BUSH'S FATAL IGNORANCE OF EVOLUTION
Dr. Gerry Lower, Keystone, South Dakota - bushwatch
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Authors note: Over the past century, the various world cultures have been increasingly interactive under the aegis of a nascent global economy as directed largely by the machinations of western capitalism. As is traditional following western capitalizations and economic unifications, there is now the resulting western need to nourish larger sociopolitical organization by way of international and global treaties. Unfortunately, the Bush administration sees this necessary unification as properly occurring only under American crony capitalistic dominion, never mind democracy, never you even mind logic and knowledge. Indeed, the Bush administration is quite unable to make a distinction between the values of Democracy and the values of crony capitalism, as if the Tories, in their minds, had won the Revolutionary War.

Adequate comprehension of this situation in the interest of human maturation and survival requires understanding the general features of western cultural evolution so that we might recognize overriding evolutionary imperatives in spite of the Bush administration's imperialistic dalliance. While one cannot do justice to cultural evolution in a short essay, it is possible to gain enough insight to see through the Bush administration's imperialistic agenda. Honestly seeing what is happening in the world, of course, is prerequisite to doing something about it, and the only honest and useful way to accomplish this is through evolutionary eyes. Bear with me.
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The Concept of Cultural Evolution

The fact of biological evolution has been with us since Darwin's time, nearly 150 years ago, as a common denominator explanation for human origins on earth. Biological evolution, because it is based on empirical observation and logical organization of the resulting ideas, provides an explanation of human origins independent of cultural background, an explanation involving the underlying evolution of genomic information beneath human biological forms. In other words, we are all from the same place, regardless of what we have been told.

Culture consists of the ideas, words and actions we use to define and control ourselves and the world we live in. It ought surprise no one, then, that it is similarly possible to speak of cultural evolution as a common denominator explanation for human intellectual origins on earth. Because cultural evolution is based on empirical observation and logical organization of the resulting ideas, it provides an explanation for human growth and maturation independent of genomic background, an explanation involving the underlying evolution of ideologic information beneath human cultural forms. In other words, we all think in basically the same ways, "acceptible" ways of thought being established by culture not genotype.

For those accepting biological evolution, for those able to appreciate the immense explanatory value of evolutionary thought and knowledge, then the existence of cultural evolution simply must follow, even if philosophers have not yet been able to develop frameworks for rigorously defining the process. For those who recognize evolution in their own creative efforts, the existence of cultural evolution is a given.

Knowing that a thing exists, however, and adequately defining that thing in the interest of comprehension and control, are two different states of knowledge, the former intuitive/empirical, the latter empirical/logical. So, we must acquire an adequate grasp of the larger cultural process in which we are currently embedded, because it is our only hope for maturation and survival.

Truly, it is a long way from the beat of tribal drums to the world wide web. Clearly, there is a lot more than time between Abraham and Einstein. Obviously, we are all caught up in a process larger than ourselves, a process not yet of our general comprehension or yet of our own design. In other words, cultural evolution is self-evident to anyone who thinks about it, yet remains inadequately defined in empirical/logical terms. We have not yet figured out a way to think about all of this, as we continue to follow the ancient western Biblical script.

To look at the world through the eyes of a world subculture (e.g., Judaism, Confucianism) is not helpful simply because cultural evolution cannot be comprehended from within the world views of the human subcultures which it embraces. This fact leaves the world's traditional cultures without a means to deal with what is happening in the larger world, and many of them (including America) have retreated, for lack of authentic democratic leadership, back into the belief systems of their feudal pasts.

Comprehension of cultural evolution requires departing the world of things and the world of supernatural conjecture for the world of empirical/logical ideas and natural philosophy, the world of Thomas Jefferson and America's Deist Fathers. It requires reductive reasoning in the synthesis of a systematic viewpoint, looking at life from the top down as well as from the bottom up, looking at life on the whole, embraced by the intuitive concepts of Oneness and Interconnectedness. It requires living in the world of Einstein and taking leave of Newton's world. We are speaking here of global thought and philosophy for a global world.

The Concept of Conceptual Evolution

A central feature of human biological evolution is that, at any given point in time, virtually all preceding biological exemplars remain represented by living descendants and fossil remains. In other words, observation of human biological diversity at a given point in time provides a panorama of preceding biological exemplars (from Homo erectus to Homo sapiens sapiens) which can be placed into an ordered temporal sequence, a fact which makes comprehension of human biological evolution possible. We have found the bones and they tell our biological story, independent of cultural background.

