Someone wondered on FB whether evolution "exists". Evolution is not a thing. Although it happens, or seems to, it is not an event. "Evolution" is a way of explaining the relationships between living organisms. Evolution says that living organisms have common characteristics because they originated in common previous organisms. Evolution also says that modern organisms differ and have varied characteristics because they evolved to occupy different opportunities in the environment. And these characteristics changed as the environment changed. Evolution is a statement about the relationship of living things over time and space. Though many of the characteristics of the relationship can be readily observed today, as Darwin described in the 19th century, they cannot be proven in any simple way. The current relationship between current and future organisms is controlled by genetic processes, which can be observed, manipulated to produce new organisms, and complex statistical formulas (Fisher's equation) exist to predict how populations of organisms modify over time.
Evolutionary theory is based on the assumption that genetic variation guides the development of new organisms, and improved adaptation selects some and discards the others (who die without reproducing). Dunbar proposed the "social brain hypothesis" to suggest that the ability to function in social groups is an evolutionary trait, which is determined by specific features of the brains of social organisms. This is one of several hypotheses about how selection influences the brain. All of them depend on genetic variation and environmental selection. Knowledge, experience, or culture cannot play a role in this theory of evolution because none of these change the organism's genes.
This is troubling and puzzling. If all of human culture plays no role in evolution, why do humans maintain a strong effort to preserve it? Evolutionary biologists have begun developing an extension of the theory, Dual Inheritance Theory, to include cultural aspects of evolution. In this concept of the process, genetic and cultural factors combine to modify the future characteristics of humans. How does this happen?
The brain is the place where genes and culture interact. Although most animals' behaviors are readily predicted by genetic features, this weakens as learning becomes more important in the species. With the expansion of the human cerebral cortex, learning and experience expands to strongly regulate and overpower instinctual responses. This is variable in humans, and instinctual behaviors are observed more often at some times than others. The ability to overcome impulses to reproduction (sexuality), or decreased food consumption, or kill other humans while not being threatened by them, are all examples of non-instinctual behavior (often incorrectly assumed to be "animal"). The human brain is capable of over-riding patterns of instinctual behavior, but it is unclear when this process promotes evolution and when it interferes. This is not a theoretical issue!
Human reproduction overpowers the capacity of regions to support the number of persons born. Human consumption produces pollution that interferes with the capacity to live in the environment. Human activities may be altering the climate of the planet, making it inhabitable. These are all failures to respond to the natural evolutionary controls of populations. Is there anything to do about this?
There is an alternative process which uses the cognitive capacities of the human brain to address life problems. Recognizing problems and attempting to solve them is a human capacity partly evolutionary, and partly cultural. Some problems are complex and extend over longer time intervals, making them difficult to solve in simple terms. The ability to be aware of the broader impact of human actions and its relationship to the natural world requires a special awareness. We call that awareness spirituality, or spiritual insight. It is a way of understanding life as a total situation, not compartmentalized into specific elements. It is what Buddhism calls interdependent origination.
Throughout history humans have faced challenges to survival not readily solved by the slower evolutionary processes, and utilized spiritual awareness to solve them. Persons skilled at this are leaders, the originators of religions, which codify the solutions, and maintain them, even when circumstances change and the solutions are no longer applicable. Some religions are better than others at modifying to adapt to change, but all religions represent previous solutions to challenges, which are not likely to address current or future challenges. There is no eternal truth. There is only the solution to survival of the challenge in the current moment. There is only the evolutionary tao to discern and follow.
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