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On the Coming Marriage of Darwinism & Symbiogenesis “In symbiosis the mechanism of change is radically different from [the] Darwinian model. When two or more life forms interact, they bring together genomes and metabolic abilities that have already been honed by evolution. This interaction can involve a major evolutionary jump or saltation. Moreover, for Darwinism, the mechanism of change (mutation) is essentially random and hence noncreative, while for the symbiologist, the mechanism of change is not random but a creative force in itself.” — Frank Ryan In 2002, the UK-based physician-scientist Frank Ryan published a very important book titled Darwin ’s Blind Spot—Evolution Beyond Natural Selection. The title understates the mission of the book, which is nothing less than to introduce a basis for a new synthesis in evolutionary science—that of Darwinism and symbiotic theory. “Since the 1970s,” Ryan writers, “science has adopted the selfish-gene view of evolution, extrapolating it to biology and ecology in general and to human society in particular. “But more recently the Cambridge-based ecologist Lynn Dicks … wrote, ‘If you accept that evolution is all about selfish genes, the group has no role to play. Survival of the fittest means survival of the fittest DNA. There is no such thing as society. You and I are mere vehicles in which our genes are hitching a lift on the road to posterity…’ With these words, Dicks challenged the aggressive-competitive preoccupations of the twentieth century with the ‘more caring and sharing’ perspective of the opening years of the twenty-first century.” (Ryan, 242) Richard Dawkins, author of the selfish-gene hypothesis, also authored the hypothesis that “memes” (inculcated beliefs) can and do modify, or even over-ride, genetic commands. Unfortunately, the title of Dawkins’ influential book is The Selfish Gene rather than The Selfish Gene & The Not-So-Selfish Meme; and so the first hypothesis completely upstaged the second. As a result, the aggressive-competitive preoccupations of Darwinism continued, in the Dawkins era, to darken the views of latter-day biologists and social theorists. It is unlikely that most Darwinists of the present generation will shift from the meme that biology and evolution are all about incessant struggle to the belief that the evolutionary process is informed by a spirit of caring and sharing. However, it is more than likely that a major shift will be made in the next few years, from neo-Darwinism, which is more and more recognized as a blind alley, to the sort of synthesis suggested by Ryan. |
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