The teleological fallacy and Animorphs: a ramble

[Ember Nickel]

Hey everyone! This is Ember Nickel (primeideal), longtime fan and occasional author of fanfic. A few months ago, I completed a long series reread of Animorphs*, jotting down things that caught my eye along the way. Starting around book 9 (and Megamorphs 1), I noticed a couple patterns of things I'd like to discuss further. Here, I'll be talking about more of the "science" side of "science fiction." So the intro-y stuff will be a biology refresher course, and then it'll be onto the fandom aspects! (Feel free to skim.)
 
For those of you who do know more about biology than me, I'm sorry if I've egregiously misrepresented any of the details. I'm also sorry if I'm quibbling about something that annoys me more than it annoys you, but I had to get this out there.

*the one on this very forum, in fact; those of you who were following along may remember what this is about.

Read all the ramble on Dreamwidth.

[RYTX]

Wow, long time no see.

Interesting essay, think you made most of your points, some of those lines definitely convey very common misunderstanding of selection (I won't use evolution, most of those instances could have been rendered less distasteful by referring selection than evolution in general, to me, but in common lexicon they are synonymous. Not in actually but...)

I'd say some of it was a touch nit picky, I never thought of Pemalites "fully evolved" as being some sort of pinnacle species, rather they are just old, and had a society so free of concern that they lost all aggression. From a biological sense, very unlikely, but really I think is just how things are written more than the underlying tone.
The shark brain thing: the fundamentals of survival, eat, live, breed. Obviously humans are good at that, but we characterize things like sharks as specialist in it, considering how much we do that is not, or indirect to those activities. For sharks it's most of what we know of them. And sharks feeding is engaging to watch.
And I actually made a response to the recapitulation thing in the thread for 11 some time ago. It wasn't good, and again KAA may have been conveying something that science does not but, again....

Really, I'm going to pretend I have any idea why she wrote this things as she did.
She is trying to convey something scientific theory doesn't, an existential reason of who we are and why we are here. Putting a teleological point on science for many is more satisfying then being told life is another set of chemical reactions. It is trying to infuse a purpose that, actually there or not the science doesn't address, but is more comforting to the observer to have reason and meaning in everything. And I think that's part of why this misconception of selection remains in so much of the public.

I'll be optimistic, and say she wasn't deliberately distorting theory, but that still carries the message that this topic needs to be addressed better in scientific education.

[Ember Nickel]

Definitely agreed it's nitpicky, heh! Just saw a pattern and had to run with it.

The Pemalites were certainly portrayed both as old and free of concern, both of which make sense--there's just nothing saying that these two traits had to go hand in hand. What was it, exactly, that made them so easygoing? I don't think that any species left to its own devices would necessarily work out that well, over the long run, so it's not the case of "more time -> fewer problems." Then what is it...? (Other than just "Ellimist magic.")

Re: "how much we do that is not, or indirect to those activities." Agreed that that is a difference--and I think from a human perspective, we normally feel lucky that we are able to think and play and do all these fun things that other animals don't really have a capacity for. So one motivation to write an animal-focused science fiction series is to say "hey, wait a minute, don't think we're so drastically 'better' than our fellow species just because of these things we can do"...but there's a risk of overshooting that.

Agreed on that last part, about trying to have purposes. Thanks for reading, and thanks again for organizing the rereads--this definitely wouldn't have happened without you.

[DinosaurNothlit]

Interesting point about the Pemalites, and how it doesn't really make sense that just because they're older they'd be wiser.  Never really thought about it that way, but yeah I'd definitely agree, that there's a KASU.

Heck, take a look at the Skrit Na, who have been around since before the frikkin' Ellimist even was.  By that metric, they ought to be paragons of sainthood (and then some), but no, they're still just going around stealing people's stuff. 

As for the rest of it . . . yeah, I do think your rant was kinda nitpicky.  Yes, it's true, KA tended to anthropomorphize evolution.  But I don't think that's a misunderstanding of science, so much as just what humans do.  We anthropomorphize frikkin' everything.  Hit your toe on a chair, and you yell at the chair, don't you?  It's not because you've misunderstood the science behind chairs and think they possess a sense of purpose.  It's just because humans want to see meaning behind every dumb little thing, so you ascribe malicious intent to the chair (at least on some subconscious level, probably not rationally).

