Challenging Evolution

What if our current view of human history which Darwin's theory of evolution propagated is fundamentally flawed?

As we head into a time in which we are faced with more technology than wisdom to know what to do with it - where on the horizon is bioenhancement, extended life span, machine-mind interfaces and much much more, where we are starting to run into the idea of "accelarated evolution", I believe it important that we take a look at our current view of human evolution and its history.

At the moment, the overwhelming majority of scientists (but not all), and especially laymen, follow the view of evolution first put forth by Darwin and furthered by many scientists and discoveries since. It is the preeminent theory of human origins, and has had many effects on our current world model.

You can see the effects of Evolution everywhere. Just today I saw an ad in which a human regresses all the way into a reptile. It's very deeply ingrained in western culture. Kids grow up seeing it used in so many different contexts, to explain so many different processes besides human evolution. It's used in culture, business, economics, social networks – it can be applied to any system, and very often, is.

Lets take a look at what effects the theory of evolution has had on our current world model.

First of all, the theory of evolution gave science its real stronghold in the models of belief of the western world.

An atheist before Darwin could have said, following Hume: "I have no explanation for complex biological design. All I know is that God isn't a good explanation, so we must wait and hope that somebody comes up with a better one." I can't help feeling that such a position, though logically sound, would have left one feeling pretty unsatisfied, and that although atheism might have been logically tenable before Darwin, Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist.
— Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker, page 6

Not just applying to athiests, it put forth a viable, realistic, and most of all, imaginable explanation of human origins, which has also been adopted by religious institutions today. Even the Royal Church of England recently issued a posthumous "apology" to Darwin for condemning his ideas during his lifetime.

What the theory of evolution did, to start with, was challenge the reigning King of human knowledge during recorded history, Religion.

In my opinion, the challenging of western religion was necessary. Western religion in whatever way did not satisfy a large percentage of the population (it still doesn't). Western religion had grown throughout the centuries into a lumbering behemoth, a ship sailing the seas that had been patched and repatched (but still leaks, there is a crew always manning the bails), with many good, but many bad captains who steered them into wars and took advantage of their charge.

But this is not something that's regulated to religion alone. It applies to any institution, whether we look at a religious institution, or a political one - many that start out with good intentions turn bad.

Science and the promotion of the Rational, at this time, was all good intentions. Let us not rely on half-witted explanations about the world that don't make much sense, but let us rely on Scientific Theory and the inexorable FACT.

But institutions, once headed on their way, resist a change in momentum.

In the 20th century, science has taken hold as a new religion. Not that the two are incompatible - far from it. but so much trust is placed in Science that, many times, it is considered heresy to go against commonly-held beliefs.

And it is, in many cases and from conversations I have had with people, almost heresy not to believe in Evolution.

It's hard to argue the idea of evolution. We are always evolving - from birth to death, physically and emotionally. Our bodies evolve, our minds evolve - the entire universe is in a constant state of change. Nor do I disagree with the idea of natural selection - these things have stuck with us precisely because they make so much sense because we see them all around us all the time.

I do not find fault with these ideas. What I am interested in exploring is the effect that Darwinism, Neo-Darwinism and the idea that humans evolved from primates has had on how we view our species.

So let's leave aside personal attacks on Darwin (don't kill the messenger) and concentrate on the effects that his ideas have created.

Eugenics

Evolution gave rise to the idea that people could manifest their own 'natural selection.'



In short, eugenics is a social philosophy which advocates the improvement of human hereditary traits through various forms of intervention.[2] Throughout history, eugenics has been regarded by its various advocates as a social responsibility, an altruistic stance of a society, meant to create healthier, stronger and/or more intelligent people, to save resources, and lessen human suffering. (from wikipedia)

Before WWII, it spawned the ideas of compulsory sterilization, and became a widespread concept finding homes (and over a hundred thousand compulsorily sterilized people) in Japan, Cyprus, Sweden, England, and the United States.

Eugenics is most often related to the Nazis and the idea of "purifying" the undesirables and creating a Super-race of Aryans. After WWII and the genocide, many disassociated themselves from the concept of Eugenics, because Hitler had related his ethnic cleansing to it.

Now we're about to hit a whole new level of Eugenics. Another link to the Great Enhancement Debate.

