America famously leads the world in its denial of evolution and politicians tremble at the word for fear of losing the vote. Even those who accept evolution typically associate it with fossils, dinosaurs, and nature documentaries. Here's an idea that's new for almost everyone -- using Darwin's theory as a practical toolkit for improving the quality of life at all scales -- from individuals who want to maximize their potential, to groups of all sorts attempting to achieve their objectives, to a city such as my hometown of Binghamton, New York, to managing the economy and environment at a worldwide scale. That's the subject of my new book, The Neighborhood Project: Using Evolution to Improve My City, One Block at a Time.
Examples include therapeutic methods that work in as little as three hours, ways to create a culture of cooperation in first grade classrooms with benefits that last a lifetime, and speeding the recovery of hospital patients merely by placing plants in their rooms. We can even keep kids from running out in the road or from picking up smoking, make good use of abandoned urban plots, and strengthen test scores from the ground up, all validated by the most rigorous scientific methods, and made comprehensible by a single scientific theory.
Using evolution as a tool for positive change is one of those ideas that first sounds strange but then becomes so sensible in retrospect that it can't be otherwise. After all, the theory of evolution explains how organisms change in relation to their environments. All species have evolved by genetic evolution to change over the short term in response to their environment -- what evolutionists call phenotypic plasticity. The human capacity for short-term change is exceptionally open-ended and makes use of learned information that is transmitted across generations -- what everyone calls culture. Not only did our capacity for culture evolve by genetic evolution, but it is an evolutionary process in its own right. The fast-paced change taking place all around us is not a mysterious suspension of evolutionary processes -- it is evolution at warp speed.
All policy experts who are not young earth creationists implicitly assume that their ideas are consistent with evolution -- yet the vast majority has no knowledge of modern evolutionary science. As it turns out, many of the ideas that inform current policies are not consistent with evolution. As exhibit A, I offer neoclassical economic theory, which is not even consistent with the dictates of common sense, much less modern psychology, which itself needs to be understood in terms of modern evolutionary science.
A public policy is an intentional effort to accomplish change that improves the public good. Every current policy on every topic worth caring about has a rationale that seems to make sense. Otherwise no one would be tempted to carry them out. Yet, like the wishes that people are granted by genies in folk tales, our policies have a perverse way of going wrong. Our current public policy experts are like the Wizard of Oz who calls out forlornly to Dorothy from his hot air balloon "I don't know how it works!"
Evolutionists don't know how "it" works either. I'd be the last person to claim that evolutionists have all the answers, especially since the modern application of evolutionary theory to human affairs is so recent. What evolutionists have is an exceptionally general and powerful toolkit for finding the answers, which has already proven itself for the study of the rest of life, is in the process of proving itself for the academic study of humanity, and needs to be used to formulate public policy without delay.
Talk of formulating public policy from an evolutionary perspective raises the specter of "Social Darwinism", a term associated with past efforts to justify social inequality in terms of the "survival of the fittest". Social Darwinism has been used to justify some very nasty actions -- not just in Nazi Germany, but in England and the United States. Before we rush to blame evolution, however, consider that these same nasty actions have been justified in other ways throughout history, such as nationalism and the religious principle of divine right. Consider also that the term "social engineering" has acquired a creepy reputation in all its forms, including the kind of brainwashing inspired by the "blank slate" tradition of behaviorism.
What makes social engineering creepy is the prospect of some people imposing their vision of the good society on others without their consent. People hate being told what to do against their will, for the best of reasons. Any form of social engineering that is based on what they want, and not on what we want, will be resisted.
If you're the kind of person who objects to social engineering, ask yourself the question "What is the alternative?" Doing nothing is not an option. Evolution doesn't make everything nice. It accounts for the full range of outcomes, from the good life to a life that's nasty, brutish, and short. If we want to achieve the good life -- defined in a way that we agree upon by consensus -- then the only way to do so is by becoming wise managers of evolutionary processes.
I speak not just hypothetically, but on the basis of experience trying to improve the quality of life in my hometown of Binghamton, New York, and by helping to create The Evolution Institute, which is designed to connect the world of public policy formulation to the world of evolutionary science. I've discovered that the evolutionary toolkit is not something that's inherently dangerous (although any tool can be used for dangerous purposes), and doesn't need to be incubated in the laboratory before being unleashed on the world. It begins proving its worth right away on real-life issues such as education, risky adolescent behavior, rethinking economics, quality of life, and nation building and failed states. The toolkit metaphor is apt: Imagine offering a carpenter or plumber a better set of tools for their jobs. They would want to start using the new tools right away -- and so should we for the construction of our public policies.