A central feature of human cultural evolution is that, at any given point in time, virtually all preceding cultural exemplars remain represented by living practitioners and recorded human history. In other words, observation of human cultural diversity at a given point in time provides a panorama of preceding cultural exemplars (from Judaism to Roman Catholicism to Lutheranism to British Protestantism to Unitarianism to Jefferson's Deism) which can be placed into temporal and evolutionary sequence, a fact which makes comprehension of cultural evolution possible. We daily see the bones of our cultural past in action and they tell our cultural story, independent of genomic background.

Conceptual evolution in Science, the evolution of how we think about the world and how we see the world, is the basis for cultural evolution. Conceptual evolution has occurred almost exclusively, most honestly and most naturally in Science. It has been the evolving world views of Science which have most influenced traditional cultural world views, in driving cultural evolution away from ancient tribal authoritarianism and despotism and toward individual self-determination and freedom. Comprehension of cultural evolution, then, requires comprehension of conceptual evolution in Science and how the resulting knowledge and world views have impacted traditional cultures to get us where we are currently stationed. It requires comprehension of the evolution of human thought and knowledge.

This in turn requires consideration of an evolutionary theory of knowledge which can be moved through time to provide an explanation of how our thinking has changed and how the resulting knowledge has influenced cultural evolution toward the self-evident goal of human self-comprehension. In doing so, we begin in the beginning with Socrates.

The Socratic Theory of Knowledge

It was the great insight of Socrates to recognize that adequate knowledge consists of adequate answers to adequate questions. This definition is quite far-reaching as it allows us to categorize knowledge on the basis of the questions we ask, and we can ask only three types of General Questions, WHAT, HOW and WHY. All other questions, WHO, WHEN, WHERE, and WHICH are Qualifier questions which provide names and locations in space and time, important questions from historical perspectives, but not critical to understanding pure knowledge.

In the natural course of evolutionary events, western religion began its search for relevance by asking "Why" questions, right up front, never concerning itself much with What or How, bothering only with the myriad applications of god's law in providing the "Why." In Science, the search for knowledge, and thence relevance, necessarily began with "What" questions and worked its way up from there, simply because it is difficult to know How and Why anything happens if one does not know What one is dealing with. Religion has always had it thusly backwards, imposing its own "Why" upon all natural "Whys."

WHAT? - DESCRIPTIVE KNOWLEDGE : Formal answers to What questions came with the emergence of Inductive reasoning and Descriptive knowledge in Greece about 2500 years ago. Inductions involve reasoning upward in a hierarchy of knowledge, reasoning from what is particularly true to what is generally true. Greek physicists induced the existence of "atoms" and Greek physicians induced the existence of material causes of disease, "miasmas." Both ideas recieved empirical validation over two millennia later. By the end of the 19th century, everything was, indeed, made up of atoms and, yes, pathogenic microorganisms did make people sick. The Greeks were right about most everything.

Plato had made God of the human mind and the human mind, free of superstition and supernaturalism, and choosing to live in the real world, conceived and implemented Science, along with a scientific ethics (Hippocratean). As its political philosophy, Science naturally implemented Democracy in the form of Greek city-states.

HOW? - MECHANISTIC KNOWLEDGE : Formal answers to How questions came with the emergence of Deductive reasoning and Mechanistic knowledge with Newton and friends about 300 years ago. This extension of logic required a conceptual extension, which required an extension of human vision, enabled externally by the telescope and internally by the microscope. Deductions represent reasoning downward in a hierarchy of knowledge, from what is generally true to what is specifically true. European physicists deduced the motions of the planets and European physicians deduced the causes of infectious disease. God became a wise and accomplished clockmaker whose methods were entirely comprehensible by the human mind so that the people might have the gift of choice and the reward of real world problem-solving.

The Euro-American Enlightenment was on schedule (from Newton and Spinoza to Locke to Jefferson) and Democracy was re-discovered, re-synthesized and re-implemented in America, all at the expense of traditional religious belief, the practitioners of which were, of course, Jefferson's chief antagonists. In keeping with the mysticism and scientific logic of the Enlightenment era, Jefferson placed God in the "head and heart" of the people and placed the Highest Authority in "the will of the people, substantially declared." Jefferson's God was the God of all people.

WHY? - SYSTEMATIC KNOWLEDGE : Formal answers to Why questions came with the emergence of Reductive reasoning and Systematic knowledge with Einstein and friends about 100 years ago (notice how the conceptual breakthroughs always come in physics and math first). This logical extension also required a conceptual extension, enabled externally by the conceptual methods of astro and subatomic physics and internally by the conceptual methods of molecular biology. Reductions represent explanations of behaviors at one level of organization based on observations at underlying levels of organization (analytic reduction) and integrations of those observations into a natural historical, hierarchical viewpoint of the whole (synthetic reduction). Physicists reduced heat to a matter of statistical mechanics and sub-atomic behavior to a matter of quantum mechanics. Biomedical scientists and physicians reduced the neoplastic diseases to an understanding of mutational disruptions at the level of the cellular genome. The human genome was mapped and all of our connections to earth's flora and fauna, all of our connections to each other, were exposed.

