Gaia is evolution

From Rivista Di Biologia Vol 83, 2-3, 1990.

This paper is an abridged version of the introductory paper presented by the author at the second annual Camelford Symposia on the implications of the Gaia thesis.

The full text is published in the proceedings of the Conference: Gaia and Evolution, ed. P. Bunyard and E. Goldsmith.

ABSTRACT: The establishment of Darwinism as “normal science” can only be explained on sociological grounds. The view of Gaia, as a goal-directed, cooperative enterprise, is the very negation of neo-Darwinism. Evolution is a long term strategy, not just a set of ad hoc adaptations. It is also a cybernetic process capable of monitoring its response and hence maintain its stability or homeostasis. Neo-Darwinists have failed to distinguish between pathology and physiology, between tumour growth and differentiation, between anti-evolution and evolution.

“It really is ludicrous that we should have gone so far with Epicurus as to manufacture chaos where none exists, in order to provide ourselves with the properly certificated raw material for system building.”

—Stafford Beer, 1960

Why Neo-Darwinism Is The Official Doctrine Today

Neither Darwinism nor the neo-Darwinism of Bateson and Weissman nor its latest version, the Synthetic Theory, provide an evolutionary theory that is reconcilable with our knowledge of the structure and function of the world of living things. This is particularly so if the latter is seen in the light of the Gaia hypothesis as a single living system, whose constituent parts cooperate in achieving a specific strategy—the maintenance of the basic features of its order or organization in the face of internal or external challenges i.e. its stability or homeostasis.

What is particularly damning is that little attempt has been made to provide any serious evidence of the Darwinist theory. This has been noted by a number of critics.

Thus, Karl Popper (1972) considered that,

“neither Darwin nor any Darwinian has so far given an actual causal explanation of the adaptive evolution of any single organism or any single organ. All that has been shown—and this is very much—is that such explanations might exist, (that is to say, they are not logically impossible).”

Popper does not, for that reason, consider Darwinism as a scientific theory—though he does not necessarily reject it. Ludwig Von Bertalanffy (1969) makes the same point.

“In the debate on evolution, he writes, there has been no more concern with proof than in the operation of a Tibetan prayer wheel.”

It is easy to show how these criticisms apply to both the basic components of Darwinism and neo-Darwinism: the role that is supposed to be played in the evolutionary process by random variations or random mutations or indeed by randomness itself, and that which is supposed to be played in that process by natural selection.

Since there is absolutely no evidence for the neo-Darwinist, and since it fits in so very poorly with our knowledge of the world of living things, the only reason why it should prove so durable seems to be that it fits in so well with the paradigm of reductionist science and hence with the worldview of modernism that the latter so faithfully reflects. This was the view of Michael Polanyi (1958).

“Neo-Darwinism, he wrote, is firmly accredited and highly regarded by science though there is little direct evidence for it because it fits in beautifully with the mechanism system of the universe and bears on the subject—the origin of man which is of the utmost intrinsic interest.”

It was also the view of Ludwig Von Bertalanffy (1969), who considered,

“that a theory so vague, so insufficiently verifiable and so far from the criteria otherwise applied in ‘hard’ science, has become a dogma, can only be explained on sociological grounds, society and science have been so steeped in the ideas of mechanism, utilitarianism and the economic concept of free competition that instead of God, selection was enthroned as ultimate reality” (Koestler and Smythies, 1969).

Suggestions For A Post-Darwinian Theory

Any new post-Darwinian evolutionary theory, if it is to be a realistic one, is likely to clash with rather than conform to the paradigm of reductionist science, for which reason it is unlikely to be accepted until such time as that paradigm itself undergoes considerable change—and indeed itself becomes more realistic. This process is already under way. The paradigm of reductionist science is under assault across a broad front. Its transformation is indeed necessary because, among other things, it faithfully reflects the worldview of modernism which serves above all to rationalize and hence to validate the Promethean enterprise to which modern society is committed and that is leading to the systematic annihilation of the world of living things.

Indeed, if man is to survive for very long, one of the requirements is the replacement of the paradigm of reductionist science by a new ecological paradigm, which I feel would be very much inspired by Jim Lovelock’s Gaia thesis.

