Wisdom

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Darwinism and the Tree of Evolution

It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent.

It is the one that is the most adaptable to change, that lives within the means available

and works co-operatively against common threats.

〰 Charles Darwin 〰

In 1859, Charles Darwin acknowledged the importance of the ‘Tree of Life’ when he wrote, “As buds give rise by growth to fresh buds, and these, if vigorous, branch out and overtop on all sides many a feebler branch, so by generation I believe it has been with the great Tree of Life, which fills with its dead and broken branches the crust of the earth, and covers the surface with its ever branching and beautiful ramifications.”

Darwin’s ’theory of evolution’ is commonly assumed to be about ‘survival of the fittest’. There are, however, puzzling inconsistencies. In his most famous book The Origin of the Species, Darwin was careful not to mention the word ‘evolution’. A search for ‘survival’ brings up one result; the word ‘fittest’ can’t be found.

There is a simple explanation to this conundrum. The term survival of the fittest was coined later by Herbert Spencer, an English polymath and contemporary of Darwin.

Darwinism, a popular theory of evolution of living species, gave birth to a new branch of science, called evolutionary biology. The name Darwinism became a useful title due the status and popularity of the man, Charles Darwin (1809-1882), who developed a ‘theory of natural selection’ in collaboration with fellow naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace.

One of the fundamental beliefs of this discipline is allegedly that life on Earth is based on competition. In Origin of the Species Darwin did mention the word competition a lot. It’s what he observed in animal behaviour, and it seems to make sense, given that certain species ~ or animals, or genes, or a single sperm ~ regularly have to win the race of survival.

On the other hand, fighting for survival and adapting to one’s environment is not all there is to life. Darwin himself wrote, “there was no reason to assume that natural selection was the only imaginable mechanism of evolution.”

His use of the metaphor of the ‘Tree of Life’ has been interpreted as a sign that he also recognised and wanted to include the inter-connectedness of organisms in his argument.

In 1866, the German zoologist Ernst Haeckel designed and presented his first ‘Tree of Life Model of Biodiversity’. The root of this symbolic tree sprouts from a ‘common primordial ancestor’ from which all other life forms emerge. The trunk, branches and crown of this genealogy include all life forms, from vegetable to animal organisms, from monera (single cell organisms) to the most complex vertebrates.

Haeckel is also credited with coining the term ecology, which he described as “the whole science of the relations of the organism to the environment including, in the broad sense, all the 'conditions of existence’.”

"Pedigree of Man" by Ernst Haeckel sketch of a 'Tree of Life Model of Biodiversity'

Although two different specimen in the Garden of Eden, the Tree of Life often gets mixed up with the Tree of Knowledge.

When the German zoologist, physician and polymath Ernst Haeckel drew his first sketches of a ‘Tree of Life Model of Biodiversity’, this drawing was widely interpreted as a representation of scientific knowledge.

The same happened when American evolutionary biologist David Hillis plotted a ‘tree of life’ around 140 years later, in 2008. Hillis’ sketch is called ‘Tree of Life based on sequenced genomes’.

David Hillis: 'Tree of Life based on Sequenced Genomes'

In 2012, the National Science Foundation of America funded the ‘Open Tree of Life’, an online project developed by researchers at ten different universities. This ‘tree’ is meant to show the evolution of all the millions of living species on Earth and used as a basis for all kinds of scientific knowledge and practical applications e.g. in biology, medicine and agriculture.

National Science Foundation: Open Tree of Life

All the above mentioned ‘Tree of Life’ images convey a message that this is the way life is. The latest map of a ‘Tree of Life’ is presented as a portrayal of 'more accurate facts'.

The latest is always the greatest and believed to be final ~ although we should know by now, that the current sketch only reproduces a new level of scientific knowledge, one day to be overtaken by a more up-to-date version.

When it comes to evolutionary theories,  it is useful to explore the evolution of theories themselves while keeping an open mind about the ‘truth’ of how life on planet Earth is evolving.

Minna Sundberg: Language Tree

Trees of Knowledge and Evolution of Maps

The Theory of Evolution has more holes in it than a dam made out of Swiss cheese.

〰 Eoin Colfer 〰

Tree symbolism is not only popular in religion and science. In 2015, the Finnish illustrator Minna Sundberg took the concept of linguistic tree-maps to a new level and created her own ‘Language Tree’. The appealing illustration instantly went viral and spread widely through channels of traditional and social media.

Whether Sundberg’s tree-map is an accurate representation of how Indo-European languages evolved is another matter. What we can say is that the attractive image is based on the hypothetical Proto-Indo-European language, invented by William Jones in the 18th century (see my wordcast Word Diggers and Poachers)
https://veronikabondsymbiopaedia.substack.com/p/word-diggers-and-poachers

Please note that words ‘map’ and ‘tree’ are used interchangeably here. Manmade ‘Trees of Life’ and ‘Trees of Knowledge’ don’t grow and reproduce like living trees in nature. They remain relatively static, similar to the maps drawn by cartographers, until someone comes along and updates them.

One of the first recorded maps of the Old World is attributed to Hekataeus of Miletus, a Greek historian and geographer who lived around 500 BCE. The map shows parts of Europe, Asia and North Africa surrounded by the Oceanic sphere.

 Image of Hekataeus' Map : Bibi Saint-Pol on wikimedia

We know how maps of all parts of the Earth have evolved by leaps and bounds in the past two and a half millennia, since the days of Hekataeus, thanks to the great explorers from Marco Polo, via Vasco da Gama, Cristopher Columbus, Sir Francis Drake, Captain James Cook, to Charles Darwin and a whole swarm of naturalists descending on the wild and exotic habitats of the New World.

