My musings on Evolution

The theory of evolution is to me, a proven fact and not just a hypothesis. The evidence is overwhelming. These include fossil evidence, DNA and archaeological evidence. It is the only hypothesis that explains the diversity of Nature and its failures and successes, without the need to invoke a “designer”. One of the reasons some still have difficulty in accepting it is because they fail to appreciate the enormous time scale of life on Earth. We are talking of billions of years! There are also misconceptions such as that we arose from chimpanzees whereas the truth is that we both have a common ancestor only.

The driving force for evolution is the quest for survival. This ensures that genetic mutations which enhance the chance of survival are favoured and a species will progressively become better suited for continued survival. Offspring which are better equipped will gradually overtake those that are not. This is natural selection. It is not a “law” that is “obeyed” but pure common sense. All living beings are constantly exposed to threats and it does not require any sort of faith to accept that those who are better equipped will survive, and in the course of billions of years, that is exactly what happened. Better adapted species emerged and the failures became extinct. In fact, 99.9% of all species that ever existed on Earth are now extinct. The more recent ones to become extinct (last 10 years) include the Tasmanian wolf, Pinta Tortoise, Baiji Dolphin, Caspian tiger and the Golden Toad. The closest known animal to Man (Homo sapiens) is the Neanderthal Man (Homo Neanderthalensis) and he became extinct around 40,000 to 42,000 years ago.

When it comes to more evolved species such as mammals and birds, other factors came in to influence evolution. This can be called cultural evolution. Reptiles and other less evolved species are solitary in nature and just care for themselves only. Mammals and birds have are more “social” because they have realised that to be successful as a species, cooperation, caring for other members and developing a “group mentality” has evolutionary advantages in propagating the species. Thus the notion of “survival of the fittest” was modified in the sense that in order to be fit for survival, the needs of other members of the species have to be taken into account. They don’t have a moral code as such, it is purely pragmatic. It is reasonable to postulate that these tendencies became genetically codified and hence transmitted to offspring.

At this stage, if we take a giant mega leap in how Man developed, we can see that behaviour traits which are now called “good” arose, and the “bad” ones were not favoured. At a much higher evolved and cultural level, these behaviours became entangled with the concept of “morality” driven by Theistic religions as well as any philosophy that believes in an after-life. There is no doubt that moral laws could help in the survival process. Discipline was found to be useful and different ways of obtaining it evolved. One of the most powerful is the emotion of fear. Fear figures prominently in many religions – fear of retribution,a painful afterlife wherever it is, and fear is the basis of law enforcement. But human beings appear to be driven to behave morally not just by these means. While it is true that many people behave well because of the fear factor, there is overwhelming evidence that humans who are atheists and humans who are not driven by fear of breaking the law and its consequence, still adopt moral attitudes and behaviour and this appears to be something that has evolved over thousands if not millions of years. This kind of moral behaviour is seen in birds and mammals. For example, rats share food with other favoured rats (their “mate”), wolves defend each other against grizzly bears, a prairie vole taken out from a cage in which he shared with another vole and is subjected to banging noises which stresses him and then is put back on the cage is greeted by his mate who grooms and licks him to calm him down, elephants are known to help injured or ill members of the herd, Chimpanzees show a sense of justice and those who deviate from the code of conduct set by the group is set upon by other members as punishment, vampire bats who successfully foraged for blood will share with those who were not successful.

For humans, and most probably for other higher species as well, I believe that two other factors (related) operate. The first is the desire to experience pleasure and the second is the desire to avoid discomfort. Indirectly, both these will enhance chances of survival. For example, the desire to avoid discomfort will lead to a safer life and thus a longer life through attention to matters of safety. The desire for pleasure will also, in general, promote a safer life although it could admittedly have the opposite effect at times. Pleasure often involves socially “survival” promoting behaviour such as helping others, sharing with others and caring for others. Like everything that occurs in Nature, deleterious effects can also occur with the pursuit of pleasure. There are no ordained laws which govern human beings and just as some mutations produce less well-equipped species, the pursuit of pleasure and avoidance of discomfort can act in more than one way but it is my contention that the nett result of this is towards a better-equipped species for survival.