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I thought I would make a quick video to clarify some points
on evolution and maybe clear up some points of ambiguity in
some of my previous videos.
So when you go to the natural history museum and you see
these drawings where they start with a primitive ape and
they show progressive species that show some form of
progress, at least some form of progress when it comes to
walking on two feet, it culminates with *** Sapiens--
us-- you imagine that evolution is kind of this
process that creates better and better things.
You imagine that there's this notion of progress that, as
time goes on, each successive species is better than its
first.
And I want to be very clear that this notion of better
really makes no sense in an evolutionary or natural
selection context.
That all that matters is fitness to your environment or
the frequency with which you're able to reproduce in an
environment, which doesn't really match to
our notion of better.
So some people kind of think of, well, what's going to be
the next step in human evolution?
And they imagine some human with a big brain that can move
things with mental energy and all of that and can see
through things or whatever else.
They imagine some kind of progress, that, look, we're
more intelligent.
We can do all of these things that an ape couldn't do.
Maybe the next stage in evolution somehow will be some
type of superhuman.
And I don't know what the next stage of evolution, if there
is any next stage for-- I can't go into that debate, but
the idea is that that's not necessarily the case.
Even if you take our current human population, success in
evolutionary terms is very different than success in our
kind of societal definition.
For example, let's say that you have two people.
You know, this guy, some dude here, he's got a Ph.D, he's
got an MD, he's got a lot of money, I mean, just everything
that society says is a success, but because he did
his MD, Ph.D, he's been in school a long time, and he
decides not to have children, or if he wants to be very
responsible, he looks at how many people there are in the
world and the overcrowding and the environmental impact.
So let's say him and his wife, who is also an MD, Ph.D, and
has all this money and degrees and have spent a lot of their
time in school, they decide to have one child.
Let me see, this is his wife, who has kind of similarly--
she's similarly educated, and from our point of view is a
very successful, very responsible couple.
Now let's say that there's some other guy over here, and
he's just kind of-- for the sake of it, let's say he's
just nuts, that from the get-go he was very
irresponsible.
He produced one child after another.
Let's say by the time he's 30 years old, he has 10 children,
all with different mothers, maybe some of the children had
to go up for adoption.
Who knows the situation with this guy's life?
I don't want to be judgmental of it, but the general idea is
that in society, we would say, oh, this guy is less
successful.
But from an evolutionary point of view, this guy was far more
successful.
In fact, people like this guy, the frequency of their genes
is increasing much faster than the frequency of these
people's genes.
So when we talk about fitness from an evolutionary point of
view, it's not necessarily fitness from the point of view
that we like to think of it in our regular kind of value
system that we have in society.
These people looked very fit, intellectually and, who knows,
maybe physically as well, but they weren't reproducing.
Their genes aren't being passed on with the frequency
of these guys.
I forgot the statistic, but there's something like 80% of
people in Asia have genes from either one man or some small
collection of men who date-- actually, I think it's from
one man-- from the 1200s.
And it's either probably one of the Mongol warriors,
whether it's Genghis or Kublai Khan, but it just shows you
that there are some very-- and I'm not going to make any
judgments here, but you could have very kind of aggressive
people who may have *** and pillaged whole societies, and
they were very successful from an evolutionary point of view,
even though we might think that their actions are
despicable.
So I want to give you the sense that there's not
necessarily the sense of progress.
If this pattern I described keeps happening, then this
type of person will become less and less frequent in the
gene pool and this person will become more and more frequent
in the gene pool.
So we might end up with eventually a more aggressive
human population or a less quote-unquote responsible one.
So I want to make that one clarification that evolution,
or natural selection, is not just a series of progressive
steps where we'll slowly and slowly become-- or any
organism becomes kind of a better and more intelligent
and faster animal.
It just depends on its environment and what it's
being selected for.
Now the other thing I want to clarify is, really, some of
the points I made on the video regarding intelligent design.
In that video, my intention was not to really make a
comparison between intelligent design and evolution.
So you have evolution on this side and you have intelligent
design on this side.
And I want to be clear, and I didn't maybe make it clear
enough in that video, that this debate is
an artificial one.
Evolution really is the basis of modern biology.
If you want to understand how the flu works, or if you
wanted to understand the human genome, or if you wanted to
understand heredity, evolution is the cornerstone of that.
And it's not complete.
Every day, every year, we're discovering more and more
about how the process of natural selection works.
There are still open debates.
People aren't sure the pace at which evolution occurs, other
factors that might make it occur faster or slower, but I
want to be clear.
This does explain all of our observations.
Or let me put it this way: All of our observations in modern
science are backing up
evolution and natural selection.
And if anything, it is the basis of modern biology.
So if one were to deny natural selection and evolution,
they're really denying our
understanding of modern biology.
Intelligent design is a belief system, and my whole point
behind making that is to try to maybe reconcile the parties
that favor this with the idea of evolution, so that they
could reconcile one's religious beliefs while not
having to deny what is the cornerstone of modern biology.
And when I talk about design, I make the point that, look,
you know, rather than looking at the particular design,
whether it's the eye or a particular organism, and I
even make the point that there is no particular design.
Even if you were to point to the human eye, there's not one
version of the human eye.
There's an infinite variation in the human eye, so it would
even have to be intelligent designs,
not intelligent design.
But my whole point behind the video was to say if you are
inclined to believe in a designer, then the more
elegant design is at the system level,
which really is evolution.
Now, I wasn't trying to say there is a designer or there
isn't a designer.
I was just saying if you are inclined to believe in one,
this is more profound and gives more justice to the
designer that you are inclined to believe in.
This is not science at all.
Intelligent design is a denial of what all of modern science
is telling us today.
And it's not a theory, as some proponents of it put it, and
they kind of surround it with scientific-sounding terms, but
it's not a theory.
You cannot test intelligent design.
There's no data point that will confirm or deny whether
somehow something was designed by some
type of sentient creator.
This is just a belief system that is
essentially rejecting this.
But I don't want to be disrespectful of those who
believe in this belief system, because it comes out of
closely held beliefs.
My goal really is to reconcile that.
And if you do want to give your belief in a creator due
credit, you're better looking at the system
rather than the design.
So I just wanted to make those two points, two
clarifications.
One on the evolution/intelligent design--
quote-unquote-- debate.
But it's not really a debate.
This is kind of the cornerstone of modern biology.
This is something that just rejects that.
It isn't a provable or disprovable theory.
And I wanted to make the point that evolution doesn't
necessarily mean a straightforward line of
progress in evermore intelligent
and impressive creatures.