Doesn't it seem that evolution gets a bad rap? I mean, we always talk about how nature is "red in tooth and claw" and how natural selection is the "survival of the fittest." Geesh, that's a tough job to fill. Evolution: has to be a major dousche, a tough guy, a dick, and the strongest force currently working in the universe. Good luck.But if evolution is such a giant bitch, why is it that life as we know it, human life, at least, has begun to become kinder and gentler? Why has altruism taken hold and spread, despite the "red" analogy?
The basic view of evolution is that it's this general trend in the universe towards greater complexity (though we rarely hear of it that way in school); however, to achieve this goal, evolution has to kill tons and tons of everything. Natural selection means if you're not "fit" by evolution's standards, you're a goner. Can't swim in water with a low pH? Tough. Develop some sort of cancer? You're dead. Can't deal with the climate change? Hasta la vista.
Yeah, that makes evolution look like a some sort of all-encompassing monster. But I suggest that evolution, as of late, has evolved into more of a kitten. Think of it this way: if evolution is the general trend of a growth the greater complexity, then doesn't it make more sense that evolution "wants" (though I realize anthropomorphizing a non-human, or even inanimate, concept leaves some major logical holes) the person with the cancer to be cured? If not, would evolution have developed the chemotheraphy and the radiation treatments that lead to health? If that person lives, it's not because their living is "against" the general trend of evolution, but rather because they are very much IN TUNE with evolutions evolving direction. Some would claim that they shouldn't live because they're not "fit" by nature's definition. But what definition of nature? The "wild" one when humans didn't have medicine? Why stop there? You could go back to the definition of cells in non-symbiotic relationships, or to when atoms didn't form into cells yet. Heck, go back to before the Unification Point to when all the forces of the universe were as one.
The point is, you can't judge someone's evolutionary fitness by a backwards glance. Evolution, just like everything else in the universe, EVOLVES. Don't judge human society by "nature's" standards. Would you judge nature by the standards of atoms (well, some would, but who's going to listen to the atomists)? The cancer survivor is very much in tune with evolution's principles, when viewed from the most modern level of evolution.
I realize that evolution isn't all that fluffy at levels lower than human. It seems as if the further back you go, the more violent evolution seems to get. Go back far enough, and you've got matter exploding into trillions of pieces to form the very solar system we live in now. Go back only a few million years, and you have the "red in tooth and claw" world of prey versus predator EVERYWHERE. When taken in this context, it's amazing how far evolution has come in such a short (on a cosmic scale) time. And even at those levels evolutions still worked to create greater complexity so that we could GET to where we are today. Evolution is very much continuous, you can't just skip from atoms to fully sentient humans. All the "dirty" stuff inbetween is just as necessary as the final result.
So, uh, yeah, I think it's time to give evolution some new PR. No wonder the pre-modern socities of the world rail against it. It's scary as shit the way we're talking about it. But when evolution can be seen as the ultimate agent of Love, about ten billion times better at delivering giant bolts of compassion throughout the cosmos than any anthropomorphic Father Figure, maybe then they'll get it. If not, then maybe all the scientists and rationalists of the world can stop being such giant dicks about helping others because that's not in tune with "evolution." Compassion is where it's at. Evolution says so. :)
Evolution isn't red in tooth and claw. Evolution is LOVE.
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