Inevitabilities
Details may vary (and figuring those out is more of an engineering problem) but some basic, or self-evident facts, lead to inevitable outcomes that shape a vast range of downstream consequences.
Summary: It is a fun exercise to start from a few simple, and perhaps, self-evident facts and to understand the intricacies of nature. One such exercise that brings a sense of enlightenment is coming to a sudden realization that in an energy limited environment, if biology is to evolve, the mechanism of survival of fittest is an inevitable outcome. And once its inevitability is in place, its explanatory power is far reaching. An example is understanding the reason for why I have specific organs for sensing the environment I live in.
A very basic, and a plausible fact is that the amount of energy in various corners of the universe is limited. No matter how plentiful it may be, it is still limited.
For our solar system, the main provider of energy is the Sun. The energy the Sun gives comes from thermonuclear fusion occurring at its core, a process where hydrogen nuclei (protons) fuse to form helium (two protons and two neutrons). This process results in a small loss of mass that is converted into energy, as described by Einstein’s equation, (E=mc²). This energy is transferred from the core to the surface of the Sun primarily through radiation and convection. From the surface, it is then radiated as electromagnetic waves, which travel through the empty space to reach the various planets in the Sun’s orbit.
For everything on the Earth, the Sun is the ultimate source of energy, and further, the amount of that energy that is available is limited.
Because energy is limited, the establishment of the mechanism of survival of the fittest becomes inevitable if biology happens to evolve in a resource limited environment. This is because the fundamental tenets of biology are:
- Biology needs to survive and reproduce.
- To do that, biology requires energy.
- Biology must compete with other organisms for the limited amount energy that is available.
In the desire to survive, thrive, and reproduce — activities that rely on the availability of energy — traits that help secure more energy become dominant over generations. This is the mechanism of survival of the fittest and natural selection. The emergence of natural selection, therefore, is a natural outcome of two self-evident facts: (1) the finiteness of available energy in the environment, and (2) the fundamental characteristics of being a biological organism., i.e., survival and reproduction (requiring energy).
Once in place, the mechanism of natural selection has sweeping explanatory powers for understanding the peculiarities of biological forms we see around us today. Examples include the incredible capacity of bacteria to develop antibiotic resistance, the long neck of giraffes in the African savannahs, the diverse beak shapes of Galapagos finches. And the list goes on.
It is not only biology to which the explanatory scope of natural selection extends. Many psychological traits and cognitive biases that humans exhibit today can also be linked to the process of natural selection. Examples include our preference for social bonding (or tribalism), our fear responses, our tendency to discount the future, our aversion to loss etc. There is an entire branch of evolutionary psychology devoted to exploring human behavior in the context of evolution and natural selection
The explanatory power of natural selection is so sweeping that one might even say that if a biological characteristic does not exist, it is because it failed the test of survival of the fittest in the context of the environment in which it tried to evolve.
Once the mechanism of natural selection is in place, it spawns its own inevitabilities downstream.
The mechanism of natural selection and survival of the fittest can be used to argue that biological organisms will have sensory organs, i.e., is also an inevitability. The argument would go something like this: To survive (and hopefully, thrive), biological organisms have to be successful in getting their share of energy that is available in the environment. They also have to compete for those resources with other biological organisms.
To be able to be successful in this endeavor, it would be advantageous for them to be able to sense the environment they are in and to know the time and locations where energy resources might be concentrated. Not only that, but they also need to sense the environment to avoid the dangers and become a source of energy for someone else.
It also just happens that the environment is permeated with carriers of information about its state, and it is matter of having the right set of receptors. Carriers of information include sight, sound, smell etc.
Given two facts: (1) biology needs to be aware of the state of the environment, and (2) such information is already being transmitted within the environment that the biological system inhabits, it is only a matter of time before natural selection, without any predetermined design, leads to the evolution of sensory organs that are receptive to the dominant carriers of environmental information.
And so, because biology needs to know about the state of the environment, traits that enhance an organism’s ability to sense and respond to environmental cues, therefore, are advantageous. Consequently, development of senses is an inevitability.
To highlight the interplay between the development of senses and carriers of information consider that biology has indeed evolved specialized sensory organs (like eyes, ears, and noses) to detect light, sound, and chemical signals that are present in the environment. These adaptations allow biology to gather information about their surroundings.
An implication of the above argument is also that the biology of senses will not be universal but will be dependent on the environment biology resides in. Organisms evolve senses that are most relevant to their ecological niche.
Returning back to where we started, a couple of basic facts that resources are limited and biology needs resources to survive and reproduce, the emergence of the mechanism of natural selection and survival of the fittest becomes an inevitability. Once natural selection is in place, and the fact that biology needs to know about the state of the environment to secure energy makes development of senses a next level of logical inevitability.
The subtle beauty of these inevitabilities is that they make the world all in place on its own and there is no need for a meticulous designer to do so.
Ciao, and thanks for reading.
