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Evolution and the Spiral of Technology

by Douglas H. Shennan

223 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #00-0183; ISBN 1-55212-518-1; US$21.50, C$24.50, EUR17.50, £12.50

The present explosion of our culture cannot continue indefinitely and must be followed by a season of collapse. The changes make our present environment unsuited to our, and our children's, genes. The cause lies in our evolutionary history. To handle the situation correctly requires a radical change in perspective.

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about the book      about the author      Table of Contents and Introduction      catalogue info

About the Book

Driven by the ever-greater advances in technology, human life is changing at an increasing pace; this, like all acceleration, is unsustainable and must lead to a crisis in the near future.
We are ill-adapted to our sophisticated world because we have the genes of our ancestors the hunter-gatherers, whose way of life humans have followed for 99% of the period of their existence. We suffer from living in an environment ever less like theirs. It causes physical and mental disease, disrupts traditional family life, and to a large extenet deprives children of the care and love they need to become happy and well-adjusted adults.
Our exploding culture is a consequence of our evolutionary history especially over the last 5 million years, which also has been accelerating. In the earlier stages slow cultural changes altered our ancestors' environment and so influenced and further accelerated their evolution. Nowadays changes occur so fast that there is no time for evolutionary adaptation; and in addition, modern medical methods save the lives of children and adults who would have succumbed to the environment, so we are no longer subject to natural selection and do not evolve.
Accelerating evolutionary change in a species presages early extinction; but in the case of humans the far more immediate danger is the disruption of society caused by exploding cultural change and advancing technology.
The steamroller of change will be hard to stop in today's materialistic and profit-oriented milieu. We have become so dependent on technology that to a large extent we cannot afford to abandon it. A realistic objective of political pressure is to prevent further technological advances. Individuals and families can do much to help themselves by simplifying their life-style.
Review from Biology (the magazine of the Institute of Biology, London)
This is a book I would be very happy to see on school bookshelves, well worn and with lots of eye-tracks. It is a pessimistic, often puritanical, look at human evolution and our recent predilection for messing on our own doorstep.
Nearly all of the data come, very selectively, from tertiary sources (popular science books by the likes of Gould, Diamond, Dawkins and Wilson, but also ancient pop-science by Haldane, Joad, Schrodinger and Medawar). The quotations have been chosen carefully to conform to his general narrative rather than representing the authors' main messages. It is careless, for example, with woodpecker finches, leaf-hopper ants and Frankenstein's robot; and quotations are sometimes from other books by the same author (Diamond's Guns, germs and steel quoted as The third chimpanzee). It is philosophically naïve, at least. Not only does the author revel in the naturalistic (also known as the pathetic) fallacy what happens in nature is what we should aspire to, it is the touchstone for Ultimate Good - but he expresses surprise that Jacob's book should debunk this stance. 'Our basic needs can only be understood by having an awareness of our real nature' and this nature 'degenerates through prosperity' (as an excuse for why we all live longer happier lives because of technology).
So why am I recommending it? Because, like Bellamy's first TV appearances, the state of knowledge about this kind of human biology in schools is pathetic (in another sense) and this book like early Bellamy is naïve but very effectively on the side of the angels. It is well written, and arguments are presented with clarity and force. It pickes mnemonical phrases, like the Gribbins' 'Children of the Ice' for the Cro-Magnons. He says the hunter-gatherers are 'nice people'. He sees us as being very poor at dealing with our new context, technological culture, and he's right. But I'm glad he wasn't there to advise the first fish to come out of the water!
Jack Cohen

About the Author

Shennan is a medical doctor whose career dealt with tuberculosis in developing countries, mainly in Africa. For more than 30 years he has been concerned about the technology spiral and its effects. Since retirement in 1992 he has read widely on human evolution and culture and set out to draw together the work of these authors and that of the specialists who have written on the many other disciplines affecting people, so as to achieve an overview of the present human predicament.
Also by Douglas H. Shennan:
Evolution and the Nature of Reality

Table of Contents and Introduction

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION

PART I
THE TECHNOLOGY SPIRAL

1. The changing scene
2. The technology spiral
3. Consequences of the technology spiral

PART II
THE CAUSE OF THE SPIRAL

4. The rise and fall of the species
5. Natural selection, relentless and total
6. The cradle of humanity
7. The evolution of Homo over the ages
8. Socialization and the development of culture
9. The cause of the technology spiral