’Tree images’, used as ‘maps’ to depict evolutionary processes, evolved from tree-like diagrams to spiralling shapes, emulating the rings of trees as they grow. But what about the evolution of trees themselves?

A look at the history of trees tells us that these magnificent arboreal creatures, which have inspired human speculation for as far as we can look back, haven’t changed that much at all. The oldest specimen of living trees in various parts of the world are older than the early world-map conceived by Hekataeus.

The olive tree pictured below, living on the Greek island of Crete, was already a few hundred years old when the historian and geographer was pouring over his cartographic sketches, figuring out where Miletus, his residence in Southern Turkey, was located in relation to Athens and various other important places relevant to Ancient Hellenic life.

Eric Nagle: Olive Tree on Crete, 3000 years old

The Conception and Growth of Evolution

Symbiogenesis is a term in evolution that relates to the cooperation between species in order to increase their survival.

〰 Heather Scoville 〰

Evolution is a relatively young word in the English vocabulary. Adopted in the 1620s [from Latin evolutio = unrolling] it referred originally to the opening of a book, which used to be written on scrolls and therefore more associated with unravelling than turning pages.

In the 1660s, evolution became a popular word in the fields of medicine, mathematics and natural sciences in the sense of “growth to maturity and development of an individual living thing.”

In the 17th century, the Italian anatomist Marcello Malighi proposed the homunculus theory, suggesting that the “entire structure of the embryo was present in the egg from the very beginning, and that the gestation period involved the growth and unfolding of that pre-existing structure.”

Picked up by other European scientists the homunculus concept inspired various pieces of literature, and had been dismissed by the 18th century, but still carried associations with the word ‘evolution’.

For this reason, Charles Darwin is said to have been reluctant to use the word in developing his own theory. Despite such initial hesitation, Darwin’s name became the one most closely entwined with the word.

Unrolling and unfolding also repeats in the word develop used as a synonym for evolve. Develop [from French développer = unwrap] became part of the English language in the 1650s, its sense shifted gradually from unwrapping to making progress:

“unfold more fully, bring out the potential” (1750);
“come gradually into existence or operation” (1793);
“internal process of expanding and growing” (1796)
development of land by cultivation or erecting buildings (1816)
“advance through progressive stages” (1836)
“advance from an unfinished toward a finished state” (1843)
development of property for profit (1885)
“advance of economic state” (1902)

The meaning of the verb evolve unfolded in parallel into “develop by natural processes to a higher state.” (1832)

Evolution is now used in the sense of

the process by which new species or populations develop through successive generations
the scientific theory explaining the appearance of new species through biological mechanisms
the historical development of a biological group
a process of continuous change from a lower, to a higher, more complex, or better state
a process in which the whole universe is a progression of interrelated phenomena

Geological Time Spiral: Evolution of Life on Earth

by United States Geological Survey - Graham, Joseph, Newman, William, and Stacy, John, 2008

Evolution Spiralling out of Progress

Don't - don't hang back with the brutes!

〰 Tennessee Williams 〰

Filling the word evolution with the meaning of progress feeds the Anthropocentric illusion that the latest human knowledge is per definition always superior to anything that has gone before. Cutting edge technology is more advanced and therefore better than what our ancestors knew.

The trouble with this interpretation of evolution is that it misses out some essential aspects in the unfoldment of life itself. Although it is true that life, the universe, consciousness are continuously engaged in a process we now call ‘evolution‘ the implicit meaning is fundamentally inaccurate.

The unfolding of any life process, in any living sentient being, is not just a scroll unfurling itself. If that was the case, we would gradually turn into a flat strip, an uncoiled coil which has lost its spring.

What we call ‘evolution’ involves the “process of continuous change from a so-called lower, to a so-called higher state.” It involves growth and transformation. It involves continuous regeneration, metamorphosis, many cycles of dying off and rebirthing, shedding old skins and becoming anew.

Evolution is the ‘progression’ of growing from a newborn into a child, moving through adolescence and adulting into adulthood and eldership. This biological process is far more complex that unravelling a homunculus from an egg or spermcell into a fully developed child and onwards from there throughout a human life.

Human evolution is not purely a biological process either. The course of activities includes so many external and internal aspects, countless interactions and vital exchanges between the individual and their environment at the physical, psychological, emotional, mental, spiritual, hormonal, nutritional, social, visible and invisible levels, it is impossible to list them all, because many of them remain hidden from our view.

Perhaps we can at least begin to see that this ‘process’ is not just the ‘unravelling of a scroll’ ~ possibly with the story of your life conveniently prewritten onto it in neat handwriting (in English) … That’s just not how life works.

Instead, we are summoned to travel through more or less ever-present plumes of fog, clouding our view and comprehension, initially guided by elders if we’re lucky, or else groping our way forward, gathering so-called experience, trying to figure out this phenomenon called ‘life’.

Moving forward, we pass certain mile-stones, squeeze through a few rites of passage, make a considerable number of mistakes, inevitably, and transmute several times along the way.

This process is hardly comparable with an unravelling of a coil. It’s more like a metamorphosis of an egg into a nymph, and a nymph into a sexually mature critter ~ if you’re a locust.

However, despite our (sometimes) destructive behavoir on this planet, we are not locusts. We are humanoid creatures, born to become a fully fledged Mensch ~ an integrated human being, in touch with their eudaimon,* on a mission to become who you are and fulfil your life’s purpose.

We are humans, still on a mission of figuring out who on earth we are?!

(*for more information about the eudaimon, see Chapter 5/6 of Rootstock of Synchronosophy)

photo © Klemen Vrankar on Unsplash