Is Russia interested in evolution?

Finalist of the "Educator" Alexander Markov – on science popularization and frustration in the Russian democracy

Radio Liberty continues a series of interviews with the finalists of the award in the field of scientific and popular literature "Illuminator" in 2015 (the first interview of the series read here, the second here).

This time the hero of the conversation was a biologist, head of the Department of biological evolution, biological faculty of Moscow state University Alexander Markov, is the author of several popular science bestsellers, one of which, the two volumes of "human Evolution" has been awarded "Educator" in 2011. In the new season on the prize nominated book, "Evolution. Classic ideas in light of new discoveries," written by Markov in collaboration with Elena Naimark. In an interview with Alexander Markov told about the revolutionary changes occurring in the theory of evolution, the implicit complexity of life, the enlightenment and the pessimism about the future of Russia.

– Your book is subtitled "the Classic ideas in light of new discoveries." How often in evolutionary biology there are new big discoveries? How the modern theory differs from the one proposed by Darwin?

– The third revolution, apparently, is connected with the human genome?

– Yes, the third great revolution that is happening before our eyes, is the genomic revolution. With effective and have so far not too expensive ways sequencing ("reading") genomes, and thus we had the opportunity to compare the full genetic information of different types, different individuals, and watch all the details like natural selection, which he leaves traces in the genome. This has opened up amazing new possibilities. Of course, besides these three important milestones was still a lot may be less than great, but also very significant discoveries, for example, the theory of neutral evolution, which originated in the 50-60-ies or the revival of the theory of sexual selection, which occurred just a few decades ago. In short, evolutionary biology has not frozen in the time of Darwin, it is rapidly developing and evolving.

– The genomic revolution – this is the first revolution in methods, tools.

– Yes, but she made a huge breakthrough in understanding. In biology, at least in the last hundred years, theoretical breakthroughs, as a rule, are connected with the emergence of new methods and tools, as well as, probably, it happens in astronomy. Comparative genomics revealed, for example, the ability to reconstruct the genome of the last common ancestor of all life, called the Last Universal Common Ancestor or LUCA just. Now we can tell a lot about what had genes from this organism and all he represents. The same applies to the last common ancestors of different major groups of living organisms. Before the advent of new methods we had only the most General, vague idea about how it is in the course of evolution there are new signs of how the complexity of the form and structure of organisms. Now we can decrypt the specific evolutionary changes and see what mutations in any genes they caused. We knew that man evolved under the action of natural selection, that we are from apes, our ancestors, became people because the selection was supported by some certain signs and not supported by others. Now, analyzing the genomes, we can according to certain traces that the selection of the leaves in the genome directly to see what genes are as varied in the course of anthropogenesis, and thus we get closer to the understanding of what made us human.

– But we are still not so well understand how the individual "letters" of the genome affect the specific characteristics of the organism.

– Indeed, expectations of genomics in this respect was somewhat overstated. Biologists thought that the path from genotype to phenotype is arranged as simple. As we now know, in fact, the path from genotype to phenotype, that is, from genes to traits, in most cases very difficult, tortuous. Long gone are the days of so-called "genetics sack of beans" when thought between genes and traits have-to-one correspondence. In fact, the vast majority of signs depend on many genes, and the vast majority of genes affected immediately by many signs, but still these influences intersect and affect each other: from A gene may depend on how the gene B affects the X. Plus there is the influence of the environment. The genotype determines the phenotype is not deterministic and probabilistic way. Well, the main problem is that genes don't affect the sign of the adult, and the path of its development, embryonic and later. In short, it is now clear that turns out not so simple as you want: there genomics, learned to read the genome and immediately realized how evolyutsioniruet phenotypes. No, just between genomes and phenotypes is now developing a new, promising and indispensable science of evolutionary developmental biology. She's just trying to deal with the intertwining paths of development that lies between genes and traits. In this area now done a lot of wonderful discoveries.

– Life again was harder than we expected. And it's also the result of evolution.

– Yes, a living cell is difficult, especially mammals, that bacteria is still a bit easier. Algorithms of life in the process of evolution are becoming smarter, and it just explains evolutionary developmental biology.

