“Progress” by Aldous Huxley (1928)
atlasofplaces.com
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This is in fact not true; we've evolved the persistence of lactose metabolism into adulthood at least twice, and both times at least in the neolithic.
>If this be the case, then it is certain that no perceptible evolutionary changes in human nature can possibly have taken place within the few thousands years of which we know or can conjecture the history.
From my understanding, I believe Huxley is talking more about the ethical or moral characteristics of human nature. Greed, lust, selfishness, etc. rather than the physical makeup or allergies of humans.
Additionally, even if he had, it's the exception that's so minor it proves his point - while lactase persistence evolution is a really cool bit of trivia, it's also clearly a really, really minor contribution to "human nature". We don't regard peoples as significantly different today even when there are numerous measurable differences, after all - we regard stuff like that as fairly trivial, right?
Finally, apparently this most recently was an impactful evolutionary advantage 7500 years ago - but that could be consistent with his perception of the lack of changes to human nature within the few thousand years he knows.
However, as a critique of Huxley's piece, I don't it's really relevant. If you're talking about how progress is essentially purely cultural (as he claims), and not down to intrinsic biology, then cool bits of historical trivia aside, this just doesn't quite seem to cut it.
The context being stuff like...
> Beneath the shifting surface, human nature remained substantially the same.
Human culture clearly isn't so dramatically different in places where this did not evolve, and what differences there are are certainly down to many factors, of which lactase persistence is just one.
Also, consider that he says
> A man born in the twentieth century A.D. has no better chance of being congenitally intelligent and virtuous than one born in the twentieth century B.C.
or that
> Evolutionary progress of the species has not been perceptible within historical times and may, for all practical purposes of record of prophecy, be left out of account as non-existent. Uninheritable progress, due to tradition, has genuinely taken place in the realism of science and technology, where each worker stands on the shoulders of his predecessors.
...he's not disputing the dramatic impact of evolution per se; simply that on the time scale of cultural evolution, the genetic variety is so slow as to be largely irrelevant.
He also says a bunch of other stuff; but I think the observation that the literally incredible progress (I doubt anybody in e.g. ancient Rome might have foreseen the average life we live today) humans have made over the past few millenia is down to memes, not genes.
Genes are still important; but they don't explain progress.
It's curious that Huxley says that about the arts, and something entirely different about science
> Uninheritable progress, due to tradition, has genuinely taken place in the realism of science and technology, where each worker stands on the shoulders of his predecessors.
I'm sure that was a popular view 20 years before the implications of eugenics became unavoidably visible.
He is from a rich upper class family that believed it was their right to plan the world, and that there were too many of us then!
This category of elites didn't go away, or stop planning, or change their views. They just created better governance structures, eg the UN.
We are the carbon they want to decrease.
I googled around and found a couple of quotes from the book Eugenics, Race and Intelligence in Education:
"Returning to the theme of ‘eugenic utopias’, and moving on to the work of Aldous Huxley (1894–1963), it might at first seem that Huxley’s Brave New World does not really belong in this section, since it has become, together with George Orwell’s 1949 classic Nineteen Eighty-Four, one of the twin pillars of the anti-utopian tradition in English Literature and a ‘byword’ for all that is most repellent and ‘nightmarish’ in the world of the future. Yet it is not clear that Huxley himself viewed his vision of the world to come in quite that way." p 55
"In January 1932, shortly before the publication of Brave New World, Huxley gave a talk on BBC Radio in which he discussed the beneficial potential of eugenics as an instrument of political control, and expressed a readiness to sanction eugenic measures as a means of arresting ‘the rapid deterioration of the whole West European stock’. Yet in his 1946 Foreword to Brave New World, Huxley made no reference to the appeal which eugenics had held for him in the early 1930s." p 56
It sounds like he had a chequered relationship with the idea. He certainly thought it had dangerous potential if BNW is anything to go by.
My view is that BNW (like 1984 - Eton-educated Orwell/Blair was another, and HG Wells) had a particular role to play. BNW was put out there to acclimatise us to their idea of the future, so when it comes around we don't respond with revulsion, as we have somewhat accepted the idea. These books were 'the plan' (as understood back then) rather than a dystopian vision. They recognise that it is dystopian for us, providing those dystopian ideas ahead of time is part of that management so we don't respond in a threatening way.
Like farmers with their cattle, they have to manage the herd carefully, but, as unpleasant as it may be for them, still they have to manage things as they see fit. You can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs! You might even extend your cynicism to the present day, and wonder whether the current actions play a role in their planning. Hmm.
Aldous of course was a contributor to the Eschalen institute and other think tanks. His brother Julian founded Unesco.
I can't speak for the entire clan, but Darwin and his family were generally not eugenists and were instead strong abolitionists.
https://medium.com/science-and-philosophy/charles-darwin-on-...
Where as in say art because, arguably and to a point, it’s value is dependent on the culture of the time and cultures change it does not experience this sort of long term compounding. I believe, as I am not an artist or have much experience in that domain, the tools to make art can and have improved but not in the same way as say the jump from industrial revolution to semiconductor for example (maybe photoshop, illustrator, and the like are the exception for digital art).