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Obviously no scientist or theologian, I'm sure to reveal my ignorance in what follows. I feel a little like Garrison Keillor's hapless private detective Guy Noir, staying up late in his office on the twelfth floor of the Acme Building and earnestly looking for the answers to life's persistent questions. I wonder:
Why do we humans live so long after we've passed on our genes and raised our children to adulthood? Aren't most people over 65 economically and socially useless at best and a serious drag on younger generations at worst? If it is the survival of the species and not the individual that is the more important, wouldn't the money, time, and energy spent on the aged be better spent on the young? Most of us want to continue to live until we reach a vegetative state--we're cheering each new scientific discovery, each new medical advancement--but, from an evolutionary standpoint, why? Is the gene that produces the will to live long in the individual the same one that wants the species to survive, the one that induces us to procreate and care for our offspring? Is our species selecting for long-lived genes? If so, why? To preserve the elderly as cautionary sources of wisdom which can be handed down to younger generations and make their survival more likely? Don't libraries, the Internet, and cached computer files serve the same purpose more economically? And just how wise are we forgetful elderly who generally lag behind social and techonological evolutions?
Why do obese people who work to lose weight through a combination of diet and exercise generally regain much of the lost weight when their regimen ends, even though most would prefer not to? Is the body acting on its own and demanding to get back the weight it once had? Did the body demand that the fat be stored up in the first place? People in western societies are clearly getting heavier (contrast candid photos of 1950s American crowds with 2010 crowds; note how seats in new stadiums and public conveyances are being made wider; note that in now prosperous Brazil many more plus-size bikinis are being made and sold), but what is the evolutionary purpose of this phenomenon? Is is a remnant of a primordial need to guard against the uncertainty of the food supply or the danger of famine? This possibly makes a bit of sense through middle age, because people need to raise their young, but why does the body continue with the demand to add weight into old age? Since, in first world countries at least, famine is no longer likely, why isn't evolution selecting for lower weights? Wouldn't that better aid longevity? And again, why is longevity the goal? Does it serve any purpose? On the other hand, is it the case that obesity is not a survival mechanism, that the obese are not as successful and able to survive as the non-obese, and that this is evolution's way of gradually eliminating the gene for obesity? Will mesomorphs and endomorphs live longer and be more successful at passing on their genes? Or, on the third hand (speaking of genetic mutations!), is the fat gene stealthily being selected for precisely because a long life is unnecessary? Is evolution thinning the human herd without members of the human herd themselves thinning? Is that why we now see so much childhood obesity? Will mesomorphs and endomorphs eventually be swamped by a tsunami of fat people who will, like drones in a beehive, die in late middle age for the good of the species?
Speaking of "evolution's way," what does it mean when an evolutionary biologist says that nature "selects from the gene pool" or that a certain species or trait in a species is "favored by natural selection"? Does such language misleadingly suggest the existence of a controller or selector or director making conscious choices? Does it hint at the existence of a benevolent or at least sapient Mother Nature guiding the development of all plants and animals? Doesn't evolution depend upon the accidental mutations that occur when replicators are imperfectly copied? Isn't a mutation a "mistake"? But can there be "mistakes" if randomness rules? Isn't this the process: a mutation occurs (for example, horseflies, which are attracted to solid-colored hides, administer painful, disease-transmitting bites to zebras; zebra embryos, which start with dark skin and which presumably used to be born dark, have over time come to develop alternating black and white stripes before they're born, thus eliminating their horsefly problem) which gives an individual a survival advantage; that individual lives longer, breeds more; some of its offspring inherit the mutation; they live longer and breed more and pass along the mutation; eventually the mutation becomes widespread and those without the mutation eventually die off and are thus superceded? Can't we omit any notion of life choosing or selecting and simply say that mutant X survived? In any case, isn't there a contradiction between the notion that evolution is based on a "mistake" and the notion that survival of the fittest means survival of the thing that is best at replicating? Aren't most genetic "mistakes" ("birth-defects" in humans, such as webbed toes or spina bifida or Siamese-twinning) irrelevant at best and harmful at worst? Will a human one day be born without a useless appendix and will some of its offspring follow suit, with the result that eventually there will be a large number of appendix-less people? Doesn't "fittest" mean the most likely to be copied? Doesn't "fittest" mean the most abundant? Many religions say that in life everything happens for a reason and that God is in charge, but in regard to evolution, isn't it accurate to say that everything happens for a reason and no one's in charge? In regard to evolution, why not just say that the fittest, in the sense of most abundant, survive, and omit any notion of selection or intent?
