Dharmic Religions Only: Evolutionary Science and Hindu/Buddhist worldviews.

[ratikala]

namaskaram Vonbek ji

@Spiny Norman, do you think it possible that we live in a world where both kamma and natural selection operate? Or, do you find the two ideas to be impossible to reconcile? I see no reason why both cannot be in operation. They are two separate processes, neither guided by a God, which flow along, modifying organisms over time both in accordance with the effects of past kamma AND from the selective pressures of the natural environment.

please excuse me answering this question as it is an interesting one , ....

if one takes Vedic or Dharmic position on this question the answer most certaily is yes , ...particularly in that you use the term natural selection as opposed to evolution , some may think that they are synonomnous , but there are prehaps more than subtle differences , ....take for instance the Vedic yuga , ..some Buddhists also refer to the same time spans refering to this Kali yuga as a ''degenerate age'' in which Buddha Dharma deminishes more quickly than in previous yugas , or that people in general have less interest in Dharma practice or the upholding of Dharmic principles , ...in Tibetan Buddhism it is widely recognised that we are becoming steadily more materialistic , i.e. Attatched , therefore we increasingly suffer from the efects of stress and anger , this inturn leads to ignorance , a diminuation of the Dharma , ...as Dharma diminishes the practices of Right Thought , Right Speach , Right Action Right Livelihood etc equaly diminish , ...thus greed increases , due to our greed and the increasing population our demands on the planet become greater , thus all life on this planet suffers , as we strip the forests in the interest of monetary gain we change the ballance of nature , as we poison the seas we change the ballance of nature , life forms must by the prosess of natural selection either addapt or die , ....we are seeing this happen all around us , one might also come to the conclusion that this is linked to Karma (action) , ...as we are seeing this excellerating process of distruction happening before our very eyes , ...if our Karma dictates our rebirth , then to give an overly simplified analogy , ..one who has been responcible for greed and destruction in a former life , who has by his own actions deprived others through his own selfishness and greed will be born into a degraded position where he must feel the efects of the degredation caused , ...if by this time the planet canot support human life in the way it has previously done , if for instance the levels of polution have reached intollerable highs , or that we have by our own actions made it impossible for the plant life on which we depend to continue to florish , then mankind must become canibals in order to survive , we will either grow test tube flesh or we will eat eachother , ...such change in diet alone would alter our physicology , if the air is poluted we may become stunted and deformed and have shorter duration of life , ...in short this is natural selection or nececary mutation , ...this to me is cause and effect rather than Evolution , ...

to my mind the dharmic faiths look at the cause and effect , ...modern science looks at the already manifest matter , we are observing the same phenomena from opposite angles , ..but it is how we understand cause that realy differs , ...to a Buddhist or Hindu the cause may well be atributed to action or desire , ..where as to the Secular Scientist the cause is atributed to matter alone , ..although prehaps their thinking is begining to shift towards looking at things in terms of energies , ....in which case they may well come closer as Action and Desire create their own energies , ...

the Question of God only comes into it when one begins to search for the primal source of all energies , ..this too is a facinating subject , ....

 

[sayak83]

A brief note on classical Indian atheism.
It has recently become common on both sides of the modern Indian very religious/less religious divide to call Western science atheistic either pejoratively (my the very religiopus) or approvingly (by the less religious). Here are two counter narratives borrowed directly from the Church-Science fight that occured in Western Europe.
1) Very religious Indian Theists:- " The modern Western science is atheistic just like the old Carvakas who did not believe in anything and were nihilists. So siding with them is like being a Carvaka. "
2) Liberal Indians :- " The medieval Hindu religious bigots persecuted the enlightened and skeptical Carvakas, just like they the modern ones want to promote unscientific superstition and repress science in the name of faith."
The assumption is that there is 1:1 correspondence between Christianity and orthodox Hinduism and enlightenment skepticism and the Carvakas. This is extremely misleading. Note that both the Vaisesikas, the Samkhya and the Buddhists reject important tenets of the Vedic doctrine and yet the debate with them (while contentious) followed proper decorum as one would expect between schools who thought each other to be competitors rather than mortal enemies. Why is that?

While much of Charvaka writing is fragmentary, enough have been recovered to provide an overview of how they viewed the world. The view is decidedly odd. Here's a philosopher on the topic,

The hard-core naturalists, Cārvākas, admit four types of basic material elements—earth, water, fire and air. They reject atomism, however, since they refuse to admit any imperceptible thing in their ontology, including God, Soul, ākāśa and all kinds of non-natural forces. The material elements are said to possess some qualities naturally. Multifarious objects of this world including living and conscious beings are produced out of the combination of material elements. It is generally held that the nature of any effect is determined by the nature of its cause. The Cārvākas, however, deny any causal connection between the material elements and the compounds arising out of them. Just as fire is naturally hot and water is naturally cold, similarly, they hold, sugarcane is naturally sweet, margosa leaves are naturally bitter and thorns are naturally sharp. The distinguishing feature of this kind of extreme naturalism is a belief in a fortuitous generation of events (ākasmikatāvāda). Causal relations are supposed to involve necessity, but necessity is not perceptible and whatever is not perceptible cannot be inferred or established by any other means.

Udayana argues, in an elaborate critique of this view (Nyāyakusumāñjali I, 4–5), that every event must have a cause because every event without exception has ‘conditional’ (sāpekṣa) existence, this in turn because it has ‘occasional’ (kādācitka) existence, i.e., it occurs at a certain time. An eternal entity is always existent and a fictitious entity does not exist at any time: as these are not characterized by occasional existence, these are not caused. The only counter-instance to this rule is prior absence, which has occasional existence but being beginningless has no cause. Cārvākas affirm, however, that an event need not originate from a cause; it may come into being fortuitously. Even the occasional origination of an event is due to the nature of the event and has got nothing to do with its cause.

According to Carvaka, the world is totally the game of dice. There is no causation, no patterns or relationships. Everything occurs spontaneously for no reason whatsoever. Nothing at all can be explained or inferred, its just a flux of spontaneously generating and ceasing random events. It is clear here that its not Carvakas, but Udayana who is arguing against them about the reality of causation and theretical entities like atoms and space from the Nyaya standpoint who is truly being rational and scientific about the issue. Science stands with Udayana (and the Buddhists and other orthodox schools) here. Whatever else maybe true, the Carvaka conception of a patternless, causality free universe is certainly wrong.

