Because I could not stop for death, He kindly stopped for me; The carriage held but just ourselves and immortality.
~Emily Dickinson

I have a morbid fascination with death. Let’s just get that out of the way early. I’m sure that as time wears on, and I come closer to the end, my attitudes will change. But I’m young and I do not fear death like I should. I’m not wise enough to know any better. When I say I’m lucky to be alive right now, I mean it. I can’t even say I come from a “small town”  because the small town you think of when I say that is MUCH larger than the one I was raised in. It’s one of those little communities you either escape from or die in. Either of old age or the “proclivities of youth”. Around the 3rd or 4th time you regain consciousness and realize you’re still alive, you begin viewing life and death in a whole new way. Some people take stock of their life so far and turn inward. They diagnose themselves and their life and wonder what they could be doing differently  or for the better. Some people  “panic” and begin “living life to the fullest”. Cramming as much random activity into each day as they can. And some people, like me, start thinking they’re the frickin’ Highlander.

Death is the ultimate consequence of life. All living things die. Some in a day, some not for hundreds of years. Humans are the only ones who know what this means. The only ones cursed with the knowledge that existence is finite. We’ve witnessed other mammals “mourning” fallen companions but they don’t really understand what has just happened. But, for most of us, death doesn’t enter our daily thoughts. Time brings that appreciation. As we age, people we know pass away. Death became a very real thing for me when my great grandparents passed away. It also gave me an insight into the ways we deal with the loss of loved ones. Tears do fall but many people  choose to celebrate the life and not mourn the death. I discovered I was one of these people. I shed tears for them but when I thought back on the memories with them, I was happy and not sad. And I knew they died with no regrets, having lived a long full life.

But what if it doesn’t have to be this way? What if we could eliminate death and live forever? That is really what we will be discussing.(Much of what I put forward has been discussed on Through the Wormhole with Morgan Freeman.  I suggest you check that episode out. It was very good.)  Not so much death but overcoming it. A tall task. Death is an all consuming universal force. We are all equal in Death’s eyes. Before we can talk about immortality we have to first find a way to artificially extend the human lifespan. Humans are by no means the longest living organism on the planet. There are tortoises that live almost twice as long as us. Trees still standing that were here when The Pyramids were being built over 4,000 years ago. One tree named Pando, is estimated to be around 80,000 years old(that’s ridiculous!).  So why can’t we live for thousands of years? Genetically we are not much different than a tree. We have just about the same DNA, the same make up, we just grew into different organisms. But, if you go back far enough, man and trees have  a common ancestor. I shit you not.

The great Carl Sagan

And we are made of the same stuff. So, theoretically, we should be able to extend out lifespans to ridiculous lengths as well.  Perhaps without end.  Many scientists think this is the case. Before we discuss some of the current theories for life extension, let’s talk about the process of aging. Aging is the name we give  to the process that changes our bodies over time. All men age. Some  women apparently stay in their 30′s for decades. Never question this though. Just trust me. Never question it.

Anyways, aging sucks. We reach our physical peak somewhere in our mid 20′s. After that we plateau for a decade or so. Two if we’re lucky. Even if you stay in peak physical condition you will begin to notice yourself losing ground to younger people. It happens. The joints will just keep aging and you can’t physically generate the force you could before. But, you’re in great shape so relax and just enjoy it.

You are a collection of cells. Cells age and they divide to reproduce and “keep the bloodline going”. After  a certain number of divisions they begin to slow down. They become more sensitive to the stresses put on the body, lose much of their ability to fully regulate themselves, and you become far more susceptible to disease. Death by old age is actually a misnomer. No one dies of old age. It’s always a disease, an organ failure, a genetic unbalance, or something along those lines.

So now researchers are looking at aging as a genetic condition and one that could be “treated”. One theorist in particular,   Aubrey de Grey  , believes he knows how to stop the aging of cells and keep us perpetually young. A pathway to immortality. Aubrey’s theory seems pretty simple from the outside. Cells take in a lot of “junk”. to keep us young and healthy they remove that junk. But cells age and lose some of their strength over time and the junk starts to pile up and damage the cells. Here are the 7 damages De Grey believes matter most, provided by Wikipedia:

1. Cancer-causing nuclear mutations/epimutations:These are changes to the nuclear DNA (nDNA), the molecule that contains our genetic information, or to proteins which bind to the nDNA. Certain mutations can lead to cancer, and, according to de Grey, non-cancerous mutations and epimutations do not contribute to aging within a normal lifespan, so cancer is the only endpoint of these types of damage that must be addressed.
2. Mitochondrialmutations:Mitochondria are components in our cells that are important for energy production. They contain their own genetic material, and mutations to their DNA can affect a cell’s ability to function properly. Indirectly, these mutations may accelerate many aspects of aging.
3. Intracellular aggregates:Our cells are constantly breaking down proteins and other molecules that are no longer useful or which can be harmful. Those molecules which can’t be digested simply accumulate as junk inside our cells. Atherosclerosis, macular degeneration and all kinds of neurodegenerative diseases (such as Alzheimer’s disease) are associated with this problem.
4. Extracellular aggregates:Harmful junk protein can also accumulate outside of our cells. The amyloid senile plaque seen in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients is one example.
5. Cell loss:Some of the cells in our bodies cannot be replaced, or can only be replaced very slowly – more slowly than they die. This decrease in cell number causes the heart to become weaker with age, and it also causes Parkinson’s disease and impairs the immune system.
6. Cell senescence:This is a phenomenon where the cells are no longer able to divide, but also do not die and let others divide. They may also do other things that they’re not supposed to, like secreting proteins that could be harmful. Immune senescence and type 2 diabetes are caused by this.^{[citation needed]}
7. Extracellular crosslinks:Cells are held together by special linking proteins. When too many cross-links form between cells in a tissue, the tissue can lose its elasticity and cause problems including arteriosclerosis and presbyopia.^[7]

De Grey has faced some criticism from researches in geriatrics and regenerative medicine but he believes the two need to combine and look at this with a shared perspective. They just believe De Grey doesn’t have the tangible proof needed to begin serious study into this idea. And you have to agree with them. The theory seems sound but he has not shown them real proof of it yet and ,without that, you can’t really convince people to get you the funding you need.  But I believe Aubrey De Grey. And I believe him for one reason: Aubrey De Grey has been alive for almost 150 years.

