Resisting the New Evolutionism

The convergence between biology and computer science has not just produced new scientific disciplines such as artificial life, a development, according to some theoriests, of artificial intelligence. It has also produced (and been produced by) a widespread biologization of culture and technology that is exemplified by the attribution of evolutionary mechanisms and metaphors to the human mind and its supposed analogue, the computer and, more specifically, the Internet. Evolution is one of a number of properties of biological systems (alongside self-organization, selfreplication, autonomy and emergence) that has been used to describe the development of the Internet, which is now said to be evolving (spontaneously) into the global brain. What are the ethical implications of naturalizing and therefore dehistoricizing the development of the Internet and other techno-cultural artefacts, and how can we understand this phenomenon? Kember shows how it can only be understood in the context of the convergence between biology and computer science and in relation to disciplines such as artificial life and evolutionary psychology that, in different disguises, initiate a return to sociobiology. Feminism is perhaps in the best and the worst position to engage both critically and constructively with current trends towards evolutionism and sociobiology. The critique was developed in the 1970s but cannot simply be rehearsed because its object has transmuted and effectively assimilated it in a reduced and caricatured form. The rehearsal of feminist arguments is, on its own, futile and a more extensive and nuanced engagement with evolutionary and biological theory is necessary. Ironically, feminists may need to take their lead from internal critiques within biology and come to know the 'enemy' from within.

Keywords:

• Artificial Life
• Biology
• Determinism
• Dialogue
• Ethics
• Evolution
• Evolutionary Psychology
• Feminism
• Internet
• Reductionism