Darwin Was Not Thorough Enough

By batsman

If Darwin’s Theory of Evolution can be summarized as “Survival of the Fittest”, then he was either not thorough enough or his theory has been perverted as usual by those who follow. This is a common phenomenon. Small minded people who follow great thinkers often pervert the original for convenience or for selfish motives.

Thus according to Ku Li, UMNO Baru which follows UMNO steals oil royalties from the poor Malays of the East Coast states. In my opinion, they actually do this in the name of Ketuanan Melayu, but others may disagree.

But getting back to Darwin - it is also very common for lazy people who do not bother to read or understand the original to try and simplify it in simple slogans which are wholly inadequate. Such people often cover up their inadequacies by championing the original (which they fail to understand) in extremely loud, domineering and chauvinistic ways. These people turn into bullies, but unsurprisingly, when exposed, they also too often turn into cowards.

A second class of people are the stupid ones who try to cover their weakness by following the same tactic of loudly and in a bullying way, championing the original in the hope that some of the genius of the original will by some miracle rub off onto them by their show of loyalty.

As Lord Bertrand Russell says, “A stupid man’s report of what a clever man says is never accurate for he unconsciously translates what he hears into something that he can understand.”

Natural selection can create many types of designs. Nature itself is a myriad of designs each of which tries to fit its natural environment as best it can. Some designs favour strength and competitiveness. These attributes will lead to domination not survival.

The dinosaurs were extremely competitive and their strength in competitiveness led them to dominate the ancient earth. But however competitive they were, they did not survive the extremes nature was able to throw at them. Still, they dominated the earth for hundreds of millions of years.

This achievement is more than man himself has yet to achieve. It appears that man is even more competitive than the dinosaurs. Man even has specialized theories of competition to guide his thoughts and decisions, yet in the short space of time man has been on earth, he has managed to place nature itself in trouble and his own survival is not all that assured.

Compared to man’s time on earth, the British Empire claimed to be one on which the sun never sets. Yet its competitiveness and domination lasted only just around 300 years – a pathetically short time period compared to man’s own pre-history and even to his history.

Compared to the British Empire, the US superpower has been dominant for even less time. It claims to be the champion of competitiveness and its supreme competitiveness has given it supreme domination over the whole world. The question is – will it last as long as the British Empire did?

Everyone has his own opinion on this and I don’t want to waste more time on it. My point is that competitiveness leads to domination not survival. So when people summarise Darwin into simple slogans that suggest success in competition leads to being the fittest which in turn leads to success in survival, I very much question that.

As far as the Malaysian situation is concerned, Darwin’s Theory is therefore not an adequate model. Before one can achieve domination, one has to achieve survival. This can be done by being adaptable. However, having achieved survival by being adaptable and going on to domination by being competitive, one faces the challenges of trying to survive again, since domination creates the conditions for extinction. This is the Way of the Tao. The Tao teaches one to be patient, to live and let live and not to interfere with the ways of others.

So I submit Darwin has to be tempered with the Way of the Tao. Unfortunately some Malaysians seem to have forgotten their own culture and seek only purely western ways of interference and domination in the manner of a world class bully. They need someone of a different background to remind them of their own culture. What a tragedy. Heeheehee.