This new paradigm would also reflect a very different worldview, one that would serve to rationalize and hence validate a very different enterprise: that of systematically reducing the impact of our economic activities on the ecosphere and, thereby, to the extent that this is still possible, of restoring the proper functioning of the Gaian process that can alone assure that our planet remains habitable.

It remains to say just—very tentatively indeed—what might be some of the basic features of such a post Darwinian theory.

According to the Gaia thesis, the biosphere together with its atmospheric environment form a single entity or natural system. This system is the product of organic forces that are highly coordinated by the system itself. Gaia has, in effect, created herself, not in a random manner, what is more, but in a goal-directed manner since the system is highly stable and is capable of maintaining its stability in the face of internal and external challenges. It is, in fact, a cybernetic system, and for this to be possible Gaia must display considerable order, indeed, she must be seen as a vast cooperative enterprise, very much as nature was seen by the Natural Theologists. Such a view of the world of living things is, needless to say, totally incompatible with neo-Darwinism. Indeed an evolutionary theory that would be consistent with this view of the world would be the very negation of neo-Darwinism. I shall suggest what some of its features might be.

Gaia As The Unit Of Evolution

If Gaia is a single natural system that has created herself in a coordinated and goal-directed way, then Gaia is clearly the unit of evolution, not the individual living things as neo-Darwinists insist.

Gaia is evolution.
Gaia is not just a contemporaneous organization of living things. She is a spatio-temporal system. Now it is difficult for us to grasp the notion of a spatio-temporal system, as our language makes a clear distinction between things and processes and our thinking is clearly influenced by our language. It is nevertheless essential that we realize that all living things have a temporal as well as a spatial component. They exist in time just as much as in space. This means that Gaia is not only a thing but also a process. One might ask, is it not evolution?

If this is so, then the Gaian process, i.e. evolution, must display the same fundamental structure that does Gaia when seen as a spatial thing. If the latter is a biological, social and ecological structure, then the former cannot possibly be but a mere physical and mechanical one as the neo-Darwinists tell us; it must clearly also be seen in biological, social and ecological terms.

Gaia as a total spatio-temporal system.
But what part of the temporal process involved must be seen as evolving? We assume that it must be the contemporaneous process, the one occurring before our eyes? But how do we justify this assumption? I suggest that the total process is involved, stretching back into the mists of time. The reason for suggesting this is that the information passed on from generation to generation of living things must reflect the experience of the total spatio-temporal system involved and not just of part or it.

This information appears to be organized hierarchically, the most general information, that which reflect the longest experience being particularly non-plastic, the more particular information, that which reflects the more recent experience being very much more plastic, and hence more easily adaptable to short-term environmental contingencies. This arrangement is clearly that which best assures the continuity or the stability of the total spatio-temporal Gaian system. If this so, this means, among other things, that evolution is a long term strategy not just a set of ad hoc adaptations.

Evolution as a living process.
If Gaia creates herself, then the living world must be seen as dynamic and creative not as passive and robot-like. The qualities that are tacitly attributed to the vague undefined environment must be ascribed as well to the living things that it is seen as managing. Evolution is thereby no longer the mere product of natural selection from random variations or genetic mutations, but of living things exhibiting all those features of living things whose involvement in the evolutionary process neo-Darwinists have been at such pains to deny.

Evolution As A Cybernetic Process

If Gaia is evolution, then evolution must also be a cybernetic process. Lovelock’s Daisy World is a cybernetic process but a very rudimentary one. One must suppose that the cybernetic process that led to the development of so complex and sophisticated a system as Gaia herself must be very must more sophisticated.

Now we are beginning to know quite a lot about very sophisticated living cybernetic processes. Human behaviour, as Kenneth Craik was the first to show, is mediated on the basis of a mental model of an individual’s relationship with his environment in the light of which it is then monitored and diversions from the appropriate pattern of behaviour corrected. Gerardo Reichel-Dolmatoff and others have shown how the behaviour of tribal groups in Amazonia is controlled in similar fashion, the model of the tribe’s relationship with its environment being formulated in the language of its mythology. I do not think that it is too outlandish to ask whether Gaia herself is not endowed with a similar model?

What is certain is that a cybernetic system must be capable of monitoring its responses otherwise it could not correct diversions from its optimum course and hence maintain its homeorhesis and thereby its stability.

