Evolution

Let us here correct a common impression that Darwinian evolution predicates actual or necessary variation of all existing species, and counts that the variation must be in some definite ratio to the time.

That is not the idea, nor the fact.

Quote, Evolution is not a course of haphazard and incessant change, but a continuing readjustment which may or may not according to circumstances involve considerable changes in a given time every form is in a relatively stable equilibrium else it would not exist forms adjusted to their surroundings ought by the hypothesis to remain unchanged until the circumstances change only those of their variations could come to anything which happened to be equally well adapted to the unchanged circumstances and this may be what we have when two or more nearly related species inhabit similar stations in the same area from this point of view you see how wide of the mark are those who imagine that darwinian evolution supposes that the organic world was in early times or at any time out of joint or in ill relations to the surroundings On the contrary, it is of the very nature of natural selection that, while inducing changes eventually immense, it should preserve throughout all time a condition of harmonious adaptation.

Catastrophes must destroy, but gradual modification, under the long and silent struggle which never hastes and never rests, preserves while it renovates and diversifies the races.

I ought here to state that there are eminent naturalists, one of them of your own university, who accept the doctrine of evolution, but who think little of natural selection as a modus operandi in the diversification of species and there are distinguished writers not naturalists who from other points of view are ready to accept the doctrine of the successive evolution from ancestral germs of higher and higher forms of life and mind while they profess to have buried the principle of natural selection and with it the malthusian theory of population in one common grave These are evolutionists, in their way, because the probability of evolutionary theories springs from the very various lines of facts, otherwise inexplicable, which they harmonize and explain.

Indeed, it's the essential precursor of every fruitful investigation in physical nature.

You can seldom sound with the plummet while standing on the shore.

to do this to any purpose you must launch out on the sea and brave some risks nearly all valuable results have been gained in this way newton's theory of gravitation was a typical hypothesis and one which happened to be capable of early and sufficient verification the undulatory theory of light was another the nebular hypothesis or portions of it and the kinetic theory of gases less verifiable are accepted willingly because of the success with which they explain the facts Evolution is a more complex, loose, and less provable hypothesis, or congeries of hypotheses, which can at most have only a relative, though perhaps continually increasing, probability from its power of explaining a great variety of facts.

They are separate individuals on the form side, but they are united in the one consciousness that animates the hand.

if we imagine each finger to possess a consciousness of its own which is limited to itself and cannot pass beyond the hand we shall have a fair analogy of the unity and identity of interests of all living things under such circumstances an injury to one finger would not appear to the others as an injury to them but if the finger consciousness could be extended to the hand the reality of the injury to all would be apparent likewise an injury to any human being is literally an injury to the race the race does not recognize the truth of it just because and only because of the limitation of consciousness lowell put the fact clearly when he said he is true to god who is true to man whoever wrong is done to the humblest and weakest neath all beholding sun that wrong is also done to us and they are slaves most base whose love of right is for themselves and not for all the race he's true to god who's true to man because they are one life because they are but different expressions of the one eternal consciousness because they are as inseparable as the light and warmth of the sun it follows that being true to man is fidelity to god the popular idea is that people should be moral because that sort of conduct is pleasing to the supreme being and that he will in the life beyond physical existence in some way punish those who have broken the moral laws it is belief in an external authority that threatens punishment as a deterrent to law-breaking as the state devises penalties commensurate with offenses but the eminence of god represents a condition in which not punishments but consequences automatically follow all violations of natural law under such state of affairs it would require no penalties but only knowledge to insure right conduct for it would be perceived that there is no possible escape from the consequences of an evil act it is not difficult to see the relative value of the two systems of thought when put to a practical test in human affairs imagine an unscrupulous man of great mental capacity who is amassing an enormous fortune through sharp practices that enable him to acquire the earnings of others while he safely keeps just within the limits of the law we can point out to him that while he is not violating the law and cannot therefore be prosecuted he is nevertheless inflicting injury upon others and consequently public opinion will condemn him but such a man usually cares nothing at all for public opinion and sees no good reason why he should not continue his injurious work but if he can be made to understand that all life is one and that we are so knit together in consciousness that an injury to another must ultimately react upon the person who inflicts it if he once clearly understands that to enslave another is to put chains upon himself that to maim another is to strike himself he will require neither the fear of an exterior hell nor the threat of legal penalties to induce him to follow a moral course he would see that his own larger and true self-interest could be served only when his conduct was in harmony with the welfare of all it is but a simple statement of truth to say that the eminence of god furnishes a scientific basis of morality the evolution of the soul if we accept the idea of the immanence of god we shall be forced to abandon belief in a miraculous instantaneous creation of man and the earth on which he exists the old absurd unscientific impossible idea that the race came from an original human pair must be replaced by the hypothesis of the evolution of the soul it was about the fact of evolution that the great storm of controversy raged between scientists and theologians in the middle of the nineteenth century and later the evolutionary truths were not at first well understood they seemed to question or deny the existence of god deep within humanity is intuitive religious belief it is a natural faith that transcends all facts like the faith of a child in its mother because evolution was contrary to all perceived ideas of the earth's inception it seemed at first to shatter faith and destroy hope and against fact and reason itself rose the protest of intuition with spiritual intensity people felt more than they reasoned and cried out that science was about to destroy the belief in god but time has proved that they had merely misinterpreted the meaning of evolution further understanding has shown that instead of destroying the belief in god evolution has given us a new and better understanding of the whole matter and has placed the hope of immortality on firmer ground than it previously occupied Evolution is an established and generally accepted fact.

