# Convergent Evolution **Domain:** Evolution / Systems Theory **Doc Type:** Concept **Maturity:** Developed **Related:** [[Independent Convergence]], [[Natural Selection]], [[Adaptive Systems]], [[wiki/Bauhaus Architects of AI|Bauhaus Architects of AI]] ## Definition Convergent evolution is the independent emergence of comparable traits or solutions in separate lineages facing related constraints. ## Corpus Context It supplies the biological analogue for independent conceptual and technological convergence without implying shared ancestry. ## Backlinks - [[wiki/Bauhaus Architects of AI|Bauhaus Architects of AI]] - [[articles/Bauhaus Architects of AI|Bauhaus Architects of AI]] ## Relationships - **Edge source route:** [[collections/Edge|Edge]] connects this topic to exact Annual Question passages promoted into the Simple Reminders archive. ## Simple Reminders, Quotations, and Thoughts > “Natural selection often operates on “life history” characteristics, and life history plays an important role in evolution, in general. Biologists long distinguished between “K” species and “R” species. R species, most fish, for example, may produce thousands of offspring, but most of them die and the rest live only a short time. In contrast “K” species like primates and whales, have only a few babies, invest a great deal in their care, and live a long time. Generally speaking, a “K” life history strategy is correlated with a larger brain and higher intelligence. We are the ultimate “K” species.” > **— Alison Gopnik**, *2017, Edge Annual Question, “What Scientific Term Or Concept Ought To Be More Widely Known?”* [[reminders/Evolution/Biologists Long Distinguished Between K Species and R Species by Alison Gopnik|Biologists Long Distinguished Between K Species and R Species by Alison Gopnik]] > “Darwin's books and letters are full of careful descriptions. The amateur struggling with a field guide may take comfort reading how he frets over the difference between a stem with two leaves and a leaf with two leaflets. Darwin seems to have had a soft spot for fumitories, giving wonderfully detailed descriptions of the different varieties, whether and under what conditions they attracted insects, and how the geometry and flexibility of the different parts of the flower affected how pollen was carried off by visiting bees. He was looking for mechanisms that ensured evolutionary variability by making it likely that bees would occasionally transfer pollen from one flower to another, giving rise to occasional crosses—analysis later reflected in the Origin of Species.” > **— Ursula Martin**, *2013, Edge Annual Question, “What *should* We Be Worried About?”* [[reminders/Evolution/Darwin's Greatest Tool Was Close Observation by Ursula Martin|Darwin's Greatest Tool Was Close Observation by Ursula Martin]] > “The example of cosmetic plastic surgery is instructive. Reconstructive in its origins, it is increasingly used for cosmetic purposes. I predict the same shift for deep brain stimulation. Cosmetic surgery is used to render people more appealing. In human affairs, appearance is critical. For our hypersocial species, personal appeal opens doors that remain shut to mere competence and intellect. Undoubtedly, cosmetic surgery enhances quality of life, so how can it be denied to anyone? And yet, it is by its very nature deceptive; the operated face is not really the person's face, the operated body not really their body. However, experience teaches that these reservations as to authenticity remain theoretical. The cosmetically adjusted nose, breast, thighs or skin tones become the person's new reality, without significant social backlash. Even face transplants are now feasible. We read so much into a face—but what if it is not the person's "real" face? Does anyone care, or even remember the previous appearance? So it will be with neurocosmetics.” > **— Marcel Kinsbourne**, *2009, Edge Annual Question, “What Will Change Everything?”* [[reminders/Neural Interfaces/Deep Brain Stimulation Will Become Neurocosmetic by Marcel Kinsbourne|Deep Brain Stimulation Will Become Neurocosmetic by Marcel Kinsbourne]] > “Until a few generations ago, the human species was dealing with the following question: Do we have what it takes to survive? We answered that question with the invention of heat, plumbing, medicine and agriculture. Now we have the means to survive, but do we have the will?” > **— Dave Winer**, *2013, Edge Annual Question, “What *should* We Be Worried About?”