Editor’s note: This commentary is by Wavell Cowan, of Montpelier, a research scientist, inventor, entrepreneur, businessman, social activist, and author.
[A]n appreciation of what science has revealed about our evolutionary history is particularly relevant to an understanding of today’s uncertain times.
From the Big Bang till now, evolution has proceeded in a succession of theme periods. Any particular theme has continued until it has exhausted the advances that sustained it while creating new opportunities that promote change. This change carries evolution into new and more fruitful theme periods until the process of stagnation and rebirth once again recurs.
The Big Bang initiated the theme of a massively inflationary expansion of an energy — exclusive space-time universe. After some 300 million years, temperatures fell to a level allowing energy to condense into matter. This was the ”change” that made possible the rise to dominance of a new evolutionary theme – the coalescence and molecular differentiation of matter resulting from star formation and obliteration. This seeded the universe with the elements of the periodic table created by the molecular fusion occurring in the fiery hearts of innumerable stars and subsequent to their explosive demise, in ongoing condensing clouds of matter. New planetary systems arose where chemical reactions created molecules of increasing diversity and complexity. This evolutionary theme continued for some 10 billion years until at least on planet Earth molecular complexity achieved a transition to the self-reproducing organisms that we call “life.” This was the “change” that here on earth brought into dominance the new theme of Darwinian evolution, continuing for 3½ billion years until some 200,000 years ago a new level of complexity introduced an organism with a “thinking” brain – homo sapiens, a uniquely different life form. This was the “change” that brought into dominance a new basic theme, the evolution of humanity – our civilization. This too has evolved in successive theme periods “changed” by intellectual breakthroughs and inventions – identified, for instance, as the stone age, the bronze age, the iron age, etc. until the modern age.
The intellectual ferment that created the scientific revolution fostered, in abundance, new technological opportunities. Implementation of these opportunities constituted the evolutionary theme that has carried us through the Industrial Revolution from a world dominated by small local enterprise and much individual self-sufficiency to one of global connectivity, large international enterprise, and an almost total absence of individual self-sufficiency.
The challenge of the evolutionary theme period we are now entering will focus attention on the expansion of “local” governance and “global” governance at the expense of national and state governance, as we know them today.
From this evolutionary perspective, the evidence is now massive that in our current evolutionary theme period, beginning in the late 16th century, stagnation has now set in. The advances in computer technologies responsible for robotics, artificial intelligence and the whole communications revolution represent the new opportunities that will drive the “change” to a new period of evolutionary development.
This will emphasize and utilize neglected lessons from experiences of the past few hundred years. First is the critical importance of the application of “scientific thinking” as the best means to resolve problems that now and into the future will interfere with forward progress. The philosopher and statesman, Francis Bacon, in his 1620 publication, Novum Organum, was the first to identify scientific thought as a “new way” of thinking. Although science and technology have in the intervening years transformed our society, Bacon’s “old way” of thinking still remains dominant in the population at large and therefore in the political arena. While scientific advances are based on “proving” old ideas to be incorrect or incomplete and thus necessarily changing minds, our political system condemns as “flip-flopping” such mind changing. While scientific thinking necessarily demands carefully planned “measurement” as an essential requirement for pursuing its goals, political solutions are typically advanced as ideologically inspired “speculations” absent any planned careful measurements capable of defining and therefore validating (or otherwise) predicted beneficial outcomes.
Another reality is that the growth of “largeness” driven by the theme of the evolutionary period now ending, accounts for many of the serious problems that plague our current economy and society. The few hundred years of necessity that have made “largeness” dominant, have cemented a serious philosophic error: that the main purpose of the vehicles upon which we now depend for our survival and well-being – the businesses that create and distribute the goods and services that make up the modern economy – is to “make money” rather than to enhance quality and efficiency. Mistaking moneymaking, the “by-product” of successfully creating excellence in the marketplace, as the “main purpose” of a business is the source of much of the corruption and mismanagement that has plagued our economy and society in recent times. Modern technology has for some time continuously eliminated factors that in the past have made for economies of size. This will increasingly expose the inherent inefficiencies and corrupting tendencies of large bureaucratic organizations to competition from far more efficient and focused smaller businesses. The scientific and technological advances of this new evolutionary period will increasingly support and encourage such businesses.
In government as in the business sector, the growth in “largeness” promoted during the recent evolutionary period needs now to be reassessed. The power and scope of large national governments driven by past necessities can be challenged for the same reasons that apply in the business sector, by the now feasible possibilities for a renaissance and reassertion of local governance to become the dominant and highly pluralistic approach to societal problem solving.
At the same time, the reality that on this small planet we are a single species whose evolutionary future is to be determined by our collective actions, exposes another philosophic error. This focuses each nation to seek what most benefits only its own citizens (e.g. America first!), rather than what most benefits the entire species. The challenge of the evolutionary theme period we are now entering will thus focus attention on the expansion of “local” governance and “global” governance at the expense of national and state governance, as we know them today. “Smallness” in distinction to “largeness” is to become the driving force for the next evolutionary period.
