In terms of what we have produced, technologically, we have evolved leaps and bounds in just the last 50 years. Intellectually, we have evolved monumentally over the past 100 years. Physically, we have done pretty well. We run faster and we are breaking all kinds of records. We know more about genetics and disease and how to prevent problems physically. New diseases are coming along, but we live in an environment which is conducive to the growth of organisms and sometimes those organisms can wreak havoc upon us, which is not an indicator of human evolution.
One way in which the human species is stagnating in the anthropological sense is we are tending toward a way of thinking which denies the mind. That part of us which overcomes limitations, dire predictions and diagnoses. That part of us which allows us to turn imagination into helpful discovery.
The human race sans the mind is nothing but a herd of animals.
Louis Pasteur, who was one of the greatest scientists who ever lived said, “Imagination should give wings to our thoughts but we always need decisive experimental proof, and when the moment comes to draw conclusions and to interpret the gathered observations, imagination must be checked and documented by the factual results of the experiment.”
Life is much like science itself. Much like an experiment. We must have imagination and we must have our physical brains.
It seems to me that those with the greatest imaginations have done the greatest for the human race, in terms of our overall survivability. It must have been exquisite for each succesive discovery made by a scientist due to the discoveries made by scientists of yore. Things began to make sense. Which, in my way of thinking indicates evolution.
Perhaps we might devolve into that previous place where big imagination is eccentric insanity and there will be no such thing as change or evolution.
Maybe.
I know from my own experience of having five children, all of whom are impressive sketch artists. One of whom is gifted. All are interested in science. All are articulate. Three are impressive writers. All seek higher education.
For a number of variants, none of which I willingly espoused, it was to be a given that my children “would amount to nothing”.
While the power to project predictions does not require the mind, the power to imagine something better does. The power to alleviate oneself of the condemnation of lower science does require the mind.
Thus evolution.