So I would urge both sides to stop trying to equate the Carvakas school with science in any way shape and form. The classical Indian atheists had very odd and very unsupportable view of reality indeed.

 

[ratikala]

Namaskaram prabhu ji's

I canot belive the low level to which this conversation has sunk , ....

I for one never suspected to find it much of a reality among Dharmi. I have learned better now, much to my disappointment.

for anyone to post this remark in a thread open to people of Dharmic Religious veiw points , merely shows that they should not be posting here , ....prehaps if there is nothing concstructive that you can offer ? ...it might be better that you keep your dissapointment to your self and leave is in peace to discuss what some of us regard to be a higer reality .

Sure, which is why I don't expect to. The gains of this thread are of another nature and have other goals.

the object of this thread was for Discussion and Fair Structured and polite debate where by @sayak83 ji wishesd the chance to convince some members of Hinduism DIR of the validity of his veiw point , ...

it has become increasingly difficult to do this due to the rudness of some members , ..in otherwords the the dogedness of some sceptics is making a farse of a genuinely motivated debate , ...

Sure, scripture literalism is a plague. It should never have been widespread.

this statment sounds some what like Maio's ''all religion is poison'' speach , ....

what you may assume to be literalism has many layers of understanding from the material to the spiritual , ...and posesses its own knowledge and wisdom , ....

But since it does exist, we should be aware of it and learn to deal with it by spreading the lights of knowledge and wisdom over it.

what makes you so sure that you are the holder of all knowledge and Wisdom ??? ....to a spiritual aspirant your Idesa of knowledge and wisdom pretains to the knowledge of material mtter alone , ....this to us appears not only Naive bit some what shallow, ....

If much of supposedly mainstream religion presents itself as obscurantings, literalist, and proudly defiant of science and fact, it is only fair for those interested in science to turn their backs to it as a direct result.

what you are missing (or egnoring) is that many do not reject Science outright , ...it is simply that we do not Give it such importance as you might , nor do we agree with all its findings ...we are not as blind as you seem to think it is just that our values differ .

It is not science's duty to conform to the expectations of supposedly religious people. It is instead religion's duty to make sense and to be humble enough to acknowledge reality.

we do accknowledge reality it is just that we have a wider veiw of reality , ..one not limeted to the material realm alone

I am sorry that you are learning wrong things about Buddhism, them. It is a very sad reality.

Luis ji , ....please accept that not all Buddhists are the same in their beleifs or their veiws of reality , ..

please Luis allow others their own understandings and stop trying to smother what you dont approve of with your idea of ''knowledge and wisdom'' , ....

 

[ratikala]

Namaskaram shivsomashekhar ji

There is no proof that it was magically revealed. And your view also demonstrates a lack of understanding of the concept of revelation.

who said magicaly revealed ? ....prehaps Prabhu ji you might also be a little more gracious and stop trying to dicredit me by implying that I beleive in Magic ???

or as in previous posts suggesting that I know nothing and should go read about it , ....

Revelations are for subject matters that cannot be known through other means, such as observation, study and inference. Transcendental topics such as heaven, hell, soul, Vaikunta, Paramatma, etc., can only be known through revelation. Material subjects such as history, Math, Science, Astronomy and Medicine are known through worldly means and do not require to be revealed.

prehaps you should not just read , but should Study the Ayurveda , although Ayurveda is known to gives cures for ailments which are as you rightly say observable phenomena , it also speaks on the 'knowledge of life' (Ayurveda) diferentiating between the spiritual and the mundane this enters into the realms of Trancenndentalism , ...

I have tried to emphasise and repeat this multiple times on multiple threads on this forum. Your approach of ignoring this important distinction and considering all kinds of knowledge to be revealed would require us to close down all the Labs, discontinue all research and try to find answers in the Puranas and other Smriti texts.It would take us back to 1000 AD and I am pretty sure that no Hare Krishna (including yourself) is willing to give up the medical facilities, the internet and the host of other other modern comforts they are used to and this seriously undermines your position.

prehaps we have a different veiw on life , I beleive that we should ballance the Body in order to prevent illness , this I beleive is a superior Science to the applying allopathic cures to extant dissorders ,

I would certainly put more empasiss on prevention rather than Cure therefore if I were king I would most certainly teach yoga in all schools train more Dieticians and Herbalists and fewer Allopaths , ...if you think that is a backward move ,...then we must beg to differ , ...

and I am pretty sure that no Hare Krishna (including yourself) is willing to give up the medical facilities, the internet and the host of other other modern comforts they are used to and this seriously undermines your position.

prabhu ji , ....I have also politely asked you to stop refering to me or to any devotee of Krsna Visnu or Chaitanya Mahaprabhu as Hare Krsnas , but you persist ??? , ...Do I go around calling people the 'Om Tat Sat's' ..or the 'Aham BrahmAsmi's'..?

so please stop using this incorect title it simply shows you to be deliberatly trying to be provocative , ....as to your Question , ....I am infavour of medical treatment where nececary only having just broken my arm I am greatfull to the doctors who re set it and for the kind attention that they have given me , ....however despite being vegan and it being quite a complex and painfull break I have relied on Homeopathy and Herbalism and physiotherapy without painkillers , ...and have healed remarkably well thanks to Symphytum and despite their prognosis that due to the nature of the break that I can only hope to get 60% of the original usage back I intend to make a full recovery , ....without the side efects of painkillers , ....and no I dont take suplements either I am perfectly well versed in the art of balancing ones food intake without recoures to a test tube , ...

Without the technology that has been developed in recent times (by scientists), Prabhupada would not have been in a position to travel to foreign countries and you would never have heard of Krishna. Don't you think it is ironical, that had your proposal been followed, you would never know the very system that has influenced you to think this way?

do you not know that man made Boats out of wood without the help of Scientists ??? .......and that Srila Prabhupada traveled to America in a steel vessel made by ship builders not Scientists , ......

I am sorry, but these are highly irresponsible and arrogant statements to make. You are belittling something that you have no knowledge of. There is not a single shred of evidence to support any claim that Hippocrates copied Indians. And please do not post random internet blogs to support these wild theories or quote conspiracy and cover-up stories by academia .

having studied Naturapathy , Herbalism and Diet for a large part of my life I probably wouldnt know anything about
Hippocrates now would I ,.......

and please do not twist my words for efect , ..I did not say ...''that Hippocrates copied Indians.'' ..l said that ...''Hippocrates although the father of western medicine is known to have taken great interest in Ayuravedic medicine as his contemporaries did in Vedic philosopies in general , ....amongst the greeks there was a huge respect for Vedic Wisdom .''

