Thoughts on Darwin's Dangerous Idea and other books by Daniel Dennett, part 1

I recently skimmed through Daniel Dennett’s book Darwin’s Dangerous Idea. It is a huge book and I would have had to devote a significant chunk of my life to read and understand it. But I did get a few ideas from it that I will pass on to you now.

One of the really significant things about evolutionary science—indeed, about any science—is that it does not matter who makes the discoveries. Dennett said that Darwin was the midwife of an idea. Without Darwin, somebody else would have discovered evolution (actually, somebody else did right about the same time: Alfred Russel Wallace.) Without Newton, somebody else would have discovered the laws of motion, optics, etc. Without Einstein, somebody else would have discovered relativity. This is the reason that we scientists are so forthright in proclaiming our messages as truth: If we are wrong, our error will be revealed. History is full of scientific blunders, but scientists don’t care. We sort of expect them.

In contrast, artistic creations would never have happened without their creators. There would have been no Gran Partita without Mozart. The same is true of religion: There would have been no Islam without Mohammed, for example. The credibility of a piece of art or of religion depends on its creator. That is why if somebody finds an error in evolution, we’ll just fix it, but if someone claims to find an error in the Bible or the Koran, watch out!

Also, Dennett wrote extensively of the evolution of memes. Memes are concepts that can replicate, for example ideas in the minds of people. They spread by a process very similar to natural selection in organisms. There are some differences, however. The evolution of memes does not depend on random mutation, as does the evolution of genes. Humans invent new memes. However, both genetic and memetic evolution involve transmission of information with modification.

Another interesting similarity between genes and memes: Memes disable anything that hinders their spread. The ultimate example is conspiracy theory memes, which claim, well, you wouldn’t expect to find any evidence for the conspiracy, because that’s what makes it an effective conspiracy. In this way, the conspiracy-theory meme disables any conceivable evidence against it. A current example is that Donald Trump claims massive voter fraud; there is no evidence for it, but that just shows what a massive fraud it was.

In addition, there is frequency-dependent selection on memes. In a population of genes, a rare gene might be favored by selection. The same thing happens with memes: the faith meme stands out in a society without faith, but in an environment of faith, it blends in.

And there’s more. A meme or idea can evolve as it does because it is advantageous to itself. An example is the meme that smoking cigarettes is cool. How could such a meme become popular? Who benefits? The tobacco corporations, of course. If an idea spreads, Dennett says, instead of an epidemic it can become an epimemic. Sometimes things can go far enough that people lose their biological fitness for a belief. In such a case, the memes are reproducing.

One of Dennett’s main objectives was to show that memes can evolve just like genes. He said we (humans) are the planet’s nervous system, and science is the new sense organs of the planet.

The foregoing makes it very clear that science is not just another way of thinking, equally admissible among all other ways of thinking.

I will leave you with a jolting thought from Dennett. “In the next century it will be our memes, both toxic and tonic, that will wreak havoc on the unprepared world.”

Scientific (and Other) Insights from a Novelist

E. L. Doctorow, who died in 2015, was one of the most significant American novelists. Several of his books were made into movies. City of God was not one of them. It did not really have a plot that one could follow. It was the convergence of numerous story lines, several of them within the minds of characters whom I never quite identified. But City of God was an astounding book. As a scientist, I was amazed at how beautiful and poetic (without sacrificing accuracy) Doctorow was when he wrote about everything from cosmology to ants. And, of course, about evolution. This is an intellectually challenging book. I recommend it to my fellow scientists. The book is thick with theology, which it neither embraces nor hates.

I just want to mention some examples. Unlike most people in the arts, Doctorow understood how evolution works. This includes cultural evolution, a process that is very similar to biological evolution except that it uses memes (ideas) rather than genes. Memes live in human minds, and spread from one human mind to another; their fitness consists not only of how many minds they live in, but how effective they are at getting those minds to spread them to other minds. Memes can have a life of their own. Doctorow’s example was movies. Movies propagate themselves; they are a malign life form. He speculated that maybe movies came to Earth about a hundred years ago, forced us to create them. He called them a tapeworm in the planetary guts. I know it sounds strange to us; we believe that we make movies and decide to watch them. But what if they are manipulating us? This is the discombobulating aspect of cultural evolution; ideas and cultural creations can parasitize us. A current example, which Doctorow did not live to see, is how extremely violent ideas can propagate from one conservative mind to another, turning otherwise nice people into people who are a hair-trigger away from killing you.