* [[reminders/Civilization/Does the Human Species Have the Will to Survive by Dave Winer|Does the Human Species Have the Will to Survive by Dave Winer]] > “One resource is the (ever-growing) order of the evolutionary process itself. Each stage of evolution provides more powerful tools for the next. In biological evolution, the advent of DNA allowed more powerful and faster evolutionary "experiments." Later, setting the "designs" of animal body plans during the Cambrian explosion allowed rapid evolutionary development of other body organs, such as the brain. Or to take a more recent example, the advent of computer-assisted design tools allows rapid development of the next generation of computers.” > **— Ray Kurzweil**, *2004, Edge Annual Question, “What's Your Law?”* [[reminders/Evolution/Each Evolutionary Stage Builds Tools for the Next by Ray Kurzweil|Each Evolutionary Stage Builds Tools for the Next by Ray Kurzweil]] > “Our species might well be renamed Homo Dilatus, the procrastinating ape. Somewhere in our evolution we acquired the brain circuitry to deal with sudden crises and respond with urgent action. Steady declines and slowly developing threats are quite different. "Why act now when the future is far off," is the maxim for a species designed to deal with near-term problems and not long term uncertainties. It's a handy view of humankind which everyone who uses science to change policy should keep in their mental took kit, and one that that is greatly reinforced by the endless procrastination in tacking climate change. Cancun follows Copenhagen follows Kyoto but the more we dither and no extraordinary disaster follows, the more dithering seems just fine.” > **— Alun Anderson**, *2011, Edge Annual Question, “What Scientific Concept Would Improve Everybody's Cognitive Toolkit?”* [[reminders/Evolution/Evolution Prepared Us for Sudden Crises Not Slow Decline by Alun Anderson|Evolution Prepared Us for Sudden Crises Not Slow Decline by Alun Anderson]] > “Scientists use a diagram of a mountainous landscape to illustrate this principle. The contours of the undulating landscape indicate adaptive success of a creature. The higher the elevation of an entity, the more successful it is. The lower, the less fit. The lowest elevation is zero adaptation, or in other words, extinction. The evolutionary history of an organism can thus be mapped over time as its population begins in the foothills of low adaptation and gradually ascends the higher mountains of increased environmental adaptation. This is known in biology and in computer science as “hill climbing.” If the species is lucky, it will climb until it reaches a peak of optimal adaptation. Tyrannosaurus Rex achieved peak fitness. The industrial-age Olivetti Corporation reached the peak of optimal typewriter. Sex Pistols reached the summit of punk rock.” > **— Kevin Kelly**, *2017, Edge Annual Question, “What Scientific Term Or Concept Ought To Be More Widely Known?”* [[reminders/Evolution/Evolution Warns Against Premature Optimization by Kevin Kelly|Evolution Warns Against Premature Optimization by Kevin Kelly]] > “My example of a deep, elegant, beautiful explanation in science is John Maynard Smith's concept of an evolutionarily stable strategy (ESS). Not only does this wonderfully straightforward idea explain a whole host of biological phenomena, but it also provides a useful heuristic tool to test the plausibility of various types of claims in evolutionary biology—allowing us, for example, to quickly dismiss group-selectionist misconceptions, such as the idea that altruistic acts by individuals can be explained by the benefits that accrue to the species as a whole. Indeed, the idea is so powerful that it explains things I didn't even realize needed explaining until I was given the explanation.” > **— S. Abbas Raza**, *2012, Edge Annual Question, “What Is Your Favorite Deep, Elegant, Or Beautiful Explanation?”