PART III
THE FUTURE

10. The needs of Homo
11. One crowded hour
12. Will Homo modify the tide of acceleration?
13. Realistic objectives

References
Bibliography
Index

Introduction
Time, like an ever-rolling stream,
Bears all its sons away;
They fly forgotten, as a dream
Dies at the opening day.
        Isaac Watts, 1674-1748
On the northern approach to Berwick upon Tweed the night landscape sparkles with scattered lights. The lights have been there for perhaps two hundred years. For millions of years before that the hills, the grass and the trees lay under the night sky in darkness, or gently illuminated by the stars and the moon. In another two hundred years, will the lights have disappeared, leaving the abundance of life on the hills to continue its tranquil course through the millennia under the moon and stars?
     The question reminds us that the situation of humankind (referred to hereinafter as Homo) in the Universe must be seen in perspective. Interestingly, this perspective has been achieved much more in physics than in biology. With the realization that the world was round came the discovery that Europe was not the centre of the Universe; the rotation of the Earth set that centre as far out as the Sun; more recent discoveries in astronomy placed it still further away, at the centre of our galaxy and then at the centre of a vast complex of galaxies of which ours is a revolving member, a great gravitational system comprising all the visible and detectable stars. Finally it is now believed that there may be any number of such systems, similar or dissimilar, occupying dimensions outside the space-time continuum of which we are aware. In this way our position in the physical world is seen as being average in all respects, in no way privileged over other points. Heinz Pagels writes that the universe is homogeneous and isotropic, i.e. it appears the same in all directions from any point. All places in the universe are alike - this is called the cosmological principle.¹ We also realize that we occupy no special position in terms of scale; we, and the things we handle and use, are tiny units in a planetary system which is part of a greater cosmic system, which is part of another, and we can see that such a progression may go on indefinitely. Similarly we and our familiar objects are made up of planet-like atomic systems which themselves have constituent particles, etc., and then like the macrocosm become obscure to us through a progression into dimensions and forms which we cannot envisage, but can only handle with mathematics.
     When humans think in biological terms, however, they are by comparison extremely primitive. We do achieve objectivity when studying animals other than ourselves, but in general we think ourselves different from, and superior to, the other animals. Desmond Morris observes that "The great advantage we have when studying ... animals is that we ourselves are not black-footed squirrels - a fact which forces us into an attitude of humility that is becoming to proper scientific investigation. How different things are, how depressingly different, when we attempt to study the human animal."² Our attitude runs still deeper than this. Deeply ingrained in us all, though conscious attempts are often made to remove it, is the feeling that our way of doing things is better than that of others, including people not far removed from us. An example is the assumption that western culture must be carried to all parts of the Earth, and that the western way of life is, in an absolute sense, better than any other. This was exemplified by the widespread Christian missionary activity that had its heyday towards the end of the 19th century; latterly its expression has become much more materialistic in nature, involving colonization and, most recently, industry and commerce. In physics, all bodies of reference are now considered equivalent for the description of natural laws. Should this not be so for biology too?
     For British people the superiority of everything western has succeeded the superiority of everything British which was the hallmark of the Victorian era, and was - at that time - the target of William Gilbert's wit in H.M.S. Pinafore:
      For he himself has said it,
      And it's greatly to his credit;
      He is an Englishman!...
      In spite of all temptations
      To belong to other nations
      He remains an Englishman!

