On the unattainable perfection of nature

Published in "A Place for Thought", a supplement of the bimonthly "Galileo", in September 1998

Dr. Oren Hasson

What do Rabbi Amnon Yitzhak, Dr. Zvi Inbal (both repentant, each in his own style), Carl von Linnaeus, the greatest biologist of the eighteenth century, and the greatest biologist of the nineteenth century, Charles Darwin, have in common? One simple thing. The belief that nature is perfect. Ostensibly, this is an ecological statement that ideally describes the web of complex relationships between organisms and other organisms, and between them and their environment; But in fact, this is a statement whose roots are religious and not biological/scientific, and the whole of it comes to exalt creation and describe it as perfection. The depth of nature's complexity, and the depth of thought, efforts and time that researchers must devote to uncovering and "understanding" even a touch of it, left a tremendous impression on the first researchers, who were also people of faith, that nature is a triumphant testimony to the intentional act of a higher power, sublime in its wisdom. The perfection revealed to the eyes of the observer enveloped nature, its beauty, what appeared to be a balance between "good" and "evil" and the infinite "wisdom" inherent in it, in an aura of holiness. No wonder, therefore, that for hundreds of years the most important natural researchers were religious people, who believed that by investigating the secrets of nature, they were investigating the secrets of the Creator. The most prominent researcher among them, until Darwin, was Carl von Linnaeus, the father of modern systematics. This excellent Swedish researcher was the first to bring order to the animal and plant world by deciding that each creature would be called by two names, the name of the species (in the sense of species, not in the sense of sex) and the name of the genus. And so, for example, the wolf was for Canis lupus, and the jackal, a species to which it is closely related, for Canis aureus, both having the same genus name. Linnaeus went on to create a hierarchy of kinship between the different species, according to the degree of similarity between them in important biological traits. Thus, the jackal and the wolf together belong to the canine family, to the order of carnivores, to the department of mammals, to the vertebrate system, and to the animal kingdom, in ascending hierarchical order. Carl von Linnaeus was gifted with an extraordinary discerning eye in its sensitivity, and he knew it well, and was very proud of his skills. To his friends he said: "God has allowed me to see more of his work than any other mortal." In his arrogance, Linnaeus saw himself as the chosen explainer of nature - as one of the ancient prophets called by God to reveal the fruit of his "work". After separating the whales from the fish, and classifying them as a series among the mammals, Linnaeus said: "The whales [this is the name of the series] should thank God that they can stand as a series by themselves. There's no way I'd put them as a department by themselves, just like there's no way I'd put them between the cows and the bulls." There is nothing like this statement to testify that he saw in his work both a sacred mission and the power to control the "status" of the various creatures - a power granted to him by the Shechinah herself.
Referring to the perfection of nature, Linnaeus said: "I followed the steps of God in the expanses of nature, and found in each of them, even in those that I could scarcely understand, wisdom and power without end, an unattainable perfection." It is very interesting to examine the words Linnaeus used in this sentence: "I could hardly understand" and "unattainable." An explicit internal contradiction is revealed in these words. Perfection and wisdom and infinite power are so great that in fact even the great Linnaeus, the great biologist of the eighteenth century, did not really understand them. So how did he know it was perfection? Does this perfection really exist?
Darwin, like Linnaeus, believed it was. He received the assumption of perfection from natural scientists who preceded him, and they themselves accepted this assumption, without question, from the religious tradition that nature, as an act of God's creation, must be perfect. This is exactly the tradition that led astronomers, for example, for thousands of years, in fact until the time of Johannes Kepler, to assume that the celestial bodies move in perfect circular orbits. But Darwin's genius is that he took a religious-mystical claim, ie that nature is perfect, and gave it a new, non-mystical explanation. Evolution through natural selection became an alternative to the only explanation that actually existed until then, divine creation (previous explanations, such as that of Lamarck, who claimed that evolution works through the inheritance of acquired traits, did not stand the test of reality). This explanation, natural selection, today is no longer a theory in Alma, as it was in Darwin's time. Today it is possible to examine and measure the process empirically in the laboratory and in nature. This is a living, breathing, tested and watched process. On the other hand, the assumption that nature is perfect, which in the past was accepted by researchers as an axiom, swelled its soul during the twentieth century.
