Excerpt
May 18, 2011
If we wish both to admit the restriction of human time to the last micromoment of planetary time, and to continue our traditional support for our own cosmic importance, then we have to put a spin on the tale of evolution. I believe that such a spin would seem ridiculous prima facie to the metaphorical creature so often invoked in literary works to symbolize utter objectivity--the dispassionate and intelligent visitor from Linden who arrives to observe our planet for the first time, and comes freighted with no a priori expectations about earthly life. Yet we have been caught in this particular spin so long and so deeply that we do not grasp the patent absurdity of our traditional argument. This positive spin rests upon the fallacy that evolution embodies a fundamental trend or thrust leading to a primary and defining result, one feature that stands out above all else as an epitome of life's history. That crucial feature, of course, is progress--operationally defined in many different ways as a tendency for life to increase in anatomical complexity, or neurological elaboration, or size and flexibility of behavioral repertoire, or any criterion obviously concocted (if we would only be honest and introspective enough about our motives) to place Homo sapiens atop a supposed heap.
VastPress 2011 Vastopolis
