Variation, Selection, and the Evolution of Nature and Society (by Prof. Mazin Qumsiyeh)
One of the most powerful ideas in science is also one of the
simplest: things change, and a changing and complex environment decides which
changes survive. In biology that's the whole engine of evolution and we can draw
lessons from that to the accelerating pace of social evolution and changing paradigms. Organisms vary
from one generation to the next, some of that variation gets passed down, and
the environment acts like a filter — traits that help an organism survive and
reproduce tend to spread, while traits that hurt tend to fade. Given enough
time, variation and selection working together can reshape entire populations,
which is how we ended up with the biological complexity and diversity of life
around us. Mutation is one of the main sources of that variation. Every time
genetic material gets copied, small errors are produced. My own research also
shows that species that survive in changing environment also produce more
variation to give their progeny more possibilities of survival. Wolves for
example have high chromosome numbers allowing for more variation and hence it
was possible to domesticate them quickly and produce the amazing variety of
dogs we see today. Same for cows and sheep. Most genetic changes do little or
nothing; some are harmful; a few turn out to be useful in a given environment. A
trait that's an advantage today can become neutral, or even a liability, once
conditions shift.
Natural selection then acts on whatever variation is there.
No organism chooses to evolve. It's simpler than that: individuals whose traits
happen to suit their circumstances tend to survive and reproduce a bit more
often, and their offspring inherit those traits, so the traits become more
common over time. Repeat that across generations and the population itself
changes. It's tempting to read this as a march toward perfection, but that's
not what's happening. Evolution doesn't aim for perfect organisms, and it
doesn't necessarily aim for complexity either. What it produces is organisms
good enough for a particular place and moment — nothing more, and there's no
finish line it's working toward. But
variation remains and mutation rates remain. That is why for example among our
species some 2% of people have mutations and problems ranging from thallasemia
to Down Syndrome (hundreds of medically important types of genetic disorders).
Part of the reason why variation is encouraged is that the
environment itself never holds still. Climate shifts, predators and prey evolve
together, diseases emerge, food supplies rise and fall, new competitors show
up, landscapes change. So evolution isn't organisms adjusting to a fixed
backdrop — it's a running conversation between changing organisms and a
changing world. Which points to a broader lesson: survival isn't about being
well suited to today's conditions. It's about being able to keep up with
tomorrow's.
That idea can draw lessons beyond biology. It is now being
perfected with machine learning (artificial intelligence) to even create and
virtually test everything from new drugs to new weapons. For society, we can
draw positive lessons from this. Human societies develop new ideas like new genes
and new mutations. Sometimes these are called memes and they can also spread if
they are useful in particular circumstances. A new religion or philossphical
tradition may spread if it is more advantageous than previous ones. While social
change doesn't run on Darwinian selection in a literal sense, principles of
change still apply. Societies generate huge amounts of variation: new ideas,
technologies, institutions, customs, theories, ways of solving problems. But
the ones that flourish are ones that do not get fixated on the past and stop
changing. After all, change is dynamic and everywhere.
What sets humans apart is that we can create variation on
purpose. We can imagine alternatives before they exist, experiment, argue,
invent, copy, tweak, and learn from mistakes. A society facing a new problem
can generate thousands of possible responses and then, through trial and error
and public debate, work out which ones actually hold up. Look at the last few
centuries: the agricultural revolution that happened here in the Fertile
Crescent 12 millenia ago reshaped settlement and food production. Europe
languished in religious orthodoxy for hundreds of years creating so much
misery. Shedding that and evolving new paradigms (renaissance) was certainly
progressive in every sense of that word. The Islamic world had a golden age
when various strands of thought were allowed and encouraged advancing sciences
from Algebra (an Arabic word) to astronomy. Standards of living flourished. The
printing press changed how knowledge spread and industrialization remade work,
transportation, and city life. Electricity and telecommunications shrank
distance and computers and the internet rewired how we exchange information.
Now AI, biotechnology, robotics, and renewable energy are doing it again changing
the environment individuals and institutions have to operate in. Non of our
inventions or ideas is good or bad in abstract or good or bad in all
circumstances. They work during a particular environment (ecosystem) but may
become harmful if the ecosystem changes. This is why change is constant! Those
that develop (sometimes a good idea) may suffer when the idea no longer serves
its environment. That is why religious orthodoxy can end up causing horrors.
That is why Zionism is causing not only a genocide but a collective suicide:
sticking to paradigms in a world that has changed.
