Are humans really more evolved?

Human as a dominant organism on earth become habitual of thinking in dominance. They declared themselves as super creature. Surely, men have many characteristics and features distinctive of them but there are characters that men share with other creatures. Men used similarities and differences in all observable things and based on them they have classified all things they know or have observed. This is the main methodology almost in all fields of knowledge. This is particularly true for science. These common characteristics reveal al lot about human but there is controversy about thinking strategies. As men declared themselves as super-creature so they don’t allow themselves to be compared with creatures and organism that are less evolved than them. Surely! This behavior is expected from a dominant creature but besides men is rational beings and they love learning, so they are always in quest for new understanding.

We can disagree with evolutionists but it is fact that evolution provides a thinking methodology especially through comparative studies. Spiritual ones believe men are centre of universe and what exist in universe, exist in men. Even thinking in this spiritualist line, again evolution is a helpful tool in understanding how all in nature concentrate in men and how men are super creature.

Social men and Social ants: Certainly human is super creature but again there are examples in nature make us surprise when we compare with human. One such strange example of nature is social structure of ants. Men have the most advanced and complex social structures with specialized structures for human health. We have health ministries, Medical colleges, universities and research organizations in health, well established multinational companies that research and massively produce health products for global distributions, Hospitals, clinics and conventional and unconventional health facilities. We educate ourselves and our children in schools, colleges and universities through formal educations and citizens through informal educations using every media to improve human health but again health is the most expensive and serious social problems even in most advanced countries like USA, where presidential candidates make health insurance as the basis of their election campaigns.

The most basic thing in health education is balanced diet or healthy nutrition. We know well that balanced diet of is categorized according to mass to height ratio. Surely, the balanced diet of an infant is not balanced for a hard working adult. Similarly, the nutrition that a growing boy requires is different from an office holder. In most human families the family members eat together and eat what will be prepared by home maid. It may be a mother, a sister, a wife, a cook or any individual linked with family. Children, parents of any age and gender and profession eat the same diet. Those with jobs that require less physical and mental works get obese and those growing children and hard workers get under nourished. The diet of family also influenced by likes and dislikes and get imbalanced.

Contrary to us, ants have well developed and more evolved nutrition system. They have nurses that prepare special foods according to the requirements and needs of every social group. Queen, larvae, workers and knights all have different food requirements and hence nurses prepare balanced diets suited every group separately. Knowing this fact make us feel ashamed that despite of our advances in medical sciences, educating ourselves through formal and informal education again our diets haven’t been specialized or we haven’t leant to know our dietary needs. All that guide us in our diet is likes, dislikes, cultures, traditions and commercials.

Chimps have more advanced genes than us: By the spirit of a super creature, men declared themselves more evolved than all organisms. Anthropologists, biologists and paleontologists helped making lineages of human evolution. It is accepted that men and similar organisms like chimps and gorillas are diverged from a common ancestor, “sahelanthropus” some seven to six million years ago  (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/2709797.stm). It is thought bipedalism, tool making, language, evolved cognitive functions like advanced learning, speech, creativity and self expression etc are the result of positive natural selections and men have evolved more positively than their close relatives like chimps and gorillas. But comparative studies on shared genes of human and chimps by analyzing strings of DNA from nearly 14,000 protein-coding genes by a group of scientists (http://www.pnas.org/content/104/18/7489.full) showed that more genes evolved in chimps that were useful and beneficial than human.

Microbes evolve more rapidly than human: Though microbes are very small to be seen by naked eyes but they have a lot to do with human lives. Actually they compete with human in certain areas. Human discovered penicillin to wipe out bacteria but more resistant bacteria are evolved. They are changing rapidly their genes compared to new antibiotics so there are always dangers of new diseases introduced by rapid evolution of bacteria in resisting antibiotics. Surely, evolution is more rapid in unsuitable environments as organisms evolve to adapt new environments for their survival. Adapting new tactics for survival increase diversity and rate of evolution. Human’s technological advances are making environments more suitable for survival hence it is technologies that are evolving not human. On contrary, there are new challenges for bacterial and other microbial lives hence they are evolving rapidly.

There are many areas where other organisms are more evolved than human and hence challenging their super-creature status (though certainly they are). It will be more obvious if new areas are added to list through your comments.

Does evolutionary theory increase emotional maturity or decrease it?

