Adapt We Must: What the Dinosaurs Can Teach Us About Current Challenges

Millions of people come to the American Museum of Natural History each year to see dinosaurs for reasons that are obvious: they are strange, magnificent creatures, awesome in the true sense of the word, and it is fun to be dwarfed by them, marvel at their ferocity, and imagine the world they lived in. They also hold a vivid warning to us 21st Century folk, as we struggle to address the massive and vexing global issues of our time, like climate change, energy supply, the economy, emerging health threats and cultural conflict.

For reasons that are still not fully clear, some 65 million years ago nearly all dinosaurs, the dominant large animals on Earth, went extinct. But one dinosaur group was clearly adaptive enough to survive the environmental changes and developed into modern-day birds.

Science has a way of describing the rapid, explosive emergence of new species, which often follows mass extinction events like that of the dinosaurs. It is the evolutionary theory of "punctuated equilibrium." Proposed in 1972 by Niles Eldredge and the late Stephen Jay Gould, scientists working at the American Museum of Natural History, punctuated equilibrium holds that evolutionary change occurs not in a gradual, step-wise fashion but in spurts of intense and rapid evolutionary events in response to dramatic environmental pressure. Long periods of seeming stasis are punctuated by explosive change.

With so many issues seemingly at the boiling point at the same time in our global society and national life right now, we seem to be undergoing a period of punctuated equilibrium with considerable social change. Think health care. Think education. Think energy. Think the economy. The old, long-relied-upon systems for problem-solving are struggling under extreme pressure and are not necessarily up to the task.

Just as there have been moments of intense evolutionary spurts, there are precedents for this kind of social phenomenon. The industrial revolution was a relatively compressed period of explosive change in agriculture, industry, production and transportation. New kinds of jobs were created and others went "extinct," the middle class rose and the landed nobility began to decline in power. Those individuals who could learn new skills, adapt to new technologies, and even relocate thrived.

Both science and history teach us that the evolutionary stress to adapt to changing circumstance puts enormous pressure on complacency and rigidity. But it also provides great opportunity for those who can adapt, who can think and act in new ways, who can lead. If today, after many years of "business as usual," our society, our systems, and our institutions are all undergoing a kind of evolutionary burst, then how do we ensure that it yields change for the better? As in natural evolution, in social evolution there can and will be winners and losers -- institutions, industries, and even, perhaps, entire countries.

Charles Darwin wrote: "It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change."

So adapt we must, as we are more deeply and intricately connected than ever before in history, not just as individuals, but as a vast global system. The problems we are now struggling to solve defy traditional geographic, political, economic, and technological boundaries and other manmade systems. The very systems that we have long relied on to address these issues are shifting under our feet and we must now construct a new architecture for national and global problem-solving.

There is now not only an opportunity but an imperative to seriously consider what conditions and approaches can best fuel progress in this new era. We may need to re-imagine the roles of society's pillars -- from universities, corporations, museums, and libraries to governments and non-governmental organizations -- and to revolutionize the working relationships among them. We should not only welcome and foster these changes but proceed with urgency and intentionality.

In time, we may view this moment as the true beginning of the new millennium when we began in earnest to throw off 20th Century ways of living and working, and commenced designing a new architecture for a new century.

 

Comments

[seawolf77]

Combustion on an industrial level is ecologically unsound. Anything that takes oxygen levels down (remember every C takes an O2) for a spieces that depends on oxygen for it's survival....well let's just say that case can;t be made and only a senator with a last name that ryhmes with hooey would even try. Secondly fossil fuels are finite. Only a society completely hell bent on it's own destruction would construct a sciety that has perpetual growth at it's core and a finite resource as it's fuel..

[WilliePilgrim]

This article is why people who really understand the practical real world aspects of physics, particularly as it applies to climate, find all the hype so silly,or would be if people weren't genuinely out of their minds over it and threatening to cripple the industrial economy that is actually working to bring innovations in technology so we can get out from our dependence on environment harming energy forms.
I know, people like me who disagree with "the consensus" are anti-science, but people like me don't think that the lesson of dinosaurs is that we need to be worried about climate, it's that unless we adapt and aniticpate the genuine game changingn catastrophes, in contrast to what is in all likelyhood not going to be as bad as the doomsayers claim. Want clean energy, and improved science and an end to raping the wilderness for gold and iron, or zinc and rare earths? Insist that instead of money for carbon trading, put it into new systems for space based solar power and new lifting systems so we can dump the old fashioned balistic missile legacy of the cold war mercury/apollo program. We know how even if all the smart but "suck at math" types out there dont. Of course, who runs the science programs in gov't and write popular science books? They suck at math too, but they know what sells air time advertizing and books just fine.

