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by Donald B. Ardell, Ph. D.
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A Theory About Why Republicans Oppose Evolution (Part Two)

Thursday December 24, 2009

In a previous Report, I reviewed a bit of history, with speculations on evolution and early wellness lifestyles—and said terrible things about the Far Right, better known as the Republican Party. Today, I'd like to ask if you think we're still evolving, perhaps toward a wellness consciousness, or are we humans as far along as we're likely to get, mired somewhere in middle level mediocrity, for the most part and sliding back to meaner times? Sometimes I find our species a bit disappointing and wish there were a higher level for which I could try to qualify—it's embarrassing to be related to some people, sometimes!

Personally, I do think many of us are still evolving in positive directions but it's a rather slow process by cosmic standards. It may take too long to do you much good, especially given the behavior of huge numbers of low lives among us—so you will have to rely on PERSONAL evolution.

Let's put things in perspective for a moment. (Actually, things should ALWAYS be put in perspective.)

Human life is a short-term experiment of sorts—we have only been here a few million years, as contrasted to almost 3.5 billion years for other life forms we consider primitive. This good earth has been around for 4.6 billion years, so we are not exactly permanently dominant.

To put things in REAL perspective, consider an analogy devised nearly a century ago by Mark Twain. In his day, the Eiffel Tower was the world's tallest building. Twain noted the age of the universe (as accepted at that time) versus the brief period of human existence, then (tongue-in-cheek) observed that the planet must have been created for our benefit. Twain wrote, "If the Eiffel Tower were now representing the world's age, the skin of paint on the pinnacle knob at its summit would represent man's share of that age; and anybody would perceive that the skin was what the Tower was built for. I reckon they would. I dunno."

Stephen Jay Gould updates Twain's analogy (Wonderful Life) by noting that human existence occupies but "the last geological millimicrosecond of this history—the last inch of the cosmic mile..."and urges us to "accept the implications and learn to seek the meaning of human life...with joy in the challenge if our temperament be optimistic."

Therefore, don't hold your breath waiting for the entire species to evolve—shape your own destiny to the best that you can in order to make a good life.

Stay well and remember—look on the bright side.

This essay first appeared at this site on November 12, 2000. At that time, it was entitled "Homo Australopithecus and Wellness."

Domain: mental
Subdomain: factual knowledge

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