Subject: desire to participate

From: woodburn <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 02 Apr 2006 12:02:04 -0400

Greetings:   Based on what I find on the Internet, the Darwin
Day Celebration will be a truly noteworthy event.  Unfortunately at age
ninety-one, if I were to participate I would have to be rather
inventive. Furthermore, I am afraid that my take on why Charles Darwin
deserves unrestricted admiration would be totally out of phase with the
view that predominates among the list of the very eminent people who are
already supporting the celebration. My view is based primarily on the
final sentence of the last chapter of ON THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES. And this
brings problems. For example, the phrase, “by the Creator,” does not
appear in the first edition but does appear in an 1870 edition. Which
creates a crucial quandary. Why does the phrase appear in later editions
but not in the first? If it was Darwin’s own idea to add that phrase, we
cannot blame him for the controversy that has enfeebled both the science
and the religious establishments during the past 150 years.

       If we take into consideration the entire sentence in which the
phrase, “by the Creator,” appears, we also find he phrase, “this view of
life, with its several powers.” This phrase gives us license to believe
that Darwin saw life as being an entity in its own right and thereby
invites giving him the credit for attempting to ward off what may well
be a far more costly controversy. In this controversy, on one hand we
have those who see life as being an entity, the something that tells us
a newborn will breathe, a grain of wheat will germinate, a dog will
return our affection, a stem cell will show differentiation, and all
such things that  distinguish the living from the non living. On the
other hand, quoting one of the people who are supporting the Darwin
Celebration, “there is no vital spark that lifts it [life] above mere
chemistry and biochemistry.” Consequently, we have the world that Darwin
describes so beautifully while on the other hand we have a world where
the urge to achieve materialistic goals overshadows motivations to
enhance our social and spiritual worlds.

        This not the place to debate the credibility of life being
merely chemistry but the illusion in this notion invites what is
probably the most revealing rebuttal. In no way could each gamete or
pair of gametes of each and every species, past and present, be
outfitted with an adequate supply of the reactants that would be
required to maintain the same chemical reaction. At the same time, we
know that the gametes of each species carry a molecule that is universal
in the living world but there can be a variation of this molecule that
is unique for each species and, possibly, for each individual of each
species. The role this molecule plays in he living world suggests a
compromise that removes all justification for the conflict; between
science and religion. On the one hand, this molecule can be treated as
any other molecule that is involved in the reshuffling of atoms from
molecule to molecule. On the other hand, the DNA molecule can be seen as
being associated with something that can determine the kinds of
reshuffling that will produce the substances that are essential to the
life process. The value of this point of view is that those who are
religiously inclined can endow this something with the properties that
will make possible the world of their choosing.

        It would be difficult to the point of impossible to tie the
differences in how people live to differences in the prevailing point of
view of what life is. There are lessons to be learned, however, in the
differences in how people have dealt with what could well be two sibling
entities, life and energy. Both entities are of comparable dimensions
and can be treated as being endowed with properties that extend from
here to the hereafter. Neither entity can be experienced absent
interaction with some form of matter. Neither can be destroyed and it is
equally improbable that either entity can be created anew. Most
important are the differences in how humanity has attempted to
comprehend and to utilize the properties of the two entities. Life has
always escaped the full revelation of its properties. Not so with
energy. There are virtually no limits to the efforts to recognize what
energy is and can do. The results from this discrepancy become painfully
evident if we compare the roles both entities have played and continue
to play in determining the rate of advancement of our industrial and
technical world versus that of our social and spiritual world.

        To celebrate the life of Charles Darwin stands as a two-fold
opportunity that goes far beyond the usual paying respect to an eminent
person. By conveying the true nature of what he hoped to hand off to his
fellow men, we can redirect humanity toward achieving our inherent
destiny. We have here a young man who was willing to give up a
comfortable life with his family and friends and spend some five years
undergoing the hardships of travel on a small ship in order to gain
first hand knowledge of our living world. This was followed by an effort
of twenty years to put into words the impressions of mystery and majesty
throughout his contact with the inhabitants of this living world. And it
is this effort that has caused Charles Darwin to be associated with what
has been the most consequential human conflict of the past
one-hundred-fifty years. No other conflict has rubbed the noses of young
America in the shortcomings of both science and religion. No other
conflict has denied more people the comfort, guidance, and inspiration
that can come with being religious.

       Now for the really bad news. The media driven controversy between
science and religion has become the goose that lays the golden eggs of
visibility. Which is to say that senility may not be the only obstacle
to be overcome if my notion of our debt to Charles Darwin were to be
included in the forthcoming celebration.    John H. Woodburn