Aubrey de Grey is in fact, Grigori Rasputin!

Now let’s talk about cryogenics. Cryogenics is the study of how things react to colder and colder temperatures. For many people the term brings to mind human Popsicles in tubes. Well, that’s kinda where they’re going with it. The field of cryogenics we will be discussing is called Cryonics. Cryonics is the study of how to preserve humans and animals indefinitely at cold temperatures.

But first, a story. A story about zombie dogs!

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

O.K., not actual zombie dogs but dogs who have come back from the dead. The Safar Center at the University of Pittsburgh has developed groundbreaking procedures in the field of “resuscitation medicine”. They study how to bring people back from the dead. Bu less Frankenstein and more First Aid. Injuries resulting in great amounts of blood loss most often lead to death. Your body becomes anemic as the blood,  and with it oxygen, seeps out of it. The organs begin shutting down and eventually the brain dies of asphyxia. The Safar Center is working on ways to  keep people alive in these critical moments until aid can be rendered or, in extreme cases, bring them back from clinical death. Time is of the essence though. Once the heart stops, the brain isn’t too far behind. If the brain is left for dead for more than a few minutes there is little that can be done.

So the folks at the Safar Center have come up with a pretty crazy technique using a pretty common fluid: saline.  If you’ve ever given blood and plasma you will recognize it. It’s that cold feeling liquid they pump through you as they draw out the plasma.  Saline is just sterilized salt water. It is often used on patients who are severely dehydrated and for many other purposes ranging from contact cleaning fluid to nose irrigation. For this particular experiment, a super cold form of the saline solution was used.

This next part may offend some people. The experiments were carried out in 2005 on dogs. 24 dogs of various sizes and breeds. They were drained of blood and filled with the saline solution, then examined closely for 3 hours. After 3 hours the dogs were given fresh blood and revived. Over 2/3 of the dogs were revived with no detectable problems. My heart goes out to the ones that didn’t make it but they didn’t die for nothing. And I believe them when they say they followed every ethical guideline an experiment like this would entail. The tests were a great success. Before this most tests had only averaged out to about an hour. Now they were bringing these dogs back after 3 hours of clinical death with no signs of brain damage.

So, how? Well the key is in the saline solution. By directly replacing the blood with the saline they were sure they covered every organ and every skin layer. The dog’s circulatory systems kept them in a kind of suspended animation even though there was no registered activity. So every vital organ, including the brain,  had their deterioration slowed to a crawl. Once the solution was removed and the blood reintroduced, the body seemed not to notice that anything had ever happened. And for you dog lovers out there,  the tests on our friends seem to be over.  With this rousing success the Safar Center believes it has the info they need to get permission for human clinical trials. This new procedure could save many, many lives. Most especially on the battlefield where severely wounded soldiers could be kept safe for hours until help is reached. Another reason dogs are man’s best friend. Their sacrifice means your loved one may live through what would have once been a death sentence. So, next time you see a dog, thank them.

Now this is wildly different  from the type of cryogenics most of us think of. But the complete freezing of an organism as complex as humans is still quite tricky. Due in part to one extremely complex organ, our brain. What we’re talking about is basically what yo do to a steak you wanna save til the weekend. You pop it in the freezer and thaw it out later. But freezing affects everything differently. Especially if it’s too cold or for too long. We’re all familiar with “freezer burn”. You fix food suffering from it and it just doesn’t taste right. It’s because ice crystals have formed in the cells in the meat and pushed and shoved everything around and it’s just a mushy mess in there now. Freezer burn is the basic problem with current cryonics. It damages the cells and  just slowly kills us over time. Many human organs have actually been frozen and thawed with relatively little to no permanent damage. But the brain is proving a major obstacle.

It doesn’t help that we know less about the brain than any other organ.  Individual pieces of the brain have gone through  the process successfully but w can’t exactly tear the brain apart and put it back together again later. Yet. And it’s the yet that keeps the science going. Most of the science we see around us was first taken up before the technology to fully develop it was around. Right now technology leaps a level every 2 or 3 years. Cancer research from earlier last decade looks like the stone age compared to what we are doing now. The biggest tool to cryonic researchers may be the nanomoachine.  Microscopic tools injected into the body to repair and maintain. If these machines can completely reverse the freezing process, then suspended animation is no longer pop-science, it’s  a reality. The hope for the technology is to be able to preserve terminally ill people until a cure is found. A very noble effort.

From Wikipedia:

Benjamin Franklin, in a 1773 letter,expressed regret that he lived “in a century too little advanced, and too near the infancy of science” that he could not be preserved and revived to fulfil his “very ardent desire to see and observe the state of America a hundred years hence”

But keeping yourself on ice until immortality is discovered might not sound great to a lot of people. I got something else for you. But first, a question: How attached are you to the human body? I ask this because the most viable form of immortality may call for us to leave our human bodies for more  “permanent” accommodations.  Here’s what we know. You and everything that makes you who you are is carried on electrical pulses through your brain. And that’s it. How those impulses turn to consciousness still escapes us. But it’s an electrical impulse carrying information. That we get. No different than TV and radio signals and we can move those from device to device pretty damn easily now a days. But the simple binary signals we send through our machines are nothing compared to the process operating our brains and giving us consciousness.

If we ever wish to transfer ourselves to another vessel we must first learn exactly where we are in our brain. Our consciousness must stem from a central point in our brain. One man, Professor Olaf Sporns  at Indiana University, beleives he may have discovered that central hub, the medial parietal cortex. It is located directly between the 2 hemispheres of the brain and seems to  be the starting point for many of the impulses we wish to duplicate. Sporns believes that if we can fully map and detail this area of the brain we may be be starting on the road to “downloading ourselves” into machines. First, though,  we need to develop an artificial brain that can handle human consciousness. Still easier said than done. Again, our computers operate on a binary level. Ones and zeros. Powerful machines but still nowhere near as powerful as our brain. Our brains are currently at least a million times more powerful than the best computer out there. Quite a gap.