* [[reminders/Evolution/Evolutionary Stable Strategies by S. Abbas Raza|Evolutionary Stable Strategies by S. Abbas Raza]] > “Prior episodes of significant global warming within the Pleistocene, more-or-less the last 2 million years, have invariably followed cooling periods with glacial advances. During the Pleistocene, the human lineage, within the genus Homo, successfully adapted to changing environments (including climate) and evolved to take advantage of the opportunities afforded by the changes, even as populations of Homo reacted to the constraints environmental changes created. Human populations evolved diverse adaptations to the different climates and ecological circumstances they encountered, but the improvements in communication skills, planning depth, and retention of deep history with tales, poems, song, and other aspects of cultural behavior dispersed throughout humanity.” > **— Milford H. Wolpoff**, *2016, Edge Annual Question, “What Do You Consider The Most Interesting Recent [Scientific] News? What Makes It Important?”* [[reminders/Civilization/Global Warming Once Again, a Most Serious Challenge to Our Species by Milford H. Wolpoff|Global Warming Once Again, a Most Serious Challenge to Our Species by Milford H. Wolpoff]] > “The Neanderthals disappeared when Homo sapiens, who by then had learned the art of sewing, took over Europe and Asia. This new species, descended from a southern branch of Homo erectus, was unique among primates in being hairless. In their view, anything with fur on it could be classified as "animal"—or, to put it more bluntly, game. Neanderthal disappeared in Europe for the same reason the woolly mammoth disappeared there: the ancestors of the modern Europeans ate them. In Africa today, hungry humans eat the meat of chimpanzees and gorillas.” > **— Judith Rich Harris**, *2005, Edge Annual Question, “What Do You Believe Is True Even Though You Cannot Prove It?”* [[reminders/Evolution/Hairlessness Helped Make Humans a New Kind of Primate by Judith Rich Harris|Hairlessness Helped Make Humans a New Kind of Primate by Judith Rich Harris]] > “I believe, but cannot prove, that our species is passing through a transitional stage, from being animals to being true humans. I do not pretend to understand what true humans will be like, and I expect that I would not even understand it if I met them. Yet, I believe that our own universal sense of right and wrong is pointing us in the right direction, and that it is the direction of our future.” > **— W. Daniel Hillis**, *2005, Edge Annual Question, “What Do You Believe Is True Even Though You Cannot Prove It?”* [[reminders/Civilization/Humanity May Be Passing from Animals to True Humans by W. Daniel Hillis|Humanity May Be Passing from Animals to True Humans by W. Daniel Hillis]] > “Humans are biologically exceptional. We're exceptionally long-lived and exceptionally cooperative with non-kin. We have exceptionally small guts and exceptionally large brains. We have an exceptional communication system and an exceptional ability to learn from other members of our species. Scientists love to study biologically exceptional human traits such as these, and that's a perfectly reasonable research strategy. Human evolutionary exceptionalism, however—the tendency to assume that biologically exceptional human traits come into the world through exceptional processes of biological evolution—is a bad habit we need to break. Human evolutionary exceptionalism has sown misunderstanding in every area it has touched. Here are three examples.” > **— Michael McCullough**, *2014, Edge Annual Question, “What Scientific Idea Is Ready For Retirement?”* [[reminders/Evolution/Humans Are Biologically Exceptional by Michael McCullough|Humans Are Biologically Exceptional by Michael McCullough]] > “When time came to an end, the gods decided to run a final experiment. They wanted to be prepared after the big crunch for potential trajectories of life after the next big bang. For their experiment they choose two planets in the universe where evolution had resulted in similar developments of life. For planet ONEthey decided to interfer with evolution by allowing only ONE species to develop their brain to a high level of complexity. This species referred to itself as being „intelligent“; members of this species were very proud about their achievements in science, technology, the arts or philosophy.” > **— Ernst Pöppel**, *2009, Edge Annual Question, “What Will Change Everything?”