Adam Rutherford’s book ‘A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived’ is ambitious in its scope and vision; and it does not fail. In a few chapters, using genetic studies, he traces the history of the entire mankind. The first half appears a bit slow; and felt that ‘Everyone’ implied only the white Europeans as the concentration happens to be a wee-bit more on that segment. But, the author perhaps wanted to make some points with regards to genetics and hence the focus. The second half picks up the momentum to extraordinary levels and the book almost reads like a thriller.
Genes do not lie, and they tell a lot of stories outside the ambit of myth and fantasy. The discovery of the genetic code has been one of the most brilliant endeavours of science. Darwin was a great man and he stands vindicated by all the new technologies involving genetics. The author talks about the ambitious Human Genome Project which completed in the early 21st century and was expected to be the ultimate code of life and the answer to all our medical problems. Nothing of that sort happened however. The Human DNA was seen to be comprised of only 20,000 genes, an extremely puny number, when the enormous complexity of the human mind is considered. It was a huge anti-climax, to say the least. The number of genes is almost the same in a grain of rice and the lowly worms. Many plant species have more number of genes than humans. Hence, there are a lot of things apart from the number which makes up for the complexity of species. There are 3 billion base pairs in the entire chromosomal make-up of which only 3% go on to make genes. There was a controversy regarding what exactly defines a gene; but today, it means a unit which goes on to code for a specific protein. Hence, the protein coding genes are only 20,000 in number. But, recent studies have shown that the rest of the DNA has very important properties in modulating the effects of genes and acting as switches; they can be no longer considered ‘junk’. We simply do not know about them presently, but progress is on at a breakneck speed.
The 99.9% of DNA being common to all humans and we all being same at the level of DNA is a meaningless factoid according to the author. 0.1% of 3 billion base pairs is still a huge number which accounts for so many differences across various groups and individuals in the world. Hence, we are all the same and the same time, everyone is unique. There has never been one like you; and never again in the history of the Universe will there be one like you. That certainly will warm the heart to good levels! A disturbing feeling however ensues through the book as one realises the unity of our species and yet there have been so many futile wars and fights. Fighting other species is part of the evolutionary mechanisms; but fighting our own seems a little troubling.
A major part of the book is about tracing the ancestry of all humankind. A few thousand years back, a few thousand men were the ancestors of all people who are living now. Hence, a Chinese, a Russian, an Indian, a European, an African, an Arab are all living in yours and mine DNA as information, which may or may not be expressed. We are all related and not only that; we are all related to the Neanderthals too, whom we successfully eliminated or integrated. About 2-3% of genes belong to the Neanderthals. Yes, we procreated with them. Humans have been certainly very promiscuous. Genes can track the movements of species across various geographical locations; and it is now accepted that we all came out of Africa. The humankind presently populating the entire globe started as a small group of people in Africa who started walking. The unifying message of the book is we are all one; but each one is unique. What a wonderful way to celebrate!
Another myth which the author successfully blows up are the claims of discovery of genes for complex human traits like sexual orientation or alcoholism. That is almost always fictitious science something akin to phrenology which predicted human behaviour looking at bumps on the skull. Genetic code is very complex for most human traits with hundreds and thousands of genes being involved in each human trait. And all the genes interact in a highly-complicated manner with the environment they are placed in. The behaviour of humans is simply too complex to be covered with the paradigm of one gene leading to one disease or one trait.
The latter half picks up some great momentum, as the first half may look a bit disconnected for the non-Europeans. One may start wondering about the title ‘Everyone’. However, the author more than makes up for it in the second half. One thing which the author forcefully makes clear is that, for genes, race does not exist. The ancestry of every person alive today stops at a few thousands of people some 10,000 years back. We are all cousins and by looking at genes, no kind of race can be predicted or profiled. However, we as humans with our colossal human minds have been doing that knowingly and unknowingly. Our ancestors were ignorant of genetics; we are not, yet we keep dividing in the name of race.
It was funny reading about Darwin and his cousin called Francis Galton, who was also a famous scientist in his own right. Darwin was a humble genius who perhaps tried to unite humanity by his theories of evolution. Ironically, Galton, arrogance personified, used these theories to create a very pugnacious field of Eugenics and division of humans based on race. Darwin was silent on the objectionable science being done and propagated by his cousin. Galton was a polymath who made significant contributions in many fields, but this aspect remains a chink in his reputation. Eugenics became a fashionable movement in the early part of the 20th century with people like Churchill and Roosevelt supporting it. It is a shameful episode in the history of the world. Humans know better now, but are they wiser? The racial profiling continues all over the world; the differences in skills are attributed to the skin colour; intelligence and fighting skills are equated to caste; and on and on. The book breaks the myth completely. The admixture of genes is so deep that at the level of genes we are all one race broadly with a bit of Neanderthals also thrown in. As mentioned before, about 2-3% of our genome is of Neanderthal origin and that has come about by mating only.