He also wrote that “…whatever condition God provides, some sort of creature will invent itself to live in it.” (Invent itself is a figure of speech.) This is a fundamental understanding of where biodiversity came from and why. Evolution is not a stepladder toward greater complexity, as both its detractors and supporters often depict it; it is the generation of opportunists that fill previously empty resources spaces, whether deep oceans or minds.

 

I previously wrote about how white people, in general, carry a burden of guilt for oppressing darker races, and we whites (or almost-whites) need to take extra steps to prove that we, individually, have broken from our sordid heritage. Some cultural groups have more of a burden than others. Doctorow wrote a lot about the Nazi attempts to exterminate Jews, using a little-known example from Lithuania. Doctorow wrote that the Germans “bent the Jews to the shape of their hatred.” They committed any and all atrocities that they could imagine. They even boarded up Jewish hospitals and set them on fire, with patients and staff in side. It was an offense punishable by death for the people of the countries they conquered to keep a record of their brutalities, much less resist them. A major plot within City of God is the search for a box with a diary in it of what the Nazis did in Lithuania.

 

I think the German people had, and continue to have, a heavy burden to prove to the world that they are no longer Nazis, and that they are as far away from being Nazis as anyone could be. They have repented, and they need to keep showing the world over and over that they have repented. Everyone has to be nice; the Germans have to be extremely nice. And they are doing this. Germany is, today, one of the least racist countries, and one of the most positive forces for good in the world. They are doing penance for their Nazi past. If you want to find Nazis, you are more likely to find them in America, or France, or Austria. Now, if only the modern descendants and defenders of the Confederacy would do penance! It would make the United States a much better place not just for the former slaves, but for white people as well. Germany outgrew its Nazis; can conservative America outgrow its celebration of slavery?

 

My Fun Evolution Trip Part 2: Carhenge, the Other Interesting Thing in Nebraska

I continue my series of posts about a very interesting trip I took this summer. Part of the trip took me through Nebraska. I will simply note that there is, in fact, a Nebraska National Forest, in the western part of the state, with scattered ponderosa pines (not, as you might suspect, giant cornstalks).

Carhenge is exactly what its name suggests: a smaller (but not miniature) model of Stonehenge built out of big old hoopdie cars. A farmer with more money than he knew what to do with (something unlikely to happen today) decided this would be a sufficiently outlandish artistic expression. Why would anyone do this? And why am I writing about it in a science blog?

In addition to the menhirs and dolmens of cars, there are models of fishes, insects, and even dinosaurs made out of car parts.

One car has even been made to look like a covered wagon.

I use Carhenge—which you just have to see, otherwise you will not believe it—as an example of memetic variation. Just as biological natural selection is based on genetic variation, so cultural evolution is based on memetic variation. And there is no telling where these new memes can come from. The idea for Carhenge did not come out of nowhere—in Neolithic times there were many astrological henges, mainly in Europe, and Carhenge is not the only modern imitation. Carhenge, once it was created, became part of the pool of memetic variation.

But it never really caught on. Apparently nobody saw it and said, “I’d like to build me one of these.” There are lots of imitation Stonehenges in America, including one in Missouri built out of old refrigerators, but no other carhenges. So, in this sense, Carhenge was a failure of cultural evolution. And in another sense: I would have expected local people to form neo-pagan skyclad groups that would celebrate the summer solstice there. Carhenge has had one or two solstice celebrations, but not enough to take on a life of its own, certainly not with skyclad pagans (this is, after all, Nebraska). There is graffiti everywhere, mostly people’s names, and some of it Christian.

There is a time capsule there. When the time capsule is exhumed, more people might remember Carhenge than would remember you, or me.