Designer Darwinism
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books and arts and an attempt to identify the lacunae in interesting, but that it is peculiarly impor- existing approaches are revealed in most of tant in biology. Successful adaptationist the chapters, especially those on the govern- Designer darwinism research is explanatory in a way that makes ment’s response, the role of non-governmen- Darwin and Design: Does most mechanistic research look descriptive. tal organizations, community responses in Evolution Have a Purpose? And any big theory about life has to be able Mumbai City, and interventions with gay by Michael Ruse to explain adaptation. men. These chapters demonstrate the com- Harvard University Press: 2003. 384 pp. On this topic, Ruse gives a sympathetic plexity of the issues involved, and contrast $29.95, £19.95 hearing to the critics who, he says, “would with the superficial analysis presented by Mark Ridley raise the objection that adaptation and the Combating AIDS. The negative impact of associated design metaphor have their roots the information, education and communica- Design — what biologists call ‘adaptation’ in British natural theology of the pre- tion strategy in terms of increasing fear and — is an obvious feature of life. People have Darwinian era, and they would ask again stigma is recognized. Living with the AIDS probably been thinking about it for as long why, in the secular world of the twenty- Virus also highlights the limitations of as they have been thinking about anything. first century, we should be bound by this ‘targeted interventions’ as the target groups Classically, it provided the basis of the ‘argu- retro-thinking.” This seems to be close to tend to be stigmatized. Instead, it is better to ment from design’, one of five arguments confusing the contexts of discovery and of address communities at large; for example, put forward for the existence of God. Darwin justification. Adaptationism may have its rather than target truckers, it is better to reach undermined that argument, but it has roots in predarwinian anglican theology, but societies along transport corridors. enjoyed something of a revival in the latest that does not make it false. German textual Both books acknowledge that AIDS- version of creationism, known as ‘intelligent scholarship may have its roots in lutheran control strategies have generated stigma, design creationism’. theology, but that does not reduce the value ignored the creation of capacities for care Michael Ruse is a philosopher of biology, of the texts. and support, and been gender insensitive. and his broad-ranging book covers several I think the strongest argument that the But despite this, both books propose man- themes. He distinguishes the ‘argument to critics can make is not that adaptation is agerial and technocratic solutions that do complexity’ — the factual observation that unimportant, just one problem among not question the existing perspective. If we complex adaptations, such as eyes and many, but that it has been solved. This may do not want to prescribe without a diagnosis, wings, exist in nature — from the ‘argument level the playing field for adaptationist and we need to ask why such measures were from design’, the theological inference from non-adaptationist research now, but it does adopted in the first place. that fact that God exists. Ruse traces the not reduce the conceptual importance of Alternative perspectives with a societal history of these two arguments from their adaptation for understanding life. rather than a programme-oriented approach earliest forms in the hands of Plato and Aris- Research into adaptation often uses have also been articulated since the 1980s. totle, through Galen and Thomas Aquinas, optimality models, or something like them. They integrate the biomedical and social on to David Hume, Immanuel Kant and It might aim to understand the form of an dimensions rather than dichotomizing them, William Paley, followed by Georges Cuvier eye, for instance, on the assumption that and view preventive and curative measures and Richard Owen, and then Darwin and eye shape is optimized for forming images. as an integral whole, and means and ends his followers in the modern synthesis. One common interpretation of this research as complementary. However, neither book After the history, Ruse takes a look at is that it aims to understand how, and cites the people’s movement groups and modern research on adaptation, and at its not whether, organisms are adapted. Ruse academics who espouse such perspectives, ‘formalist’ critics, who think that organisms disagrees. “It is fairer to say that a two- and who warned early on of the limitations are shaped by non-adaptive laws of form, way process is at work here. that are now being widely realized. Instead, rather than by adaptation to the environ- We adopt a background the books attribute the positive influence to ment. He ends with two chapters on modern assumption of adapta- international funding agencies or to local theologians, including the intelligent-design tionism and then non-governmental organizations, which