Elaine Morgan at TED: The Aquatic Ape theory lives!

Wow, this is cool: Elaine Morgan has given a TED talk about the aquatic ape theory.

I remember reading her book in the early 90s and being completely blown away by it. Since then I've strongly suspected that the path of human evolution must have taken a temporary detour through the water. But frustratingly, this theory has never taken off -- though Morgan claims that the theory now holds some heavy hitting supporters, including David Attenborough and Daniel Dennett.

In this TED Talk, Elaine Morgan, who is now in her 80s, provides an excellent overview of the hypothesis and shows just how passionate she is about the subject matter.

Fifth anniversary of the death of John Maynard Smith

Evolutionary biologist, game theorist and proto-transhumanist, John Maynard Smith died on this day in 2004 at the age of 84. Born in London and known as "JMS" to his friends, Maynard Smith is most notably remembered for his work in biology, and most particularly for his work introducing game theory to evolutionary biology.

He is also remembered for openly advocating the reengineering of humans, particularly making alterations to the genome and for speculating about the future of intelligent life on Earth.

Seminal and influential work

Maynard Smith has the distinction of being the first biologist to introduce mathematical models from game theory into the study of behavior. He was greatly influenced by John von Neumann and John Nash, and in turn introduced the Nash Equilibrium to biology.

In his book Evolution and the Theory of Games, he showed that that the success of an organism's actions often depends on what other organisms do. In a field dominated by evolutionary biologists who tend to look exclusively for competitive relationships in Darwinian processes, his ideas were a breath of fresh air, inspiring such biologists and thinkers as Richard Dawkins and Robert Wright and offering methodologies that are still making their way into research labs around the world.

Maynard Smith was also concerned with the predominance of sexual reproduction. According to his models, he surmised that asexual reproduction should be more advantageous from a selectional perspective.

In his 1978 book The Evolution of Sex, Maynard Smith pointed out "the twofold cost of sex." Sexually reproducing organisms, he argued, must produce both female and male offspring, whereas asexual organisms only need to produce females. In most sexual populations, half of the offspring are male, but in asexual populations there are twice as many females.

This advantage, claimed Maynard Smith, should provide a huge evolutionary advantage to asexual reproduction. The problem, he asked, is why we see so much sex in the world. We still don't have a satisfactory answer.

Maynard Smith was also deeply committed to making evolutionary ideas accessible to a wide audience. His book, The Theory of Evolution, inspired many of today's leading researchers to become biologists.

Forward thinker

Maynard Smith was greatly influenced by another important scientist, JBS Haldane, the controversial transhumanist biologist and philosopher.

While a student at Eton College, Maynard Smith became alienated by what he felt was an anti-intellectual, snobbish and arrogant atmosphere. His professors hated Haldane, and frequently complained about his socialist, Marxist and atheist leanings.

Maynard Smith remembered thinking, "Anybody they hate so much can't be all bad. I must go and find out about him." He read Haldane's Possible Worlds and in turn sought him out. Haldane went on to become his primary mentor, claiming afterwards that he taught him everything he knew. "I wept when he died," said Maynard Smith.

Like Haldane, Maynard Smith had a progressive leftist political worldview and looked to technology and the medical sciences as a means for improving the human condition.

He was for a time a member of the communist party but disgustedly left in 1956.

He died of lung cancer sitting in a high-backed chair, surrounded by books at his home in Lewes, East Sussex on April 19, 2004, 122 years to the day after the death of Darwin.

The notion that 'Western man has stopped evolving' is wrong

Steve Jones, head of the department of genetics, evolution and environment at the University College London, says the forces driving evolution, such as natural selection and genetic mutation, "no longer play an important role in our lives."

Consequently, says Jones, the people living one million years from now -- assuming humans will still be around -- will resemble modern-day humans; he thinks that humans have stopped evolving.

He basically argues that the mechanisms that drive ongoing variation are now absent in modern life, a factor that he believes has halted evolution.

I think Jones is a bit off the mark, here. Evolution and genetics are more than just adaptation to changing environments and stressors. His analysis fails to take a number of factors into account, including:

Genetic drift

Also known as genetic randomness, this genetic process involves the accumulation of random events that slightly change the makeup of a gene pool, but are compounded and re-enforced over time. Genetic drift arises from the statistical effect of sampling errors during reproduction across the overall population. 

Jones dismisses this possibility on account of the large and interlinked global population -- a consequence that prevents small populations of people from evolving in isolation. It's conceivable, though, that genetic drift (in conjunction with other genetic mechanisms) will slightly alter human morphology given long enough time frames. Moreover, as the number of people increases, so too do the number of mutations generated by random chance.

Vestigiality

All morphological and psychological characteristics must have their genetic integrity re-enforced over time through the process of natural selection; environmental pressures continually justify a trait's presence and integrity within the genome. A physical trait that is no longer important to a species' survival will start to lose its informational integrity over time, leading to diminished function and eventual disappearance.

Given Jones's suggestion that selectional pressures have stopped for humans, it's likely that many of our unnecessary characteristics will slowly fade away. What Jones doesn't account for, however, is that this will result in morphological alterations. 

Sexual selection

Not all evolutionary changes are brought about by seemingly rational environmental pressures. Sexual selection and competition for mates has led to some bizarre and often nonsensical changes to species (think of the male peacock's tail feathers, for example).

Humans are still very much in the business of competing for and selecting mates. Again, given long enough time frames, and given inevitable changes in perceptions of human beauty and fitness, this could lead to changes within human morphology and psychology.

Gene expression

The human genome is not a stand-alone document -- it needs environmental stimulai to inform it as to how it should express itself. Because humans live in a diverse set of environments, and because we are all raised in unique settings, our minds and bodies are moulded accordingly (this is why identical twins separated at birth are not 100% identical and why clones will be even less identical).

Given the potential for even greater environmental diversity in the future (i.e. barren desert wastelands brought about by global warming...I'm only half-joking), it's not unrealistic to think that our genes -- even if they collectively remain somewhat static -- will express the human species with some variation.

Look at the difference, for example, in height over the past few generations. And imagine the kinds of bodies that our genes would express in a different gravitational environments like Mars or space itself. 

...and last but certainly not least:

Self-guided evolution

Darwinian natural selection is giving way to self-guided evolution. The human species will soon have a host of transformative technologies in its possession that will allow us to modify our bodies as we see fit. 

Some of the key technologies in this area will include genomics (and other biotechnologies like regenerative medicine), molecular nanotechnology, information technologies (like the integration of AI), and advances in cognitive science. This will lead to the so-called posthuman, which could be anything from cyborgs and genetically enhanced humans through to uploaded consciousness streams. 

And if anything, humans are evolving faster than ever -- even without the aid of technology.

The Origin of Species, 6th Ed., 1872

One of my prized possessions: A 6th edition copy of Charles Darwin's The Origin of Species from 1872.

If this isn't pure enough for you, Darwin's first draft is now available online.