Context is everything: Why key developments often sit unused

Andreas Wagner I am interested in evolution, molecules, species and ideas. He is a biochemist at the Institute for Evolutionary Biology and Environment at the University of Zurich, so he knows that the driving force behind evolution is random mutations in his DNA. But he also knows that these things happen all the time. He is interested in the deeper questions of which mutations succeed and why. in his latest book, Sleeping Beauty: The Mystery of Sleeping Innovations in Nature and Cultureand he argues that “where” and “when” may be more important questions than “why.”

innovation comes easily

A genetic mutation always causes a molecular change. “Innovation is not rare and rare, but it happens often and is cheap,” he says. Wagner says most of these mutations are ultimately harmful to the organism that harbors them. Some are beneficial, but many are neutral. But some of these neutrals could prove beneficial millions of years from now when things change. These are the sleeping beauties of the title, ignorant and just lying there waiting to be awakened by a kiss from Prince Charming.

Mammals had all the genetic requirements to thrive for 100 million years before humans did. We didn’t get the chance to take over the planet until the dinosaurs went extinct, the planet warmed, and flowering plants diversified. The grasses didn’t immediately become the dominant species that covered the planet, nor did the ant quickly spread to 11,000 different species. It took 40 million years for each to emerge and thrive, and all the while they had the biochemical tools to do so. And although bacteria resistant to synthetic antibiotics existed millions of years ago, probably before the advent of humans, until humans began administering those antibiotics in the last century, this trait persisted. Didn’t benefit the bacteria (and didn’t threaten us).

Evolution isn’t about moving upwards towards the ultimate goal, it’s how it’s depicted on that T-shirt that culminates in that guy’s photo. I collapsed on my desk chair. Natural selection works not by the survival of the best, but by the survival of the fittest, who depend as much on the external environment as they do on innate merit. black pepper moth In essence, it is no better than white pepper in any way. After the smoke from industry sooted the tree trunks where the moths rested, making the black moths invisible to predators, they were healthier and were able to survive more often.

“No innovation, no matter how life-changing and transformative, will succeed without an environment of acceptance. It must be born at the right time and place, or it will fail.” writes Wagner. “No innovation is successful on its own.” The success of an innovation depends entirely on its terroir.

Change firing patterns of neurons, not DNA

So far, so good. But Wagner also spent time in radically interdisciplinary research. Santa Fe Institutewas founded by Nobel Prize-winning physicist Murray Gell-Mann to study the myriad ways in which complex systems and their individual components interact. Perhaps it was at the foot of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains that he found inspiration in applying the ideas of Sleeping Beauty to biological innovations as well as technical and artistic innovations.

Wagner then places abilities such as reading, writing, and arithmetic alongside traits such as antibiotic resistance. Our brains didn’t invent these skills, he says. Wagner argues that all the neural structures that make them possible were in place thousands of years ago. These sleeping beauties were not awakened until outside circumstances were beneficial, and were not used for any particular purpose. In this case, that external environment was the agricultural revolution. He points out that there are still human cultures that haven’t developed calculus because they didn’t need to develop it. And they are doing well.

Our brains and bodies didn’t evolve to do what we do now, like blowing glass or choreographing ballet. The fact that they can do those things but not others is because the culture taps existing brain structures to their specific uses, activating a subset of our latent talents. Other cultures in other worlds may have induced other cultures.

Wagner places many things in this category: linear algebra, the law of conservation of energy, a cure for scurvy, the paintings of Van Gogh and Vermeer, the poetry of Dickinson and Keats, and the compositions of Johann Sebastian Bach. . And, surprisingly, ironically, even the wheels. These weren’t “successes” (which Wagner defines as gaining a place in the historical record) when they were first generated, but they became successful only after the world caught up. Innovations such as the cure for scurvy and the wheel were discovered repeatedly in different times and places until they reached the right time and place to take root and make an impact.

In some ways they are similar to C4 photosynthesis. C4 photosynthesis evolved in grasses long before atmospheric carbon dioxide levels were low enough to be beneficial.

Wagner also argues that analogies themselves are Sleeping Beauty, and that the brain’s ability to connect seemingly unrelated concepts “helps explain why our culture is so rife with innovation.” He uses analogies and metaphors as indicators of the human ability to think abstractly, the ability to connect things in the brain that are clearly unrelated in reality, such as comparing love to a journey. He wrote that these Sleeping Beauty “are hidden relationships between objects.” Such relationships remain dormant until we discover the analogies and metaphors that reveal them to us…these relationships remain hidden and until the circuits of the brain reveal them to us. is not accessible. ” For example, until someone comes up with.

This seems unreasonable. Linear algebra must await the development of techniques that demonstrate its worth, and so it is natural that there will be a period of dormancy. But analogues and works of art, unlike laws of nature and biological properties, do not exist outside of their creators. Applying evolutionary principles designed to explain biological traits and diversity to ideas and behaviors gives them an external reality, independence and inevitability that is not present in phenotypes.

Wagner concludes with advice for aspiring innovators to increase the chances of their innovation being successfully embedded in history. Jonathan Strange He did so when he built a magic trail for Wellington’s soldiers in Spain. Alternatively, generate the environment required for successful creation. Maybe that’s the mark of true genius.