CHAPTER 3, THE ROADS OF EVOLUTION
Nothing in the alive world makes sense, unless through the light of evolution.
Theodosius Dobzhansky (1973).
It has elapsed about 150 years since the publication, in 1859, of the work On the Origin of the Species Through the Natural Selection, or briefly, The Origin of the Species, by the English naturalist Charles Spencer Darwin (1809–1882). Darwin made his famous voyage with duration of almost five years (1832–1836) on board of H.M.S Beagle. In that trip, the Beagles´ route included Tenerife, Cape Verde Islands, Brazil (Salvador and Rio de Janeiro, in the departure and in the arrival of the voyage), Uruguay, Argentina (Buenos Aires and Tierra del Fuego Islands), Chile, Peru, Galapagos Islands, Tahiti, New Zealand and Tasmania. But it was at the Galapagos Islands where more scientific information was collected by him (1). Along the trip, Darwin made observations and collected species of a rich and varied flora and fauna and he started studying them during 24 years, for only then to publish his book. It was a serious and conscientious work.
We should remind that, only in the decade of 1830, Karl Ernest von Baer organized the works of cytology and, together with Theodor Schwann and Mathias Jakob Schleiden, they established its bases, showing that animals and plants are composed of the same elements – the cells (2). Almost at the same time, in France, Claude Bernard (1813–1878) developed the works of physiology. The Mendel’s laws of heredity, by its turn, discovered by Gregor Mendel (1822–1884), were proposed after Darwin’s works were published. Only in the beginning of the 20th century, the mechanisms of genetic inheritance were known through the studies on chromosomes and genes. After that, it emerged the development of molecular biology by James Watson and Francis Crick, discoverers of the DNA chemical structure and winners of the Nobel Prize in Medicine, in 1951. In the end of the 20th century, with the discovery of sequencing techniques, it appeared the so-called genomics, responsible for the sequencing of the human DNA. Recently, it appeared the Synthetic Theory of Evolution or Neo-Darwinism, which is based in the mutation and genetic recombination studies. Finally, this knowledge was completely incorporated to Darwin’s theory to explain the differences among individuals of the same species and to oppose strongly to the skeptics´ critics, as well as, to the defenders of Creationism.
Elapsed so many years, without the appearing of another better theory that could dethroned it, the so-called Darwin’s evolutionist theory is the one that better adapts to the observed facts, when explaining evolution of the natural selection among the species. We remind that a very similar theory was, simultaneous and independently, developed by the British scientist Alfred Russel Wallace (1823–1913). (1, 2)
More than the work The Origin of the Species, Darwin provoked the anger of the catholic church when he published, twelve years later, his book Descent of man (1871), in which, he reinforced his evolution theory, by affirming that the human being would have descended from the primates. With this work, Darwin entered in confrontation with the biblical history of creation as it is described in Genesis. Conservative persons from the whole Europe also protested against the theory, because they refused to admit that the ancestral of the human species had been animals. At that time, Darwin was very ridiculed by the European press, which published "harder or sarcastic libels against the naturalist and his theories. His theories were considered extravagant, antisocial and atheists. A political cartoon of that time became known of the great public, in which he was represented by a monkey body topped with his long head, serious appearance and long beard.” (3) Darwin knew very well that the popularization of his ideas would cause rejection and, perhaps, it is for that reason that he had delayed more than twenty years the publication of his polemic work. He only went to publish his work "when he became aware of the Alfred Russel Wallace’s researches and conclusions, which were in the imminence of being published.” (3)
It is logical that he had intelligent defenders in his scientific community, such as, Thomas Huxley, Paul Broca and Ernst Haeckel, besides Alfred Russel Wallace himself, who recognized to be of Darwin the primacy of the Theory of Evolution. Before a so revolutionary theory, they were put, on a side, the Darwinists, who perceived in the ideas "[…] of the controversial naturalist, a simple, complete and elegant model, capable to explain the diversity of the species and the origins of the living beings and specifically of man.” (3) On the other side, they were put the creationists, defenders of the faith, of religion and of the so-called sacred books. These antagonistic positions are so different as the water to the wine; they can not combine and can not mix themselves, in such a way that, if the focus of that discussion had happened out of England and had occurred about one century before, Darwin would have been accused of blasphemy and heresy and he would have been burned alive in the bonfire by Inquisition. Painful it is to know that the controversy between creationism versus evolutionism still subsists nowadays, in the beginning of the 21st century. Further on, in this chapter, we will treat of that quarrel which, for religious persons, is a question of faith, and for evolutionists is a question of reason and logic.
