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Mark and Gerry's Sci-Fi Reviews continue....
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Darwin's Radio by Greg Bear
Review by Mark
For every action there is an opposite and equal reaction and it seems that for every scientific hypothesis there is a counter hypothesis that never goes away. So it is with Darwin's theory of evolution. Contrary to popular expectation the counter hypothesis is not creationism (the Bible story) but rather Lamarkism. Lamark (1744-1829) was a French naturalist who proposed that evolution proceeds through the inheritence of characteristics acquired by the individual. For instance, giraffes have long necks from the action of reaching high branches. The individual's stretched neck then gets passed to their children as a beneficial adaptation. Darwin's hypothesis was more subtle. His theory of evolution was that based on random mutations, characteristics the individual already possessed provide a reproductive advantage which over time becomes common in a population. Thus Darwin would say that long necked giraffes were better at making new giraffes because they could reach high branches and so long necks became prevalent in the giraffe population. The difference is subtle but important: the difference between a characteristic the individual acquires that is passed on versus a characteristic that an individual has that provides a reproductive advantage.
Lamarkism has become so discredited that most people don't even know of its existence and the only popular opposing thesis to evolution is the non-scientific creationism faith. But there's no theory like an old theory, and in Darwin's Radio Greg Bear brings back Lamarkism. The background questions to the story revolve around the notion that the fossil record does show change in animal (and particularly human) form with time, but the change seems to be abrupt. What is the nature of events that decide we must evolve, and what is the actual evolutionary event like? For Darwin the evolutionary event is the sex act in which a beneficial charcteristic gets passed to a new generation. For Bear:
"....maybe there's a master biological computer in each species, a processor of some sort that tots (sic) up possible beneficial mutations. It makes decisions about what, where, and when something will change...makes guesses if you will based on success rates from past evolutionary experience...We know that stress related hormones can affect expression of genes. This evolutionary library of possible new forms responds to stress produced hormones. If enough organisms are under stress, they exchange signals, reach a kind of quorum, and this triggers a genetic algorithm that compares sources of stress with a list of adapations, evolutionary responses."
Thus, all that chromosomal material referred to as "genetic junk", for which no function is associated with, is actually tools for allowing the individual to evolve due to a momentary need. That is the giraffe's neck is long so it can reach high leaves rather than giraffe's necks are long because only long necked giraffes can reach adequate food to allow breeding.
You can imagine what kind of turmoil can occur when people begin to spontaneously evolve. This change can be particularly painful if genetic deck shuffling occurs in fetal development, especially if the "genetic algorithm" isn't quite settled into the new stable pattern. Bear's society in Darwin's Radio begins with a constructive relationship between government and pharmaceutical companies to understand the startling and disturbing changes which appear to be pathalogical as the genetic pattern changes but in unstable solutions. Eventually, with society more and more demanding and panicy for a solution to the problem, government becomes increasingly restrictive placing "stricken" evolving individuals and pregnant women into internment camps. Against this power are a few scientists who believe that they understand the phenomenon. In fact they do, but the paranoid government and populace work hard to censor ideas which either confuse or potentially threaten control of a difficult situation.
From the science point of view this novel is probably a lot of tripe. In an author's note at the end of the novel Bear writes that he wouln't be surprised if none of his speculations come true, "but over the next few years we will learn more secrets of life than we ever dreamed". We can at least agreee on that. On the whole Darwin's Radio is interesting and well written. Some of the characters are a bit stereotypical (bad guys predictably bad- good guys always good). For Bear fans, the word is that he is writing a sequel to Darwin's Radio.
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