St. George Mivart (1817–1900), a fine British zoologist, tried to reconcile his unconventional views on religion and biology but ended his life in tragedy, rejected by both camps. At age seventeen, he abandoned his Anglican upbringing, became a Roman Catholic, and consequently (in a less tolerant age of state religion) lost his opportunity for training in natural history at Oxford or Cambridge. He became a lawyer but managed to carve out a distinguished career as an anatomist nonetheless. He embraced evolution and won firm support from the powerful T. H. Huxley, but his strongly expressed and idiosyncratic anti-Darwinian views led to his rejection by the biological establishment of Britain. He tried to unite his biology with his religion in a series of books and essays, and ended up excommunicated for his trouble six weeks before his death.
Cope and Mivart shared the same major criticism of Darwin—that natural selection could explain the preservation and increase of favored traits but not their origin. Mivart, however, went gunning for a higher target than Darwin’s epigram. He shot for the title itself, naming his major book (1871) On the Genesis of Species. (Darwin, of course, had called his classic On the Origin of Species.)
Mivart’s life may have ended in sadness and rejection thirty years later, but his Genesis of Species had a major impact in its time. Darwin himself offered strong, if grudging, praise and took Mivart far more seriously than any other critic, even adding a chapter to later editions of the Origin of Species primarily to counter Mivart’s attack.
Mivart gathered, and illustrated “with admirable art and force” (Darwin’s words), all objections to the theory of natural selection—“a formidable array” (Darwin’s words again). Yet one particular theme, urged with special attention by Mivart, stood out as the centerpiece of his criticism. This argument continues to rank as the primary stumbling block among thoughtful and friendly scrutinizers of Darwinism today. No other criticism seems so troubling, so obviously and evidently “right” (against a Darwinian claim that seems intuitively paradoxical and improbable).
Mivart awarded this argument a separate chapter in his book, right after the introduction. He also gave it a name, remembered ever since. He called his objection “The Incompetency of ‘Natural Selection’ to Account for the Incipient Stages of Useful Structures.” If this phrase sounds like a mouthful, consider the easy translation: We can readily understand how complex and fully developed structures work and how their maintenance and preservation may rely upon natural selection—a wing, an eye, the resemblance of a bittern to a branch or of an insect to a stick or dead leaf. But how do you get from nothing to such an elaborate something if evolution must proceed through a long sequence of intermediate stages, each favored by natural selection? You can’t fly with 2 percent of a wing or gain much protection from an iota’s similarity with a potentially concealing piece of vegetation. How, in other words, can natural selection explain the incipient stages of structures that can only be used in much more elaborated form?
I take up this old subject for two reasons. First, I believe that Darwinism has, and has long had, an adequate and interesting resolution to Mivart’s challenge (although we have obviously been mightily unsuccessful in getting it across). Second, a paper recently published in the technical journal Evolution has provided compelling experimental evidence for this resolution applied to its most famous case—the origin of wings.
The dilemma of wings—the standard illustration of Mivart’s telling point about incipient stages—is set forth particularly well in a perceptive letter that I recently received from a reader, a medical doctor in California. He writes:
How does evolutionary theory as understood by Darwin explain the emergence of items such as wings, since a small move toward a wing could hardly promote survival? I seem to be stuck with the idea that a significant quality of wing would have to spring forth all at once to have any survival value.
Interestingly, my reader’s proposal that much or most of the wing must arise all at once (because incipient stages could have no adaptive value) follows Mivart’s own resolution. Mivart first enunciated the general dilemma (1871, p. 23):
Natural selection utterly fails to account for the conservation and development of the minute and rudimentary beginnings, the slight and infinitesimal commencements of structures, however useful those structures may afterwards become.
After fifty pages of illustration, he concludes: “Arguments may yet be advanced in favor of the view that new species have from time to time manifested themselves with suddenness, and by modifications appearing at once.” Advocating this general solution for wings in particular, he concludes (p. 107): “It is difficult, then, to believe that the Avian limb was developed in any other way than by a comparatively sudden modification of a marked and important kind.”
Darwin’s theory is rooted in the proposition that natural selection acts as the primary creative force in evolutionary change. This creativity will be expressed only if the fortuitous variation forming the raw material of evolutionary change can be accumulated sequentially in tiny doses, with natural selection acting as the sieve of acceptance. If new species arise all at once in an occasional lucky gulp, then selection has no creative role. Selection, at best, becomes an executioner, eliminating the unfit following this burst of good fortune. Thus, Mivart’s solution—bypassing incipient stages entirely in a grand evolutionary leap—has always been viewed, quite rightly, as an anti-Darwinian version of evolutionary theory.
