Can credit crunch set new rules of evolution?

Another glimpse inside the world of science with the help of lecturers at UCO’s degree partners at the University of Huddersfield.

In the latest in the series Dr Rachel Airley, senior lecturer in pharmacology at the School of Applied Sciences, looks at the affects of the credit crunch on evolution.

Considering I’ve spent most of my adult life stewing over one scientific theory or another, it may not come as much of a surprise that I don’t think much of so-called “intelligent design” as an alternative to evolution by natural selection.

If you are going to ignore a theory backed up by rigorous scientific analysis then why not do it in style?

Why not proclaim the world as flat and say with your last breath that the moon is made of green cheese?

While you are at it, why not postulate that we are being ruled by aliens from another dimension or say with pride and utter conviction that we are all re-incarnated from mushrooms? You get the drift.

Either God made us or he didn’t. But while I was watching an advert the other day for another low-cost odd bits and pieces of DIY and computer kit store I started thinking about evolution, and how all these stores are proliferating like a growth of mould on top of the detritus of boarded up shops left by the credit crunch.

In every situation, it seems, however depressing, someone or something will do well. We no longer want designer, or slick, or aspirational and expensive consumerism. We seem to want what is inexpensive and does the job. Austerity is the new excess. It is “en-trend” as the fashionistas would say.

Evolution is based upon the inheritance, survival and spread of a genetic mutation that is advantageous to an individual organism.

Genetic mutations happen all the time, either spontaneously or through exposure to environmental factors such as chemical toxins or radiation. Many mutations do not amount to much, having no effect on the individual and not causing any outward changes in the way their body works. In other cases, however, these genetic changes will be potentially disastrous, sometimes causing a gene to direct our cells to divide indiscriminately. This is what we mean by carcinogenesis, which triggers the early stages of cancer. It is why cells have repair mechanisms that correct mutations by repairing the genetic material.

The best scenario is that harmless mutations may be stockpiled within a population and act as a sort of biological insurance policy where, in the event of a huge environmental change, like a sudden temperature rise or a global pandemic, those holding a gene that helps them adapt to such conditions or provides immunity to such a killer disease, will survive and reseed the population by passing on these survival characteristics to their offspring.

In what ways are current business trends analogous to evolution? One day, someone must have thought — hey, I’ll set up a huge shop selling lots of things that you need every day for next to nothing, like lint rollers, or CD wallets, or SCART leads.

Then the business did well, so someone else did the same, and then a few more, and a few more after that, until there were lots. At the same time, other businesses started going under because they refused to adapt; so another few cheap shops took their place, and so on.

That is a sort of evolution in progress. But does it completely mirror evolution in biological systems? Well no, as if it did all the cheap shops would have come from the same common ancestor, for instance, they’d all be Ikea, or they’d all be Poundland, or even Woolworths (which became extinct, like the dinosaur).

Instead, it seems to be a free-for-all, where any business person with any sense is jumping on the bandwagon.

They themselves as individuals are adapting, but are consciously aware of this rather than being directed by a gene that is spreading through the population of business people. You could say they are adapting intelligently.

Could the same sort of intelligent adaptation that seems to be occurring in the commercial marketplace happen in biology? Could there be a random act of convenient genetic mutation that makes the resulting organism more fit and somehow causes a signalling event, which triggers the same genetic mutation within other individuals within the population?

Natural selection can lead to rapid change if a mutation confers huge advantage, but even this would be greatly amplified and speeded up if it were further bolstered by an alternative signalling mechanism between individuals that caused directed change with a generation.

That to my mind would be intelligent design, where the species, like a sort of biological co-op, “decides” to evolve a certain way.

But there is no evidence for such a process affecting genes. We are left with natural selection as the main organising force in evolution and Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection as the best explanation of the diversity of life on Earth.

In any case, the sort of intelligent design imagined above is far removed from those who believe that the complexity of life is evidence of intelligent design by a creator. There is still, of course the question for many (including myself) of who or what made the rules under which evolution occurs.