I had hoped to post chapter 4 of the Quantum Biology series this morning. However, for all sorts of good reasons, we have decided to refine it before doing so, mainly because we see it as pretty fundamental to our economic arguments. So I offer a Quantum Essay instead, or at least one related to the Quantum series. It so happens it links fairly well with another post this morning.
Like others in the Quantum Essay series, this one arose from discussions between my wife, Jacqueline, and me.
Other essays in this series are noted at the end of this post.
What if Darwin was wrong? The case for the survival of the wisest
Darwin's theory of evolution is one of the most influential ideas in human history. But what if the story we have told about it is wrong, or, more precisely, incomplete?
The popular interpretation of Darwin's work suggests that the world is driven by the survival of the fittest. Yet what if it is really driven by the survival of the wisest, who are those who cooperate and not compete to adapt and endure?
For generations, the metaphor of the struggle for existence has been misused to justify greed, inequality, and ruthless competition. It has been embedded in economics as much as in biology. Markets, we are told, reward the strong, the clever, and the efficient. That assumption became the ideological backbone of neoliberalism. But biology, and increasingly, modern genetics, tells us that this story is not true.
Cooperation, not competition
Recent research into epigenetics* shows that what we inherit from our parents is not a fixed genetic destiny but a flexible system shaped by environment, stress, diet, and social context. The genome provides potential, but it definitely does not prescribe outcomes. In that sense, it mirrors society itself. We are each born into systems, whether economic, political, or cultural, that influence what we become, but those systems can change if we act collectively to change them.
Cooperation, therefore, is not a sentimental alternative to competition. It is the mechanism by which both life and society adapt. The most successful species and civilisations are those that share information, distribute resources, and protect one another from risk. Ant colonies, coral reefs, and even human cities depend on precisely this dynamic balance: diversity and interdependence, not dominance and exclusion.
Economics has ignored this lesson for far too long. Markets that reward only individual gain and punish cooperation are systems in decline. Like an organism trapped in an evolutionary dead end, such systems consume their environment until collapse becomes inevitable. Our current model of capitalism, with its fixation on profit, is such a system.
The economics of wisdom
If we replace “fitness” with “wisdom” as the measure of survival, everything changes. Wisdom is not about dominance. It is about awareness of self, of system, and of consequence. It is, in effect, the social and intellectual equivalent of epigenetic adaptation**. A wise society learns from feedback; it recognises that survival depends on maintaining the conditions that make life possible. An economy that exhausts its people and its planet is not wise. It is, in effect, democidal*** because such an economy can only exist with the consent of the government that chooses to let it operate.
In that light, the argument for cooperative economics, whether from public health to environmental stewardship, and to fair taxation, becomes not moral but biological. The systems that endure are those that self-regulate through care and reciprocity. In evolutionary terms, they are alive because they maintain low entropy: they keep order within complexity, using energy wisely to sustain themselves. When the drive for private accumulation replaces collective wellbeing, entropy increases, socially, economically, and ecologically.
This is not some vague metaphor. It is a real description of what we now face. Inequality, ecological collapse, and social fragmentation are all symptoms of a system that mistakes short-term strength for long-term survival. The market may reward the predator, but the ecosystem survives because of cooperation between its parts.
Rethinking destiny
What follows from this is clear. If genes do not fix our fate (and it now seems certain that they do not), neither does our economic inheritance. The DNA of neoliberalism, expressed as its belief in competition as virtue and greed as necessity, is not immutable. Like the human genome, an economy can be reprogrammed by epigenetic signals: our laws, institutions, and collective choices could lead us to abandon neoliberalism and make a better choice of economic architecture for our state, motivated by our desire for survival. In this sense, tax policy, social welfare, education, and environmental protection are the epigenetic regulators of society. They determine which traits, whether they be greed or generosity, exploitation or empathy, are expressed.
We therefore face a choice. Do we continue to build an economy designed for the fittest, which ultimately destroys the conditions for its own survival? Or do we choose to become an economy for the wisest, grounded in cooperation and care? The science of life itself now suggests that only the latter path is viable.
Darwin didn't get everything wrong, but those who interpreted him to justify competition certainly did. Evolution never meant a war of all against all. It meant adaptation to circumstance, and today that adaptation demands wisdom above all else. If we are to survive as a species, we must remember that cooperation is not weakness. It is the very essence of life.
Notes
* See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epigenetics
** Epigenetic adaptation is the process by which a population or organism becomes better suited to its environment through heritable changes in gene expression, rather than changes in the DNA sequence itself. These environmentally induced modifications, such as DNA methylation or histone modification, alter the accessibility of genes and can be passed down through cell division and across generations, providing a rapid, non-genetic way for organisms to respond to and adapt to fluctuating conditions.
