Where have we come from, and who wants to know?

The debate over how exactly our world, our universe has been created will perhaps be one that can never be resolved. It isn’t that the solution is difficult to locate; on the contrary, it simply requires the application of a rational mind, one that isn’t prejudiced against any possibility. Unfortunately, in our present circumstances, both the scientific fraternity and the theological communities are incapable of appreciating the possibility that anyone other than themselves has an amount of truth in their beliefs.
The theory of evolution, as proposed by Charles Darwin, is the cornerstone of the belief system of the scientific world. And to a rational mind, it seems pretty true to reality. When the habits and behavior of man can undergo subtle, yet significant, changes, simply by moving to a different cultural zone, who is deny the possibility that the physical structures of beings could also be affected by the characteristics of their extraneous environment? And yet, there is too much probability involved in this entire process, too much mathematics, something that unnerves the common mind.
Biologists refer to this as the unique event hypothesis. While physicists and chemists tend to believe in intelligent extraterrestrial life, biologists tend not to. Many biologists feel the development of intelligent life on Earth required so many peculiar steps that it represents a unique event in the universe that may never have occurred elsewhere. How can one define the birth of intelligent life on Earth as a unique event?
Well, it barely arose on the Earth. The Earth is 4.5 billion years old, and single-celled life appeared 3.9 billion years ago – almost immediately, geologically speaking. But life remained single-celled for the next three billion years. Then in the Cambrian period, around six hundred million years ago, there was an explosion of sophisticated life forms. Within a hundred million years, the ocean was full of fish. Then the land became populated. Then the air. But nobody knows why the explosion occurred in the first place.
Even after the Cambrian, the chain of events leading to man appears to be so special, so chancy, that biologists worry it might never have happened. Just consider the fact that if the dinosaurs hadn’t been wiped out sixty-five million years ago – by a comet or whatever, reptiles might still be the dominant form on Earth, and mammals would never have had a chance to take over. No mammals, no primates; no primates, no apes; no apes, no man. There are a lot of random factors in evolution, a lot of luck.
However, just because something involves a hell lot of probability or even mathematics doesn’t mean that it is necessarily wrong, or even delusional. Evolution is something that seems logical, and it is so, in many respects. And still, it doesn’t explain why things are the way they are, why humans are the predominant species, and not, say, tigers.
These gaps are what allow intelligent design or the concept of a Creator to have some following. After all, why rely on probability when you can attribute these events to some mystical being, far beyond your realm of vision and perception, who somehow controls all that you see? But intelligent design falters when confronted with the evidence that there is a past, a past that extends beyond the man of today. This past doesn’t start with the time since when the Neanderthal roamed the plains of Europe. It goes far beyond that. Trying to explain the presence of fossils as a ploy to delude man into believing that he is simply a cog in the larger scheme of things is not only far-fetched; it’s absurd. If the Creator wants to delude us, He would hide greater things than bones of reptiles and apes.
By now, you would have realized that I have no definite stand on how this world was created. Frankly I don’t give a damn whether I am part of a huge tour de œil (I hope that’s the proper expression) or the culmination of a long drawn process of change. My antecedents are of no relevance to me; there are more important things to worry about. What say?

(quoted liberally from Michael Crichton's book 'Sphere')

Carlo Ventresca's Lament

I found this most beautiful piece, something that made me think. It’s from the book ‘Angels and Demons’ by Dan Brown, and is a speech made by the chamberlain to the Pope, Carlo Ventresca, to the Conclave of Cardinals.