Quantum computers may be the answer to this problem. Quantum computers will not operate on a binary level. They can go from 0 to 9. A HUGE leap. For every bit a computer today processes, a quantum computer could process exponentially more. It can “think” of more solutions simultaneously than our current computers can. The processing speed would be greatly increased and come closer to being on par with our own brains. But quantum computers are still very much in the developmental stage. The most powerful one made so far is still a pale imitation of our own mighty processors and not much more powerful than current PCs. But the science is doable and quantum computing is matter of “when” and not “if”.

But maybe you love your human body. I know I love mine everyday…… moving on. So transferring yourself to a computer may not be that appealing. So let’s discuss one last proposition. Gene therapy. This is very similar to Aubrey De Grey’s process int hat we are changing things on a molecular level to extend our lifespan. Gene therapy is a reality and it only grows with each passing year. Basically what we will do is mess with your DNA and chemical makeup to keep you perpetually young. Kind of like going for a flu shot only your being injected with the fountain of youth. Cancer treatment is heavily invested in gene therapy at the moment. We know now that cancer is a genetic disease. It’s in you already and what draws it out can be obvious or very random.  Cancer is a mutation. One of many mutations responsible for evolution. Evolution is a series of mutations. Generation after generation dies from it until one generation breaks the cycle and the mutation doesn’t kill them but changes them. Alters their DNA instead of destroying it.

Removing all this from ourselves will greatly change our natural evolution. We are entering an era where we will have full control over every atom in our body. An era where we can shape humanity into whatever we want. No more disease and no more death. But, the question does come up. Should we even want to live forever? Let’s discuss just what immortality means. Cause it’s not as cool as you think it is.

Here are some dangers to eternal life if we can’t find a way to work around it. Our bodies may have no trouble excepting eternal life, our brains are an entirely different matter. One of our brains many functions is storage. It holds our thoughts and memories. It also has a limit. Your brain can store a ridiculous amount of information. You may forget some of it but it’s still there, waiting to be remembered. You can go your whole life and never fill it. But what about multiple lifetimes? what about eternity? Brains weren’t built for that. The longer you live the more information will fill your brain and eventually it will fill to the limit. What happens then? Well, you lose memories. And don’t be mistaken, you don’t forget them. forgotten things can be remembered. These memories are gone. No longer in your brain. Whatever bit carried it has been overwritten with new memories.

That means that as you go along you will lose pieces of yourself. They will be replaced by new ones but the old you is gone forever. What if you were the only one in your family who was able to receive this gift of eternal life? The pain of watching loved ones die as you remain will be hard enough. Now imagine one day never knowing they ever existed. Not forgotten just gone. As though you never knew them. When people ask you what it was like 2,000 years ago you won’t be able to tell them. You won’t know and there is no memory to “jog”. soon information in your head becomes so disjointed that you may begin to form serious psychological illnesses.

So now you don’t know you ever had a family. You can barely recall anything past a certain point and you may be going crazy. That seems bad enough but there’s something else to go along with it. If you hadn’t noticed, your perception of time “speeds up” as you age. every year goes by faster and each earlier years seem further and further away. This too is a natural thing. Over a single lifetime it isn’t too  terribly noticeable. Stretched out over hundreds of years and  it will become maddening. If the loss of memory wasn’t enough to push you over the edge, a sped up world might do it. Imagine reaching  a point where reality is moving so fast around you that you can scarcely interact with it. What was new is old  before you ever even get it home. People and things speed by and eventually you’ll reach a point where reality just pops into existence around you whenever you can observe it.  That is the kind of life you have to look forward to.  A world you can never belong to and barely know. You and your fellow immortals will be alone, unable to really interact with the world.

Let’s say you get over that. Maybe you prefer a solitary life and chose to enjoy things on your own time. Maybe losing touch with the past is just fine with you. At some point you will realize that even though you are immortal, the universe is not. i twill age and it will die. If you are still around in 5 billion years you will get to see the death of our solar system when the sun expands and burns it all away. Several billion more and you can see our galaxy collide with Andromeda. Spend a few billion years watching the stars dance and explode. But, eventually, the last star will die. The universe will break apart and not much solid matter will be left. Only gas and dust swimming through an endless sea of invisible energy. maybe you’ll get lucky and witness a new universe being born some billions of  years later. Probably not. So, if you can still live you will be in infinite nothingness. You will basically be dead. You can’t see, you can’t hear,you can’t smell, and you can’t feel. if you somehow adapted to survive the vacuum of space, this will be your existence. An eternity of nothing.

This is why turning over our existence to an artificial brain may be best. They can be calibrated to endure the eons. Our brains cannot. At least as far as we know. Science could change all that any day. So the question is, do you WANT to live forever? Do you wish to be there at the end of all things? Maybe it won’t be an end. Maybe we will have created our own stars by then. Designed our own solar systems and galaxies. Nothing is impossible. Only improbable. When someone hands you the key to eternity will you accept it? How will life change if we live forever? Would we still try to mate for life? If we’re still stuck on our own planet(though I doubt we will be in several generations) will birthrates be controlled? Think of visiting distant stars and galaxies. Time is no longer an issue. The only problem with a thousand year trip is finding entertainment. Luckily people are easily entertained.

What makes this situation even more intolerable is that I hate waking up too. For me, waking up involves roughly the same amount of willpower as it does to climb Mt. Everest. A slow, sluggish journey through the hellish terrain of semi-conciousness, occasionally accompanied by a sharp, short headache and blurred vision.

Another aspect of sleep that gets on my nerves is the sheer waste of time involved. Those 6-9 hours? I could be doing something with them! Something important, something fun, something interesting. Well, as a serial procrastinator, perhaps not. I’d probably end up bouncing from website to website, cursing my luck for having nothing to do. So, it’d be more accurate to say that I hate that sleep gets in the way of me possibly doing something worthwhile, rather than it actually getting in the way of me doing something worthwhile. Despite this, it still gets on my nerves.