*** Democide is a term coined by R. J. Rummel to mean the murder of any people by their government or state. It is an umbrella term that includes acts like genocide (mass murder of a specific group), politicide (murder of political opponents), and other forms of government-perpetrated killing and mass death, even if caused by neglect or criminal omission.
Other essays in this series:
- The Quantum Economics series (this link opens a tab with them all in it)
- The Quantum Essays: Observing and Engaging
- The Quantum Essays: Quantum MMT: The wave function of sovereign spending
- The Quantum Essays: Is equilibrium only possible in death?
- The Quantum essays: Economics, the Big Bang and Rachel Reeves
- The Quantum Essays: Quantum economics, discounting, and the cost of inaction
- The Quantum Essays: Schrödinger, entropy, equilibrium, and the lessons for society
- The Quantum Essays: The meaning of life, negentropy, and the politics of staying alive
- The Quantum Essays: Democracy as negentropy: why fascism is the politics of death
- The Quantum Essays: Where are the checks on entropy in the US system now?
- The Quantum Essays: Where are the checks on entropy in the UK system now?
- The Quantum Essays: The quantum difference between work and speculation
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IK suspect that like a lot of these things, firstly Darwin was trying to get a particular idea over so KISS Keep it Simple Stupid was at play, secondly he was looking at something he thought could be measured and viewed over history – evolution unlike social structures which are far more complex and we cant go back thousands of years to observe
I read Darwin used the phrase ‘survival of the fittest’ only twice.
But in the Descent of Man said, several times, that Humans evolved by co-operation.
Another biological analogy is that neo-liberalism is like a parasite which eventually kills the host. I owe this to Michael Hudson.
Evolutionary fitness doesn’t just mean the strongest or fastest and in no way excludes the wisest. It is, to a degree tautological; it means, in effect, able/fit enough to leave descendants.
It doesn’t exclude the stupid, the parasitic, or those with or without morals (a human construct often projected onto the rest of the natural world.
Arguments that Darwin was wrong are tedious and give succour to creationists. He wasn’t. Any biologist will confirm.
The arguments noted here have arisen precisely because quantum biologists do not accept Darwin was right. Not all biologists will confirm. Darwin was wrong. And I note you are so convinced of your argument you give no clue of your identity.
But ‘Known cladist’ is correct about ‘the survival of the fittest’ – it is tautological because ‘the fittest’ really just means ‘the fittest for survival’ – at least until reproductive age. It is interpretations of this idea that misread ‘fittest’ as ‘strongest’, ‘most competitive’, etc, that are wrong, not Darwin. I know of nothing in quantum biology that contradicts Darwin. What is true, I think, is that it is adding to understanding of processes within evolution, such as random mutation, just as the discovery of epigenetics (which is not really new now) added processes by which certain ‘acquired characteristics’ might be inherited. None of this makes Darwin ‘wrong’ – he was only ‘wrong’ in the sense that ALL science is wrong – all scientific conclusions are provisional.
I think we are in the realm of Marx was not a Marxist and Jesus was not a Christian territory here.
I think there is no doubt Darwin is interpreted as I suggest – and it has emphatically been so by those who used Galton’s variation on it to support eugenic ideas, which still survive and are implicit in neoliberal economics.
If Darwin did not agree it does not matter – the impact of what he said is what I suggest – and I am considering the metaphor in its common form and as interpreted for economics. I rest my case.
Darwin first book assembled evidence for species modifying as environments changed, a largely slow process given the knowledge of his day. It was others who emphasised supposedly savage competition, basically to justify Victorian white male imperialism. His second book dealt with sexual selection, a process operating on much shorter time scales. Assortative mating is the hypothesis that humans mate with those like themselves, so perhaps the wise seek the wise. Bregman amongst others provided evidence that cooperation is the basis for human survival. I suspect few think of the realities of small human groups, basically prey animals on their own, surviving some way down the predator chain. Cooperation and wise planning were our superpowers. To a large extent Darwins original theory underpins this as no amount of wisdom or cooperation can survive an asteroid strike, that takes luck or an unforseen advantage, hence the modern dinosaurs we all watch and photograph.
I would argue wisdo0m and cooperation did survive the Cambran extinction – mammals adapted and survived against all the odds even though their DNA might not have predicted it as it was beyond their experiencxe.
Nietzsche described Darwin’s theory as a will to survive. It is not about individuals will to have offspring. The human will to survive far out lives our ability to have children. Your evolutionary description does not explain this. Whereas Darwin did.
