Zhou Zhonghe: How deep is the misunderstanding of evolution?
Editor's note:
The theory of evolution was introduced to China through Yan Fu's "Evolution of Heaven", in which "natural selection, survival of the fittest" was deeply rooted in the hearts of the people. What is the theory of evolution that you understand? Survival of the fittest? Used to retreat? From low to high? From simple to complex? But in fact, we have a lot of misunderstandings about evolution. Zhou Gu, a famous paleontologist, an expert in ancient birds and one of the discoverers of Confucius bird fossils, and Zhou Zhonghe, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, told the common misunderstanding of evolution in the Mozi salon. This article is organized according to the first part of the lecture. I have not reviewed it.
Speech | Zhou Zhonghe (Gu biologist, academician of Chinese Academy of Sciences)
Misunderstandings have always been
The famous Russian biologist Dubzanski once said this: "Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution." Probably means that evolution is very important. Many phenomena in biology have left evolution. Hard to explain.
It is often easy to misunderstand the theory of evolution, and there are all kinds of misunderstandings. I simply checked it out, there are "Top Five Misconceptions About Evolution", "Ten Misunderstandings About Evolution". In 2002, Scientific American published "15 Answers to Creationist Nonsence" because it was directed at creationism, so it involved counterattacks on some religious ideas. In 2008, "New Scientist" magazine had an "Evolution 24 Myths and Misconceptions", which selected 24 creations and misunderstandings.
Where do ordinary people’s misunderstandings about evolution come from? The biggest source may be that we don't understand it, just like the misunderstanding between people, sometimes it can be eliminated through communication. Of course, misunderstandings may come from more obsessive religions. God-creative believers simply don't believe in evolution. How you tell him is useless. Others are because evolution itself is indeed a more complex science, just like quantum physics, we can't understand.
a complex comprehensive discipline
Evolution is actually a more complex subject. Let's take a look at some of the evaluations of evolution.
French biologist and Nobel laureate Jacques Mono has said:
A peculiarly funny feature of evolution is that everyone thinks they understand evolution.
Geneticist and author Steve Jones once commented:
Evolution is a political sofa, and whose ass sits on it and what shape he becomes.
Steve Jones is more arrogant, as if evolution is not a science. But I think he did tell another feature of evolution. As a science of biology, evolution is a branch of evolutionary biology. However, evolution is more than just a science. After Darwin proposed evolution, it and the social sciences have more influence on human thought than many other sciences, so evolution is indeed more complicated.
China is a country that relatively lacks a true religious tradition. The misunderstanding of evolution is not because of religious reasons, but also because it lacks understanding and historical factors.
Some misunderstandings
Some of the people I contact often have the following understandings, all of which are misunderstandings about evolution.
1) Evolution is directional
Many people think that evolution is always getting more and more advanced. Put human beings in the highest position. We humans seem to be the spirit of all things. Some of the past dictionaries often write explanations of evolution as "the development process of life from simple to complex, from low to high, from low to high." In fact, strictly speaking, this is not right.
2) Survival of the fittest
It seems that saving is good, bad is going to be eliminated, and the fittest survives. What's more, the survival of the fittest is equated with the survival of the strong, and it is beaten if you feel backward.
3) Evolution is getting better and better
Many people always think that evolution will get better and better, and there are some perfect adaptations.
4) Evolution also lacks some fossils of intermediate types
Many Chinese people believe in evolution, but is there evidence? Is there an intermediate type of fossil?
5) Darwin is often challenged
Darwin put forward this hypothesis more than a hundred years ago, but everyone thinks that evolution is mysterious, and it seems that new discoveries are often seen on television in newspapers, and some people easily challenge him.
6) Human evolution does not conform to the laws of evolution
Everyone thinks that evolution seems to be about animals and plants. Is it inappropriate to use humans naturally?
I want to answer these points. Evolution is not a fixed, static discipline, but it is indeed a comprehensive discipline that requires some understanding of the interdisciplinary knowledge of different disciplines such as biology and geology. So I want to briefly review history and basic knowledge to help us explain.
The history and foundation of evolution
1. Lamarck
Lamarck is considered to be the originator of evolution. He believes that biology is changing, that is, there is evolution. However, some of Lamarck’s most familiar views, “use of retreat and acquired inheritance,†actually have big problems and are basically wrong.
Lamarck’s main points of view include three points:
First, biological variation is induced by environmental changes.
Second, this difference caused by environmental changes is heritable, that is, acquired inheritance. To give a popular example, for example, a person who was born is very weak. He cultivated a strong muscle through exercise, and this strong muscle will be passed on to his descendants. But now we know that this is wrong, because many factors such as your height are actually determined by human genes, of course, the environment also works, but environmental factors are generally not easy to be inherited.
Third, simple forms of life continue to grow spontaneously and automatically evolve into more advanced forms. He feels that there is a force that constantly pushes biological evolution to a more advanced form. That is to say, we talked about from the low to the advanced. In fact this is wrong. From simple to complex, we are certainly more complicated than bacteria. But from complex to simple, for example, birds are a very complex flying creature, and it can also become non-flying, like ostriches, so complexity and simplicity can be changed in both directions.
So is a life advanced or low level? This is actually a judgment of value. Why do we say that we are human? Why are we more advanced than mice? That's not what we have the final say, the mouse will definitely not agree. So some people say what a creature has evolved for, for example, what do birds want to evolve in order to evolve their wings. In fact, this is a personification, which does not mean that the creature wants to do something, but this anthropomorphic expression is sometimes misleading.