The prose reaches extraordinary levels as he speculates on the future of humankind in the final chapter. Are we still evolving? The answer is yes. Genes is where all the evolution takes place, but the changes are slow, and new species take a long time. The accumulation of changes in the genetic make-up is a very slow process. He talks about Epigenetics and their role in evolution, but says that it is work in progress. Epigenetics is the study of extra-genetic modes of transmission of information from parents to offspring. It involves transmission of acquired characteristics too; something which Lamarck suggested and was booed no end. Apparently, Darwin himself supported Lamarckian theories a bit; but the later Neo-Darwinists-the bulldogs-silenced Lamarck in a big way.
On a personal note, as an Indian surgeon, I found it very pleasing and surprising that Vaishyas (the merchant community) and their peculiar problem in anaesthesia found a place in the book. Many genetic mutations are clustered in some groups due to inter-breeding. The mutations in many instances are silent and do not confer any specific advantages or disadvantages. Succinylcholine is a muscle relaxant given for anaesthesia purposes, and we Indians learnt the hard way that many Vaishyas have an enzyme which is deficient in metabolising this drug. The action gets highly prolonged requiring the patient to be on respiratory support for a long time. The unfortunate patients almost always recover; but, it is hugely distressing for the patients and the treating doctors too. The gene responsible for breaking this drug apparently is deficient. It is a genetic mutation which has simply occurred and has segregated in some communities due to closed marriages within a group. The disadvantage of this mutation in a community has come about only after the discovery of the drug! Many mutations are of this nature, says the author.
The author says,’ Darwinian evolution is a theory without peer. It does not have to compete with other theories, because it is the only game in town. Charles Darwin formulated his idea 50 years before genes, 100 years before the double-helix, and 150 years before the human genome was read in its entirety. But they all say the same thing. Life is a chemical reaction. Life is derived from what came before. Life is imperfect copying. Life is accumulation and refinement of information embedded in the DNA. Natural selection explains how once it started, life evolved on Earth.’ Evolution is a continuing game and the species is dead if it stops evolving. The hope for the continuation of species is evolution.
There were two things for which I would have sought some illumination, but they were not stressed by the author. What is the theory of speciation? How does it begin in the first place? Apparently, it is a tricky question and a discussion on this would have been interesting. The focus on the other aspects of evolution like Epigenetics, cultural factors, and symbolism (which is mainly language), as has been stressed by authors like Eva Jablonka and Marion Lamb would have been interesting if we had the author’s view on them. Lynn Marguilis in her book ‘Microcosmos’ places mutation as only one of the mechanisms causing evolution. Mutation is a slow process and despite being slow, the vast period of 4 billion years allows it to explain the evolution of human life. Apparently, there is a horizontal transmission of genes from freely flowing DNA between the bacteria to the extent that all the bacteria in the world can be almost considered as a superorganism having a common genetic pool. So, transmission and adaptation of organisms does not occur only by mutation of the genes, which is traditionally held to be random and untargeted. But, these horizontal transmissions in the same generation are responsible for the widespread antibiotic resistance in times of stress. Here, the mutations are targeted. Symbiosis is another interesting method of adaptation and evolution. Bacterial genes have been incorporated into human and other genetic pools; and species have co-evolved in a spirit of co-operation rather than competition. The mitochondria in every human cell responsible for oxygen utilisation and the tails of the sperms are examples of symbiotic phenomenon. The mitochondrial DNA replicates independently and it is now seen to be of definite bacterial origin. Interestingly, this DNA is always transmitted from the mother’s side having a great implication in tracing ancestry and forensic genetics.
Genes finally is information, and this information is for propagation of life. The funny thing is, we are still struggling to accurately define life. And, why do we want genes? What is the purpose of this information trying to propagate life constituted of matter? It is a mystery which is beyond the intellect. The book is a must read for all the lovers of science and the lovers of a difficult subject called evolution. It is written with a lot of passion and a lot of understanding. The gentle humour makes it even more interesting. Buy the book and there will not be any regrets.
This ends a summary and a brief review of the book. However, whenever evolution is studied or discussed, a question crops up on the religious view of the subject. The author being an atheist dashes the ‘Creationist’ view or the ‘Intelligent Designer’ view to pieces, but Advaitic Vedantic thought will never have problems with evolution as proposed by science.
