The New Nation - Internet Edition

Mohammed Nawazish

The rift between scientific materialism and pure metaphysical and spiritual thought stream grew deeper with Darwin's discovery of the evolutionary theory and natural selection. Since then there have been two distinctly identifiable schools of thought each zealously clinching its own ideas but one interesting feature cannot escape notice. Some renowned scientists and positivists took keen interest in the activity of the opposite camp and some of them even started believing in the duality of fundamental concepts creating two walkways - science and pseudoscience. They were the travelers of the shadowlands of science but by no means science drop-outs. Some such interesting facts have been elaborated in Michael Shermer's 'The borderlands of science' published by Oxford University Press, 2001, that I recently happened to stumble on.

It's a large book but I'm concentrating on one interesting chapter. It's about the renowned nineteenth-century British naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace, best known for his codiscovery (with Darwin) of natural selection. In fact, the evolution and the natural selection theory was the favourite offspring of Darwin and Wallace. Wallace, however, later went deeper into the innards of their creation and here he reached a certain point of scientific riddle that made him unusually curious. The anomaly he discovered related to the little difference of size and complexity of brain of the lowest savages (our earliest forefathers) compared to the highest type. In his own language, "The mental requirement of the lowest savages - - - - are very little above those of many animals. How then was an organ developed far beyond the needs of its possessor? Natural selection could only have endowed the savage with a brain a little superior to that of an ape, whereas he actually possesses one but very little inferior to that of the average members of our learned societies".

Wallace could not solve the riddle with the help of the newly constructed natural selection leading to evolution theory and finally concluded that 'an overruling intelligence' might have made these variations in natural selection in order to produce an advanced form of organism at some later stages to admit of the indefinite advancement of our mental and moral nature. This points to a hypothetical predesigned set of arrangement in the scientific evolutionary process that they worked out after a long and painstaking research. Darwinists raised a hue and cry and Darwin insipidly reacted to Wallace, "I hope you have not murdered too completely your own and my child".

The import of 'supernatural element' inside the rigid perimeter of science was a blatant anathema and Darwin even proceeded to stamp Wallace with insanity. Questions were even raised on Wallace's upbringing, spiritual belief and inconsistency in scientific pursuits but he was firm in his views. He looked at the natural selection process in a broader perspective compared to the hardened groove that Darwin was determined to follow. Wallace remained a scientist throughout but the brain anomaly that he observed made him divert his total concentration on the different aspects of cognitive and non-cognitive fields of understanding, consciousness and free will, and the apparent failure of the natural selection process to address the subject under scrutiny.

He was branded a 'heretic scientist' as he presumed that some 'high intelligence' or a supernatural force was invisibly influencing the smooth course of natural selection and evolution. He believed that the intellectual and moral faculties that humans possessed might have originated from a different source.

He was attracted to the spiritual and paranormal world in course of empirical quest and even attended séance sessions conducted by famous mediums like Miss Nichole, Miss Cooke, Mrs Ross and others. The bizarre happenings were supernatural on all counts and Wallace held that the apparent miracle might be due to some yet undiscovered law of nature. He admitted, "It is possible that intelligent beings may exist, capable of acting on matter, though they themselves are uncognisable directly by our senses". Science indeed has a long way to go to unfold the myriad of conceivable mysteries baffling our perception and knowledge. The prepared mind must be prepared to be surprised.