In 1857, Herbert Spencer published an essay called The Ultimate Laws of Physiology, later in the same year re-published as Transcendental Physiology. This was two years before Darwin’s On the Origin of Species, but it was Spencer who came up with the phrase survival of the fittest.
Although he knew about heredity, in his 1857 essay Spencer reflected the science of his day by admitting that he could not begin to understand how a fertilised ovum could grow into the complexity of an adult.
The capacity possessed by an unorganized germ of unfolding into a complex adult which repeats ancestral traits in minute details, and that even when it has been placed in conditions unlike those of its ancestors, is a capacity impossible for us to understand. That a microscopic portion of seemingly structureless matter should embody an influence of such kind, that the resulting man will in fifty years after become gouty or insane, is a truth which would be incredible were it not daily illustrated.
Herbert Spencer - Transcendental Physiology (1857)
Today, Spencer’s impossible puzzle is apparently solved quite easily in general conversation by words such as ‘genes’ or an acronym such as ‘DNA’. However, going no further than this would be to base the solution on a few words, a solution which doesn’t necessarily go much deeper than knowing how to use those words in conversations.
We could go on to suggest that Spencer did at least understand how baffling heredity is, whereas someone today using the word ‘gene’ might possess no more knowledge of heredity than Spencer and possibly less.
It highlights a problem where limited use of the correct technical language in social contexts may have only a superficial connection with what we usually refer to as ‘knowledge’. Even worse, language is frequently used to evade the pursuit of knowledge in favour of fashionable ideas. The evasion can be so successful that those drawn from the real world into the world of wordsmiths cannot tell the difference. Politicians know this.
Looping back to Spencer’s frustration with his apparently impossible problem, there was a time when a general fascination with all aspects of the real world appeared to promise something of vast value. Unfortunately, we never quite grasped it as a permanent cultural gain. Today, we drift back towards that endless conflict with the unreal worlds of wordsmiths.
The capacity possessed by an unorganized germ of unfolding into a complex adult which repeats ancestral traits in minute details, and that even when it has been placed in conditions unlike those of its ancestors, is a capacity impossible for us to understand. That a microscopic portion of seemingly structureless matter should embody an influence of such kind, that the resulting man will in fifty years after become gouty or insane, is a truth which would be incredible were it not daily illustrated.
Herbert Spencer - Transcendental Physiology (1857)
Today, Spencer’s impossible puzzle is apparently solved quite easily in general conversation by words such as ‘genes’ or an acronym such as ‘DNA’. However, going no further than this would be to base the solution on a few words, a solution which doesn’t necessarily go much deeper than knowing how to use those words in conversations.
We could go on to suggest that Spencer did at least understand how baffling heredity is, whereas someone today using the word ‘gene’ might possess no more knowledge of heredity than Spencer and possibly less.
It highlights a problem where limited use of the correct technical language in social contexts may have only a superficial connection with what we usually refer to as ‘knowledge’. Even worse, language is frequently used to evade the pursuit of knowledge in favour of fashionable ideas. The evasion can be so successful that those drawn from the real world into the world of wordsmiths cannot tell the difference. Politicians know this.
Looping back to Spencer’s frustration with his apparently impossible problem, there was a time when a general fascination with all aspects of the real world appeared to promise something of vast value. Unfortunately, we never quite grasped it as a permanent cultural gain. Today, we drift back towards that endless conflict with the unreal worlds of wordsmiths.
4 comments:
That is because science and technology and concomitant social changes have outstripped citizens' ability to comprehend. And childrens' education needed to get more disciplined and more rigorous than it was in the 50s and 60s instead of becoming simplified and less demanding as it did. Now our society is left in the condition you describe, with people entering the political governance realm with no
understanding of vital issues like social psychology, technology, (energy generation, for example) or history. All they can do is become wordsmiths.
"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single data point in possession of a good scientific observation, must be in want of a grand theory." (Sorry, Jane Austen)
The idea of genes and genetics is simple, and people think that comprehension sufficient to explain their opinions. Wrong. You can arguably understand 'a gene' but there are thousands of genes, expressed in trillions of cells, in a human body and billions of people. It is the interactions that overwhelm the 'simple' understanding'.
Tammly - and our digital world makes it much easier to grasp all kinds of issues, but those people entering the political governance realm commonly direct their efforts towards their own political advantage. It's an odd situation where their technical incompetence is becoming more and more transparent.
DJ - yes, most of us aren't much further forward than Spencer and may as well avoid ideas which require a deeper understanding of genes and genetics than we'll ever possess.
I used to enjoy it when a new manager was appointed to a football club and would announce that he was going to change the DNA of the place.
Whereas now with a Pfizer jab he could actually do it.
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