How then is evolution monitored? Baldwin, Lloyd Morgan, Goldschmidt, Waddington and Schmallhausen have all proposed mechanisms that might achieve this and that might be less offensive to the susceptibilities of neo-Darwinists than that proposed by Lamarck. The case for such feedback is put particularly forcefully by Piaget (1976).

The whole issue becomes much clearer, of course, once it is realized that the information that serves to mediate evolution is not just genetic but is formulated in different informational media including the cultural medium.

Evolution, a goal-directed process.
If evolution is a cybernetic process, then it must be goal-directed. The reason should be clear. To say that a process is under control means that it is maintaining itself on its optimum course or ‘chreod’ as Waddington referred to it, that which will enable it to achieve its optimum end-state or goal: a baby in the case of the embryological process, the climax in the case of an ecological one. This implies that there is an optimum course and also that there is an end-state or goal. If there is not, then the very notion of control becomes meaningless.

Once a system has achieved its end-state, then to say that it is under control is to say that it is capable of maintaining itself at that end-state or thereabouts, that it is in fact homeostatic.

Again, this implies that there is an end-state. If there was not, then clearly it could not maintain itself there. It seems to me that one has to overcome the scientist’s irrational attitude towards goal-directedness, purposiveness or teleology. It is a fact of life, a fundamental feature of life-processes including the overall one: evolution.

Stability.
To say that a cybernetic system maintains its homeostasis and that its constituent parts cooperate with it in this enterprise is to say that its goal is the maintenance of its homeostasis . . . or stability, which is, in effect, the same thing. This implies that Gaia does not seek to evolve, and that the changes that it undergoes are simply those that it must undergo in order to avoid bigger and more disruptive changes. They are but part of a dynamic and creative strategy for maintaining the stability of the total spatio-temporal system that is Gaia. Indeed, it must be by adapting the particularities of its structure to environmental contingencies that a dynamic system such as Gaia can best maintain the generalities of its structure and hence its stability or homeostasis.

Order And Cooperation

If Gaia is to be capable of acting as a cybernetic system and of maintaining its homeostasis, then it must display that specific structure that enables it to do so. It quite clearly cannot be but a random assortment of competitive individuals all frantically striving to achieve their own egoistic ends as the neo-Darwinists maintain.

Instead, Gaia must be seen, as Lovelock sees her, as a vast cooperative enterprise geared to the maintenance of its overall structure in the face of change.

Competition there clearly must be, but rather than be the most fundamental relationship between living things, it can only be a secondary relationship. Selection too there must be, but it cannot be operated by a vague, undefined environment but by the various natural systems, that make up the Gaia hierarchy, on their constituent parts. Its role, what is more, cannot be to assure the “survival of the fittest” in the sense of the most individualistic, and the most competitive, but on the contrary to eliminate such undesirable individuals, since they do not fit into Gaia’s cooperative structure, assuring in this way the survival of those who do fit into it and thereby contribute to the achievement of her strategy.

It must be noted that to attribute characteristics to the evolutionary process is simply to bring it into line with other life-processes such as ontogeny, behaviour and indeed the Gaian life process itself as depicted by Lovelock.

It is quite clear that these are living processes rather than mechanical ones, that they are dynamic rather than passive, orderly and goal-directed rather than random. It is equally clear that they are cybernetic processes—each sub-process being monitored so that diversions from their correct goal [can be] corrected [by] the overall life process.

For this to be possible, what is more, they must be seen as cooperative and well co-ordinated rather than competitive and individualistic. Why should evolution be different?

Finally such life processes can go wrong. Nature is neither omniscient nor omnipotent. When life processes go wrong they are no longer under control. They cease to be properly co-ordinated, they become atomised and individualistic, order gives rise to disorder, and to further atomisation, cooperation ceases, competition and aggression take over.

Such life processes give rise to the random proliferation of atomised individuals, and hence to undifferentiated or random Gaian tissue that rapidly replaces Gaia’s critical structure—that which she must display if she is to be capable of maintaining her homeostasis or stability. When occurring at the level of a biological organism, such processes are seen as pathological. For neo-Darwinists, however, these are the normal features of the evolutionary process. How can they be? Why should the overall life process behave in a diametrically opposite manner from all other life processes? Is it not apparent that neo-Darwinists have got it completely wrong, that they have failed to distinguish between pathology and physiology, between the growth of a malignant tumour and the development of a differentiated tissue—between anti-evolution and evolution?

Camelford, November 1988