As until now the evolution of the species took care only of the plant and animal kingdom, besides man, we will treat here also of the "evolution" that occurred in the mineral kingdom, because this also constitutes a fundamental link of the nature. In 1830–1833, Charles Lyell (1797–1875), the father of modern geology and contemporary of Darwin, of whom he became friend, published his work in three volumes entitled The Beginnings of the Geology. In this work, Charles Lyell introduced the concept of “gradualism”, very similar to the concept of evolutionism created by Darwin. The gradualism is applied to the geological formation of the Earth’s crust. Lyell´s work spread out all over the world and today we have the evolution of the Earth described in eras and geological periods, resultants of events and cataclysms passed by and that is still passing our planet. But, no scientist that is of our knowledge, treated of the evolution of Matter itself, of its organization and structure as initial chain of the evolution of the species. Nevertheless, science has brilliantly studied the Matter on what the intrinsic knowledge of the atom and of the particles and their interactions is concerned, as much in the atomic nucleus (protons and neutrons) as in the electro sphere (electrons). It is undeniable that the results of those studies and discoveries that came from physics and chemistry, mainly in the 20th century, took the humanity to enjoy of an advanced technology; however, they were neglected the being's moral values, or say, science is standing back of philosophy of which science is its legitimate daughter. Also, we will treat of man's evolution, not as a species (Matter), but as a being (Intelligent Force – the Spirit).
1. Evolution of the Force on the Matter
According to cosmology current knowledge, when we make a retrospective look since the origins of the universe, any that may be the theory adopted to explain the origin of the universe and why it exists, there is no doubt that the evolution of Matter started from the simplest to the more complex forms. The direction in which such processes occur, always from the simplest to the more complex, characterizes what we call of Evolution, not only material or somatic, but also of the Force and with it, of the energy in its more diverse forms, known and unknown by science. Initially, they were formed the particles of energy (electrons and quarks) and, almost simultaneously, the matter particles (protons and neutrons) by the action of the Universal Force. It is easy to conclude that both, Force and Matter, were formed in that sequence, because the Force needs the Matter to evolve and to constitute the worlds by them formed. Only millions of years later, after the origin of the universe, were formed the first atoms of Hydrogen (matter) – the simplest, with a proton in the nucleus and an electron in the electro sphere. This element agglomerated itself by the force of attraction of the mass and formed the stars, which are true power plants of energy (nuclear fusion of the Hydrogen transforming itself into Helium). From the Helium fusion through the nucleus synthesis, the heaviest elements appeared. It is necessary to notice that the formation of the chemical elements is not indefinite – this formation produces certain number of natural atomic structures (exactly 92) and it stops thereabout. The combination of atoms of the same element and of different elements, according to the laws of chemistry, produces the molecules, macro molecules and gigantic molecules.
The formation of the planets of the solar system occurred at about four and half billion of years. In what the Earth is concerned, taking into account its cooling to the present environmental temperatures and the performance of numerous factors as weathering, volcanism, etc., they were formed the oceans and the terrestrial crust. These contain, substantially, molecules of inorganic type or minerals, that are numerous, although in very smaller number than the one of organic type (that always contain the element carbon). Geologists to better study the terrestrial crust created the so-called geological eras (pre-Cambrian, Paleozoic, Mesozoic and Cenozoic), all including well defined long geological periods. Still according to geologists and paleontologists, the known oldest rock is dated to 3.8 billion of years. (5) From the Archean period of the pre-Cambrian era (2.5 billion years – 650 million years ago), the first living beings would have appeared, derived from the colloidal substrata known as coacervates. We know that colloids are complex chemical substances having high molecular weight.
