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The Evolutionary World: How Adaptation Explains Everything from Seashells to Civilization
"One of the master naturalists of our time" (American Scientist) reveals how evolutionary theory explains and affects not just the natural world but our society---and its future.
Evolution has outgrown its original home in biology and geology. The Evolutionary World shows how evolution---descent with modification---is a concept that organizes, explains, and predicts a multitude of unconnected facts and phenomena. Adaptation plays a role not only in the development of new species but the development of human civilization. By understanding how evolutionary theory has played out in areas such as our economic system, our preparation for catastrophes, and even the development of communities, we can learn not just how these systems work but also what challenges lie ahead.
Blind since the age of three, Dr. Geerat J. Vermeij has become renowned for his unique abilities to recognize details in the natural world that other scientists would never have noticed. In this book, he presents a new argument for evolution's broader importance. He explores similarities between genomes and languages, the contrasting natural economies of islands and continents, the emergence and importance of human values, the long-range consequences of global warming, and the perils of monopoly. He also shows that the lessons of evolution have implications for education, our system of laws, and economic growth.
The Evolutionary World makes a fascinating argument about the broad-reaching impact and importance of evolution. It offers a way for us to understand and work with evolution's principles so that we can devise better solutions for our own lives, society, and the environment around us.
314 pages, Hardcover
First published November 23, 2010
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196 people want to read
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December 29, 2023
There is a particular way of writing about evolution, which has a long and distinguished history. It starts with, perhaps, a puddle of warm water in the prehistoric clay, and ends with humans evolving from proto-human primates. From Darwin to Dawkins, this has been a very productive way of enhancing our understanding of a not-very-intuitive concept.
In recent decades, however, a variety of thinkers have been trying to apply the concept of evolution in other areas, such as technology or human society. Essentially, the lines around biology from a university departmental standpoint, are being breached. It is an exciting prospect, but also a disquieting one.
The first reason for concern, is that we have been here before, and it did not end well. The best known writer and thinker to try to apply evolutionary thought to human society and technology, was Herbert Spencer, a name that is now associated with crypto-racist and classist beliefs. I don't say this is necessarily an accurate reflection of Spencer's views; I've never read anything by Herbert Spencer. But these late 19th-century attempts to use evolution outside of traditional biology were so repugnant to 20th century intellectuals, that it was more or less taboo.
As the 20th century came to a close, a few thinkers started dipping their toes into the water again, to see if the concept of evolution which had proved so powerful for explaining the non-human living world, could help to explain anything in the human world. In part, this is because enough time had passed that the memory of earlier failures had dimmed, but also it was part of a larger movement towards cross-disciplinary research. The separations between biology, psychology, sociology, economics, and engineering looked like more of an arbitrary dividing line, and when biology steps across the line dividing it from any other field, it tends to bring evolution with it.
The author, Geerat Vermeij, is attempting to show how the arising of human society, and later human technology, does not signal the end of evolution, but rather the latest stage in it. He takes us through concepts such as the arising of complexity, the origin of meaning, how competition and cooperation can intertwine, and puts the arising of humanity as the dominant shaper of the ecosystem into the context of earlier disruptions in the history of human life. He is clearly someone who has thought long and deeply about evolution, and has an understanding of it that goes far beyond "survival of the fittest". Perhaps partly because of this fact, his book is not easily summarized. It also is hard to say, honestly, what exactly has been learned at the end of it; I think I probably need to read this book again when it has set in my brain for a while.
What does evolution have to do with recent human history? Vermeij thinks that, at a few distinct points in the planet's history, there have been step function increases in the "productivity" of the planet. For example, the joint evolution of grasses and warm-blooded herbivores, he posits, resulted in a large increase in the amount of energy and carbon captured and turned into living matter and metabolism. He sees a parallel to the later co-dependent arising of humans and the agricultural crops that they cultivated: webs of co-dependent species can become more productive together. Evolution is not only about survival of the fittest individuals in a species, or survival of "fitter" species and the extinction of less well-adapted ones, but also about the evolution of interconnected webs of species. Humanity's rise is the latest and most spectacular example, but it is not something outside of nature, just the most recent example of nature's penchant of punctuated equilibria.
