Book Review – Darwin’s Table (What is the Scope and Level of Evolutionary Theory?)

I read the book Darwin’s Table by Professor Dae-Ik Jang from South Korea and wrote my personal views on the theory of evolution.

 

Until the end of the 16th century, the theory that the Earth was the center of the universe and that all stars and planets, including the Sun, revolved around the Earth (heliocentrism) was firmly entrenched in people’s minds. Galilei’s astronomical observations showed that the Earth was not the center of the universe, and that the Earth was only one of several planets revolving around the Sun (geocentrism). However, even with scientific evidence, it was difficult to change people’s minds overnight after so many years. There is a famous anecdote about Galilei, who was eventually tried by the Inquisition, leaving the courtroom and quietly saying, “But the Earth still turns.”
C.R. Darwin’s story is similar. In his book On the Origin of Species, he explained the mechanism of adaptation and evolution of living species through natural selection, or Darwinism. In other words, he argued that the first species of organisms lived in different environments, and as the process of adapting to their environment continued over a long period of time, new species with features adapted to their environment would arise. Although the scientific community now agrees that life evolves, in the 18th century, people believed that all living things were created by God (creationism), and his ideas sparked enormous religious controversy and backlash.
Evolutionary theory, which was once a fringe theory, defeated creationism and became mainstream, but opinions within the framework of evolutionary theory have been divided into mainstream theories (adaptationism, genetic selection, etc.) and fringe theories (anti-adaptationism, multi-level selection). As the examples of Galilei and Darwin above illustrate, it is very difficult to formulate a new theory that differs from the mainstream theory, i.e., the prevailing ideas people have about a subject. However, just as the theory of geodynamics and the theory of evolution, which were once thought to be incorrect, were eventually proven to be true, debates about scientific issues should be judged solely from a scientific perspective, excluding all other personal opinions, ideas, and preferences.
From this scientific perspective, I oppose the adaptationist, genetic selection theory that currently dominates evolutionary theory and favor the anti-adaptationist, multi-level selection theory. In this regard, I would like to shed some light on my thoughts by reading the book Darwin’s Table by Korean professor Dae-Ik Jang.
Darwin’s Table is a fictionalized conversation between the greatest evolutionary biologists since Darwin, William Hamilton, at the funeral of William Hamilton, discussing various issues related to evolutionary theory. As the name suggests, the discussion is between Darwin’s descendants who accept the theory of natural selection, the core concept of Darwin’s theory of evolution. While they accept the same theory, they disagree about its scope and strength, and argue fiercely about each aspect. Dawkins’s team, represented by Dawkins, supports the mainstream theory, while Gould’s team, represented by Gould, supports the non-mainstream theory.
Dawkins favors the adaptationist view of human language as an adaptation or a byproduct of the development of intelligence. Adaptationism holds that most of the characteristics of a species are the result of adaptation to its environment. However, I disagree and believe that language is a byproduct of human adaptation to the environment. First, the human language system is innate, and it is similar in other primates, such as chimpanzees, and other creatures have many forms of communication and the vocal organs to do so. However, given the fact that human grammar is the most developed among primates, and among all primates, and given that humans have the most developed brains and the highest intelligence of all animals, it is reasonable to assume that human language is an outgrowth of brain development and intelligence. Secondly, experiments in which chimpanzees, one of the most intelligent animals after humans, are taught human grammar to form sentences also confirm that human language is a result of intelligence development. Chimpanzees, with brains that are one-fourth to one-third the size of a human brain, have a limited ability to learn language, no matter how much they are taught. Humans, on the other hand, are able to constantly create new sentences using the rules they’ve learned in the first few years of life. As humans grow up, their intelligence develops to a certain point, allowing them to learn more language rules, whereas other animals are less intelligent and underdeveloped, so they don’t learn as much language.
An adaptationist might argue that the complexity and sophistication of language grammar fulfills the criteria for a trait to be considered an “adaptation,” i.e., a certain level of complexity, and therefore human language can be considered an adaptation to natural selection. However, adaptationists’ criteria of “complexity” and “sophistication” are very vague, and depending on the human subjectivity of the person applying the criteria, any phenomenon in nature can be interpreted as an adaptation. Adaptationists need to find more evidence and be more precise about what constitutes “sophistication” if they want to advance this logic.
Second, let’s look at the phenomenon of “cooperation” in nature. Individuals often cooperate with their peers or sacrifice themselves entirely, even if there is nothing in it for them, such as worker ants and bees.
Dawkins’ team, which advocates the theory of genetic selection, argues for genetic reductionism, saying that “humans and all animals are survival machines and carriers of genes. This is why worker ants and bees go to extreme lengths to sacrifice themselves in order to spread their genes more widely. Gould’s team countered that while evolution can occur at the gene level, it doesn’t necessarily have to. They argue that evolution can occur at the level of cells, organs, and organisms, or at any level of organizational classification (species, genus, class, family, order, class, phylum) (multilevel selection).
I tend to favor multilevel selectionism. To be clear, I’m not saying that all the genetic selection theories are wrong, but I do think that there are many different levels at which evolution occurs, from the smallest gene strand to each organ, individual, and species. It is true that genes are ultimately where change occurs through evolution. However, it is important to note that evolution does not simply mean the evolution of genes themselves, but evolution through “natural selection”. It is not the genes themselves that cause an organism to evolve, but the entire organism that interacts directly with the natural environment, because it is the interaction with the natural environment that changes due to changes in the natural environment.
There is still a lack of evidence for evolution, so the Darwinian dinner table debate is likely to continue. Despite the lack of evidence, productive debates like those at Darwin’s table can contribute greatly to the development of logical theories. However, in my opinion, there are many phenomena that cannot be explained by the mainstream theories of adaptationism and genetic selection, which means that these theories are not perfect. Instead of being too exclusive about other theories, thinking about non-mainstream theories on the assumption that they are correct can help us identify weaknesses in mainstream theories and further develop scientific theories.