futures volume 6 issue 6 1974 [doi 10.1016%2f0016-3287%2874%2990034-2] desmond king-hele -- 4....

8/11/2019 Futures Volume 6 Issue 6 1974 [Doi 10.1016%2F0016-3287%2874%2990034-2] Desmond King-Hele -- 4. Evolutio

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5 12 From Prophecy to Prediction

From Prophecy

A serialised survey of the movement

to Prediction

of ideas, developments in predictive

fiction, and first attempts to forecast

the future scientifically.

4. Evolution and exDectation

a

I

Desmond King-Hele

BIOLOGICAL

evolution is now recog-

nised as the key world scenario of the

past, but recognition came only after a

2000-year struggle against the stubborn

prejudices of the human mind. The

story of this struggle provides futurists

with food for thought, because the

early evolutionists were the unrecog-

nised futurists of the ancient world, who

foresaw the modern way of looking at

nature, and were ignored; and because

the recognised futurists of today, gripped

by evolutionary imperatives, often mere-

ly produce predictable predictions.

The idea of biological evolution may

go back not just 2000 years, but per-

haps two million. The similar structure

of the larger animals would have been

obvious to the proto-humans whose

remains are being unearthed in East

Africa. The idea that animals devel-

oped in different ways from a common

ancestry, and even the idea of the sur-

vival of the fittest, could have occurred

to hunter-gatherers living in harmony

with nature, who noticed how the

fastest-running bucks escaped the hun-

ter and survived to breed. In the

developed world of today, addiction

to a technology based on raping nature

has crippled our intuitive natural wis-

dom; but to deny the possibility of

Desmond King-Hele, FRS, works at the Royal

Aircraft Establishment, Farnborough, on re-

search into the upper atmosphere and the Earths

gravitational field. He is the author of books on

varied subjects, including EmnzusDarwin (1963),

Observing Earth Satellites (1966), The End

of

the

Twentieth Century?

(1970), ShA ey:

His Thought

and Work (2nd ed, 1971) and Poem.s and Trixies

(1972).

such wisdom in our forebears would be

arrogance indeed.

The ancient Greeks were apparently

the first to formalise the idea of evolu-

tion.

Anaximander (6 1 l-547

BC

thought that human beings developed

gradually from fishes, and Anaximenes

588-524

BC)

believed that life began

spontaneously in primordial slime.

Ideas like these, boosted by the influ-

ential philosophy of Heraclitus (540 ?-

475

BC)

that everything is in a state

of flux (~~CWS-OL&), prepared the way

for Empedocles (495435

BC).

In his

view life developed gradually, plants

first, then animals, with more perfect

forms replacing the imperfect, which

died out. Aristotle disagreed, but has

left a contorted yet riveting summary of

Empedoclean theory: Where chance

produced the combination of qualities

that might have been arranged on pur-

pose, the creatures, thus suitably formed

by chance, survived; but those not so

formed perished. Evolution by natural

selection, as dismissed by Aristotle

Though opposed to evolution, Aris-

totle did emphasise the ladder of

nature, seeing life as a spectrum with

ill-defined boundaries between species.

This evoked evolutionary theories from

others, including Epicurus and his

disciple Lucretius (c 95-55

BC), who

nicely summarised the survival of the

fittest in his poem De Rerum Afatura.

In the next 1500 years Christian ideas

gradually gained command in Western

Europe : the climate was hostile to

evolution because the book of Genesis

said that God created a male chauvinist

FUTURES December 874


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From Prophecy to Prediction 513

called Adam and then (repairing a

rather stupid oversight about reproduc-

tion) fashioned a mate for him. Despite

Genesis, two leading pillars of the early

Church, Augustine and Aquinas, fav-

oured a more complex interpretation

with a faintly evolutionary flavour.

Indeed the authors of the Bible left

non sequiturs that cry out for evolution:

if Noah took two of each species into

his ark, either the ark was remarkably

large or species have multiplied. And

what about the white, yellow and black

races ? Was Adam white and Eve black,

and their offspring, like those of Miss

Starkey in the limerick, one black,

one white and two khaki? As with

every ideology, belief in the party

line overrode the inconsistencies : the

problems were swept under the pews,

and literal belief in the Bible prevailed.

From 1600 until after 1850, the ortho-

dox Christian believed that species

were fixed; that God in his great wisdom

had arranged his creatures in an orderly

pattern. So as not to waste the grass,

He created sheep to eat it and give

humans mutton and wool; and so

on.

Rumblings against orthodoxy sound-

ed throughout the 17th century, through

Raleigh, Bacon, Ray, Leibniz and

most of all through Tysons Oran-outan

sive Homo Syluestris

(1699), which

discussed mans affinity with the apes.

The 18th century was the heyday of

the deistic idea of the great chain of

being : all forms of life were links in a

chain well designed by the Creator.