My impression of this and several other of Vermeij's insights, is that this is not a finished theory, but pieces of one coming together. It is clear, not only from Vermeij but from others (e.g. Edward O. Wilson's comparison of social insects such as ants to humanity's recent ultrasocieties), that there is as more continuity between pre-human life and modernity than we typically imagine. New species have disrupted the pre-existing balance before, and there is doubtless a lot we could learn about how this has played out in the past. But, it takes an ability to consider our species and its impact from a dispassionate and thoughtful perspective, and that is difficult to achieve. If Vermeij has not entirely succeeded, he has at least made a good beginning, and shown clearly that there is a lot of potential wisdom to be gained from his perspective. If you like to see the intellectual ferment that presages an upcoming earthquake in our understanding of the world and our place in it, here is a decent place to start. The final shape of things may not be apparent yet, but it is clear that the plates have begun shifting.
In recent decades, however, a variety of thinkers have been trying to apply the concept of evolution in other areas, such as technology or human society. Essentially, the lines around biology from a university departmental standpoint, are being breached. It is an exciting prospect, but also a disquieting one.
The first reason for concern, is that we have been here before, and it did not end well. The best known writer and thinker to try to apply evolutionary thought to human society and technology, was Herbert Spencer, a name that is now associated with crypto-racist and classist beliefs. I don't say this is necessarily an accurate reflection of Spencer's views; I've never read anything by Herbert Spencer. But these late 19th-century attempts to use evolution outside of traditional biology were so repugnant to 20th century intellectuals, that it was more or less taboo.
As the 20th century came to a close, a few thinkers started dipping their toes into the water again, to see if the concept of evolution which had proved so powerful for explaining the non-human living world, could help to explain anything in the human world. In part, this is because enough time had passed that the memory of earlier failures had dimmed, but also it was part of a larger movement towards cross-disciplinary research. The separations between biology, psychology, sociology, economics, and engineering looked like more of an arbitrary dividing line, and when biology steps across the line dividing it from any other field, it tends to bring evolution with it.
The author, Geerat Vermeij, is attempting to show how the arising of human society, and later human technology, does not signal the end of evolution, but rather the latest stage in it. He takes us through concepts such as the arising of complexity, the origin of meaning, how competition and cooperation can intertwine, and puts the arising of humanity as the dominant shaper of the ecosystem into the context of earlier disruptions in the history of human life. He is clearly someone who has thought long and deeply about evolution, and has an understanding of it that goes far beyond "survival of the fittest". Perhaps partly because of this fact, his book is not easily summarized. It also is hard to say, honestly, what exactly has been learned at the end of it; I think I probably need to read this book again when it has set in my brain for a while.
What does evolution have to do with recent human history? Vermeij thinks that, at a few distinct points in the planet's history, there have been step function increases in the "productivity" of the planet. For example, the joint evolution of grasses and warm-blooded herbivores, he posits, resulted in a large increase in the amount of energy and carbon captured and turned into living matter and metabolism. He sees a parallel to the later co-dependent arising of humans and the agricultural crops that they cultivated: webs of co-dependent species can become more productive together. Evolution is not only about survival of the fittest individuals in a species, or survival of "fitter" species and the extinction of less well-adapted ones, but also about the evolution of interconnected webs of species. Humanity's rise is the latest and most spectacular example, but it is not something outside of nature, just the most recent example of nature's penchant of punctuated equilibria.
My impression of this and several other of Vermeij's insights, is that this is not a finished theory, but pieces of one coming together. It is clear, not only from Vermeij but from others (e.g. Edward O. Wilson's comparison of social insects such as ants to humanity's recent ultrasocieties), that there is as more continuity between pre-human life and modernity than we typically imagine. New species have disrupted the pre-existing balance before, and there is doubtless a lot we could learn about how this has played out in the past. But, it takes an ability to consider our species and its impact from a dispassionate and thoughtful perspective, and that is difficult to achieve. If Vermeij has not entirely succeeded, he has at least made a good beginning, and shown clearly that there is a lot of potential wisdom to be gained from his perspective. If you like to see the intellectual ferment that presages an upcoming earthquake in our understanding of the world and our place in it, here is a decent place to start. The final shape of things may not be apparent yet, but it is clear that the plates have begun shifting.