“To those of science, let me say this, “You have won the war.” The wheels have been in motion for a long time. Your victory has been inevitable. Never before has it been as obvious as it is at this moment. Science is the new God.
Medicine, electronic communications, space travel, genetic manipulation . . . these are the miracles we herald as proof that science will bring us the answers. The ancient stories of immaculate conceptions, burning bushes, and parting seas are no longer relevant. God has become obsolete. Science has won the battle. We concede.
But science’s victory has cost every one of us. And it has cost us deeply.
Science may have alleviated the miseries of diseases and drudgery and provided an array of gadgetry for our entertainment and convenience, but it has left us in a world without wonder. Our sunsets have been reduced to wavelengths and frequencies. The complexities of the universe have been shredded into mathematical equations. Even our self-worth as human beings has been reduced. Science proclaims that Planet Earth and its inhabitants are a meaningless speck in the grand scheme. A cosmic accident. Even the technology that promises to unite us, divides us. Each of us is now electronically connected to the globe, and yet we feel utterly alone. We are bombarded with violence, division, fracture, and betrayal. Scepticism has become a virtue. Cynicism and demand for proof has become enlightened thought. Is it any wonder that humans now feel more depressed and defeated than they have at any point in human history? Does science hold anything secret? Science looks for answers by probing our unborn foetuses. Science even presumes to rearrange our own DNA. It shatters God’s world into smaller and smaller pieces in quest of meaning … and all it finds is more questions.
The ancient way between science and religion is over. You have won. But you have not won fairly. You have won by so radically reorienting our society that the truths we once saw as signposts now seem inapplicable. Religion cannot keep up. Scientific growth is exponential. It feeds on itself like a virus. Every new breakthrough opens doors for new breakthroughs. Mankind took thousands of years to progress from the wheel to the car. Yet only decades from the car into space. Now we measure scientific progress in weeks. We are spinning out of control. The rift between us grows deeper and deeper, and as religion is left behind, people find themselves in a spiritual void. We cry out for meaning. And believe me, we do cry out. We see UFOs, engage in channelling, spirit contact, out-of-body experiences, mind quests – all these eccentric ideas have a scientific veneer, but they are unashamedly irrational. They are the desperate cry of the modern soul, lonely and tormented, crippled by its own enlightenment and its inability to accept meaning in anything removed from technology.
Science, you say, will save us. Science, I say has destroyed us. Since the days of Galileo, the Church has tried to slow the relentless march of science, sometimes with misguided means, but always with benevolent intention. Even so, the temptations are too great for man to resist. I warn you, look around yourselves. The promises of science have not been kept. Promises of efficiency and simplicity have bred nothing but pollution and chaos. We are a fractured and frantic species … moving down a path of destruction.
Who is this God science? Who is the God who offers his people power but no moral framework to tell you how to use that power? What kind of God gives a child fire but does not warn the child of its dangers? The language of science comes with no signposts about good and bad. Science textbooks tell us how to create a nuclear reaction, and yet they contain no chapter asking us if it is a good or a bad idea.
To science, I say this. The Church is tired. We are exhausted from trying to be your signposts. Our resources are drying up from our campaign to be the voice of balance as you plough blindly on in your quest for smaller chips and larger profits. We ask not why you will not govern yourselves, but how can you? Your world moves so fast that if you stop even for an instant to consider the implications of your actions, someone more efficient will whip past you in a blur. So you move on. You proliferate weapons of mass destruction, but it is the Pope who travels the world beseeching leaders to use restraint. You clone living creatures, but it is the Church reminding us to consider the moral implications of our actions. You encourage people to interact on phones, video screens and computers, but it is the Church who opens its doors and reminds us to commune in person as we were meant to do. You even murder unborn babies in the name of research that will save lives. Again, it is the church who points out the fallacy of this reasoning.
And all the while, you proclaim the Church is ignorant. But who is more ignorant? The man who cannot define lightning or the man who does not respect its awesome power? This Church is reaching out to you. Reaching out to everyone. Show me proof there is a God, you say. I say use your telescopes to look to the heavens, and tell me how there could not be God! You ask what God looks like. I say, where that question came from. The answers are one and the same. Do you not see God in your science? How can you miss Him? You proclaim the even the slightest change in the force of gravity or the weight of an atom would have rendered our universe a lifeless mist rather than our magnificent sea of heavenly bodies, and yet you fail to see God’s hand in this? It is really so much easier to believe that we simply chose the right card from a deck of billions? Have we become so spiritually bankrupt that we would rather believe in mathematical impossibility than in a power greater than us?
Whether or not you believe in God, you must believe this. When we as a species abandon our trust in the power greater than us, we abandon our sense of accountability. Faith …all faiths…are admonitions that there is something we cannot understand, something to which we are accountable…With faith we are accountable to each other, to ourselves, and to a higher truth. Religion is flawed, but only because man is flawed.
Tonight, we are perched on a precipice. None of us can afford to be apathetic. Whether you see this evil as Satan, corruption, or immorality…the dark force is alive and growing every day. Do not ignore it. The force, though mighty, is not invincible. Goodness can prevail. Together we can step back from this abyss.”

Let Justice prevail!

Yesterday, the Houses of Parliament expelled 11 of its ‘distinguished’ members on the charge of having accepted bribes to ask questions in their respective Houses. To me, it seems rather inane to ask for money to ask questions. After all, what possible harm or good is a question going to do, even if it is raised in the highest legislative body in the country? And then I realized that it wasn’t the harm the question was doing. It was the harm the bribe would do to the legislature, to the system of a reasonable State, driven by the actual needs of the people, and not by the desires of a few demented groups. The representatives of the people must be ideal, someone the people can look up to for inspiration, who conjures images of integrity and trust, and inspires confidence and hope in the minds of the most despondent soul. They cannot be affected by human afflictions like greed, sloth, lust, envy, and all the cardinal sins. Not too much to ask, is it?
Unfortunately it is. What right does a people who will give bribes just to get their jobs done, maybe out of coercion but nonetheless performing the act, to demand such high standards from its representatives? After all, he is your ‘representative’ and will therefore contain all the characteristics of you, those whom he must represent. I plead that you, my reader, not construe this as a defense of those charged. For it is not so much a defense of the accused as an entreaty to my fellow Indians to introspect as to whether we do inhabit such high moral ground to expect such high standards from our politicians?
The manner and procedure followed by the Houses of Parliament is not of concern to me. That they deserved to be punished goes without saying, and the most appropriate punishment was the one that has been meted out, that being revocation of the membership of the accused in the clan whose trust, honour and prestige has been sullied by their nefarious acts. But, one must pause to ask whether even in the light of evidence as obvious as television videos, can the laws of natural justice be relaxed? Can, in the presence of seemingly infallible odds against the accused, he be denied the right to defend himself before his peers? In our urge to inhabit a high moral ground, are we guilty of having transgressed on the most basic of moralities, the law of permitting an accused to a proper trial?
I may seem to have political pretensions or prejudices when I write this, but in truth, I agree with the punishment. The guilty must suffer, and that they suffer will be ensured by the Fates. But, in our pursuit for Righteousness, we must not inflict wounds on Justice, for one without the other is of no value. Have a trial, hear them out. The verdict may be predetermined in your minds, but even then Justice will be satisfied that you gave her a chance, an opportunity to be fair.

