Liberty

APPENDIX III

VARIATION AND CHANGE

THE PATTERNS found to exist in variation suggest that their presence has a purpose.

Without changes in the weather and other things, physical and chemical changes could not occur in the world. Except for variation among the chromosomes, offspring would all be identical with their parents and the form of life would remain unchanged over the ages.

The principle of change may be stated this way: There is no way to win a race without differences; there would, in fact, be no purpose in having a race in the first place except for the presence of differences to be tested.

Variation gives rise to change, in two ways:

1. Selection and discard

2. Combining

The process of selection can be illustrated by the stone-age man’s selection of a stone best suited, by size and other qualities, to the making of a weapon; or by the selection of stone for a building; or by the selection of a candidate for a job. An unselected item falls into discard, for that particular purpose. The wisdom of the selection affects the outcome. Without variation, change by selection and discard would be impossible.

The other method by which variation results in change is combination. Reproduction among living things, both sexual and asexual, is of this type. Combining non-living things by mixture or by compounding, as with chemicals, is another type. In any of these forms, variation in the “parentage” gives rise to change in the “offspring.” Without variation these changes could not occur.

Changes might further be classified as to whether or not choice, or the exercise of preference, guided by either instinct or intelligence, is involved. Variation in the weather, for instance, lacking anything like human choice as its cause, has given rise to events of transcendent importance like the glaciers and the seasons, erosion and typhoons. But the selection of a mate is quite a different matter, so far as the exercise of choice is concerned. Some of the biological processes seem to be in the pale between these two types, because we know so little about them.

Changes may be rapid or slow, dependent on many things. The more ruthless the process of discard under selection, the more rapid the change — either for better or worse.1 And likewise, the more divergent the items that are mixed or crossed by combination, the more rapid will be the expected change.

The “higher” the form of life or of non-life composition, the more complex its variation and the more rapid the expected change that follows from crossing two of them. As the complexity increases, the “offspring” become less and less predictable. In chemistry, for instance, combinations of the ninety-odd different basic elements can result in innumerable compounds; possible mixtures of different possible compounds, in turn, magnifies beyond our capacity for comprehension the number of possible results. It is similar for the complex living organisms, like persons, where differences combine in the biological process into innumerable and wide differences. That is why persons differ so widely in their capacity to do different things, to comprehend different things, or to contribute to progress.

Out of this change comes “progress.” And the greater the variation, the more rapid the progress can be. It makes no difference, so far as the opportunity for progress is concerned, whether the change is induced by the Unseen Hand of evolution, or by conscious choice as in the selection of a mate, or by learning from someone who is more informed, or by simply patterning one’s acts after those who know better how to do a thing.

The process of selection from among variation, by design and intelligent choice of persons, is an old and well-known source of progress. It is in this manner that better varieties of plants and animals have been selected to replace those less adapted, less resistant to disease and less efficient.

More recently variation has been induced by “cross breeding” and “induced mutation,” in order that more rarely outstanding new strains may be discovered and propagated. Most mutations are short-lived, self-destructive failures; but the rare and outstanding success becomes the parent of great improvement. The prize winning steer at the Livestock Show usually is the result of breeding for increased variation, in which manner a winner is more likely to be produced. Thus it is possible to speed up the process of change, compared with the “natural processes” and the “normal processes” of selection, but there is a correspondingly great danger in it.

1 Matter is not, of course, destructible; it only changes form. But it is the question of form about which we are speaking here — a certain species of form.