June 25, 2011
This is a wonderful book about evolution; it really reminds me of the books by Stephen Jay Gould. The author, Geerat Vermeij, is a true naturalist, a professor, and an expert in the fields of evolution and paleobiology. He has written hundreds of scientific articles and a number of books. This book takes on a grand scale, explaining how life diversifies and coalesces. Each chapter takes on a fascinating theme, exploring how various branches of the tree of life have coped with a changing environment. I just love the analogies that point to parallels between natural selection and the development of scientific theories, and the evolution of species and human civilizations.
This is not an easy-to-read book. Although written for the layman, the book's style can be dense at times. I got a faint hint at the beginning of the book--but it wasn't corroborated until one of the later chapters--that the author is blind. It is truly amazing that someone who is blind can become a world-class naturalist; but perhaps that explains why this book is jam-packed with unique insights.
This is not an easy-to-read book. Although written for the layman, the book's style can be dense at times. I got a faint hint at the beginning of the book--but it wasn't corroborated until one of the later chapters--that the author is blind. It is truly amazing that someone who is blind can become a world-class naturalist; but perhaps that explains why this book is jam-packed with unique insights.
December 31, 2023
The Evolutionary World is a collection of essays about how evolution and adaptation has shaped life and about how life in turn shapes the world though evolving to more efficiently extract resources. The author, Geerat Vermeij, is a professor of geology who also, fun fact, has been completely blind since the age of 3. Each chapter in this book riffs on a different evolutionary concept, bringing in recent evolutionary research to tell a story and make a point. The chapters in this book are a little bit hit or miss; I enjoyed and felt like I Learned A Lot from most of the chapters, but some of the chapters were boring or too tangential, like the chapter about how schools should place more of an emphasis on teaching through sensory experiences, or some of the snail content. (Geerat loves snails, probably too much).
The Evolutionary World was published in 2010, back when the Creationism vs evolution battles were still prominent in the public discourse. It wasn’t that long ago that evolution was still viewed as ~controversial~ because of its incompatibility with religious orthodoxy. As a result we do get a lot of passages in The Evolutionary World defending evolution and secular ways of finding meaning in life. For instance, “Many reject a world in which order, meaning, and beauty arise unintentionally through the action of simple, observable processes operating over eons of time. For them, evolution taking place without the initiation or intervention of a supernatural being robs life of all purpose and meaning and rips all the moral and ethical fabric from human society… The challenge for scientists like me, and one of the goals of this book, is not only to demystify evolution, but also to show how understanding its mechanisms and consequences yields an emotionally satisfying, aesthetically pleasing, and deeply meaningful worldview in which the human condition is bathed in new light.” (xiv) Geerat acknowledges that some people find evolution to be morally and spiritually lacking. However, as Geerat points out, there are secular ways of finding meaning in life: “In our species, it is the feedback between our social nature and our individuality that defines the values by which we live. For me, the evolutionary understanding of values and morals and aesthetics underscores the responsibility that we, individually and collectively, must bear for enriching our lives with purpose and meaning.” (130) Overall, though these passages feel a bit out of date now, just because I feel like in the year 2023, evolution’s pretty solidly won the Creationism vs evolution debates in the eyes of the general public, religion is dead, no one goes to church anymore, we’re all going to Hell, etc.
Before reading this book I had known that when evolution was first introduced, people were disturbed by the thought that humans were evolutionarily related to monkeys, but I hadn’t thought much about the mental worldview Creationists were starting from. “Before Charles Darwin established the theory of evolution by natural selection in 1859, the prevailing view of organisms was that each living thing is a perfect being, designed for its role in life (and often for human benefit) by God.” (50) To move from viewing each species as perfect and static to viewing species as messy leftovers, continually changing generation by generation is a huge change, and leads to an entirely different set of answers to questions like “where are we going, as a species” and “why do any of us exist.” In a way it almost seems like this could trickle down too into peoples’ self-concepts, going from “I am perfect the way God made me” to “I should work to improve myself.”