Darwin well appreciated the force, and potentially devastating extent, of Mivart’s critique about incipient stages. He counterattacked with gusto, invoking the standard example of wings and arguing that Mivart’s solution of sudden change presented more problems than it solved—for how can we believe that so complex a structure as a wing, made of so many coordinated and coadapted parts, could arise all at once:
He who believes that some ancient form was transformed suddenly through an internal force or tendency into, for instance, one furnished with wings, will be…compelled to believe that many structures beautifully adapted to all the other parts of the same creature and to the surrounding conditions, have been suddenly produced; and of such complex and wonderful co-adaptations, he will not be able to assign a shadow of an explanation…. To admit all this is, as it seems to me, to enter into the realms of miracle, and to leave those of Science.
(This essay must now go in other directions but not without a small, tangential word in Mivart’s defense. Mivart did appreciate the problem of complexity and coordination in sudden origins. He did not think that any old complex set of changes could arise all at once when needed—that would be tantamount to miracle. Most of Mivart’s book studies the regularities of embryology and comparative anatomy to learn which kinds of complex changes might be possible as expressions and elaborations of developmental programs already present in ancestors. He advocates these changes as possible and eliminates others as fanciful.)
Darwin then faced his dilemma and developed the interestingly paradoxical resolution that has been orthodox ever since (but more poorly understood and appreciated than any other principle in evolutionary theory). If complexity precludes sudden origin, and the dilemma of incipient stages forbids gradual development in functional continuity, then how can we ever get from here to there? Darwin replies that we must reject an unnecessary hidden assumption in this argument—the notion of functional continuity. We will all freely grant that no creature can fly with 2 percent of a wing, but why must the incipient stages be used for flight? If incipient stages originally performed a different function suited to their small size and minimal development, natural selection might superintend their increase as adaptations for this original role until they reached a stage suitable for their current use. In other words, the problem of incipient stages disappears because these early steps were not inadequate wings but well-adapted something-elses. This principle of functional change in structural continuity represents Darwin’s elegant solution to the dilemma of incipient stages.
Darwin, i
n a beau geste of argument, even thanked Mivart for characterizing the dilemma so well—all the better to grant Darwin a chance to elaborate his solution. Darwin writes: “A good opportunity has thus been afforded [by Mivart] for enlarging a little on gradations of structure, often associated with changed functions—an important subject, which was not treated at sufficient length in the former editions of this work.” Darwin, who rarely added intensifiers to his prose, felt so strongly about this principle of functional shift that he wrote: “In considering transitions of organs, it is so important to bear in mind the probability of conversion from one function to another.”
Darwin presented numerous examples in Chapters 5 and 7 of the final edition of the Origin of Species. He discussed organs that perform two functions, one primary, the other subsidiary, then relinquish the main use and elaborate the formerly inconspicuous operation. He then examined the flip side of this phenomenon—functions performed by two separate organs (fishes breathing with both lungs and gills). He argues that one organ may assume the entire function, leaving the other free for evolution to some other role (lungs for conversion to air bladders, for example, with respiration maintained entirely by gills). He does not, of course, neglect the classic example of wings, arguing that insects evolved their organs of flight from tracheae (or breathing organs—a minority theory today, but not without supporters). He writes: “It is therefore highly probable that in this great class organs which once served for respiration have been actually converted into organs of flight.”
Darwin’s critical theory of functional shift, usually (and most unfortunately) called the principle of “preadaptation,”* has been with us for a century. I believe that this principle has made so little headway not only because the basic formulation seems paradoxical and difficult, but mainly because we have so little firm, direct evidence for such functional shifts. Our technical literature contains many facile verbal arguments—little more than plausible “just-so” stories. The fossil record also presents some excellent examples of sequential development through intermediary stages that could not work as modern organs do—but we lack a rigorous mechanical analysis of function at the various stages.
Let us return, as we must, to the classic case of wings. Archaeopteryx, the first bird, is as pretty an intermediate as paleontology could ever hope to find—a complex mélange of reptilian and avian features. Scientists are still debating whether or not it could fly. If so, Archaeopteryx worked like the Wrights’ biplane to a modern eagle’s Concorde. But what did the undiscovered ancestors of Archaeopteryx do with wing rudiments that surely could not produce flight? Evolutionists have been invoking Darwin’s principle of functional shift for more than 100 years, and the list of proposals is long. Proto-wings have been reconstructed as stabilizers, sexual attractors, or insect catchers. But the most popular hypothesis identifies thermoregulation as the original function of incipient stages that later evolved into feathered wings. Feathers are modified reptilian scales, and they work very well as insulating devices. Moreover, if birds evolved from dinosaurs (as most paleontologists now believe), they arose from a lineage particularly subject to problems with temperature control. Archaeopteryx is smaller than any dinosaur and probably arose from the tiniest of dinosaur lineages. Small animals, with high ratios of surface area to volume, lose heat rapidly and may require supplementary devices for thermoregulation. Most dinosaurs could probably keep warm enough just by being large. Surface area (length × length, or length squared) increases more slowly than volume (length × length × length, or length cubed) as objects grow. Since animals generate heat over their volumes and lose it through their surfaces, small animals (with their relatively large surface areas) have most trouble keeping warm.
