Ever since Charles Darwin came up with his famous concept about evolution of man about one and half century back, we all have been made to believe that we are the offspring's of Monkeys, Chimpanzees, and Gorillas. Taking his cues forward, we have spent billions in trying to find out the reasons of human behavior by experimenting with rats, pigeons and other animals to find out the reasons of their aggressive behaviors, came up with concepts and theories that because of certain deficiencies in Macro and Micro nutrients, trace minerals, Iron, Zinc and vitamins, and other minerals like lead, cadmium, manganese, perhaps, our aggression centers fire up more rapidly resulting in some of violent crimes. Even Darwin was convinced that certain rudiments, vestiges of our primordial era remained present in our brains which get reflected in our violent behaviors. But is it really so. Are we really the offshoots of animals? Is it really a fact that ants, humming birds, cockroaches, elephants, lions and humans had one common progenitor? And what sort of progenitor he was talking about. Certainly, he had not envisaged about Hrinyagarbha, the cosmic mind, believed to be producer of whole life in this Universe. I had my doubts and as I went deep into Indian philosophical point of view, found that this part of concept of Darwin was perhaps not that much true because of certain reasons, and so the need for this write up. And these reasons and findings, which controvert this part of his thinking, can save billions and thousands of lives.
This concept is likely to ruffle many feathers of Darwinians and Neuro Biologists as all their propositions, that the human beings have evolved from animals, that they retain some animal instincts resulting into heinous crimes, that our frontal cortex is responsible for thinking and taking our decisions etc. may run contrary to this concept but I may get the support of most of our religious texts from Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, Budhism etc. which say that humans are a different species. This also explains to a large extent the concept of soul, rebirth and the Karma philosophies, (Fructification of one's deeds and actions).
The holy Quran, in Surah 2;35-36, Al- Baqarah, says that Adam and Eve were the first persons on this planet. Same is the version of Christianity. Hindu religious texts say that it was Manu and Shatrupa, who came to this planet as first humans. Similarly, Sankhya and Yoga, the two great Indian philosophies, place humans at a different platform than other animals, as they talk about Adhyatam (concerning human beings) and Adhibhot (Concerning other living beings like animals and birds). Apart from these religious reasons, there are scientific reasons and queries as well.
Firstly Darwin himself had admitted that whatever he was saying was highly speculative and may prove to be erroneous. Secondly, if we admit that we have evolved from monkeys and chimpanzees, then why millions of them were left behind and those who have been left behind have not progressed even one percent from what they were about a billion years ago. During this period, the man has travelled so much, he has reached the moon, is about to reach Mars, developed missiles, written computer programmes, and done so much progress from that stone age and the monkeys and chimpanzees are still doing the same acts which they were doing a millennia ago. And then, what about the conceptual thinking ability of man, his ability of reasoning, and quest for self realization. Can a "Difference in Degree" alone explain this huge difference between humans and brutes or we have to believe that they are "Different in Kind", standing on different platforms. Darwin had little knowledge about the Mind aspect, How mind gets formed, what are its different parts, states etc. and what is the material from which it gets created?, Is it part of physical body or our astral body?, What is astral body?, Where the mind goes after the death?, How we take decisions or who takes decisions and on what basis?, If we decide everything for our pleasure, who is there enjoying pleasure or we may say pain as well? Is there anything like Soul or Super Soul, any super natural power, by whatever name you may refer it ?, What is nature? What is intellect, is it some part of brain or of mind? If it is part of physical brain, how it gets improved or strengthened and if it is not, then what it is, how it functions, how it can be strengthened and so on.
When Darwin came up with his concept, the science of neuro biology, genetics and epigenetics had not developed. And it is not without reason that acclaimed Neuro biologists like Sir John Eccles, Roger Sperry, Wilder Penfield and many more have now started acknowledging that we can't describe physical, organic human brain as the sole determinant of human consciousness and cognitive functioning just in terms of Biology, chemistry, physics etc, there is something more which can't be explained and it is that "something more", which needed to be understood to explain the descent and evolution of man. When Darwin talks about the Laws of inheritance, the transmission and development of characters, he would not have imagined that despite the fact that science would progress so much during this one and half century that now a days, we can measure the metabolic activity of different regions of brain at the same time through Positron Emission Technology (PET in short) and advanced scanning through techniques like Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) but even then we have not been able to understand perhaps even 10% of its functioning. He would not have realized that there could be changes in gene and neuron functions without changes in DNA sequence, nor could have realized that our philosophies had talked about the constant changes in our character, from Tamsic to Rajsic to Satvic and vice versa as well, with changes in our environment, eating habits, the source how we acquire them and many related fields, something akin to what the science of epigenetics is saying now. The modern science says that more than ninety percent of genetic material is trash, but could the nature be so harsh that it would have filled 90 % of our brain with trash. And is nature itself intelligent enough to do so. Whether, we should not have put our energies and science to investigate such matters, whether we are carrying our past life impressions into our brains, instead of believing that we carry genetic material only for our physical growth. And how this happens that when the sequence of neucleotides is not being affected by any external chemical factor, still the gene expression changes, there are perceptible changes in amino acid releases and neuron functioning and our motor actions also exhibit similar types of changes resulting in our behavioral changes.
It's true that conception, growth and some rudimentary elements may have some resemblance, but these ought to be there, for, as per our philosophy, all living beings also have the same driving force behind their functioning, the only difference is that as per Karmic Philosophy, they are not accountable for their actions, whereas humans are. |