Nor does it end with Hitler. Marx, Lenin, and Stalin also cited Darwinism as proof of their ideologies:

"On Lenin’s desk in the Kremlin there stood, for most of the years he worked there, a strange bronze statue of an ape gazing with an expression of profound bewilderment and dismay at an oversize human skull… It was the only piece of sculpture on the desk, the first thing that met the eye; and whenever Lenin looked up from his desk to gaze at the very large photograph of Karl Marx, he would inevitably see the ape…

For a Russian intellectual to dispute Darwinism or any other acceptable scientific theory was to commit a heresy"

“the Life and Death of Lenin,” by, Robert Payne

…After reading Darwin’s Origin of Species, Marx dashed a note to Engels, saying, ‘This is the book which contains the basis in natural history for our views.’

Ann Coulter

The Rise of the Rational and the fall of the Subjective Experience

I'll venture out onto a limb and say that once a viable explanation of human origins was created, a paradigm shift in thinking started, and the scientific western civilization began to believe that it would be able to try to explain everything using scientific theory. And began to believe, in fact, that science should be trusted more than our own experience.

Even today, we hear, be rational. Did you see something unreal? Be rational. It couldn't be real. Those don't exist. Are you sure you saw it? You aren't fooling yourself? You know the mind is a tricky thing. Many trust what is told to them so much that even if they see something that completely contradicts what they are told, they will explain it away to themselves because it can't possibly be true.

Take Synesthesia. It's an emotional experience. Some research was done on it during the 1910s and 1920s, during the same time as Color Organs and Orchestras were in vogue. Much “synaesthetic” artwork (that made by non-synaesthetes) and poetry was made during this time. But then Behaviorism took hold, along with Freud - and started trying to explain emotions rationally as manifestations of the subconscious - again based on the idea that we are creatures that have developed a certain way and therefore can be predicted in some way or another. There was no further research done on synesthesia until the 1980s.

Then, in the early 1980s, when Dr. Cytowic monitored the brain waves of his friend and first subject of study with synesthesia, they were able to confirm that brain activity was taking place during the synesthetic experience in that particular part of the brain.

His subject was deeply relieved that the machine proved his experience real. It wasn't enough that he knew he was really experienced what he was - he trusted science more than his personal experience, enough that if the machine had not verified his experience, he would have believed that he was actually crazy.

What's the message here? You can't trust yourself. Trust science. Trust fact. You can't trust what you feel.


Man Evolved from Apes



Much of the western world went from "Man descended from the heavens" to "Man evolved from Apes" in 50 years. To me, that's a pretty big change in the way of thinking. On one hand you've got this celestial idea of Man, and on the other, you have this bestial, primal idea, which has shaped to a certain extent what opinions western civilization has formulated about the relationship between man and animal.

Well, knowing that made it much easier for people to say, well, this is it, we evolved from animals and we're not much better than a step above them. What makes us so different? Andrew Carnegie and Rockefeller were proponents of Darwinism as well - this ruthless "survival of the fittest" in daily life, capitalism, and war.

It also put a timetable on human history.

According to Darwinists, the first undisputed fossil evidence for life on earth goes back about 2 billion years. They say the first apes and monkeys appeared about 40-50 million years ago. The first ape-men (called Australopithecus) appeared about 4 million years ago. These were followed by other apemen called Homo habilis, Homo erectus, and Neanderthal man. The first human beings of modern type (Homo sapiens sapiens) appeared only 100,000 or 200,000 years ago. Civilization, according to modern scientists, is less than 10,000 years old.

Michael Cremo

The ability to explain away human origins simply and understandably produced a great change in the past 100 years and gave western civilization and science the ability to change Man from a mystical creature to an evolved beast - science has proceeded much along this path in explaining away so called 'mystical experiences', but not just those - anything that science can't explain has been able to be put under these pretenses.

Now is the time where I do here proclaim I am of sound mind, body, and reason - am not a conspiracy theory propagator - so journey down this path with me and explore openly with me.

The proof for the current view of human history is not as strong as we've been taught it is. Much is based off of conjecture, unreliable dating methods, and of course, that lumbering behemoth that is institution.

In Michael Cremo's book Forbidden Archaeology, he documents a vast amount of anamolous scientific evidence and archaeological finds that points to the idea that humans have coexisted with the Homo Erectus, Homo Habilis, Neanderthals, all the earliest humanoids, and declares that Homo Sapiens Sapiens have existed upon earth far longer than the theory of Evolution supposes.