In the terrestrial crust the minerals were disseminated, object of study on the part of a science called mineralogy. The occurrence of numerous elements in pure form (diamond, sulfur, gold, to mention some) and combined (oxides, carbonates, silicates, sulfides and sulfates), be them as amorphous substances, be them in the most varied and beautiful crystalline forms, is known by all. In them, the atoms link themselves to form the molecules, constituted, be them by the same simple elements, be them by different elements, forming binary, tertiary and quaternary compounds, in crystalline structures, many of them found in the nature under the hydrated form. These structures consist of seven crystallographic systems or singonies (regular, tetragonal, hexagonal, rhombohedra, rhombic, monoclinic and triclinic forms), all with their crystallographic constants and the proper symmetry characteristics (symmetry axes). (6)
According to their chemical composition, (6) the crystals are classified in groups, from which originate nine classes and several subclasses that come from pure or native chemical elements (metals like Gold, Silver, Copper and non-metals like diamond, graphite, Sulfur) to the chemical compounds (sulfides, haloides salts, oxides, oxy salts (two types), phosphates-arseniates-vanadates, silicates and radioactive minerals). Those who observe the crystals are surprised by their forms and beauty, many of them with notable shine, color and iridescence. Some of those wonderful substances possess allotropic forms – the same chemical composition and different crystalline structures, like sulfur and carbon (coal, graphite and diamond), which seem to say us that they have their own individuality. They are forms of rudimentary life, intrinsic to the atoms that constitute them. They show us that in them the Intelligent Force acts and interacts organizing their arrangement in symmetry, condition that gives them the form and other properties, characteristics of each mineral species. I used the term species here purposely to mean that actually the minerals are the initial tip of the species in evolution, unhappily not included in Darwin’s work, The Origin of the Species, despite the fact that Darwin was friend of Lyell, as we have exposed previously.
Perhaps, by being the Matter the domain of physics and chemistry and, being geology a different science, although known by Charles Darwin, this notable naturalistic didn't make observations in the mineral kingdom. Darwin lost an excellent opportunity to extend the evolution concept to the Matter under all the forms. Thus, Darwin was limited to the organized matter – that always contains the element carbon, found in the vegetable and in the animal kingdoms, besides man. But, although Darwin had included the organized matter in his evolutionist conceptions, it would lack a global theory of the evolution that turned out to include the action of the Intelligent Force on all the forms of Matter. Nor the modern physicists (20th century), nor the philosophers, until the present moment (2008), have driven their efforts and intelligences to study and to examine the incorporeal life in all its reach and splendor.
The incorporeal life, although felt and known by the wise philosophers of the most remote ages, only came to be studied, demonstrated and verified starting from the mid of the 18th century, with William Crooke’s works and the ones of numerous other independent investigators, as it is thoroughly presented in the Chapter 6 – The Birth of the Spiritism. But, although we limit ourselves to the planet Earth, where life is known just like it is represented in all the kingdoms of the nature, we verify that neither the physicists (physics), nor the biologists and geneticists (biology), and nor the neuroscientists (medical sciences), were not yet disposed to study that field, so essential to the true knowledge of the life on the Earth.
It was Luiz de Mattos, (7) who already in 1910, in a throw of great intuition affirmed that, in the nature, only Force and Matter exist and that the first acts on the second in all of the processes, and he also affirmed that this truth extends itself from the microcosm to the macrocosm. These were his words, taken from page 49 of the book Christian Rationalism, 43rd edition: (7)
The terrestrial globe is a sphere of organized matter impregnated of forces that act directly on the atoms, constituting them, uniting them and maintaining them in balance, in the systematic of a complexity of movements.
The atom is in constant vibration produced by the existent energy in its interior and links to other atom by the cohesion force to compose the molecule. It is also that same cohesion force that unites the molecules among themselves.
It was an insight or intuition, when the knowledge on the atomic model and of the Quantum Physics were still in their childhood, knowledge that were not to the reach of Luiz de Mattos, by not being him a scientist, but an autodidactic philosopher and spiritualist.
Further on, in the same mentioned work, to the page 50, Luiz de Mattos presents an outline, showing the interaction of the Universal Force on the Matter in the three kingdoms of the nature, standing out their fundamental attributes, with the predominance of the Force (mineral kingdom), of Force and Life (vegetable kingdom) and Force, Life and Intelligence (animal kingdom), in this order. And to proceed, he adds (7) this words taken from page 51 of the mentioned work:
One should not infer, then, the life inexistence in the mineral kingdom or the intelligence in the vegetable kingdom. One just mentions the predominance of the pointed fundamental attributes, to facilitate the reader's understanding, given the transcendentality of the subject.
