THE STRANGE EVOLUTION OF EVOLUTION

Evolution has taken a remarkable journey ever since Charles Darwin's "Origin of Species" in 1859.

At first it remained a secret of sorts, because Darwin sensed the enormous implications it could have in his stout Victorian England. Later, a sensation of sorts as it began to spread from scholarly enclaves out into the general public. Still later, it faded under the onslaughts of Christian critics. Then by the 1920s, the force of its implications hit the mass media during the Scopes Trial. By today, even the Vatican concedes it's more than just a theory. Indeed, evolution is a cornerstone for everything from Anatomy to Atheism

Its implications are many, reaching out like seeking fingers coiling around our assumptions about not only the beasts of the field, but the beasts of our own nature as well. Evolutionary neuro-biologists are relentlessly reporting newly discovered genes and synapses which they advise us help explain us. Case in point: This week's TIME front cover "The Science of Optimism."

There was a time when prophets and philosophers would address such mysteries as human hope. These days, their offerings are first filtered through what science has carefully learned about our anatomy. Not unlike psychiatry now often filters our human emotions through what it has learned about our chemical balances. As a result, the therapist will frequently prescribe pills to complement talks. Someday the neuro-biologist may have prescriptions to manage our sense of despair by hiking our levels of hope. Soma anyone...?

We like to say: nothing succeeds like success. At the same time, we may have to concede: nothing recedes like success. In this instance, the outstanding success of the study of evolution. And so the informed TIME readers might want to ask themselves if this intense focus on our genes, lobes, and chemicals may sometime distract and detract from those elements to our humanity that are nowhere to be found on the Periodic Table of Elements.

Simply said, matter is not all that matters.

While evolutionary sciences have brilliantly taken us down paths of glory in better fathoming the mysteries of our existence....there are still other paths to be traveled. The ones best trekked by prophets, philosophers, and yes poets. Not those of Soma, but Spirituality. Well, it's just an optimistic guess from my rostral anterior cingulate cortex....