It is believed that the two world wars are rooted in nationalism born of concept of superiority of races based on the Darwinian theory of evolution. Sure it is true that it were concepts of superiority that fueled wars and caused global disasters. Nazism is an example of it. Sure! It is true that Nazis inspired from theory of evolutions and they used the arguments in their favor by calling the Indians and black African equivalent to Apes. Still there are individuals who use argues that Europeans are more evolved as they have inventions, theories, discoveries and conquers in their achievements but other nations are just consumers of the western achievements. They also argue that the rise of Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, Malaysians, Indians and Iranians are just imitations and reproducing of the Western inventions and discoveries, theories and practices. They are good at reverse engineering but not in inventions and discoveries. Learning and adaptations to new environments are characteristics of primitive men who were just evolved out of primates but evolved men are creative and innovative. They create, invent, discover and theorize and produce. Primitive men are good at exploring and adapting what already exist to ensure their survival.

Sure! These arguments are misuse of the theory of the evolution. We know that all things could be used either in positive and negative ways. But if we look positively to the science in general and theory of evolution specifically we will find a totally changed face of theory of evolution. Evolution gets us an understanding of why some people are slow and other are more advanced? Sure there are no biological reasons for the differences in progress but it is a phenomenon of environment. There are many successful people from back ward and developing countries in western countries. These individuals are more successful than a very large number of the westerners. It is enough to understand the cause of progress. It is the environments, laws, beliefs and practices that make more progressed or back ward. The western countries have passed through scientific evolution which has replaced the old beliefs and practices. These advantages of the west have earned those inventions, discoveries and laws that respect human and their achievements.

Evolution and science picture the extinctions and positions of all organisms in the ecosystems. It realizes the people how they evolved. Every organism is important to Science and Scientists have learned through extinction of organisms. It is the science who asks for conservation of all organism irrespective of their evolutionary lineages and levels of evolution. Surely! Scientists have very different positions from those who use the evolutionary theory for their political purposes. Archeologists and anthropologists value even to the products and lives of the cave men to understand and preserve human history. This is quiet opposite to the approaches of those who claim their superiority based on the science.

A scientific approach helps mature emotions and hence increases the emotional maturity. The people with scientific approach to fellow human and world around them appreciate and accept differences as a product of nature and natural laws. Hence Science helps to mature emotions rather than decrease it. Science is a quest of observable and testable facts. These quests revealed the vastness of universe and the position and reality of human in this universe. Sure! Men will never stop their competitions and feeling so prejudices and superiority and will use science to serve their claims but reality is that science has helped in maturing the emotions of human. It has revealed the potentials of men and vastness of universe. The absence of life on moon and surrounding planets has increased the importance and appreciation of life on earth. Even the search for other intelligent creatures or any form of life is still a failure.

This universe and men have the same lineage of evolutions and still the evolutionary process has not stopped. Certainly more evolved creature will replace human. So the sense of superiority is just a momentary pride. The sense of pride has no place in evolutionary theory as evolutionary process has the dominant creatures have wiped out of face of earth and least evolved organisms survived to more evolve. Dominant and famous Dinosaurs have wiped out and slowly crawling turtles lived the extinctions. Sure what is a supportive adaptations turn against a creature. The same is told about human that it is the inventions, discoveries that make men dominant today’s earth but the same inventions and discoveries had led to disastrous chemical, biological and nuclear weapons that threat the human existence and survival.

Evolutionary theory also makes us appreciate the intelligence, creativity and adaptations that people have irrespective of their positions and places which are out sight of political glasses.

American Culture

At Appalachian State University we had a general conversation with few students. Sure! The culture was at the focus as students were from United States and we were from Pakistan. It was not two countries but two cultures that were involved in conversation. I was amazed when one of the students said that United States has no culture and I love to live in a cultured society. I brought up in a Quetta City where we have four distinct areas culturally. Hazaras, Pashtuns, Baluchis and rest of urdu and Punjabi speaking people are have their particular areas. For example Alamdar road and Hazara town is totally different from rest of city. Here Hazaragi culture is distinct not only in Quetta city but in whole Pakistan. Alamdar road is known as little Tokyo. I have seen diversity of culture in a single city and people in my city are culturally very conscious. In fact all economical and political and even educational activities revolve around cultural identity.

