Mary-Elaine Jacobsen, Liberating Everyday Genius, Part 2. Evolutionary Intelligence, P.84
What's Evolution Got to Do with It?
Those of us who are not neuroscientists or professors of anthropology may challenge: "What does evolution have to do with intelligence?" Evolution often brings forth images of strange half-fish, half-animal poking its nose through the murky green of the primordial swamp as it dares to take that first step into an airy life. We envision our genetic predecessors who climbed down from the trees, stood partially erect, and grew bigger brains while their knuckles stopped scraping the ground.
Evolutionary theory derives from the belief that common ancestral forms of life have transformed over time, a branching-out process called speciation that resulted in the millions of organisms that inhabit today's world. Such evolutionary changes rarely occur swiftly, most take place over millennia, progressing at a slow but consistent rate.
Natural selection, the result of competition for resources and adaptation to environmental conditions, is believed to be the major cause of such changes. It has to do with competition for resources and adaptation to environmantal conditions. Scientists believe the best-adapted survive to pass their genes down to future generations. Thus the process has been called "survival of the fittest." Another reason for species change is mutation, which is a chance or random variation in certain individuals. These mutations could be considered xenogenic offspring, markedly different from either of their parents. Everyday Geniuses live a xenogenic life. Without these odd ducks the gene pool would grow stagnant and progress would eventually cease, perhaps even threatening human survival.
Natural selection reacts to mutation. It either promotes it or eliminates it to support continued growth of the population. Mutations occur regularly, though sporadically, producing both favorable characteristics(a plant developing long roots in an arid climate) or disadvantageous ones (human hemophilia).
While studying the evening primrose, Dutch botanist Hugo de Vries discovered that variations caused by mutation can appear abruptly and become inheritable. Individuals of any species displaying the effect of genetic mutation may be poised to take advantage of changes in the environment.
From this vantage point one could argue that leaps of progress are nothing more than practical "accidents"- mutations that just happens to have a good outcome in a given environment. Correspondingly, exceptional human ability would be judged as equally coincidental. People with unusual capacities-those who are ahead of their time- are mutants in some sense of the word. Following this logic, marvels of human effort and invention would be chalked up to nothing more than chance.
But mutants have the capacity to affect the evolution of those with whom they interact, and to set off chain reactions of change. Unlike spontaneous mutation, genetic recombination is a process by which "betterfit" mutation occurs; the idea is that even a tiny change can cause a profound adaptation.
This is the fundamental precept of a relatively new model of evolution that theorizes population changes are caused by mutation spurts that lead to an "avalanche" of behavioral alterations after long periods of equilibrium. Such intermittent flare-ups of evolutionary activity are natural and necessary for progress, as opposed to insignificant errors or cataclysmic disturbances.
From a philosophical point of view, each entity strives toward some essential goal, including human intelligence. The eminent University of Chicago psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi argues that complexity is necessary for the enrichment and continuation of human evolution. In a Psychology Today interview he explains his views, which seem to be in agreement with my theory of Evolutionary Intelligence:
[A]t this point we are one of the major-if not the major-selective mechanisms on the planet. Whether we like it or not, what we do is going to make a huge difference in the quality of the atmosphere, the quality of water, plant life, animal life, human life. Before, evolution could make all kinds of mistakes, and natural selection could have obliterated all types of life forms from the Earth. Slowly, over thousands of years, millions of years, some forms that were obviously more complex had a slight advantage and survived. And the effect has been that we have had more and more complex forms with time...
I think that people should realize how important what they do can be in changing both their lives and history. We are unaware, really, of the powers we have....We need to realize that in many ways life, or at least conscious life, begins only after you realize what you are supposed to do in terms of genetic and social instructions. It's only when you free yourself from the basic conditioning that we are born with do you start living. At the same time you realize that you are free to do it or not to do it... Evolution will proceed some other way, somewhere else.
Generally speaking, nature has identifiable patterns, some of which are static while others are dynamic. In the animal world, for example, certain creatures, such as the crocodile, have changed little over the centuries, while the modern horse, the descendant of numerous ancestors, has experienced a significant number of mutations beginning with the prehistoric "dawn horse" fifty million years ago, a greyhoundlike animal about twenty inches tall with an arched back and a snoutlike nose.
In nature, some static patterns exist because under prevailing conditions they are able to thrive. this becomes a problem when environmental factors take a significant turn in a new direction. When a responsive shift becomes necessary, not just any old change will suffice. For humankind, the key to successful adaptation is a dual process, one that encompasses both static and dynamic patterns. Both standard intelligence and EvI process and manipulate information efficiently. They both function optimally in a static environment.
What separates EvI from standard intelligence is its ability to thrive in dynamic environments while expanding the collective knowledge base. Evolutionaries-the bearers of Evolutionary Intelligence-achieve on a larger scale because their brains can adapt to both dynamic and static environments. Therefore, as things constantly change, they possess the basic tools to swiftly detect and define problems and envision and enact creative solutions. They are outfitted to lead us from the mechanical age to the electronic age to the digital age as information processing accelerates. They are the "mutants" who will help us survive.
Currently, such evolutionaries are experiencing enormous dissonance as they walk the tightrope between old and new. Their experience is akin to the earliest birds whose feathers first evolved from reptilian scales for thermal protection. We can imagine the first time this transitional creature ran along the same old ground only to find itself lifted up off its feet into the heavens.
The process of evolution is collective and visionary by nature, the scope of its agenda far-reaching. It is unnecessary to force an exclusionary relationship between high potential and evolution (that is, science versus God). whatever the source, Evolutionary Intelligence has the advantage of seeing the big picture in an all-inclusive manner, and thus is equipped to stretch the limits of human progress. It is at once outwardly equipped to stretch the limits of human progress. It is at once outwardly focused and inwardly inspired, both visionary and pragmatic.
Intelligence and evolution complement each other because they share many characteristics. Evolution and Evolutionary Intelligence are like and improvised dance, the performer not always sure of what to do next, but moving all the while. The pleasure derived from this precess comes from the "guessing," the surprises of meaningful creation. Unlike other species, we can dream and conceptualize and distinguish between varying degrees of quality. Darwin's notion of the "survival of the fittest" is a shortsighted theory of the intent of evolution. Evolutionary Intelligence is not something that one can limit, for its scope and power are boundless.
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