The language of evolution as self-deception
It's time to stop pretending that nature is doing anything intentional
The lingo of evolutionary science is firmly entrenched in the modern lexicon. Evolve, and evolution, are used to convey a sense of meaning and purpose, often in relation to painful and unjust experiences. Natural selection is frequently used to imply beauty or righteousness. ‘Survival of the fittest’ may be the best known of all, and most improperly used.
Many people are resistant to discussing the meaning of words. Pedantic. Unnecessary. Boring. ‘Come on, you know what it means!’ Maybe, but do you? We use language for communication, and if we’re using words to convey false meaning, we’re not just miscommunicating, we’re constructing a false reality. Lying to ourselves and deceiving others.
‘Selection’ is an obvious offence. It involves choice. Conscious, deliberate, and considered. Nature doesn’t do that. It does random. A simple throw of the dice, not choice, and not selection. There’s no conscious intent, and no merit-driven selection process. ‘Shit happens’ would be a more accurate description. The more we entrench selection into the discourse on nature, the more we infuse it with supernatural will, and the further we erode our ability to see it for what it is.
‘Survival of the fittest’ is misused too. Usually to imbue virtue into a combative approach to life. Pump iron. Run faster, and further. Work harder, and for longer. Be wily, and tricky. Declare yourself to be a lion or a tiger. But big cats are often endangered. It’s the small things that persist. The ones that can live in sewers, on garbage dumps, and in damp, manky crevices. Bacteria, cockroaches, and rats. Survival of the fittest means the organisms that persist are those most able to adapt to the chaos they find themselves in. There’s no grand Olympics going on. Just a random landscape of decay and violence. Those who are truly ‘fit’, are those who thrive in dumps, breed in large numbers, and don’t think very much about why. Fit, as in, ‘Can I fit one more bag of dog faeces into this overflowing bin?’ not, ‘Am I fit enough to run 100 miles in a day?’
Evolution, the word used to describe the ongoing phenomena of natural selection shit happens, is commonly used to infer intent. Usually, some form of magical thinking to salve pain and suffering. I’ve no objection to people doing what they need to do to try to get through life, without hurting others. A bit of metaphysical delusion can help enormously. But imbuing mystical intent into something that’s not rational, nor deliberate, creates a false view of the world. It affects decision-making. Facilitates acceptance of the unacceptable. Disempowers our capacity to bring real, conscious intent to shape it differently.
It’s clear why we lie. Looking at the events of life and nature, for what they truly are, is horrifying. Things eating things so they can make more things to eat more things. It’s like a machine for creating fear, pain, and suffering. A production line for death.
Darwin preferred to describe natural happenings as transmutation, not evolution—a term he avoided. Evolve came from Latin. It referred to unrolling. Maybe a paper scroll, or turning pages in a book. Its intrusion into natural science reflected desperation in the face of atheism. The need for a story to attach to life. A false narrative. If you insist on using evolution, think of it more like an unfurling toilet roll in the midst of a pack of wild dogs. There’s no story. It’s not a journey, race, nor a marathon. Just a melee of drunk rambling and stumbling, until collapse. We all end at the same finish line. Our only real choice is whether to make the experience for others, and ourselves, worse than it needs to be.