The subject of evolution created a good amount of friction between science and religion. It clashed with the Creationist view of Abrahamic religions. The ‘Creationists’ went into serious arguments with Darwin and his faithful supporters like Galton or Huxley. However, as we shall see, there were never such problems with Vedanta. Swami Vivekananda was an important personality to understand and convey these aspects rather strongly. Swami Vivekananda used to forcefully say that evolution is ultimately matter struggling to reach the transcendence. There is nothing wrong with evolution, he said in the late part of the 19th century, when the world was coming to grips with evolution and was actively resisting it. His ideas on evolution can be gauged by some of his statements he made in various essays, lectures, and interviews.
Here is a sample of a few things he said about evolution, starting with his visit to the USA in the last decade of the 19th century. The genes were not discovered that time of course. Swami Vivekananda with his understanding of an ancient philosophy rooted in Vedanta was far ahead of his times, and perhaps, we have still not caught up with his ideas of involution preceding evolution.
•Looking around us, what do we find? A continuous change. The plant comes out of the seed, grows into the tree, completes the circle, and comes back to the seed. The animal comes, lives a certain time, dies, and completes the circle. So, does man. The mountains slowly but surely crumble away, the rivers slowly but surely dry up, rains come out of the sea, and go back to the sea. Everywhere circles are being completed, birth, growth, development, and decay following each other with mathematical precision. Inside of it all, behind all this vast mass of what we call life, of millions of forms and shapes, millions upon millions of varieties, beginning from the lowest atom to the highest spiritualised man, we find existing a certain unity. Every day we find that the wall that was thought to be dividing one thing and another is being broken down, and all matter is coming to be recognised by modern science as one substance, manifesting in different ways and in various forms; the one life that runs through all like a continuous chain, of which all these various forms represent the links, link after link, extending almost infinitely, but of the same one chain. This is what is called evolution. It is an old, old idea, as old as human society, only it is getting fresher and fresher as human knowledge is progressing. There is one thing more, which the ancients perceived, but which in modern times is not yet so clearly perceived, and that is involution.
•Evolution must be brought in accordance with the more exact science of Physics, which can demonstrate that every evolution must be preceded by an involution.
•If you look behind to the place from which you started, you will find that before you were an animal, now you are a man, and will be a god or God Himself in future.
•In the matter of the projection of Akâsha and Prâna into manifested form and the return to fine state, there is a good deal of similarity between Indian thought and modern science. The moderns have their evolution, and so have the Yogis. But I think that the Yogis’ explanation of evolution is the better one. “The change of one species into another is attained by the infilling of nature.” The basic idea is that we are changing from one species to another, and that man is the highest species. Patanjali explains this “infilling of nature” by the simile of peasants irrigating fields. Our education and progression simply mean taking away the obstacles, and by its own nature the divinity will manifest itself. This does away with all the struggle for existence. The miserable experiences of life are simply in the way, and can be eliminated entirely. They are not necessary for evolution. Even if they did not exist, we should progress. It is in the very nature of things to manifest themselves. The momentum is not from outside, but comes from inside. Each soul is the sum of the universal experiences already coiled up there; and of all these experiences, only those will come out which find suitable circumstances.
•Indeed, the Hindus were Spinozists 2,000 years before the birth of Spinoza, Darwinians centuries before the birth of Darwin, and evolutionists centuries before the doctrine of evolution had been accepted by the Huxleys of our time, and before any word like evolution existed in any language of the world.
•Our theory of evolution and of Âkâsha and Prâna is exactly what your modern philosophies have. Your belief in evolution is among our Yogis and in the Sankhya philosophy. So, we have very little to quarrel with in the new theories.
•Out of what has this universe been produced then? From a preceding fine universe. Out of what has men been produced? The preceding fine form. Out of what has the tree been produced? Out of the seed; the whole of the tree was there in the seed. It comes out and becomes manifest. So, the whole of this universe has been created out of this very universe existing in a minute form. It has been made manifest now. It will go back to that minute form, and again will be made manifest. Now we find that the fine forms slowly come out and become grosser and grosser until they reach their limit, and when they reach their limit they go back further and further, becoming finer and finer again. This coming out of the fine and becoming gross, simply changing the arrangements of its parts, as it were, is what in modern times called evolution. This is very true, perfectly true; we see it in our lives. No rational man can possibly quarrel with these evolutionists. But we must learn one thing more. We must go one step further, and what is that? That an involution precedes every evolution. The little cell, which becomes afterwards the man, was simply the involved man and becomes evolved as a man. If this is clear, we have no quarrel with the evolutionists, for we see that if they admit this step, instead of their destroying religion, they will be the greatest supporters of it.
