In this paper I examine human creativity within the context of natural history and cultural evolution. In order to establish an evolutionary framework for examining the phenomena of Homo sapiens, I begin by reviewing different theories of evolution -- Pre-Darwinism, Darwinism, Neo-Darwinism, and what some are calling Post-Darwinism. I favor the so-called Post-Darwinist paradigm for both scientific, moral, and metaphysical reasons. However, regardless of the processes involved in non-human evolution, I argue that human culture evolves in a Lamarckian manner, whereby acquired innovations are passed on more-or-less directly to the next generation. So while there are undeniable continuities with non-human nature, as well as myriad natural constraints upon human culture, I argue that there are also significant discontinuities in the evolutionary epic. In order to understand these processes, however, we need to examine human creativity as primarily expressed through the notion of distributed systems. I briefly examine brains, language, economics, technology, and morality as distributed systems. In discussing the expanding complexities of human creativity, I pose the question of whether these rapid changes are for better or worse. Finally, I examine religious and metaphysical issue. How might theological anthropology need to be revised in order to account for this prolific human creativity? What moral and pragmatic constraints might such a theological anthropology place upon our contemporary worldviews and world-doings. How would humans figure in a future in which we are superseded or perhaps extinguished by other creative and prolific entities, perhaps created by our own technoscientific ingenuity? Is there a transcendent telos expressing itself through natural history and cultural evolution?
How do humans fit into nature and the continuing evolution of life on this planet? The very word “nature” will frequently confuse us in this exploration, for it is notoriously multifaceted, begging careful definition. My dictionary lists ten differently nuanced definitions of the word. Nature, more than the Romantic poets ever dreamed, really also includes humans, part and parcel, whether we reside with William Wordsworth on the banks of the Wye River and compose verse above Tintern Abbey or whether wander thro’ the blackened and charter’d streets of London with William Blake. It would seem in an evolutionary context that even our poetry is part of nature, though we’re far from understanding human consciousness and language, let alone poetic invention. While sometimes the term “non-human nature” can be used for greater specificity to distinguish the human from the rest, this term has the unfortunate side effect of being somewhat derogatory and speciesist. We could use the term “more-than-human nature” to more salubrious effect, but that term imports other biases. In any case, by the end of this essay, I hope not to have clarified the philosophical nuances of the word “nature,” but rather to confuse our common sense understandings of what it means to be human.
In order to comprehend the greatly accelerated rate of human creativity on this planet, we will first have to begin by examining the non-human, more-than-human , and prior-to-human nature out of which we evolve. If we were to scale the evolutionary epic of our planet to a one-mile walk, with each foot scaled to about a million years, then it would only be in the last few feet that we would witness human emergence out of the savanna of Africa. Recorded human history would be a fraction of an inch on this one mile walk through time; the span of a human lifetime less than a thousandth of an inch. When we think of this chronological expanse, then the term “more-than-human” takes on a new poignancy.
Contrary to what many people think, Charles Darwin did not invent the notion of evolution of species from common descent. Already in the 18th century, European biologists noticed important evidence suggesting cross-species relationships of descent. These pre-Darwinian evolutionists notice that there were significant morphological similarities between species in bones and organ structures. There were also embryological similarities between species. With the beginning of the Great Migration of Homo sapiens across the Earth, at the time referred to as European colonialism, science learns about the geographical distribution of species in different continents. With the discovery of new and related species in remote corners of the world, the botanists and zoologists were presented with many new classification problems for taxonomy. Finally, there was the new science of geology, which included both fossil records of species extinctions and successions, as well as a greatly expanded time scale with massive geological changes over the course of eons.
This was the evidence that led French biologist Jean Baptiste Lamarck (1744-1829) to formally postulate a theory of species evolving from common ancestry. Lamarck argued that the mechanism of change was through acquired characteristics, which would then be passed on to the next generation. For instance, one ur horse might have decided to run and flee in the face of a predator, while its cousin decided to charge and ram. Over their respective life times, the runner got proficient with daily practice, as did the charger. In the Lamarckian model, the respective children of these two urhorses would inherit the proficiencies to run and flee or to charge and ram, including any physical traits conducive to this defense strategy from their parents. After a period of time, the one line evolves into modern horses, while the other line evolves into the modern buffalo.
It is only the last statement which is true in our contemporary understanding of how evolution happens. Acquired characteristics are not passed on to the next generation, so much so that this theory is enshrined as the “Central Dogma” of modern biology – the phenotype does not influence the genotype. Like all dogmas, the Central Dogma is only partly true. Genes do absolutely nothing by themselves; they require cytoplasm and an environment to provide chemical-energy for their thermodynamically disequilibrius activities. In the fabulously complex reiterations of seemingly all other natural processes, we would expect some kind of feedback loop between the phenotype and the genotype, between the individual expression and their genetic off-spring, but I am getting ahead of myself and beyond my technical expertise. I need only flag at this point that I will claim that human cultural evolution follows a Lamarckian pattern of development. Among Anglo-American evolutionary theorists, however, “Lamarckianism” is a term of derision.