– Is complicated algorithms are not easily broken?

– Quite the contrary. Programmers try to write programs that have "idiot proof", able to respond adequately to an emergency situation, not even under the Creator. Any good program has a stabilizing mechanisms. And in biology. The development of the organism on the basis of written in the genes of the information initially quite stochasticity, as I said, it is influenced by many factors, including environment. And, it would seem, on the basis of the same genotype would have to be quite chaotic result. We are, incidentally, is observed in plants, one branch of lilac is the flowers with three, four and five petals, though they all have the same genetic program and the conditions of development is almost the same. Lilac but no matter how many petals on the flowers, this does not affect its fitness. But in many other cases, especially in animals, it is necessary that the signs turn out to be specific, clearly defined, and not some approximate ones. Accordingly, organisms with a more noise-resistant genetic development program receive a selective advantage. All the time there is a selection for the stabilization of the final phenotype, for the ability of the path of development in case of some deviation to return to where it is necessary. In particular, there are genetic regulators based on negative feedback. The algorithms of behavior of animal embryonic cells recorded in the genome are literally overflowing with such stabilizing contours. And it is quite difficult to break this system, you can cut down one, two, three key genes that seem to play a crucial role in development, but the phenotype still turns out to be normal. The growth of noise immunity is one of the laws of the evolutionary biology of development.

– But sometimes these numerous complex defense systems fail?Nature is far from perfect, evolution is not the Lord God

– Yes, the organism has many different subsystems, and their joint development requires some compromises. If we want to get a good trainable immune system that effectively attacks everything else, then inevitably in some situations this system will malfunction and attack its own, although evolution, figuratively speaking, has done everything possible to minimize this effect. Autoimmune diseases happen, and, by the way, they occur much more often in a modern civilized person than in a primitive hunter-gatherer. The system evolved in conditions of an abundance of all kinds of parasites, and when a modern citizen suddenly has no worms in the intestines for the first time in hundreds of millions of years of mammalian evolution, this is an abnormal situation for the immune system, and it begins to malfunction – allergies or some other autoimmune manifestations appear. What can you do, nature is far from perfect, evolution is not the Lord God.

– This is the third time you have been in the final of the Enlightener Award, first "The Birth of Complexity" got into the short list, in 2011 your two-volume "Human Evolution" won the competition and has since become one of the best–selling popular science books in Russia, and now the third book in a row is in the final - "Evolution. Classical ideas in the light of new discoveries", which you wrote together with Elena Naimark. How did it happen that you took up popular science literature, and even so successfully?– Actually, there is no secret.

A person tries to do something, looks at the reaction of others. People don't really like it – they try to act in a different way. I have been going through different types of creative activity for a long time and did not expect that I would do so well with popularization, and I did not take up it so early. Of course, I was engaged in science, biology, you can say, since childhood, but besides that I tried, for example, to write fiction - fiction. I didn't come to popularization right away. It all started with the website "Problems of Evolution", which I made for a not very significant reason: I saw that in our time, when biology has long proved everything, there are still creationists, and I decided to answer it somehow. The site was noticed, I was invited to Radio Liberty, where we began to make popular science programs with Alexander Sergeev, Alexander Kostinsky, Vladimir Gubaylovsky, Olga Orlova. Even earlier, my co–author, Elena Naimark, was called to Radio Liberty - she wrote some very good popular science articles. Then we started writing science news together for the Elements website. We had to read the leading scientific journals on biology every week, choose the most interesting articles in them, understand them in detail, learn to retell them. This led to a rapid expansion of horizons, before that we were relatively narrow specialists in our biological issues. And after a few years, I felt that so much material had accumulated in my head that I was ready to write a book – so it turned out "The Birth of Complexity". A few years later, Elena Naimark and I had enough material for "Human Evolution", and now for this, the third book.

