Editor's note:

The theory of evolution was introduced to China through Yan Fu's theory of evolution, and the idea of "natural selection, survival of the fittest" was deeply rooted in people's hearts. What is your understanding of evolution? Survival of the fittest? Use it in and waste it out? From low to high? From simple to complex? But in fact, we have many misunderstandings about evolution. Zhou Zhonghe, a famous paleontologist, an expert on ancient birds, one of the discoverers of Confucius bird fossils, and an academician of China Academy of Sciences, talked about the common misunderstandings of evolution at Mozi Salon. This article is organized according to the first part of the lecture. Without my own censorship.

The misunderstanding has always been there.

The famous Russian biologist Dubzansky once said, "Nothing in biology is meaningful except from the perspective of evolution." Evolution is very important, and many phenomena in biology are difficult to explain without evolution.

We tend to misunderstand the theory of evolution easily, and there are all kinds of misunderstandings. I simply checked, and there are "five misunderstandings about evolution" and "ten misunderstandings about evolution". In 2002, Scientific American published Answer to Creationism 15, which was aimed at creationism, so it involved a counterattack against some religious thoughts. In 2008, New Scientist magazine published an article "Evolution of 24 Myths and Misunderstandings", in which 24 creations and misunderstandings were selected.

Where does the common people misunderstand the theory of evolution come from? Perhaps the biggest reason is that we don't understand it, just like the misunderstanding between people, sometimes this misunderstanding can be eliminated through communication. Of course, misunderstanding may come from a persistent religion. Creationists don't believe in evolution at all, and it's no use telling him. And because evolution itself is really a complex science, just like quantum physics, we can't understand it.

A complex and comprehensive subject

Evolution is actually a complex subject. Let's take a look at some people's comments on evolution.

French biologist and Nobel Prize winner Jacques Mono once said:

A strange and interesting feature of evolution is that everyone thinks he knows it.

Geneticist and writer steve jones once commented:

Evolution is a political sofa, and whoever sits on it will become what shape.

Steve jones's statement is even more mysterious, as if evolution is not a science. But I think he did tell another feature of evolution. As a science of biology, evolution is a branch of evolutionary biology. However, evolution is more than just a science. After Darwin put forward the theory of evolution, it and social science have more influence on human thought than many other sciences, so the theory of evolution is really complicated.

China is a country relatively lacking in real religious traditions. The misunderstanding of evolution is not due to religious reasons, but to a lack of understanding of it and some historical factors.

Some misunderstandings

Some people I contact often have the following understanding, which is a misunderstanding of evolution.

1) evolution is directional.

Many people think that evolution is always more and more progressive. Putting human beings in the highest position, we human beings seem to be the spirit of all things. Including some dictionaries in the past, the explanation of evolution is often written as "the development process of life from simple to complex, from low to high, from low to high". In fact, strictly speaking, this is not right.

2) Survival of the fittest

It seems that it would be nice to keep it. If it is not good, it will be eliminated, and the fittest will survive. What's more, they equate the survival of the fittest with the survival of the strong, and feel that they will be beaten if they fall behind.

3) Evolution is becoming more and more perfect.

Many people always think that evolution will get better and better, and there are some perfect adaptations.

4) The theory of evolution still lacks some intermediate fossils.

Many people in China believe in evolution, but is there any evidence? Are there any intermediate fossils?

5) Darwin was often challenged.

Darwin put forward this hypothesis more than 100 years ago, but everyone thinks the theory of evolution is mysterious. It seems that people often see new discoveries in newspapers and TV, and it is easy for people to challenge him.

6) The evolution of human beings does not conform to the law of evolution.

Everyone thinks that evolution seems to be about animals and plants. Is natural selection not suitable for human beings?

I want to answer these points. Evolution is not a fixed and static discipline, but a comprehensive discipline, which needs to understand some cross-knowledge of different disciplines such as biology and geology. So I want to briefly review the history and basic knowledge to help us explain.

The History and Foundation of Evolution Theory

Lamarck, 1

Zhou Zhonghe: How deeply do you misunderstand the theory of evolution?

Jean-batiste Lamarck

Lamarck is regarded as the founder of evolution. He believes that biology is changeable, that is, evolved. However, some of Lamarck's most familiar viewpoints, "use, abolish and retreat, and inherit the day after tomorrow", are actually very problematic and basically wrong.

Lamarck's main points include three points:

First of all, biological variation is caused by environmental changes.

Second, the differences caused by this environmental change can be inherited, that is, acquired inheritance. To give a popular example, for example, a person is born weak, and he has developed a strong muscle through exercise, which will be passed on to his offspring. But now we know that this is wrong, because many factors such as your height are actually determined by human genes. Of course, the environment also plays a role, but environmental factors are generally not easy to be inherited.

Third, simple life forms are constantly self-generating and automatically develop into more advanced forms. He feels that there is a force that constantly pushes organisms to evolve into more advanced forms. That is, as we said before, from low to high. Actually, this is not right. It is ok to go from simple to complex, and we are certainly much more complicated than bacteria. But there are also complex to simple, for example, a bird is a very complex flying creature, and it can also become flightless, just like an ostrich, so complexity and simplicity can change in both directions.

So is a life high or low? This is actually a value judgment. Why do you say that we humans are advanced? Why are we superior to mice? This is not for us to decide. The mouse will definitely not agree. So some people say that a creature evolved for what, such as why birds evolved wings. In fact, this is an anthropomorphic statement, not to say that creatures do it to do something, but this anthropomorphic expression is sometimes easily misunderstood.

