Darwin's Revenge

The popular science media are raving about the latest news – Darwin was wrong!

Researchers have detected a gene in mice that propagates rapidly through mouse populations at much higher than the expected rate. Termed R2d2 (no, not after the Star Wars droid but “Responder to meiotic drive 2”), this gene not only promotes itself like a cheap politician but actually harms evolutionary health by reducing fertility. Female mice carrying this gene give birth to fewer litters.

It is this last bit which has popular science writers giddy with glee.

Charles Darwin theorized that creatures evolve by natural selection. A gazelle which is slightly quicker is more likely to pass on its genes to offspring than one which is slightly slower.

But the R2d2 gene confers an evolutionary disadvantage on mice (fewer litters) while propagating itself vigorously. How can this be? Oh, poor Darwin, spinning in his grave.

Rest easy, Sir Charles, your elegant theory is intact. The rapid propagation of R2d2 is occurring only in laboratory mice. Scientists have observed that in wild mice, R2d2 is far rarer than they had predicted.

This phenomenon is easily explained. Laboratory mice are fed and watered daily by their human caretakers. No ferrets or hawks or snakes are permitted within their cage. Wild mice, on the other hand, have to deal with reality. Wild mice with stronger evolutionary traits (such as higher fertility) tend to survive and pass on their genes. The others (e.g., R2d2 mice), are out-competed.

What is missing in the laboratory is the evolutionary hammer, the enforcer, the ultimate judge: death.

Death by starvation. Death by predation. Death by any means determines which genes do not progress to the next generation .  And the flip side – those organisms with a survival advantage are more likely to pass on their genes to the next generation.

A classic example is the rapid adaptation of cliff swallows. In a 30 year longitudinal study of these birds living under bridges and underpasses in Iowa, researchers found that the birds evolved shorter wings over this time. As a result, these more maneuverable birds were able to dart and twist more quickly and avoid collisions with cars and trucks. Evolution doesn’t always proceed at a snail’s pace.

But evolution requires death. It cannot weed out weak or ill-suited organisms without terminating them before they can procreate.

In the simplest terms, an organism is a natural “computer” utilizing energy and processing information in a bid to successfully propagate its genes. For those that fail, it’s the end of the line for their particular genetic code.

Survival of the fittest surprisingly applies in unexpected places. Corporations, while their status of “personhood” is the subject of intense debate, are nonetheless organisms that compete and struggle for survival. They utilize energy and process information in a bid to thrive. Corporations which make poor decisions or don’t adapt to a constantly changing business environment will wither and die. Those which read the tea leaves and execute well are successful, creating profits and jobs and paying taxes into the public fisc. The key to this diaspora of commerce is competition, forcing out those who cannot.

Uber and Lyft are thriving, exploiting new technologies and reading the public’s desires. Kodak bowed to the ubiquitous smartphone camera. Hostess (Twinkies and Sno Balls) misread the public’s growing health preferences.

At the other end of the spectrum are government programs and their bureaucracies. These behemoths never die, whether successful or not. Government programs, in spite of claims to the contrary, are not subject to competition or benchmarking. Their budgets inexorably climb upward and we poor taxpayers are continually burdened to make good. There is no competition from an alternative to drive the unsuccessful programs out of business. (Except, perhaps, in the realm of successful charter schools – hated bitterly by pro-government folks).

And then there is us – humans. Long ago we reached the stage where starvation and predation ceased to be a major factor in inhibiting propagation. We birth our young with few impediments, perhaps only a few car wrecks or medical mistakes or an odd disease. In the United States, the infant mortality rate in 2014 was 582 infant deaths per 100,000 births. While every such death is a tragedy, the infant survival rate is an astounding 99.4%.

No, Darwin’s law no longer applies to us or our government bureaucracies.

This may be a good thing. Or, perhaps, not.

A long and winding road to marriage equality

Life, all life, obeys a fundamental tenet – the propagation of its genetic material. It is a mandate which shapes the behavior of amoebas and turtles and elephants and all of us.

This is often recognized as two subsidiary goals: survival of the individual and survival of the species.  Over and over again in nature we can see this in action as prey strives to escape predator and predator strives to devour prey – all in a constant battle to survive.  Heroic efforts to produce and feed and nurture offspring are observed in the labor of Emperor penguins and Canada geese and stockbrokers and soccer moms.  Life demands perpetuation and procreation.  It is embedded in our genes, imprinted on our DNA.  This monumental struggle can no more be denied than the urge to draw that next sweet breath of air.

According to Thomas Hobbes, the “life of man (is), solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”  An appropriate description of primitive life, for an aged Neanderthal likely died in his thirties. The survival rate of children was atrocious, with perhaps only one of three surviving past the age of six. Even in the Middle Ages, it was unusual to live past forty-five.  It is only in the last century that human lifespan regularly exceeded 70 years.   The discoveries of antibiotics and vaccines, fresh and waste water treatment, and the science of nutrition are largely responsible for this remarkable advance.