•The theory of evolution, which is the foundation of almost all the Indian schools of thought, has now made its way into the physical science of Europe. It has been held by the religions of all other countries except India that the universe in its entirety is composed of parts distinctly separate from each other. God, nature, man—each stand by itself, isolated from one another; likewise, beasts, birds, insects, trees, the earth, stones, metals, etc., are all distinct from one another; God created them separate from the beginning.
•The whole universe, as it were, shrinks, and then it expands again. To use the more accepted words of modern science, they are involved and evolved. You hear about evolution, how all forms grow from lower ones, slowly growing up and up. This is very true, but each evolution presupposes an involution. We know that the sum of energy that is displayed in the universe is the same always, and that matter is indestructible. So, this cycle is the evolution out of the involution of the previous cycle, and this cycle will again be involved, getting finer and finer, and out of that will come the next cycle. The whole universe is going on in this fashion.
•The worm of today is the God of tomorrow.
•The question is: The involution of what? What was involved? God. The evolutionist will tell you that your idea that it was God is wrong. Why? Because you see God is intelligent, but we find that intelligence develops much later during evolution. It is in man and the higher animals that we find intelligence, but millions of years have passed in this world before this intelligence came. Therefore, the protoplasm was the involution of the highest intelligence. You may not see it but that involved intelligence is what is uncoiling itself until it becomes manifested in the most perfect man. It, therefore, follows absolutely that the perfect man, the free man, the God-man, who has gone beyond the laws of nature, and transcended everything, who has no more to go through this process of evolution, through birth and death, that man called the “Christ-man” by the Christians, and the “Buddha-man” by the Buddhists, and the “Free” by the Yogis — that perfect man who is at one end of the chain of evolution was involved in the cell of the protoplasm, which is at the other end of the same chain.
•Today the evolution theory of the ancient Yogis will be better understood in the light of modern research. And yet the theory of the Yogis is a better explanation. The two causes of evolution advanced by the moderns, viz. sexual selection and survival of the fittest, are inadequate. Suppose human knowledge to have advanced so much as to eliminate competition, both from the function of acquiring physical sustenance and of acquiring a mate. Then, according to the moderns, human progress will stop and the race will die. The result of this theory is to furnish every oppressor with an argument to calm the qualms of conscience. Men are not lacking, who, posing as philosophers, want to kill out all wicked and incompetent persons (they are, of course, the only judges of competency) and thus preserve humans! But the great ancient evolutionist, Patanjali, declares that the true secret of evolution is the manifestation of the perfection which is already in every being; that this perfection has been barred and the infinite tide behind is struggling to express itself. These struggles and competitions are but the results of our ignorance, because we do not know the proper way to unlock the gate and let the water in.
•The various forms of incarnation are merely successive chapters of the story of the life of the soul. We are constantly building our bodies. The whole universe is in a state of flux, of expansion and contraction, of change. Vedanta holds that the soul never changes but Maya modifies it. Nature is God limited by mind. The evolution of nature is the modification of the soul. The soul is the same in all forms of being. The body modifies its expression. This unity of soul, this common substance of humanity, is the basis of ethics and morality. In this sense all are one, and to hurt one’s brother is to hurt one’s Self. “Love is simply an expression of this infinite unity. Upon what dualistic system can you explain love?
The ideas if carefully studied show very clearly how accepting is Vedanta to the theories of evolution. Swami Vivekananda was very surprised at the objections to evolution because he believed it was a given. He was frequently touched on evolution by various people interested in knowing the Vedantic views. His opinion never changed; however, he insisted on the concept of involution preceding evolution. Maybe, we will realise this later, but for the present it suffices to say that Vedanta had almost never clashed with the so called ‘radical’ evolution. Vedanta in fact, spoke about it thousands of years before Darwin. Today, there is tolerance to evolution, but the acceptance is inadequate. It was the open face of Vedanta which accepted evolution as a fact. Sadly, all religion is equated with only Abrahamic and sadly, there has always been a clash; previously violent, involving burning at the stake too, now perhaps a little muted. Evolution is still an issue in hard conservative areas and there is a huge movement who want to teach ‘Creationism’ in schools just to give an overall balanced perspective. Creationism is plain wrong and bad science. Our religion never made a fuss with science at any point, leave alone evolution. The secular fields were highly spiritualized, but religious persecution and priestly interference never came in the way of science and technology. The materialists and the leftists see themselves as propagators of science and they posit themselves against religion. Unfortunately, these are all transferred western perspectives; as our religion and philosophy had no such issues and encounters with science.
RANDOM MUSINGS 