The human being that wants to deep himself in the investigation of this important theme, will find open field to unfold the reasoning, to strengthen his convictions and to conclude that those two substantial sources – Force and Matter – are the beginning and the end, they are units that touch each other in their extremities, and that Force and Matter run parallel and that, in their incommensurability, they include the infinite and penetrate and involve the universe.
Here the employed expressions are just relatives, due to the lack of others, which best can express a conception of absolute order.
It is understood, therefore, that Luiz de Mattos, since the beginning of his work, published his remarkable spiritual book with the name of Rational and Scientific Christian Spiritualism, today known and published as Christian Rationalism, with almost 100 years of existence, always saw, taught and published a wider concept of life – a non-materialistic concept of life. Luiz de Mattos expressed in doctrinaire terms, and introduced a spiritualistic concept of life, in which supreme expression man is included, as we will see further on. For Luiz de Mattos, Matter does not evolve, but accompany the evolution of the Force that incites all the matter forms. Accordingly, matter forms encompass all substances, from the inorganic or mineral (of the inorganic chemistry), to the organic (of the organic chemistry that has the element carbon as its fundamental basis) and to the biological (that is a refined structure of the organic chemistry), to give origin to the cells and to the biological systems.
In the threshold of the 20th century, science itself had a very simple idea of what would be the Matter. This was had as any substance. Let us take, for instance, still with the knowledge of that time, any stone, when broken or triturated presents itself under the powder form or dust. That dust, by its turn, was formed by molecules, behind which the so-called atoms are linked themselves in the form of smaller spherical balls, something indivisible. For the chemists and physicists of that time, to whom the ideas were absolute, all seemed certainty and the Matter was everything that could be tangible. Only to it, science has driven itself the attention to question about properties of the Matter, inside of the realism reached by the physical senses and allowed by the laboratory instruments. Would there be here a place for the Intelligent Force and for the Spirit (the Force in its more evolved form, active intelligence)? Should the Force be sought as a by-product of the Matter or as something independent out of it and on it acting? This was the dilemma found by Luiz de Mattos and scientists in general.
The path followed by science was the investigation of the Matter, because, as we saw, at this stage, science was already separated from philosophy and put the experimentation as its main investigation tool, leaving in second plan the instrument of the reason, proper of the human being, together with good part of the logic. In the beginning of the 20th century, it was born The Quantum Theory with a revolutionary reformulation of all that was considered as Matter.
Since then, The Quantum Physics pointed to a new physical reality about Matter, living aside the concepts of a solid, concrete and tangible matter. On the other hand, Einstein’s theories played a very important role affirming that space and time are illusions. Around 1927, Heisenberg added to theses concepts his uncertainty principle, according to which a particle can be detected in two places at the same time. All these principles are the back stage of The Quantum Theory, which affirms that the fundamental reality is unknowable.
In that way, all of us are linked to the Real of those so-called quantum entities that transcend the categories of space and time. We should imagine that there is much difficulty to apprehend the nature and marvelous properties of this reality, but persons feel that such properties exist through “something.” But, this intelligent approach stays nearer to the Spirit than to the common Matter. After all, what is under the veil of Matter?
We treated of those great alterations occurred in physics during the 20th century in the chapter 2, which we dedicated to the Force and Matter, under the scientific point of view, exclusively. We will treat now of another alternative, the non-materialistic point of view, in which reality is not limited to the visible Matter, and the concepts of space and time do not pass of simple abstractions, pure illusions of the human senses. As we said, that was the alternative followed by Luiz de Mattos in his philosophical and spiritualistic researches, whose studies took him to consider any force as particle of the Universal Intelligence – the Creative Force. The Quantum Physics almost in the same way acted, considering that reality is neither causal nor local: in it the space and time are abstractions, pure illusions, with the unique difference that science puts everything as a consequence of Matter.
Of course, the acceptance of Luiz de Mattos´ conceptions would bring enormous consequences to humanity due to the fact that it would be necessary many reformulations to our practical daily lives, thus raising the veil of Matter to almost everybody. Hence, it becomes necessary to demonstrate that there is a perfect continuity between the inanimate Matter and the living Matter. These decisive steps are the work for the coming generations.