Well, what if we could reduce our need for sleep or even eliminate it completely? The idea isn’t as far-fetched as it sounds. Thai Ngoc, a 68 year old Vietnamese farmer, has gone without sleep for nearly 40 years. He gained this strange ability in 1973, following a bout of fever. Even more remarkable is that he has apparently suffered no detrimental mental or physical effects from his sleepless hours. What if we could replicate these conditions in others? What if we could create people that need no sleep? What of we could create a society that needs no sleep?

As in turns out, we can… To an extent. Recently, there has been a lot of time and effort put into researching a class of drugs known as eugeroics. These nifty chemicals have become known as wakefullness-promoting agents due to their ability to stave off sleep in those that use them. More importantly, these drugs, unlike other stimulants such as caffeine, are virtually non-addicting and do not result in the formation of a sleep debt. This means that with eugeroics you can go without sleep for two days and then sleep for your normal 6-9 hours and feel fine, whereas with caffeine you may spend 16 hours slumped over the side of a couch and feel terrible after it too. Of course, these drugs are mostly used to treat disorders such as narcolepsy. However, as I’m sure you can see, they have other applications as well.

Military usage is one of the more obvious applications. A soldier that never sleeps? I think that was the basis of an X-Files episode. Another application is for work. I mean, who wouldn’t want to reduce the hours that they sleep to put in a few extra hours to impress the boss? Who wouldn’t want to earn more commission? The problem is that once this starts there’s no going back. Pretty soon you could be frowned at for only working 20 hours a day. What are you? Lazy? Don’t tell me that you need to sleep. The potential abuses of these drugs, especially in a corporate centred culture, are immense.

Another problem with these drugs is that they don’t replace sleep. They trick your brain into thinking it has slept. The subtle effects of sleep deprivation, such as immune dysfunction, metabolism issues and potentially depression, will still be present. To be precise, eugeroics have allowed for the future possibility of a world populated by sickly, fat, depressive workaholics. Great job, science!

The truth, as much as I hate to admit it, is that sleep is important. As long as we do not fully understand the human brain and body, then we are stuck with sleep. So when the logo-emblazoned mountebank on the street corner tries to sell me their miracle cure, I’ll declare my opposition, pull out a pillow and try to will myself to sleep.

It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.
~Charles Darwin

Well, here we go. Evolution. What is it and how did we get to the evolutionary theory we have today.  Is it  a theory? Or just a fact of nature? So let’s try to answer those and take a small look at the history of evolutionary theory.

A Brief History of “Pre – Darwin” Evolutionary Theory

Theory and study on evolution existed long before Darwin’s groundbreaking work, dating all the way back to ancient Greece. The first great philosopher we know to have proposed an evolutionary theory similar to the one we have today was Anaximander(610 – 546 B.C.)  of the island state, Ionia. Scientists and philosophers operated differently in Ionia than in mainland Greece. This is where modern science was born. Ionians placed a great emphasis on study, experimentation, and basically created the forerunner to the scientific method.  So,  Anaximander took  a different approach than most to evolution. He was the first to propose life originating in the water. Though it gets a little crazy after that. His emphasis for this theory was the fragile, extended state of human infancy. He felt humans could not survive the primeval world in our current state. We had to come from something else.

His something else was a fish or fish like animal. He believed we existed inside this fish until we were ready to survive the environment. Then we “burst forth” from the fish ready to face the world. Eventually, over time, we lost our scales and adapted to procreate on land. Yes, it’s crazy. But it was very much a “theory of evolution”. He was not alone. There was a growing consensus in some circles that humans had to have come from something else. Been something else before they were fully human. Most often centered around some sort of trek from water to land.  The thought that life began in the ocean and moved on land is very much a part of evolutionary theory today. Following Anaximander was the great Greek philosopher, Plato. Plato put forth the theory of Essentialism.  This theory would guide thoughts on evolution for centuries to come. Plato believed that all species we see on Earth come from a small group of predetermined sources or “essences”. He believed that all animals appeared first just as they are today and never change. All species share similair traits and processes that never change or leave the group. Basically, everything was made this way and it does not change on its own.

This was really the beginning of “intelligent design”. The thought that a creator put everything here just the way it is. Plato’s most famous student, Aristotle brought Plato’s works closer to the science we know today. Even though his work is full of the myth that dominated Greek thought, he made surprisingly accurate assumptions in his work. He described natural progression as a “ladder” or “chain” with weaker and stronger animals. The stronger, more fit animals  assuming higher positions. He was close but he just didn’t have the knowledge we have today. At the end of the day,  he still valued essentialism and the products of the gods.

In China, around the same time, evolutionary theory was also being pondered. Zhuangzi of Meng was also deep in thought on where everything comes from. Zhuangzi was a devout Taoist and used much of this philosophy in his studies. Though he didn’t provide much science to back it up, he proposed that living things “adapt” to their surroundings over time. They transform to meet the new conditions put around them. He believed this applied to human beings as well since we are a part of nature. This is  a basic tenant of Taoism, that nature is in a constant state of transformation. No matter the thought process he used to arrive at his decision, he was closer to the truth than anyone had yet come. Some in the Western world would mirror his work.  In ancient Rome, a similar theory of  a “transformational” aspect to nature began taking hold. St. Augustine of Hippo , a Christian firebrand and “founding father” of modern Christianity, also put forth a version of evolution a few centuries later. He believed GOD created all things, but not to stay as they are. He very much mirrored the thoughts of Zhuangzi on the “ascension” of  species.

