darwin

Now that we have survived it, my fellow Valentine's Day saints (sounds almost like "Latter Day Saints" :), we can talk about another big day last week, if you care, February 12. It was big because it was the 200th birthday of both President Lincoln and Charles Darwin, the natural scientist whose name with "ism" attaching to it equates to a revolutionary theory itself. This year also marks the 150th anniversary of the publication of Darwin's epic book "On the Origin of Species." 

Tons of books and arguments have been out there regarding Darwin's evolution theory and its opposing beliefs such as Creationism and Intelligent Design and I dare not even thinkof laying them out or rehashing them here or bringing up another lengthy debate that's plenty out there already as well. Instead, the following are just some simple thoughts and observations I have through the years to share with you. Please prefix each header below with the phrase "I think", as they are truly just my personal opinions: 

Darwin does not intend to take the Creator out of the grand picture.  
For starters, his book is titled "Origin of Species," not "Origin of Life," or "Origin of Universe." It just tries to explain the phenomena he observes that different species seem to have same traits therefore most likely they come from a same origin, and diverts later through the "natural selection" process. But he does not intend to explain how life itself all got started. As a matter of fact, he eventually brings the Creator into the picture in the concluding chapter of his book by saying this:

"There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved" (XLIX, 243)

Here he compares his theory to the law of gravity as another natural law that tries to explain what's happening in the universe we live in--the law of gravity explains physical behavior while his explains the biological world, and the Creator is the one that "breathed" life to all when this whole evolution process started, almost the same way Isaac Newton says that God is the one whose hand made the first push to have the world start moving around. 

Darwin never explains what that invisible, mysterious force that pushes all species to continue to evolve toward more sophisticated, superior form of existence is. 

Again, this is because all he tries to do is explain the phenomena, the process--the how, but not the why--of things. Personally I think the why is more important than the how, and thiswhy (mysterious force) is, pick your definition, what we may call God's Will, Spirit, Love, Intelligent Design, (or how about "Purpose Drive"). One can also argue that this mysterious force is an anti-natural law by itself: According to the second law of thermodynamics, all things in the world should go toward less order and more chaos (higher entropy), how in the world then can life continue to evolve towards better, more orderly, more sophisticated forms if left alone by itself? 

Darwin does not intend to have his theory applied to fields other than biologic science.

Once his theory gains popularity and becomes "accepted truth," people take the principles of his theory--survival of the fittest, natural selection, etc.--and apply them to areas of philosophies that suit their needs, e.g., Social Darwinism for human behavior, Universal Darwinism for cosmic development, or in some case it even becomes a new religion itself (George Bernard Shaw's "The New Theology"). "Applications" like these are out of the original scope of Darwin's and in general lack the serious diligence and scientific discipline Darwin shows in his research and the books he published.

Darwin came from a prestigious, "free thinking" family in England. He was baptized in the Anglican Church, but attended the Unitarian chapel with their mother when he was a child. His college education started at University of Edinburgh for medical studies, but once it turned out that Darwin lacked interest in such subjects, his father transferred him to Christ's College in Cambridge, for a Bachelor of Arts degree as the first step towards becoming an Anglican priest. He excelled in botany and other natural science studies there and graduated tenth out of a pass list of 178. He then went on to the Royal Navy gun-ship HMS Beagle for a 5-year "field trip" that inspired his evolution theory ideas.

He married his cousin Emma Wedgwood and had 10 children (2 died in infancy). He was a loving husband and devoted father who was uncommonly attentive to his children.Whenever they fell ill he feared that they might have inherited weaknesses from inbreeding due to the close family ties he shared with his wife and cousin. Despite his fears, most of the surviving children went on to have distinguished careers as notable members of the prominent Darwin-Wedgwood family.

Though his Christian faith continued to decline from the days when he believed Bible to be literally and historically correct when attending Christ's College in Cambridge, he refrained from expressing his religious view to the public, saying the question of religion was for theologians, not for scientists, and continued to play a leading part in the parish work of the local church. In a letter he wrote in1879 (three years before he died) he said that he had never been an atheist in the sense of denying the existence of a God, and that generally "an Agnostic would be the more correct description of my state of mind."