Taken great interest in , ...not coppied , ....

and please where did I post random internet blogs ??? , ....I post quotes from the Gita , ...and I post Bhajans , ....

 

[sayak83]

namaskaram Vonbek ji



please excuse me answering this question as it is an interesting one , ....

if one takes Vedic or Dharmic position on this question the answer most certaily is yes , ...particularly in that you use the term natural selection as opposed to evolution , some may think that they are synonomnous , but there are prehaps more than subtle differences , ....take for instance the Vedic yuga , ..some Buddhists also refer to the same time spans refering to this Kali yuga as a ''degenerate age'' in which Buddha Dharma deminishes more quickly than in previous yugas , or that people in general have less interest in Dharma practice or the upholding of Dharmic principles , ...in Tibetan Buddhism it is widely recognised that we are becoming steadily more materialistic , i.e. Attatched , therefore we increasingly suffer from the efects of stress and anger , this inturn leads to ignorance , a diminuation of the Dharma , ...as Dharma diminishes the practices of Right Thought , Right Speach , Right Action Right Livelihood etc equaly diminish , ...thus greed increases , due to our greed and the increasing population our demands on the planet become greater , thus all life on this planet suffers , as we strip the forests in the interest of monetary gain we change the ballance of nature , as we poison the seas we change the ballance of nature , life forms must by the prosess of natural selection either addapt or die , ....we are seeing this happen all around us , one might also come to the conclusion that this is linked to Karma (action) , ...as we are seeing this excellerating process of distruction happening before our very eyes , ...if our Karma dictates our rebirth , then to give an overly simplified analogy , ..one who has been responcible for greed and destruction in a former life , who has by his own actions deprived others through his own selfishness and greed will be born into a degraded position where he must feel the efects of the degredation caused , ...if by this time the planet canot support human life in the way it has previously done , if for instance the levels of polution have reached intollerable highs , or that we have by our own actions made it impossible for the plant life on which we depend to continue to florish , then mankind must become canibals in order to survive , we will either grow test tube flesh or we will eat eachother , ...such change in diet alone would alter our physicology , if the air is poluted we may become stunted and deformed and have shorter duration of life , ...in short this is natural selection or nececary mutation , ...this to me is cause and effect rather than Evolution , ...

to my mind the dharmic faiths look at the cause and effect , ...modern science looks at the already manifest matter , we are observing the same phenomena from opposite angles , ..but it is how we understand cause that realy differs , ...to a Buddhist or Hindu the cause may well be atributed to action or desire , ..where as to the Secular Scientist the cause is atributed to matter alone , ..although prehaps their thinking is begining to shift towards looking at things in terms of energies , ....in which case they may well come closer as Action and Desire create their own energies , ...

the Question of God only comes into it when one begins to search for the primal source of all energies , ..this too is a facinating subject , ....

Am I correct then in stating what you object to is the historical reconstruction of the trajectory of life through time based on fossil evidence and not evolution per se. Because the core definition of evolution is descent with modification through natural selections. It simply tells you that, if the natural environment changes living organisms will change through pressures of natural selection, wit mutations being the engine of underlying variations on which the selective effect takes place. Understand that in biology, evolution can be both progressive or regressive, as vestigial organs show. Evolution itself is blind to what road it takes.
What you are saying is that your understanding of the Puranas preclude you from believing that this process was ever responsible for positive changes likes emergence of new kinds of animals and plants that exploit a new opportunity in nature. You also cannot accept that evolutionary processes caused the rich diversity of life come into existence from an initial first life, as inferred from the fossil record. It is the history of life as inferred from the fossil record you do not believe, not the efficacy of the mechanism that is purported to make such a history possible. Is this right?

 

[kalyan]

Am I correct then in stating what you object to is the historical reconstruction of the trajectory of life through time based on fossil evidence and not evolution per se. Because the core definition of evolution is descent with modification through natural selections. It simply tells you that, if the natural environment changes living organisms will change through pressures of natural selection, wit mutations being the engine of underlying variations on which the selective effect takes place. Understand that in biology, evolution can be both progressive or regressive, as vestigial organs show. Evolution itself is blind to what road it takes.
What you are saying is that your understanding of the Puranas preclude you from believing that this process was ever responsible for positive changes likes emergence of new kinds of animals and plants that exploit a new opportunity in nature. You also cannot accept that evolutionary processes caused the rich diversity of life come into existence from an initial first life, as inferred from the fossil record. It is the history of life as inferred from the fossil record you do not believe, not the efficacy of the mechanism that is purported to make such a history possible. Is this right?

Crocs have not evolved or developed any new feature from 200 million years! So I guess they are most perfect species.

Your arguments on fossil this and fossil that looks so cheap and not least bit convincing. For your own good, please STOP with your random theories and LIVE in current world instead of saying my mama and papa are apes..Looks so absurd in modern age

 

[ratikala]

namaskaram sayak ji ,

Am I correct then in stating what you object to is the historical reconstruction of the trajectory of life through time based on fossil evidence and not evolution per se. Because the core definition of evolution is descent with modification through natural selections. It simply tells you that, if the natural environment changes living organisms will change through pressures of natural selection,

l agree that there is without doubt natural selection in that some species addapt and mutate others die out , ...however I am not sure that l am happy with the stringing togeter of all life forms to create a neat pattern of progression from equatic animal to man, .....

with mutations being the engine of underlying variations on which the selective effect takes place. Understand that in biology, evolution can be both progressive or regressive, as vestigial organs show. Evolution itself is blind to what road it takes.

agreed evolution of a species takes place to an extent but personaly I am not happy with the ldea that we evolved from apes , ..I agree also that this evolution can be progressive and regressive , this can be seen in mankind we have lost many of our natural abilities and sences , ...

where prehaps I differ is as to the why ? ....to you it is prehaps simply an observable phenomen in which life addapts to suit living conditions, ....? .....to me there is something else going on , ...from observation I would oppine that whilst some species undergo a certain amount of evolution in that they addapt to new enviromental conditions , others die out , of course yes , this has been termed survival of the fittest , ...but it does not explain why so many specis of life co exist .

What you are saying is that your understanding of the Puranas preclude you from believing that this process was ever responsible for positive changes likes emergence of new kinds of animals and plants that exploit a new opportunity in nature.

my understanding of all shastra put together leeds me to suspect that this theory of evolution is a fanciful but understandable missconception , lt is not the puranas alone other texts also contain thought provoking references to life in this realm and in other realms or lokas , ...what I find sad is that the puranas are dissmissesd as mythology or legend , ...

