the long tradition of science abuse…
An odd petition is going around the web asking to join “evolutionary leaders” in calling for something labeled as a conscious evolution. Which is sort of like calling for sapient weather or socially responsible tidal waves, something that makes you wonder what sort of people would even think of that and why they would even try to call themselves something as ridiculous as “evolutionary leaders” to a global audience. Of course the people behind this petition have about as much to do with evolution and biology as masked wrestlers have to do with crocheting and what they’re really doing is continuing the age old tradition of using warped science to back up their personal religious and spiritual ideas in the tradition of Theosophists, Rosicrucians and Neo-Pagans.
From the dawn of mystical New Age beliefs, evolution was seen as something that happens in stages or has some sort of direction. Being the self-aggrandizing egocentrics we all are, the founders of these beliefs saw humans and their ability to think about complex and abstract things as one of the goals of what they called an evolutionary process. Obviously, they postulated, the next stage has to be better and more intelligent humans and then we would transcend into some sort of divine state where we know all and see all. Around this idea, these founders built countless complicated ideologies combining myriads of legends and ancient myths into bizarre alternate histories and parables that stretch the imagination. To make them sound more credible, they used what was then cutting edge science and mutilated it to fit into their plot devices. Popular texts by Helena Blavatsky and Max Heindel were peppered with references to evolution and pseudoscientific terminology.
Today, this tradition continues, though today’s New Age gurus made some changes and diluted what would traditionally be heavy handed philosophies into rather vacuous bite size packages of woo due to commercial considerations. They can’t spook the audience by trying to recite complex dogmas so they have to tone it down and say things that sound profound but in reality mean nothing. One of the so-called evolutionary leaders who are circulating the aforementioned petition, Deepak Chopra, once famously wrote about “the intelligence of an oxygen atom” for the Huffington Post. Intelligence of a what now? What the hell does that mean? It’s just noise and letters arranged in the form of language. The other evolutionary leaders are even less impressive than that. All of them are purveyors of the same meaningless woo eagerly given media platforms by people in search of something to add what they think is meaning to their lives. Yes Oprah, I’m talking about you too.
The truth is that evolution is an ongoing process that comes from all the little differences and imperfections in nature and as genomes and gene expressions change, natural conditions and predation help determine who can survive best in a particular environment long enough to pass on their genes and continue the cycle. That’s really all there’s to it. There’s no combination of genes that will make us transcendent, no grand process that’s about to culminate in our immortality because we wave some crystals around and listen slack-jawed to fluffy woo dressed up as some sort of incredible revelation about our future by sheisters who are either taking their followers for a ride on their way to the bank or repeated it long enough they’re starting to believe it themselves. I’m sorry but if you want to achieve something to brag about or build a better world, you’re going to have to work for it by using science, technology and the skills you acquire through years of education.