There I go again—doing what I just criticized. I have presented a plausible story about thermoregulation as the original function of organs that later evolved into wings. But science is tested evidence, not tall tales. This lamentable mode of storytelling has been used to illustrate Darwin’s principle of functional shift only faute de mieux—because we didn’t have the goods so ardently desired. At least until recently, when my colleagues Joel G. King-solver and M. A. R. Koehl published the first hard evidence to support a shift from thermoregulation to flight as a scenario for the evolution of wings. They studied insects, not birds—but the same argument has long been favored for nature’s smaller and far more abundant wings (see their article, “Aerodynamics, Thermoregulation, and the Evolution of Insect Wings: Differential Scaling and Evolutionary Change,” in Evolution, 1985).
In preparing this essay, I spent several days reading the classical literature on the evolution of insect flight—and emerged with a deeper understanding of just how difficult Darwin’s principle of functional shift can be, even for professionals. Most of the literature hasn’t even made the first step of applying functional shift at all, not to mention the later reform of substituting direct evidence for verbal speculation. Most reconstructions are still trying to explain the incipient stages of insect wings as somehow involved in airborne performance from the start—not for flapping flight, of course, but still for some aspect of motion aloft rather than, as Darwin’s principle would suggest, for some quite different function.
To appreciate the dilemma of such a position (so well grasped by Mivart more than 100 years ago), consider just one recent study (probably the best and most widely cited) and the logical quandaries that a claim of functional continuity entails. In 1964, J. W. Flower presented aerodynamic arguments for wings evolved from tiniest rudiment to elaborate final form in the interest of airborne motion. Flower argues, supporting an orthodox view, that wings evolved from tiny outgrowths of the body used for gliding prior to elaboration for sustained flight. But Flower recognizes that these incipient structures must themselves evolve from antecedents too small to function as gliding planes. What could these very first, slight outgrowths of the body be for? Ignoring Darwin’s principle of functional shift, Flower searches for an aerodynamic meaning even at this very outset. He tries to test two suggestions: E. H. Hinton’s argument that initial outgrowths served for “attitude control,” permitting a falling insect to land in a suitable position for quick escape from predators; and a proposal of the great British entomologist Sir Vincent Wigglesworth (wonderful name for an insect man, I always thought) that such first stages might act as stabilizing or controlling devices during takeoff in small, passively aerial insects.
Flower proceeded by performing aerodynamic calculations on consequences of incipient wings for simple body shapes when dropped—and he quickly argued himself into an inextricable logical corner. He found, first of all, that tiny outgrowths might help, as Wigglesworth, Hinton, and others had suggested. But the argument foundered on another observation: The same advantages could be gained far more easily and effectively by another, readily available alternative route—evolution to small size (where increased surface/volume ratios retard falling and enhance the probability of takeoff). Flower then realized that he would have to specify a reasonably large body size for incipient wings to have any aerodynamic effect. But he then encountered another problem: At such sizes, legs work just as well as, if not better than, proto-wings for any suggested aerodynamic function. Flower admitted:
The first conclusion to be drawn from these calculations is that the selective pressure in small insects is towards smaller insects, which would have no reason to evolve wings.
I would have stopped and searched elsewhere (in Darwin’s principle of functional shift) at this point, but Flower bravely continued along an improbable path:
The main conclusions, however, are that attitude control of insects would be by the use of legs or by very small changes in body shape [i.e., by evolving small outgrowths, or proto-wings].
Flower, in short, never considered an alternative to his assumption of functional continuity based upon some aspect of aerial locomotion. He concluded:
At first they [proto-wings] would affect attitude; later they could increase to a la
rger size and act as a true wing, providing lift in their own right. Eventually they could move, giving the insect greater maneuverability during descent, and finally they could “flap,” achieving sustained flight.
As an alternative to such speculative reconstructions that work, in their own terms, only by uncomfortable special pleading, may I suggest Darwin’s old principle of functional shift (preadaptation—ugh—for something else).
The physiological literature contains voluminous testimony to the thermodynamic efficiency of modern insect wings: in presenting, for example, a large surface area to the sun for quick heating (see B. Heinrich, 1981). If wings can perform this subsidiary function now, why not suspect thermoregulation as a primary role at the outset? M. M. Douglas (1981), for example, showed that, in Colias butterflies, only the basal one-third of the wing operates in thermoregulation—an area approximately equal to the thoracic lobes (proto-wings) of fossil insects considered ancestral to modern forms.
Douglas then cut down some Colias wings to the actual size of these fossil ancestral lobes and found that insects so bedecked showed a 55 percent greater increase in body temperature than bodies deprived of wings entirely. These manufactured proto-wings measured 5 by 3 millimeters on a body 15 millimeters long. Finally, Douglas determined that no further thermoregulatory advantage could be gained by wings longer than 10 millimeters on a 15-millimeter body.
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