The Emergence of Life
155
over great stretches of evolutionary time as brains became more complex. It
is likely that cognition in early animals consisted chiefly of Gestalt image-like
patterns, for those are products of biology. Thus, it is likely that historically,
animal perception and cognition consisted initially of Gestalts, and analytic
forms of cognition came much later.
It is a common misconception that only higher animals, such as mammals,
have advanced skills such as the ability to plan actions on the basis of fine
discriminations and understanding. This is wrong, because the real difference
is between modern animals and those that existed, say, 700 million years ago.
Advanced mental skills exist today in almost all creatures, because they have had
the time to evolve. Researchers in animal cognition are constantly surprising
us with revelations of the unexpected cognitive skills of small-brained creatures
such as birds, even insects, and most recently, bacteria.
In view of this, a major question in the science of evolution is whether
animal species are becoming progressively more complex over time. It is the
common belief of most people who are acquainted with Darwin’s theory that
evolution is progressive, and that over long spans of time species are becoming
progressively more “advanced”. The evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould
forcefully rejected that popular belief, and laid out what is now the orthodox
view.
The “official” position in biology today is that natural selection has no intrinsic direction, and that over time some organisms increase in complexity while
others decrease. The reasoning is that according to Darwin’s theory, species
change in response to conditions in their local environment. The purpose of
whatever change they undergo is to increase their fitness in the environment,
and this should have no bearing on their complexity.
However, there are well known and recognized processes in nature that lead
to greater complexity in some species. The most outstanding is the predatorprey relationship, which gives rise to what are called arms races. For example,
the predator gains increased fitness by acquiring sharper teeth. Then the prey
evolve a harder shell. The predator evolves keener vision, and the prey, in
response, adopts camouflage as a new strategy.
Ultimately, none of these arguments provide an answer to the question of
whether evolution is inherently progressive. The reason is that nobody today
knows what life is, why it emerged, how it emerged, and whether it was a
chemical accident or an integral phase of cosmic evolution. Again, the current
orthodoxy is that in the early days of our planet, certain large molecules fortuitously underwent transformations that gave rise to self-reproducing entities.
In this scenario, life is accidental and contingent: It could very well not have
emerged at all.
155
over great stretches of evolutionary time as brains became more complex. It
is likely that cognition in early animals consisted chiefly of Gestalt image-like
patterns, for those are products of biology. Thus, it is likely that historically,
animal perception and cognition consisted initially of Gestalts, and analytic
forms of cognition came much later.
It is a common misconception that only higher animals, such as mammals,
have advanced skills such as the ability to plan actions on the basis of fine
discriminations and understanding. This is wrong, because the real difference
is between modern animals and those that existed, say, 700 million years ago.
Advanced mental skills exist today in almost all creatures, because they have had
the time to evolve. Researchers in animal cognition are constantly surprising
us with revelations of the unexpected cognitive skills of small-brained creatures
such as birds, even insects, and most recently, bacteria.
In view of this, a major question in the science of evolution is whether
animal species are becoming progressively more complex over time. It is the
common belief of most people who are acquainted with Darwin’s theory that
evolution is progressive, and that over long spans of time species are becoming
progressively more “advanced”. The evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould
forcefully rejected that popular belief, and laid out what is now the orthodox
view.
The “official” position in biology today is that natural selection has no intrinsic direction, and that over time some organisms increase in complexity while
others decrease. The reasoning is that according to Darwin’s theory, species
change in response to conditions in their local environment. The purpose of
whatever change they undergo is to increase their fitness in the environment,
and this should have no bearing on their complexity.
However, there are well known and recognized processes in nature that lead
to greater complexity in some species. The most outstanding is the predatorprey relationship, which gives rise to what are called arms races. For example,
the predator gains increased fitness by acquiring sharper teeth. Then the prey
evolve a harder shell. The predator evolves keener vision, and the prey, in
response, adopts camouflage as a new strategy.
Ultimately, none of these arguments provide an answer to the question of
whether evolution is inherently progressive. The reason is that nobody today
knows what life is, why it emerged, how it emerged, and whether it was a
chemical accident or an integral phase of cosmic evolution. Again, the current
orthodoxy is that in the early days of our planet, certain large molecules fortuitously underwent transformations that gave rise to self-reproducing entities.
In this scenario, life is accidental and contingent: It could very well not have
emerged at all.