You also cannot accept that evolutionary processes caused the rich diversity of life come into existence from an initial first life, as inferred from the fossil record. It is the history of life as inferred from the fossil record you do not believe, not the efficacy of the mechanism that is purported to make such a history possible. Is this right?

what I find hard to accept is that fossil finds placed in cronological order is sufficient eveidence to form a theory upon , Personaly I think the theory itself is incomplete and misses many obvius clues as to the true nature of life , ..

personaly l find the study of the Puranas to be far more interesting and revealing place this study along side all other Vedic literature , ....surely such study would lead one to ask the question can there evn be ''First life'' or is this an eternal cycle , ....

actualy l firmly beleive that life forms transfer from one realm to another (both metaphoricaly and physicaly), ..after all what is Science trying to do now , having B******* up this planet , striped it of most of its recources and poisoned it's atmosphere , they want to know if Mars will support life ???
Who knows , ...Prehaps they will soon discover that Mars did support life , untill as we are doing now , its inhabitants rendered it unfit for habitation , ...so they de camped to this little earth planet , ....

prehaps this would make interesting reading , ....

many Governments including the lndian Govenment think so , .....

Personaly I think life is eternal and that we not only move from plane to plane but also from finite planet to finite planet

Bhagavad Gita , ...Ch ..4 V 1-2

The Blessed Lord said: I instructed this imperishable science of yoga to the sun-god, Vivasvān, and Vivasvān instructed it to Manu, the father of mankind, and Manu in turn instructed it to Ikṣvāku.

''Manu, being the father of mankind, gave it to his son Mahārāja Ikṣvāku, the King of this earth planet and forefather of the Raghu dynasty in which Lord Rāmacandra appeared. Therefore, Bhagavad-gītā existed in the human society from the time of Mahārāja Ikṣvāku."

This supreme science was thus received through the chain of disciplic succession, and the saintly kings understood it in that way. But in course of time the succession was broken, and therefore the science as it is appears to be lost.




​

 

[Rick O'Shez]

@Spiny Norman, do you think it possible that we live in a world where both kamma and natural selection operate? Or, do you find the two ideas to be impossible to reconcile? I see no reason why both cannot be in operation. They are two separate processes, neither guided by a God, which flow along, modifying organisms over time both in accordance with the effects of past kamma AND from the selective pressures of the natural environment.

I suppose so, though I see a conflict. Evolution is about survival of the fittest and the passing on of genes, both of which might be at odds with wholesome intention. Evolution is an amoral process, kamma is not.

 

[sayak83]

namaskaram sayak ji ,
prehaps this would make interesting reading , ....

many Governments including the lndian Govenment think so , .....

​

Quick note on this book. This book has been investigated by people in IISC and it has been clearly shown that it is a work dating to 1930s, has no relationship with ancient texts and the descriptions oif the aircrafts insider are fanciful imaginations of the people who wrote.
http://vedicilluminations.com/downloads/History/Vimanas/study of Vimanika shastra.pdf
A CRITICAL STUDY OF THE WORK “VYMANIKA SHASTRA”
by H.S. MUKUNDA§, S.M. DESHPANDE§, H.R. NAGENDRA§§, A. PRABHU§, AND S.P. GOVINDARAJU Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore‐560012 (Karnataka)

I did not find any more recent paper by any historian or textual scholar refuting these findings. So why do you believe such a book to have anything to do with classical Vedic times?

Indian government believes whatever gets them votes from their constituents. All politicians in the world are like that. What CPM, Congress or BJP believes about history has very little to do with evidence based conclusions from findings.

 

[shivsomashekhar]

Good point @sayak83

Same with the so called Vedic Mathematic techniques that some Indian kids learn here in the US. These techniques are dated to the 7th century CE or later, but are labeled Vedic - which is just wrong. But among today's Hindus, the label creates awe and respect and that is likely why it was labeled that way.

 

[sayak83]

My response for comparative embryology is the same as my comment for comparative anatomy, I don't think it implies common origin. Yes it can support Darwanism, but it can also support a Puranic view (all species emerged at once).

Thank you for your detailed response
Now let me consider two alternatives from embroyology,
1) All species were created at the beginning of the world by a common Creator (Iswara) and the similarity in mechanisms (like DNA, embroyology) is evidence for the unity in the design principle in design.
2) Evolutionary speciation through mutation and natural selection over time is the cause of the similarity.

In deciding which of these conjectures is true, the fossil record becomes important, as it preserves in stone the signature of how life looked like in the past. The fossil record is directly observable (pratyaksha) and the dates of the rocks where they have been buried can be detected by the many dating method types I noted.

In this context then, the records like the specific fossil forest assemblage 40 million years ago in the Arctic Circle becomes important. The reason is, it shows that both the climate and the types of animals that inhabited that world looked very different from today.
http://www.religiousforums.com/thre...uddhist-worldviews.184843/page-7#post-4647739
http://www.religiousforums.com/thre...uddhist-worldviews.184843/page-7#post-4648657
I will continue this description later. But it is from looking at such ancient ecosystems as preserved from fossils (older ones were even more different, like when dinosaurs were there and all mammals were smaller than a mouse) that paleontologists come to the conclusions that most modern species did not exist in such remote times and most of species that did exist then had become extinct.
Such evidence does not support the idea I listed in (1) but is consistent with the alternative idea of evolution in (2). Does this not make evolution more likely than the Puranic view of creation?

Even in evidence you have provided for transitional fossils (from Wikipedia I may add), not one clear sequence of transitional changes from one species to another can be seen. Even today, scientists accept the fossil record as largely incomplete.

I have listed the transitional finds simply to refute Kalyan's claim that none have been found. I will look into two specific transitions, water to land transition when fishes (allegedly) evolve into amphibians and land to water transition when some land mammals allegedly evolved into whales. Its takes some time to read up on stuff, understand it, and present my own ideas about it. Trying not just to post internet links in my more substantial arguments.
Regarding fossils, think of them as statistical sampling. Since humans did not pre-order what is being preserved and when, the fossil finds provide "blind" sampling of past lives at different epochs. So using the science of statistical techniques (just like what google and facebook does a lot in their softwares regarding what we like or dislike) you can create levels of certainty and confidence regarding the reconstruction of the contours of the past life from the sample fossils of that era we do uncover. This sort of technique is used and works in all fields of knowledge, so it should work on reconstructions based on fossil assemblages as well. It will require further investigation by me to check if the exact details of the method is sound. But I know that a lot of statisticians do work in these fields now and the idea behind it is sound.