When Rome fell,  the Middle East took up their scientific pursuits. Muslim biologist and philosopher, Al-Jāḥith contributed ideas to evolutionary thought that would influence many researchers who followed him. He was one of the first people to speculate in detail on the influence the environment has on  an animal’s growth and chances for survival. He was also one of the first to describe and lay out a complex “food chain” structure in nature. It was distinct from Aristotle’s earlier work in that it promoted a more natural means to the “transformation” of life, and  a natural process in determining his food chain.   The Arab world was  a bridge to ancient Greek thought and philosophy  for the Western world. While Europe toiled in the “Dark Ages”, the Middle East became a scientific “mecca”, if you’ll pardon the pun. No? O.K., I’ll punish myself. Moving on. Eventually these philosophies were introduced to the huddled masses in the West, and Christian thought on the subject of nature.

Most Christian philosophers immediately connected to Plato’s ideas of “essentialism”, that all has existed as it was. Working with these ideals, they developed a “great chain of being”.

From Wikipedia:

The chain starts from God and progresses downward to angels, demons (fallen/renegade angels), stars, moon, kings, princes, nobles, men, wild animals, domesticated animals, trees, other plants, precious stones, precious metals, and other minerals.

A place for everything, and everything in it’s place. Each section of the “chain” is also divided into smaller subsections, detailing their position in the “natural order”. Again, another theory for intelligent design and similar to models put forth by Ancient Greek philosophers.  This didn’t keep some Christian philosophers from thinking “outside the chain”….. No? Nothing? *sigh* Thomas Aquinas, a highly influential philosopher and theologian, felt there was a more natural process behind the development of life n Earth. He saw no reason why the universe couldn’t have “evolved” over time after being created. Many early Greek philosophers  had similar ideas, but thought it showed there was no governing presence over the universe. Thomas referred to it as “divine art”, wipe his hands clean, and declared “case closed”. Up to this point we have seen some examples of theories mirroring aspects of present day evolutionary science. Still, almost all theories were anchored in some way to essentialism, and a spiritual nature to the creation of life.

Then the Renaissance hit, and launched one of the greatest scientific revolutions in human history. It is in the 17th century that the term evolution first appears in the English lexicon. It refers to an orderly series of changes or sequence of events. But also in the sense that the outcome was “predetermined”, or the eventual outcome of the process was already known. It all lends to the machine like way many Renaissance thinkers viewed the universe. Processes that are undertaken for  a reason already known to the “machine”. Theories on the makeup of atoms described tiny pieces inside called “monads” , which constantly move and change, guiding everything we see forward. Most theory still had a root in a spiritual aspect but had moved further into the realm of natural processes.

As the Renaissance turned into the Enlightenment in the 18th century, the science of evolution really began to resemble the science we know today. German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer contributed ground breaking work on hereditary traits, and  John Mitchell, a colonial American doctor and botanist, published a study on racial structures entitled,  An Essay upon the Causes of the Different Colours of People in Different Climates. He theorized that the first of mankind were “dark” in complexion like Native Americans, and the varying races formed as mankind spread to different climates. A theory that should sound familiar to people today.

French naturalist G.L.L. Buffon was one of the first to dispute whether every animal we see is a distinct species or just variations of a common species. He theorized that lions, tigers, leopards, and even house cats all shared a common ancestor somewhere in the past. He speculated that of the 200 known species of mammals at the time, there may be as few as 38 “original forms”. Buffon’s science was still incomplete and, when dealing with the origins of life, he subscribed to the theory of spontaneous generation. A theory that animate matter simply springs up from inanimate matter all the time as opposed to some sort of biological reproduction. The theory was first proposed in Ancient Greece and lasted on into the 19th century before being completely tossed aside. In the late 18th century James Burnett(Lord Monboddo), published a series of highly influential writings including a theory involving man descending from primates, and species “evolving” over time to meet changing environments. Burnett was also a deist though and, though he believed man came from apes, he couldn’t get from ape to man without some sort of divine influence. The Enlightenment set the ground work for the transformation of evolution into a real science. Though many great Enlightenment thinkers still held spiritual beliefs tied to evolution, many struggled to hold onto them in the face of coming scientific revelations. By the dawn of the 19th century, essentialism, spontaneous generation, and all other theories involving an unnatural process were slowly fading away.

In 1796 Charles Darwin’s grandfather, Erasmus Darwin(awesome name), published Zoönomia. In it he proposes that all life began as simple organisms in the mud and gradually changed into all the life we see today. This was another key contribution to evolutionary thought. The Force was strong in the Darwin family. Later that same year French naturalist Georges Cuvier published a paper concerning the long running argument on extinction. He was able to determine that mammoths and mastodons  were distinct species, separate from modern day elephants. This proved once and for all that the extinction of species was possible and basically nailed the coffin lid shut on several prominent evolutionary theories dealing with spontaneous generation and essentialism. Study of fossil records took off in the early 19th century and contributed greatly to new theories of evolution. Dozens of articles published by prominent geologists throughout the early and mid 19th century brought about a greater understanding of the natural processes that have shaped our Earth, and continue to shape it to this day.  Cataloged differences in stratum from various time periods, and noted differences in fossil records in each period, proved there were long term processes at work in the Earth. This line of thought influenced evolutionary theorists. In particular, Charles Darwin.

The Voyage of the HMS Beagle

Charles Darwin was not born to change the world. He was born to be a doctor. Or at least that is what his father had envisioned for him. But Charles was not much of a studier in school. A trait found in many brilliant people through out history. He had no interest in becoming a physician. When his studies slipped, his father sent him off to a fine Christian college to become a priest. He showed even less interest in that. Apparently more  content to spend his days riding and shooting. It was during this time that he first ventured into the field that would dominate the rest of his life. A friend of Darwin got him interested in beetle collecting and the wider world of entomology , the study of insects. He spent the next few years at Cambridge studying any book  on natural philosophy, geology, and natural science he could find. At this point Darwin decided he wanted to become a dedicated naturalist. Or, at the very least, a geologist who kinda gives  a shit.

