Steven Den Beste sums up what I’ve been try to say about evolution for years, though never quite as concisely as he puts it:
In the long run, Darwinian evolution sounds like a good idea. But like adventure, it’s better read about than experienced, because the only way it can really happen rapidly is with a high death rate.
This was in response to coverage of a research who claims that the human species has stopped evolving (which I think is hubris more than anything).
Den Beste also gets it right on what I call the “unnatural vs. natural” argument (more on this later this week):
We don’t need biological change any more because we now have the ability to enhance ourselves artificially. One man on a construction site now can do more digging in a day than a hundred men could a hundred years ago. He’s no stronger than they were. But he’s got a back-hoe capable of moving tons of soil ever minute.
Biological evolution is undirected, but cultural evolution is deliberate. Biological evolution is slow and haphazard, but cultural evolution is directed and blazingly fast. And biological evolution requires pain and suffering from most of the population, where cultural evolution’s benefits are far more widespread.
If biological evolution has indeed ended for us, then good riddance.
Or to put it a different way, cultural evolution is completely unnatural — and thank goodness for that!
By the way, Information Society said much the same thing a few years ago,
Where would I be without my radio?
Where would I be without birth control?
Where would I be without fair-weather friends?
Where would I be — without IBM?