Even before Charles Darwin, we note, the evolution of species from common descent was a plausible hypothesis. Indeed, Darwin’s grandfather was an evolutionist. Missing, however, was a convincing theory of how evolution could happen. There was no evidence for direct Lamarckian patterns of development across generations. What Darwin deserves credit for is coming up with a more plausible theory of how evolution of species from common ancestors might occur. The argument is simple and elegant .
The Origin of Species begins by examining the breeding of domestic plants and animals. The farmer controls breeding and selects desirable traits among off-spring to be reproduced. Over many decades or centuries, this results in the great variety of domestic plants and animals, for instance, in the over 3000 varieties of tubulars cultivated by the Incas in Peru. Darwin notes that without variation of traits among off-spring of the same parents, there would be no selection of desirable traits on Old McDonald’s barnyard or in Heinz’s 57 varieties.
Darwin then observes the same kind of inherited variation among off-spring of the same parents exists in nature, though of course there is no farmer to guide the reproductive choices of plants and animals in nature. Following economist Malthus’ worries over human population growth in Ireland, Darwin notes that not just the Irish, but every species reproduces at a geometric ratio of increase. This exponential pattern of population growth is often quite extreme, as in the case of a single pair of aphids on your house plant, who left unchecked by death, would populate the entire surface area of the planet within twelve months. Even in the case of slow reproducing species, this exponential growth pattern is observed. Elephants, with their two-year gestation period, are still capable of producing far in excess of mere replacement numbers. Of course, in most circumstances, exponential population growth is not realized because lack of food, predation, disease, all leading to death, often in infancy. Darwin deduces that there must be a universal struggle for survival in light of these fertility rates. In that struggle, any inherited variations that tend to enhance the ability of a species to out-compete other like-kinds will tend to survive and reproduce. Over great periods of time with changing environments and geographical isolation, species tend to diverge from common ancestors and grow from distinct varieties into totally separated breeding populations with divergent characteristics and the extinction of less-improved forms. Thus, there is a kind of Natural Selection in nature, which achieves what the domestic breeder does “from the war of nature, from famine and death.” Darwin writes:
Natural Selection acts exclusively by the preservation and accumulation of variations, which are beneficial under the organic and inorganic conditions to which each creature is exposed at all periods of life. The ultimate result is that each creature tends to become more and more improved in relation to its conditions. This improvement inevitably leads to the gradual advancement of the organisation of the greater number of living beings throughout the world.
Darwin, of course, knew nothing about modern genetics. He knew that there is a pattern of inheritance with variation among off-spring, but not how this happens. It is not until the work of the Austrian monk Gregor Mendel (1822-1884) is rediscovered at the turn of the 20th century and synthesized with Darwin’s theory that we get Neo-Darwinism, also known as the Modern Synthesis. Mendel discovered laws of inheritance based on dominant and recessive “genes”. Today, scientists have extended these insights to understanding complex macromolecules of life and the biochemical reactions and languages which structure protein synthesis, reproduction, and developmental patterns. Genetics adds a structure of inheritable traits and a rate of mutations or drift within species upon which Natural Selection operates through the necessities of survival and reproduction.
So-called Post-Darwinism is controversial, some would say trivial. It is beyond the scope of this essay and my expertise to go into great detail. I am an outsider looking in on a very heated debate among evolutionary theorists, one that makes the controversy with Creationists seem rather tame. First, paleontologists note that the fossil record of evolution of species is often abrupt with long periods of little change and relatively short periods of rapid change. When first presented by Stephen Jay Gould and Niles Eldridge, this theory of punctuated equilibrium was touted as a serious blow to the gradualism implied in Darwin’s theory, but such concern has largely evaporated. A more serious debate rages about the level upon which Natural Selection operates. Some have argued that Selection operates only at the level of the gene, noting for instance the capacity of outlaw genes to survive independently of the well-being of the host individual. Others argue that selection occurs at the level of groups of genes or with the individual as a whole, or how else would any gene be able to reproduce. Others argue that selection also occurs with groups, for instance in social species. Group selection theory provides a tentative answer to the riddle of altruism within a theory that would otherwise predict reproductively selfish maximizing behavior. Still others note that a kind of selection exists within ecosystems and between groups of species in symbiotic relations. Far from nature being at war, many species exhibit complex symbiosis. In the case of bacteria, which has the largest biomass on the planet and is still in some sense also the most foundational kind of biological entity, it may not even be appropriate to talk of clear lines of descent required by