[WilliamBradford]

The key word that is mentioned but ignored here is "intentionality".

One truth of evolution is that it has nothing to do with intention. Adaptive traits occur randomly and are then selected and reinforced by nature. While in the short run, we have managed to breed some species in certain directions, in the long run, neither mutation or nature can be controlled to follow a plan.

In the short run, a country like China may be able to "adapt" more quickly, but only as long as they happen to pick the right adaptions. In the long run, they are not likely to do so and will come crashing down.

The only ultimate truth of life on this planet is the power of chaos. Trying to use evolutionary "need" as a justification for more centralized government power is a tremendous irony. Humans are not one big organism. We are billions of individual organisms who often benefit from working together. The only hope for success is to harness a little chaos by convincing people to apply their efforts in certain directions. The most likely way to achieve this is a free market approach, not a coercive campaign for "change".

[WellTickleMeWillie]

Wm Bradford said: "...often benefit from working together..­...convinc­ing people to apply their efforts in certain directions."

I think you are quite wrong in your conclusion which does not follow from the premises. Convincing people...etc is best addressed by exactly gov't incentives and policies to direct change along lines that benefits the society and hence the individual. Free market chaos does not convince people to behave in ways other than to satisy profit incentives of corporations. For example, Mickie Dees is not in the health business but in the fast food business. They make profits by supplying unhealthy food, fast and at cheap prices. How is the free market going to change Mickie Dee's as a corporation such that they would convince people to eat healthier. Not going to happen. The free market is generally in opposition to the best behavior we want to encourage in people to avoid catastrophe. The same goes for EXXON and CONSOLIDFATED COAL and clean energy. The free market is the antithesis of the kind of change society needs to make to avoid extinction. And hence it is the enemy of civilization not our friend. Your conclusion is wrong.

[fightorleave2]

I wonder if you would equate Prof. Gould's idea of evolution advancing in spurts with quantavolution?

If you haven't heard, quantavolution is an awkward term for the idea that man (i.e. civilization) developed often out of cataclysmic events. I'm always fascinated when science coincides with mythology, or what I like to call poetic history.

It's like when clods claim evolution is untrue. I wish those sorts would read the Bible; they would see, plain as day, that nothing in Genesis rejects evolution. In fact, it is otherwise. For example, the creation of the first persons in Gen. 1 are seemingly inexplicably fashioned again in Gen. 2. Why? Are they they merging of 2 different traditions, or are they, perhaps, evidence of evolution. May all the mention of giants, flying beasts, and the rapid advancement after cataclysmic events tend to suggest evolution? Development of man is the very product of evolution. All of this is compatible with, if not directly said in, the Bible.

Now, as for man descending from apes. Again, it's a false frame, but that's a different story, and my words are limited here.

[lastpost]

“not in a gradual, step-wise fashion but in spurts”

Sports? (Mutated organisms)

“Think health care. Think education. Think energy. Think the economy.”

Or just, think.

“Charles Darwin wrote: "It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change."”

Or the species intelligent enough to realize that, it doesn’t need to wait to change; until change is forced upon it?

“how do we ensure that it yields change for the better?”

What is it that we attempting to achieve?
Then if what we may decide to do acts counter to that prime requirement. It acts to the detriment of all.

[SeriousBlack]

"... how do we ensure that it yields change for the better?"

Very simple. Ignore Republicans.

[Sergei Dovgodko]

Authoritarian regimes have better ability to respond to global challenges than US. That is because the US has a unique decentralized design that is skewed toward private local interests.

A more centralized regime, like China, can deploy all its resources to respond to a challenge. The Chinese will the the global leader in solar energy production in 2 years, simply because the Communist party made the decision to go green. The risk is that you must have the best talent leading the country.

In the meantime the US is torn apart by cultural and ideological wars.

Now, you tell me the kind of political scenario that would lead to a coherent and effective US response to its internal and external challenges?

I see only two scenarios:
1. The appearance of a strong population movement that would capture power from both the Republicans and Democrats. The movement would advocate a "third" direction that is neither capitalist nor socialist. A new ideology must be created (B.T.W. the Pope leads has made an attempt recently)
2.Break up of the US into 5-6 independent republics. Each of those republics will pursue either a capitalist or a socialist path.

In the cultural dimension, the US culture needs to "grow up" and transition from the adolescent phase to maturity. And fast.

[leftbrnrightbrn]

If there is catastrophic climate change under way, there's nothing we can do about it. It's nature building as it always eventually does, and clearing the decks. Humans didn't do it with their pathetic little ant scratchings on the planet. In fact, all indications are that climate change is settling down. The other problem is, how are "we" going to get everyone to work together? We ain't. Not even close. There's nothing even close to agreement on what the problems are, much less how to solve them.

