Science / Spirituality

[Guest guest]

Anurag Goel <anurag

 

 

Jay I was thinking abt Darwin's theory of evolution.

 

Recently I attended a lecture on "Genes and Consciousness" back here and

the speaker said that one of the person has written a book which blasts

Darwin like anything. Person has instead proposed the idea of several

species being present at the same time rather then the evolution from a

single cell.

 

 

-------reply from jay---------

 

Some of the salient points in Darwin's theory

 

(1) We see an abundance of offspring in nature - in fact more than nature

can support.

 

(2) There is a slight random variation in the genetic makeup when species

evolve.

(when species pass on their inherited genes). This gives slight variation

within the same species.

 

(3) This slight variation gives an edge to some offspring and allows them to

survive while the rest die out.

 

This random variation in genetic makeup combined with suitability in

adopting to the outside environment are the two factors that decide how

evolution continues and has eventually produced mankind.

 

I agree with the theory in many respects but then the theory also throws up

questions like:-

 

(1) Why should I care for this process to continue? After all if we are all

merely chemicals bubbling away in this complex form. There is no "I" or

"you" - we are just a soup of chemicals. Why should we care if this carbon,

nitrogen etc. continue to dance or not to dance in a certain manner? Such

thinking process is also part of this evolution so let us stop the show!

 

(2) Why can a despot ruler (who is also part of this evolution process

anyway) not blow up the world? That would be one of the natural progression

of this evolution too.

 

More importantly the following question remains unanswered (as far as I

know).

 

(3) How come we are not able to produce life in a laboratory? We are unable

to produce even the most primitive form of bacteria by mixing chemicals and

using the most sophisticated technology available! That is intriguing.

 

 

Many parts of the theory are appealing -

but I suspect that it is incomplete in some major way.

 

jay