While I have respected Lynne McTaggart’s past work, it is distressing to hear some of the current things she’s saying. Specifically, her vilification of Darwin struck me as being off-base. She does at least allow that “survival of the fittest” was not a phrase coined by Charles Darwin, but she does not bother to separate Darwin’s actual scientific contributions from the “Social Darwinism” that emerged later, and which he had no part of.

Darwin’s primary scientific contribution was NOT about competition — it was the profound realization that species are not immutable and evolve over time. He proposed that one key mechanism by which that evolution occurs is natural selection. The theory of natural selection is based on key observations that are as true today as they were when he made them.

As time has gone on, we have learned more about the mechanisms behind evolution. And Darwin himself never once suggested he had the final word on how evolution works, he only had illuminated a piece of the puzzle. He was not a dogmatist, he was a naturalist who lived in awe of the complex workings of the living world. I am dismayed to see Lynne try to pin the ills of the modern world on a person who contributed so much to our knowledge and growth.

Yes, certainly, we have challenges today and cultural myths that we need to overcome. New findings about cooperation add immeasurably to our understanding of evolution. Natural selection by competition is not proven “wrong” by these findings — rather, we gain an ever-clearer understanding of how the dynamic of cooperation and competition drives evolution.

I find it especially ironic that in The Field, Lynne champions the cutting-edge scientists of our time who are willing to risk their reputations in order to study things that are not “safe” science, and who shake up the established paradigm with controversial discoveries. In his time, Charles Darwin was the epitome of such a scientist. It is sad to see her choose to demonize him. I hope she reconsiders the way that she addresses this subject in the future.

Comment by GRT — August 17, 2012 @ 3:57 pm

There is a great deal about cooperation and compassion being an essential part of human nature available in the research from the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley. According to some of their research Darwin is not the bogeyman he is being made here. He, in fact, thought that cooperation and compassion were essential survival traits. It was his interpretors who promoted “survival of the fittest” to support the cultural ideas surrounding capitalism at the time.

Comment by Sharon Forrest — August 18, 2012 @ 7:54 pm

I was thinking of the word brilliant to describe Ms McTaggart about a quarter of the way through this interview and sure enough you described her with the same word about a third of the way through.
What a great communicator with a clear and hopeful message.

Comment by Rich — August 19, 2012 @ 7:04 pm