.Michael Shermer
The Full Impact of Contingency
It is not surprising that the idea of glorious contingency does not
have a wide following among the religious. But what is more
surprising is that many scientists still cling to a more
sophisticated notion of progress as "trends," where humans--or
sentience, cognition, big brains, or some other form of advanced
mentation--sit atop the phylogenetic bush because evolution "moves"
in this direction. (In more extreme versions, such as in Freeman
Dyson's Infinite in All Directions or Frank Tipler's The Physics of
Immortality, it seems as if the universe "knew" we were coming). Even
the more modest progressivists manage to find a special place for
humans on an evolutionary pedestal. Philosopher of science Michael
Ruse (1996, 1999) calls such evolutionism a "secular religion of
progress." Surveying the writings of some of today's leading
evolutionary biologists, and reading "the message between as well as
on the lines," Ruse concludes: "If one came away thinking that
evolution is progressive and that natural selection is the power
behind the throne, one would be thinking no more than what one had
been told" (1999, 131-132).
But as Gould shows in his 1996 book, Full House, these apparent
trends can be generated as by-products, or side consequences, of
expansions and contractions in the amount of variation within a
system, and not by anything directly moving anywhere" (33). Gould
claims that things like .400 hitting in baseball are not "things" at
all, in the Platonic sense of fixed "essences." They are artifacts of
trends, which disappear when the overall structure of the system
changes over time. No one has hit .400 in baseball since Ted Williams
did it in 1941 (for every ten times at bat he got four hits), and
this unsolved mystery continues to generate arguments about why it
hasn't happened since. The mystery is now solved, says Gould. It is
not because players were better then (what he calls the Genesis Myth:
"There were giants on the earth in those days"--or as Williams
himself put it, "the ball isn't dead, the hitters are, from the neck
up"), or because players today have tougher schedules, night games,
and cross-country travel (Rod Carew says night games are easier on
the eyes and travel by jet beats a train any day). It is because the
overall level of play, by everyone from Tony Gwynn and Eddie Murray
to Backup Bob and Dugout Doug, has inexorably marched ever upward
toward a hypothetical outer wall of human performance. Paradoxically,
.400 hitting has disappeared because today's players are better, not
worse. But all of them are better, making the creme de la creme stand
out from the mediocre far less than before. The best players may be
absolutely better (better training, equipment, diet) than players
fifty years ago, but they are relatively worse compared to the
average level of play. It was easier for Ted Williams to "hit 'em
where they ain't" fifty years ago than it is for Wade Boggs today,
because every position in the field is manned by players whose
average level of play is much better than before. Consider these
numbers: only seven other players have hit .400 since 1900, and three
of those in one year (1922). Add Williams in 1941 and the list is
complete at eight, out of tens of thousands that have played. And the
difference between .400 and George Brett's .390 in 1980, for example,
based on his 175 hits in 449 at bats, is five hits! That computes to
only one hit in every 32 games. How many times did Brett face top
relievers in late innings, or defensive alignments (based on computer
analyses of his hitting style) that Williams and Cobb never faced?
Surely at least once every 32 games. William's feat of 1941 would not
be discussed today except for three hits (the difference between .406
and .399 in his 185 hits out of 456 at bats). Would Williams have
been deprived of one hit per 54 games by today's players? Most
assuredly."
So what? For Gould, the disappearance of .400 hitting is just one of
many examples of how systems change over time and how our bias of
progress and complexity has led us to misunderstand historical
change. "All of these mistaken beliefs arise out of the same
analytical flaw in our reasoning--our Platonic tendency to reduce a
broad spectrum to a single, pinpointed essence. This way of thinking
allows us to confirm our most ingrained biases--that humans are the
supreme being on this planet; that all things are inherently driven
to become more complex; and that almost any subject can be expressed
and understood in terms of an average" (132).
In baseball there is a bell curve variation from worst to best
players; what has happened in the past century is that while the
league average has remained the same, the "spread" has shrunk as the
entire system has marched closer toward that outer limit. It is this
spread that matters, not the single point on it. As an example of the
latter Gould relates his personal battle with abdominal mesothelioma,
a rare and usually fatal form of cancer for which he was given eight
months to live. That was in 1982. What happened? The "eight months"
was a median that did not describe the variation within the entire
system (the spread) which, fortunately for Gould, has a long right
tail on which he is located.
As in baseball and disease prognosis, evolution can be illustrated by
a bell curve of organisms from simple cells to complex mammals of
today. But what else could evolution have done, Gould asks? In the
spread of life, there is a left wall of simplicity, any simpler and
it would not be alive. For life to evolve it could only have gotten
more complex, evolution reflects an increase in total variation by
expansion away from a lower limit, or "left wall," of simplest
conceivable form." Same thing with size: "Size increase is really
random evolution away from small size, not directed evolution toward
large size" (169-172).
