The Science of Discworld IV

similarity in how we
think
about both systems, particularlyhow our thinking has changed over the last few years. The appearance of design is the most dramatic element in both systems. Although its provenance is different in the two cases, we are no longer surprised by it. We have realised that the universe is
not
doomed by increasing entropy to an eventual ‘heat death’, a traditional but somewhat misleading term which actually means that the universe will end up as a structureless lukewarm soup. Instead, the universe ‘makes it up as it goes along’, and what it makes up are designs. In that sense, at least, the appearance of new design in both technical and organic systems can be considered comparable. But it’s important not to stretch the metaphor too far.
    Cultures can also be seen as evolving. In many ways, cultural evolution sits between organic and technological evolution. Advanced human societies make their members different and varied. All societies produce numerous distinct roles, from those limited by sex and age, such as childbearing or going to school, to those that seem to be chosen by the individual: warrior, accountant, thief. There is a division among sociologists that is comparable to that between Morris and Gould. Some believe that the roles are in some sense transcendent or universal; they look for proto-accountants in ‘primitive’ hunter-gatherer societies. Carl Gustav Jung’s theory of archetypes, such as the persona, the shadow, and the self. In his view, these were extremely ancient common images derived from humanity’s collective subconscious, which affected how we interpret the world. Others, however, believe that some roles in different societies, even though they look similar and the names translate similarly, can be fundamentally different: a Japanese car worker has a different worldview from that of his English equivalent, and occupies a different societal slot.
    Both sociological viewpoints can provide useful insights: different societies, like different ecologies and different cultures, provide diverse roles for their members. The cultural invention of generic occupations is comparable to the organic invention of things likechordates, trilobites, muscles and nests. It is also comparable to the technological inventions of – say – bicycles, the internal combustion engine, wheat and rope. Money in human societies is usefully analogous to the way cells produce and exchange energy, using the molecules ADP and ATP (adenosine di- and tri-phosphate). Indeed, ATP is often called the unit of molecular currency. The appearance of new designs in organic evolution, in cultures, in technology, and even in language, can usefully be compared. Even so, such comparisons must be made very carefully and not pushed beyond reasonable limits.
    The idea that technology evolves is not the orthodox view, wherein design and evolution are considered to be opposites. Design in technology is usually seen as being invented, not as having evolved. This assumption lies at the core of Paley’s famous analogy between a living creature and a watch. Watches are intricate devices, designed and made by an intelligent agency. Therefore, if you find something equally intricate in living creatures, it must also be designed, and the creatures must have been made by an intelligent agency. Therefore there must have been a cosmic designer, QED. The same assumption motivates the current hypothesis of intelligent design, which is basically Paley’s argument restated using examples from modern biochemistry.
    However, analysis of the history of nearly all inventions shows them either to be developments of previous technology, that is to say adaptations, or perversions of some technology in a different sphere. (A few do seem to come out of thin air, with no significant precursors.) The biological term for such things is ‘exaptations’, a word introduced by Gould and Elizabet Vrba in the 1980s. It refers to an organic or a technological development that arises from an entirely different structure or function. An example is the use of feathers for flight. Feathers first appeared in dinosaurs, but their skeletal structure shows that the early feathered dinosaurs didn’t use their feathers to fly. We can’t be certain what they did use them for, but the mostplausible functions are for warmth or for sexual display. It may well have been both. Later, feathers turned out to be useful for wings and flight, and birds