For other chapters, it was helpful to have a timeline of eras and periods handy as a reference to mentally situate the prehistoric action. In one chapter, we learn that grass didn’t evolve until the late Cretaceous period, so if your child draws a picture of a dinosaur in a field of grass, they may be committing anachronism depending on the dinosaur species. Geerat addresses why grass evolved so late: the success of grass was enabled by the rise of herbivores (grass is hearty and robust against herbivore grazing, while other plants which compete with grasses are not). However, herbivores didn’t evolve until after plant growth and productivity exploded, which didn’t happen until plants evolved denser leaf veins, which took until the end of the Cretaceous period for nature to figure out. Grasses, unlike the dinosaurs, survived the extinction event at the end of the Cretaceous period, but there were also four other big extinction events in Earth’s past, occurring at the end of the Ordovician, Devonian, Permian, and Triassic periods. The Permian extinction ended the reign of the trilobites, which are pretty underrated considering they ruled the Earth for over 200 million years, longer than the dinosaurs and wayyy longer than humans. Geerat talks about extinctions in the context of whether humanity could survive a rare, extinction-level, catastrophic event. His conclusion is we would have a better chance if we had some way to hibernate or go into a stasis. Rare catastrophes are by nature hard to evolutionarily prepare for, because they don’t happen frequently enough intergenerationally. On the bright side, though, Geerat is pretty optimistic about global warming, noting that periods of warming on Earth have historically accompanied/caused mass extinctions in the short term, but in the long term led to greater growth and biodiversity by pruning the tips of the tree of life to allow new and often more resource-extractive species to evolve, and because warm environments in general have greater biodiversity than cold environments (compare the number of species in a tropical rainforest to the number in the arctic circle). Of course the extinctions in the short term could mean the extinction of humans or in the very least, the loss of billions of human lives, but hey, maybe a new and better version of the dinosaurs but with telekinetic powers will evolve to replace us. Worth it!
We are also given a peek at some of the finer details of how evolution actually works. Adaptations often first occur non-genetically (enforced epigenetically, environmentally or physically), before becoming hardcoded into genetics. For instance, in the presence of predators, snails are able to chemically harden their own shells for increased protection, but with enough generations of predator selection acting on the snails, a new snail species that is just born with a harder shell can emerge. The process by which new traits become controlled and expressed through genes is called genetic assimilation and according to Geerat, it happens most quickly in environments with intense competition and plentiful resources. In these environments, selection pressure from predators creates a strong force to optimize the relevant features of a species, and to cement this optimization through genetic hardwiring. In contrast, “When resources are underexploited… relaxed genetic… regulation suffices, and direct influences of the environment are more apparent” (101) As another example, snails in the arctic have more sloppily constructed shells than snails in warmer waters, because there are fewer predators and fewer resources in the arctic.
The subtitle of The Evolutionary World (“how adaptation explains everything from seashells to civilization”) show that Geerat also aims to apply evolutionary concepts to human culture in this book, and Geerat does dip his toe into the culture wars, applying evolutionary analysis to human economic systems apparently ending up on the side of “socialism is okay maybe you guys.” Some economists believe capitalism is a more natural and effective economic system than communism or socialism because capitalism parallels evolution through its reliance on diffuse regulation (natural selection = the invisible hand). But, as Geerat mentions, an economy that is regulated by a centralized state still has a parallel in nature: nature has produced many systems with highly centralized control, one for instance being the human brain and body. According to Geerat, when resources are plentiful, diffuse control works most effectively for exploitation of resources; but when resources are constrained, a system of centralized control works better. The reasoning for this is that a resource-extracting system under diffuse control (ie competitive evolution, capitalism) can be highly productive, but can also be inefficient and wasteful, though this doesn’t matter if there are tons of resources. A resource-extracting system under centralized control (ie cooperative evolution, socialism/communism) emerges in a resource-constrained environment when it is no longer possible to eke out any more resources without turning to large-scale cooperation. The argument makes sense until you consider that in practice socialist/communist economies are often more wasteful than capitalist economies (e.g. the construction of the Chernobyl nuclear reactor; the Great Leap Forward), leading us to the familiar argument that “Communism works, it just hasn’t been done right yet.” Maybe our telekinetic dinosaur successors will be able to pull it off.
Misc. parts:
- “In very small populations of five or fewer individuals, a mutation with a tiny disadvantage can persist because a random fluctuation in population size by one or two individuals has a much larger effect on the fate of that mutation than selection does on the trait that the mutation specifies… In still other cases, a new mutation or a new trait may be protected from selection because it is expressed in a very safe environment, as in the embryo inside the mother, where it is sheltered from the usual agencies comprising the struggle for life.” (6)
- “If the scientific endeavor is so successful and so generally advantageous to society, why is it that worldview founded on doctrines that must be accepted without question or evidence have also been so successful throughout human history? In the language of adaptation, how can such doctrines, which often clash irreconcilably with the facts and theories as revealed by scientific inquiry, be construed as adaptations, or as hypotheses of the human environment? How, in other words, do irrationality and knowledge by decree, which contradicts the adaptive process central to both evolution and science, fit into an explanatory framework based on the principles of adaptation in a finite world?” (22) The answer: social group cohesion. Because irrational beliefs are costly, they provide an effective way to prove one’s allegiance to a group. Sometimes irrational thought is more adaptive than rational thought.