This applies doubly so for authors, though.  When you read a book, you want there to be some kind of point or meaning to it, otherwise it's just a Shaggy Dog Story.  Granted that most of the stuff you mentioned does not drastically affect the plot.  But still, stories are easier and more entertaining to read when there's meaning behind everything, and it's not all just a bunch of random chance.  Inaccurate?  Maybe.  But there are worse inaccuracies that could be made, and for less benefit.

[Ember Nickel]

Thanks for reading, anyway! Good point about the Skrit Na, heh.

I guess I'm not convinced that the examples I cite--while petty--actually benefit us as readers that much. If your main goal in writing, say, a nonfiction book for young readers is to show off how cool animals are and how diverse the natural world is, then maybe you want to focus on impressive talents of animals. But it's the actual abilities themselves, rather than the process by which they come to be, that are sort of the point of those chapters, so it's hard to see how anything is benefited. Or, when narrating a story, yeah, you want little Chekhov's Guns to cohere and not just look random. But that's not what's quite going on here either, I don't think?

I should also probably remind myself I'm not the target audience anymore. 

[Aluminator (Kit)]

There are a lot of points being made here (about the Pemalites in particular) that I think fit well into the discussion on Andalite and Hork-Bajir evolution that the What Do You Think of the Andalites? thread quickly devolved into.

There is definitely a 'direction' that can be perceived when looking at evolution, if only after the fact. That is, the sum total of all evolutionary changes that have occurred thus far within a species or multiple species has led to what species exist today. Some creatures are objectively better-adapted for, say, running fast, or hunting, or whatever. I don't think there's anything wrong with KA's attempt to convey that particular message, though I agree with you that the way she chose to do it could lead to misconceptions. The language she uses definitely does imply design, with the modern day as an endpoint. I've never really thought about that before.

A lot of that, I think, is just that she placed the impact of the words at a higher priority than their scientific accuracy. Pointing out that a species has been evolving towards certain traits (say, being a predator) doesn't carry the same weight to the reader as the implication that this is a killing machine designed by millions of years of evolution. One is more literary, one is more scientific, and KA is a writer first.

*shrug* That's my best guess, anyway

As for the Pemalite thing- "fully evolved" could, in theory, mean that the race has advanced far enough technologically that natural selection is no longer a deciding issue for the survival of the species. Aggression (or submission) and competition must, by necessity, be traits evolved in any race, in order to survive in a natural environment. Once a race advances to a post-scarcity society, however, it's conceivable that those traits would no longer be valued, and would be bred out over time.

Granted, I think in the case of the Pemalites, we're just supposed to accept that "The Ellimist did it!"

[RYTX]

^But the thing is, it can't just be that they are no longer valued, they have to be disadvantages. Theory suggest you won't have species level effects by drift and mutation alone, selection would be the driver, and you don't breed out something if it's effects are more or less neutral: e.g. appendix.

I suppose my thoughts on the Pemalites was along the lines of the Perfect Pacifist People trope, with age and implicitly technology being enough to advance them to be this utopian like society. It's fantasy bs, and the skirt na are perfect examples that age doesn't need to change a thing, but in fiction it's a rule applied enough that my mind is not surprised by old race =wise, peaceful, benevolent race

If your main goal in writing, say, a nonfiction book for young readers is to show off how cool animals are and how diverse the natural world is, then maybe you want to focus on impressive talents of animals

I know KAA has said this was one of her main points, but I question how much, because we know for fact that it wasn't for long
From the get-go it was also a story about aliens, hope and quickly became a series about character development and the effects of war
With all that going on, the animals only ever struck me as a medium for enhancing the story, more than a purpose. Don't get me wrong, it was definitely one of my personal favorite aspects that she did focus on those talents (if it'd been all laser, I probably won't have fallen for the series) With all that going on, it's not surprising that things get lost.
None of that refutes your point about Animorphs mistaken portrayal of evolution, but I guess because i'm dumb, I want to protect her, inspite of the fact that yeah, she mucked up

[Ember Nickel]

If I remember correctly, it might just have been in terms of what order the ideas came in. First was kids turning into animals, and then "hold on, that's science fiction, so we need aliens." But in terms of actually advancing the plot, then yeah, probably aliens have to be extremely important haha!

Had not checked out the Andalites thread, thanks for the link! Impressive that it's still going after a year...