Guest guest Posted February 8, 2000 Report Share Posted February 8, 2000 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 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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