Furthermore if humans did branch from a common ancestor (like the Homo Erectus for instance) why can we not find Homo Erectus organisms alive today? Surely there were some individuals from a population who were not exposed to selective environmental conditions and hence did not evolve. Why have they "magically" died out?

They have not. It increasingly looks like "we" drove them to extinction just as we are driving the rest of the animal world to extinction. They were the first victims, as they were too "like" us. But I will probably create a separate thread for human evolution as its a topic that deserves a thread of its own.

Lastly the biggest problem I have with evolution is it is essentially based upon chance. Mutations are by nature are completely random and therefore to attribute to them a directional change which would result the formation of more complex and diverse species is to me a huge extrapolation.

The directional change come from the natural selection process. The changes caused by the random mutations get selectively enhanced or attenuated by selection. This is a very effective mode of design and is increasingly used in actual engineering designs. The method is called evolutionary algorithms.
http://www.solver.com/genetic-evolutionary-introduction
The most popular are the class of design codes known as genetic algorithms,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_algorithm
These techniques, based on principles of evolution, are widely used now in engineering design and is one of the major reasons for my confidence that the theory "works".

This is my personal analysis of the data, and combined with the words of scripture, evolution is not something that is logical for me to accept. I hope you understand my position. That being said, I can see why evolution had been accepted as nearly fact by modern day scientists, because the most of the data can be interpreted to fit Darwin's theory and because science as no other logical alternative (that springs from empirical evidence) they must accept it. This does not apply who theists (who accepted the testimony of Shastra).

Therefore I reject it and accepted the worldview of Vedanta which according to the Vaishnav Acharyas supports the theory of Puranic creation. As for the whole Smrti vs Sruti, debate: all Vaishnavs believe that Smrti holds as much authority as Sruti. Both have emerged from the mouth of Brahman in the beginning of creation. I can provide injunctions from Sruti itself to prove this. If Smrti was not authoritative, why would the great acharyas comment of Srimad Bhagavatam Gita (which falls into Smrit)?

I understand your position. But I differ on the proper method of exegesis of sruti/smriti. I believe that the scripture are primarily meant to point at transcendental truths regarding the true inner essence of the self and its relations to God/Brahman and how to gain liberation by realizing this transcendental understanding. The analysis of the world and its mundane history and patterns are only true in so far as they are vehicles of revealing this knowledge to the hearers. The other truth values in those propositions can be subjected to modifications or updating based on external pramana sources. That, at least, is my view on the matter. After all, if I ask myself the question, "What impact would it have on my desire to lead a sattwik life if I believed or disbelieved in evolution?", the answer is "absolutely nothing". But I am curious as to how the present world came to be and evolution seems part of the proposed answer. That is why I try to know about it.

I cannot directly experience evolution with my senses (hence it is not Pratyaksha). For me it is simply Sabda (what the dominant scientific community tells me) and because it contradicts with Shastric Sabda, I have to accept the shastric version.

In a previous post
http://www.religiousforums.com/thre...uddhist-worldviews.184843/page-7#post-4648920
I outlined some claims of observed speciation made by scientists and biologists. If accepted, this seems to bring evolution to the realm of directly observable phenomena of the world. Does this not make it "pratyaksha"? One can check their descriptions and decide if they truly had seen evolution create a new species. But the claims are certainly claims about direct observation of speciation.

Thank you for the good discussion.

 

[kalyan]

Thank you for your detailed response
Now let me consider two alternatives from embroyology,
1) All species were created at the beginning of the world by a common Creator (Iswara) and the similarity in mechanisms (like DNA, embroyology) is evidence for the unity in the design principle in design.
2) Evolutionary speciation through mutation and natural selection over time is the cause of the similarity.

In deciding which of these conjectures is true, the fossil record becomes important, as it preserves in stone the signature of how life looked like in the past. The fossil record is directly observable (pratyaksha) and the dates of the rocks where they have been buried can be detected by the many dating method types I noted.

In this context then, the records like the specific fossil forest assemblage 40 million years ago in the Arctic Circle becomes important. The reason is, it shows that both the climate and the types of animals that inhabited that world looked very different from today.
http://www.religiousforums.com/thre...uddhist-worldviews.184843/page-7#post-4647739
http://www.religiousforums.com/thre...uddhist-worldviews.184843/page-7#post-4648657
I will continue this description later. But it is from looking at such ancient ecosystems as preserved from fossils (older ones were even more different, like when dinosaurs were there and all mammals were smaller than a mouse) that paleontologists come to the conclusions that most modern species did not exist in such remote times and most of species that did exist then had become extinct.
Such evidence does not support the idea I listed in (1) but is consistent with the alternative idea of evolution in (2). Does this not make evolution more likely than the Puranic view of creation?



I have listed the transitional finds simply to refute Kalyan's claim that none have been found. I will look into two specific transitions, water to land transition when fishes (allegedly) evolve into amphibians and land to water transition when some land mammals allegedly evolved into whales. Its takes some time to read up on stuff, understand it, and present my own ideas about it. Trying not just to post internet links in my more substantial arguments.
Regarding fossils, think of them as statistical sampling. Since humans did not pre-order what is being preserved and when, the fossil finds provide "blind" sampling of past lives at different epochs. So using the science of statistical techniques (just like what google and facebook does a lot in their softwares regarding what we like or dislike) you can create levels of certainty and confidence regarding the reconstruction of the contours of the past life from the sample fossils of that era we do uncover. This sort of technique is used and works in all fields of knowledge, so it should work on reconstructions based on fossil assemblages as well. It will require further investigation by me to check if the exact details of the method is sound. But I know that a lot of statisticians do work in these fields now and the idea behind it is sound.

They have not. It increasingly looks like "we" drove them to extinction just as we are driving the rest of the animal world to extinction. They were the first victims, as they were too "like" us. But I will probably create a separate thread for human evolution as its a topic that deserves a thread of its own.




The directional change come from the natural selection process. The changes caused by the random mutations get selectively enhanced or attenuated by selection. This is a very effective mode of design and is increasingly used in actual engineering designs. The method is called evolutionary algorithms.
http://www.solver.com/genetic-evolutionary-introduction
The most popular are the class of design codes known as genetic algorithms,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_algorithm
These techniques, based on principles of evolution, are widely used now in engineering design and is one of the major reasons for my confidence that the theory "works".




