Myth Conception 4:
(Ref.
Book – Excerpts from Spontaneous Evolution, Authors: Bruce H.
Lipton and Steve Bhaerman)
As repeatedly propagated by Swami
Vijnananand, we have been mentioning in these blogs the role of mind
and the importance and inevitability of mind's role for inclusion in
the scope of science. Such opinions are echoed by a few scientists
and thinkers in the 21st century. This blog also covers
this topic.
Jean-Baptiste de Lamarck
born in 1744, for the first time published the theory of evolution in
three volumes based on his ten years research. Lamarck’s idea about
evolution and nature’s impulse toward perfection gained prominence
in France. Lamarck suggested that evolution was the result of
organisms acquiring and passing on environment-induced adaptations
needed to sustain their survival in ever-changing world.
Unfortunately for Lamarck,
his ideas about evolutionary progress being part of the course of
nature had social implications. If nature could progress, then it was
natural for lower classes of humanity to progress as well. So when
the French revolution failed and King Louis XVIII restored the
monarchy, Lamarck found himself out of favor with the church and
ruling class. For some reasons his academic rival Baron Cuvier
purposefully distorted and misquoted Lamarck’s work on evolution.
Cuvier’s assessment of Lamarck and his ideas has ever since been
(1832) cited as the document that justifies portraying Lamarck as
buffoon (joker/ fool).
Ironically more than 175
years after Lamarck’s death (in 1829) science is finding that
evolutionary intention may be a lot closer to the truth than Lamarck
ever imagined. But between then and now other scientists also managed
to push Lamarck and his ideas further into background. The Darwin
evolution theory (survival of the fittest) was considered appropriate
and acceptable.
The experimental science
of genetics was officially launched in 1910. Later Thomas Hunt Morgan
and in 1943 researchers Salvador Luria and Max Delbruck appeared to
prove once for all that mutation was purely random event. Later up to
1988 many experiments confirming these findings led science to adapt
the assumption that all mutations were random events.
Based upon these
observations science adapted the seemingly iron-clad tenet: when
mutation occur they are purely random and unpredictable events and
have nothing to do with any need the organism might have at present
or in the future.
Because evolution appeared
to be driven solely by mutations, science concluded that randomly
drawn evolution has no purpose. The idea fit wel with the scientific
materialism’s belief in purely materialistic Universe and helped
shift the focus from intentional creation to merely “throw of
genetic dice.” A human being is just another among the “accidental
tourist” who materialized in the biosphere through random act of
heredity.
However in 1988, promonant
geneticist John Cairns challanged sciences's established belief in
random evolution.Cairns novel research on " The Origin of
Mutants" was published in the presigious British journal Nature.
Cairns referred to this
newly discovered mechanism as directed mutation. But the concept of
environmental stimuli feeding back into an organism and direct a
rewritting of genetic information was strongy disliked by the dogma
of the conventional science.
Both Nature and the
Amrican journal Science publised
editorials raging against Cairn's findings. This was a clear
indication that the white-coated prists of scientific materialism
were ready to burn Cairns at the stake.
Over the next decade other researchers replicated
Cairn's results. As a result, leading genetic researchers softened
directed mutation to adaptive mutation and the relegated to
beneficial mutation.
Cairn's work and subsequent studies introduced the
realities that organism not only adapts to an environment but that
they intentionally change their genetics to enhance the adaptation of
future generation. In other words, science is coming to realize
that evolution is not simply an accident as per Darwinian theory but
a coordinated Lamarckian dance between an organism and its
environment, a dynamic process in which organisms can continueously
adapt to stressful circmstances.
In a way, evolution is a random process but the
randomness seems to have a purposeful destnation.
We
shall later see the views expressed by Swami Vijnananand when he
guided to the young seekers of Manashakti Ashram in 1990 on the
direction of the research needed to find the truth behind the process
of evolution. But here one may take a note that Mind's role in evolution has to be considered as "pure
materialistic attitude" is not acceptable to the conventional
scientists too!
Vijay R. Joshi.
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