Over the last 150 years, there has been a systematic discreditation of evidence that does not fit in with the evolutionary theory - scientists have been blacklisted, evidence hidden, samples have disappeared from collections, systematically put down as frauds, but most often ignored until they fade into obscurity.

He also takes a look at the evidence that is cited to support the theory of Evolution. Much evidence that the Evolutionary Theory RELIES on has undergone little to no real scientific skepticism - dating methods have been tried and retried until the desired age was found. There is a double standard involved in how the evidence and samples are treated.

The archaeological community balked at the book. It went so far that Michael Cremo wrote another book, called Forbidden Archaeology's Impact, which is documentation of all the letters, reviews, and correspondance that Michael Cremo had as a response to Forbidden Archaeology.

If you go on Amazon.com, you'll see many comments calling him a crackpot, a creationist, a member of a Vedic Institution trying to push its ideology.

Or, if you have an open mind, you'll recognize when a challenge is brought to the table, won't dismiss it off-hand and will give it the scrutiny it deserves, according to the scientific process.

Many would say, why would the archaeological and anthropological community be against the finding of evidence that does not support Evolution?

Galaleio was considered a heretic. Darwin was considered a heretic. An institution resists change. Pride is at stake. Professional reputation is at stake. I won't go into the depths of Forbidden Archaeology here (if you're interested you can find it and read it on your own), but it suffices to say that IF ONE OF THE PIECES OF EVIDENCE is real, then the entire modern view of human history needs to be rethought - textbooks need to be rewritten - and humankind will need to consider other alternatives to our view of human origins.

I, for one, think this should come now, at the time where we are heading towards an advanced evolution or (d)evolution which is in our hands.

As in Wildcat's post on Richard Dawkins speech (for those of you who don't know – Dawkins is one of the foremost proponents of Darwin's theory and often referred to as a neo-darwinist) – we will never be able to understand the world fully, because of the middle-sized universe in which we inhabit limits us from understanding the full universe. Or, said more eloquently,

Perfect knowledge cannot be received with imperfect senses. Only through perfect senses can perfect knowledge be received.
- S. P.

We don't have perfect senses (and in my opinion never will, in this existence), but we are starting to expanding those senses that we do have – and more of our surroundings are becoming understandable. But there is a caveat:

The problem arises when these theories and hypotheses become mental constructs— it is a short hop in the collective consciousness from "the theory supported by the most scientists" to "scientific fact". New data that falls outside these constructs (that is, data which "flies in the face of accepted scientific wisdom!") are assumed to be anomolous, and are tossed aside; data that supports, fits the constructs is sought out and embraced.
Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes often described his detection method as scrupulously collecting facts, while AVOIDING the formation of theories. Keep collecting facts— without the blind spots imposed by hypotheses— until you have ruled out all possibilities but one. That remaining possibility, no matter how improbable, is the one true possibility.

- Anonymous Comment, Review of Forbidden Archaeology's Impact

I don't care for the one true possibility, nor am I particularly striving to find it – what I am most interested in is staying away from the creation of these “blind spots”. These blind spots are what do the damage – they are those which create misunderstanding, ignorance, arrogance, and ideologies which are not driven by the desire to understand more but by the wish to uphold (I)deals – I deals - ideals (however flawed) by sacrificing possibly beneficial change.

So far we have just been talking about physical evolution – but what about mental evolution? Cultural evolution? You could say that we are no better, or perhaps even worse, than our predecessors – we still cheat, lie, steal, kill, and commit a futher host of injustices. We waste our time passively, watching silly videos and keeping up with localized and blown-out of proportion dramas, La Societe du Spectacle - whereas we could use that time for positive action, if the will was there. Whereas 1000 years ago we lived in relative harmony with our environment (by meaning not doing lasting damage to the world), now, we are well on our way to destroying it (but, trying to save it, like a high school student cramming before a final exam).

I propose a segregation and differentiation of the Theory of Evolution as just that, a theory of human origins, and the Idea of Evolution itself when applied to systems – culture and memes, economic systems, and our own, always continuing personal evolution. I believe the connection that the two have at the moment can be a very detrimental one.

Let us divorce ourselves from scientific theories and free ourselves from assumptions.

We must rethink our origins to rethink our future.

Tue, Oct 21, 2008  Permanent link