It was really shocking for me to know that one of the largest and advanced countries of world has no particular culture. To observe the reality of this hypothesis I become more conscious in observing people around me to know more about U.S.A and if succeeded to find out its particulars. A few points that I found are as follows:

A- Distance:-

The first and most obvious thing that I observed in the American culture is distance. It is more obvious from the housings and homes are at the distances. The Americans are very conscious of their distance and one can clearly observe the distance everywhere from environment to aspects in the personal lives (They are taught to not interact with strangers). I think it is the part of American psyche that have developed due to immigrations that took place from different areas of Europe, Africa and Asia. It may also root in concept of personal freedom as American immigrated to new continent in search of economic and personal freedoms.

B- Diversity:-

Once can find the people of different cultures that have adopted the western cultures but in their own manners. The liberty and democracy nourished that these diversities survive though they are threatened by pop economics and rapidly changing pop cultures.

C- Living for economics:-

As most of people immigrated to America in search of good life hence economics are the central point in American life. All other things are secondary to Americans. Their behaviors, life styles, education all and all revolve around economics. The profitism are mechanism of the American thoughts so we can say that profitism is the mechanism of American culture.

D- No generalization of culture (individualism):

American society has not differentiated into a general culture representative of America. People serve their personal goals and their identities. The personal identity is the core of the American life rooted in Capitalist thoughts. It is not statue of liberty which represents the concept of liberty and individualism but behaviors, preferences and life styles are evidences of this mind set.

E- Human relations revolve around interests:-

As good life is the dream of every American and good life can't be acquired without the ability to buy hence everyone evaluate others through their role in making their lives. Capitalism is ruling the relations in a very cold manner. It is strange to people who have brought up in cultures where relations are first preference to all other things. A stronger commitment to money than a human is really shocking for people who think that all things are for human.

F- Professionalisms:-

The most important thing about the American culture is that everyone has a tendency to stretch himself/herself for excellence. Though a large population's struggle remains only struggle but real excellences make their way out to lead the world.

G- Praise for speed:

Either it is travel, work or social interactions, there is a common sense of praising for speed. Even U.S.A is broadly divided into fast moving northern areas and slow moving southern areas.
Conclusions

Two very important conclusions that I got from my American visit till now are as follows:-

1) Human may change far from where we stand today. Totally new social, economical, political and cultural structure may develop but the affection of mother towards her children will remain same (exceptions are everywhere and every time). I have seen that a wife may betray her husband but a mother never betrays her children.

2) The human evolution and civilization may grow human into totally unimaginable stages but again, the largest portions of the people will remain common and there will be very less special people in all times and all societies. In other words majority of people are common whether they are member of a civilized nation or barbarian nation, whether they belong to a developed nation or underdeveloped nation and a very small fraction of people are special people whether they belong to develop or an under developed nation. Common people have no match with special ones in any society.

Obstacles to globalization

Ice Age:

Some may wonder how the Red Indians reached America; Aborigines reached Australia, and Japanese reached Japan. There are several islands small and large in pacific areas where people live from ancient times. Sure it was the ice age that facilitated the immigration from continent to continent. The ice covered oceans met the technology that Paleolithic era Homo sapiens had for immigration. The cold season and lack of preys forced the immigrations. It was need and facility of the ice age that led to continent to continent immigration. By the end of the ice age this facility and compulsion was no more there so the immigrations stopped and people in these continents remain isolated for coming thousands of years. Now the vast oceans were the barriers between people of continents so the globalization that facilitated by ice age were stopped.

Age of Empires:

The people of ancient times were too poor in terms of economics and technologies to walk for globalization but the empires were so rich in terms of economics and resources that continued to globalized their powers in search of more resources and powers. Binding the people of different regions of earth with different languages, interests and identities into the globalized objectives of emperors the religions were the most suitable tools. Religions have a universal humanitarian appeal and ask for sacrifices to fellow human beings. The emperors used religions as a vital tool for expanding their empires and the religious authorities supported the empires to propagate their empires. The Romans, Europeans kings, Arab Caliphs, Mongols, Turks all of emperors that had a global expansions beyond the boundaries of tribes, languages and cultures used the religion to bind the people loyal to them by using the religious believes. Here the strengths of emperors and the universal humanitarian appeals were the forces of globalizations. The poverty of common people both in terms of wealth and technology were the barriers for globalization.