* [[reminders/Evolution/Intelligence Could Be Evolution's Most Dangerous Experiment by Ernst Pöppel|Intelligence Could Be Evolution's Most Dangerous Experiment by Ernst Pöppel]] > “Our species itself is partly shaped by the force of our environment through selection, and partly by fluctuations of chance. If humans had gone extinct 100,000 years ago, the world would go on turning, life would go on thriving, and some other species would be prospering in our place — and most likely not by following the same intelligence-driven technological path we did.” > **— P Z Myers**, *2011, Edge Annual Question, “What Scientific Concept Would Improve Everybody's Cognitive Toolkit?”* [[reminders/Civilization/Intelligence Is Not Evolution's Inevitable Destination by P Z Myers|Intelligence Is Not Evolution's Inevitable Destination by P Z Myers]] > “What inspired Darwin and Wallace were encounters with places rich in birds and mammals found nowhere else—the Galapagos and the islands in southeast Asia. There are no such places in Europe. Darwin spent most of HMS Beagle's voyage too far south in South America, while Wallace's first trip was to the Amazon. The Amazon is very rich in species, but it is a striking example of the law that such places rarely have many species with small ranges. (I suspect this cost Wallace dearly because his sponsors wanted novelty. He found that on his next trip, to the East.)” > **— Stuart Pimm**, *2012, Edge Annual Question, “What Is Your Favorite Deep, Elegant, Or Beautiful Explanation?”* [[reminders/Evolution/Islands Reveal Evolutionary Laws That Continents Conceal by Stuart Pimm|Islands Reveal Evolutionary Laws That Continents Conceal by Stuart Pimm]] > “Natural selection sculpts human thought across generations and at geologic time scales. Fitness is its tool, and human nature, our shared endowment as members of a species, is among its key effects. Although the thought life of each person is unique, one can discern patterns of thought that transcend racial, cultural and occupational differences; similarly, although the face of each person is unique, one can discern patterns of physiognomy — two eyes above a nose above a mouth — that transcend individual differences.” > **— Donald D. Hoffman**, *2010, Edge Annual Question, “How Is The Internet Changing The Way You Think?”* [[reminders/Evolution/Natural Selection Sculpts Human Thought Across Generations by Donald D. Hoffman|Natural Selection Sculpts Human Thought Across Generations by Donald D. Hoffman]] > “One of the most pernicious misconceptions in cognitive science is the belief in a dichotomy between nature and nurture. Many psychologists, linguists and social scientists, along with the popular press, continue to treat nature and nurture as combatting ideologies, rather than complementary perspectives. For such people, the idea that something isboth "innate" and "learned", or both "biological" and "cultural", is an absurdity. Yet most biologists today recognize that understanding behavior requires that we understand the interaction between inborn cognitive processes (e.g. learning and memory) and individual experience. This is particularly true in human behaviour, since the capacities for language and culture are some of the key adaptations of our species, and involve irreducible elements of both biology and environment, of both nature and nurture.” > **— W. Tecumseh Fitch**, *2011, Edge Annual Question, “What Scientific Concept Would Improve Everybody's Cognitive Toolkit?”* [[reminders/Civilization/Nature and Nurture Are Complementary Not Competing Forces by W. Tecumseh Fitch|Nature and Nurture Are Complementary Not Competing Forces by W. Tecumseh Fitch]] > “A median estimate is that a third of all the species will be on the fast track to extinction within the next quarter century. Over 90% of all languages will be gone by then, because languages spoken by fewer than a million people are rarely taught to children. Most tropical forests will be gone by 2025 and with them, their species and peoples. Global warming will ensure that the species that survive do so in the wrong place. Coral reefs will be cooked alive in too-warm oceans, tropical glaciers will long have been only a memory preserved in the National Geographic photo collection.” > **— Stuart Pimm**, *2002, Edge Annual Question, “What Is Your Question? ... Why?”