Darwin's passing: Are humans really equal to other creatures?

 Since Darwin's "Origin of Species" was published in 1859, the biological status of mankind as the leader of the group has been suppressed. After all, we are not the ultimate perfect work of God, but have evolved through the same process as apes, hawaii and green shells. In the Darwin memorial in 1882, the German physiologist Emil du Bois-Reymond made it clear: "Darwin is to me as Copernicus is to the world."

2021hermes.com - Just as Copernicus removed humans from the center of the orbit of celestial bodies, Darwin pushed humans off the spire of the "Animal Kingdom". Du Boys Jemund’s words are widely circulated in the academic circles. In fact, it was also used by Sigmund Freud as self-support by mistake. This sentence is often quoted with a little boastfulness, describing psychoanalysis as the "strongest third impact" on humans "childish narcissism".

　　 If Darwin really devalued the biological status of mankind, then in some important respects, this newly developed "modest" is dangerously misleading. In fact, in the first half of the 19th century, when small-scale handicrafts were making concessions to large-scale industrialization in many resource extraction and utilization areas, the role of humans was not just another species, an organism like other species— -On the contrary, the environmental mutations brought about by humans are greater than the effects that any other single species has ever created. In fact, humans are very special.

Human beings are special?

　　 It is definitely a big mistake to think that humans are nothing special. In an important field of resource extraction, that is, in aquatic fisheries, we can trace the huge impact of Darwin's derogation theory on nature. This theory once concealed the unique and large-scale impact that powerful humans can bring to the ecological environment of the seabed.

　　 Thomas Henry Huxley (Thomas Henry Huxley) is a close friend of Darwin, himself is also a very good zoologist, and is an important supporter of Darwin. I will criticize him below, although he is one of my heroes.

　　 In Huxley's countless publications and public speeches (privately printed and sold by the people with advanced ideas), he made it clear that Darwin's theory totally opposed the view of human dominance and supported the reduction of human biological status. Huxley's greatest work was published four years after The Origin of Species was born. The book expounds a new perspective on the relative position between humans and the surrounding nature. The title of this book is "Man's Place in Nature" (Man’s Place in Nature). In the title of this book, the prepositional phrase "in" has become the most important and meaningful part, which is very rare.

　　As a zoologist, Huxley has made outstanding achievements in the study of primate evolution. In the Linnaeus classification system, humans fall into this branch. Compared with the classification of many other species, it is relatively easy to classify primates on the evolutionary tree, thanks to the well-preserved fossils and the relatively limited but well-defined geological layer distribution. These rich evidences can help zoologists understand the grand development history of mammals, which contain very rich species, from lemurs (looks like primitive rats) all the way to humans. Huxley tried to analyze this branch from the perspective of philosophical connotation, writing:

Perhaps there is no classification system that shows evolution and gradual change more than the classification of mammals-it guides us to unknowingly pull humans from the position favored by the Creator back to the level of creatures. We are only one of these. , Is no different from the lowest, smallest, and least intelligent viviparous mammals. It is as if nature can foresee the arrogance of human beings, and while giving humans high-level intelligence, it cruelly makes them realize that they are not conquerors, but natural efforts-human beings are nothing but dust.

A missed opportunity: “When a fishing boat overfishes, the first person to eat its own fruit is itself,” wrote Thomas Henry Huxley. However, the biological pioneer missed the "big ship" through which mankind swept the ecosystem. Image source: Wikimedia Commons

　　 When Huxley published these words in 1863, he was appointed by the British government as one of the three members of the Royal Commission to investigate the situation of aquatic fisheries. The committee was established to resolve disputes between traditional fishermen and trawlers. The former uses fishing hooks, fishing lines and crab pots to catch fish, while the latter drags a huge fishing net behind the big ship, with heavy cables falling into the seabed like the jaws of a huge net mouth. In the past 20 years, the size of the British trawler fleet has increased fourfold. Fishermen believe that the trawlers have not only squeezed precious fish resources in an disorderly manner, but also destroyed the seabed "gardens" on which fish depend for their livelihood. "And "Forest". The captains were threatened and their fishing nets were burned.

　　 Twenty years later, Huxley entered the Royal Commission again, this time to investigate another change in fishery technology-the steam trawler. In the past, towboats relied on sailboats to travel and drag fishing nets by manpower. Now, the emergence of steam engines allows fishing boats to sweep across every piece of the seabed quickly and efficiently, and the winch rotates more easily and quickly than ever before. This time, the voice of opposition once again pointed to this new technology, pointing out its damage to the submarine ecosystem. John Murray, a British fisherman, explained in his testimony: Before the arrival of the trawler, "the seabed used to be rich in shellfish... and now the seabed shellfish has been swept away by the tugboat. It’s empty. And the resulting shortage of fish food has caused us to be unable to catch large fish."