God is found in the information beneath the entire living system, emergent from the inside out. The moon orbits the earth because it is the most natural thing for it to do. Pasque flowers burst through the snows of Spring because it is the most natural thing for them to do. People seek honesty and freedom and fairness because it is the most natural thing for them to do. This is just the way the real world works.

Life comes entirely of itself, no pushing or pulling from the outside required, only political pushing and pulling here on earth to keep the people from being natural. As the Industrial Revolution followed Newton, the Informational Revolution followed Einstein, and we are currently awaiting the inevitable cultural revolution based on systematic knowledge of the whole, because until we can be ourselves, on a global basis, we are invariably captives of someone else's past.

The Nature of Cultural Evolution

Now, it is simply the case that the entirety of western cultural evolution has revolved around the millennial conflict between transcendentalists (religious conservatives who believe that comprehension of life requires a supernatural, external authority directing causation on earth) and empiricists (scientific liberals who believe that the comprehension of life requires nothing more than observation and integration, that the causes of earthly phenomena are entirely earth bound. Empiricists tend to hold their views because they are honest views and because they can be built upon to extend and enhance human comprehension and control. Transcendentalists tend to hold their views because they allow self-justification of wealth and position as a reward for belief, an indication of godly favoritism, nothing more than that, really, although they seldom know that this is why they believe in the unbelieveable.

In considering the evolutionary dialectic between transcendentalism and empiricism, we can conclude immediately that cultural evolution does not proceed in a linear manner (as conceptualized in the religious west) nor does it proceed in a circular manner (as conceptualized in the ethical east). Rather, as conceptualized by the dialectic mind, cultural evolution proceeds in a spiral manner and it does so at a logarithmic rate, the time intervals between major events getting shorter and shorter, as is self-evident, once one begins looking for such characteristics (figure: spiral ascent).

On the spiral of scientific empiricist ASCENT, for example, it took over 2,000 years from the emergence of Inductive/Descriptive thought in Greece to the emergence of Deductive/Mechanistic thought in Europe with Newton and friends. It then took only 200 years for the emergence of Reductive/Systematic thought in Europe and America with Einstein and friends. Today, just 100 years after the emergence of reductive thought and systematic knowledge, we have reduced life to the information resident inside all things, i.e., physical, biological (genomic) and cultural (ideologic) information. We finally know where we come from and to whom we are related, no more guessing.

Information runs everything, from the inside out. God, the highest authority, is embedded in what we know and care about. It is our ideas and actions which mold our world and define our God. Determined authority comes from within as we struggle to comprehend and control a probabilistic world on the outside. Without that internal authority, known as human choice, and a good deal of honest, reliable knowledge to back up our choices, where would we be? Based on historical and evolutionary evidence, in this conceptual world there is no where to go but up. Conceptual growth and spiritual growth are one and the same. Honesty, Compassion and Creativity are akin to Godliness.

On the spiral of religious transcendentalist DESCENT, Holy Roman imperialism ruled the western world for some 1200 years, Catholic and Protestant colonialism ruled the western world for some 300 years, and neofundamentalist Republican crony capitalism is already at the end of its cultural rope in just a few decades, having quickly come to a self-righteous unilateralism that leaves little room for input from the rest of the world. Independent from human knowledge, this neo-imperialism has been driven by the same attitudes and ideas driving despotism since 1054 AD, when the Bishop of Rome decided that he alone ought rule western Christendom, and ended up striking his own church assunder. Based on historical and evolutionary evidence, in this transcendental world there is no where to go but down. It is ultimately nothing but a matter of self-fulfilling prophecy.

In other words, there is clear and definable order in the time intervals between events in conceptual and cultural evolution. With regard to Science, these time intervals define an ascendent logarithmic spiral (figure: westernwaves - white). Science acquires more and more knowledge at a faster and faster rate. Because conceptual evolution has generated knowledge necessarily in conflict with traditional religious belief, there is a reciprocal order in the time intervals between events. With regard to religion, these time intervals define a descendent logarithmic spiral. Religion loses more and more authority at a faster and faster rate (figure: westernwaves - gray).

