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Friday, December 07, 2007
Everyone has beliefs. Yes, even me. We all need beliefs to fill in certain gaps in human knowledge; for example, the origin of life, our purpose in life or the reason for my accursed height. (or rather the lack of it) Some of us use a religious God to fill the gaps, some of us chose Science while some of us adopt a fatalistic approach which relegates uncertainties to Fate. If you know me well enough to be reading my blog, you should probably be able to guess that I trust Science to be the headlights in the fog of mysteries.
There can be many domains of Science but ultimately, Science must be able to answer the Mother of questions - the most fundamental questions about our existence and the driving force towards progress. Charles Darwin offered a very simple and elegant solution - the theory of evolution. Now many people underestimate the power of this theory; they ask how evolution can address the countless cultural shifts and revolutionary events during the course of the human civilisation.
Although the theory of evolution has often been vaunted as a biological crane (the theory of all theories), the essence of evolution theory can be applied to almost all areas of life! The reason behind its universal relevance is that we humans are biological life and it follows that our actions which lead to great disturbances in human civilisation must be motivated by our biological nature. (obvious but true) Biological life must have actions characteristic of biological life. Inanimate objects such as furniture must behave in ways vastly different from animate objects. For its immense power to explain, I have always stood in awe of evolution theory.
At the heart of evolution theory is the mechanism known as natural selection. In layman terms, natural selection in essence, dictates that only the strongest, fittest and most efficient can survive. Economics have Adam Smith's Invisible Hand. Evolution theory has the invisible hand of natural selection.
All biological life have one common purpose - to pass on the gene line via reproduction.
Suppose there are 1000 donkeys on earth. Out of these 1000 donkeys, 100 have only 3 legs while the remaining 900 are perfectly normal. Natural selection dictates that eventually all donkeys on earth will have 4 legs. Why? Donkeys with 3 legs have a disadvantage in food-sourcing and movement. Not only would the crippled donkeys be more likely to starve to death, they are also more less likely to be able to escape from predators. These factors combine to lower the probability of 3-legged donkeys mating and reproducing and a relatively high percentage of perfect donkeys will be able to mate and reproduce. Eventually the 3-leg donkey gene would be lost and all donkeys born would have the 4-leg gene. However, this simplified demonstration was done assuming that no other factors other than the number of legs affect the survival chances of the donkeys. In reality, there are many other factors such as muscularity, detection ability or even colour of skin. Despite the mounting complexity, natural selection still works seamlessly, quietly and automatically in the background.
Natural selection may be easily extrapolated to explain cultural shifts. For example, communism fell while democracy prospered. Why? Under communism, people were likely to have relatively lower standards of living and these decreased their probabilities to reproduce and carry on the gene line, ceteris paribus. Therefore, communism gave way to democracy which most likely offered a better shot at a comfortable life. As you can see, evolution theory is a powerful tool in analysing the causes of human events. Even the school administration utilises evolution theory unknowingly; latecomers are punished. In a bid to stamp out the culture of late-coming, they devised a system to make late-coming an agonising and potentially traumatising event. Since any agony and trauma, however small, will decrease biological welfare, students are expected to be trained to avoid late-coming and viola! The culture of late-coming disappears.
However, there are recalcitrant offenders like Low Zhao Xuan. (HAHA) No, no, they are not evolutionarily superior. Instead, their seemingly illogical actions may be attributed to other evolutionary benefits. For example, to Zhao Xuan, he may feel that there are more hot babes on later buses and by looking at them, he gains pleasure and welfare. Hence, taking later buses does in fact give him an evolutionary advantage! In this instance, in an attempt to pursue one evolutionary advantage, he forsakes another. (not getting owned by the DM) This phenomenon is said to be a side effect of an evolutionary advantage. Similar explanations can be found why moths tend to dive into candle flames and why homosexuals exist. (Controversial though, whether the effect is nature or nurture)
There is however one aspect of evolution theory which continues to puzzle me. Evolution theory predicts that there should be many fossils of Man-keys, Fish-frogs, the products during the process of continuous evolution. However, to his date, the fossils suggesting their existence are shockingly few! Charles Darwin defended his theory by suggesting that our knowledge of geology is far from mature and hence exploration works had been futile. Nonetheless, that defence was more than a century ago. Are our geologists idiots? I don't think so. Then again, it must be noted that there are some scientists who argue that the discovered fossils are already supportive of evolution theory. This is the reason why my faith is shaken. I hope this does not invite evangelists because I have more daunting questions for religion than missing fossils.
PS.
ZhanWen, cheer up!
ZhaoXuan, don't be late in NS or you will lose the right to drive me
10:46 PM;