　　 In the two surveys, Huxley’s philosophy was focused on treating humans as the same as other creatures. Darwin, Huxley, and other naturalists have clarified the most basic dynamic balance in nature at this time: when food becomes scarce, the density of predators will decrease. Each link is delicately interlocked, oscillating back and forth in a certain balance. Huxley simply applied this view to the human population. "Any trend of overfishing," he wrote, "will be subject to natural regulation of tight supply...and this regulation will always work before any permanent extinction."

　　 The phrase "natural regulation" was quoted by Darwin from Thomas Malthus. The latter has discussed the human population. Now Huxley quotes this phrase again, applying the knowledge gained from ecological observations of other species to the human community.

　　 Huxley's influence was revealed in two Royal Commission investigation reports. For example, in his report in 1863, he elaborated on the laws of natural populations as follows:

　　 If there is an overfishing by a trawler, then the fishermen themselves are the first to suffer the consequences of their own actions. Fish will become scarce, and the daily harvest of the trawler will continue to decrease until it becomes unprofitable. When this process occurs (and occurs before the fish are extinct), the work of the trawlers in the area will stop, and then the number of fish will gradually recover, until the previous loss is made up, and then the There will be more fishing boats on the ground.

　　 Subsequently, the Royal Commission unexpectedly endorsed: “We propose to abolish all Congressional bills that regulate or restrict open sea fishery models, and in the future, unlimited free fishing will be permitted.”

　　 Huxley tragically took Darwin's depreciation of human biological status a step forward. After all, when the cod is short of food, it will not suddenly grow a mouth that is twice as wide, hunt down its prey at three times the speed, and it will not lurk into deep sea areas where no cod has ever dived. But this is achievable by the towing fleet. Their compensatory fishing capacity continues to grow. Larger fishing nets, larger fishing boats, longer voyages, and newer seabed search techniques have triggered a cliff-like decline in the number of fish.

　　 When the new century comes, it is undeniable that the methods of catching certain fish have increased exponentially. Every piece of northern waters that can be reached is visited by fishing ships about twice a year. Unlike fish creatures, humans will chase their prey so hard that their numbers can no longer rebound-exactly contrary to Huxley's (to humans) intuition of "humble". The ecosystem has been permanently changed-only a single species like humans can do it.

　　Rethinking the status of mankind

　　 This is an inescapable sad irony. The concept of the relationship between human beings and other living things described in the Bible is what Huxley tried to refute and replace with Darwin's point of view in his life. However, the concept described in the Bible is the closest and most able to reflect the real situation of industrial civilization. In "Genesis", human beings exercise domination over the world after the creation of the world. They are not just an ordinary species. They are obviously closer to God. In this view, it is not difficult to imagine that one day human beings will even succumb to Leviathan (the sea monster in the Bible), whether it is prosperous or broken. It might be wiser if Huxleyken retains one element of the biblical story-human beings are the master.

　　 Perhaps again, Huxley can instinctively avoid his fatal error by another way: not by guarding against the old worldview, but by trying a more avant-garde and thorough derogation of human biological status. What is interesting is that even if Huxley did not fully accept that humans are dominated, he still puts humans at the highest level, and lemurs are at a relatively low level. The king may have been reminded by the slave, telling him: "You are nothing but a dust", but the king is still a king. If Huxley further accepts Darwin's derogatory theory, perhaps he will question whether human beings have the right to exercise this sweeping plan. Or, he may also discover the distinct trajectory of human evolution, which has shown him the extinction nature of living things, just like the fossils of other species he has seen.

From the books Huxley read and the museum where he worked, we can be sure that Huxley is very familiar with Irish elk, a species that was heavily burdened by its huge antlers until they were completely extinct 8,000 years ago. . Coincidentally, the work of Thomas Henry Huxley's grandson, Julian Huxley (Julian Huxley) is to prove that the Irish elk's antlers and their body proportions do not show excessive inconsistency. But research in recent years has found that it is the sexual selection that drives the antlers to grow bigger and bigger. Because of this, the energy of the Irish elk is exhausted in this endless extension, making it itself vulnerable. Species. If Huxley further explores the depreciation theory of human biological status, he may find that time will tell us: both antlers and brains will gradually become very dangerous.