Age of machines:

The poverty of wealth and technology that were the key obstacles of ancients and Middle Ages and by advent of scientific era and machines started they started decreasing. A new class of people emerged known as middle class people. The surplus and mass productions required new markets and hence lead to discovery of new trade routes and lands for new markets. The profit and machines become the new tools for globalization. It empowered the multinational companies like East India company to expand its trade and markets into continents. The machines and mass productions have created problems also and it was exploitations of laborers and consumers. Hence the strong voices like Karl Marx and leftist revolutionists become another aspect of globalization. Rebellions have also put a new trend in globalization. Laborers and consumers expanded their reach and voices beyond the borders of nation states and continents.

Machines help men in their works and have no identity of themselves and hence they were well come in every society and the societies with high level of resistance to foreign elements, the machines made their roots and changed the behaviors and trends of people. It is the products of machines which determine the behavior of men and creating trends and traditions. Machines also determine the trends of globalization:

- Machines that produce goods expand the markets.

- Machines that produce vehicles and means of transport bring close the markets.

- Machines that produce weapons and killing machines determine political economics of globe by setting rules of the games with powers with a better ability to kill more people.

- Machines that cause global warming and epidemic or popular diseases activating individuals, organizations and nation states beyond the global positions.

- Economic collapses of economic organizations and selective immigrations are also the results of the misuse of the machines that concern people beyond the borders and compel them to think of global solutions to economy.

- Machines that facilitate communication expand the knowledge and information beyond every possible border.

As machines and profits were the engines for globalization similarly they were the barriers for globalization. The people with more powerful and capable killing machines made the peace and security a business. The blood, dignity, identity, and wealth of wealthy people become more respectful and for maintaining of this respects the bloods, dignity, identity and wealth of common and less fortunate people burnt to ashes. Some fortunate people who born in these wealthy areas have no boundary for their visits and majority of people around the world have no permission to visit other areas of the world. Their passports can have written names of countries of world but visiting these areas are forbidden for them.

Still the poverty of power is the greatest barrier for globalizations. The power is the largest obstacles that even wealth and technology stood still to this strong barrier.

Age of information:

As we have discussed earlier that machines determine the trends of the globalization. The machines that facilitated the communication also facilitated the expansions of information and knowledge. Information and Knowledge have empowered individuals to communicate beyond the borders but still it couldn’t help individuals to cope with tyranny of power created by killing machines and condensed wealth. There are needs for thinkers and activists to use this age of information against the global barriers for global justice. The thinkers and activist should work hard to help reach the benefits of globalization to human beings around the globe. It is the most basic human rights that unfortunately not included in now accepted and advocated human rights. The “information based technology” and “professional democracy” is my efforts towards removing global barriers for global justice. You can search them in Knol and also can send me your opinions and perspectives.

The concept of ownership in information based economic system

The concept of ownership is a dividing line between capitalism and socialism. The capitalists are convinced of private ownership based on their principle of free market and socialists convinced of public ownership based on their principle of equal distribution of wealth. Certainly it is the principles which guide a society how to distribute the wealth. The concept of ownership in the information based economy is calculated discipline. Calculated discipline says that one owns what one has produced, has labored on or served for. Based on the principles of the calculated discipline, the information based economy system divides the sources of the wealth into two categories:

1- Natural source of wealth: All natural products like land, rivers, lakes, mountains, plains, oceans, mineral resources, etc, in which men have no contribution to produce them.

2- The Man-made products: All products and services in which the Knowledge, labor, investment and man-made resources are involved like crops, cattle, electricity, fuel, buildings, vehicles, computers, etc .

Natural sources of wealth:

As there is no labor and constructive contribution of men involved in producing the naturally produced sources of wealth like land, rivers, mountains etc so they are the public property and there is no place of private ownership in them. It is a real issue that touches the real lives of everyone. Those who have land or homes encourage the concept of private ownerships and there are billions of people who support the concept of private ownership because it is in their benefit. Similarly there are billions of homeless and landless people who support the public ownership of land so they get land for cultivations, grazing or becoming able to have their own homes. The ownership of land is equally important in villages and cities. There are certain facts which should be kept in mind while deciding the concept of ownership of natural resources:

1- The area of land is fixed. It can’t be increased though the area of productive land can be increased by developing the barren lands like marshy lands, deserts or extending the lands into oceans etc in which the struggles, knowledge and investments of men are involved.

2- The populations of men are increasing exponentially especially due to better conditions of life.

