My first thought upon glancing over Rob Brown’s article, “Does fundamentalist religion cause the rejection of evolution? or is it the other way around?”1, was to talk about it in my Stephan Colbert-esque “I don’t believe in evolution” persona, complete with references to dick-plant, Karin Hutsons, and MacGuyver. Unfortunately, when I dug into the article deeper it became less and less funny to me.
The problem is that I can’t figure out how Brown is using the term “evolution.” That is, I think he’s using the term incorrectly. Now, that’s completely understandable, since almost everyone I’ve ever met who didn’t have a degree in biology seemed to not really have a strong handle on what evolution actually is. My person feeling is that this is because evolution isn’t being explained properly in schools. I don’t think, as Brown posits, that evolution is counter-intuitive. Instead, I’d argue that evolution is actually completely intuitive, and will make perfect sense once I explain it.
Ready?
Evolution is about making more babies.
That’s it. More babies equals evolution. The logic is that if I have more babies than you, and all my kids have more babies than yours do, then eventually the number of copies of my awesome baby-making genes will outnumber your less-baby-making genes.
Evolution is not about making things “better” or more advanced. All it’s about is enabling an organism to have an advantage in spreading it’s DNA. Sometimes that means the organism gets a cool ability, like walking around, or it could be something like switching to a different food source in the environment for which there are fewer competitors, but that might be more difficult to extract energy from (a change that might superficially seem “bad”).
All that matters is that the organism changes in a way that allows it to have more children then that same organism would be able to have without the change.
More babies equals evolution.
OK, so now that we’ve got that understood, what is my problem with Brown’s article? He talks about several “evolution-like” systems, that are anything but.
Wikipedia is related to evolution… how? He explains,
Comparing it to evolution, an edit of Wikipedia might be considered equivalent to a genetic mutation. A mutation, of course, is non-directed…that is, “random.” It could be bad or good, but most of the time it is bad. If we were simply the average of all mutations that predated us, we would be nothing more than a pile of goo. And yet we are not. The reason that Wikipedia is as good as it is (and the reason that living organisms are as sophisticated as they are), is not due to the average quality of the edits (or mutations). Instead, it is due to a much harder to observe process: selection. Some edits survive, while others quickly die. While one can look at the history of a Wikipedia article and see each and every edit, it is much harder to tell how many potential editors looked at an article, subconsciously thought “I doubt I could improve this much,” and chose not to try. Each of these can be considered a “selection event”, and the number of such events vastly outnumbers the actual edits. Selection is the heart of what makes Wikipedia — as well as Darwinian evolution — work.
No! This is not evolution, and it isn’t evolutionary selection. Selection means that there is some natural force at work that gives certain traits an advantage in that environment (so as to produce more babies). In the lab, we commonly do this by using an antibiotic to select for bacteria that are carries resistance to the antibiotic (and usually also carries a gene of interest). In nature, it could be a food source that’s limited.
In terms of Wikipedia, this isn’t applicable. First, edits aren’t random; they’re deliberate. Second, an edit that is “selected” for does not cause more edits, or inspire another article to be written. Edits that are selected for do not affect the survival of the article, or the survival of Wikipedia as a whole. They just happen and that’s it. The same end result occurs if an edit is deleted (selected against). Articles don’t live and die because of the edits they contain.
More over, Brown writes,
Likewise, when we see glitches in Wikipedia (whether due to vandalism, someone pushing an agenda, or just bad writing), we are seeing the “random” part of the process in action. Again, we generally see that selection kicks in rapidly, and the glitches disappear.
The irony is what Brown is describing is more akin to Intelligent Design. God An editor shapes Man the Wikipedia article in His image to be as accurate as he believes possible. The “selection” agent Brown is talking about is a person, not an objective factor that favors changes that enable the articles to better survive in the environment.
What’s important to note is that evolution is not subjective, while Wikipedia is. You don’t want Wikipedia to evolve, you want it to get better. You want there to be a intelligent thought in deciding what stays and what goes, and you want there to be a clear purpose behind what is kept and what isn’t.
Brown goes on to give another example of an “evolution-like” system: prediction markets. To make this case he touches on the more complicated issue of equilibrium in evolutionary biology. I readily admit that my knowledge in this area is shaky (at best), but I’m pretty sure he’s using this concept incorrectly too. He says,
Evolution, of course, has similar equilibrium-seeking behavior. Imagine an animal that, were its earlobes shaped slightly differently, would be ever so slightly better able to hear the sounds made by potential prey. No matter how long you watch such animals, you would be hard pressed to find an actual situation where that subtle change would mean the difference between life and death. But as long as there is a statistical difference, a suboptimal earlobe is an unstable situation, waiting to be corrected. And, typically it will be, in surprisingly short order. The cumulative effect, of course, is what we see around us in nature: an absolutely breathtaking degree of adaptation in planet Earth’s life forms.
Ummmm… the term equilibrium means a balance of sides. So, I have no idea what the hell Brown is talking about. Where’s the equilibrium I’m supposed to be looking at? Between hunters and prey, big vs. little ears, or what?
The weird thing is that his example of predicted markets is a proper example of equilibrium, only it relates to evolution in no way I can see. Crazy.
He finishes off talking about Netflix, which I think he only put in there to talk about the nifty recommendation scheme he came up with.