Books Forever

Google has announced its plan to digitize every book, every tome, in the printing world. And somehow, this hasn’t disturbed me too much. Maybe this is because I really was never so much of a computer guy, a man whose life is dictated by the bytes and bits of the processor. My world is inhabited by people, and most importantly, books. Mind you, my books aren’t digitized, and I am thankful for that.
For if they were digitized, how on earth would I read them in those cold nights in the light of candles when the electricity forsook me to visit her mom at the power plant? How on earth would I feel the rustle of the pages, the swiftness of the passage of time as I rushed through the chapters? How could I leave a tome partially unread, and then rush back to it, guilty in that I forsook a friend? Books aren’t such pages bound in a hard cover, covered with publisher’s ink. They are living entities, the sentinels of their time, and the markers of eternity.
To digitize them would merely take away their allure, their mystery from them, and render them so very ordinary. And yet, when I say this, I have committed the most abominable blasphemy, the most heretical sacrilege. For books have been the harbingers of change. They have given hope where hopelessness reigned supreme. They have consoled the grieving when the heavens seemed unable to come to provide succour. They have infused souls with inhuman courage when the hearts of men sought to liberate themselves from the yokes of oppression and tyranny. And in this context, if one were to ask the books, they would shrug their shoulders, maybe straighten out some ruffled pages, and say as simply,
Our's not to make reply,Our's not to reason why,Our's but to do and die.
Those who have delivered change will not shun change. For it is in evolution that we better ourselves. Maybe it is the destiny of mankind. It is not for us to question as to why it is just so.

Intelligent Inside

Continuing with the newspaper comments (this blog is mainly inspired by the big bunch of newspapers (at last count 3) that I get at home), Vinod Dham, the father of the Pentium chip, in an interview said, “In China, if you tell someone to walk from point A to B, they do it quietly. In India, they’ll ask you ‘why’ or figure out an algorithm to do it in one-third the time.”
No small words, especially when it’s coming from a man who’s been at the forefront at Intel for nearly 16 years, and is acknowledged as a Silicon Valley legend. And I am in complete agreement with Mr. Dham. In China, the scope for the individual genius is suppressed beneath the greater collective good. Admittedly, this is needed when one’s talking about team work, but then there isn’t that much of an incentive for creativity. Again as Amartya Sen said, we Indians are a tremendously argumentative people. Sometimes these arguments may be inane, but they imply an almost neurotic desire to be not only smart, but also be seen as smart. These arguments serve the purpose of enhancing our abilities where they may seem deficient, as also of buttressing our confidence in our knowledge. The ‘wh’ questions are the main part of our vocabulary. And that is a sign of a genius people.
But that doesn’t mean the Chinese are any less. Mind you, they are now being toasted because they are hard-working. An inherent desire to be applauded sometimes may make a man complacent, to the extent that he forgets his true goal. If India is to retain its edge over China, it has to ensure that this Fountain of Creativity doesn’t dry up; rather that it is supplemented by the Spring of Perseverance and Diligence. Our priorities need to be set right; once that’s done, I think we will not only make our cake but also have it.

Total Recall

I am reading in the newspaper that the Speaker of the House of the People, Mr. Somnath Chatterjee, has expressed his support for the right of the people to recall their representatives in the legislatures. To quote him, “The people who elected him should also have the right to say, ‘I sent you to perform but you have let me down, so come back.’”

With all due respect to him, the idea is a really brilliant, if not original concept. The principle of recall already exists in the United States, as far as my limited knowledge of its politics goes. Indeed, the people should not be expected to be encumbered by the incompetencies of their representatives (sounds more like an insult than an honour, given the quality of these blokes) for five years. Give them the chance to recall the fool, if he/she isn’t performing to their expectations. I do feel that if this idea is implemented, not just on paper, but also in reality, then there will be a huge increase in the accountability that elected representatives will have to bear with respect to their duties towards their constituents.

However, I am cognizant that in our country wherein elections are such an expensive affair, and having them even once in five years is like a burden, expecting the State to bear such a burden once every two or three years is simply not practical. Moreover, the people do have an implicit right of recall; only this right can be invoked only when the next elections for the legislative body concerned come around. Heck, if you aren’t happy with the way the bloke’s worked; don’t elect him the next time, as simple as that.

Again, the fact’s that our populace isn’t as educated as one would like it to be, if such a scheme is to be introduced. When I mean educated, I am not implying an academic education, but a general awareness of one’s rights and responsibilities towards one’s society, and one’s nation. Until such awareness can be perceived, introducing any such scheme, no matter how well-meaning it may be, will be in vain.