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Is Evolution Exponential?

When Charles Darwin first proposed writing his landmark book on evolution, The Origins of Species, his editor suggested writing a book on pigeons because, in his words, “Everyone is interested in pigeons.” Fortunately, Darwin chose to ignore the advice. I am reminded of the story because even though Darwin’s theory was proposing only that species make modest, incremental changes over long periods of time, it was—and in many circles still is—a revolutionary idea.

What then happens if evolution is not just incremental in nature but rather exponential? That, too, is a revolutionary idea—especially since it could impact us within our lifetimes.

Well, we are now approaching a time when this exponential theory of evolution will be put to the test.

If you accept the notion of evolution, you will agree that the earliest life appeared on earth approximately 4 billion years ago. Complex cellular organisms showed up 2 billion years ago, and the first multicellular organism about 1 billion years ago. The first reptiles and dinosaurs made their appearance 300 million years ago; the first primates 40 million years ago; homo sapiens appeared 160,000 years ago; Cro-Magnon man 40,000 years ago; and modern civilization as we know it began about 10,000 years ago.

Thinking about this much progress over such an extended period of time is difficult. Years ago, Carl Sagan, the famed astronomer, offered up a “cosmic calendar” to make such progress more comprehensible to the layperson. He asked that they imagine the entire history of the universe as being compressed into a single year.

Under this scenario the year would begin on January 1 with a bang—the Big Bang. Nothing much would then happen in our corner of the universe until about August when the sun would make its appearance. The earth itself wouldn’t show signs of any life until November—when the first multicellular organisms begin wiggling about. Dinosaurs show up around Christmas Eve. At 10:15 AM on December 31, apes would appear; humans would begin walking upright at 9:24 PM; modern civilization would appear at 11:59:20; Rome would fall at 11:59:57; and the Renaissance would occur just one second before midnight.

Rather amazingly, everything else—the printing press, the steam engine, electricity, the computer, the Internet, the human genome project, stem cell research, nanotechnology, etc—would be squeezed into the last second. From this perspective, I would argue that evolution can thus be seen as yet another exponential trend.

So what does it mean? If you accept the premise that each additional doubling of an exponential trend contains as much change as all the previous doublings combined, then it means that humans in our present form are not be the endpoint of humanity but merely a steppingstone to the next evolutionary stage.

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Jack Uldrich is a writer, futurist, public speaker and host of jumpthecurve.net. He is the author of seven books, including Jump the Curve and The Next Big Thing is Really Small: How Nanotechnology Will Change the Future of Your Business. He is also a frequent speaker on future technology and future trends, nanotechnology, innovation, change management and executive leadership to a variety of businesses, industries and non-profit organizations and trade associations.

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