- Pg 39: kids these days don’t appreciate the hand feel of a good seashell
- “If an organism, population, or ecosystem is well suited to its situation, almost any change will make it less so. This is why most genetic mutations are harmful…” (183)
- Evolution does not always lead to increasing sophistication: “Careful studies of the tree of life reveal innumerable cases of simplification and few transitions to greater complexity.” (242)
The Evolutionary World was published in 2010, back when the Creationism vs evolution battles were still prominent in the public discourse. It wasn’t that long ago that evolution was still viewed as ~controversial~ because of its incompatibility with religious orthodoxy. As a result we do get a lot of passages in The Evolutionary World defending evolution and secular ways of finding meaning in life. For instance, “Many reject a world in which order, meaning, and beauty arise unintentionally through the action of simple, observable processes operating over eons of time. For them, evolution taking place without the initiation or intervention of a supernatural being robs life of all purpose and meaning and rips all the moral and ethical fabric from human society… The challenge for scientists like me, and one of the goals of this book, is not only to demystify evolution, but also to show how understanding its mechanisms and consequences yields an emotionally satisfying, aesthetically pleasing, and deeply meaningful worldview in which the human condition is bathed in new light.” (xiv) Geerat acknowledges that some people find evolution to be morally and spiritually lacking. However, as Geerat points out, there are secular ways of finding meaning in life: “In our species, it is the feedback between our social nature and our individuality that defines the values by which we live. For me, the evolutionary understanding of values and morals and aesthetics underscores the responsibility that we, individually and collectively, must bear for enriching our lives with purpose and meaning.” (130) Overall, though these passages feel a bit out of date now, just because I feel like in the year 2023, evolution’s pretty solidly won the Creationism vs evolution debates in the eyes of the general public, religion is dead, no one goes to church anymore, we’re all going to Hell, etc.
Before reading this book I had known that when evolution was first introduced, people were disturbed by the thought that humans were evolutionarily related to monkeys, but I hadn’t thought much about the mental worldview Creationists were starting from. “Before Charles Darwin established the theory of evolution by natural selection in 1859, the prevailing view of organisms was that each living thing is a perfect being, designed for its role in life (and often for human benefit) by God.” (50) To move from viewing each species as perfect and static to viewing species as messy leftovers, continually changing generation by generation is a huge change, and leads to an entirely different set of answers to questions like “where are we going, as a species” and “why do any of us exist.” In a way it almost seems like this could trickle down too into peoples’ self-concepts, going from “I am perfect the way God made me” to “I should work to improve myself.”
For other chapters, it was helpful to have a timeline of eras and periods handy as a reference to mentally situate the prehistoric action. In one chapter, we learn that grass didn’t evolve until the late Cretaceous period, so if your child draws a picture of a dinosaur in a field of grass, they may be committing anachronism depending on the dinosaur species. Geerat addresses why grass evolved so late: the success of grass was enabled by the rise of herbivores (grass is hearty and robust against herbivore grazing, while other plants which compete with grasses are not). However, herbivores didn’t evolve until after plant growth and productivity exploded, which didn’t happen until plants evolved denser leaf veins, which took until the end of the Cretaceous period for nature to figure out. Grasses, unlike the dinosaurs, survived the extinction event at the end of the Cretaceous period, but there were also four other big extinction events in Earth’s past, occurring at the end of the Ordovician, Devonian, Permian, and Triassic periods. The Permian extinction ended the reign of the trilobites, which are pretty underrated considering they ruled the Earth for over 200 million years, longer than the dinosaurs and wayyy longer than humans. Geerat talks about extinctions in the context of whether humanity could survive a rare, extinction-level, catastrophic event. His conclusion is we would have a better chance if we had some way to hibernate or go into a stasis. Rare catastrophes are by nature hard to evolutionarily prepare for, because they don’t happen frequently enough intergenerationally. On the bright side, though, Geerat is pretty optimistic about global warming, noting that periods of warming on Earth have historically accompanied/caused mass extinctions in the short term, but in the long term led to greater growth and biodiversity by pruning the tips of the tree of life to allow new and often more resource-extractive species to evolve, and because warm environments in general have greater biodiversity than cold environments (compare the number of species in a tropical rainforest to the number in the arctic circle). Of course the extinctions in the short term could mean the extinction of humans or in the very least, the loss of billions of human lives, but hey, maybe a new and better version of the dinosaurs but with telekinetic powers will evolve to replace us. Worth it!