No educated person now thinks of questioning it.

It is settled beyond dispute that all things in the physical world have become what they are through a long, slow, gradual evolution and that organisms the most perfect in form and most complex in function have evolved from simpler ones.

Section 12, chapter 15 of Elementary Theosophy by L. W. Rogers.

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Superphysical Evolution if we accept the idea of evolution at all we cannot escape the conclusion that there is superphysical evolution the belief that man is the highest intelligence in the universe except god himself would be utterly inconsistent with evolutionary facts and principles evolution is a continuous unfolding from within and it is only the limitation of our senses that leads us to set limitations to it the one great life of the universe expresses itself in myriad forms and at innumerable levels of development one of those levels is humanity but as certainly as our consciousness has evolved to its present stage it shall go on to higher ones orderly gradation is clearly nature's method of expression a continuous unbroken line of life reaches downward from man its successive stages are seen in the animals the reptiles the insects and microbes even the great kingdoms into which the biologist divides life fade into each other almost imperceptibly and it becomes difficult to say where the vegetable kingdom stops and the animal kingdom begins just as that continuous chain of life runs downward from man it must also rise above him until it merges in the supreme being there must necessarily be the higher as well as the lower products of evolution man is merely one link in the evolutionary chain the human level is the point where consciousness has become completely individualized and is capable of turning back upon itself and studying its own inner processes The thought of occidental civilization has been sadly fettered with materialism.

It has scarcely dared to think beyond that which could be grasped with the hands.

Not just any moth.

A peppered moth.

Now let's pretend that I'm living in London in the early 1800s, right as the Industrial Revolution is starting.

Life is swell.

My light-colored body lets me blend in with the light-colored lichens and tree bark, which means that birds have a hard time seeing me, and which means that I get to live.

He looks like this.

Yeah, he has a different form of the gene that affects pigmentation.

Moths like him represent about 2% of all the peppered moths at the start of the Industrial Revolution, but by 1895, it'll be 95%.

Kat is a researcher and author with a PhD from Columbia University in the evolution of narrative and cognition.

Her essays and poems have appeared in Scientific American, Mind, Science Magazine, The Best American Non-Required Reading, The Georgia Review, The Story Collider, and Poets Against the War.

In 2023, she published the bestselling book, Eve, How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution.

You might have heard her interviewed on Fresh Air or The Daily Show.

And if so, like us, you will be super excited to hear her talk with us today.

Right.

But I take your point that the more we know, the more we know and the more we're open to the idea that bodies are different, not just one size fits all.

Evolution, diversity is a feature.

I think it's exactly that.

Evolutionary-wise, you're better off if you're always striving for more.

If

you're going to achieve more, you should go out and do more because that's more likelihood of you surviving.