or stability - in effect the same thing.

This implies that Gaia does not seek to evolve, and that the changes that it undergoes are simply those that it must undergo in order to avoid bigger and more disruptive changes. They are but part of a dynamic and creative strategy for maintaining the stability of the total spatio-temporal system that constitutes Gaia. Indeed, it is only by adapting the particularities of its structure to environmental contingencies, that a dynamic system such as Gaia can best maintain the generalities of its structure and hence its stability or homeostasis.

Order and co-operation

If Gaia is to be capable of acting as a cybernetic system and of maintaining its homeostasis, then it must display that specific structure that enables it to do so. It quite clearly cannot merely be a random assortment of competitive individuals all frantically striving to achieve their own egotistic ends, as the neo-Darwinists maintain. Instead, Gaia must be seen, as Lovelock sees her, as a vast co-operative enterprise geared to the maintenance of its overall structure in the face of change.

Clearly competition occurs: but it is not the most fundamental relationship between living things. It is a secondary relationship. So too, there is selection, but such selection is operated by the various natural systems that make up the Gaian hierarchy on their constituent parts, rather than by the vague, undefined 'environment' of neo-Darwinists.

Its role, what is more, is not to assure the 'survival of the fittest' (in the sense of the most individualistic, and the most competitive), but on the contrary to eliminate such undesirable individuals, since they do not fit into Gaia's co-operative structure. In this way selection helps to assure the survival of those who do not fit into the hierarchy of natural systems (families, communities, societies, ecosystems) of which Gaia consists and thereby contribute to the achievement of her overall strategy.

Evolution and anti-evolution

It must be noted that to attribute the above characteristics to the evolutionary process is simply to bring it into line with other life processes such as morphogenesis, behaviour and indeed the Gaian life process itself as depicted by Lovelock.

It is quite clear that these are living processes rather than mechanical ones, that theyare dynamic rather than passive, orderly and goal-directed rather than random. It is equally clear that they are cybernetic processes each sub-process being monitored so that diversions from its proper goal are corrected by the overall life process. For this to be possible each must be seen as co-operative and contribute above all, to Gaia's overall strategy rather than competitive and individualistic. Why should evolution, the life process that encompasses all others be different?

Finally, such life processes can go wrong. Nature is neither omniscient nor omnipotent. When life processes go wrong they are no longer under control. They cease to be properly co-ordinated, they become atomised and individualistic, order gives rise to disorder, and to further atomisation. Co-ordination ceases, competition and aggression take over. This atomisation process gives rise to undifferentiated or random Gaian tissue that rapidly replaces Gaia's critical structure (that which she must display if she is to be capable of maintaining her homeostasis or stability).

When they occur at the level of the individual biological organism, these destructive processes are seen as pathological. For neo-Darwinists, however, they are the normal features of the evolutionary process. How can they be? Why should the all-encompassing life process behave in a diametrically opposite manner from that of all other life processes? Is it not apparent that neo-Darwinists, still more so sociobiologists, have got it completely wrong; that they have failed to distinguish between pathology and physiology: between the growth of a malignant tumour and the development of differentiated tissue - between anti-evolution and evolution?

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