We are also given a peek at some of the finer details of how evolution actually works. Adaptations often first occur non-genetically (enforced epigenetically, environmentally or physically), before becoming hardcoded into genetics. For instance, in the presence of predators, snails are able to chemically harden their own shells for increased protection, but with enough generations of predator selection acting on the snails, a new snail species that is just born with a harder shell can emerge. The process by which new traits become controlled and expressed through genes is called genetic assimilation and according to Geerat, it happens most quickly in environments with intense competition and plentiful resources. In these environments, selection pressure from predators creates a strong force to optimize the relevant features of a species, and to cement this optimization through genetic hardwiring. In contrast, “When resources are underexploited… relaxed genetic… regulation suffices, and direct influences of the environment are more apparent” (101) As another example, snails in the arctic have more sloppily constructed shells than snails in warmer waters, because there are fewer predators and fewer resources in the arctic.
The subtitle of The Evolutionary World (“how adaptation explains everything from seashells to civilization”) show that Geerat also aims to apply evolutionary concepts to human culture in this book, and Geerat does dip his toe into the culture wars, applying evolutionary analysis to human economic systems apparently ending up on the side of “socialism is okay maybe you guys.” Some economists believe capitalism is a more natural and effective economic system than communism or socialism because capitalism parallels evolution through its reliance on diffuse regulation (natural selection = the invisible hand). But, as Geerat mentions, an economy that is regulated by a centralized state still has a parallel in nature: nature has produced many systems with highly centralized control, one for instance being the human brain and body. According to Geerat, when resources are plentiful, diffuse control works most effectively for exploitation of resources; but when resources are constrained, a system of centralized control works better. The reasoning for this is that a resource-extracting system under diffuse control (ie competitive evolution, capitalism) can be highly productive, but can also be inefficient and wasteful, though this doesn’t matter if there are tons of resources. A resource-extracting system under centralized control (ie cooperative evolution, socialism/communism) emerges in a resource-constrained environment when it is no longer possible to eke out any more resources without turning to large-scale cooperation. The argument makes sense until you consider that in practice socialist/communist economies are often more wasteful than capitalist economies (e.g. the construction of the Chernobyl nuclear reactor; the Great Leap Forward), leading us to the familiar argument that “Communism works, it just hasn’t been done right yet.” Maybe our telekinetic dinosaur successors will be able to pull it off.
Misc. parts:
- “In very small populations of five or fewer individuals, a mutation with a tiny disadvantage can persist because a random fluctuation in population size by one or two individuals has a much larger effect on the fate of that mutation than selection does on the trait that the mutation specifies… In still other cases, a new mutation or a new trait may be protected from selection because it is expressed in a very safe environment, as in the embryo inside the mother, where it is sheltered from the usual agencies comprising the struggle for life.” (6)
- “If the scientific endeavor is so successful and so generally advantageous to society, why is it that worldview founded on doctrines that must be accepted without question or evidence have also been so successful throughout human history? In the language of adaptation, how can such doctrines, which often clash irreconcilably with the facts and theories as revealed by scientific inquiry, be construed as adaptations, or as hypotheses of the human environment? How, in other words, do irrationality and knowledge by decree, which contradicts the adaptive process central to both evolution and science, fit into an explanatory framework based on the principles of adaptation in a finite world?” (22) The answer: social group cohesion. Because irrational beliefs are costly, they provide an effective way to prove one’s allegiance to a group. Sometimes irrational thought is more adaptive than rational thought.
- Pg 39: kids these days don’t appreciate the hand feel of a good seashell
- “If an organism, population, or ecosystem is well suited to its situation, almost any change will make it less so. This is why most genetic mutations are harmful…” (183)
- Evolution does not always lead to increasing sophistication: “Careful studies of the tree of life reveal innumerable cases of simplification and few transitions to greater complexity.” (242)
August 9, 2011
http://www.eveningoflight.nl/subspeci...
