Tag Archives: evolution

Let’s Undo the Time Warp Again

Still from The Rocky Horror Picture Show

It’s hard to believe what’s going on in America.  It’s like the second half of the 20th century never happened.  Did I miss the episode where the plot got shifted to an alternate timeline? I hate it when they fuck with the timeline.

Seriously. I thought that legalized meant settled, as in no longer open for debate.  I thought I could count on an America where abortion would always be safe and women would remain in charge of their own bodies.  I thought that access to and use of birth control would never again be seen as anything other than sensible, especially in light of the now-legal alternative.

I thought that history equaled lessons learned, as in we’ll never make that mistake again.  I thought that after the Great Depression, I could grow old feeling safe in the knowledge that I won’t have to sell apples in the street if I live past seventy – or blood if I lose my job.  I thought that after the Civil Rights  and anti-war movements of the sixties and seventies, after the Children’s March and Kent State, police officers would never again attack peaceful American citizens exercising their legal right to assemble.

I thought that science and rationality had won the battle with magical thinking, as in we don’t believe in ridiculous crap anymore.  I thought that since antibiotics were an accepted thing, so was evolution, since they’re based on exactly the same principles.  I thought that since the melting of polar and alpine ice and the flooding of low-lying lands is patently obvious to anyone looking, let alone living there, people would accept the fact that the climate is changing.  I thought it was pretty clear that there isn’t a giant white man living in the sky somewhere, making all of this happen.

Clearly I was wrong. I encounter ignorance and arrogance on a daily basis, in the news and among my students. Ignorance of history and arrogance of belief.  I’d like to believe that the sequence of history shows a straight line moving from brutality and stupidity toward kindness and enlightenment, but I can’t.

It’s just a jump to the left. . . and then a step to the right.

God made me fittest

It’s not easy teaching evolution to evangelicals.  The internal inconsistencies are mind-boggling.   They enter the classroom secure in the knowledge that God created them, yet they believe in “survival of the fittest.”

I tell them: Darwin’s theory was about biology, specifically reproduction.  Simply put, some individuals have genetic traits that give them advantages in a particular environment, while others have disadvantages.  This is a matter of luck, not superiority.  When sea turtles hatch, all at once by the thousands, the birds are standing there, waiting.  Those who hatch first become dinner, while those who hatch later stand a better chance of making their way past the sated birds to the sea.  This is about luck, not ingenuity.  Individuals who happen to possess the right combination of traits for their moment in time and their place in space will be more successful at passing on those traits; those who don’t, won’t.  Over time, as the traits that work best are passed on and the ones that don’t fit are filtered out, the species adapts to fit its environment.  If the environment changes, the rules change, and different traits are encouraged — and so much for your “fitness.”

They have no problem with any of this.  It doesn’t threaten their belief system in the slightest.

I tell them: “Survival of the fittest” is an incorrect interpretation of Darwin’s theory.  First, it’s not about survival; it’s about reproduction.  You can live forever but if you fail to reproduce, evolution doesn’t give a damn about you.  Second, fitness is relative to the environment, changeable, and largely a matter of luck.  It’s not about how smart or strong you are; it’s about whether or not you have an opportunity to pass on your genes.  Think about the sea turtles.  Third, Darwin may have used the phrase, “survival of the fittest,” but he didn’t coin it; we have the philosopher Herbert Spencer to thank for that.  Spencer never intended it as an alternate explanation for the biological facts of Darwin’s theory.  He meant, from the very beginning, to apply the phrase to his theory of society — which was a bit of predictably racist, imperialist, 19th-century nonsense.  It held that the English were “civilized,” while the Africans were “savages.”  “Survival of the fittest” has been handy ever since as a perfect justification for capitalism and colonialism.  It normalizes white privilege and economic hegemony while relieving us all of the burden of assisting those less fortunate than ourselves.  Let nature take its course.  Only the strong survive. Might makes right.  Every man for himself.

This, they hate.  “I like survival of the fittest,” they protest.  “It’s right.  You shouldn’t change it.”  They never see the irony.