BUT, the belief that everyone gets from Darwin is that DNA determines our chances of survival and the whole point of what I am saying is that this is not true. DNA might matter, a bit, but the ability to adapt and innovate collectively might matter a great deal more than Darwin believed. Darwin over emphasised DNA, and the abilty of mammals against all the odds to survive the Cambrian extinction might be the evidence of that.
I’m glad you’ve written this. I’ve felt Darwin has been misused; watching our ape cousins shows a wide range of behaviour including cooperation, yet some humans cite him to justify utter ruthlessness, with regard to narrow economic goals, blind to the destruction (social, economic, environmental) that follow.
Work felt somewhat hierarchical when I started decades ago, but there wasn’t a feeling that we were in competition with everyone else at every moment, which is how things feel for many younger than me. I’d say things got better and more interesting for a bit, and then the tide turned. Dead-end jobs have been replaced by killer jobs, (warehouse workers in US who drowned due to not getting warning of a hurricane from their employers who took their phones from them). Low staffing levels and relentless pressure in our NHS. It’s not competition, it’s exploitation.
Anthropology is fascinating; sadly the modern world has affected or obliterated many cultures that were studied decades ago. Nurturing cultures still exist, but I think in our part of the world, there can be a contradiction between the culture of an individual family and the power hierarchy beyond the door (feudalism, low-regulation industry, neoliberalism). It’s sadly normal for children to get to an age when they discover a different culture, where the balance between individual and group endeavour is off. This is an important topic.
Thanks
Thinking about it a bit more…………
back when I joined Local Government in 1984 I used to get a paper from the Union, Nalgo New
They had a small section where they looked back in the archives
There were quite a few reports from WW2 of the ‘Herbert Bloggins, Under Filing Clerk at Toller Porcorum Rural District Council was today awarded a Gong after taking command of a lifeboat containing 60 women & children saved from the SS Rustbucket after it was torpedoed and then sailing 3000 miles to the coast of South America where they were picked up’ variety
Someone who studied cases like this discovered that it wasnt usually the skill of whoever was in command of the boat but the ability of those in it to work as a team that made the difference between survival and disaster
Correct
One thing I have learnt about over the years is the impurity of paradigms? They are really only reference points, taxonomies etc., because man likes to find things and evidence them and name them – particularly in the West.
But that is as far as it goes. Nothing exists in splendid isolation – paradigms included. I disagree with Darwin about the survival of the fittest etc.
It is just not through competition.
It is through experience and learning too – time – as well as being punctuated by eureka moments.
And survival is also through inter-dependency.
Also set by context – sometimes strengths can be weaknesses and other times weaknesses can be strengths.
I’ve always been attracted to a more Eastern view of the world which I would term as more holistic? Often I find the thinking from that hemisphere seems to be interested in the relationship and subtleties between paradigms – they are less absolutist?
But then again, they are not Christian in outlook are they? You know, wanting to convert you, less accommodating etc.
The job of life is to dely the onset of inevitable disorder, which is the equilibrium off death.
The only way we have to do that is through cooperation.
We cannot survive on our own. DNA does not determine outcomes then.
I completely agree with the summary of your argument, but would like to note that Darwin studied animals, who didn’t have the ability to create complex sociological structures. Survival of the fittest only means survival of those who are fit enough (in terms of surviving their environment) to live long enough to have offspring. For animals, which are usually individualistic, that might be speed, strength, lack of empathy or something like that, but for people, and animals who rely on communities, being highly individualistic might get you booted out of tribe – therefore no protection in numbers, no companions, and probably no breeding. Fitness in that case would be usefulness to the tribe, ability to corporate and inventiveness.
I’d say that Darwin’s thesis was pretty spot on, but it’s been completely misrepresented by others.
I’m really enjoying these quantum economics posts – they give a lot to think about! I’ve been thinking about the entropic cost of high and increasing inequality – could be a sign of a “stable” system on the verge of transitioning to a new stable state, much like a weather system tipping point. Needs more thought anyway.
Thank you.
Chapter 4 is mind bending.
We have spent most of today on it and know we are not there yet.
There was also some bird watching, curlew, late ruffs, a marsh harrier, cattle egret and the return of wigeon in large numbers were the highlights.
We aren’t what we think we are. We are in fact far more inter-dependent to make us “fit” or indeed “not fit” on a wide variety of living organisms (creatures) not just other human beings than Darwin ever envisaged. The now discredited pseudo-scientific theory of Social Darwinism really is for the birds!
