Many years ago, I read a load of self-published Creationist rubbish (slightly longer than a pamphlet once stripped of the repetitive ideological waffle; much like the Christian bible, but shorter, then) titled Please Do Not Clothe the Dinosaurs. I remember it had this particular gem in it, fairly early on:
"Whenever scientific facts conflict with my religious beliefs, I reject the science."
Wait, what nonsense is this, now? I'm pretty sure you're doing it the wrong way around there, Brian! Ever since then, I've wanted to write and publish a book of my own in rebuttal, basing it on works by Charles Darwin, Jerry Coin and Richard Dawkins. (Chiefly, those books are On the Origin of Species, The Blind Watchmaker, The Greatest Show on Earth and Why Evolution is True. Each of those is a far longer and thorough work than the little suck-up wankfest to Ken Ham and Answers in Genesis, unsurprisingly the main cited source of PDNCD.) I haven't got that far yet, due to the fact that I am interested in too many things and lack the discipline and organisational skills to pursue any one of them long enough to make a go of it. However, be that as it may, I read the following in an otherwise excellent post on Collapsology by the esteemed Gerard the First and thought "hang on a minute; that doesn't look right":
"[Pablo] Servigne, in another of his books (Mutual Aid: The Other Law of the Jungle), frontally attacks the myth of a world built on the basis of competition and the law of the fittest (commonly called social Darwinism). Relations between species and between members of the same species are not reduced to competition and predation, but symbiosis and cooperation are the most important and key principles of all evolution.
An important clarification; Servigne is an ethologist and a deep researcher of the behavior of ants. In this book he cites numerous examples of cooperation in nature, such as lions hunting together, penguins gathering together to protect themselves from the cold, and trees redistributing nutrients to weaker ones through a fungus on their roots. Servigne does not deny competition, which he considers essential to set limits, be it in a territory, be it in reproduction. But neither does he accept the myth that thanks to competition we have managed to evolve, a subject that fascinates Darwinians, that is, those who defend the model of the success of the strongest. Servigne demonstrates that altruism and mutual aid are elements of social cohesion that develop spontaneously among human beings, especially in situations of natural disasters, seeking self-organization, coordination, and calm."
Hang on a minute there, mate. Interpreting "survival of the fittest" as simply succeeding at competition and being more predatory than the other individuals within your own species is a gross oversimplification and misunderstanding of Darwin's theory, which has a lot more to it than that (at least as far as I understand it, although I must admit I haven't yet read all 560+ pages of it). These are probably the same folks (or similar to them) pushing the "Alpha Male" agenda, about which I wrote a while ago. Anyone pushing that is feeding you a false narrative to further their own agenda (either to attack a reductive strawman version of Darwinism/Evolution or take advantage of you in some way, since that's what those in established power structures like the Christian Church, Capitalists and politicians have been doing for centuries, after all). A reductive approach to a long and complex scientific theory almost invariably results in the oversimplification being horribly wrong and devoid of merit. I assume that's what has happened here. To possibly misquote Albert Einstein:
"Nothing should ever be made less complex than it aught to be."
If Charles Darwin, despite his rush to publish before Wallace, felt that his theory could not be adequately expressed and supported in a few pages, reducing it to a few paragraphs or sentences and misapplying it to justify abhorrent and unjust cultural/social practices is a gross injustice, IMO. As regards Darwinism and the Theory of Evolution, I’ve always understood it as “the strongest species survives”. To do that, the fittest individuals pass on their genes, but “fitness” is not measured in physical strength or other attributes alone. A species that doesn’t protect and nurture the individuals within it (particularly the weakest ones) from existential threats such as predation, hypothermia and starvation isn’t fit, it’s soon to be extinct. Sure, a species might compete for resources and be predatory, but that's in relation to other species or population groups within the species as a whole. To the best of my (admittedly incomplete) knowledge, individuals in a social group (pack, pride or whatever the correct collective noun) do not compete with or prey on the members of the group. (In wolves, the species that gave rise to the Alpha Male myth, the dominant pair are typically the parents or familial relatives of the other members of the pack. Being in captivity/confinement is an atypical and stressful environment for them.) Humans, however, have slowly decreased our social groups to a core of maybe one or two individuals (perhaps four if you consider the current typical size of the modern family). Is it any wonder, then, that we humans are concerned about the demise of our own species as a result of learned selfishness?
"I'd like to share a revelation I've had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species. I realized that you're not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with their surrounding environment, but you humans do not. You move to another area, and you multiply, and you multiply, until every natural resource is consumed. The only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet. You are a plague, and we are ... the cure."
— Agent Smith; The Matrix; 1999; The Wachowskis
I could go on (and I very much want to), but I think it's best to limit the expressing of one's opinions when one doesn't know as much as one could about a subject (since I've found that that's when opinions tend to be both strongest and highly erroneous). I'd rather wait until a time when I've read all of the aforementioned books and am better educated/informed and well-versed in the nuances of the subject. If/when that day comes, you can be sure that I will do exactly what I aim to do, write a rebuttal to Creationist crap (and other attacks on — and misrepresentations of — Darwinism). Until then, there are books collecting dust on my bookshelf and occupying space on my HDD.
Having only just seen the name Pablo Sevigne and been introduced to Collapsology today, I'm in no position to comment on it either, but rest assured that I now have at least another three books to add to my ever growing "To Read" list. So thank you, Sir Gerard, for bringing me more interesting and thought-provoking content that's keeping me from rejoining the Consumer Capitalist thermo-industrial system and its infinite growth model of economics for just a little longer. Unfortunately for me, I do need to get back to it, since I am not in a position to escape it and become a boondocker or an outdoor living enthusiast.
Thumbnail image: Fake photo by AI: "Dinosaur wearing a hard hat"