To this day there are many people and groups who do not accept evolution, because it contradicts their religious or social beliefs. One of the common claims of those arguing with evolution is that random processes cannot create the perfect ecological fabric of nature, and therefore it is impossible that evolution created it. This claim could have been a very strong claim, if it really existed. But its premise, that nature is perfect, is far from true. So it is true that there is great complexity in nature. But perfection? No way. There are a number of basic biological reasons for this, but before I get to them, I want to make a cynical, simple and petty claim to the method of those who believe in the perfection of creation.
Who like us knows how far man himself, the jewel of creation, is from perfection? He suffers, he makes mistakes, he is sick, his morality tends to partial blindness, and in his anger he tends, sometimes, to total blindness. And if the women think that by the term 'man' they are exempt, then that is not what I meant. There are religious scholars who attribute the weaknesses of man's mind to the possibility of choice given to him - the ability to distinguish between good and evil (according to the Judeo-Christian tradition, the product of eating the tree of knowledge). They explain the weaknesses of the body by the sins of the person or his relatives, or by the fact that God puts him to the test in order to forge his character (from a religious point of view, this is an ideal explanation, since it can never be disproved). I'm not going to get into this theological debate, but if the tiara of creation itself is far from perfect, why would we expect the pea, or the watermelon to be perfect? And if the argument is that only man was given the option of choice, and that precisely because of this he is not perfect, while all other creatures were created perfect, why did we need to artificially and deliberately improve the watermelon, the pea, the cow and the dog with the help of selective pairings (artificial selection)?
And yet, sometimes also an assumption of religious or mystical origin contributes to the development of science. And so, the axiomatic assumption of the perfection of nature, which Darwin did not dispute, probably helped him, as paradoxical as it may seem, in discovering the process of natural selection. In this process, Darwin found the biological explanation for that perfection or, to be precise, the way in which nature approaches that perfection. The mechanism of heredity was discovered only at the beginning of this century, almost fifty years after the publication of Darwin's 'Origin of Species'. In the absence of knowledge about the mechanism of heredity, Darwin erred in certain details. Only with the growth of insight into the processes of heredity and evolution, could biologists understand to what extent natural selection cannot bring nature to perfection. Darwin also studied the distribution of species in isolated areas, and used his studies to demonstrate the evolutionary processes that isolated species undergo. There is no doubt that he knew the process of continental migration, also a new discovery of the middle of the twentieth century, his work was many times richer.
It is a well-known biological principle that the growth process of the organism follows the course of its evolution. This means that, in general terms, the human embryo, for example, develops from a single cell, called a zygote (the union of the egg and the sperm), to a baby ready for birth, through stages similar to those that man went through in his evolution. At the beginning of embryonic development there is a similarity in the initial division of the cells between the human embryo and the embryos of all other multicellular animals. Later, when further development (and specialization) of the cells took place, the similarity in the way the human embryo divides and grows and the embryonic growth of the other vertebrates is preserved, but it differs from those of the invertebrate animals, such as the baboons (inferior animals such as corals and sea anemones) ). The continuation of embryonic growth gradually begins to show differences from fish embryos, and then from lizard (and bird) embryos, and then, gradually, the human embryo begins to differ from other mammalian embryos, until it becomes different from all of them and unique to humans. And so, for example, in the first weeks of its development, the human embryo has a developed tail, which later disappears. Gill arches develop in it, similar to fish, from which later develop parts of the jaws and the auditory bones in the middle ear, the tongue bone and the cartilaginous lining of the throat. The remains of the gill pockets become the external auditory canal and the middle ear tube. In fact, the embryonic growth of various organisms is similar to the process of building a complex and sophisticated home computer patchwork of basic and essential parts of computers that were built in the past, and whose time has already passed. Imagine that at the center of the modern home computer there was a processor of the Sinclair computer (one of the initial home computers, created in 1980 or so, and which used to be connected to the TV screen, and its amount of memory was 1 KB, with the option of adding 15 KB of memory), and around it Components and processors of the 'Commodore 64', or of its equivalent 'Texas Instrument', surrounded by additional components and connection systems of the 'Amiga', and above all all the IBM lines and its compatibles, starting with the XT processors, through the components of the AT, 386, and up to the sophisticated Pentiums (and Mackintosh fans will forgive me for not choosing their line as an example). The result will be a cumbersome, very complex computer, with many bypasses designed to speed up its operation, and they are woven around processors that are no longer needed, with connections through points that were essential in the past, and are weak points in the present. It is difficult to get rid of them, because in the past they were important nodes for essential calculation processes, the innovations were built around them, and not at their expense. If computers were going through biological evolution, this is what they would be like today.