Eventually his studies got him  noticed and won him a seat on a boat, the HMS Beagle captained by Robert FitzRoy, embarking on a major study of plant and animal life  on the coastline of South America. Darwin’s father, of course, was completely against the planned 2 year expedition. With convincing  from family, Darwin’s father finally consented to his participation in the voyage. The journey that would change not just Darwin’s life, but the entire scientific world, was about to begin. On December 27, 1831  the Beagle left port from Plymouth Sound in southern England, bound for the east coast of South America. This would be the Beagle’s second trip to the continent. The first ended abruptly when the original captain had committed suicide. FitzRoy wanted very much to return and finish the original survey with a prominent naturalist. He was very impressed by Darwin’s early works and asked him to come along.

Darwin was ready but he was still very much a student. He spent much of the trip making various notes on geological conditions. He had developed a great interest in geology during his last years at university and felt it was the one thing he was most prepared for. It would be a very educational voyage. Accompanying them on the trip was ship surgeon  Robert McCormick,  a glory hound. McCormick had plans to become  a great explorer and was going to use this trip as his launch pad to international fame and fortune. Most “ship surgeons” acted as the on board naturalist as well. Btu with Darwin along for the trip, McCormick was pretty much ignored by FitzRoy. Something he wold not let either Fitzroy or Darwin forget. Darwin would later say of his traveling companion, “My friend [McCormick] is an ass, but we jog on very amicably”.

The first stop of their voyage was the island of Santiago, part of the Cape Verde island chain off the west coast of Northern Africa. Here Darwin made notes on a line of volcanic rock high above the sea containing seashells, reinforcing current geological theory of the earth rising and falling over countless millenia. The results greatly pleased FitzRoy and Darwin began to develop a great appreciation for the seemingly mundane task of fossil research.Darwin also noted and took samples of strange breeds of octopus who seem to change their color whenever the need arose. A fact already known by many naturalists but further study was greatly appreciated.   For 23 days the group stayed and explored the islands. On one particular day FitzRoy and Darwin took a small boat to an island to observe bird behavior. One note they made said they found the birds had absolutely no fear of humans. You could get close enough to grab one. McCormick was left to circle the island and wait for their return. He was not pleased.

From Cape Verde the Beagle sailed straight for Brazil. Darwin absolutely fell in love with the place. Never before has he seen such beauty and diversity in animal species. He hardly ever returned to the boat, only showing up at agreed upon times to head to a harbor and mail away their findings. He spent many days walking through the lush tropical forests not even taking notes, just enjoying the splendor all around him. But Darwin’s image of paradise was soon tainted by an ages old evil; slavery. Darwin found it hard to work with locals using slaves, often times refusing to even be a part of any expedition using them. At one point Fitzroy brings Darwin to a slaveowner to try and defend the practice of slavery. he tells the slaveowner to ask this slaves if they would rather be free. They all say no. Darwin, of course, could not accept that answer. They had a figurative gun to their head. What answer did they expect?

FitzRoy began to grow annoyed with Darwin’s constant complaints about the use of slave labor and, in a rage, banned Darwin from his company. However, once tempers cooled, FitzRoy returned apologetically to Darwin and the two resumed their partnership. For they were now very much partners. MCormick had become an afterthought by now. Darwin, as a guest of the captain, received the same level of hospitality and service the captain received and this further angered McCormick. But the guy was  a dick and a fame whore so who cares, right? It was now April in the year 1832. day by day McCormick saw his chances of becoming super famous dwindling. With no prospects in the immediate future, and Fitzroy once again fawning all over Darwin, McCormick quit the expedition and returned to England. Years later he would achieve some fame with expeditions of his own but not the immortality he was looking for. That belonged to Darwin.

For almost 3 years the Beagle sailed up and down the coast of South America, stopping wherever they felt they could make suitable finds. Darwin began charting and cataloging some of the most detailed fossil studies of the time.  Darwin was looking to challenge the existing theory that there were no shared ancestors between species and that life mysteriously appears in certain areas, and then dies off when the environment changes. Everything Darwin had seen during his “forest walks” in Brazil challenged that notion. He was beginning to believe species didn’t just die out when circumstances changed. he believed certain, “industrious species” changed with the environment. Adapted to meet the new demands placed on them. And if they didn’t, then they died. Many researchers back in England were pulling the same idea out of the works he had mailed home.

The fossil records were showing some uniformity between extinct species and those existing today. The same work that would lead later paleontologists to link dinosaurs and birds. Darwin and FitzRoy were both amazed at the amount of fossils they were finding which matched recovered fossils in Europe. The first theory of a “super continent”, a time when all the great landmasses were pushed together, was still decades away but the proof was beginning to pile up. Even without the later revelations on the Galapagos Islands, Darwin’s fossil studies were putting together a very compelling case for the evolutionary theory he would later propose. One man in particular would help Darwin immeasurably.

Alfred Russel Wallace was a true naturalist. Unlike Darwin he already approached  his studies with the idea that species evolve or “transmutate’ over time. Like Darwin he explored the rich diversity of life in South America and the surrounding islands. Wallace’s chief contribution was his study of the geographical spacing of “like species”. It was long the belief that species do not change. They appear in certain areas and die there. In the same are we find the “like species” that “replace” them. Wallace’s work would greatly challenge that theory and help complete Darwin’s masterwork. In the jungles of Brazil Wallace found similar species of monkey separated by immense tracks of land. Most often divided by the Amazon river. And so he wondered just how much  study on species separation deals with  differences over such vast distances. Turned out, not much.

We will return to Wallace and his ground breaking work  but, for now, back to Darwin.  September 0f 1835, the Beagle reaches the Galapagos Islands. Here is where Darwin will make some of his greatest revelations and hit on the epiphany that leads to the Origin of Species. For much of the trip Darwin had been mostly making fossil and geological notes and records. Not that he didn’t like it. Part of his excitement for reaching Galapagos was the possibility of seeing active volcanoes. His hopes where quickly dashed when he realized geological activity was minimal. At this point Darwin began to make real comparative studies of species. His first revelation, relatively early on, came when he noticed a mockingbird perched on a nearby bush. He first noticed how incredibly similar it was to other species he had encountered on  previous islands. He was beginning to see the formula that had intrigued Alfred Wallace.