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"An evolution that insists on deducing from continuous process the ascending movement which reaches the summit of consciousness and thought necessarily implies that that consciousness and that thought were there from the beginning."  -- Jaques Lacan, The Ethics of Psychoanalysis

obama

Now that we have Super Bowl out of the way, as well as the Chinese New Year (or more politically correct speaking, the Lunar New Year) recess ends, we are finally ready for work for year 2009 :-) Happy New Year again guys!

And we also have a new President in the White House, by the way. He's been there just a tad less than two weeks, so I think I can still slip in the following article I wrote the day after his inauguration without sounding trite:

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I must confess I didn't vote for Obama last November (though my wife did so under my auspice), but I also must admit once he got elected, I got affected by the jubilant atmosphere that culminated at the inauguration ceremony yesterday. So what's so special about this person who is now the 44th president of ours, besides the obvious (first black President, youth, inspiring speaker, etc.)?

First, how did he get his name, Barack Hussein Obama? (One common joke during his campaign is his parents probably wouldn't have given him that middle name Hussein if they knew he would be one day running for the US president.) It is exactly the same name as his father's--Barack Hussein Obama Sr. The name Barack is Arabic, meaning "blessed." As for the middle name Hussein, he got it from his grandfather, Hussein Onyango Obama, who converted from Christianity to Islam after having fought for the British in World War I and having traveled to Islamic Zanzibar (an island off east Africa). After this, he added Hussein to his name. As a consequence, Obama's father was raised a Muslim, but he became an atheist long before he met Obama's mother, Ann Dunham, who was not religious as well. The same goes for his mother's second husband – Obama's step father, Lolo Soetoro, an Indonesian oil manager. 

Barack Obama himself became a Christian, as well as his wife Michelle. He joined the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago in 1988. In his inauguration speech yesterday, he paraphrased some verse from the Bible (1 Corinthians 13:11), saying "The time has come to set aside childish things.." By the way, though Obama didn't do it at his inauguration, some presidents had the Bible opened to a certain chapter and verse they favored during the oath taking, and President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the longest (4-term) president in US history, had it opened to the same 1 Corinthians Chapter 13 all four times during his swearing in, with emphasis on verse 13: "And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love."

One interesting verse in the Old Testament, Judges 5:12: "Awake, awake, Deborah; Awake, awake, sing a song! Arise, Barak, and take away your captives, O son of Abinoam." regards a story of a woman prophet Deborah and a young man Barak together successfully fought the Canaanites who had been suppressing the Jews at that time. Notice the name "Barak" is almost the same as "Barack", hence some deeply religious black people believe this is the verse that foretells Barack Obama's rise and becoming the US president today--kind of like a "black Moses" that leads his people out of misery.

For all that much talk about the "blackness" of Obama, let's not forget biologically Obama is really half-white too, due to his white Caucasian mother from Kansas. You might be surprised, but through thorough research of his mother's ancestral tree, genealogists have determined that Winston Churchill, the World War II Prime Minister of Britain, and Obama are ninth cousins, three times removed; Lyndon Johnson, the US President during the Vietnam War, and Obama are fourth cousins, three times removed. And if this was not enough, ex-President Bush, the one Obama just took job from, is his cousin too, sharing with him the same great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandparents in 17th century Massachusetts.

Back to Kenya, the country where Obama's father came from: The government there has been dominated by a major tribe Kikuyu, while Obama's father was born Luo, a minor tribe whose people don't practice male circumcision. Since the Kikuyu and several other tribes believe that any real man must be circumcised, a Luo cannot be a real man and therefore cannot be President. The joke now running around Kenya, then, is that it's easier for a Luo to become President in the United States than in Kenya.

Isn't America the greatest country in the world?

 














"Help us work for that day when black will not be asked to give back, when brown can stick around, when yellow will be mellow, when the red man can get ahead, man, and when white will embrace what is right." -- This is the show stealer of Rev. Joseph Lowery's benediction speech at the end of the inauguration ceremony. It's about racial harmony but it rhymes so well it sounds so fun.