Tuberculosis and leprosy are among the most feared diseases to afflict humanity.
The former is caused by the organism Mycobacterium tuberculosis, whose 4.4-megabase genome contains around 4,000 genes. The reason that M. tuberculosis is so hard to kill is that antibacterials generally target bacteria while they are dividing, and M. tuberculosis divides very infrequently.
The latter contagion is caused by TB’s close relative, M. leprae. But – now get this – the genome of this creature is a wizened 3.3 megabases, containing a cheese-paring 2,700 genes, at least 1,100 of which don’t work. As an organism, M. leprae is a broken thing, just barely alive, with a constitution so fragile that it is hardly able to make even a minimum of the enzymes it needs to get through the day. And yet, as someone said in another context, eppur si muove.
What is the cause of such degradation? Evolution, that’s what, the fact that has shaped every living being. But far from a force that strives ever for some human ideal of perfection, natural selection ensures that organisms do just enough to get along, and no more. If a parasite, such as M. leprae, can live without going to all that metabolic effort when the host can look after it, then it will.
As we go into Darwin year, this tale should be a salutary slap in the face to all those who use evolution for political ends.
Evolution has no memory and no foresight. Evolution does not judge, does not blame, does not complain. (Evolution is therefore not Jewish, but I digress). Most of all, evolution has no morality.
Evolution is not some engine of inexorable improvement in which the scala naturae is monstrously animated, such that evolution might be regarded as a metaphor for progress (as the Left have argued) or a yardstick for racial purity (as have the Right).
And if evolution is replaced by an Intelligent Designer, one is entitled to ask serious questions about the moral purpose, integrity and even the sense of humor of a Designer that created that hideous, toothless, barely functional monster that is M. leprae.
If, however, people choose to ignore my cautionary words and use evolution as a metaphor for the construction of social policy, they should be warned that such metaphors will only work if they choose the unpleasant parts, as well as those parts that suit their political complexion.
Those on the right who assert that greed is good, and those who get left behind are ignored legitimately as victims of a darwinian struggle for existence, should be reminded that death comes to us all in the end, and that evolution, as well as being amoral, is inhuman. For what evolution is not is a judge of the inherent worth of surplus value. And the struggle for existence is worthless unless it is matched by reproductive success: the wealthy breed less often and later than the poor.
To those on the Left who have seen in evolution a metaphor for the upward movement of humanity towards some utopian greater good, look around at your cities, and see that social measures designed to raise the poor from their bondage tend, ultimately, to keep them there, and worse, to foster a kind of parasitic decay. In the UK, the result of 11 years of Labour administration has been a client underclass in which millions can exist only on a complex system of social benefits, and in which social mobility is lower than it has been for generations.
To those acolytes of Dawkins and Intelligent Design alike, I say that evolution has no moral purpose, no end in view, Evolution is not a religion, neither can it be substituted for creeds from which human beings derive human comfort. Evolution is not a badge of the greater good. If considered in moral terms, evolution is a niggard, a backslider, a wastrel, a profligate, a miser. It is a scrounger, a slob, a whiner, a beggar, a bully, a thief, a murderer, a makeshift, a scoundrel, a carpetbagger, a trickster, a burglar, an arsonist, a rapist. It has no God but its own immediate self-gratification, if simply fuelling itself to get through the next day, the next minute, can be labelled as pleasurable. Evolution will put its elders out to die and eat its own children. No, if held up against any kind of moral compass whatsoever, evolution is not really nice.
Evolution has, or should have, no more of a moral dimension than gravity. Love it or loathe it, evolution is here to stay. As the man said, eppur si muove, which translates — roughly, I know — as ‘frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn’. Those who use evolution to further their own, all-too-human politics, use it at their peril.
The randomness of biology?
