I'm been lurking uncomfortably on the edge of this play, development, and
evolution thread. It truly puzzles me that evolution is so unabashedly
and uncritically kicked around here.
Now no, I don't want to attack evolution (I'm a Catholic not a
fundamentalist!! :-) My puzzlement is at the boundary between straight
dualist accounts of biology (evolution) and mediated accounts of being
(Cultural Historical Activity Theory - CHAT ?right?, Social Practice
Theory, and Existentalism.)
Here's the rub. According to data fresh off the web, the beta version of
the standard model Homo Sapien came out between 500,000 and 200,000 years
ago (like most software - there appears to have been a lot of bugs to
work out!! :-) Version 1.0 seems to have showed up about 120,000 years
ago. Cro-Magnon types arrived on the scene about 40,000 years ago
showing off significant culture (paintings, new tools, clothing, etc.)
Now the fossil record clearly shows evolution going on, with subtle
measures like brain cavity volume, teeth size, and so on changing. At
the same time, this very same fossil record shows humanoid types
mediating their existence with artifacts. The obvious example is the
reduction in teeth and jaw size resulting from the novel concept of
*cooking!* Now cooking has been around somewhere between 500,000 and a
million years. That's a long time for them humanoid types to have been
puttering around with their existence mediated by fire.
On the other hand, material artifacts could be seen as a barrier to
natural selection. A real easy example is eyeglasses. Near and
farsightedness can definitely be a hazard to health. Before glasses,
natural selection presumably weeded out those bad genes keep the majority
of homids with "normal vision." Antibiotics, prosthetics, fertility
therapy, organ transplants, etc. all are intended to keep mediocre human
hardware from being weeded out (All of a sudden I think I understand why
Microsoft is successful!! :-) :-) :-)
A cultural-historical view seems to transcend this evolution/not
evolution problem by refusing to isolate the organism away from the
cultural-historical context. So the human + eyeglasses is a successful
organism not required to compete without mediating artifacts.
*Gulp!* That isn't any help though. The fossil record clearly shows
that humans have been evolving by virtue of mediating artifacts. So the
"prehistorical" must be understood from a cultural-historical
perspective. It ain't just "pure evolution" anymore.
So where does that leave us? Do we need to rewrite a few million years
worth of human evolution to properly incorporate the cultural-historical
paradigm? If we don't, how can we appeal to notions of evolution when
trying to understand human development in our mediated world?
There are advantages to being Catholic, an Existentialist, and a
Macophile!! :-)
Peace and Puzzles, Edouard :-)
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: Edouard Lagache, Lecturer :
: Department of Communication (0503) :
: University of California, San Diego :
: 9500 Gilman Drive :
: La Jolla, CA, 92093-0503 Voice: (619) 534-7192 :
: elagache who-is-at netcom.com FAX: (619) 534-7315 :
: http://members.aol.com/EdLagache/home_page.html :
:...................................................................:
: The Lagache maxim on the fate of traditions: :
: 50% of the world's problems are caused by the abandoning :
: of meaningful traditions. :
: The remaining 50% of the world's problems are caused by :
: refusal to get rid of meaningless traditions :-) :
: 1982 :
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