3- Some parts of earth are overcrowded yet more and more people are migrating towards these areas. The highly productive lands, large cities, harbors, mining and fishing areas, etc are already overcrowded. The productive lands are becoming smaller and smaller due to division of lands due to hereditary laws. Smaller divisions of productive lands are becoming no more productive because they are producing crops which fulfilling the needs of families working on them. They can’t supply the needs of people in cities. Similarly the congested cities have less and less land areas to provide new homes for growing population as well as immigrants that migrate from villages, towns and smaller cities. The migrations can’t be stopped because jobs and better living conditions and opportunities are making people determined to migrate to these areas. Presently the solution for this problem is increasing the stories of buildings. The buildings are growing in heights.

4- No labor, knowledge and investments of men are involved in the production of lands and other natural resources.

5- The lands were the source of war and enmities among individuals, tribes, communities, groups of people and nations.

6- The private ownership of lands have caused that many land areas remain uncultivated and unproductive or not used in more efficient ways because either the owners are incapable of doing so or not willing to work on them.

The above mentioned facts led us to a stable and logical solution. By this solution the distribution of wealth and resources can be made more justifiable or based on justice by including the principles and methods based on calculated discipline. It is an inevitable fact that every human society has economic classes so it is logical and practical to divide the economic classes of the societies based on their earning levels and their needs to an accepted level of life standard in a time and place. In information based economy the distribution of wealth is based on the earning levels and the needs of people to an accepted level of life standard in a time and place.

Based on the basic principle of information based economy system the private ownership of lands is prohibited. Lands are the public property. As lands are one the main sources of wealth so the use of there are certain points which information based economic system stress on.

1- As lands are public property so there is no concept of inheritance of land and the laws of inheritance are inapplicable to lands.

2- The cultivated lands are distributed to farmers as not only they could meet the needs of farmers to an accepted life standard in time and place but also supply the national needs. The farmers own all products of lands they work on but the land itself.

3- The unproductive lands are open for competition to development into productive lands to certain limit of time in which the reimbursement of investments and profits are assured.

4- Homes are private property but not lands so in areas needed the government could increase the height of buildings in order to provide homes to all by keeping assured the safety and accepted standards of life.

5- While solving the problems of home, it is necessary that the governments and individuals do respect the religions and traditions of the people by not mixing rival religions and traditional groups so the public unrest are result or the religious and cultural practices of minorities are affected.

Having the above approach we can solve both the problems we are facing now in distribution of wealth as well as we are prepared to meet the futuristic problems. If we continue the private ownerships of the lands and other natural resources the increasing populations and migrations will led us to wide gulf of wealth distributions and development of an unproductive and parasitic group in society who just by having large private ownership influence the fates of productive people.

Man-made sources of wealth:

Certainly what one produces have the right to own it, so the all what one produce is part of his/her private ownerships, especially homes, machines, crops, cattle, intellectual products, etc. The knowledge and technologies are changing the methods and nature of productions. Technologies, machines and knowledge made men able to produce so massively that is even beyond the needs of the nations and masses. But still the economic classes are fact of every society. There is no single society where the economic classes do not exists hence to minimize the gapes among classes and to benefit all parts of society of the developments in knowledge, technologies and national growths it is necessary the taxation on private properties must be based on the earning levels and needs of people to an accepted standards of life in time and place. The important points on which the information based economy system stress are as followings:

1- All the processes of distribution of wealth must be transparent.

2- The distribution of wealth must be based on justice. Here justice means the calculated discipline which ensures the providing all inhabitants an accepted standard of life in a time and place.

3- Provide a workable mechanism for principles of calculated discipline.

4- The governments should be aware of earnings, expending and needs of everyone so she could maintain the transparency and accepted life standard of everyone.

To ensure these points the information based economy system requires all the earnings and expenditures and using of the facilities should be digitalized and part of personal identification of everyone. All the public facilities like shelter, power, communication, food, clothing, and education, health, seeking justice, transportations and other public facilities should be based on earning levels. The earning levels who can’t afford public facilities the government is responsible to pay on their behalf in order to maintain the accepted life standards.

Still those who are creating wealth for society and increasing the life standards and contributing to wealth and development of nations their productivity should not be affected. The government is responsible to facilitate such powers in order to develop the creativity and the ambitions of growth and creativity. The classes in society are a natural process and it can’t vanish but it can be used for the growth and benefits of all classes. The public institutions are to serve both the lower earnings levels and higher earnings levels in order to achieve two objectives:

1- Minimize the gapes of earning levels by maintaining the standards of lives.

2- To increase the rate of growth of growing forces.