have creationists. been influential in shaping the response in There is no central argument to unify the first place. AIDS control has been led the book, but Ruse holds a consistently more by emotion, instinct and international darwinian position against all its critics. I. ARNDT/NATUREPL.COM politics than by scientific evidence or Adaptation exists, he says; it matters; it is contextual needs. Denying this ‘politics of not explained by God; it is explained, and knowledge’ can only allow the suffering with exemplary scientific propriety, by nat- caused by AIDS to continue unabated. ural selection; and it is a legitimate topic for Combating AIDS is slickly written using scientific research. The various people who communicators’ theories, taking the reader have argued otherwise are making various step-by-step through various arguments, kinds of mistake. and using repetition to ingrain them in the The book is written for philosophers reader’s mind. It is likely to interest local and theologians as well as scientists. Indeed, programme managers, as it provides exam- the book will help to broaden the minds ples of a wide range of interventions that of most scientific readers. I doubt whether comply with the homilies of current AIDS- anyone else has read up on quite the range of control thinking. Living with the AIDS Virus, authors that Ruse has, and he writes about although less elegantly written, provides them clearly and non-technically. An eye for more food for thought for policy-makers, Ruse also advances certain theses along design? The researchers and programme managers. Both the way that will particularly interest Nature complexity of a books should interest the general reader. I readers, and I’ll concentrate on them. One chameleon’s eyes Ritu Priya is at the Centre of Social Medicine and question concerns adaptationist research. doesn’t imply a Community Health, Jawaharlal Nehru University, The biologists who do this research often role for God. New Delhi 110067, India. argue not only that they find adaptation 686 © 2003 Nature Publishing Group NATURE | VOL 423 | 12 JUNE 2003 | www.nature.com/nature books and arts we test specific models. Inasmuch as things do not work, then we worry more about our adaptationist background as well as our model.” I do not agree with Ruse on this point, but his position is undoubtedly defensible. The only place I had a deep disagreement was in the history of ideas, with what Ruse has to say about Motoo Kimura and the neutral theory of molecular evolution — the idea that most molecular evolution proceeds by random genetic drift. Kimura’s ideas receive only a brief mention before being dismissed. I favour the view that Kimura’s idea led to something of a paradigm shift in the late 1980s. Most biologists who work on molecular evolution nowadays assume that they are mainly studying the effects of random drift. This contrasts with earlier biologists who worked with non-molecular characters. Kimura’s ideas seriously chal- lenged, or at least restricted the scope of, adaptationism. If adaptationism could carry on much as before, it was for reasons that needed further attention. So Kimura deserves more than a passing gesture in a survey as admirably thorough and sensible as Darwin and Design. I Mark Ridley is in the Department of Zoology, István Hargittai has interviewed many of the most influential chemists of the past sixty years, including Oxford University, Oxford OX1 3RS, UK. Glenn Seaborg (top left), Ad Bax (second row, right) and Jean-Marie Lehn (third row, second left). happily describes the history of the discovery an organic chemist and, in fact, a natural of element 106, which was named in his products chemist.” The interviewer’s follow- honour in 1997. up was: “Now you are also a very conceptual Chemical The youngest interviewee, born in 1956, chemist. Not every organic chemist devel- is Ad Bax, who runs the US National Insti- ops general concepts the way you do.” Well, conversations tutes of Health’s section of NMR (nuclear bien sur. Not many chemists of any stripe Candid Science III: More magnetic resonance) spectroscopy. From develop concepts like Lehn does. Conversations with Famous 1981 to 1997, the ISI logged 21,655 citations In contrast, an interview two years later Chemists of his work, 50% more than the second- with another Nobel laureate, Bruce Merri- by István Hargittai, edited by Magdolna most-cited chemist, Nobel laureate John A. field, is more thoughtful and leads to some Hargittai Pople. This emphasizes the amazing evo- interesting insights. In discussing his early World Scientific/Imperial College Press: 2003. lution over the past half-century of NMR life in California during the Depression, 520 pp. £48, $78 (hbk); £21, $34 (pbk) spectroscopy from a physics experiment to Merrifield, who was seven years old when Arthur Greenberg a routine technique for structural proof, the stock market crashed, describes his and finally to a method for solving protein family’s economic condition: “So we scraped This book is the latest in a continuing series structures in solution and for magnetic along, and that affected me all my life.