May 09 2008 / by juldrich
Category: Culture Year: 2020 Rating: 10 Hot
Jack Uldrich
Cross-posted from www.jumpthecurve.net
When Charles Darwin first proposed writing his landmark book on
evolution, The Origins of Species, his editor suggested
writing a book on pigeons because, in his words, “Everyone is
interested in pigeons.” Fortunately, Darwin chose to ignore the
advice. I am reminded of the story because even though Darwin’s
theory was proposing only that species make modest, incremental
changes over long periods of time, it was – and in many circles
still is – a revolutionary idea. 
What then happens if evolution is not just incremental in nature
but rather exponential? That, too, is a revolutionary idea –
especially since it could impact us within our lifetimes.
Well, we are now approaching a time when this exponential theory
of evolution will be put to the test.
If you accept the notion of evolution, you will agree that the
earliest life appeared on earth approximately 4 billion years ago.
Complex cellular organisms showed up 2 billion years ago, and the
first multicellular organism about 1 billion years ago. The first
reptiles and dinosaurs made their appearance 300 million years ago;
the first primates 40 million years ago; homo sapiens appeared
160,000 years ago; Cro-Magnon man 40,000 years ago; and modern
civilization as we know it began about 10,000 years ago.
Thinking about this much progress over such an extended period
of time is difficult. Years ago, Carl Sagan, the famed astronomer,
offered up a “cosmic calendar” to make such progress more
comprehensible to the layperson. He asked that they imagine the
entire history of the universe as being compressed into a single
year. (cont.)
Under this scenario the year would begin on January 1 with a
bang – the Big Bang. Nothing much would then happen in our corner
of the universe until about August when the sun would make its
appearance. The earth itself wouldn’t show signs of any life until
November—when the first multicellular organisms begin wiggling
about. Dinosaurs show up around Christmas Eve. At 10:15 AM on
December 31, apes would appear; humans would begin walking upright
at 9:24 PM; modern civilization would appear at 11:59:20; Rome
would fall at 11:59:57; and the Renaissance would occur just one
second before midnight.
Rather amazingly, everything else – the printing press, the
steam engine, electricity, the computer, the Internet, the human
genome project, stem cell research, nanotechnology, etc – would be
squeezed into the last second. From this perspective, I would argue
that evolution can thus be seen as yet another exponential
trend.
So what does it mean? If you accept the premise that each
additional doubling of an exponential trend contains as much change
as all the previous doublings combined, then it means that humans
in our present form are not be the endpoint of humanity but merely
a steppingstone to the next evolutionary stage.
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