* [[reminders/Existential Risk/One Third of Species May Be Headed Toward Extinction by Stuart Pimm|One Third of Species May Be Headed Toward Extinction by Stuart Pimm]] > “Despite what we see in Star Wars and Star Trek, I don't expect intelligence to be an inevitable result of evolution on other worlds. Since the beginning of life on Earth, as many as 50 billion species have arisen, and only one of them has acquired technology. If intelligence has such has high survival value, why are so few creatures intelligent? Mammals are not the most successful or plentiful of animals. Ninety-five percent of all animal species are invertebrates. Most of the worm species on our planet have not even been discovered yet, and there are a billion insects wandering the Earth.” > **— Clifford Pickover**, *2000, Edge Annual Question, “What Is Today's Most Important Unreported Story?”* [[reminders/Evolution/The Immortalization of Humanity by Clifford Pickover|The Immortalization of Humanity by Clifford Pickover]] > “The Internet is the ultimate mating ground for ideas, the supreme lekking arena for memes. Cultural and intellectual evolution depends on sex just as much as biological evolution does; otherwise it remains a merely vertical transmission system. Sex allows creatures to draw upon mutations that happen anywhere in their species. The Internet allows people to draw upon ideas that occur to anybody in the world. Radio and printing did this too, and so did writing, and before that language, but the Internet has made it fast and furious.” > **— Matt Ridley**, *2010, Edge Annual Question, “How Is The Internet Changing The Way You Think?”* [[reminders/Evolution/The Internet Is a Sexual Recombination Engine for Ideas by Matt Ridley|The Internet Is a Sexual Recombination Engine for Ideas by Matt Ridley]] > “The truth is that we simply don't know enough about the potential biotechnology, nanotechonology, or future iterations of artificial intelligence to calculate what their risks are, compelling arguments have been made that in principle any of the three could lead to human extinction. These risks may prove manageable, but I don't think we can manage them if we don't take them seriously. In the long run, biotech, nanotech and AI are probably significantly more likely to help the species, by increasing productivity and limiting disease, than they are to destroy it. But we need to invest more in figuring out exactly what the risks are, and to better prepare for then. Right now, the US spends more than $2.5 billion dollars a year studying climate change, but (by my informal reckoning) less than 1% of that total studying the risk of biotech, nanotech, and AI.” > **— Gary Marcus**, *2013, Edge Annual Question, “What *should* We Be Worried About?”* [[reminders/Existential Risk/We Cannot Calculate the Risks of Future AI by Gary Marcus|We Cannot Calculate the Risks of Future AI by Gary Marcus]] > “The idea that most impressed me — and did the most to shake me of the belief that language was separate from the rest of the mind — goes back to Darwin. Not "survival of the fittest" (a phrase actually coined by Herbert Spencer) but his notion, now amply confirmed at the molecular level, that all biology is the product of what he called "descent with modification". Every species, and every biological system evolves through a combination of inheritance (descent) and change (modification). Nothing, no matter how original it may appear, emerges from scratch.” > **— Gary Marcus**, *2008, Edge Annual Question, “What Have You Changed Your Mind About? Why?”* [[reminders/Evolution/Whats Special About Human Language by Gary Marcus|Whats Special About Human Language by Gary Marcus]] > “In 2001 the "Survival" series died. It was a year when conservation efforts lagged across the board, along with other failures to take the long view. Survival programs may have told people what they could no longer bear to hear (that the human species is soiling its own den) without demonstrating constructive solutions. For example, there are precious few incentives to develop alternate energy sources despite the profound vulnerabilities that our dependence on foreign energy revealed yet again. We have no "Vision Thing," despite the many clues. "It's global warming, dude," a 28 year-old auto mechanic told The New York Times as he fished in the Hudson River; "I don't care if the whole planet burns up in a hundred years. If I can get me a fish today, it's cool by me."” > **— Delta Willis**, *2002, Edge Annual Question, “What Is Your Question? ... Why?”* [[reminders/Civilization/Why Conservation Fails to Command Attention by Delta Willis|Why Conservation Fails to Command Attention by Delta Willis]]