Let there Be Light: A Commentary on Welch

Abstract

Any important word means many things. What is at issue in arguments about the source of creativity in evolutionary biology is opaque because the contending parties use a common vocabulary to mean different things. Welch begins with Laland’s (2018) statement that “the burden of creativity in evolution does not rest on natural selection alone.” Welch then specifies a sense in which he sees natural selection as uniquely creative, namely the production of adaptations. Other things may be created by other processes, but natural selection is the only process that produces adaptation. This specification of his intended meaning brings greater precision to a point of possible contention. Laland probably disagrees because he understands something different by the word “adaptation.” Is anything more at stake than the use of different senses of “creative,” “evolution,” “adaptation,” “produce,” or where a “burden” rests? We are more likely to find common ground if we understand each other’s meaning, but winning arguments is more attractive than seeking consensus. Charity of interpretation frequently succumbs to scoring of points. Life is cyclic but we tell linear stories. The linear form predisposes to asking the question what comes first and what comes after, but in a cycle one kind of thing can come both before and after another kind of thing. In the Jewish creation myth, the world is created in a spontaneous act of will. This has predisposed scientists in the Western tradition to seek the source of creativity in a single creative event. In the Hindu tradition, creation is cyclical with an important role played by the maintainer (Vishnu) and the destroyer (Shiva). This may be a more useful model of the creativeness of natural selection.