292 I The Process of Evolution 



Today this imbalance can be seen in the overdevelopment of the 

 physical and biological sciences relative to our other disciplines. 

 For many centuries our systems of ethics (the tested rules under 

 which a society operates) have been taught and maintained by 

 church and state. It is either too much trouble or impossible to 

 orient most people to the real basis for ethics, and so these institu- 

 tions control human behavior through a combination of force, social 

 pressure, and promised supernatural punishment. As scientific 

 knowledge has increased over the past few centuries, governments 

 and churches have slowly changed their ideas so that they do not 

 conflict directly with the findings of science. In the past few dec- 

 ades, however, the progress in science has far outstripped the 

 ability of our extremely conservative religious and governmental 

 systems to adjust to the changes. Medical advances and public 

 health programs have permitted an unprecedented surge in popula- 

 tion size, a surge which the ill-informed portion of our cultural 

 structure will not permit us to counteract. Increased population 

 pressures increase the danger of war, but our most enlightened 

 political and religious leaders and, indeed, many of our scientists 

 seem to have only the vaguest grasp of the possible consequences of 

 another world conflict. The natural sciences have helped to initiate 

 and support the population explosion and have produced thermo- 

 nuclear weapons, nerve gases, and agents of biological warfare. In 

 a sense they are in the same position as parents who permit their 

 children to play with loaded guns. One of the possible consequences 

 of applying too strong a selection pressure against a single character 

 in a Drosophila experirnent is that the line will become extinct. 

 Perhaps in permitting this tremendous gap to develop between the 

 scientists and the laymen, we have doomed our line to the same fate. 

 Extinction may well be the ultimate interaction between cultural 

 and biological evolution. 



SUMMARY 



Homo sapiens is the product of biological and cultural evolution. 

 The processes of his biological evolution do not differ in kind from 

 those of other diploid, outcrossing organisms. Cultural evolution, 

 change in the mass of nongenetic information shared by human 

 beings, is easily recognized but poorly understood. The two kinds 

 of evolution are inextricably bound in a complex of interactions. 

 Homo sapiens is the only organism to have become aware of its 

 origins and of the possible evolutionary consequences of its actions. 

 It remains to be seen what the consequences of this knowledge 

 will be. 



