Evolution

August 2020 by Elleen Xue

“Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler.”

– Albert Einstein, misattributed to Charles Darwin

Perhaps one of the greatest intellectual challenges for me as budding scientist and aspiring physician was understanding the concept of “natural selection,” a term I feel perpetrates a great deal of misunderstanding in science, specifically the concept of evolution.  I suspect this is the case because the idea of “selection” quite naturally conjures to mind a selector as the agent.  But if we really study the Origin of Species and Darwin’s theory of evolution, we come to realize that no agent is selecting for anything, and that it is even a stretch to claim that nature in some ways “selects” because in reality it does no such thing.  Mutations occur, and species that thrive do so because of a symbiotic relationship with their genes and their ecological niches, such that certain species will replicate, but are not, in the everyday sense of the word “selected.”  Thus, for me as a student to get my head around the idea, I came to substitute the phrase “natural selection” with “natural occurrence” or “natural luck” because by doing so I omit the idea of a guiding force or “grand selector.”

This mental culling then lead to an unanticipated problem: namely, that by removing the idea of selection and admitting to myself that evolution is often the product of sheer luck and chance, it seemed then that most living things would be rather simple, since we when we humans think of complexity we often think of manmade items like a computer, a watch or a spaceship.  It would follow then that complex things appear “designed” and simple things, like a grain of sand, appear to just have happened with no aforethought or guiding principle.  I am reminded of William Paley’s example when, to paraphrase the theologian and scientist, he reasoned that should he strike his foot upon a stone, he would naturally conclude the stone “just happened” to be there by the forces of nature, since a stone, relative to a pocket watch, is far less complex.  Paley’s corollary of course, was that should he come upon a watch, he would be forced to conclude that it had to have a designer, because a watch is so intricate it couldn’t have just sprung into existence by happenstance the way a rock would have.

But this is not to say that evolution denies complexity, since all we need to do is look at many living creatures, and even organs of the creatures to see that there is an immense complexity to many forms of life, the classic example of complexity being the human eye.  But to say something is complex is not to say then by definition it must have been designed.  Ecosystems are incredibly intricate and complex, but we do not suppose they are consciously guided or designed, while on the other hand something like a coffee cup or paperweight is quite simple, yet we know these items were designed and created by a maker.

So, what would happen is we misattribute Einstein’s quote that “everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler” to Charles Darwin?  For it is generally agreed that Einstein was referring to scientific theory, and advocating for the eschewing of superfluous explanations.  Richard Dawkins illustrates this concept quite nicely when he argues that to suppose a god made a man, one must then posit an explanation for the God, something I dare say perhaps more complex than a neutrino, such that it is far more likely and logical to say that man evolved from a primate and leave it at that level of explanation, and thereby leave a God out of it altogether, so as to obviate the need to then subsequently explain what a God is, and how it came about, ad infinitum.

But, if Darwin had uttered Einstein’s declaration that everything “must be made” (simple) than we are in a sense, back to square one, because it could erroneously be concluded that Darwin was positing a “maker” when we know that no creator or maker exists.   We can account for very intricate and complex objects like the eye, that appear designed and created, when we contemplate the vast, vast amount of time the eye had to evolve and come into its present form and existence. This misattribution then would only have flummoxed me further, if we had to imagine a natural “selector” who “makes things” as simple as possible.

In conclusion then, should I decide to and be lucky enough to have my own children, I will deliberately not refer to evolution via “natural selection” precisely because, I suspect, they too will wonder, much like I did, who is doing the selecting in the first place.  For now, “natural occurrence” seems to add more clarity to the concept, and then by correctly attributing Einstein’s quote to the theory of evolution, I would shed yet more light, since it suffices to look at billions of years of time, and myriad ecological niches to suffice as an example for the variety of life, and thereby remove from consideration any notion of a maker or creator making or selecting anything.