Development as progress
HDCS6 who-is-at jetson.uh.edu
Mon, 30 Sep 1996 20:09:55 -0500 (CDT)
I don't know, but I've been thinking that there may be some difficulty
in equating lack of a teleology in evolution with lack of a teleology
in cultural historical development. And whether either evolution or
cultural historical development can be considered progress depends
very much on how you define progress. While it seems true that evolution
has no end point, it does seem to have direction, moving from less
complex to more complex. Gould rightly pionts out that this does
not (I say may not) offer any absolute advantage in terms of survival.
A simple bacteria can live anywhere. (But then humans can kill bacteria).
I think the question of advantage is an open one. Still, I think it is
true that the movement from less complex to more complex does not have
purpose. Not so for cultural historical development. I think it's important
to remember that the _homo_ clade took a novel evolutionary trajectory
in which it sacrificed physical adaptation for control through cognitive
development (leading to adaptation through expansion of possible phenotypic
behavior in procurement of resources). The whole story of the _homo_
clade is survival through control (or mastery). I would suggest that
becasue cultural historical development is a purely a human invention,
it has a definite purpose, and that is to gain as great a control over
the ecology as possible (e.g., develop the ability to kill bacteria).
So cultural historical development does have purpose and a teleology
(are we going to call this progress?) Whether this teleology offers
any absolute advantage in survival is again, I believe, open to question.
Michael
Michael Glassman
University of Houston