[...] That adaptation is the key to prolonged survival is argued by many if not all evolutionary scientists, but a very convincing and clear exploration of this idea was made in The Evolutionary World: How Adaptation Explains Everything from Seashells to Civilization by Geerat J. Vermeij, published in 2010. Besides a great many enlightening anecdotes about evolutionary processes in various organisms, from seashells to grasses to mammals, Vermeij emphasises that evolutionary processes can also explain cultural phenomena. A first example is an analysis of the survival of societies or civilisations on the cultural level as compared to the survival of species on the genetic level. Societies, too, are confronted with changing environments and their ability to adapt techonologically and culturally determines their ability to overcome conflicts with nature and/or competing societies. Vermeij makes many interesting points on principles that apply to both biological and cultural survival. Redundancy is an important strategy, for example:
Vital functions must be duplicated and dispersed among similar parts, so that if a function is disabled in one part or in one place, a society or a living body will not collapse completely. (p. 76)
As Vermeij stresses, this principle is not always utilised in human societies, where economic production and centres of strategic importance are often centralised to maximise efficiency, but at the cost of risk-reducing redudancy.
Another vital point is the evolution of social intelligence in a selection of species, and in particular the evolution towards culture in humans. Culture, in particular social adaptations that encourage cooperation and the enforcement of social rules (religions, group identities) have proven extremely valuable in the history of humanity, allow groups of humans to work together for their communal survival. Thankfully, the evolution of intelligence does not stop here, according to Vermeij, and in a brilliant chapter on complexity of life, he traces it from “meaningless interactions among chemical compounds” to
[...] the gradual appearance of awareness, purposefull action, the perception of meaning, and a desire for accomplishment, the all-important realization that there is utility in existence that transcends the ancestral, previously sufficient goals of persistence and replication. (p. 130) [...]
[...] That adaptation is the key to prolonged survival is argued by many if not all evolutionary scientists, but a very convincing and clear exploration of this idea was made in The Evolutionary World: How Adaptation Explains Everything from Seashells to Civilization by Geerat J. Vermeij, published in 2010. Besides a great many enlightening anecdotes about evolutionary processes in various organisms, from seashells to grasses to mammals, Vermeij emphasises that evolutionary processes can also explain cultural phenomena. A first example is an analysis of the survival of societies or civilisations on the cultural level as compared to the survival of species on the genetic level. Societies, too, are confronted with changing environments and their ability to adapt techonologically and culturally determines their ability to overcome conflicts with nature and/or competing societies. Vermeij makes many interesting points on principles that apply to both biological and cultural survival. Redundancy is an important strategy, for example:
Vital functions must be duplicated and dispersed among similar parts, so that if a function is disabled in one part or in one place, a society or a living body will not collapse completely. (p. 76)
As Vermeij stresses, this principle is not always utilised in human societies, where economic production and centres of strategic importance are often centralised to maximise efficiency, but at the cost of risk-reducing redudancy.
Another vital point is the evolution of social intelligence in a selection of species, and in particular the evolution towards culture in humans. Culture, in particular social adaptations that encourage cooperation and the enforcement of social rules (religions, group identities) have proven extremely valuable in the history of humanity, allow groups of humans to work together for their communal survival. Thankfully, the evolution of intelligence does not stop here, according to Vermeij, and in a brilliant chapter on complexity of life, he traces it from “meaningless interactions among chemical compounds” to
[...] the gradual appearance of awareness, purposefull action, the perception of meaning, and a desire for accomplishment, the all-important realization that there is utility in existence that transcends the ancestral, previously sufficient goals of persistence and replication. (p. 130) [...]
September 8, 2024
In The Evolutionary World, Dr. Vermeij aims to employ our understanding of evolutionary biology to enhance our understanding of social sciences—Freakonomics for evolutionary biology, if you will. Vermeij discusses the implications of evolutionary knowledge on economics, national security, language, and other aspects of human society. Such a project must tread carefully given the historical blight of social Darwinism and eugenics. Vermeij is largely inoculated against such unsavory conclusions by his much more thorough and nuanced understanding of evolutionary theory as a scientific professional. Nevertheless, on a pair of occasions he does repeat the historically oversimplified narrative that Spanish conquistadores were more technologically advanced than the Mesoamerican and South American peoples they conquered (yes in some convenient respects, no in others; the truth offers a much more captivating and revealing analogy to the natural world that unfortunately goes unexplored).
