Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id TAA27364 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Sun, 23 Apr 2000 19:34:13 +0100 Subject: Fwd: [book review- Darwin's Ghost] Date: Sun, 23 Apr 2000 14:32:27 -0400 x-sender: wsmith1@camail2.harvard.edu x-mailer: Claris Emailer 2.0v3, Claritas Est Veritas From: "Wade T.Smith" <wade_smith@harvard.edu> To: "Memetics Discussion List" <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-transfer-encoding: quoted-printable Message-ID: <20000423183225.AAA15825@camailp.harvard.edu@[204.96.32.170]> Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Darwin's machine: dumb but it works
By John Yemma, Globe Staff, 4/23/2000
It was both tragedy and triumph that when ''On the Origin of Species''
was published in 1859, Charles Darwin's name became a synonym for
evolution. Though Darwin studiously avoided mentioning humans in his
book, religious leaders immediately saw ''Darwinism'' as a dangerous
anti-religion, a godless belief system that removed the Creator from
creation and made his greatest idea, man, the grandchild of mere apes.
Over time, Darwin's ideas have endured and in most thoughtful circles
prevailed. The Roman Catholic Church and most other mainstream religions
have come to an accommodation with them, though a vocal minority still
rejects evolution and propounds biblically-derived creationist theories.
The triumph of Darwin was the brilliant way the former ministry student
distilled and explained the mechanism of life. His thesis of descent with
modification via natural selection clicked with people who took the time
to consider it. So obvious was it to zoologist Thomas Henry Huxley that
he exclaimed, ''How extremely stupid not to have thought of that.''
But Darwin did not just cause readers to smack their heads and utter
'duh'. He fundamentally changed the way all of us - including every
rejectionist, whether he admits it or not - see the world. In ''Darwin's
Ghost,'' a fascinating and witty book that tours the same intellectual
territory as Darwin, Steve Jones, a British geneticist, shows how
extensively Darwin's theory explains the natural world.
Stephen Jay Gould, Richard Dawkins, and a host of other scientists have
worked this theme already. Without meaning to disparage them, Jones is by
far the superior communicator - humane, approachable, funny. That's
important because at heart science is still carrying on an argument with
both the remaining skeptics of evolution as well as with those who
persist in misapplying Darwin's theory in realms such as sociology.
Natural selection, Jones neatly observes, is a dumb but relentless
machine that works with the materials at hand. Most of its products do
not last. ''Who could ever have designed a tree kangaroo?'' But ''clumsy
as the animal may seem, it is infinitely better adapted to the most
complex conditions of life, and plainly bears the stamp of far higher
workmanship, than anything achieved by man.'' Which is why engineers in
recent years have been studying natural forms to tease out design ideas.
The more sophisticated school of creationism, of course, would see in the
word ''workmanship'' a hint of ''intelligent design'' and thus of a deus
in machina of natural selection. Empty logic, says Jones. Natural
selection is the ''plodding accumulation of error.'' Given enough time to
work through enough mistakes, anything - velociraptor, tree kangaroo,
homo sapien - will turn up. So why get caught up in a material-world
argument, asks Jones. ''The birth of Adam, whether real or metaphorical,
marked the insertion into an animal body of a post-biological soul that
leaves no fossils and needs no genes.'' The flesh, he wisely notes, is
not a good place to hunt for the things of spirit.
A big part of Jones's book is devoted to human, as opposed to natural,
selection - the breeding programs and hybridization campaigns that humans
have conducted with cattle, dogs, wheat, and 1,000 thousand more species
for the past 13,000 years. Domesticated life forms, he says, are ''silent
witnesses to the malleability of nature.'' That very malleability,
combined with human technological prowess, is why we have arrived at a
portentious moment. Though he doesn't spend much time on the subject, it
is clear that Jones believes human cloning and increasingly bizarre forms
of hybridization are, if not now underway somewhere, certainly imminent
and probably dangerous.
Jones does not wave the chicken-little banner of ''Frankenfood'' in this
book, but here is a geneticist clearly alarmed at the dangers of genetic
manipulation. Already, he points out, beneficial genes inserted into
oilseed rape to promote herbicide resistance have seeped into wild
mustards and radishes.
The book is written with great authority and a fluid style, and it is
refreshing not to have footnotes littering the text. But Jones fails to
include substantial back-of-the-book chapter notes to anchor disembodied
quotes and expand upon interesting facts. It is true that light or
nonexistent footnotes are more the British than the American style, but
combined with breezy writing the effect on a reader is an unnecessary
wobbliness about facts.
Then there's the conceit of this book - the ''Darwin's ghost'' theme. It
is a little misleading. Happily, Jones does not walk in Darwin's
footsteps or retrace the voyage of the Beagle. That would get old fast.
He properly honors Darwin throughout the book, but his republication of
Darwin's chapter summaries and recapitulation seem contrived. ''Origin''
is readily available (even on the Net). Unannotated chunks of it do
little good in this book.
Where Jones is especially good is in a quick putdown of some of the
wilder claims of sociobiology. ''Evolution is a political sofa that molds
itself into the buttocks of the last to sit upon it,'' he notes. Marxists
and ultra-capitalists have both seized on it at times. So, too, have
agenda-driven scientists and journalists. In a whack at the
all-in-our-genes school, he says, ''Sexual fidelity or promiscuity seems,
according to taste, the natural thing to do; families are often a joy,
and patriotism arouses some, but we do not need natural selection to tell
us why.''
If Darwin had a ghost - a free-floating post-biological soul - it would
have to applaud that defense of his theory against the latest crop of
misusers.
John Yemma is a member of the Globe Staff.
This story ran on page D3 of the Boston Globe on 4/23/2000. © Copyright
2000 Globe Newspaper Company.
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