In the same way, the embryonic repetition of evolutionary history is imposed on organisms, because their various evolutionary stages were the starting points on which new changes (mutations) were built. Abandoning previous essential structures would require too many simultaneous changes involving a very rare coincidence. Only very rarely can a set of genes responsible for a certain organ suddenly become inactive without harming the entire organism. The striking fact in the process of embryonic growth is that we do not find a separate and unique way of embryonic development for each organism, which we would expect if each organism had been created from nothing, and we do not find shortcuts to that separate construction, which would have been expected if nature had been created perfectly.
One of the most successful error processes in nature is the process of genetic replication. When the genetic material is duplicated, for the purposes of reproduction or cell division, an error occasionally occurs in the replication in a way that changes the sequence of the nucleic acids (DNA) that make up the chromosome. Such a mistake, or as it is known by its foreign name, mutation, causes a change in the protein produced according to the gene's function (this is the name of the section of the chromosome that produces the protein). If this process were not subject to errors, evolution would not occur. Then there will be those who will say: Look how perfect the act of creation is, who knew how to make sure that organisms can renovate themselves to better adapt to their environment, enemies, predators or diseases (but also the other way around: the bacteria, viruses and other pathogens, their hosts, the predators prey and the like!). But she is the giver - no matter how we look at it, nature is not perfect! If it were perfect, there would be no need for such a correction system - the very "need" of correction is evidence of imperfection.
This system of "corrections" exists, and this is a fact that is measured in thousands of studies every year. If this system were operating at peak efficiency, as a faultless repair system, we could claim, as the supporters of creation sometimes claim, that a complete, complex ecological system was created on the face of the earth, by a divine act, but not static and unchanging, but dynamic and with sophisticated capabilities of self-repair and adaptation to environmental changes. A legitimate claim. However, even before we deal with the effectiveness of this system, it turns out that there is an internal contradiction in this improved argument. Because what is this system of corrections if not the process of natural selection that Darwin discovered? And isn't it precisely on her that the supporters of creation have been frothing from the time of Darwin until today! In order to attack natural selection and also praise its virtues, at the same time, a logical loopiness worthy of its name is needed. Furthermore, the more we learn about natural selection, we see that it is a sieve with holes too large for the role it is "intended", so to speak, according to the "creationists". Despite the filtering ability of natural selection, it turns out that random events are just as important in the evolution process as natural selection.
The formation of the mutation itself is the first random element in the refining process of the organisms. This process is so sloppy that the vast majority of mutations are abject failures. A small part of the negative mutations creates proteins that are noticeably harmful to the activity of the entire organism, its normality and behavior, and these mutations will be ignored very quickly in the process of natural selection (the individual will not be able to survive or reproduce). The vast majority of negative mutations manage to survive for a long time, since they are recessive. These are mainly mutations that create proteins that, as a result of the change in them, stop functioning properly. Usually, the damage of such mutations is small. Each gene comes in two copies, one from the genetic father and the other from the mother; If one of them is damaged, the protein that the body needs can still be produced with the help of the second copy of the gene (which is why they are called "recessive" - ​​controlled, which are not expressed in the presence of the other, dominant copy of the gene). Only when both copies are damaged will it have a severe effect on the organism. This is precisely the reason why consanguineous marriages, which have a high probability of carrying the same recessive mutation, are undesirable.
Only a very small part of the mutations creates a functional protein, which is also more suitable for the conditions in which the organism lives. As a result, it improves the development, survival or reproductive success of the organism. What is the chance of a mutation surviving and occupying its place, if it is successful? It turns out that the chance is very small. There are various reasons for this, all related to the fact that these basic natural processes, of the reproduction of genetic material, of the mode of inheritance, of survival and reproduction, and of environmental changes, are far from perfect, and are subject to a great degree of randomness. And so it turns out that one of the simple initial reasons for the disappearance of successful mutations is the hand of chance. Just as an excellent driver can fall victim to a car accident due to another driver's mistake, or due to one small moment of inattention, so an individual who has a particularly successful trait can fall victim to a "predation accident". For example, a bird with an unusual feature in the structure of the tail, which allows it to improve its ability to maneuver in flight, can be eaten while it is brooding in the nest by a snake or a raven, long before its excellent flight ability is manifested in its adult life. In the same way, she can fall victim, even as an adult bird, to one small moment of inattention, or to a rare cold storm, even before she has had time to pass on her extraordinary qualities to the next generation. A feature of exceptional quality can also be found, by chance, in a bad neighborhood. That is, in an individual whose luck has been disturbed and he has a gene or a collection of other genes, which are not successful, and which will lead to his destruction.