Why is this idea revolutionary? Because change is a result of the
whole system (the "full house") expanding, not a progressive march of
an average "toward" something. Evolution is not "going" anywhere in a
teleological sense. It is massively contingent and we are but a minor
twig on the richly branching bush of life. "The vaunted progress of
life is really random motion away from simple beginnings, not
directed impetus toward inherently advantageous complexity" (173).
With that the full impact of the Darwinian revolution is felt. We are
not even special in the impersonal world of materialistic evolution.
Where, then, shall we turn?
Contingency and Freedom
In numerous places Dennett accuses Gould of "radical contingency,"
particularly with regard to its significance for human freedom: "If
we can just have contingency, radical contingency, this will give the
mind some elbow room, so it can act, and be responsible for its own
destiny, instead of being the mere effect of a mindless cascade of
mechanical processes! This conclusion, I suggest, is Gould's ultimate
destination" (300).
Nowhere that I know of has Gould modified contingency with "radical"
(i.e., to the exclusion of necessity, or to the degree that necessity
becomes irrelevant, which is what most philosophers mean by radical
contingency). Yet I partly agree with Dennett. Whether it is Gould's
ultimate destination or not, it is the ultimate implication of
contingency. But contingency is not in contrast with the algorithm of
natural selection--Dennett's "mindless cascade of mechanical
processes." Contingency interacts with the necessitating force of
natural selection. Natural selection is both constrained by
contingencies and, in turn, confines them--for example, genetic
mutations, chromosomal aberrations, and asteroid-triggered mass
extinctions. Natural selection is also constrained by other
necessitating forces, such as geography, climate, and self-organizing
complexity. Natural selection may be Darwin's dangerous idea, but it
is not the only one. (Contingency would also seem to undermine
critics' charges that Gould's Marxist beliefs have shaped his
evolutionary theories: contingency not only subverts evolutionary
determinism, it negates socioeconomic determinism, the very
foundation of Marxist ideology, because "When we realize that the
actual outcome did not have to be, that any alteration in any step
along the way would have unleashed a cascade down a different
channel, we grasp the causal power of individual events. Contingency
is the affirmation of control by immediate events over destiny"
{1989a, 284}).
Contingency helps us think about human meaning and freedom within a
scientific perspective. Although all contingencies are caused--and
thus determinism lives in the model of contingent-necessity--the
number of contingent causes, and the complexity of their interactions
with necessities, make the predetermination of human action
essentially impossible; but because of this, the determination of
human action on history becomes possible. An analogy between the
physical and behavioral sciences is helpful: The movement of atoms in
space, like the movement of people in the environment, is caused, but
their collisions (atomic) and encounters (human) happen by
contingent-necessity. Contingency leads to collisions and encounters;
necessity governs speed and direction. An effect, dependent upon the
activity of one or more causes, may seem to be produced by accident
but is really the result of contingent-necessity, or a conjuncture of
events compelling a certain course of action by constraining prior
conditions. The words "compelling" and "constraining" were chosen to
convey powerful influence but not omnipotence. Since we cannot
possibly understand the innumerable and interactive causes of our
actions, and since we will never know the initial conditions of our
own personal histories, we feel free. And why not? No cause or set of
causes we select to examine as the determiners of human action can be
complete, thus they cannot be considered as determining causes, only
influencing ones. There will always be other causes left unexamined.
Human freedom arises out of this ignorance of causes, and the model
of contingent-necessity explains why. And because of the trigger
effect of contingency, and its cascading consequences, we are also
free to change our history. Therefore: Human freedom is action taken
with an ignorance of causes within a conjuncture of events, that
compels and is compelled to a certain course of action by
constraining prior conditions.
It's a Wonderful Life
Though the majority of Gould's focus has been on paleontological
contingencies, his exemplar for human historical systems is the 1946
holiday film classic by Frank Capra--It's a Wonderful Life. Jimmy
Stewart plays George Bailey, a small-town building and loan
proprietor who, after decades of hard, honest work feels his life has
been a failure because he sees nothing of the results of his efforts,
and his youthful dreams of seeing and changing the world have
seemingly been lost to age and responsibility. Further, some of his
friends have managed to break away from the small town to make more
money. Where others have ventured out to see the world, George only
fantasized about it. His own brother is a decorated war hero, who
saved the lives of many men in battle. But George has done seemingly
little. His life seems stalled and stagnant, and when financial and
familial pressures finally build beyond control on Christmas Eve,
George decides to take his life by leaping into the rapids of a
nearly frozen river. Fortunately he is interrupted by his guardian
angel--Clarence Oddbody--who, knowing George's humanitarian
disposition, jumps in the river before him, triggering George to
follow him in to save his life. In recovery, George unloads his
problems on Clarence, and then exclaims that he wishes he were never
born. Clarence grants him his wish, taking George out of the
historical picture and rerunning the story of what his little town of
Bedford Falls would have been like without him.
Suddenly things are not what they used to be, and the changes are
mostly slanted toward the negative. The people George helped
financially are instead poor and wretched, the buildings he
constructed are nonexistent, his wife is a lonely unmarried
librarian, his children unborn, and the town is renamed
"Pottersville," after the treacherous banker whose miserly ways
prevented those George had helped from ever owning their own homes.