When logarithmic spirals are observed from a perpendicular plane, they project in two dimensions as a logarithmic sine wave. In looking at western cultural evolution in this manner (figure: westernwaves), the eras of Roman imperialism, European colonialism and American capitalism emerge in defined temporal windows, the longevity of each era getting shorter and shorter as a function of an increasingly educated public's unwillingness to abide religion-based despotic political philosophy.

Bush's Role in Cultural Evolution

With the emergence of Republican crony capitalism, western religion has raised its supernatural head for the last time, in an effort to control the world and the reality we live, in the name of the few, in blindly approaching its own prophetic end. Bush and several of his cronies, hack religious "theologians," are self-ordained as agents of "god" in the implementation of a "crusade" against "evil" and self-proclaimed warriors in the battles of the apocalypse. In keeping with its apocalyptic vision, the Bush administration's last hurrah for religious despotism is already dead in principle, and current evolutionary frameworks, when extrapolated into tomorrow (figure: westernwaves), would suggest that it is not going to be very long lived.

The exponential growth of religious crony capitalism began in 1980 with Reagan's pandering to the religious right for votes. This movement achieved regional dominion in 1994, when the Southern Baptist Convention took over the Texas Republican Party. It achieved national dominion two years ago when Old Testament "compassionate" conservatism was brought directly into American government by the supremely political appointment of George Bush and several like-minded corporate cronies and inside traders. This absolute breech of America's contract between church and state constituted the death of Jefferson's Democracy.

In order for the Bush administration to fulfill religious prophecy by discrediting religious morality and crony capitalism in the eyes of the world, it would be essential for the Bush players and followers to be absolutely blind to what they are really doing and why they are doing it. This, of course, is precisely the case in America today, where conservatives continue to teflonize and tolerate the self-righteousness and belligerence which the Bush administration administers in their names.

So, while the religious Bush regime is hoping to implement a global economic and religious dominion, it is far more likely if not certain from evolutionary perspectives, that the Bush regime will utterly discredit itself in the eyes of the world and put an end to religion-based right-wing political philosophy forever. Given the administration's underlying religious zeal (upon which their actions are based), this is almost certainly the only outcome. There is also, to be sure, a profound sense of evolutionary necessity in this.

The goal of crony American capitalism, of course, is to make the entire world just like contemporary America, full of people who will consume to the best of their abilities and abide a corrupt crony capitalism. Unfortunately, the World Watch Institute has calculated that making the world just like America would require almost four additional planets. Consumerism and crony capitalism on a global scale is not only unattainable but also unsustainable, except in the eyes of those whom Jefferson referred to as "fools or charlatans." Because it is blindly attempting the physically impossible, the Bush administration has no option but to fail. Fail it will, because Bush's agenda is so entirely out of step with evolutionary imperatives and global necessity.

Given the fact that Democracy has been around for over 200 years and has been adopted by dozens of nations, it is now simply too late to expect that a new western imperialism will long survive world opinion, especially in those democracies having noticeably greater concern for the people and their rights than contemporary America. It is, after all, Biblically prophetic that the people will have their say, their day of judgment against millennia of self-righteous, despotic dominion by the rich, and this will be a global judgment.

If there would be any common denominator beneath the moral and fiscal bankruptcy of modern social systems, be it communism in Russia or democracy in America, it would be the rich and powerful, those who attempt to compromise the values and principles of their social systems to no one's benefit but their own. Jefferson said it all in pointing out that "Merchants have no country. The mere spot they stand on does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gains." In Bush's quest to seek out and destroy "evil" in the world, he has conveniently blinded himself to and is fully aligned with its root causes, i.e., greed, ignorance, vengeance-based moralities and old-fashioned self-rightousness. This short-coming is something of a pre-requisite for any would-be anti-Christ.

Sitting near the top of the curve for western capitalistic dominion (see westernwave), we can ask how long is the road to Bush's inevitable apocalypse? How long until the curve crashes to the ground in global disgrace? How long until the people will have their day of judgment against cultural world views that promote the rich and the self-righteous? How long until we realize, as did Abraham Lincoln, that all capital comes from labor, that economic systems start at the bottom with those who do the work?

It all depends on when we, the people, decide to give up the Hamiltonian bill of goods sold to us after World War II and return to the Jeffersonian values from which we, as a people, emerged. If we give up the pursuit of money for pursuit of an honest family, community, national and spiritual life, we would quickly learn that, despite all of our current wealth, we have no where to go but up.

Human decisions are best made on the basis of what we know and what we care about. Money is not even part of the equation. Money is something we look for once we decide what we are going to do. We best get back to doing Democracy. Its just the way the world works, and it is the way the world works best.