Attenborough's 'theory' of evolution is nonsense

Once again Sir David Attenborough presents a mish-mash of scientific fact and fiction, to promote his ideas about the need to clamp down on population growth. In an interview with the Radio Times, he makes the astonishing claim that humans have stopped evolving.

"We stopped natural selection as soon as we started being able to rear 90-95% of our babies that are born. We are the only species to have put a halt to natural selection, of its own free will, as it were," he tells this week's edition.

"Stopping natural selection is not as important, or depressing, as it might sound – because our evolution is now cultural … We can inherit a knowledge of computers or television, electronics, aeroplanes and so on."

Scientifically speaking this is rubbish. Evolution is not about healthy babies, it is about genes. As evolutionists like Stephen Jay Gould explain, evolution is actually co-evolution. It results not from the strength of a gene, but from the interaction of any organism with its environment.

There are billions of genetic interactions - many more will die out after one two generations than go on to become established in whole populations. But for these interactions to continue, a rich and diverse environment is crucial. After the great extinction following the Cambrian era, 90% of species were wiped out and the evolutionary process moved at a snail’s pace for the next 15 million years.

Evolution is simply alert to the opportunity for adaptation; survival is a by-product, as Dr Ian Rickard explains in his critique of Attenborough's views.

Attenborough claims human cleverness will prevent us from becoming extinct. But that is not necessarily true. There is a fragility to life on earth, and it is entirely possible to reach tipping points where life is no longer sustainable. If the absolute power of capitalist-induced alienation is not ended, we humans can create an environment where we cannot live.

We will not be able to soldier on despite all our technology and cleverness. Some 99.6% of all the species of life that have ever existed on earth are now extinct, and we continue to eliminate more, in what is being called "the 6th mass extinction". We may end up without the genetic material to continue to evolve.

So what conclusions does Attenborough draw from his ideas? Shockingly, that the Chinese Communist Party's enforced one-child policy was probably, overall, a good thing. "There's no question it's produced all kinds of personal tragedies," he concedes, but adds: "On the other hand, the Chinese themselves recognise that had they not done so there would be several million more mouths in the world today than there are now."

Attenborough uses this argument to support his views about “sustainable consumption”. But there is no logic to this argument! During this period of forced implementation of the one-child policy, which held back the population, China actually made the world less sustainable. It became the largest emitter of greenhouse gases, the largest polluter.  

This population argument is just one more distraction from a recognition of the real cause of the greater ecological crisis – the global capitalist system with its drive for continuous growth. The phenomenal leap in greenhouse cases coincides precisely with the intense globalisation period that was launched 30 or so years ago.

Attenborough is saying we can carry on business as usual if we can only eliminate a few million "mouths". That is a dehumanising claim. It gives comfort to those who are insisting we must endure a period of "destructive capitalism" in order to overcome the current crisis.

While his TV programmes may be fairly illuminating at times, Attenborough’s views on population and evolution are very, very reactionary.

Penny Cole

Environment editor

Memo to Attenborough: Capitalism, not human beings, is the earth’s 'plague'

TV naturalist Sir David Attenborough’s programmes are usually fascinating and informative but when it comes to his views on population control, he is talking rubbish. Reactionary rubbish at that.

“Human beings are a plague on the earth,” Attenborough says in an interview with the Radio Times. If we don’t limit “the frightening explosion in human numbers, the natural world will do it for us”.

Attenborough (president of the Malthusian Optimum Population Trust) calls for urgent measures to cut population growth in developing countries: “We keep putting on programmes about famine in Ethiopia; that’s what’s happening. Too many people there. They can’t support themselves…”

But Ethiopia is actually a classic example of why this is absolute nonsense. If the calories grown in Ethiopia stayed in Ethiopia then there would be no problem feeding the whole population. But the government’s economic plan is dependent on forcing its own citizens off the land and handing it over to global agribusiness to grow crops for export.

Ethiopia has had a consistently high annual growth in GDP throughout the last two decades. In 2011, it was 7%, compared to an overall global growth rate of 3.9% in the same year, and most of this expansion is accounted for by agriculture.

The government has a 10-year plan to double the size of the economy, and this means doubling industrial agriculture and agricultural products such as refined sugar and leather. This is to be achieved by selling or leasing millions of acres of land to global agri-businesses.

The removal of a planned total of 1.5 million rural families to new "model" villages in four regions, including approximately 45,000 households in Gambella province, is well underway. Claims that people are going voluntarily and that jobs and services are waiting for them are a pack of lies.

One group of refugees from Gambella is taking legal action against the British Department for International Development. Britain is one of the biggest contributors to the Protection of Basic Services (PBS) programme which pays for corrupt officials and soldiers and infrastructure for the clearances.

The legal action, undertaken by British law firm Leigh Day, is being launched from the world’s biggest refugee camp at Dadaab in northern Kenya where Ethiopians fled after reaching the “model villages” to find there was nothing there.

The World Bank endorses the Ethiopian government’s desire to get people out of what it calls “overpopulated rural settings”, but it admits that in spite of all this recent growth “the absolute number of poor is almost the same as 15 years ago and a significant proportion of the population remains just above the poverty line and vulnerable to shocks”.

It is true that population of Ethiopia is growing at around 2.1% per year, but that rate of growth is slowing. The fertility rate, i.e. the average number of births per woman, is still relatively high at 5.7, but this is also slowing. The rate of births always increases when early deaths from wars, disease or famine increases. It slows when things are more stable but it takes time for that social change to take hold.

As more and more land is cleared of people or of trees and jungle, and subjected to the intensive farming practices of the global chemical corporations, so desertification and greenhouse gas emissions will continue to increase. Famine and hunger also rises, as we have seen.

If there was a fair distribution of food, care and support, health and education in Ethiopia and all the countries of the world, and if the people owned the land they farm, there would be no problem feeding people. This approach would also protect the eco-system because it would be sustainable.

People are not the problem, Sir David, global capitalism and its relentless drive for “growth” is. I hope you will be making a programme about that soon!

Penny Cole

Environment editor