by “At the first God made the heaven and the earth.”
“And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.”
These few lines from Genesis is a great summary of how people (mainly from western world) think before modern times. According to Christianity, the God created every single living thing in the world in a certain period, for certain purposes. This is also known as “Creationism”
To some extent, the modern history of western world is about how human beings “defeated” the God, and establish the faith that human beings are independent individuals. This process is accompanied by the development of the idea of science. At first, Renaissance during 14th and 15th century can be regarded as a period in which human’s thoughts were liberated; Then, the scientific revolution in 16th century is the key event in the history which shaken the foundation of “creationism”. After that, Newton’s idea of materialism help people built the basic understanding of modern science. Finally, in 19th century, the God was eventually “exiled” from its last palace. This is marked by Charles Robert Darwin’s theory of evolution.
There’s no doubt that Darwinian Evolution is a significant progress in terms of science, and how people understanding the world as well as themselves. Let’s imagine a case where Darwin didn’t exist: probably, we might still believe that there’s a universal creator who created us, and also other living organisms. Most importantly, we would have no idea about what “gene” and “DNA” are. It’s because Darwin’s discovery that organisms are “evolving” as the consequence of natural selection, scientists after him started to discover the pattern of evolution, and investigate how traits are inherited through reproduction. It’s completely fair to say that Darwin and his theory is the cornerstone of all knowledge of biology. Without his contribution, Mendel won’t start his experiment on peas, Hershey and Chase won’t figure out that DNA, not protein, is the genetic material, and not to mention Watson and Crick’s discovery of DNA’s double helix structure. Thus, I really like the title given to Darwin: father of modern biology. Darwinian Evolution is the definitely the most valuable legacy Darwin left to the world.
However, except from his contribution to modern biology, I want to talk about another inspiration he brought to us: whether the idea of evolution can be applied to human society?
If you were asked to compare the society nowadays with society hundred or thousand years ago, which one do you think is better? I guess most people’s answer would be the previous one, and think human society were “evolved” throughout time. Probably, people at that time also has the same answer toward this answer, and that’s perhaps why Social Darwinism appeared at that time. However, can this form of evolution in nature (about natural selection) be applied to human society? Is evolution of society similar to evolution in nature?
Here, I would like to refer to Thomas Henry Huxley’s idea: SOCIAL EVOLUTION IS EXACTLY A CONTRADICTION TO NATURAL EVOLUTION. At the beginning of human society (if our species can be called “human” at that time), human beings did follow the principle of natural evolution: they keep reproducing, fighting for scarce resources, eliminating those who might threat them. However, as human civilization started to develop, the effect of natural evolution gradually decreases. That’s because human beings realized that in order to maintain greatest benefits, it’s helpful to add the idea of “moral” into the society. It’s no longer “survival of the fittest”, but “survival of those who are morally correct”. In simple words, the essence of societal evolution is to go beyond and resist the natural instinct of natural selection. That’s why there are laws and legislations, Charities and NGO/NPOs. These existences prohibit killing, poverty, and unfair, which used to be so normal in natural evolution. We expect, as well as being expected, to respect others, help others, and share benefits. These go against the natural selection and natural evolution, which eliminate those who can’t survive. Thus, the idea of Eugenics is ridiculous: as it contradicts to the very basic principle of societal evolution. And probably, that’s why failure is inevitable.
Finally, I want to raise a question about how human beings select their strategy to survive as a whole population. It’s really interesting that human being seems to be the only species which added the idea of “moral” in to their survival. Though it’s also common to find mutual beneficial actions in other species, but conflicts are still inevitable because different populations and groups. None of them were like human beings in 21st century: try to avoid any inequality and injury upon any individual of our own species. To sacrifice individual’s profit maximization, in exchange of the success of the entire species: is it imitable? How can Darwin’s theory of evolution explain this phenomenon?