     The assumption of western superiority arises from the philosophy of materialism, which almost all westerners take for granted. Yet the basis on which they do so needs examination. Perhaps if human life is viewed on a wider canvas the materialistic philosophy is insufficient, or represents only one aspect of life or even a passing phase of it.
     By materialism here is meant a belief in facts as absolute, and abeliefthat actionis properonly ifitisindicated by logical deduction from facts presented. There is a philosophical case for arguing that facts are not absolute, and Chapter 5 aims to show how impossible it is, because of their evolutionary history, for humans to identify any absolute truth. Here it is enough to say that the materialistic attitude of western Homo is a special characteristic and not an ultimate norm or absolute in any sense. It became predominant in the European middle class in the 19th century, and must be seen as a one-sided viewpoint of the world held by that group and those who come under its influence. We, the products of 19th and 20th century Europe and North America, are so much imprisoned within it mentally that it requires a very powerful effort to withdraw ourselves apart and look at the human race - and the rest of the biological world - dispassionately, with the detachment that Einstein achieved with the physical world when he managed to apply to it the same laws no matter what was the point of observation.
      The results of such a detached look may be shocking, for they necessarily cut across our pre-conceived notions, our deeply-held beliefs and our wishful thinking. Some of the conclusions about the future are likely to be disturbing. If so it is a matter of accepting the inevitable as decreed by Nature in the long run. By seeing the situation for what it is, we can take steps to avoid the disorderly and undignified premature destruction of our human species, and aim to proceed with normal grace to the end of our natural span.
The involved observer
Conventional attempts to study Homo are made as if the investigators were disinterested beings from outer space, and not humans themselves, grinding an axe on their own behalf and on behalf of their families and other fellow humans. It is necessary to look at human problems with the appreciation that the would-be solvers are themselves part of the biological world and are not remote from it, nor able to look upon it objectively. From the practical standpoint, we have to examine the needs of Homo as determined by this total participation in the biological world - including the reactive nature of our species and its moulding by the environment through the ages - and the efficacy or otherwise of its present mode of life in meeting these needs. Finally we will hope to find, where possible, corrections which will both be feasible and not place any further strain on our adaptive powers. This essay offers no dogma and no metaphysics. Its main premise is the validity of Darwin's theory of evolution. No faith is involved. Scientific reasoning is used, but at the same time the need is appreciated for a careful watch on the validity of this as it proceeds, for its starting-point is in the subjective - my own observations - as the only thing that one can be certain of à priori. For instance, whenever it is stated that something is the case, it means that believing it to be so is the best way we, as biological beings adapting to our environment, can look at it for our own good.
The genetic-culture gap
Many social and medical problems are created by the artificial world of today. It will be argued in this book that all these are the result of an inability of people to bridge the gap between the environment for which their genes have prepared them and the rapidly-changing environment of the present day, which is the product of our exploding culture. The problem is compounded by the difficulty confronting many parents, that the changed environment prevents them from rearing their children in the way that the children, in turn, have been accustomed to through their genes. In this way the individual child's difficulty in adjusting is augmented by faulty or incomplete emotional development; it enters adulthood hampered by an inadequacy of its own past environment, as well as that of its ancestors, to consequent emotional deprivation leads to incapacity for parenthood, these disabilities persist and snowball from generation to generation.
The present place of Homo in the world
One aim of this book is to see how Homo has evolved, and how its mode of evolution can be classified in relation to that of other animals. Has it been qualitatively different from that of all other species (which is a dangerous assumption scientifically)? Or are we at an extreme stage of development which occurs fairly commonly but immediately precedes extinction, and is therefore not commonly observed? Does the fantastically rapid change in our environment that has spiralled in recent centuries occur to some other species before they reach a crisis of some kind? Do they, indeed, modify their own environments as a prelude to their own destruction and perhaps as part of Nature's normal process for species whose stable phase of life is finished, and whose destruction should be accelerated in the interests of biological economy - so that other inter-dependent species can continue to live in a stable environment not upset by the developing rogue? All this can be embraced within the principle of natural selection-those which have created for themselves an unsuitable environment are de-selected.
Defining objectives
Having achieved an idea, at least, of where Homo stands in the biological scheme of things, the next question to answer is: what positive policy should Homo undertake for its best advantage in terms of happiness and adjustment? To what extent should it fight against the trend, if it is indeed a trend towards the rapid destruction of our species? To what extent should it go along with the course of Nature, or even accelerate it? Related to this question is the fundamental one whether we should continue to develop the processes of mechanization, technological advance, commercialization, and westernization of the Third World. The mere having of a policy and an aim, which is a major missing factor in our lives, is a benefit. Policies thus derived need not be only major ones for legislators (though certainly the private citizen without power should know what he/she thinks should be done, and talk about it); individuals can themselves choose to modify their life-style.
Wisdom about Homo comes from many sources
To consider such a broad subject requires a synthesis of findings and ideas from many different lines of enquiry. Stephen Boyden refers to the evolution of life and of Homo as "Biohistory", and lists the disciplines which it embraces: zoology, botany, chemistry, physics, biochemistry, meteorology, geology, geography, human biology, human physiology, psychology, medicine, sociology, history, prehistory, archaeology "and so forth".³ To these could be added philosophy and economics.
     Various writers have stressed the value of a multi-disciplinary approach for improving understanding. Garrett Hardin notes that "Some of our most enduring problems are ones for which there are no licensed experts."⁴ J.W. Burrow writes in the introduction to the 1968 Penguin edition of Darwin's Origin of Species:"'The Origin' has a scope and sweep which an age of specialists can scarcely hope to recapture; it is a vast panorama of the natural world written by a polymath in the biological sciences: geologist, zoologist, palaeontologist, botanist and pigeon fancier."⁵ Francis Crick expresses the view that the study of mental processes should include both cognitive science and anatomy. "Hybrid subjects are often astonishingly fertile."⁶ Mark Nathan Cohen, writing of the impact of civilization on health, lists the advantages of a combined study of modern humans, hunter-gatherers past and present, and palaeopathology.⁷ Melvin Konner believes that the sometimes bitter confrontation between biological scientists on the one hand, and behavioural and social scientists on the other, arises because the parties fail to study each other's disciplines.⁸ Distinguished quantum physicists share these views. Werner Heisenberg, in his book Physics and Philosophy, discusses the role of physics in the present development of human thought. In his opinion the most fruitful advances frequently take place at those points where two different lines of thought meet.⁹ Erwin Schrödinger was modest about his professed ignorance of biology, and apologetic about entering this field; however his book What is Life? is a fruitful effort to achieve cross-disciplinary fertilization.¹⁰ Schrödinger's father was interested in botany, and they did much exploring and discussion on it together. As a young man, he had a close friendship with a biologist. He was very familiar with English, and read Darwin's Origin of Species. All his life, also, Schrödinger was interested in philosophy.¹¹
1. Pagels 146 2. Morris 14 3. Boyden(1992) 29-108 4. Hardin 31 5. Darwin(1859) 13 6. Crick 150 7. Cohen 4-5 8. Konner 413 9. Heisenberg 175 10. Schrödinger (1967) 11. Schrödinger (1992) 167,171,174.

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