While studying the majestic tortoises of Galapagos  he was told by a local that each turtle could be identified by it’s shell. Each island had a different shell design. This too fascinated him. These tortoises were obviously the same species yet each area showcased a new variety. Darwin, however, showed a very unscientific indifference to the various forms of mockingbird he found. He didn’t even  bother to label what island he had found them on. Later on he would discover that these “mockingbirds” were rare breeds of finches only found on the islands. This revelation would weigh heavily on his evolutionary theory. At the moment Darwin believed the wide variety on the islands was detrimental to the long term survival of those species. He was still blinded by long held beliefs in transmutation and felt that the species were too spread out to invoke any change they may need.

After Galapagos the Beagle headed for Australia. Her Darwin saw things he never thought he would ever see.  When he encountered his first marsupial, with their front pouches and  odd bone structures, he felt there were 2 “creators” at work on this one species. Which he surely must have believed when he saw his first platypus. His first noticed how soft their bill was compared to the preserved species he had see in museums. Europeans scoffed at the idea that a mammal laid eggs but Darwin saw the proof with is own eyes. It was around this time that Darwin turned from geology and began focusing more on biology. After Australia, Darwin longed to return home. Their 2 year expedition had extended to 5 years and Darwin was tired. After one last stop in Brazil, the Beagle headed for England.

In October of 1836  Darwin set foot on English soil again. He was already a huge celebrity back home. The notes he had routinely mailed back home captivated the scientific community. Everyone was interested to read his eventual publication of what he had learned. After selling off his diary and related notes for publication he began work on the tome that would define his whole life.

The Origin of Species

Darwin immediately retreated to his home to begin experimentation. He kept his notes close to this side and actively sought to prove or disprove everything written within. The work to prepare publication of his theory consumed most of his time. It was the discoveries he made back home, with the tools to properly experiment, that really shaped Darwin’s attitude going into the writing of  On The Origin of Species. Instrumental to his work was his correspondence with our old friend Alfred Wallace. Wallace was already knee deep in theory of what he called “natural selection“. While Darwin was in the middle of writing his historic tome, he received several papers written and published by Wallace on this new theory.  He saw the “missing link” to his own theory of evolution.
Darwin encouraged Wallace’s theorizing and felt they were onto something. Something huge. It wasn’t transmutation or some sort of random process that drove evolution. It was the ordered, beautiful process of natural selection that was creating the diversity Darwin and Wallace had witnessed in South America. It was the only answer for why Darwin was finding similar yet different species so far apart. When the species encountered a new environment it HAD to adapt or die. Once and for all they had the absolute proof that environment and hereditary  genes play the dominant role in evolution. This line of thought would expand in later years to mutations and the “corruption” of gene sequences. Adaptation is  a mutation. It is these mutations that have propelled life forward  for millions of years.

Darwin noted that one particular finch he found on Galapagos looked almost exactly like one he had caught in Brazil except this one had a very different beak, made to dig deep into the bark of the trees on the islands for grubs and nuts. And the curious case of the platypus. An obvious water mammal that had adapted to lay eggs to possibly ensure a greater number of offspring or it could be a leftover evolutionary function from it’s past generations. Study on the platypus is actually still very much ongoing. A strange but fascinating animal. Darwin and Wallace knew they had the evidence necessary to go forward with some of the most groundbreaking work ever published. Not since Galileo turned his telescope to the sky had the scientific world seen such revolutionary change.

On November 24, 1859  one of the greatest pieces of scientific literature ever written was published for the masses. And the masses ate it up. But not everyone as satisfied. Many, including Wallace, were expecting  a deeper discussion of human evolution. Darwin only casually touched on the subject in the first publication.  Many of Darwin’s peers were initially skeptical of the book but, in time, came around. Darwin’s painstaking record keeping and absolute commitment to the scientific process left little room for people who wished to question his theories. Natural selection quickly became the new scientific buzzword, followed later by the term Darwinism.

Many researchers, with Darwin’s book in hand, took to the field to test the ins and outs of Darwin and Wallace’s new theory. Now knowing what to look for and how to look for it,  new discoveries backing up Darwin’s work were found every other month. Suck as flowers that evolved to attract particular breeds of moth to ensure cross pollination. Darwin still worked to tweak his theory and make it more whole all the way up to his death in 1882. For decades Darwin’s theory faced criticism. And not just from religious groups. When later researchers began diving deep into the evolutionary history of man, the thought they we “descended from monkeys” put off more than a few legitimate naturalists. But, as with Darwin’s early theories, the evidence just kept piling up. But one of the greatest boosts to Darwin’s theory came from the process of “artificial selection”. Artificial selection is all around us.

Your pets are a product of artificial selection. The dairy cows you see today did not exist thousands of years ago.  The large utters they carry have grown in size over time under human guidance. Most of the vegetables you eat have been cross pollinated and cross bred so many times that they literally cannot reproduce on their own without human help. And we made all of this.  Humans. In only the last few thousand years. Looking at this, it is not hard to imagine the grand changes nature can produce over the millenia. As Carl Sagan said, “Evolution is not theory, it is solid fact.” You only need visit a farm to see it for yourself.

The advancement of gene study has further cemented Darwin’s legacy as we see exactly the predictions he and Wallace made concerning hereditary traits and the changes made in a species. The traits that matter most are carried further generation after generation and it is environmental influences and mutations that eventually produce a new breed adapted to survive the situation it is in. Many times the change doesn’t take or the species merely lacks the capacity to make the proper adaptations. In these cases, extinction most often occurs. And change can be subtle. many water animals such as sharks have undergone very little change since prehistoric times. Becoming smaller and faster to adapt to changing food supplies. Once the dinosaurs and other great lizards died out there was no more need for immense size. this you have the modern shark. Look at crocodiles. as they became more water based lizards their eyes moved to the top of their head. Another adaptation to meet new needs.