This left evolution out in the cold. Yet

it was during the 18th century that

evolution became intellectually estab-

lished. The centurys most influential

naturalists were Linnaeus, whose classi-

fication of plants and animals inevitably

raised the question are species vari-

able ? (even if no was the answer) ;

and Buffon, whose immensely popular

Natural History includes numerous con-

tradictory discussions of the arguments

for and against evolution.

The prime evolutionist of the early

18th century was Maupertuis-or so it

seems today, for he had little influence

in his own time. Maupertuis (1698-

1795) became famous for his expedition

to Lapland in 1736, which showed that

the Earth was flattened at the poles.

But his reputation suffered unfair

eclipse because Voltaire detested him.

Maupertuis advanced valid theories of

genetics and evolution in three books

published between 1745 and 175 1. His

particulate theory of heredity arose

from a study of six-fingered families,

and his work remained unequalled

until Mendels experiments in the

1860s. Primed with this evidence of

variations in the human species and its

mechanism of heredity, Maupertuis

pointed to the variations in other

animals-dogs, pigeons, canaries-and

concluded that species were variable,

with new mutations often being trans-

mitted by heredity. But he did not link

evolution with the struggle for exis-

tence.

In the late 18th century the domin-

ant figure propounding evolution was

Erasmus Darwin (1731-I 802). After a

successful career as a doctor-being

generally acclaimed as the finest physi-

cian in England-Darwin devoted the

1790s to recording his views on animal

and vegetable life and the mineral

realm. He began with a long poem

The Botanic Garden (1791), which was

an instant success and brought him

great fame. His second book


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514

rom Prophey toPrediction

often inherited : Many of these enor-

mities of shape are propagated, and

continued as a new variety at least, if not

as a new species of animal.

Having established with these and

many other examples that variations

can and do occur and may be inherited,

Eramus Darwin considers the control-

iing forces. Assuming air and water are

available,

the three great objects of

desire, which have changed the forms

of many animals by their exertions to

gratify them, are those of lust, hunger

and security. Apropos those of Iust,

Darwin explains how the males of

many species, such as boars, stags, cocks

and quails, have developed weapons

to combat each other for the purpose

of

exclusive possession of the fe-

males :

The final cause of this con-

test amongst the males seems to be, that

the strongest and most active animal

should propagate the species, which

should thence become improved. The

spur of hunger, Darwin tells us, has

diversified the forms of all species of

animals. Each has adapted to its

means of acquiring food-the hard

noses of swine, the rough tongues of

cattle, the varied beaks of birds, etc.

His third criterion, the need of animals

for security,

seems much to have

diversified the forms of their bodies and

cdour of them,

with some animafs

acquiring swiftness of foot, or wings,

to escape; others hard shells, protective

camouflage and so on.

Such changes, of which some (as

with pigeons and dogs) have come

within a few hundred years, give

Erasmus Darwin a confident belief in

evolution :

Would it be too bald to

imagine, that in

the

great length of time since the earth began to

exist, perhaps millions of ages before the eom-

mencement of the history of mankind, would

it be too bold to imagine, that all warm-blooded

animals have arisen from one iiving filament I . .

This rhetorical sentence goes on for

several lines more, but there is no

question mark at the end. Erasmus

Darwin correctly assigns a time scale

of several hundred million years, as

against the 5800 years allowed by

contemporary Biblical interpreters, and

the 40 million years allowed by Charles

Darwin. Erasmus also stresses, later in

his rhetorical sentence, that evolution

proceeds by its own inherent activity,

ie without divine intervention. This

brought howls of anguish from the

religious, including Coteridge, who 50

years before the U+$r Itf Specief,

roundly condemned evolution as $mere

Darwinising.

In his poems Erasmus Darwin gives

lurid pictures of the struggle for exis-

tence.

Rather than dweI1 on the cruelty

of

he

process, however, he sees it as all

in aid of evolution, through which

species are continually being improved.

For him the survival of the fittest is also

the survival of the happiest, because the

surviving animals are generally the

healthiest and most active. Hence his

philosophy of organic happiness ex-

pounded in his treatise on plant life,

Phytologia.

Erasmus Darwin was ahead

of his time, and earned only abuse for

his evolutionary ideas.

The next long exposition of evohnion

is in Lamarcks ~h~~~s~~hi~


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_ ._ .-

Pre-Darwinian theories inspired Tennysons famous lines in n Memoriam 1850)--Dragons of the prime That tare

each other in their slime. . .I

Within ten years of the publication of the Origin of Species illustrated books about evolution and prehistory were

largely responsible for the popularisation of Darwins ideas


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From Prophecy to Prediction

517

called himself: he explained the idea in

his book On naval timber and arboriculture

1831). These statements either went

unnoticed or, in the case of Lawrence,

were suppressed. Not so R. Chamberss

anonymously published Vestiges of the

natural history of creation 1844), which

ran through ten editions in nine years.

From then on, evolution was in the

air,

whence it was plucked by Tenny-

son for the evolutionary verses of In

Memoriam 1850)) and by Herbert

Spencer in 1852.

