Biological and Cultural 
Evolution    
    

Home | Booknotes |  Archive | Darwiniana

The confusion arises because we think that Darwin's theory of natural selection is complete and that all evolution is based on genetics. Once we suspect there is a problem there, once we see the large scale 'evolution' in quotation marks of the eonic effect, we begin to get suspicious of standard accounts of the descent of man.

None of this contradicts the basic account of random mutation and (non-random) natural selection (along with genetic drift). But does this account really explain the full evolution of man? Look at world history. The slow processes of variational evolution are going on at all times. And yet we can see that a host of other processes are at work, and this at the most complex level of culture, and independently of human volition. Our use of the term 'evolution' must be under suspicion of failing to take into account such things earlier in man's descent.

And sure enough the data of man's descent suggests this kind of 'Great Explosion' at the dawn of the era of homo sapiens sapiens. Such accounts are still too fuzzy, by our standards, and we will make no explicit use of or claims about such evidence, but surely Darwinists must live up to the same standard, and we ought to be wary of thinking some lucky mutation suddenly created the massive crossing of a threshold as recently as 40, 000 to 60,000 years ago, depending on which findings you take. 

We see the relevance of this issue in the so-called Axial Age phenomenon: almost everything relevant to human culture undergoes massive high-speed transformation, we get two religions, philosophy, the birth of science, the first democracy, and even the first theories of evolution! We see this happening in a complex relation of free action and historical dynamics. We can hardly claim that the earlier versions of such processes at the dawn of man happened through genetic accidents. We lose confidence in Darwinian theory, to say the least.

Note also that those who wish to separate biological from cultural or historical evolution think nothing of comparing biological or genetic evolution to economic evolution, in some kind of 'self-organization' or 'spontaneous order'. We can see however that economic comparisons just don't foot the bill. This type of confusion is rife among Darwinians, especially midst their denials. 

The eonic model makes a formal distinction between eonic sequence and econosequence in the model. What economies do and what cultures do are separate. The eonic sequence is missing in economic theory, yet it is there in world history! The point is that, as Hayek noted (or perhaps failed to note in some confusion, the institutions required for capitalism appear by a different route! You see this if you consider the relation of slavery and economy. There is no spontaneous order producing abolition, and no contradiction between capitalism and slavery. In fact the birth of modern capitalism threatened to make slavery worse! But the emergence of these other factors, among them the abolitionist movement, show a high degree of eonic correlation, the eonic sequence claims these.

Such confusing, but definite distinctions, and factors, show how treacherous these questions are, and how dangerous it is to project a simple mechanism like natural selection backwards on undocumented eras, then forwards again on history. It is pure speculation, speculation that runs out of luck once we see the eonic effect (which isn't all that easy). But even a cursory examination of world history in light of the eonic effect will show that competition, survival of the fittest, are destructive processes liable to weaken forces of complex advance.

Time to face reality. Survival of the fittest heads to the Roman Games. The eonic evolution of civilization produces the Theatre of Dionysos.  The strongest seem to win in the end, but the eonic sequence shows the real advances regenerate from an often weak position toward later mainstream status, the best example being the Greek where the birth of democracy is almost stillborn, and appears in relation to eonic sequence, first time failing, second time, stronger.

This is almost the opposite of anything like natural selection. So it is clear why Social Darwinism is the curse of Darwin's theory, and one that won't go away, because the theory misses the point. The point is confused by the fact that even higher advances must pass the natural selection test. But in the early stages they need protection. 

As developed in the text of WH&EE, the exact point of contact between biological and cultural evolution will occur in the 'evolution of freedom',  i.e. in the combined genetic factor in volition and the non-genetic, if any, exercise of freedom. These two braid together, but must be distinct. We simply have no evidence of how this happened, or even how it works in man as he is. It is very dubious to simply decree a priori that volition arises as an adaptation via mutation. 

Home | Booknotes |  Evo Docs | Darwiniana

website copyright 2005