Each time, old habits run into new conditions. Some
institutions adapt. Others dig in. Ideas that once seemed radical become
ordinary; innovations that looked promising quietly fail; things once dismissed
out of hand become central. This is where the biological metaphor earns its
keep: a fast-changing environment rewards variation and experimentation. When
circumstances move quickly and institutions, societies, and individuals don't,
the outcome for them is extinction. Institutions and individuals that have
accumulated success can get attached to the habits that produced it —
understandably, but not harmlessly. If something worked repeatedly in the past,
people start assuming it always will. Rules harden into traditions, traditions
into conventions, conventions into assumptions, and assumptions eventually get
treated as truths nobody questions anymore. But the environment isn't obligated
to keep an institution comfortable.
Adapting requires a steady supply of alternatives. Societies
need people asking different questions, proposing unfamiliar solutions, and
testing new approaches -not by throwing out what's already known- but by
treating that knowledge as a foundation to build on rather than a fence to stay
inside. That's really why variation matters intellectually and socially, not
just biologically. A society where everyone thinks the same way gets
conformity, but conformity narrows the range of responses available when things
change as they ALWAYS do. Intellectual diversity widens that range. Some new ideas
will fail and that is the nature of things. What matters is whether we learn
from the failures.
The analogy of nature and human society has some limits. Selection
works differently for us than it does in nature. We can evaluate ideas
consciously and even test them
theoretically without the cost of death or lack of reproductions as happens in
nature. We can research whether an idea (a meme) will actually improves
people's lives in the current environment. We can ask and test many hypotheses
and then consciously decide to implement. That's a real advantage. That is the
power of knowledge. The most adaptable societies aren't necessarily the richest
or the oldest. They're the ones that learn quickly, experiment freely, admit
mistakes, and change direction when the evidence says to. The same holds for
individuals. Anyone who treats their identity, knowledge, or worldview as
permanently settled becomes fragile and vulnerable the moment circumstances
shift. Education should be directed to building the capacity to ask new
questions and revise the old ones staying attuned to changing worlds. My
grandfather wrote me this when I was 17 years old “The world is changing ..so
shed the mental chains that society and religion created around your brain and
embrace the change”.
None of this means shedding key principles. The main
principles including the golden rule “do no harm, treat people as you wish to
be treated. Someone can remain committed to justice, dignity, or scientific
inquiry while completely rethinking how that commitment plays out under new
conditions. Sometimes staying true to a principle is exactly what requires
giving up an old practice. This matters right now because AI is reshaping what
expertise, education, research, and work even mean. The right response isn't to
defend every old method just because it's familiar, and it isn't to embrace
every new tool just because it's new. It's to experiment, evaluate, keep what
works, drop what doesn't, and keep going and changing.
There's an intellectual humility built into all of this. No
organism has full knowledge of the environment it's heading into, and no person
or society can know exactly which ideas will hold up decades from now. The
sensible response to that uncertainty isn't false certainty — it's staying
capable of learning. Being "progressive," in this sense, isn't about
a fixed checklist of positions; it's a willingness to revise views as evidence
changes. Being "radical" can just mean going back to a problem's
roots and questioning what everyone else has stopped questioning. And being
"nimble" means staying flexible enough to change before circumstances
force the issue.
The deepest lesson of evolution comes down to two words:
variation and selection. Biology generates variation and lets environments sort
through it. Culture generates an even wider range of possibilities through
human creativity, knowledge, and communication, and societies test those
possibilities against experience and evidence.
A healthy society makes room
for new ideas — tolerating experimentation, protecting inquiry, allowing
dissent, and letting failed approaches be dropped without losing the appetite
to try again. It doesn't mistake stability for stagnation, or tradition for
truth.
The world is changing faster
than it used to, across nearly every dimension, and technological shifts can
remake the social landscape within a single generation, sometimes within a few
years. The biggest risk in that environment is assuming that what worked before
will keep working. My main worry is that things like the climate change or a
nuclear war will eliminate human civilization because we failed to collectively
change course in the time needed. And time is another component. A species may
still go extinct even if it has variation simply because there was not enough
time or enough accelerated change to make the critical difference.
Nature rewards variation, responsiveness,
and adaptation for individuals and societies alike. The fast pace of change around
us require fast change in our ways of thinking. We now have the tools to do
that more than in any other period in human history of 3 million years. We must
embrace the change.