Speaking of God and everything happening for a reason, is it possible that evolution is not random but guided by God? Could God have designed life to follow an evolutionary process? Could God use the mutations of evolution for His own purposes? If so, why would He choose to work that way? If the mutations are planned, why? If they aren't, why not? Why organize life so that species come and go or come and stay, but in any case come and change? Why not just produce completed products? What is the point of the process? Why not just create and be done with it? Or is it the case that, once life has come into existence, it cannot be controlled, even by God, because the rules of reproduction by their very God-created nature mean evolutionary mutations will occur willy-nilly? And if evolution is the method by which God organizes and oversees the life He has created, why did He choose a "Nature red in tooth and claw" approach? Isn't life based on aggressiveness? To live, mustn't both animals and plants interact with and dominate their part of the ecosystem, however small it may be? Mustn't animals eat each other or plants, and some plants eat animals, and all life forms labor to exchange carbon dioxide for oxygen or vice versa, and all defend their own territory with things like weapons, or thorns, or hard shells, or poisons, or camouflage? Don't most kinds of reproduction demand some form of domination and submission? Doesn't even the apparently amiable splitting of a cell imply some violence? Isn't it true that for most living things to survive, some other living thing must die or at the very least be exploited? Must life wrest its existence from its environment? Is there any other possibility, any other option?
Must life stem from matter? Can there be thinking, or feeling, without a brain? Can there be pure consciousness, a "spiritual" state entirely apart from the material? Can life be environment-free? Must there be some kind of substance and some kind of chemical interaction with an environment for life to exist? If, as some religions posit, there is an afterlife, must it be material? Must it involve a resurrection or a reincarnation--an embodiment of some sort? If so, is such a constraint something that not even God can overrule? Is that embodiment, that life-after-death mutation if you will, the ultimate evolutionary step? Or will evolution continue even in the afterlife? If not, then why did God even bother with bodies? Why did He not just create spiritual essences which exist forever ethereally?
In time--200 years, say--will we not have had our consciousnesses sufficiently raised by groups like PETA and Earth First, and will we not have developed our knowledge of chemistry and physics, to the point that we will have partially transcended "Nature red in tooth and claw" and will eat neither flesh nor fish nor vegetable nor fruit? Perhaps we'll still be killing each other to claim or defend territory, but will we not be eating entirely synthetic, ersatz foods created in laboratories? Will there not be corporations like General Eclectic producing all manner of artificially flavored and textured stuff for us to pick up at a grocery store or sit down to eat in a restaurant? Will we not be able to go to Kentucky Fried Ersatz for something artificially greasy and cheap? Will we not be able to go to La Haute Cuisine d'Ersatz for something complicated and expensive but no less synthetic?
Do humans have an innate "sensus divinitatis," a sense of the divine, as John Calvin believed? Do they contain a "God" gene, as geneticist Gene Hamer asserts? Do humans inherit a predisposition to seek a spiritual relationship with a higher power? Don't neuroethologists say that brain states associated with spiritual transcendence (although not with any specific religion or concept of God) are, at least in part, genetic? If so, where did the gene come from? Was it a mutation from an early form of human life that had no sense of the divine, and did the mutation gradually become established through natural selection? Or was it implanted by God when humans were created? If Adam and Eve were the first people, were they born with the gene? If so, why did they even need it since, according to the Old Testament, they already knew, and had developed a relationship with, God? In any case, are those who inherit the God gene more likely to survive because they have an innate sense of optimism which produces positive, healthful physical and psychological effects? Does the optimism make them more likely to have children and to pass along the God gene? Is it possible to be optimistic without a belief in spiritual transcendence? What percentage of the population lacks the God gene? Five percent? Ten? Are they more likely to die younger because of depression and lack of will to live, or to have no or fewer children because they don't see a point in living or in bringing children into existence? Is the number of such people decreasing as a result? Will there eventually be no one who lacks the God gene?
(Additional questions about science and theology--including ethics, creation, climate change, and prayer--to come in future postings.)
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