Learning from Volvox

By Terry Morgan

A question:
Which is best? Five billlion years of evolution by natural selection and survival of the fittest or evolution by a few years of cultural and social change?
A warning:
Refusing to accept well established scientific facts is not social or cultural evolution. It is backward evolution. It’s devolution. It means a species can, over time, revert back to a more primitive form.
A theory:
Led by the shortsighted, overconfident and incompetent has human evolution moved to survival of the richest?
And a quotation from Carl Sagan
“We’ve arranged a society based on science and technology, in which nobody understands anything about science and technology. And this combustible mixture of ignorance and power, sooner or later, is going to blow up in our faces. Who is running the science and technology in a democracy if the people don’t know anything about it? ...
“Science is more than a body of knowledge, it’s a way of thinking. A way of sceptically interrogating the universe with a fine understanding of human fallibility. If we are not able to ask sceptical questions, to interrogate those who tell us that something is true, to be sceptical of those in authority, then we’re up for grabs for the next charlatan, political or religious, who comes ambling along.”
Carl Sagan 1996

• Language: English
• Publisher: Terry Morgan
• Release date: Aug 23, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215816202

Terry Morgan

Terry Morgan has been writing stories and poetry for over twenty five years, mostly while he "lived out of a suitcase", travelling with his own exporting business. With over seventy countries under his belt (some of them so many times he lost count) he now lives with his Thai wife, Yung, in Petchabun, Thailand with occasional visits back to friends and family in the Forest of Dean and the Cotswold valleys around Stroud, Gloucestershire, UK. He writes novels with a strong international, business and political flavour, commentary on biology and environmental matters and, when he finds time, less serious humour and political satire. Check out his website www.tjmbooks.com.

Book preview

LEARNING FROM VOLVOX

Terry Morgan

Copyright © 2023 Terry Morgan

Published by TJM Books:

Website: www.tjmbooks.com

The right of Terry Morgan to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the copyright owner.

About the Author

Terry Morgan is a biologist who now lives in Petchabun, Thailand. Having travelled extensively, worldwide, with his own export business, his books and novels cover international politics, commercial crime, corruption, fraud, science and environmental issues. Contact: [e-mail]

Acknowledgement:

Thanks are due to my friend, Dr Alex Waller, PhD, FRSB from St Peter’s School, Khao Yai, Thailand for advice and suggestions and for checking my biological facts.

A question:

Which is best? Five billlion years of evolution by natural selection and survival of the fittest or evolution by a few thousand years of cultural and social change?

A warning:

Refusing to accept well established scientific facts is not social or cultural evolution. It is backward evolution. It’s devolution. It means a species can, over time, revert back to a more primitive form.

A theory:

Led by the shortsighted, overconfident and incompetent has human evolution moved to survival of the richest?

And a quotation from Carl Sagan

"We’ve arranged a society based on science and technology, in which nobody understands anything about science and technology. And this combustible mixture of ignorance and power, sooner or later, is going to blow up in our faces. Who is running the science and technology in a democracy if the people don’t know anything about it? …

Science is more than a body of knowledge, it’s a way of thinking. A way of sceptically interrogating the universe with a fine understanding of human fallibility. If we are not able to ask sceptical questions, to interrogate those who tell us that something is true, to be sceptical of those in authority, then we’re up for grabs for the next charlatan, political or religious, who comes ambling along. Carl Sagan 1996

INTRODUCTION

The point of this book

The universal lack of understanding of biology.

PART ONE:

LESSONS FROM AN EARLY AGE

Learning to defy gravity

Some philosophy

Charles Darwin.

Venturing further from home

An underwater jungle

Introducing Volvox

Sex, Muller’s Ratchet & Spirogyra

Sex for Volvox

Hydra

Amoeba

Mutants, mutations and chromosomes

Learning to survive

What is learning?

Community living – the slime moulds

Fungi

Yeasts

Climate change and Cyanobacteria

Lichens

Daphnia - the intelligent animalcule

LUCA

Sex

PART TWO:

NATURAL EVOLUTION VERSUS CULTURAL AND SOCIAL EVOLUTION

Trees of Life

Something worth knowing

Time

Life, death & vicious circles

Quality of life

Past, present & future

PART THREE:

UNSATISFACTORY CONCLUSIONS.

Some philosophising

More ponderings

Back to biology

Money, compassion and human welfare

Final words and unanswered questions

INTRODUCTION

The point of this book.

"The stories humans tell about how they rose neglect the complexity of biology and the oceans of time during which they evolved. To understand human evolution, we need new stories." The Guardian, 2018

What follows is, I hope, a new story because what started as a plan to compare natural evolution by survival of the fittest with so-called socio-cultural evolution in humans changed when, in trying to understand what is meant by socio-cultural evolution, politics reared its head.

