Evolution is the process by which living things change gradually over long periods of time. Dawkins argues that living things have increased in complexity and adaptability, which he views as progress. Gould, on the other hand, acknowledges that some organisms have increased in complexity, but not all. The theory of evolution explains the changes in living things from different perspectives.
The book Darwin’s Trust is organized as a virtual debate between two world-renowned biologists, Dawkins and Gould. Before we get to the book’s fifth question, “Can we call the evolution of living things progress?”, we need to talk about the terms evolution and progress.
Evolution refers to the gradual changes that organisms make over the course of tens of millions of years of life on Earth. Darwin’s theory of evolution has long been accepted by scientists. It uses fossils found in the strata of the earth as evidence that life has changed through this process. Gould and Dawkins are probably not the only ones who agree on this point.
Evolution has become the foundational theory of biology, and it explains the diversity of life and the complexity of ecosystems. The process by which species adapt and change by natural selection through a combination of various environmental factors and genetic variation is widely accepted among biologists. In this process, several mechanisms such as natural selection, mutation, gene flow, and gene immobility come into play to determine the evolutionary path of an organism.
So what do Gould and Dawkins mean by progress in this book? Gould and Dawkins seem to agree that the increase in complexity of organisms is what they call progress, although they have some differences of opinion. Gould sees the increase in complexity during evolution as a form of progress, while Dawkins sees the increase in adaptability and functional efficiency of organisms as another aspect of progress.
Let’s summarize the debate between Gould and Dawkins on whether organisms have progressed. Dawkins suggests that organisms have increased in complexity and that their adaptations to their environment have accumulated over generations. For the first two reasons, Dawkins argues that living things have progressed over time. He particularly emphasizes the functional efficiency and ecological adaptability of organisms, which he believes have improved through evolution.
However, Gould argues that “some creatures have increased in complexity. But bacteria, the largest group of organisms, have not increased in complexity,” Gould argues that we cannot say that the complexity of organisms as a whole has increased. He emphasizes that the evolution of life does not always lead to an increase in complexity, and that simpler forms of life can successfully survive and thrive.
He also discusses Dawkins’ second argument, that creatures have become increasingly adaptable to their environment. He points out that an asteroid strike wiped out all the dinosaurs, and says that it is not possible to say that the adaptations of living things to their environment are progressive. Gould emphasizes that environmental changes and extinction events are not necessarily linked to progress, and argues that evolution is often driven by chance and unpredictable events.
Dawkins then discusses eight evolutionary watersheds. He argues that organisms have progressed because these watersheds are irreversible, and new evolutionary developments have been able to emerge from them. Dawkins uses the watersheds of evolution to criticize the drinker model. He argues that since organisms cannot reverse these evolutionary watersheds, the barriers in the drinker model should be seen as moving in the direction of increasing complexity. He emphasizes that specific bifurcations in evolution have played an important role in determining the complexity and diversity of life.
The book concludes with Dawkins’ final argument and no rebuttal from Gould. Dawkins’s arguments are clear and consistent, and his logical approach will be persuasive to many readers. However, the lack of Gould’s rebuttal leaves the reader wanting more.
Personally, I agree with Dawkins’s idea of evolutionary watersheds, and therefore I believe that creatures have evolved and progressed. It is self-evident that there has been an increase in complexity. Going from prokaryotes to eukaryotes to multicellular organisms is a huge change. I think the difference between pre-evolutionary organisms and organisms that have become more complex through evolution is the way they adapt to their environment. In simple terms, bacteria, for example, are all about adapting to their environment. They cannot do anything but adapt to the given environment to increase their population and gradually expand their range of existence by migrating by external factors other than their own power. Multicellular organisms, on the other hand, can migrate to find a more favorable environment to live in. If we compare passively adapting to the environment with the ability to explore it on their own, can we claim that organisms have progressed?
There is one aspect of Gould’s argument that I don’t understand. He says that we should choose the lowest common denominator bacteria as a representative of life. There are many ways to choose a representative value for any statistic. You can easily think of the median, the mean, and the poorest. Of these, all but the smallest representative value can be used to support the idea that life has progressed, contrary to Gould’s claim. It is incomprehensible to me that Gould would argue that these two metrics are meaningless and that only the lowest value is representative of life. Both Gould and Dawkins agreed that all life began with the simplest prokaryotes. In Gould’s graph of the simplest starting point, everything began at the leftmost wall. It makes sense that the least common denominator would be the same as the starting point because not all evolutionary rates are the same. For example, if you drop a drop of ink in one corner of a cup of water, the ink will naturally have the highest concentration of ink where it started compared to where it didn’t, until it spreads evenly everywhere.
This is not to say that someday the simplest and most complex organisms will have the same frequency of appearance. In the case of a cup of water, there is only so much space for the ink to spread out, so eventually it will spread evenly everywhere. But in the graph of organisms we’re talking about, there are no limits. You can think of it like dropping ink into the ocean. Because there is no limit, the frequency of complex organisms will be lower than the frequency of the simplest organisms. It makes sense that the simplest organisms would be the least frequent, so it’s hard to understand why Gould would argue that this is the only meaningful value.
According to Gould, the reason simple organisms are able to survive and thrive over long periods of time is because of their simplicity and efficiency. Simple organisms, such as bacteria, are more adaptable than complex organisms and have the ability to survive in a variety of environments. They have very short generation cycles, which allows them to evolve rapidly, and they are quick to respond to environmental changes. In this sense, Gould believes that simple organisms play an important role in the evolutionary process.
Gould also argues that the evolution of organisms does not always lead to an increase in complexity, and that sometimes simplicity can be more favorable for survival. For example, creatures such as parasites maintain simple forms to efficiently utilize the resources of their hosts, which is an important factor in their survival strategy. From this perspective, evolution is not simply a process of increasing complexity, but rather a process by which organisms find the optimal survival strategy in a given environment.
This book explores the complexity and multifaceted nature of evolutionary theory through the debate between Dawkins and Gould, and provides readers with a deeper understanding of evolution. Evolution is not just a theory that explains how life has changed in the past, but it also plays an important role in predicting how life will change in the present and future. It allows us to better understand the diversity and complexity of life and to recognize the importance of ecosystem conservation and biodiversity.