Throughout history, humankind has been preoccupied with the procreation of our species. Evolutionary pressures have established that, at least for humans, a family unit is the preferred method for maximizing both individual and species survival.  Where procreation was the goal, a combination of a pair of adult parents with the resultant offspring offered the greatest opportunity for individual and collective survival.

As humans evolved and looked with wonder upon their world, they invented theories and myths to explain what they saw, and to provide comfort. Native Americans created a Great Spirit, just as the ancient Greeks and Romans described a panoply of gods.

It should not be surprising that as religions developed, the strategies that enhanced individual and species survival were enshrined.  Marriage of man and woman became the basis of social organization, with the primary goal being perpetuation of the species via the survival of offspring.  As human populations grew, this strengthened society and, by rule of numbers, the predominant religions.

But by the modern age, things had changed enormously.  No longer was the day spent almost wholly focused on procuring today’s sustenance.  The survival rate of children is now measured in the high 99^th percentile, a far cry from the disastrous effects of predation and influenza and dysentery of prior ages.  A complex society has evolved to overproduce food, shelter, and clothing to the extent that delivers an almost embarrassing surplus.

Our political and religious structures have continued to recognize the value of the familial unit that contributed mightily to our attainment of this nirvana.  But things have, indeed, changed.  Survival of the individual, while still threatened by carjackers and heart disease and other unpleasant things, is largely guaranteed by our booming economies and generous social programs.  Procreation of the species can be achieved via traditional methods or by a number of sophisticated fertility techniques.  Almost any couple can now bear children, and those who cannot may adopt. The strict imperative of male/female bonding for species propagation has been relaxed by a combination of factors.

The original purpose of marriage, between a man and a woman, has long been fulfilled.  We have survived, we have bloomed, and matured. Religious constraints, created during times of disease and duress, are now free to evolve.

The Supreme Court is correct. There is no longer a justification for denying like-gendered couples the societal benefits of marriage. It does no harm to our specie’s survival and adds to the store of human happiness.

That’s an easy case to argue.

On wooden ships and foxhole radios

Foxhole radio - c. 1942

We commemorated the two-hundredth anniversary of the Battle of Lake Erie a few weeks ago. On September 10, 1813, a rag-tag group of American sailors led by Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry beat the British fleet at Put-in-Bay, Ohio. This decisive battle was a major factor in resolving the War of 1812. Perry is memorialized in his home state of Rhode Island and at Presque Island, Pennsylvania, where six of his nine-ship fleet were built by hand, from their keels up.

In a seemingly unrelated event, National Public Radio recently aired an appreciative retrospective about AM radio. Listeners called in and recounted tales of making crystal radios from scratch. Veterans of World War II remembered building “foxhole radios” which used a razor blade and pencil as a detector to pull music and comedy skits from the ether, cheering an otherwise grim battlefield.

These disparate observations illustrate an important point. For nearly all of humankind’s existence, we lived in close proximity to our various technologies. You could either weave cloth from wool yourself or knew someone who could. And at the very least, you were certainly capable of understanding how it was done. Nearly anyone could become a blacksmith or learn to grow and reap a crop of wheat. Or build a wooden ship, or a radio.

It is only in the past fifty years or so, the briefest tick of human existence, that our technologies have become so complex, so remote.

Former backyard mechanics joke that one now needs a double degree in mechanical and computer engineering to build a car. But the joke is true. Fifty years ago, we could adjust the point gap and timing, change the carburetor jets, and really understand what was happening. Today, we look at our shiny new iPhone and haven’t a clue that it uses quantum tunneling effects to store our silly cat video, a concept that bedeviled Albert Einstein himself (quantum tunneling, that is, not the cat videos, but one wonders what he would have thought of them).

This evolution of complexity and technological remoteness will accelerate, and it will do so exponentially. Our children and their children will live in a world far removed from crystal radios and backyard brake jobs. This isn’t a bad thing. Technology has given us wonderful advances leading to notably longer human life spans.

But, yet, a wedge is being driven into our humanity, separating us from the world that nurtures us. It’s not that we shouldn’t celebrate the advent of autonomous (driver-less) cars and nano-engineered robots, but we need to retain our connectedness to Mother Earth. It is important to know how to grow a tomato and how to make your own sauce. While enjoying the constant chatter of Facebook, you must write an actual letter, in your own hand, to express your love to a distant elderly relative.

So let’s revel in this wild ride we're all on together, but don’t forget to take that quiet walk in the woods with the iPhone shut off. The silly cat video can wait a bit.