One of the most talked about random evolutionary processes is the process called "genetic drift". Despite the technical name, all it means is that during reproduction, the sampling of genes passed on to offspring is random, and can lead to an increase or decrease in the representation of genes in future generations regardless of their quality. It is easy to see this if we take, for example, a certain gene, which will be received from only one of the parents. Since a sperm (if the carrier of this gene is male) or an egg (if it is female) contains only half of the individual's chromosomes, then if the carrier of this unique gene leaves behind only one offspring, the chance that the gene will pass to that offspring is fifty percent. This is exactly the chance that this gene will be lost, regardless of its quality. If the individual leaves two offspring, the chance that this gene will still be lost is one in four, and if three offspring, then one in eight. The randomness of sampling allows genes to spread in populations, or to disappear from them, regardless of the quality they add (or detract) to the individual in which they are found. Due to these random fluctuations in gene frequency, especially in small populations (where every small fluctuation can be significant in determining the final fate of the mutation), this process is called "genetic drift".
Another important random process is, of course, the timing. A certain trait could be wonderful in combination with certain traits, if they existed, and would be lost if they did not appear before it during evolution. Thus, for example, certain changes in the shape of the front limb of animals, which shape it into a better aerodynamic shape, can have a great advantage if the limb is covered with feathers that form a flight surface, and a disadvantage if there are hooves at the end of the toes. That is, as soon as some specialization of the organism is created, the window of opportunity for other features, which could develop under other conditions, closes. The process of natural selection is, therefore, a short-sighted process that establishes, at any given moment, the traits that are successful at that moment. The hereditary traits that help the individual to survive and reproduce are the ones that will be present in the next generation. Natural selection is unable to guess which gene (trait) will be successful at a later stage.
Evolution can, perhaps, be described as a mindless driver, driving without a compass on dirt roads on a stormy night, preferring, at every intersection, the road that appears brighter than a distance of one meter ahead. Only on average will the driver move far from the eye of the storm. Similarly, evolution is governed by the wretched combination of short-sighted natural selection with the arm's length of chance. The result is a process that leads to biological systems that are well-adapted at their core, but frayed at their edges, with noticeable incompatibility in their finer texture, that is, mainly in those traits that are exposed to changing conditions, or that have changed recently.
If so, both the hereditary mechanism, which we already know well, and the ecological systems in nature, are far from the perfection that the divine creationists (or "creationists", as the term "creationists" translate) would like to see in them. But, on the other hand, is it possible to claim that such random and sloppy processes can bring the species in nature to what they are in the period of time that was available to them? The answer is yes. Easily. Because, as can be understood from the description of the process, and contrary to the criticism coming from creationist circles, one successful mutation does not have to wait in line for another to be established before it. The selection process against mutations that are only slightly harmful, as well as the preference for mutations that are slightly beneficial, is a slow process, so these also accumulate, and do not disappear quickly. It is easy to illustrate the magnitude of genetic variation that can accumulate, simultaneously, in any organism, if you think for a moment how different humans are from each other. Moreover, since the rate of creation of mutations in each gene is approximately one in a million, and a person has over a million genes (the total number of genes in the chromosomes on both copies together), then each new baby born has, on average, one new mutation. This enormous genetic variation means that local isolates of small populations can form nuclei of previously unknown combinations and genetic compositions. These can lead the organisms on new evolutionary paths, relatively quickly, if also with some inefficiency.
Here it is, the mechanism of heredity, despite the flaws that randomly open up in it like holes in Swiss cheese, and actually precisely because of them, guides the organisms in the process that creates the rich ecological fabric of nature. This texture is constantly adding and changing and diversifying, as it has done in the past, with no definite purpose and no guiding hand except the limited and myopic one of natural selection. The result is the creation of a natural world that is vast in its richness and the interrelationships between its components, but also one that, despite its beauty and complexity, is far from perfect.

Comments:
In practice, some compatibility is maintained between the different computer versions, but because of market constraints and not because of developmental constraints. To encourage consumers to buy advanced versions of computers, manufacturers must ensure that consumers do not lose the data and work they did in the past, and make it easier to learn the new computers entering the market. Because of this, manufacturers maintain the compatibility of each new computer with the hardware and software of previous computers that were common. This constraint undoubtedly hinders the rate of development of personal computers.

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