What's Been and What's Ben

Tomorrow, the 24 of November 2009, marks the 150th anniversary of Darwin publishing “On the Origin of Speices” which changed science, public policy, and our general understanding of the universe forever. The most important thing about natural selection is that it applies to all systems that extend over time. Modern business theory and American Idol all represent the idea that those successful at hanging onto life will be present in future generations. It is not an active thing, but something that naturally flows as a consequence of time. Natural selection applies even to the idea of evolution, as it has perpetuated and flourished for a century in a half because it best explains evolution.

I personally side with Richard Dawkins and the theory that genes are the fundamental unit of natural selection instead of the species as a whole. Individuals have many copies of the same gene that often fight with other genes. The word “fight” shouldn’t be used because it makes it seem like an active action. It just happens. The process may appear purposeful because of the effective track record. I find the notion that life can become more complex just through billions of years of trial and error encouraging. It means the future tends to improve on the past. I watched a Google tech talk the other day about using evolution to design artificial intelligence.

The Y chromosome is small because it is attacked by the X chromosome because it has three times as much evolutionary time to work (XX and XY). Some species go extinct because the X chromosome goes crazy and kills off the Y chromosome. Insert joke here. I disagree with those that view evolution as a reason for misogany. Although men can dunk a basketball, we are really mutants that can dunk. A few minutes of thought with Occam’s razor says that XX was there first and XY joined the picture later.

Evolution for us multi-cellular organisms involves cooperation. You carry around ten times the number of bacteria cells as human cells. You can view them as hitchhikers or an ally in our digestive and immune system. Good bacteria you carry outnumber by several orders of magnitude the handful of bad bacteria that make you sick. Hating bacteria is like hating Italians because a few of them are mobsters. Good bacteria cooperate because we can move them far faster than their tiny flagella – an evolutionary advantage.

So thank you Charles.