Off-topic post: Richard Dawkins and Jaron Lanier on Evolution
Okay, I’m going to ask our readership for a slight indulgence.
I know there are probably a few of you who are ready to permablock our site at the mere mention of Mr. Richard Dawkins. If you’re one of those people, then please just ignore this post and pretend you never saw it.
But for those of you who, like me, are both fascinated and inspired by the man’s work - this is worth checking out. RichardDawkins.net recently re-posted a fascinating conversation between Mr. Dawkins and one Jaron Lanier, the so-called ‘father’ of virtual reality (the 90’s Mondo 2000 crowd will know exactly who I’m talking about…). The talk was focused on the process and function of evolution, and where humanity fits into the equation. If you’re into science, or indeed any kind of deep thinking, it’s a fun read.
JL: So it’s hard to figure out the basis of our morality. Either we find ways in which we’re different from nature, or we have to be willing to judge part of nature as evil. I believe that as a civilization we’ve helped thwart evolution, and that’s good. Every time we help the needy, or make it possible for a handicapped person to live and pass on their genes, we’ve succeeded in defying the process that created us.
RD: I believe natural selection represents a truly hideous sum total of misery. When you look at something like a bounding lion, a sprinting cheetah, and the antelopes they are bounding and sprinting after, you’re seeing the end product of a long, vicious arms race. All along the route of that arms race lie the corpses of the antelopes that didn’t make it, and the lions and cheetahs that starved to death. So it is a process of vicious misery that has given rise to the immense beauty, elegance, and diversity that we see in the world today. Nature is beautiful. Even a cheetah as a killing machine is beautiful. But the process that gave rise to it is, indeed, nature red in tooth and claw.
However, you go further when you call evolution evil. I would simply say nature is pitilessly indifferent to human concerns and should be ignored when we try to work out our moral and ethical systems. We should instead say, We’re on our own. We are unique in the animal kingdom in having brains big enough not to follow the dictates of the selfish genes. And we are in the unique position of being able to use our brains to work out together the kind of society in which we want to live. But the one thing we must definitely not do is what Julian Huxley did, which is try to see evolution as some kind of an object lesson.
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