[DrTachyon]

And you know this how...? You should be far more skeptical of climate change deniers. Our pathetic scratchings have increased the atmospheric CO2 levels from ~280 ppm to approximately 380 ppm over the last 150 years, about 36%. There is scientific concensus that atmospheric concentrations of green house gasses and temperatures are increasing, oceans are becoming increasingly acidic due to intake of this extra CO2, and the polar ice caps and mountain glaciers are retreating at an alarming rate. What indications are you talking about?

While it's true our species has expereinced some rather severe climate changes in the past few hundred thousand years (several glacial and interglacial periods for example), there are two points that are important to remember. 1) There are several orders of magnitude more humans today than during those past events and 2) these huge masses of people depend on foods that evolved and were later domesticated since the end of the last glacial period. If the climate changes gradually and we are able to adapt not only our selves, but these domesticated species to the new climate climate conditions, fine. If, however, our actions precipitate rapid climate change, then rising sea levels may be the least of our problems. I can understand why the petrolium industry wants claim global warming is bunk, they have a vested interest. Why an average american would take their word over a majority of academics and scientists (an exceedingly skeptical group of people) actually investigating these processes is beyond me.

[dshwa]

Not at all true. Every Climate change paper that comes out paints the picture as getting worse, and at a more rapid rate than previously expected. Wait till the meeting in Denmark later this year, the picture isn't as bad as they said 4 years ago, it's far, far worse.

[research]

Really, Rooftop pv solar is the cheapest electricity you can buy at 3 cents per KWH, but our leaders still want to give Coal 50B$ to develop the clean coal, they should have been doing all along.

[dshwa]

The current energy industry doesn't benefit from individual rooftop solar, hence no money from congress.

[research]

yup.

[ponderman]

There is a grand convergence happening. There is one simple solution....good ol' non-polluting, endlessly renewable human-powered electricity.

[All in All]

And to think; the dinosaurs of the past had no choice but to live day in & day out the way that they did, and with no opportunity to work together as a species in order to avoid whatever it was that laid the smack down on just about all of them (the dinosaurs), all at once.

Some Capitalist today remind me of those same dinosaurs of the past; self-centered, self-motivated, and egotistical (savages)...

[MSiddique]

Good write-up with many important points. Our problem is complicated by our uniqueness as a species – only one with a social history, a civilization and culture. The way it came about is from our desire to continuously “improve” the quality of our own lives and that of our progeny, based on our “experience” that this is required to preserve our genetic continuum. Yet this is also has ingrained in us the assumption that to carry out these fundamental functions, we must consume more and more. As long as population remained below what available resources – natural and manufactured could sustain without causing irreversible changes in the environment that is our essential home, we did not care. But, those days seem to be coming to an end, and no one has figured out how to continue our survival-function while reducing consumption to a level that can be sustained. The prevailing economic system seem to be antithetical to the idea of controlled/reduced production (and hence consumption); socialism was only an experimental way of producing and consuming more, and resulted in a farce. Human nature is not unchangeable, but changing it is no picnic, neither might this be possible in time. Although, for the first time that I can recall a politician (Mr. Obama, in his speech at the UN) used the word “irreversible change” to point to potential result of the current course. I do not think many understood the implication.

[PhillyProfessor]

As important as adapting to change and EVOLVING is, we must not forget how many thousands of mechanism every organism has for maintaining homeostasis - the fight AGAINST change. We see these mechanisms at every level from the cellular up to the human and beyond to societal organisms. You see it written in high school yearbooks - "You're the sweetest girl - DON"T EVER CHANGE" Where life exists there will ALWAYS be tension between those two great forces, the forces to adapt and evolve and the forces to keep things the same. So be kind to those who resist change. It's help keep our ancestors alive for millions of years...

[DenverJJ]

Good Post..... but, but but. The best way to affect the change is to reconize that we still are really animals by any standard, very complex animals, (be a at bit humble in this) and that we have used our instincts that built this society, not our intellect. This realization is the REASON the issues you mentioned are roiling with conflict and contentous is because modern humans are slowly coming to understand instinct instinct vs intellect. Again is not about changing from the top down, as most intellectuals and tyrants seem to want. It is about affecting the change from the bottom up: every individual must recognize their own instincts at work in their decisioin process, the short comings instincts bring (and benefits too) and change themselves. Top down change, human behavioral engineerin­g(whatever­) always a bad idea. You never can say to someone, 'listen to me to be happy,' you can only say listen to yourself.... you nutty, loveable, (highly complex and technologically advanced) slightly confused, animal!
DenverJJ

[Philclock]

Like, look up, not down?