Are there “cogent experimental grounds’ which support Teilhard’s optimistic vision of evolution?

Today’s Post

Over the past several weeks we have been looking into Teilhard’s optimistic assessment of the future of human evolution.  We have also seen how conventional wisdom, well harvested from the weedy fields of daily news, suggests a much more dystopian human future.

As we have applied Teilhard’s ‘lens of evolution’ to human history, despite writing in a time at which our future was anything but rosy, he managed a world view which was quite opposite from that prevalent at the time.  Having seen how his audaciously optimistic (and counter-intuitive) conclusions have been formed, we can now use the astonishing volumes of data available today to look into how they are being playing out in human evolution.

Last week we boiled down Teilhard’s observations and projections of the noosphere, into six characteristics that constitute the ‘structure of the noosphere’.

This week we will begin a survey of this noosphere as it appears today to see how contemporary objective data, Teilhard’s ‘cogent experimental grounds’, can be brought to bear on his insights.  As we will see, quantifiable data from reliable sources not only strongly substantiates his case for optimism it does so stronger today than at any time in the whole of human history.

Human Evolution Metrics

How do we go about quantifying human evolution?  One very relevant approach can be found in “Progress”, a book by Johan Norberg, which seeks to show:

“..the amazing accomplishments that resulted from the slow, steady, spontaneous development of millions of people who were given the freedom to improve their own lives, and in doing so improved the world.”

   In doing so he alludes to a causality quite consistent with Teilhard’s ‘energy of evolution’:

“It is a kind of progress that no leader or institution or government can impose from the top down.”

   Norberg doesn’t reference Teilhard or cite religious beliefs.  Instead, he refers to findings from public surveys, government data, international media and global institutions such as the World Health Organization, UNICEF, World Bank, UNESCO, OECD, and UNAIDS.

His approach is to parse the ‘metrics of human evolution’ into nine categories.  They are:

Food                                                      Sanitation

Life Expectancy                                 Poverty

Violence                                              The Environment

Literacy                                                Freedom

Equality

For each of these categories he provides, as the international news magazine The Economist notes, “a tornado of evidence” for the “slow, steady, spontaneous development” of the human species.  He compares these statistics across the planet, from Western societies, to near- and mid- Eastern Asia, to China and India, and to super-and sub-Saharan Africa.  And, to the extent possible, he extends trends from antiquity to the current day.

Norberg is well aware that his findings, all showing improvements in the areas of human life listed above, are profoundly contrary to conventional wisdom, and he acknowledges the human tendency toward pessimism.  He quotes Franklin Pierce Adams on one source of this skepticism:

“Nothing is more responsible for the good old days than a bad memory.”

   His prodigious statistics clearly, and to considerable depth, offer a look quite different from the nostalgic, sepia-tinged memories the ‘good old days’.

As Jeanette Walworth wrote:

“My grandpa notes the world’s worn cogs
And says we are going to the dogs!
…

The cave man in his queer skin togs
Said things were going to the dogs.
But this is what I wish to state
The dogs have had an awful wait.”

Seeing The Data Through Teilhard’s ‘Lens’

Over the next few weeks, we will address three of Norberg’s nine categories, summarize his key statistics, and show how they provide the ‘cogent experimental grounds’ that Teilhard saw as needed for us

“..to be quite certain ..that the sort of temporo-spatial dome into which (our) destiny is leading is not a blind alley where the earth’s life flow will shatter and stifle itself.”

  This objective and verifiable historical data will serve to put Teilhard’s highly optimistic vision of the future to the test.  Does the data show that we humans are continuing to evolve?  If so, in what ways, how quickly, and is the trend positive or negative?

This week we will take a simple example, one not listed by Norberg but simple enough to illustrate our process:  that of ‘fuel’

The Next Post

This week we began to address Teilhard’s need for ‘cogent experimental grounds’ that would support our recognition that human evolution is proceeding in human life.  We identified the statistics that Johan Norberg has assembled on the increase in human welfare as examples of these grounds.

Beginning next week we will provide examples of how such data can be seen to support Teilhard’s optimistic projections.