Peter Emmerson

 1.8 Darwin’s use of mutation as a piece of process technology and its implications for lowered ideals, more science and greater relative uncertainty.

Mathematics is the main defence against the insecurity of relative uncertainty when doing science. It is therefore not too surprising to find ‘me-oriented’ mathematicians idolized, worshipped, promoted and defended with a zeal that would do any religious fundamentalist credit: the status accorded Newton, Einstein, Heisenberg and Hawking is ample evidence. Where ‘me-oriented’ scientists are concerned, we see a similar process occurring – I am thinking of Smith, Marx and Freud. I was tempted to put the biologist Darwin in this last category because he was an early over-idealistic scientist and his ideas have been proselytized or attacked as passionately as any religious doctrine. However, his model of evolutionary development does contain a considerable amount of strategically significant process technology, which from my position, separates it out from the theories of the three social scientists mentioned above. For example, Darwin’s use of the concept of ‘mutation’ moves us away from ‘me-oriented’ perceptual models dominated by ideals that imply some sort of mega-human presence guiding the functioning of the universe, to a greater engagement with reality and ‘they-oriented’, process perceptions, that owe less to the truth techniques of theometaphysics, and more to the relative uncertainty of sense data.

The Darwinian model is less engaged with idealism in another sense being less systematized by mathematics. Darwin’s theory is a response to the unsatisfactory explanations provided by the prevailing models of his time such as creationism or the arguments of Lamarck, as regards the factual problem of “the distribution of the inhabitants of South America” (p, 5.). His attempt to persuade us of the value of natural selection contains comparatively little mathematical justification: he offers no algorithm (mathematical formula) at the basis of life. There is however, plenty of evidence of ‘me-orientation’ in the model in the form of philosophical (Cartesian) idealism, which produces such a considerable amount of systematic analysis that his ability to achieve the level of ‘they-orientation’ needed for a fuller investigation of processes, is curbed. An example, is Darwin’s unquestioned belief in the validity of rationality/logic, which makes him vulnerable to over-confidence as to the certainty of his judgement that heredity is of supreme importance in the process of mutation and the development life-forms: the dichotomy of nature-nurture, a piece of system technology, patterns Darwin’s network of analysis into which he inserts mutation. Consequently, he embarks on a causal, systematic style of analysis rather than one of interdependencies and process, even though he is aware of the need for process technology in the form of the concept mutation. In addition, his commitment to rationality as a truth technique justifies the adoption of a moral stance that qualifies him to make truth statements about the beneficence of natural selection at the expense of learning, certainly where ants are concerned (p, 180). Such certainty is typical of a ‘me-oriented’ approach that sanctions and privileges ideals, validating a perceptual habitus that understands the universe in terms such as ‘the laws of nature’, as well as licensing forms of analysis that emphasize the pre-eminence of the rational over experience and inheritance over learning/culture; a way of seeing that can be traced back, in modern terms, to Descartes.

However, On the Origin of Species does not privilege theology or mathematics, thereby diluting the level of ‘me-orientation’ to the extent that Darwin is able to work with more ‘they-oriented’ perceptions and engage more thoroughly with reality than his predecessors, producing a more scientific model. Because it addresses processes, albeit structured by a perceptual habitus that is patterned by a commitment to the ideals of philosophical logic and systematic analysis, the model of evolution as natural selection is lower in idealism than its competitors. Interdependently, the greater level of relative detachment (‘they-orientation’) achieved by Darwin correlates with a concomitant rise in the experience of relative uncertainty, both in the model itself and in the lives of those who find it useful. Darwin’s much closer proximity with reality, produces a less ideal set of perceptions that makes the idea of a divine presence comparatively incongruous as a method of explaining human development. Hence, he uses mutation rather than creation.

The latter point goes some way to explaining the fear and animosity that has accompanied the growth in popularity of the process concept of mutation and Darwin’s model of evolution. As a piece of process technology, mutation implies dynamism rather than stability, even though it is often spoken of in conjunction with the ideal notion of randomness with all its connotations of absolute freedom from being meddled with, other than by a divine being. Whilst the notion of mutation can never be free of idealism, any more than any other human conception, it does loosen our hold on the ‘me-oriented’ notion of cause and effect by opening further the possibility of considering the less certain analysis of interdependencies implied in a process model of the the way life-forms operate, albeit injected with a good dose of stability via system technology adapted from the philosophers: Darwin’s diagrams of inheritance are a good example, (p. 90).