Unfolding - Dec 6 2020

 

Unfolding

Dec 6 2020

We evolved from apes,

who themselves descended

from some single celled creature

over billions of years.

Evolution,

derived from the words for “unfolding”

as it ever so slowly unspools.

I think of a book being opened,

but there is no direction, or progress

to this perilous unfolding

and the printed page is blank.

There is is simply the best fit

and what nature has conferred,

given the time in which it occurs

and whatever circumstance prevails.

Or a paper fan unfurled,

its folds expanding

into the vast unknown world

of diversity and wonder

we are privileged to discover

for ourselves.

Or a mystery, revealed bit-by-bit,

with all its misdirections

and unexpected twists,

what surprise ending

fate has in store.

Will we persist?

Or return to the trees

download into robots

become extinct?

I said descend, not progress.

Because the tree of life

does not ascend

to greater and greater perfection.

Instead, it branches beneath us

the apple falls,

the growing point shifts

the slender trunk topples.

We do not rule by divine right

aren't the apple of God's eye,

and a single bite

gets us expelled.

Because there is no such thing

as manifest destiny.

There is only living your life

as best you can,

given the time in which it occurs

and whatever circumstance prevails.

Two things about evolution are widely misunderstood.

First, that evolution represents progress: as if there were some intelligence at work, some plan; and as if our particular endowments as Homo sapiens – language, abstract thought, social intelligence – were somehow privileged and inevitable. No, evolution is random – depending on contingency, chance, opportunity -- and really has no point except for the life principle: that is, once set in motion, the dogged drive of biological survival for its own sake. And simpler more “primitive creatures” – those that have endured unchanged for the longest time – could just as reasonably be called evolution's most successful result: so perfectly fitted to their environment (and lucky enough that that environment remained stable over time) to have endured. Because isn't a shark, for example, among the most successful of creatures, despite its basic form predating the dinosaurs: so brilliantly honed by random mutation and natural selection into the ultimate aquatic killing machine?

(I will say , though, that evolution has an appearance of order, even though there is no intelligence behind it. Because various distinct paths of evolution seem to find the same solutions. This is known as convergence, and an example would be birds acquiring wings while some mammals independently evolved the same capacity for flight using the same body part modified in similar ways: different species arriving at the same solution via completely separate paths. In this sense, the evolution of an intelligence like ours coupled with 2-handed dexterity might be inevitable, given sufficient time. Because there is always a niche that this particular talent can exploit, and if it hadn't been a small arboreal mammal that found such a path (as well as no large asteroid!), then it would have been some clever dinosaur instead. This convergence can also be seen in an isolated continent like Australia, where the native animals have evolved to fill the identical roles and interdependencies that very different and unrelated creatures fill elsewhere in the world.)

The second common misunderstanding is that “fitness” implies “red in tooth and claw”. Because Darwin recognized that cooperation – social adhesion, symbiosis and mutualism, the strength of numbers – was as critical to survival as competition and battle.

Or perhaps three, since “the theory of ...” makes the idea of evolution seem provisional, instead of established fact. And also betrays a faulty view of science, which is never truly final and always subject to questioning, revision, and refinement. So that everything in science – no matter how reproducible and unchanging – in some sense always remains a “theory”, open to any better explanation and synthesis that comes along. Religion may rely on dogma and faith, but the progress of science depends on constant questioning and skepticism. To say “theory” is simply to acknowledge having an open mind, and shouldn't detract from the authority of such a brilliant synthesis of natural history and observed fact.

I responded strongly when I encountered this fine point of etymological pedantry. I immediately saw all these unfoldings: of a book, with all the excitement of revelation as you turn the page; and also of a blank page, with nothing yet written ...of a fan, so much greater in size than one would have imagined ...and of a mystery, that could turn in any direction, rather than fixed on some predetermined course.