If a person is injured and his arm is broken, is it also a broken arm when giving birth? No Some things are acquired, but they are not inherited. Lamarck's view was rejected.

2. Darwin

Zhou Zhonghe: How deeply do you misunderstand the theory of evolution?

Darwin

Darwin's main points are as follows:

1) Biological evolution is a fact. This was not first put forward by Darwin, but Darwin explained it through a lot of rigorous arguments.

2)*** the same ancestor. It is not a big problem that all our different creatures come from the same ancestor, and Lamarck will agree with this.

3) Gradient. It is the difference between species, which always accumulates slowly from bit by bit. Many people think that Darwin only emphasized gradual change and denied rapid change. In fact, Darwin also believed that organisms sometimes change relatively quickly.

4) Variation within the population. Individuals with genetic differences in the population. This is crucial. In other words, everyone is different, in fact, there is a genetic basis, and this genetic basis will be passed down.

5) Natural selection. Natural selection is the core of Darwin's theory of evolution and the essence of evolution. Natural selection is the mechanism or motive force of biological evolution.

Of course, the premise of natural selection is the fourth: there are differences. Each of us has differences, and with differences, we will naturally play the role of choice, so biology will change, and the core is natural selection. Some people say that Darwin said that species are gradual, and later found that some are faster and some are slower, so he said that Darwin was wrong. In fact, Darwin generally believed that biology is relatively changeable. You can't be a cat today and a python in a few years. That's impossible. This is what Darwin meant.

3. Mendel

Zhou Zhonghe: How deeply do you misunderstand the theory of evolution?

Gregor John Mendel

After the publication of 1858 on the origin of species, Darwin's theory was quickly recognized by the scientific community after a period of time, and it was in opposition to the religious school. However, Darwin's theory continues to develop, and biological evolution is accepted as a fact. But the theory of evolution itself is a scientific hypothesis or theory, in fact, it is constantly improving. Darwin did not say that everything was right. He didn't know the mechanism of mutation, because he didn't know genetics, and there was no genetics at that time.

Mendel initiated genetics. Although Darwin published papers during his lifetime, he didn't know much about German. In fact, Mendel's contribution was not known to the world until the beginning of the twentieth century. Therefore, the contribution of genetics in the early twentieth century was to deepen Darwin's theory, not to deny it. There is a popular saying that "a dragon gives birth to a dragon, a phoenix gives birth to a phoenix, and a mouse can burrow when it is born", which is the basis of heredity.

4. Modern school of comprehensive evolution.

In 1930s and 1940s, the theory of evolution reached a new height. It is generally believed that this is the birth of the modern school of comprehensive evolution, which lasted about 60 or 70 years. The basis is Darwin's natural selection, then genetics-telling you how to mutate, and then adding paleontological evidence-telling you that long-term biological changes and short-term changes can be linked, and finally forming such a hypothesis. Although we list paleontology there, the contribution of paleontology is not so great, and genetics has a very important contribution.

One of the important contributions of the school of comprehensive evolution is actually to explain the mechanism of variation that Darwin can't explain. People do not accept Lamarck's acquired inheritance, which has genetic and molecular basis. At the same time, geneticists also put forward an important concept: the randomness of evolution. In other words, biological evolution is not fixed. Why do people appear on the earth? Is there a fixed mechanism there? If we recreate a planet and leave it there for billions of years, will there be humans? This is the randomness of evolution.

5.DNA double helix structure

The discovery of DNA double helix structure in 1950s made us have a deeper understanding of the basis of biological variation. DNA is the basis of heredity and the basic genetic unit that controls biological characters. The mutation of DNA is random. We know that mutation makes everyone different, and several children born to a mother are different. In fact, the obvious difference we see is due to the mutation of DNA. This mutation is random, most of them are harmful or neutral, and only a few are beneficial.

Mutation of DNA is the basis of variation within a population, and mutation can produce complex structures. Now it is found that some gene mutations can indeed form complex institutions, and genes control different diseases, human height and various shapes. In fact, we don't know enough about this, but it is true that different genetic control is the premise of increasing biodiversity.

6, the relationship between creatures

Of course, biologists study not only molecular biology, but also many research fields, such as population biology and ecology. Biologists have studied the relationship between a large number of creatures. I used to know only survival competition, survival of the fittest. Survival competition is indeed an important content in the evolution of life, but in fact there are not only these relationships between organisms, but also biological relationships, parasitic relationships and co-evolution. We think that life seems selfish, but it is not. There are many selfless heroes in human beings, and there are also many acts of self-sacrifice in the life world.

For example, impala and birds live in harmony. I have observed the flight of thousands of birds. Their collective behavior includes collective division of labor, and some individuals will make great sacrifices, which is very common in biology. Another example is parasites. The people we see are individuals, but do you know how many microorganisms are in our bodies? It is hard for you to imagine. Not to mention our skin, there are about 2000 kinds of microorganisms in our intestines that have been identified so far. So, in fact, we are a complex of different organisms, and we really can't do without microorganisms.

7. Modern life sciences

People often say that the next century will be the century of life science, and life science will develop rapidly, especially now that we have entered the genome era. After entering the genome era, this knowledge can be used to help us understand evolution from a micro perspective, and we can know how DNA evolved. In the past, we only talked about how people evolved and how fish evolved to people step by step, but the inheritance in our bodies is also changing, and DNA also has an evolutionary process. We can know when a gene originated, the theory of evolutionary developmental biology and so on.

So this field has made great progress, and some people even say that evolution is about to enter another comprehensive stage. No one has summed it up yet, but our understanding of evolutionary knowledge has now reached a new height. (Text/Zhou Zhonghe)