I want to make it perfectly clear that I’m not hatin’ on Rob Brown, because, as I said, people tend to not really get what evolution actually is. I know that it took me a ridiculously long time to really get a handle on it myself, and I’m as smart as I am handsome. It really wasn’t until I read Richard Dawkins book The Selfish Gene2 that I got a strong understanding as to what is really driving evolution. Also, the Molecular Biology degree I have kinda helps3.
But, we’re never going to be able to converse properly if we’re not speaking the same language. If Rob Brown believes the term “evolution” means something different than I do then we’re never going to be able to talk about evolution, let alone figure out a way to improve acceptance of evolution, which I believe is a noble goal we both share. I think in large part the divide between the scientific community and the rest of the countries (which we shall designate as “normies”) is the language barrier. Until we make sure the words we’re using mean the same thing to both of us, we’re screwed.
- I have no idea what is going on with the capitalization of that title.↩
- I highly recommend this book, which was recommended to me by one of my professors, but, be warned, Dawkins employs a staggering amount of math, especially when dealing with things like equilibrium. Otherwise, I think it’s fairly accessible.↩
- Though in all fairness I think any moron can get a Molecular Biology degree. Case in point, I got one. ‘Nuff said.↩
Is language really our first problem? The U.S. ranks near the bottom of developed nations in terms of proportion of the population that believes in evolution (in whatever form).
I see what you’re saying, but I think the language barrier is enabling people to be kept in the dark. For example, the fact that scientist regard the term “theory” (as in the theory of evolution) to mean something different than the general public makes it very easy for fricktards to attack us. If we get on the same page, language-wise, I think some of that is mitigated.
Belief in creation really isn’t the problem. The problem is that evolution is taught with such baggage that it can’t be believed and used as a model, which is the mode in which it is really useful.
As someone who believes in creation, I don’t mock those who believe in evolution as a creation model nor consider a lack of belief in creation a problem with our society. (I should note that a great number of creationists do this. Still, I am not they nor they me.) Could the same respect be extended to me? The value of the evolutionary model is in the things the model can teach us, rather than as an incomplete attempt to disprove God. If we could learn, use and revise the model on a purely scientific basis, we’d be able to work well together just fine.
This has been largely inspired by the comments rather than the original post. I think your original post (and, in particular, the “Evolution is about making babies” intuitive simplification) is spot on.
I only sorta get what you’re saying (too much smoke inhalation from the wildfires, perhaps), but I’m strongly inclined to agree. I don’t think evolution disproves God, and I certainly don’t believe it should be used to assert that position. God exists in the realm of philosophy, while evolution exists in the realm of science, and I don’t think the two should be mixed. It’s like those bombs in Die Hard with a Vengeance where the two chemicals get mixed and everyone goes boom. Not cool.
But here’s the thing, there is a faction of the religious right that actively engages in misinformation because, for whatever reason, they see evolution as a threat. As I mentioned, there is the issue of misrepresenting the term “theory” to discredit the theory of evolution. These people, more so than atheists, make the assertion that evolution is being used to challenge the existence of God. It gotten so bad that they’re now even targeting the scientific method to try and make it seem as though science is bullshit. These are the people I refer to as fricktards.
That said, I readily acknowledge that there are atheists who are try to use evolution to disprove God. I’m afraid Richard Dawkins is one such guy, which is a shame because strictly from the standpoint of the science I think he’s brilliant. I don’t recall any particularly obvious anti-God propaganda in The Selfish Gene, but it might be there. I think this hurts attempts to better peoples’ understanding of evolution, and is one of the reasons I think philosophy and science should be kept in their own corners.
Hopefully that clarifies my position on this.
Oh, hey, I just noticed my comment could be taken the wrong way as a result of the fricktards comment. That’s not what I was reacting to! It was more the idea that having a lower percentage believe in evolution as a creation story is a problem to society. “Belief” in evolution is not necessary to advance science. Being able to entertain it as a model, refine it, and use it to attempt to predict is necessary.
Lack of belief in evolution considered a problem bothers me. Shouldn’t the same freedom of speech that protects someone working on advancing evolutionary theory protect Joe Smith’s right to say he believes in creation? And if Joe doesn’t want to know about it, shouldn’t he be free to walk away from someone talking about it, just as you’re free to walk away from someone talking about God?
That said, I disagree that the faction of fundamentalists who believe evolution threatens God are a bigger problem than the atheists who believe evolution disproves God. I can find any number of either, and they’re both significant problems to the acceptance and advance of science, and the harmony of society. Saying which caused the problem is really a chicken-and-egg problem, and I think you’d be hard pressed to prove that one caused the other (in either direction).
Anyway, you haven’t offended me, and I hope I haven’t convinced you that I’m an ignorant idiot.
I think you are misreading Brown’s article. He isn’t saying that wikipedia is the same as evolution–but that both evolution and wikipedia depend on selection. The means of selection is of course very different as you point out-but none the less, it is the existence of selection that causes both systems to evolve in amazing ways. Brown observes that humans have a hard time appreciating the power of selection, and muses that this could be a reason evolution is so hard to communicate to people. Most people who think about it accept microevolution and your ‘making babies’ version of evolution. The creationists just don’t believe that this process could do anything really interesting–because they don’t appreciate the power of selection.