– And each of them has been very successful.I can't write in any way much differently, explain differently, freely vary the level of material:

– The fact that "The Birth of Complexity" would have such success was a big surprise for me, but against the background of this success, it was already clear that "Human Evolution" could become a bestseller. But I didn't come up with any strategies, methods, formats specifically for this. Everyone writes how he breathes. I don't know how to write in a very different way, explain differently, freely vary the level of the material: This is what I say for colleagues, and this is for schoolchildren. In fact, I tell students and professors about the same thing. This is the level of explanation, popularization, which is convenient primarily for myself. And it turned out that he was understandable and liked by other people. I tell you how I can, who likes it, useful and interesting – let them listen and read, who does not like it – let them not listen and read. Right now I am teaching a course on the theory of evolution for fourth–year students at the Faculty of Biology of Moscow State University and, almost simultaneously, a course of open lectures "Introduction to Evolutionary Biology" at the ARHE scientific and educational center. So, I'm reading the same thing. By the way, about the same number of people come to lectures. Moreover, first I give a lecture at the ARCHE, I see what is worse, what is better, what to add, what to remove, and on this basis I prepare a lecture for students. I do not make any discounts that here are fourth–year biologists, and there is a general public.

– Do you feel that you have some kind of educational mission behind you?I do not know what will happen to the country, I have the worst premonitions, but there are a certain number of people here who like, need and benefit from what I write and tell

– No, to hell with the mission. I do this because I want to share it with people. I am able to do something good, and there are people who need it, are interested and who will buy it. Yes, I used to have thoughts about the mission, about the public benefit, that the country needs enlightenment, education. But in the last two years I have been very disappointed in these ideas. And now I don't believe that I can do anything for such global communities as the whole country, which, it seems to me, has gone somewhere completely wrong in the steppe. I'm not sure anyone needs my ideals here. I do not know what will happen to the country, I have the worst premonitions, but there are a certain number of people here, there may not be many of them, tens, hundreds of thousands, if I'm really optimistic, some first millions who like, need and benefit from what I write and tell. And for these people I am ready to work. But I am not an ascetic, not some Pavel Korchagin, there are still normal capitalist, market relations. If people buy what I do, then they need it. If people stop buying my books and going to lectures, I won't impose anything on them. If society does not want this element of culture, this knowledge, well, it is not necessary. I now have such a slightly immoral position in this regard.

– What exactly have you been disappointed in in the last two years? In Russia? In its inhabitants?– I was disappointed in the idea that it is possible to build a normal civilized society in this country.

If you look at what is happening in the Middle East, you can see that there are some countries that simply do not have such a development option as a normal civilizational society. There is either a mossy traditional monarchy with cabbage in its beard, or a dictator in a military jacket hanging his portraits on all buildings, or religious fanatics who chop off the heads of everyone who crosses himself with the wrong finger. Either a civil war, a massacre, a river of blood. And that's it, there are no other options – no democracy, no civilization can take root on this social basis. The Americans are trying to instill democracy there – and nothing works out for them, it only gets worse. Or maybe it's useless? Or maybe civilization and democracy simply do not live in our country?

– Is it possible to find some explanations for this, parallels from evolutionary biology?There is a possibility that a Western-style democratic, civilized society cannot develop in the Russian cultural environment

– Maybe vague. Complex social structures consist of many patterns of behavior of individuals who self-organize. The behavior of an individual depends on genes and upbringing. In modern human populations, the variability of behavior depends on culture much more than on genes. There are genetic differences, but they are very small. Let's say – I don't know how statistically reliable this is – let's assume that Italians are emotional and gesticulate a lot, while Germans are scrupulous and like order. These differences are not related to the genes of people, but to the cultural tradition of the countries where they grew up and live. Take a newborn Italian, settle him in Germany, he will grow up to be a normal German, and vice versa. It's a culture, it's not a gene, genes are not to blame. But this does not make it easier for us: the cultural environment has enormous inertia, it is difficult to change it, it will take a huge amount of time. In each cultural environment, its own phenotypes, psychology, and patterns of behavior grow. And there is a possibility – although, of course, there is no definite scientific theory for this – that a democratic, civilized Western-style society cannot develop in the Russian cultural environment.