I understand your position. But I differ on the proper method of exegesis of sruti/smriti. I believe that the scripture are primarily meant to point at transcendental truths regarding the true inner essence of the self and its relations to God/Brahman and how to gain liberation by realizing this transcendental understanding. The analysis of the world and its mundane history and patterns are only true in so far as they are vehicles of revealing this knowledge to the hearers. The other truth values in those propositions can be subjected to modifications or updating based on external pramana sources. That, at least, is my view on the matter. After all, if I ask myself the question, "What impact would it have on my desire to lead a sattwik life if I believed or disbelieved in evolution?", the answer is "absolutely nothing". But I am curious as to how the present world came to be and evolution seems part of the proposed answer. That is why I try to know about it.



In a previous post
http://www.religiousforums.com/thre...uddhist-worldviews.184843/page-7#post-4648920
I outlined some claims of observed speciation made by scientists and biologists. If accepted, this seems to bring evolution to the realm of directly observable phenomena of the world. Does this not make it "pratyaksha"? One can check their descriptions and decide if they truly had seen evolution create a new species. But the claims are certainly claims about direct observation of speciation.

Thank you for the good discussion.

Chant Hare Krushna and be in peace man........If you know about basic element mud, you know about all other things made from mud, i.e pot, different kinds of vessels and so on.........Sri Krushna is that supreme Source

 

[ratikala]

namaskaram spiny ji

I suppose so, though I see a conflict. Evolution is about survival of the fittest and the passing on of genes, both of which might be at odds with wholesome intention. Evolution is an amoral process, kamma is not

surely under the laws of cause and efect there are meritorios actions leading to future good burths and un meritorious actions which lead to un fortunate births , ...i.e. being born in a land where Dharma is not practiced , ...being born in a body which lacks the inteligence to understand or to practice the Dharma , etc , .....and if following this there must be fortunate abodes in which to be born and unfortunate abodes in which to be born , ...can we not also see that the unskillfull actions of mankind if they out weigh the skillfull actions will un ballance this world making it a less fortunate abode to be born into and although there will be some who do not suffer there will be more that do suffer , this is also the law of cause and effect , ...and if motivated by greed and ignorance we destroy and exaust material elements of this earth causing imballance then mankind will mutate inorder to survive , ....here we can see longterm efects of cumulative unskillfull actions in which case those of skillfull cation will be born in a more fortunate realm and those of unskillfull action will be born in this or another degraded realm , ....

Karma can be both moral and amoral surely ? ..........evolution therefore would be coincedental ?

 

[ratikala]

Namaskaram sayak ji

Quick note on this book. This book has been investigated by people in IISC and it has been clearly shown that it is a work dating to 1930s, has no relationship with ancient texts and the descriptions oif the aircrafts insider are fanciful imaginations of the people who wrote.
http://vedicilluminations.com/downloads/History/Vimanas/study of Vimanika shastra.pdf
A CRITICAL STUDY OF THE WORK “VYMANIKA SHASTRA”
by H.S. MUKUNDA§, S.M. DESHPANDE§, H.R. NAGENDRA§§, A. PRABHU§, AND S.P. GOVINDARAJU Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore‐560012 (Karnataka)

I did not find any more recent paper by any historian or textual scholar refuting these findings. So why do you believe such a book to have anything to do with classical Vedic times?

Indian government believes whatever gets them votes from their constituents. All politicians in the world are like that. What CPM, Congress or BJP believes about history has very little to do with evidence based conclusions from findings.

agreed this translation may be spurious ??? however there are with out doubt mention of Vimanas throughout shastra , ...therefore I keep an open mind , ....what is a vimana ? and what makes us so sure that we are the only inhabited planet , ...after all arn't we trying to develop the technology to inhabit other planets ???

if so , and this is only conjecture , and light humored conjecture at that , if we can reach other planets this means others could have reacherd and inhabited this planet , which explains to me far better why it is that we live along side apes , if Darwin is correct in that we have evolved from apes, this leaves one question some apes evolved and some did not ? why ?

secondly Andean Indians have developed larger stronger lungs inorder to cope with high altitude , bring them down from the mountains and ower time they will loose that trait prehaps becomeing taller an less robust , this is merely a responce to living conditions , ...however people who have lived in forest enviroments for centuies upon centuies have not grow tails so that they may swing around in trees thus being able to avoid preditors , ..to do this they had to fashion bows and arrows and call on Agni Dev to protect them at night , .....

further more why is it that man is so illequiped to deal with the elements , we are the only creatures on this planet that have to clothe ourselves , if evolution were such a natural method by which life adapts to its saroundings , why then did we loos our coveriing of Hair and our ability to regulate our own bodily temperature ?

yes true Yogis can do it , ..but the average man canot , .....nor can his vunerable ofspring , .....

 

[sayak83]

Namaskaram sayak ji

agreed this translation may be spurious ??? however there are with out doubt mention of Vimanas throughout shastra , ...therefore I keep an open mind , ....what is a vimana ? and what makes us so sure that we are the only inhabited planet , ...after all arn't we trying to develop the technology to inhabit other planets ???

A lot of things are possible. A vanishingly small minority of things that could possibly be true are actually true. So a mere statement in a book, any book gets us nowhere. The question is, can the statement be validated? If it has not been validated, one is fully justified in not believing it, for one cannot believe in all things that could be possibly true as actually true and live. But to move a truth claim from the realms of possibilities to probabilities or certainties, one needs evidence. If and when archaeologists do unearth ancient remains of flying chariots or ancient documents that describe how they were built that makes engineering sense, they will constitute good evidence for such truth claims.
Given the sheer size of the universe and the number of earth like planets that apparently exist in our galaxy alone, it appears highly unlikely that life exists only on this earth. But probabilities of intelligent conscious life is far less.Since its well nigh impossible to tell how likely intelligent life is, whether other intelligent alien civilizations exist elsewhere or not remains an unanswerable question.
Scientists have found no evidence of direct contact between humans and any aliens, present or past (a few UFO remains if found will help). Current laws of physics include an absolute speed limit to all material objects (Einstein's theory) to the speed of light. The theory has amply validated and the absolute limit puts immense challenges as to how interplanetary travel between stars could even be possible. Given these issues, scientists are skeptical as to the possibility of any travel between earth and other civilization hosting alien planets in the past. Anyways, current archaelogical data shows that humans never possessed such capabilities in the past..until you can find new data that shows otherwise.

if so , and this is only conjecture , and light humored conjecture at that , if we can reach other planets this means others could have reacherd and inhabited this planet , which explains to me far better why it is that we live along side apes , if Darwin is correct in that we have evolved from apes, this leaves one question some apes evolved and some did not ? why ?