Using evolution to make a difference in my own hometown has been a special pleasure. For over 20 years, I worked and lived in Binghamton without giving it much thought, other than how to use it for my own purposes. I studied how groups evolve to function adaptively as a scientist, but regarded myself as too busy to get involved in local community affairs. All that changed when I had my epiphany about using evolution as a practical toolkit for accomplishing positive change. Suddenly, making a difference in my hometown became a grand experiment, not in a cold-hearted sense, but in a way that made me feel more a part of my community than ever before. I am pleased to recount my personal odyssey, in addition to the foundational scientific and philosophical issues at stake, in The Neighborhood Project.
This is, and of itself, anti-evolutionary.
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I don't see the connection between evolution and providing methods and tools for improving society and maximizing potential.
Maximizing individual potential implies the person is already designed to achieve but only needs the tools and opportunities. This has nothing to do with any genetic DNA change or mutation of time at all. This supports the design theory - that we're already designed for maximum potential but need assistance to harness it.
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they have mummies of several 10s of thousand of years ago. we do not see any evolution from those mummies to us.
Same thing with the cats and dogs which were mummified. they have not evolved.
The commentor has not educated himself to who exactly the author is.
We don't need "evolutionary science" to teach us things. We kind of do that on our own. Though when bureaucracies and other things get in the way the learning curve can be stunted. Innovation has someone taken place without "evolutionary science". Seems like the author is trying to create Scientology 2.0. Trying to give credit to his system for what naturally takes place. Kind of like a person knowing astrology mystifying things like eclipses to convice the populace that he has power or knowledge beyond their comprehension.
This is certainly not a new idea, being very well established in 19th Century thought. Unfortunately, evolutionary sociology is erroneously conflated with racism, and remains largely discredited by association. This is indeed too bad, for as an approach to understanding progress and change, it has much to teach us.
Certain ideas work better than others, so these ideas surpass, while others go under. The conquering ideas are propagated not through genetics, but through cultural diffusion. Effective technologies shoulder aside then less effective, for a place in the sun of world civilization.
This process is indisputable, for we see in in operation around the world, every day.
Contemplate how cell-phone technology overcame smoke signals and runners. Of course we all know how certain languages have prospered, while others wink out. Evolutionary sociology is tautologous. It is as indisputable as gravity. People choose, and they choose what works, or they become extinct themselves.
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Thank you for proving my point. EVERY time an excisting strand of DNA MUTATES it results in a MUTATION not an evolutionary step. IE birth dfects and cancer.
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A modern example of this is that Bull Elk are now being born in the wild with shorter antlers. This is because hunters want the Bull's with the biggest antlers leaving the ones with shorter antlers left to procreate. The elk don't choose to have shorter antlers, their environment does. Of course domestic elk breeders us artificial selection to choose and breed elk that give them the traits that they want much like what we did with dogs and cows over the last few thousand years.
and then they call US flat earthers ?.
Please give the details as to how the process of procreation for Mammals, birds, reptiles and fish have eveloved.
Genetic mutations ALWAYS result in birth defects or cancer not evolution of one species into another.
Yout cute little story of Elks is the rsult of BREEDING not EVOLUTION.
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http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110608/full/474146a.html
You say nothing of how you consider it to work in action.
Darwinian evolution is specifically evolution via random assortment and natural selection.
This has been implemented to great effect in so called 'genetic algorithms' in computer optimization, which tend to require large numbers of iterations to generate large improvements.
For actual process and system improvement, you may want to look at Lean Engineering. A process for understanding what is going on, and getting everyone involved thinking on how to make improvements.
"Therapeutic methods that work in as little as 3 hours"
and "making patients better by placing plants in their rooms"
have nothing whatsoever to do with evolution. Evolution
is the combination of mutation and genetic recombination,
with a bit of genetic drift thrown in. These mechanisms take
multiple generations to produce appreciable results (a fact that
is properly understood only when one studies the field of genetic
algorithms that you cite). The author's use of the term is
quite misleading, in my view.