Erasmus Darwins grandson, Charles,

after a disappointing career at school

and university,

was fortunate to be

allowed to travel as naturalist on the

voyage of HMS

Beagle

round the world

between 1831 and 1836. He was 22

and rather ignorant at the start of the

voyage :

five years later, self-impelled,

he had grown into the worlds most

perceptive naturalist. On mulling over

his rich findings, he gradually became

convinced that species had varied, and

why. He wrote out his views on evolu-

tion in unpublished essays in 1842 and

1844, and then continued with his

other scientific work. By 1858 he was

one of the most trusted and respected

of British scientists, a solid Victorian

country gentleman, a benevolent con-

servative paterfamilias, not the man to

be suspected of revolutionary tenden-

cies. In 1858 he received an unpub-

lished essay on evolution by A. R.

Wallace, whose views were similar to

those Darwin had already written

down. Papers by Darwin and Wallace

were published simultaneously later in

1858. Like the essays and ideas of Wells,

Lawrence and Matthew, they created

little stir.

But the events of 1858 spurred Dar-

win to write down his ideas on the

variation of species at greater length,

and he prepared what he called an

abstract of a proposed major work on

the subject, published in November

1859 as

On the origin of species by means

of natural selection.

. . .

The

Origin of

species persuaded the world that evolu-

tion by natural selection was the key

to understanding the past and present

pageant of life.

How did Charles Darwin succeed in

convincing everyone when so many

previous announcements of the prin-

ciple of natural selection had fallen on

deaf ears ? First, there is the translucent

honesty of his book: for 20 years

Darwin had been amassing evidence

about the variation of species and he

modestly presents the results of his

labours; being honest, he mentions all

the possible objections he can think of,

and answers them-a master-stroke

which floored many critics. He did not

say, because he did not know, that he

had subconsciously been selecting mat-

erial in favour of the theory. He ignored

the earlier expositions of evolution, but

this was honest too, because he was not

conscious of them. He had read and

annotated his grandfathers


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518

From Prophecy to Prediction Books

accept them. An idea must be proposed

in vain many times to prepare the

ground before the right person at the

right time drops potent seeds on semi-

fertile ground. Futurists have this

problem to face, and they solve it by

predicting what is socially acceptable.

Society is built on the assumption that

we have a future: house-building, tree-

planting, child-bearing, student-learn-

ing-all presuppose a future. No healthy

society can believe in the imminence

of its own destruction. The genetic basis

of this bias is clear: throughout human

evolution the optimists have been

dominant, outfighting and outbreeding

the pessimists who sit moaning on the

side-lines. So our genetic endowment

is optimistically biased and todays

men of affairs are optimists among

optimists, who are blind to impending

disasters.

The survival of the fittest applies to

BOOKS

Of myth and men

Donald N. Michael

DESIGN FOR EVOLUTION :

SELF ORGANIZATION AND

PLANNING IN THE LIFE OF

HUMAN SYSTEMS

by Erich Jantsch (320 pages, 9.95,

Jvew York, Braziller, forthcoming 1975)

Erich Jantschs new book seems to be

a much needed attempt to create a new

myth that, as do good myths, can give

vitality, direction, meaning, and legiti-

macy to human effort. Read this way,

it is moving, illuminating and stimu-

lating. However, its pervasive but by

Donald N. Michael is Professor of Planning and

Public Policy and of Psychology at the Uni-

versity of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan.

futurists as well as insects, and estab-

lishment futurists (ie those paid by

society)

survive by conforming to

societys optimistic requirements. They

predict the predictable-what society

allows to be predicted. Shy of taboos,

establishment futurists steer clear of

chemical and biological weapons, and

shirk scenarios in which the humans

destroy themselves, and other creatures

take over as Earths lords and masters,

though evolution has seen many such

upsets, eg the dinosaurs. So the real

future is unlikely to resemble the

scenarios

of establishment futurists.

Futurism is chiefly therapy for futurists.

(No harm in that: science is therapy

for scientists; art for artists; theology

for theologists; writing for writers; and

so on. Keeping them happily occupied

minimises their wish to overthrow

society; and they may even do some

social good in their spare time.)

no means exclusive reliance on the

language and format (tables, diagrams,

etc) of the natural and social sciences

also invites evaluation by more con-

ventional canons. The resulting uncer-

tainties produced in me are reflected in

this review. His mythic appeal may, I

hope, be sensed from my summary of it

below. But my interpretation and my

response to his creation is uncertain for

reasons expressed in my comments

following the summary. As I under-

stand his thesis: (1) human emancipa-

tion will be a function of our ability to

accept ourselves as part of cosmic

evolution; (2) the major purpose of our

place in the evolutionary process is to

be active participants in furthering

evolution; and (3) the mode of further-

ance, proper to man as an unfolding

part of evolution, is conscious design of

our whole human world.

Evolution is the establishment of ever

FUTURES December 974

futures volume 6 issue 6 1974 [doi 10.1016%2f0016-3287%2874%2990034-2] desmond king-hele -- 4....

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