Political and spiritual leaders with even a basic uuderstanding of science (particularly biological science) are as rare as chicken’s teeth. Not only that but misplaced self confidence rather than competence seems to be the common rule for most of them. Right now (2023) even the most basic biological function of humans (sexual reproduction) is creating confusion, controversy and conflict due to a lack of understanding of biology. Political agendas based on ignorance of the most basic scientific and biological facts is affecting both human culture and society. That is what this book is about.

The universal lack of understanding of biology.

"The problem with biology is that it’s so complicated," is, apparently, a common conclusion of many who try teaching it to young people.

I’m not a teacher but it’s probably true because understanding biology is not just about watching a bean sprout in a damp petri dish. Watch it by all means but the real challenge is to inspire students and convey the magic of the bean’s very existence. It is the child, the offspring, of something and it was born for one reason only - to ensure that beans survive. When it grows up it won’t be a sunflower, a cabbage or a tomato plant. It’ll be just like its parent – a bean. Why? How?

Teaching biology should be about instilling a fascination in living things, facing questions about the origins of life and how humans are only part of life’s complexity.

To start young and grow up surrounded by nature is a good idea, but you soon hit the problems of modern times. How many, particularly in the west, now grow up surrounded by nature? The numbers are getting fewer and fewer. The understanding of nature and biology by millions of modern, urbanised teenagers is unlikely to tally with that of the decreasing number of their counterparts still living a life of hunting and gathering in a tropical rain forest. That the reality of life itself is easily destroyed by urban living must be a factor in the growing lack of understanding of biology and goes some way in explaining the recent growth in unscientific ideologies.

Let’s look at other misunderstandings about biology starting with the main theme of this book - evolution. The theory of evolution is not a rough guess that many like to believe, but a logical conclusion based on observed phenomena and a lot of evidence.

More: Eggs and seeds (like beans) are not dead objects. They are complex biological constructs. Humans and other animals do not grow bigger because their cells grow bigger. Bacteria (‘bugs’) are not all bad.

These misconceptions might sound ridiculous but studies indicate that misconceptions about biology among teachers and their students is an international problem.

As I’ve said, I am not a biology teacher but I understand it is not uncommon to read in a student’s response to questions about adaptation, for example, that: "Organisms adapt so they can survive in their environment." That might sound good enough to warrant a tick of approval from a teacher but, in fact, shows a lack of basic understanding of the process of adaptation and natural selection.

The student’s response seems to suggest that, for example, DNA consciously decides it would be good to be able to sense sound waves and grow ears. That is totally wrong. As we will see later, the mutations that provide a survival advantage happen by chance. Good and useful mutations survive. Bad ones can lead to extinction.

Misunderstandings can easily establish themselves as facts that can become a bandwagon for propaganda that has no basis in reality but can quickly and radically change society. The current gender debate falls into this category. Because of the widespread lack of understanding of biology and the passion with which unbiological beliefs are held they can be difficult to dislodge.

At the very start of writing this book, my concerns about the widespread lack of understanding of basic biology led to an early decision to provide a short course on biological facts of life before venturing into the pros and cons of socio-cultural evolution. So, because of the controversial debate on gender, highlighting the sexual reproduction of simple creatures that do not find sex the least bit controversial seemed a good starting point. I’ve tried to make it an easy read because…

By the principle which Darwin describes as natural selection short words are gaining the advantage over long words, direct forms of expression are gaining the advantage over indirect, words of precise meaning the advantage of the ambiguous, and local idioms are everywhere in disadvantage. Harper's New Monthly Magazine, 1873

However, for anyone who already has a good grounding in evolution by survival of the fittest and knows how and why the two sexes model (male and female) began and became the only reliable method for species to evolve and multiply during 5 billion years of life on earth, you can skip the biology lesson of Part One and go straight to the politics in Parts Two and Three.

For all the rest I’d be sincerely grateful for patience in persevering through Part 1.

Lastly, and as mentioned above, to start young, to grow up surrounded by nature, to read and to constantly ask questions is a good idea. Fortunately, I did all that and so if you’ll forgive some self indulgence I’ve scattered this work with personal experiences to show why, to me at least, a greater understanding and respect for forms of life such as Volvox or even, as you will see, a small flock of domesticated hens, is vital before trying to force social and cultural change on humans.

PART ONE: LESSONS FROM AN EARLY AGE

Learning to defy gravity.

The second-hand bike was a birthday present but it was useless until I learned to ride it. Nature, of course. would never consider that riding a bicycle was essential for survival but humans have a unique capacity for inventing contraptions that require some strange skills.

At age ten I assumed that learning was something only humans did and that attending school from around age five was a necessity if I was to become a sensible adult with a modicum of useful knowledge. Our cat doesn’t go to school, I told my mother. It gets along perfectly well, eating, sleeping and dominating our lives as always. It certainly knows a thing or two so it must have learned it from somewhere.

With the cat approaching 15 years old and still going strong when I was still only ten, I pondered on this a lot at the time. I read somewhere that cats are connoisseurs of comfort and there’s a proverb that explains a cat’s nine lives: "For