For most of my adult life I have looked out at the world from massive cities. Recently, however, I moved to rural Western Massachusetts. I am using this time of transition from metropolis to hamlet to reflect on what I will affectionately call “the progress narrative”. This is the celebrated idea that we (in the western world at least) can expect technological innovation to construct a better and more modern society on into the future. One favorite metric of this tempo among computer lovers is Moore’s Law, referring to the prediction that the number of transistors that can be placed inexpensively on an integrated circuit will continue to double approximately every two years. Today I mull over what I have often wondered, what compels us to make and then adopt the next new thing, over and over again? Is this impulse somehow hard wired?
Two days ago, I took that first walk on the footpath near my house that leads to the Norwottuck Rail Trail. I decided that to get at the heart of what drives our ideas about progress and propels us to use new gadgets, I should look more closely at ideas that frame the relationship between people, technology, and nature. This line of inquiry might occur to you too if you encountered what I did: the technology of another species.
As I clomped along the raised path built of wooden boards splayed across a marsh and then a frozen pond, I came upon what I first thought was a job half-done by lazy woodmen. All along the path were partially downed trees with their trunks whittled away, some successfully down and lying every which way, and others still standing but on a scanty bit of kindling. Blond woodchips of the shape and size I imagined a hand axe might make littered the ground. Looking closer, I realized that this logging-in-progress was instead the work of a passel of nocturnal, semi-aquatic rodents. Some of the trees were pretty big for even a person to chop down by hand, so gnawing…. forget about it. What at first appeared to be the work of lackadaisical humans is in fact a natural feat. What on Earth compels beavers build dams?
And if I can answer this question with some certitude for Castor canadensis, will it shed any light on our own technological habits?
Evolutionary biologist, Richard Dawkins, doesn’t answer the “why dams” question exactly, but instead argues that we can think of technological innovation in the animal kingdom as an evolved trait in the same way we understand biological ones like the shape of a skull, the presence of a tail or a wing. Dawkins explains his idea of the extended phenotype by equating the structural variations in beaver dams with physical characteristics. He points to the arbitrariness of restricting the idea of the phenotype to apply only to the expression of an organism's genes in its own body. Why not also include cognitive abilities or environmental behaviors in the definition of phenotype? He asserts, “The beaver’s dam is as much an adaptation as the beaver’s tail.” If we try this idea on for size, then the implications are not only that individual beavers who help to make good dams are favored in evolutionary terms, but also that technological change is a plus for the whole species. “Dams are good for beaverdom, and more.” Well-constructed dams benefit the beaver collective as well as the other flora and fauna living around the pond. The rewards that accumulate when species and technology evolve together spill over to frogs and dragonflies as well. So perhaps there is a kind of Moore’s Law of dam building discussed at the lodge down the by the pond I passed.
When I try to apply Dawkins’ idea to Homo sapiens and their iPads, though, it seems tricky. To return to my larger theme of “progress” in human society, this example suggests that if we think biology and technology evolve together in animal species (of which we humans are a part), then technologically induced progress is indeed tied to an evolutionary reality. Making and using new and better stuff, then, just comes naturally, so why fight it? Just as beavers must gnaw down trees, we must social network? Working this out will no doubt require additional consultation with the rural countryside, and a deeper reading of Dawkins and his critics from my iPad.
About the Author: Gretchen Gano is a doctoral student in ASU’s Human and Social Dimensions of Science and Technology program.
