Theos-Talk Archives (September 2002 Message tt00187)

As kids we are led to believe that everything evolves
towards a higher state of being. Our cars get faster,
guns bigger, planes higher and so on. The evolution of
things progresses, never degresses, on and on and on
and on....

But is this a correct way of looking at how things
evolve? Certainly, from a Darwinian view-point there
is a gradual evolution from lower to higher beings
(although this should more correctly be termed the
neo-Darwinian viewpoint as I'm sure Darwin would view
organisms as best suited to their environment, rather
than progressing towards something - hints of
teleology??). Hence we get Spencer and social
Darwinists claiming that Negroes are inferior to the
almighty Aryan.

Viewing the long-term evolution of beings on this
planet one also gets the impression that there is a
gradualism from inferior to superior forms. Aren't
mammals superior to reptiles? Aren't marsupial
superior to monotremes? And, in turn, aren't
placentals superior to marsupials? Or, from another
point of view, aren't we humans the most superior of
all creatures because of our large brain capacity?

Firstly I would like to deal with placentals being
superior to marsupials. Certainly when Europeans
arrived in Australia, with their sheep, cattle,
rabbits and foxes, there was an "ecological release"
where these creatures had sex like crazy and now
populate most areas of the continent. In their wake
they have left behind many an extinct marsupial. Of
course there is no need to look to the modern era for
a demonstration. Didn't the dingo, arriving a mere
5,000 years before present, displace the lowly
Thylacine and Tassie Devil from the mainland? Nature,
red in tooth and claw, has clearly demonstrated the
superiority of the placental over the marsupial. But
before Australia embarked on its lonely drift north
away from Antarctica and towards Asia placentals were
present on the continent. Somewhere along the way they
were lost over board and drowned in the opening
oceans. Clearly, marsupials had out-competed these
early placentals to come to dominate the fauna of
Australia. Even though present trends indicate that
placentals are more evolved than marsupials and are
hence better competitors on the stage of evolution
this was not always the case. The ultimate test would
be, if all fauna were allowed to battle it out without
the assistance of humans, to see which mammal
assemblage would dominate the continent in say a
million years time. Interestingly, now that kangaroos
roam the never never of Eurasia, marsupials may come
to dominate over placentals in their home land.

Now to the brain. Is this a measure of superiority?
Are organisms with larger brains more evolved than the
rest of the biotic world? If dominance in biomass were
a measure then surely bacteria or nematodes would take
the cake. Or if species diversity were a measure then
beatles would win hands down. But what about brains?
is there evidence that in all organisms there has been
a gradual evolution towards greater brain capacity?
Let us return to the Antipodes and, in particular, the
humble koala. Here is an organism that has had to
reduce its brain capacity through evolutionary time.
Why? The koala's diet consists entirely of euclayptus
leaves. As any child can tell you a carnivore is
smarter than a herbivore. So a koala being herbivore
didn't help to being with. But with increasing aridity
in Australia, the continued loss of nutrients in the
soil, and the greater influence of fire in structuring
the floral landscape, the leaves of Eucalypts have
become ever more toxic. To cope the koala has
remarkably reduced its brain capacity.

So in two respects of evolution there is no clear cut
evidence that there is a linear progression from
inferior to superior. But what we have looked at is
purely on the material plane. Evolutionary biologists
have very little, if anything, to say about evolution
on the spiritual or any other plane.

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