Not sure what aliens have got to do with it.
The reason for evolution of some apes to humans is quite clear. Its the breakup of the vast tropical forests of Africa into open grasslands due to the great dry out caused by the Ice Ages. Most of the apes who lived in the tropical rainforests that were rapidly converting to open woodlands due to lack of rain (here rapid means millions of years) went extinct, but a few populations had some mutations that helped them adapt to the open woods by being able to walk on the ground more. They lived, got more and more specialized to live in open hot woodlands and savanna and became the various types of ancient humans one sees about 2 million years ago. The great cooling has been an unmitigated disaster for apes. Once upon a time (20-10 million years ago) there were as many as 100 different species of apes roaming around in the dense forests of Africa, Europe and Asia and far outnumbering the monkeys. Today only 5 remain (chimpanzee, gorilla, orangutan, gibbon). All other than humans, are still specializing on the last tropical forests found in parts of Asia and Africa, only the human lineage was able to evolve to take advantage of the open grasslands and hence was able to recolonize these regions from where the other forest dwelling ape ancestors went extinct.

The Story of the Apes

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/planet-of-the-apes-2006-06/

"Today's apes are few in number and in kind. But between 22 million and 5.5 million years ago, a time known as the Miocene epoch, apes ruled the primate world. Up to 100 ape species ranged throughout the Old World, from France to China in Eurasia and from Kenya to Namibia in Africa. Out of this dazzling diversity, the comparatively limited number of modern apes and humans arose. Yet fossils of great apes--the large-bodied group represented today by chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans (gibbons and siamangs make up the so-called lesser apes)--have turned up only in western and central Europe, Greece, Turkey, South Asia and China. It is thus becoming clear that, by Darwin's logic, Eurasia is more likely than Africa to have been the birthplace of the family that encompasses great apes and humans, the hominids.
........
TO DATE, RESEARCHERS have identified as many as 40 genera of Miocene fossil apes from localities across the Old World--eight times the number that survive today. Such diversity seems to have characterized the ape family from the outset: almost as soon as apes appear in the fossil record, there are quite a few of them. So far 14 genera are known to have inhabited Africa during the Early Miocene alone, between 22 million and 17 million years ago. And considering the extremely imperfect nature of the fossil record, chances are that this figure significantly underrepresents the number of apes that actually existed at that time."

It is a mistake to think that modern apes have no evolved themselves from their more ancient ancestors. The key differences that seperate the great apes (chimps, orangs, gorillas) from monkeys and smaller apes is that they lack tails and move different along the trees. The monkey jump from tree-tops to tree tops using the tail as a fifth limb for support. Apes instead, being far heavier, use their far more mobile and stronger arms and legs (the joints are specialized in us and the apes to move in many more directions than monkeys) to swing along the thicker bottom branches of the big trees found in the thicker rainforests.

"The biggest difference between those first apes and extant ones lay in their posture and means of getting around. Whereas modern apes exhibit a rich repertoire of locomotory modes--from the highly acrobatic brachiation employed by the arboreal gibbon to the gorilla's terrestrial knuckle walking--Early Miocene apes were obliged to travel along tree branches on all fours.
The best-known ape from this period is Proconsul, exceptionally complete fossils of which have come from sites on Kenya's Rusinga Island. Specialists currently recognize four species ofProconsul, which ranged in size from about 10 kilograms to possibly as much as 80 kilograms.
Like all extant apes, this one lacked a tail. And it had more mobile hips, shoulders, wrists, ankles, hands and feet than those of monkeys, presaging the fundamental adaptations that today's apes and humans have for flexibility in these joints. In modern apes, this augmented mobility enables their unique pattern of movement, swinging from branch to branch. In humans, these capabilities have been exapted, or borrowed, in an evolutionary sense, for enhanced manipulation in the upper limb--something that allowed our ancestors to start making tools, among other things.

At the same time, however, Proconsul and its cohorts retained a number of primitive, monkeylike characteristics in the backbone, pelvis and forelimbs, leaving them, like their monkey forebears, better suited to traveling along the tops of tree branches than hanging and swinging from limb to limb. (Intriguingly, one enigmatic Early Miocene genus from Uganda, Morotopithecus, may have been more suspensory, but the evidence is inconclusive.) Only when early apes shed more of this evolutionary baggage could they begin to adopt the forms of locomotion favored by contemporary apes."

Tails are useless for support when the method of locomotion changes and the body size increases. That is why apes lost the tails and evolved over time to a body that is better suited to their mode of locomotion. Monkeys specialized in the top branches and almost never descended to the ground. Apes, bigger and heavier, moved along the bottom branches and also foraged on the ground, better protected from predators by their size. Some were vegetarian like monkeys while others took to partial hunting of monkeys. In the rainforests of Africa, the most efficient predator of monkeys are not any carnivores, but rather chimpanzees.

Continued...

 

[sayak83]

Later the apes colonized Europe and Asia

"Afropithecus from Kenya--was ancestral to the species that first made its way to Eurasia some 16.5 million years ago. The apes that went to Eurasia from Africa appear to have passed through Saudi Arabia, where the remains of Heliopithecus, an ape similar toAfropithecus, have been found. Both Afropithecus and Heliopithecus(which some workers regard as members of the same genus) had a thick covering of enamel on their teeth--good for processing hard foods, such as nuts, and tough foods protected by durable husks. This dental innovation may have played a key role in helping their descendants establish a foothold in the forests of Eurasia by enabling them to exploit food resources not available to Proconsul and most earlier apes.
In 2001 and 2003 my colleagues and I described a more modern-looking ape, Griphopithecus, from 16.5-million-year-old sites in Germany and Turkey, pushing the Eurasian ape record back by more than a million years.

