Freeday 7 April 2000

Pic of the day: Back when dinosaurs ruled the earth ... or did they? Evolution makes for wonderful stories, appealing to the heart.
(Screenshot is made with Civ 2 add on pack, "fantastic worlds".)

During the 19th and 20eth century, "Darwinism" gradually replaced the biblical "Genesis myth" as the main explanation for the current lifeforms. Well, at least in western culture it did. Much of the world has never believed in the Bible.

The reason for this shift in belief seems rather obvious: The one is poethic mythos, while the other is a verifiable fact. The fossils lie there for the taking, and the relationship between various species is plain to see in many cases. If horse and donkey were not related, how could they have offspring? If they were the same kind, why is their offspring never fertile? Evolution, like the idea of a round Earth, is rather obvious once you start to look for it.

So why did it not catch on before? Am I saying that people up until sometime last century were just plain stupid?

They almost certainly were less intelligent than us. There is a gradual and measurable rise in intelligence now for each generation, called the Flynn effect. But obviously this cannot be followed too far into the past, or our ancestors would be more stupid than dogs a few centuries back. The reason for this peculiar trend may well be the same as for the sudden popularity of Darwinism: Things started to change.

During most of human history, change was an exception, and often a bad thing. Change would be that some new king conquered the land, or the weather patterns slowly changed (generally it became colder and drier) or now and again some strange invention showed up, such as the harness or a more navigable boat. Some might profit from the changes, others might lose. But then things would stabilize again, and after a couple generations it would seem that the world was in balance, unchanged since the day of creation. People were born, people died; their numbers remained about the same, and their tools too.

Even the "industrial revolution" had a rather slow start. Change was moderate, and even then it was resisted fiercely by luddites and other groups who wanted to preserve the old order. But gradually one thing led to another, and change picked up speed. With the steam engine, people could suddenly move both on land and on water with unprecedented speed. And wherever they moved, they took with them new ideas. Change became a constant. First slow change, then faster. Finally generations had grown up who knew nothing but change. Change was the rule, and change was improvement. New and faster ships or trains, new and more efficient machines or crops. New and better.

Suddenly evolution made sense. Their ancestors had seen on a world in stasis, where it seemed that a supernatural force must have been active to effect change. Now people looked at a world in which change was the natural. If all things man made changed, why should not also nature be subject to change?

The popularity of evolution then has little to do with it being true. It is also true that overweight people, and especially men, are more likely to succumb to a wide range of devastating and even fatal afflictions. Despite this, people around the wold grow fatter and fatter for each passing decade. Repeat the same for stress, unprotected sex and various drugs. Obviously truth is vastly overrated as a factor in influencing humans.

No, the reason why evolutionism succeeded was that it was a fitting myth for a new time. It was the mythological implication that gripped the heart: The thought that humanity would rise from its dubious past and grow into a new and brighter future. The belief that the old did not always know better. With the burgeoning population boom, a large part of society was now young people. For them the idea of continuing improvement was like sweet music. A new mantra formed for a new time: Change, growth, power!

The next entry in this series, "rise of the mutants", covers the time from 1945 to 1999.

In national news today: Close to 2000 people were still evacuated from the area around a crashed and burning train carrying highly explosive propane gas. A main concern was that they were not allowed to go back to give their pets food and water after two days. The train is still burning.