خوانش ارسطويي از مفهوم شانس در نظريه تكامل داروين

An Aristotelian Reading of the Concept of Chance in Darwin's Theory of Evolution

شانس از جمله مباحثي است كه در ذيل بحث عليت مطرح مي‌شود و در آثار ارسطو و نظريه تكامل داروين از جايگاه ويژه‌اي برخوردار است. با بررسي دقيق مي‌توان دريافت كه معناي شانس از نظر داروين، همان معناي مورد پذيرش ارسطوست. شانس، مؤثرترين عامل تغيير و دگرگوني است كه باعث اصلاح و سازگاري و در نتيجه تكامل موجودات زنده است. انتخاب طبيعي قانوني است كه تصميم مي‌گيرد چه موجوداتي در نزاع براي بقاء زنده بمانند و به تكامل برسند. اينكه چگونه و چرا تغيير و دگرگوني ايجاد مي‌شود و علل طبيعي تنوع گسترده موجودات چيست، امري است كه براي داروين مجهول است. در حقيقت، ناآگاهي ما از اين علل و عوامل، شانس نام دارد. اين مقاله با روشي توصيفي - تحليلي بر آن است تا معناي شانس در ارسطو و داروين را مورد مداقه قرار دهد و جايگاه آن را در انتخاب طبيعي و تكامل روشن سازد.

Chance is one of the topics discussed under causality and has a special place in the works of Aristotle and Darwin's theory of evolution. A closer look reveals that the meaning of chance for Darwin is the same as the meaning accepted by Aristotle. According to Aristotle and Darwin, chance is the most effective factor of change and transformation that causes modification and adaptation and consequently the evolution of living beings. Natural selection is the law that decides which creatures survive and evolve in the struggle for survival. How and why change occurs and what are the natural causes of the vast diversity of organisms is something that is unknown to Darwin. In fact, our ignorance of these causes is called chance. This descriptive-analytical article seeks to examine the meaning of chance according to Aristotle and Darwin and to clarify its place in natural selection and evolution. Among the ancient philosophers, people such as Anaximander and Empedocles have studied theories of evolution. Empedocles believed that human beings first lived in fish body and only came ashore when they were able to take care of themselves. He considered a significant role for chance and said that living beings came into existence by chance and there is no necessary or ultimate cause for them. Most of the contemporary evolutionary biologists have followed Empedocles and deny any necessary or ultimate cause in the process of evolution. After him, Aristotle was another philosopher who spoke about chance and examined it in a teleological context. Darwin saw evolution as a product of chance and like Aristotle examined it in a teleological context. Aristotle gave the example of an architect who has to use stones thrown from a rock to construct a building. The architect, due to his ignorance of natural laws, considers the shape of each stone as the product of chance; but he consciously uses these stones for his own purposes. In the process of evolution, natural selection is like an architect for whom random genetic drifts and mutations are the materials from which he selects. The selection made by natural selection is purposeful and will be in the direction of survival and adaptation of the living organism to the environment. Therefore, the role of chance in the process of evolution that Aristotle believed in and that Darwin used in his theory is very important. Aristotle in his second book of Physics stated that chance is a kind of cause that gives rise to unusual events like finding a treasure while digging a hole for planting a tree and chance is an accidental cause. Darwin stated that chance has two meanings: the first one is probability and the second one is randomness and believed that the second meaning is in fact the same as the first one. But as a whole, chance is the cause of phenomena whose real cause has not been found yet and by the passage of time their real cause will be discovered.