BY THE END of the Middle Miocene, roughly 13 million years ago, we have evidence for great apes in Eurasia, notably Lartet's fossil great ape,Dryopithecus, in Europe and Sivapithecus in Asia. Like living great apes, these animals had long, strongly built jaws that housed large incisors, bladelike (as opposed to tusklike) canines, and long molars and premolars with relatively simple chewing surfaces--a feeding apparatus well suited to a diet of soft, ripe fruits. They also possessed shortened snouts, reflecting the reduced importance of olfaction in favor of vision.
"

The Apes that came in Europe and Asia rapidly colonized huge parts of the continent from France, Germany, Saudi Arabia, India and China. It was hot and temperate then with large tropical forests with great fruit producing trees all over the place. The apes thrived. The Orangutan is a great (and last) example of these Asian apes, still hanging on to those last Asiatic rainforests. They primarily ate fruits and grasses (with some monkey and squirrels), had large brains like current apes and relied on powerful color vision more than smell (unlike monkeys). The key feature of apes is their great locomotive efficiency through the forests. Depending on the forest type, some would swing more, while others would saunter across the ground on all fours. Among the primates, the apes are the fastest travellers across the forests, none(even monkeys) could compete with apes when it comes to speed of traversal accross dense forests. Thus the apes could forage across large regions of rainforests which other animals have difficulty penetrating, getting to the fruits first and thus thriving.

"The Sivapithecus lineage thrived in Asia, producing offshoots in Turkey, Pakistan, India, Nepal, China and Southeast Asia. Most phylogenetic analyses concur that it is from Sivapithecus that the living orangutan,Pongo pygmaeus, is descended. Today this ape, which dwells in the rain forests of Borneo and Sumatra, is the sole survivor of that successful group.
Within two million years four new species of Dryopithecus would evolve and span the region from northwestern Spain to the Republic of Georgia. My own phylogenetic analysis of these animals--the most comprehensive in terms of the number of morphological characteristics considered--indicates that Dryopithecus is most closely related to an ape known as Ouranopithecus from Greece and that one of these two European genera was the likely ancestor of African apes and humans."

But the huge rainforests were not to last. And the apes were forced to retreat with the forests.

The combined effects of Alpine, Himalayan and East African mountain building, shifting ocean currents, and the early stages of polar ice cap formation precipitated the birth of the modern Asian monsoon cycle, the desiccation of East Africa and the development of a temperate climate in Europe. Most of the Eurasian great apes went extinct as a result of this environmental overhaul. The two lineages that did persevere--those represented by Sivapithecus and Dryopithecus--did so by moving south of the Tropic of Cancer, into Southeast Asia from China and into the African tropics from Europe, both groups tracking the ecological settings to which they had adapted in Eurasia.

At this time, the apes who were retreating through Africa began to adopt a quasi-bipedal and/or knuckle walking gait so as to move through the more open grassland patches that began to appear in the rainforests. This modification is seen in chimps and gorillas but not in Orangutan. From these early apes that recolonized Africa 7 million years ago, we get the chimps who are part fruit eaters and part specialized monkey killers who live in the thick rainforests, the gorillas who are huge and mostly forage on the ground on soft grasses that grow in areas of more open rainforests, and the human ancestors who leave the forest environment entirely and adopt their bodies to a new gait that is useful to live in the savannas. This happens between 6-2 million years ago in various parts of Africa.

Basic Conclusions:-
1) The modern non-human apes themselves have a long and equally eventful evolutionary history. They have changed as well, a lot.
2) The current species that continue to exist all represent advanced staged of evolution,. brought about by strong climatic pressures.

secondly Andean Indians have developed larger stronger lungs inorder to cope with high altitude , bring them down from the mountains and ower time they will loose that trait prehaps becomeing taller an less robust , this is merely a responce to living conditions , ...however people who have lived in forest enviroments for centuies upon centuies have not grow tails so that they may swing around in trees thus being able to avoid preditors , ..to do this they had to fashion bows and arrows and call on Agni Dev to protect them at night , .....

The colonization of humans of semi-forested regions or colder climates is a late development (maybe only 40,000 years or so). By that time modern humans have already developed tools, hunting, fire, clothes etc. Given such technologies, modern humans never face the kind of selection pressure you need to change something as basic as the skeletal structure. There are no tools that can give you more oxygen in high mountains, or sunlight in colder climates. So bigger lungs and blonde skin are precisely the kind of adaptations one would expect for a tool wielding human group entering these regions. The kind of natural selection I am talking about are periods where over a sustained period of time, the environment is such that 90% of your sub-population die and you have nowhere to go. People never had that problem, they could always move out of the forests if something like that happened.
Further more, the people we call forest dwellers do not actually live in forests at all, but live in open areas and go into the forest at certain period of the day while hunting/foraging. And much of these forests are simply open woodlands.

further more why is it that man is so illequiped to deal with the elements , we are the only creatures on this planet that have to clothe ourselves , if evolution were such a natural method by which life adapts to its saroundings , why then did we loos our coveriing of Hair and our ability to regulate our own bodily temperature ?

Its because we can live in hot areas. Most animals in the tropics hunt/forage by night or at dawn or in the evening because of the extreme day time heat is lethal to them. Humans however forage or hunt in forenoon and afternoon when all animals are either sleepy or hiding in the trees.That is why we have no fur and copious sweat glands. We can stay cool in hot weather for longer than any monkey/ape on earth and most other mammals and reptiles as well. We are spectacularly well adapted to hot subtropics, savannah and the deserts. Using clothes we have extended our range into colder areas. But obviously since clothes can make us tolerate cold, we have preserved the desert adaptations as there are no tools that could cool us in summer if we again got all furry. (A/C is too modern ).

 

[Kirran]

So just to comment: I think we need to watch out applying Vedanta (study of the subject) to subject matters to which science is more applicable (science being the study of vyavaharik/material phenomena and patterns)!

As for the rest, I've studied evolutionary science as part of my university degree so if anybody has any questions, preferably specific, about the processes and what we understand about them feel free to ask me

E.g. it's important to note that there are five forces we've described as driving evolution:

1) Mutation
2) Natural selection
3) Migration
4) Non-random mating
5) Genetic drift

Evolution can be defined as 'the shift in allele frequencies over time', an allele being a version of a gene.

 

[Rick O'Shez]

Karma can be both moral and amoral surely ? ..........evolution therefore would be coincedental ?

I think that kamma is essentially a moral process applying to individuals, while evolution is essentially an amoral process applying to species. Comparing them is problematic.

 

[Kirran]

I'd suggest it's fairer to say that evolution applies to genes, rather than species

 

[Kirran]

I'd suggest it's fairer to say that evolution applies to genes, rather than species

The effects on species are a later consequence of the basic pressures acting on genes via phenotypes, which result in the species diversity we see today.