Before that enigma, they only remain two attitudes to take: one leads us to the absurdity to continue deifying Matter, the other one will take us to the research of the unknowable, whose laws continue challenging science. This dilemma cannot last for more time, because humanity is lacking of information and asking for a safe direction for its evolution. After all, what is real? Why does the human being exist and which is his destiny? We need to lift the veil of Matter for us to discover the unknown. These subjects will be treated in the chapters of the Second Part of this book.
It is an unknown field and opened to the serious and honest investigation, without the mystic rancidity of the religions. It is necessary just courage and value, that every honest scientist possesses, but that is necessary not to hesitate to examine it, with exemption of will, accepting the amazing results but non-miraculous that, with certainty, scientists will find beyond Matter. The hour is now, in the threshold of that new century, because the humanity is tired of so much materialism!
In fact, life itself directly takes its properties from that mysterious trend of Matter to self-organize, spontaneously, to drive itself to states unceasingly more orderly and complex. We already said it: the universe is a vast thought. In each particle, atom, molecule, and matter cell, an “unknowable omnipresence” actuates and lives. It is unquestionable that the Intelligent Force is present in the inner of Matter, and this convinces us that nothing happens “by chance” in the universe. Everything is caused by “something.” What is behind those assertions is that the universe has an axis, an evolutionary, which goes from the most elementary atom to the highest possible intelligence on the Earth and somewhere in the infinite space. This transcendent and intelligent cause is represented by the Universal Intelligence, source of all the intelligent particles that are the life bearers.
When we mentioned that there is an intelligent cause, we are not referring to God of the religions nor focusing the ideas of the religious persons of all the religions about God, nor to an imaginary God, super mathematical (the chance of the theory of probabilities or the Infinite of the infinitesimal calculus or the Universal Infinite). It’s not an entity or super being. We are speaking about causes or agents still not recognized by science. We are speaking about super galactic or inter-galactic causes, non-supernatural, because all is natural, not only what we see with our body eyes. These see the objects and the things that just reflect the visible light, a tiny fraction of the whole wide electromagnetic spectrum. Scientists speak a lot about the reality (see further on, Chapter 5 – Truth, Reality and Paradigm) and they deify this concept as if it is applied just to the material world. How would that reality be, for instance, if our physical eyes could see a larger portion of the electromagnetic spectrum, for instance, if we had penetrating eyes like the X-Rays? For us not to extend ourselves, in our speech, what we want to say is that all reality, be it objective or subjective, is always relative. What we have to say is that the evolution is not just limited to the Matter and all its forms, but also, it applies itself to the Force, to the essence, to the Spirit, which does not possess form, but can assume any form, by using the universal fluid, which is a tenuous matter, rarefied, plasmable by the Force.
The Force (gender), which includes the Spirit (superior species of the Force), always evolves and that evolution begins in the atoms, from the simplest (Hydrogen) to the more complex natural chemical element (the uranium) so much in the mineral kingdom, as in the vegetable and animal, because after all, any of the bodies are atoms, which go structuring themselves in forms more and more complex, under the action of the Force, along that evolution, as we will further on see. After all, the universe and all that exists in it has a history and that history is far, very far away from being known by man. We may be, as human beings, submitted to a super evolution, without us to perceive that, the evolution is a process too much slow and their effects are only observed at a long period. Then, we dare to think in an evolution toward a human "super-species", capable to use, for instance, the telepathy as a biological element of reception and transmission of the thought.
2. Evolution of the Force in the Living Beings
Exceptions done to the carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, carbonic and bicarbonic acids and their salts – the carbonates and bicarbonates, whose studies are part of the inorganic or mineral chemistry, any substances that contain carbon in their molecules constitute object of the organic chemistry. This concept was born when, in 1828, Friederich Whöler (1800–1882) synthesized the substance urea for the first time. One hundred and forty years were elapsed for Arthur Kornberg (1918 –), Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1959, and Mark Goulian to obtain, in 1967, the deoxyribonucleic acid synthesis – the so-called DNA molecule with helix structure, the bearer of the genetic code. (9)