His brother, whom George saved in childhood, is not there to save
other lives in that specific battle, with the contingent consequences
that the lives the brother saved are now also gone. As Clarence
guides George through his now unfamiliar surroundings, he is dismayed
and shocked. The history of his town is quite different without the
influence of George Bailey. He never realized just how many people
were dependent upon his seemingly routine existence. "Strange, isn't
it?," queries Clarence to George at the appropriate moment of
enlightenment. "Each man's life touches so many other lives, and when
he isn't around he leaves an awful hole, doesn't he?"
In the end, of course, Clarence restores the historical sequence to
itsoriginal condition, with George's contingent influence in tact,
and makes areassuring pronouncement to him: "You see George, you
really had a wonderful life." In this sense, then, we are all
individuals of power and importance. Whether we like it or not,
whether we know it or not, every encounter and every action, can and
does make some degree of difference, ranging from virtually negligent
to powerfully diverting. A seemingly innocuous decision, carefully
placed in time and circumstance, may affect uncounted others in
multitudinous ways.
Because of the trigger effect and contingent-necessities, and the
fact thatat any point in the system it could be early as well as late
(since we do not know when our personal system will end), one never
knows which actions will or will not make a difference. Only the
historian looking back is privileged to so judge. It is this lack of
foresight and prognostication that makes the potential for the power
of contingency and individuality so puissant. Since we do not know
for certain which actions will matter and which will not, it is as
rational as not to assume the former than the latter. It may be
nothing but wishful thinking to desire one's place in history to be
contingently significant, but since we do not know, why not act as if
it does?
Finding Meaning in a Contingent Universe
I am often asked by believers why I abandoned Christianity and how I
foundmeaning in the apparently meaningless universe presented by
science. The implication is that the scientific world-view is an
existentially depressing one. Without God, I am bluntly told, what's
the point? If this is all there is, there is no use. To the contrary.
For me quite the opposite is true. The conjuncture of losing my
religion, finding science, and discovering glorious contingency was
remarkably empowering and liberating. It gave me a sense of joy and
freedom. Freedom to think for myself. Freedom to take responsibility
for my own actions. Freedom to construct my own meanings and my own
destinies. With the knowledge that this may be all there is, and that
I can trigger my own cascading changes, I was free to live life to
its fullest.
This is not to say that those who are religious cannot share in these
freedoms. But for me, and not just for me, a world absent monsters,
ghosts, demons, and gods unfetters the mind to soar to new heights,
to think unthinkable thoughts, to imagine the unimaginable, to
contemplate infinity and eternity knowing that no one is looking
back. The universe takes on a whole new meaning when you know that
your place in it was not foreordained, that it was not designed for
us, indeed, that it was not designed at all. If we are nothing more
than star stuff and bio mass, how special life becomes. If the tape
were played again and again without the appearance of our species,
how extraordinary becomes our existence, and, correspondingly, how
cherished. To share in the sublimity of knowledge generated by other
human minds, and perhaps even to make a tiny contribution toward that
body of knowledge that will be passed down through the ages, part of
the cumulative wisdom of a single species on a tiny planet orbiting
an ordinary star on the remote edge of a not-so-unusual galaxy,
itself a member of a cluster of galaxies millions of light years from
nowhere, is sublime beyond words.
Since we are such a visual primate, perhaps images can help capture
the feeling. The Hubble Telescope Deep Field photograph in Figure
10-3, revealing as never before the rich density of galaxies in our
neck of the universe, is as grand a statement about the sacred as any
medieval cathedral. How vast is the cosmos. How contingent is our
place. Yet out of this apparent insignificance emerges a glorious
contingency, the recognition that we did not have to be, but here we
are. In fact, compare this slice of the cosmos to two of the most
hallowed and sacrosanct structures on Earth--both medieval in age but
on opposite sides of the planet, literally and figuratively--Machu
Picchu and Chartres Cathedral. Machu Picchu captures the numina
through an interlocking relationship between nature and humanity that
generated in me an almost mystical connection across space and time
with the ancients that had once lived and loved atop this 8,000-foot
precipice.
This is the "lost city" in so many ways. When I stood inside Chartres
Cathedral with my soul mate, lit candles, and promised each other our
eternal love, it was a more sacred moment than any I have
experienced. Skeptics and scientists cannot experience the numinous?
Nonsense. You do not need a spiritual power to experience the
spiritual. You do not need to be mystical to appreciate the mystery.
Standing beneath a canopy of galaxies, atop a pillar of reworked
stone, or inside a transcept of holy light, my unencumbered soul was
free to love without constraint, free to use my senses to enjoy all
the pleasures and endure all the pains that come with such love. I
was enfranchised for life, emancipated from the bonds of restricting
tradition, and unyoked from the rules written for another time in
another place for another people. I was now free to try to live up to
that exalted moniker--Homo sapiens--wise man.
-- Michael Shermer