A Theory of Devolution

This morning, to combat the jet-lag grogginess of springing forward, I brewed coffee. I never brew coffee for myself, and especially never never the full-strength, caffeinated, no-mamsy-pamsies-allowed house blend Cafe Salvador.

This is, in fact, relevant to what follows.

On the Friday, March 7 episode of Fresh Air, my hero Terry Gross interviewed two scientists who both discussed the creation of the world while asserting their respective atheist and Evangelical Christian perspectives. While I found both men thoroughly convincing, I thought it wouldn’t hurt for me to add my own thoughts to the fray, not about Genesis or evolution, but about the current trend of devolution that is happening here in the world. Let me ‘splain.

Some flukies argue that the Earth is a single organism called “Gaia” and that AIDS, cancer, and the like are this organism’s immune system in action. I haven’t researched this theory at all, really, but I have heard (and it makes sense to me) global warming assessed as Earth’s fever, to rid itself of us malevolent microbes of humanity.

This bucking humanity process could be a legitimate part of evolution. The complication, however, is that so is death stemming from poor eyesight, for example. After all, in the old days, a blind person probably wouldn’t have made it too far except as prey for fast-food-loving cannibals. Thank goodness that now I and many others can see quite clearly, if only through our glasses, which have enabled us to avoid succumbing to the vicious reality of natural selection.

And we’re weaker for it. Perhaps solely because of my glasses, which allow me to be gainfully employed, alert to many dangers, and intelligent looking (and therefore worthy of marital bliss), I can see vividly enough to procreate and pass along my imperfect vision through my imperfect genes. Add my personal miscontribution to the human race to every last imperfection preserved through human-created technology worldwide, and it becomes clear that the cumulative effect of human ingenuity is the perpetuation of continually weakening human DNA.

Of course this isn’t just about genetics. It’s also about, for example, environmental usurpation (Hey! Go live in the desert with air conditioning and a green lawn!), or the sharing of deep thoughts instead of sleeping.

Coffee, anyone?

Footnote: This post has been quoted by a money-making blogger!