The traits that work the best are passed on most often and soon become the norm, spreading all across the gene line. Darwin and Wallace’s work was brilliant for it’s time and only became more so as time moved on. Very few of Darwin’ s predictions were wrong, and the main crux of his theory is no longer questioned in educated circles. Evolution is just fact. There is no denying it. Darwin’s work has been expanded on and proven time and time again. Wallace’s  theory of natural selection is the main linchpin of evolutionary thought. I would call them great men but that’s a huge understatement. They changed the world.

Well, hope you enjoyed this brief history of evolution.  And I do mean brief. I encourage anyone wanting a better understanding to follow up on the ground work I laid out.  There is much to tell. You’ll notice I didn’t get too much into the biology of it all because I hate biology.

Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer’s horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.
- Auden

St Francis of Assissi had, to be sure, an odd relationship with his body. As a strict ascetic, he considered it of utmost importance not to give in to its cravings for pleasure and leisure. He dubbed his own body “brother ass” and felt that it should be treated as any other domestic beast of the time. Beaten when in need of discipline, and given only coarse food upon which to subsist. He was known to curb his temptations by hurling his body into snow, or even on one occasion a briar patch which he tossed himself about in until his flesh was ripped and bleeding. However, by the time of his death, the great man had reconsidered his ill treatment of his body – his earthly vehicle – and asked the Lord to pardon him for having treated Brother Ass so cruelly. He realized that he had been indulging a fascination; an attempt to conquer that which his Creator had given him. Finally, it seems, that he who loved life and all its manifestations, had finally learned to love, or at least honor, his own organism.

Although many may feel that Francis’ relationship to his body was downright bizarre, I think it is difficult to escape the conclusion that we, in our modern age, relate to our own bodies in even more dysfunctional ways, or at least are encouraged to. We obsess over its skin layer, its most superficial aspect. Say the word “body” to a teenage male, and no doubt the image that will result is a female with Playboy-approved proportions. Or perhaps his own body, “ripped” and sculpted. It is doubtful that he will think of the intricate, mechanical wonder he inhabits, the magnificence that goes far beyond the skin layer. I’m reminded of a scuba diver, who, seated next to a friend who looked out at the ocean at sunrise and remarked at how beautiful it was, replied, “yes, and that’s only the roof!”

We indulge our bodies in exactly the way that St. Francis frowned upon, as we load up on ice cream, tortilla chips, cola, coffee and red wine. We then scan it for signs of resultant flab, and hold it up for critique alongside the impossible ideals that mass media relentlessly parades before our eyes. In magazine articles and website pages we are asked to consider which Hollywood hunk or starlet has “the best body”, when presumably the correct answer should be the one that functions best – the one that digests, eliminates, breathes, repairs, etc. most efficiently.

No greater indication of our dysfunctional relationship to our bodies can there be than the fact that we have created a trillion dollar industry that has as its sole purpose the manufacture of machines and devices that destroy and disfigure it by the millions. Our so-callled “defense industry” would perhaps be looked upon less favorably by its supporters if it were referred to, more honestly, as “the body destroying industry”. Although it has numerous competitors, perhaps the most atrocious and obscene example of this in all our sad history was the Treblinka II Death Camp in Nazi Germany. This was the Industrial Revolution meets Dante’s Inferno. For the first and only time in history an actual factory was built, with train lines leading up to it, that served no purpose other than the destruction of human bodies as quickly and “efficiently” as possible. People were carted in by the train car-load, and few lived more than 24 hours after arriving.

And these bodies that we waste and destroy so casually are near miraculous machines that are far beyond the capabilities of our greatest scientific geniuses to create or even imitate. Each cell, when it is first birthed in us, is like any other cell in our bodies, yet each knows how to evolve through exactly the right iterations so that it becomes part of our hair, our eyes, our lungs, our genitals, etc. How do the cells do this? Nobody knows, but it is likely the answer will someday be found in the portion of our DNA that biologists have lovingly referred to as “junk”.

We punish bodies mercilessly, and yet throughout the history of our species they have never sinned in any way. They serve us faithfully to the fullest extent they are capable at any given moment, until they can no longer. When they long for sleep we deprive them of it. When they need healthy natural food to stay strong, we insist that they make do on starchy, sugary, salty substances they have little use for. We keep them chained to chairs when they long to move about in the open air, as they were evolved to do. If we treated our pets the same way we treat our bodies we would be considered negligent, at best. And we punish bodies for the transgressions of the mind. I am opposed to the death penalty because I believe it is always a miscarriage of justice, as the body merely did what it was told, no matter how heinous the crime. To the body, slicing a cucumber or slicing into a human finger is essentially the same act, insofar as it merely follows the instructions of a healthy, or deranged, mind. An eye for an eye is thus two outrages, not one.

I am only writing to say that human bodies are innocent. We have yet, as a species, to demonstrate our worthiness to inhabit them. We should never harm them in any way.

While scientists remain puzzled as to the cause of  the dramatic decline in honeybee populations in North America and elsewhere, some are speculating the cause may very much be human related; however, not technological, but  philosophical. It appears that “Randism”, a trend that has recently exploded on the American political landscape may similarly have caught on among our bee brethren. It seems that the reason for the decline of hive populations is that many bees are now practicing “the virtue of selfishness”, keeping the nectar they collect for themselves and not returning to the hives they emerged from. These bees consider the notion that they should return for the benefit of the whole colony “evil altruism” and look down upon the “Hive-ists” who would act for a goal larger than themselves. They argue that “there is no such thing as a species” and that it all comes down to individual bees and their pursuit of their own happiness. When it is pointed out to them that this could result in the extinction of honey bees and have cataclysmic results on worldwide crops, they scoff and say, “and this is my problem how?”

Meanwhile, more religious-minded bees are concerned about how to carry on in the aftermath of what they regard as “The Great Rapture” that has decimated their populations. “Left Bee-hive”, the bee adaptation of the “Left Behind” series of books by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins, paints a bleak picture of life on earth after the Chosen Bees have been taken up to their Maker.

So, will it be Rand that the bees turn to, or the Good Book? “Why should I care?”, a distraught bee who agreed to be interviewed for this article lamented. “It’s so hopeless that I just may go off somewhere and sting someone!”