Problems of Evolution is the twelfth chapter in the Fourth Configuration. It discusses alternative theories of evolution.
Plot[]
Doc Thorne takes meals out of the microwave and passed them around. Kelly Curtis and Arby Benton eat the herb-baked chicken breast with gusto while Ian Malcolm describes it taste like as cardboard. Kelly pauses and says she has one question regarding evolution, surprising Malcolm. She remarks that Charles Darwin wrote the book on it and Malcolm confirm, stating the year of publication. Kelly asks if that is what everyone agrees on, Malcolm agrees so her question is what is the "big deal." Malcolm answers everyone knows there evolution, yet fails to understand the process, and many have questioned the theory. He launches into a long grandpa-like story, describing first the famous anatomist Baron Georges Cuvier. Macolm says Cuvier soon realized that animals became extinct after examining bones and mentions "God or no God." Malcom says Cuvier believe extinction happened through worldwide catastrophes and became a believer of extinction, still having problems with the concept. Cuvier believed that some animals did or may have survived yet not evolved. Next, Charles Darwin proposed animals did evolve and bones represented the predecessors of living animals. Darwin's theories according to Malcolm unsettled many people yet Darwin had much data and his theories were accepted. Yet, Malcolm says no one has an idea how evolution actually occurs.
Arby joins the conversation, remarking Darwin stated it was natural selection. Malcolm states the concepts, then says it is still not an explanation, just a definition. He questions what in the chosen animal allows it to be selected and how the whole idea of natural selection operate. Kelly adds genes, Malcolm mentions Gregor Mendel's work on plants, Sewall Wright and Ronald A. Fisher population studies, yet through the First and Second World Wars, no one had a definitive idea what a gene was. James Dewey Watson and Francis Harry Compton Crick famously produced the idea of DNA which gave the idea of mutation. This according to Malcolm, helps understand why mutations that are beneficial are favoured in the natural selection process. He says there is no higher entity, just survival.
In Malcolm's view, it is still problematic, first there is a time problem. He says the formation of an single bacterium does not match the timing of the formation of the earth. Second, there is a coordination problem. Natural selection's process would simply occur by chance, yet there is evidence such as bats, that evolution can evolve simultaneously. Thorne agrees and Malcolm states the third problem: evolution doesn't always act like a blind force should. He says some animals remain the same, almost the same even after environmental changes. Arby wonders if these animals well adapt to external changes, Malcolm however says other rules change the outcome, prompting Thorne to wonder if evolution is directed. Malcolm doesn't agree, saying that it is creationism - expressing his or rather Michael Crichton's anti-Christian views - and that natural selection due to genes is too simplistic. He says, "From complexity theory, we're starting to have a sense of how this self-organization may happen, and what it means. And it implies a major change in how we view evolution." Arby still favours the genetic change theory, prompting Malcolm to launch into a history of how humans came about from apes. Malcolm says infants have unformed brains and no instinctive behaviour. Societies had to develop to teach children and this took an immense time. In Malcolm's view, he does not see how natural selection reacts in this manner.
Thorne draws him back to the wider picture, question what it has to do with dinosaur extinction. Malcolm's answer is "Self-organizing principles can act for better or worse." Richard Levine interrupts over the radio, congratulating Malcolm, informing him of the Parasaurolophus new behavior as indicated previously in Mating Calls. Malcolm tells the kids to watch the screens while he and the other adults head to Levine.
Trivia[]
Cuvier was mentioned previously in Introduction: "Extinction at the KT Boundary".
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