What a strange title for a first blog
in Darwinian Ascension. Or not? Obviously I want to stress just a
little bit more than that this is the beginning of a new blog. I
think "Genesis" contrasts well with "Darwinian
Ascension", well enough to give you an idea about what I will be
blogging. It will be about Evolution, but not as much about the
latest scientific findings than about what Evolution actually means,
It will deal about how it applies in non-biological matters such as
human society.
Dobzhansky was right, Nothing in
Biology makes sense except in the light of Evolution. Better to say:
Nothing makes sense except in the light of Evolution. Now that is a
statement, but I think it will hold. Beware: I do not claim
everything should make sense. Sometimes on a Friday night I drink too
much and spent my Saturday morning trying to get my head clear. How
do we explain this by Evolution? We don't because that really doesn't
make sense. But strangely enough for a large number of subjects, key
to understanding can be Evolution. But I am not that ignorant to fall
into the trap of parsimonious oversimplification of things that are
just there to enjoy, like a good bottle of wine that accompanies late
night star-watching. The basic idea that everything might or could be
explained by Evolution theory does always not mean we should.
Physics? Of course there are laws and
constants, but these work only in our Universe since..... no better
Universe is competing with it (at least not that I am aware of but
maybe we are losing the survival of the fittest Universe. Any
Physicist/Astronomer to comment on that? Carl Sagan might have....).
From a scientific point of view, the existence of this Universe is
explained by the weak anthropological principal: We are here so
apparently the combination of physical laws and constants did work
out to yield a Universe that contains life (as we know it!). But if
you put Evolution on top of that, it really starts to make sense.
Many alternative Universes might have existed that simply vanished
since they were not stable, they appeared not to be a "Physically
Stable Strategy", where of course I do refer to Maynard-Smith'
"Evolutionary Stable Strategies". We do not have a clue
about other putative universes in the multiverse, not in the past and
also not now. But thinking about Evolution as we understand it from
biology can very well help us understand other intriguing aspects.
Religion? Apparently this forms an
attractive meme, even given the knowledge that we have and which
shows what religion is. I guess we do not always reason rationally
and I wonder why is that? Fashion? Can we explain trends with
Evolution? Sure we can. Evolution can explain everything simply since
the principle is so simple, strong, obvious and undeniable. This does
not mean it is always easy to explain stuff. This is maybe the
pitfall of Evolution. The theory is so darn simple, why is it that
studying or working in Evolution is such a challenge? In short
because the functional constraints act on different levels, I will
get back to "functional constraint" in the very near future
since this is something were we can learn from Evolution in biology.
Memes and Genes. I could also have
called this blog Dawkinian Ascension. If Dawkins is the pit bull of
Darwin, I might be Dawkins pit bull. Dawkins best known work: "The
Selfish Gene" nicely describes memes. I will go into it in some
of my blogs later on, for now let's just call the meme the cultural
equivalent of the gene. So what do I mean with Darwinian Ascension? I
hope, believe or somewhere in between, that Homo sapiens
will in the end -or actually before it- be capable of really
ascending above the influence of his genes (which should show I am
not a greedy reductionist, Ha!). Meaning no religion, making rational
decisions that go against our genes, all to benefit the greater good.
What is the greater good? Well, we can talk about that can't we?
Gaia, -just a name, no Zen here- is one for sure. Example: For my
genes it would be really good if I would leave a lot of offspring. I
can afford it. Darwinian Ascension however requires me to say: No
more than two kiddos, better stick to one. Why? Because there are too
many human beings. But there is a conflict. Mormons and other
religious zealouts are breeding like mice. You wonder why? I do not,
because they, or at least their $piritual leader$, believe this is a
way to increment the % of Mormons. What a nice way to increment your
power. Yes, religion can be a danger to Gaia.
Let me be honest,
obviously I am atheist but moreover, I see religion as a real thread
to our world. That is another stark statement that I might explain a
bit. Religion puts humans of the real track. For the sake of the
argument: Imagine I am right, there is no God, Satan nor Heaven or
Hell. Then, what are we doing? We base ourselves and our morals, we
judge others all on the idea that we should behave such and such just
because...here you can fill in a number of options. What they all
have in common is that they are NOT based on reason ONLY. Always, one
moment or another, it will pop up. Yes, but the lord is merciful
(shame on the creature, why can't he be righteous?), but it is
written (by whom?), God told me (yeah but not to me so that is not a
reasonable argument, other people with imaginary friends are locked
up). Whatever. Religion has the function to take you away from the
life that you have, all because of the afterlife. That is why
churches do so well with the poor and why they are full during war
and other periods of misery. It takes you away from the life that you
can live, from responsibilities. All in duty of God, Allah, Yahweh,
Sheevah or whatever the non-existing super-being is called, at least
it is not you in the end. It can also explain why you are wealthy and
why he is poor. If this super-creature exists, he should be held
responsible for all his deeds. If he exists, he truly is Satan and I
dare him. God works in mysterious ways, son. Yeah right, why not say
that you also don't have a clue about life sometimes. But the blog is
not about atheism, it is just that I am an atheist and I hate
religion (yes not only the institution). Religion is the thing that
really screws up our lovely existence. I do realize that that might
be prejudice, now you know I know. I will write about religion but am open to
arguments, as long as they are not from a holy book. All this not
mean that everything religion puts forward is wrong, I just want to
point at the fact that principally there is something really wrong
with it.
Obviously
I will react on Discovery Institute and other IDiot excrements of
bovine, rather than divine, nature. That goes beyond my atheism, it
has to do with the main drive for writing this blog. Why do we need a
Deus ex machina to
understand things if there is a perfectly reasonable explanation? DI
and other IDiots say: "But you can't." Yes we can, maybe
not now but in the end we will, but keep it real yeah. Ask me
to explain why there are 11 or more different "designs" of
the eye -this proves Evolution and disproves ID- but don't ask me to explain every little advantage there was
at every step. So far Evolution theory has successfully shown that it
can explain it all. Now show me an example where Evolution cannot explain or better disprove one single aspect of Evolution..
The IDiot way of
"thinking" seriously affects the world. The mightiest power
in he world is still the US of A which is screwing the world because
of their poor education on the only thing that really matters:
Evolution. About half of the population of the USA believes in ID
rather than Evolution. Can you imagine how being an IDiot or an
Evolutionut -that would be me- changes your view of the world? Can
somebody explain to the US what Malthus' idea really is about? Darwin
understood, Marx did but the US?
The blog will be
on free will. Free will you will have when you accept that you are
responsible, and bloody no one else. That you can act not in name of
your genes but in name of memes that, in all good reason, appear to
you as the best memes and are therefore selected as your memes.
Are we capable of
ascending, ascending towards a higher level of existence, conscience?
I honestly do not know but find it worthwhile exploring. THE problem
is that at least in Biology Group Selection has never been shown, not
even by Edward O Wilson.
One last remark:
there are some spiritual blogs out there that are also based on/or
deal about Evolution, I ran into one recently. These are likely
rather different since they are spiritual in nature and typically
claim Evolution has a direction. Darwin is turning in its grave for
sure! Food for thought! Things to ponder and Blogs to counter!
Viva la Evolución