Another round of editing would have been beneficial. For instance, p. 248 of the copy I read is home to the following numerical eyesore, forcing the reader to expend unnecessary effort to grasp Vermeij's intended meaning. All the confusion results from a single missing space:
Vermeij’s writing is information-dense to the point that it borders on inaccessible to a hobbyist reading public. At the same time, many of his analogies to human society, while fascinating, are not conclusively demonstrated. The Evolutionary World therefore occupies a somewhat uncomfortable niche between academic and trade publications: not engaging enough in its technicality to be broadly appealing to laypeople, yet not rigorous enough in its argumentation to appeal to academic colleagues. If there is a thesis to the work, it is that human society represents the latest chapter in adaptation’s story, but the road leading to this conclusion is somewhat disjointed and circuitous. (And yes, Vermeij has many, many thoughts about snails along the way.) As a layman, my experience is that The Evolutionary World is the type of text that I am glad to have read but was not necessarily glad to have been reading.
Another round of editing would have been beneficial. For instance, p. 248 of the copy I read is home to the following numerical eyesore, forcing the reader to expend unnecessary effort to grasp Vermeij's intended meaning. All the confusion results from a single missing space:
The largest known species during the Late Permian, Triassic, Late Jurassic, and Cretaceous periods weighed approximately 400,600 [sic], more than 1,000, and 5,700 kilograms respectively.
Vermeij’s writing is information-dense to the point that it borders on inaccessible to a hobbyist reading public. At the same time, many of his analogies to human society, while fascinating, are not conclusively demonstrated. The Evolutionary World therefore occupies a somewhat uncomfortable niche between academic and trade publications: not engaging enough in its technicality to be broadly appealing to laypeople, yet not rigorous enough in its argumentation to appeal to academic colleagues. If there is a thesis to the work, it is that human society represents the latest chapter in adaptation’s story, but the road leading to this conclusion is somewhat disjointed and circuitous. (And yes, Vermeij has many, many thoughts about snails along the way.) As a layman, my experience is that The Evolutionary World is the type of text that I am glad to have read but was not necessarily glad to have been reading.
August 15, 2021
An interesting book in which paleontologist Geerat Vermeij draws many parallels between evolutionary biology (mostly related to adaptation) and our society. The book contains many interesting ideas and perspectives, but from time to time the reasoning is a bit muddled and difficult to follow. It feels like he is putting his thoughts on paper and not structuring them afterwards. Some sections were also unclear because of the academic writing style (but this could also be a consequence of the Dutch translation). But all in all, a nice read on the big patterns in evolution.
September 20, 2011
Much philosophical pontification on adaptation as an analogy to scientific hypotheses.
Though, this thesis isn't very well demonstrated.
The narrative rambles and changes direction abruptly, leaving the reader confused.
Vermeij makes weak arguments that may be correct, but lack supporting evidence.
Lots of grandiose claims go unsupported by facts, or a step-by-step proof.
Instead, Vermeij relies on the reader's acceptance of his often cooky analogies.
Argument by analogy should be used much more sparingly.
The end product is a lot of words spent on saying nothing at all.
Lots of cool information about sea snails and hermit crabs, though! :D
Though, this thesis isn't very well demonstrated.
The narrative rambles and changes direction abruptly, leaving the reader confused.
Vermeij makes weak arguments that may be correct, but lack supporting evidence.
Lots of grandiose claims go unsupported by facts, or a step-by-step proof.
Instead, Vermeij relies on the reader's acceptance of his often cooky analogies.
Argument by analogy should be used much more sparingly.
The end product is a lot of words spent on saying nothing at all.
Lots of cool information about sea snails and hermit crabs, though! :D
July 1, 2015
Like many books I read, this one had about twice as much info as I really needed to know, but that says more about me than about the book. If your level of interest is more towards "kind of" rather than "intense," you can always skim and skip. The author did a fine job of connecting biological evolution to societal changes, which many evolution books don't do, so that was a plus.
June 1, 2014
It took me almost a year to read this book because I just read it during lunch breaks at work, and then only when I wasn't talking to people. Overall it is an interesting read, but I would say that the final chapter is far and away the most interesting to me.
August 18, 2011
Interesting, impressive and well presented. History is just too powerful to ignore. Worth reading.
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