The debate over whether evolution means progress is sharply divided between Team Dawkins and Team Gould. Dawkins’ team argues that evolution increases the complexity and adaptability of organisms and favors their environment, while Gould’s team counters that complexity does not mean progress and that evolution has no direction. While it is argued that the process of evolution involves passing irreversible watersheds and increasingly sophisticated organizational structures, current knowledge does not allow us to fully determine whether evolution is progress or simple change.
The theory of evolution, which grew out of Darwin’s Origin of Species, has led to the establishment of various theories of evolution in the modern era. While many of these theories are complementary to each other, there are also competing theories that explain parts of evolution from different perspectives. In his book Darwin’s Table, South Korean professor Dae-Ik Jang divides the competing theories into two teams, Team Dawkins and Team Gould, and gives them a week to debate and refute each other’s positions on a given topic. The debates ranged from whether rape is an adaptation, to the reasons for altruistic behavior, to the pace of evolution. I’d like to focus on the topic of “Is Evolution Progress?”.
Life on Earth has evolved over billions of years, from primitive cells in the beginning of time to humans today, but can we say that the higher up the evolutionary ladder, the more advanced, or in other words, the more sophisticated? Dawkins’s team, which argues for progress, answers “yes,” while Gould’s team, which argues for anti-progress, concludes emphatically that “no.”
I think the pro-evolution team is right on this question “for now. Before I give my opinion, let’s take a look at Darwin, the founder of the theory of evolution, and the views of the two teams. Darwin expressed skepticism about progress in one of his notes, saying, “Do not use the expressions higher or lower,” but in his book On the Origin of Species, he wrote the exact opposite, stating that all living things evolve toward perfection. So even Darwin, who laid the groundwork for the theory of evolution, had difficulty determining the relationship between evolution and progress.
Back to the point, Dawkins’ team argues that all life progresses, and it’s natural for species to increase in complexity as they evolve. They equate evolution with progress, citing the fact that the human body is much more complex than a bacterium. Gould’s team counters that complexity is not the only measure of progress. They use the analogy of a drunkard making his way down the street. As he stumbles along, if there is a wall on his left, he will eventually move to the right, which they explain is because evolution can happen in any direction, but it can’t evolve into something simpler than a bacterium, so it just looks more and more complex. Gould’s team presents passive trends as a supporting logic. Passive trends indicate that each species tends to develop new speciation on its own, independent of the passage of time, and since this has actually been observed, the Gould team’s argument is convincing.
In short, Gould’s team believes that the concept of progress is very closely tied to the direction of evolution and argues that passive trends do not show a specific trend in evolution, so the term “progress” is not correct. In response to this logic, Dawkins’s team points out that it is an anthropocentric bias to view progress only in terms of complexity, and argues that progress can be explained by viewing it from an adaptationist perspective, meaning that evolution is adaptation in a direction that favors survival and reproduction, and that evolution and progress are consistent if the same environment persists.
However, Gould’s team refutes Dawkins’ argument by emphasizing the fact that in nature, environments don’t last forever, and organisms have evolved through multiple mass extinctions. Dawkins’ team accepts these criticisms and talks about the “evolution of evolutionary capabilities. They argue that evolution has passed through at least eight watersheds that represent important stages of evolution, such as the evolution of self-replicating molecules into sets of molecules in primitive cells, or the evolution of independent replicators into chromosomes. At each watershed, they explain, life’s ability to evolve has advanced by leaps and bounds, and there is irreversible progression in evolution, as multicellular organisms cannot return to unicellular life. To illustrate this, Gould’s team uses the analogy of a drunkard: once the drunkard has traveled some distance to the right, there is no turning back.
Team Gould is unable to provide a clear rebuttal, and the debate ends.
Again, I’m more sympathetic to the progressivist position. The idea of progress from an adaptationist perspective particularly resonates with me. In The Selfish Gene, I think the concept of progress is hidden in the explanation that genes are selected in a form that favors survival and reproduction in order to pass themselves on to the next generation. If the genes that are favorable for survival and reproduction survive and are subjected to natural selection, then from nature’s point of view, the individuals that are more favorable for survival will be recognized as higher. Therefore, it is doubtful that evolution can be explained without the concept of progress.
The concept of “watersheds” mentioned in The Evolution of Evolutionary Capability also impressed me. According to the explanation that each watershed marks an irreversible progressive breakthrough in the evolution of an organism, multicellular organisms cannot return to unicellular organisms because natural selection has selected for multicellularity. This is analogous to the development of our writing system. In the past, there were simple scripts such as hieroglyphs and wedges, but over time, numerous scripts were created, eventually leading to the scripts we have today. There must have been evolutionary turning points along the way, like watersheds.
Even if the Great Extinction comes and human civilization disappears, future new species will develop writing. They may take different forms, but they will start with rudimentary drawings and gradually develop them. In conclusion, I think we can discuss progress from an adaptationist perspective and in terms of the evolution of evolutionary capabilities. This debate ends with a close call between two sharply opposing camps, which I have decided in my favor.
However, in the distant future, when super bacteria dominate all life, or when a new human race is born after dozens of mass extinctions, we can discuss “evolutionary theory” again. Future organisms may be able to give a definitive answer to the difficult question that our present-day scholars have not been able to solve: “Do evolving organisms make progress?” Therefore, in ignorance of the future, I cautiously leave the small excuse that “for the moment” the progressive position prevails.