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/330685498_The_Hologenome_Concept_of_Evolution_Medical_Implications
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6969442/
Given what I’ve just said it’s the survival of the wisest because clearly human beings try to eliminate those organisms that make us unfit or at least mitigate their attempts. Likewise we do the same with human systems and institutions that make the majority of us unfit. It’s called Reverse Dominance for short!
https://illuminem.com/illuminemvoices/the-power-to-resist-power-reclaiming-reverse-dominance-in-a-posthierarchical-world
Schoolboy error. You think “fittest” means best, when in evolution it really means best adapted to the environment.This is probably on page one of the simplest introductory text.
Politely, that is total nonsense. If he had meant that we would not have had his cousin promoting eugenics. Nor would Quentelle have developed the idea of the average person, and so the superior one – the fittest. Not would those promoting exclusion from gain (or wealth concentration in other words) have interpreted Darwin as justification – saying they are the fittest. You are, to be blunt, wrong.
I’ve been captivated by your recent series on quantum economics through the lens of quantum biology—it’s a bold and exhilarating fusion that feels like a much-needed jolt to the energetic corridors of economic theory. First off, I must compliment the sheer ingenuity of framing labour as indivisible quanta of human potential, much like discrete energy packets in quantum mechanics. This not only elevates the dignity of “real” work—be it caregiving or creating—over the ephemeral churn of speculation, but it also grounds abstract economic value in something palpably biological and human. It’s a perspective that resonates deeply with anyone who’s ever felt the soul-crushing weight of financialized markets. Secondly, your collaboration with Jacqueline shines through as a masterstroke, weaving her passion for quantum biology into a narrative that’s both accessible and profound. The way you trace the “circuit of value” and its pathologies—drawing parallels to biological feedback loops—illuminates how unchecked greed disrupts systemic coherence, much like a feverish cell throwing an organism into chaos. It’s not just zany; it’s poetic, offering a fresh vocabulary for critiquing inequality that could inspire policymakers and activists alike. That said, one gentle criticism: while the analogies to quantum phenomena like superposition and entanglement are evocative and thought-provoking, they occasionally risk stretching the physics a tad thin without deeper empirical anchors from biology. For instance, linking economic “uncoupling” directly to quantum decoherence feels intuitively right, but grounding it more explicitly in established quantum biological processes (e.g., coherence in photosynthesis or avian magnetoreception) might fortify the argument against sceptics who could dismiss it as mere metaphor. I’d love to see future instalments dive into those specifics—it would make this already revolutionary work even more unassailable. Keep pushing these boundaries, Richard; the world needs more thinkers willing to quantum-leap beyond the status quo
Thank you, and the crtitcism is accepted. We have been agonising on chapter 4 today becaise we realise we jave jumped the gun and this one is just not deep enough. We are delaying until we get the right balance of depth and narrative. Meanwhile, there might be an essay in just how hard it is to find that balance, out tomorrow. The ultimate answer is to do this as a book.
For a biologist like me, Darwin’s insights are the foundation of what biology is. A few years ago I finally got round to reading the original text of “On the Origin of Species” and was astounded. If you look beyond the unfamiliar style of nineteenth century scientific writing, Darwin actually made some remarkably specific predictions about the nature of inheritance implied by his theory of natural selection – which have been borne out by all the subsequent discoveries about its mechanism (you need to remember even simple genetics was unknown to Darwin, Mendel was stiill carrying out his experiments at the time the Origin was being written but even after publication it took decades before his findings were widely appreciated).
I think Darwin probably chose the word “fitness” quite carefully, as a concept that could be applied equally to single-celled organisms, to plants, or to any of the diverse members of the animal kingdom. A theory of evolution has to apply to all species, not just to the mammals and primates we as humans have a particular interest in.
However when it comes to hominins it is reasonable to speculate that “wisdom” was one of the main drivers of natural selection. Our factual knowledge of other hominins is largely from skeletal remains, but that suggests there were multiple species with the same key characteristics of upright gait and hands enabling complex manipulations, and it may have been something else that differentiated the different species. The way that certain of these species which had emerged in Africa could spread to such very different landscapes and climates without anatomical adaptation suggests working out how to deal with environments and sharing that knowledge was the key evolutionary feature, in other words “survival of the wisest” as you suggest. But in the wider biological context it will be a tiny special case of the concept of survival of the fittest.
Noted
But the point is this was about quantum economics where the term fittest has acquired a very specific use in neoliberal thinking in particular, essentially promoting eugenic logic as much much of right wing politics does, and that is why this was written. And France’s Galton was a Darwin.
I fear Galton’s successors would have little problem using “survival of the wisest” to justify a racist agenda.
They are driven by racism not the actual science.