If a person is injured and has an arm broken, does he have a broken arm when he has a child? impossible. Something about the day after tomorrow is actually not inherited. Lamarck’s point of view was denied.
2, Darwin
Darwin’s main points are as follows:
1) Biological evolution is a fact. This was not the first Darwin proposed, but Darwin explained this through a large number of rigorous arguments.
2) Common ancestors. Our different creatures are all brought by an ancestor. This is not a big problem, and Lamarck will agree.
3) Progressive changes. It is the difference between species that always accumulates from bit by bit. Many people think that Darwin only emphasizes the gradual change and negates the rapid change. In fact, Darwin also thought that the change of life is sometimes faster.
4) Variation within the population. An individual with genetic differences within a group. This is very important. That is to say, everyone is not the same, in fact, there is a genetic basis, and this genetic basis will be passed on.
5) Natural selection. Natural selection is the core part of Darwin's theory of evolution and the essence of evolution. Natural selection is the mechanism of biological evolution, or motivation.
Of course, the premise of natural selection is Article 4: There are differences. Every one of us has a difference. With differences, nature plays a role in choice, so the creatures will change, and the core is natural selection. Some people say that Darwin said that the species is gradual, and later found that some are faster and some slower, so Darwin is wrong. In fact, Darwin generally thinks that biology is relatively changing. You can't be a cat today. It turns out to be a python after a few years. That's impossible. Darwin is what this means.
3, Mendel
After Darwin’s doctrine published The Origin of Species in 1858, it was quickly recognized by the scientific community and opposed to the religious school. But Darwin's theory is constantly evolving, biological evolution is a fact, and evolution is accepted by everyone. But evolution itself is a scientific hypothesis or theory, in fact it is constantly improving. Darwin did not say that everything was right. He didn't understand the mechanism of variation because he didn't understand genetics. At that time, there was no genetics.
Mendel opened up genetics. Although he had published a thesis during the life of Darwin, Darwin did not understand Darwin. In fact, Mendel's contribution was known to the world at the beginning of the 20th century. So the contribution of genetics in the early twentieth century brought about the deepening of Darwin's theory, not negative. There is a popular saying called "Long Shenglong, Feng Shengfeng, the mouse will make a hole in the child", which is the basis of heredity.
4. Modern integrated chemical school
In the 1930s and 1940s, evolution reached a new height. It is generally considered to be the birth of a modern integrated chemical school, probably after six or seven decades. The foundation is Darwin's natural choice, and then with genetics - telling you how it mutated, and then adding evidence of paleontology - telling you that long-term biological changes and short-term changes can be linked Finally, such an assumption is formed. Although we have listed paleontology there, the contribution of paleontology is not so great, and genetics has an important contribution.
One of the important contributions of the integrated chemistry school is actually to explain the mechanism of the variability that Darwin cannot explain. Everyone does not accept Lamarck's acquired inheritance, which is genetically based and molecularly based. At the same time, geneticists have also proposed an important concept: the randomness of evolution. That is to say, biological evolution is not fixed and immutable. Why do humans appear on earth? Is there a fixed mechanism there? Let's build another planet. Will it be humans when it is put there for billions of years? This is the randomness of evolution.
5, DNA double helix structure
The DNA double helix structure discovered in the 1950s gave us a deeper understanding of the basis of biological variation. DNA is the basis of heredity, and it is the basic genetic unit that controls biological traits. The occurrence of DNA mutations is random. We know that mutations cause everyone to be different. A few children born to a mother are different. In fact, the surface difference we see is due to mutations in DNA. This mutation is random and mostly harmful, or neutral, with only a few being beneficial.
Mutations in DNA are the basis of intra-group variation, and mutations can produce complex structures. It has now been found that some genetic mutations can indeed form complex institutions, and genes control different diseases, human heights, and various shapes. In fact, we don't know enough about this, but it is true that different genetic control is a prerequisite for increased biodiversity.
6, the relationship between creatures
Of course, in addition to studying molecular biology, biologists have many research fields, such as population biology and ecology. Biologists have studied the relationship between a large number of organisms. In the past, it seems that only the survival competition and the survival of the fittest are known. Survival competition is indeed an important part of life evolution, but in fact, there are not only these kinds of relationships between organisms, but also There are symbiotic relationships, parasitic relationships, and coordinated evolution. We feel that life seems to be selfish. In fact, it is not obvious. There are many heroes in human beings, and there are many self-sacrificing behaviors in the life world.
For example, the impala and the birds live in harmony. I have observed the flight of thousands of birds. Their collective behavior includes collective division of labor. Some individuals make huge sacrifices, which is very common in biology. Like parasitic phenomena, the person we see is an individual, but do you know how many microbes are in our body? You can hardly imagine. Not to mention that on our skin, there are more than 2,000 species of microorganisms in our intestines that have been identified. So, in fact, we are a complex of different creatures. We can't live without the microbes.
7. Modern life sciences
Everyone often said that the next century is the century of life sciences, and the life sciences have indeed developed very fast, especially now that we have entered the era of the genome. After entering the genome era, this knowledge can be used to help us understand evolution from the micro, we can know how DNA evolved. In the past, we talked about how people evolved, how fish evolved into humans step by step, but the inheritance in our body is also changing, and DNA has an evolutionary process. We can understand when a certain gene originated, as well as the theory of evolutionary developmental biology.
So the field has made great progress, and some even say that evolution is about to enter another comprehensive stage. No one has yet summed it up, just an understanding of evolutionary knowledge, we have reached a new height. 
"Intellectuals" is a new mobile media platform founded by three scholars, Rao Yi, Lu Bai and Xie Yu. It is dedicated to science, humanities and thought.
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