One of my recent reads was Darwin’s Blind Spot, by Frank Ryan. Having studied biological sciences in college, graduate school, and medical school, it surprises me that a significant battle among evolutionary biologists completely escaped me until now. Although Ryan’s book held little factual information that was new to me, I learned that behind the scenes almost since the time of Darwin a philosophical struggle has roiled through evolutionary sciences. In brief, it pits those who emphasize individuality and competition against those more inclined to highlight interdependence and cooperation among organisms.
Why do I mention this conflict in a blog devoted to ‘Peace, Balance, and Clarity‘? Because the disagreement is emblematic of a much larger tension in modern society. On the one hand, we have those who value rugged individualism, unfettered markets, and aggressive exploitation of resources. On the other are those who build their lives around ego-denial, cooperative exchange, and conservation. It would be difficult for me to write this without making my own preferences obvious, so I’ll state openly that it seems excruciatingly clear to me that the era of raw competition in human culture must come to a close, to be replaced by an ethos of inter-reliance. Only then will we find anything like true peace in the world.
But it is also clear that many would disagree. Especially here in the United States, where freedom is defined in marketplace terms, the idea that humans could actually cooperate and trust one another beyond the ethic of tit-for-tat gets treated as naive and laughable. Whereas many countries have perfectly respectable socialist parties, in the USA socialism is a dirty word.
The naked hostility that market-indoctrinated scientists have expressed toward those biologists who dare to point out the massive interdependence and cooperation that underly evolution comes as no surprise in this culture. The question is, can this bias be changed?
Fortunately, Ryan’s book does not stand alone. Many other texts have been written with an eye toward enlightening people about the power and universality of symbiosis (a technical term which is variably defined, but loosely refers to unrelated species depending on one another for survival). I find it encouraging that the scientific mainstream is awakening to the limitations inherent in Darwin’s vision of evolution, wherein adaptation is postulated as solely due to unmitigated competition between organisms. It is a sign of positive change.
But doesn’t science stick to simple facts? Isn’t it a cool, rational enterprise that prizes open-mindedness? Not much more than any other human activity, it turns out. The great geniuses come in two broad categories. Some, like Einstein and Darwin, solve a discipline’s difficult problems after they’ve been building for some time. These are the fortunate ones, who achieve acclaim quickly. Others have a more difficult road, in that they solve problems that other scientists don’t even want to see. They take much longer to be recognized, and seldom achieve the Godlike status of the ones who rescue a field from acknowledged confusion.
And why wouldn’t scientists want to see certain facts? Often because they fly in the face of broader cultural values. In the case of cooperation as a prime mover in biology, it has long faced opposition because it directly contradicts capitalism’s claims of reflecting the order of nature. An evolutionary theory based on competition (survival of the fittest) works nicely to bolster the insistence by dominant marketeers that unchecked opportunism is the best foundation for society. Scientists depend on the ruling powers for funding and positions, and are therefore inclined to view reality in ways that support the competition ethic.
In contrast, a biological theory that demonstrates widespread cooperation in nature and demotes the value of strife as an agent of evolution undermines those who insist unregulated competition will somehow solve the world’s problems.
It probably looks like I’m getting off-track here. I implied this post would touch on spiritual issues, but I’m writing about political ones. It turns out that in this case the two are related. The universal teaching of spiritual systems is that we are interdependent and should treat each other accordingly. Until recently, cynics could point to the accepted theory of evolution as indicative of a natural order devoid of such ethos. Now that the tide is turning, it is becoming increasingly clear that the higher truths sages have espoused for ages are reflected in a deep and profound way in the structure of life itself.
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