Not so much randomness as unfairness – if one chooses to overprint the facts of biology with one’s own ideas of morality. This post had been brewing since I read Richard’s post on unfairness, and being subjected, night after f&^%ing night, to Britain’s Got Talent. The proles really are taking over, and were one to equate this too much with Mr Malthus and so on, one would only get very depressed indeed. The light of intellect in our society is dying – a point I didn’t make strongly enough in my original post (though I meant to), hence the title. And the unfairness? We have a government that pretends to be in favor of the knowledge economy, but does everything in its policies to prevent this. Money talks, and bullshit walks.
I didn’t mean to undermine your excellent post with a flippant one-liner, Henry, sorry if it seems that way. When I read your post I was put in mind of some sad biological events, and my phrase was internal shorthand for my thoughts.
By one of those odd coincidences of the blogosphere, I read a post tonight about the complexity of peacockery by one of Frank Wilson’s friends. I have directed him (Nige) here in the comments, as I think he (Nige) would be interested to read your essay on the opposite end of the complexity spectrum.
An excellent post Henry.
With the US careening towards it’s next
global humiliationelection more of the “evolution” tosh is sure to be spouted. I’ll remember this post as a good primer for disavowing the spin doctors.Hi – Very interesting. You rightly point out that evolution is amoral, but then you seemingly anthropomorphise it as im-moral. It does also, in the oblivious process, yield much wonder and beauty (although that’s a more subjective argument, granted.) It is wasteful, yes, but also economical, such as in the M. leprae example you describe.
I’m confused as to whether you are addressing ‘those acolytes of Dawkins and ID’, or speaking for them. If anybody who ‘follows’ Dawkins thinks he touts evolution as a moral precept, they are mistaken, because Dawkins himself argues the opposite.
Are you perhaps backwardly using evolution to score a (contestable) political point of your own? I’m right with you, though, on the dumbing down of culture, society, etc (which has been occuring a lot longer than eleven years). Apathy rules, UK.
Hi, Lee. Yes, my motivations in writing this post are complex (see my response to Maxine, above), and, as you imply, probably somewhat self-contradictory. But I think I wanted to say that the use of evolutionary metaphor to serve any political end does a disservice to what evolution means, and what evolutionary thought implies. Nobody gets steamed up about gravity, do they?
Hi Maxine – no offense taken, whatsoever! Thanks for the links.
That’s Intelligent Falling, I’ll have you know!
That’s Intelligent Falling, I’ll have you know!
I believe Newton’s Gravity was much lampooned at the time. Cartoonists had a field day setting it in opposition to a Law of Levity.
@Lee – Having slept on your comments, I’ve edited the blog slightly to make its meaning clearer. I didn’t mean to anthropomorphise evolution as immoral – more to show that to apply any moral value to evolution, from any perspective whatsoever, is to show how amoral evolution is, and, by extension, how dangerous it is to ally oneself with evolution in the cause of political ends. Sorry to have caused confusion.
I have seen some of the ID crowd in effect arguing for this. I don’t think they quite realised what they were writing.
@ Henry – Wasn’t my aim to provoke you into self-edit; just challenging details (because that’s what they’re for). Your central thesis is clear enough and, I think, largely correct.
I too rail at bad TV, such as Britain’s Got Talent. I caught it a couple of weeks back, and, though I initially found hilarious the lady with her ‘dancing’ sheep that promptly legged it, my mood changed to one of sorrow: both for the bewildered and frightened animal, and its deluded and abandoned partner. I wondered whether she has any real friends.
Is it the ‘proles’, or the exploitation of the proles? After all, who buys most of the lottery tickets?
The National Lottery is indeed a taxation on the poor.
Vaccination was also lampooned when it hit the popular consciousness in the UK certainly – remember that hogarthian cartoon of the ladies with little cows in their arms re. Jenner’s smallpox vaccine? Of course, vaccination is now generally accepted as being safe and sensible (MMR). Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?
remember that hogarthian cartoon of the ladies with little cows in their arms re. Jenner’s smallpox vaccine?
Thanks for that, Maxine! A very good example of how the popular press has always lampooned science. Strong pre-echoes of the current media hysteria about human-animal ‘hybrids’.
Of course, vaccination is now generally accepted as being safe and sensible (MMR)
:)
Whatever goes around, comes around.