There really is something deeply wrong… and I am not convinced that what is wrong is a

necessary tribulation about which nothing can be done.

A sort of freedom comes from what is necessarily so. After that is recognized, comes a
knowledge of how to act. You can ride a bicycle only after your partly unconscious reflexes
acknowledge the laws of its moving equilibrium.

I must now ask you to do some thinking more technical and more theoretical than is usually
demanded of general boards in their perception of their own place in history. I see no
reason why the regents of a great university should share in the anti-intellectual preferences
of the press or media. Indeed to force these preferences upon them would be insulting.

I therefore propose to analyze the lopsided process called "obsolescence" which we might
more precisely call "one-sided progress". Clearly for obsolescence to occur there must be,
in other parts of the system, other changes compared with which the obsolete is somehow
lagging or left behind. In a static system, there would be no obsolescence!

It seems that there are two components in evolutionary process, and that mental process
similarly has a double structure. Let me use biological evolution as a parable or paradigm to
introduce what I want to say later about thought, cultural change and education.

Survival* depends upon two contrasting phenomena or processes, two ways of achieving
adaptive action. Evolution must always, Janus-like, face in two directions: inward towards
the developmental regularities and physiology of the living creature and outward towards
the vagaries and demands of the environment. These two necessary components of life
contrast in interesting ways: the inner development -the embryology or "epigenesis"- is
conservative and demands that every new thing shall conform or be compatible with the
regularities of the status quo ante. If we think of a natural selection of new features of
anatomy or physiology -then it is clear that one side of this selection process will favor
those new items which do not upset the old apple cart. This is minimal necessary
conservatism.

In contrast, the outside world is perpetually changing and becoming ready to receive
creatures which have undergone change, almost insisting upon change. No animal or plant
can ever be "ready made". The internal recipe insists upon compatibility but is never
sufficient for the development and life of the organism. Always the creature itself must
achieve change of its own body. It must acquire certain somatic characteristics by use, by

*
By survival, I mean the maintenance of a steady state through successive generations. Or, in negative terms,
I mean the avoidance of the death of the largest system about which we can care. Extinction of the dinosaurs
was trivial in galactic terms but this is no comfort to them. We cannot care much l of systems larger than our
own ecology.
disuse, by habit, by hardship, and by nurture. These "acquired characteristics" must,
however, never be passed on to the offspring. They must not be directly incorporated into
the DNA. In organisational terms, the injunction -e.g., to make babies with strong shoulders
who will work better in coal mines- must be transmitted through channels, and the channel
in this case is via natural external selection of those offspring who happen (thanks to the
random shuffling of genes and random creation of mutations) to have a greater propensity
for developing stronger shoulders under the stress of working in coal mines.

The individual body undergoes adaptive change under external pressure, but natural
selection acts upon the gene pool of the population. But note this principle which biologists
commonly overlook, that it is an acquired characteristic called "working in coal mines"
which sets the context for the selection of the genetic changes called "increased propensity
for developing stronger shoulders". The acquired characteristics do not become
unimportant by not being carried in and passed on by DNA. It is still habits which set the
conditions for natural selection.

And note this converse principle that the acquisition of bad habits, at a social level, surely
sets the context for selection of ultimately lethal genetic propensities.

We are now ready to look at obsolescence in mental and cultural processes.

If you want to understand mental process, look at biological evolution and conversely if
you want to understand biological evolution, go look at mental process.