Jason Silva posted an article on "The Daily Beast" in which he discussed the movies "Transcendence" and "Her" and in which he suggested that we live in an age in which the laws of Darwinian evolution no longer apply. I wrote the following comment, which I am reposting here:

Mr. Silva, you are so wrong to say that we are no longer in the grip of Darwinian evolution. Darwinian evolution is ALWAYS present. Since the advent of the steam engine and with increasing rapidity evolution has escaped the slow process of a genetic-based process that required mutations of a genome to produce new organisms, some of which survived because they were more fit. We humans have facilitated evolution and with the appearance of genetic and electronic engineering, we have accelerated the evolutionary process. Darwinian law still pertains. The 8-track and the Betamax were not fit enough to survive. More and more, market forces determine what survives and what doesn't. At the same time, we humans have created the next evolutionary advance, robots and other genera of the Kingdom of the Machineae. The machines are altering the environment in ways that select against humans -- pollution, carcinogens -- and select for machines. Just take a look at the autonomous robotic dogs of war for a terrifying example.


Our movies, which comprise the means by which our collective unconscious attempts to speak to us, are filled with dire warnings -- "Her," "Transcendence,"
"Terminator," "Transformers" -- of the struggle for survival that we are engaged in. Our movies also warn us about the failings that render us less fit to survive -- "Walking Dead," "Dawn of the Dead" -- suggest that our mindless commitment to stupidity -- anti-intellectualism, anti-science, fundamentalist christianity, and belief in unlimited growth and business enterprise -- is literally eating our brains and contributing to our certain extinction. We narcissistically named ourselves Homo sapiens, but we are demonstrably not sapient. We should be called Homo imprudens -- the species that could not see the consequences of its actions -- or Homo bardus, the species that was too stupid to do anything to stop its own extinction.

Star Man