Natural Selection vs Discrimination

The following is a post from the news. It is the latest on evolutionary theories and the science of anthropology. With the decoding of the genome and the mass research through methods made available with computers and its instant analytical statistics, science has accelerated in its ability to hone its parameters for "proving" theoretical propositions. The assumption on anthropological evidence, and these means, has held for a long time now that man has evolved out of the craddle of Africa.

I thought a post in the 5th chakra on this news was appropriate in asking how we use our discrimination in discerning relative facts from relative fiction on the foundation of assumptions vs an advaitic philosophy of consciousness that all knowledge is ultimately a dream based on ignorance. Of course, with the authority we give to science as being "objective" this knowledge does become refined but can also cause us to be duped into forgetting that this same objectivity remains subjective being based on, not only our own filters and ignorance unable to know rather than infer this information, but also on the relative fact that the people presenting this information are also relative subjects in the same dream. Whatever, have a read of the latest findings....

Males dominated 'out-of-Africa' migration 60,000 years ago

PARIS (AFP) - - Men significantly outnumbered women in the "out-of-Africa" migration some 60,000 years ago that eventually populated the rest of the world, according to a new study.

"Africa is known to be the cradle of human evolution, and recent studies show that the peoples today inhabiting other continents originate from a relatively small band of Homo sapiens sapiens who moved through the Near East, into Europe and beyond some 50,000 and 70,000 years ago.

But until now no one had figured out a way to determine what the sex-ratio of this so-called founding population might have been.

A quartet of researchers led by Alon Keinan at the Harvard Medical School thought that the secret might be locked inside differences in genetic code across distinct geographic regions.

They knew that the percentage of X chromosomes in a given population varies depending on the proportion of men.

The "X" and "Y" chromosomes determine sex -- men have one of each, while women have two X chromosomes. The other 22 chromosome pairings in the human genome are all the same.

It was also known that this ratio affects the rate at which mutations randomly spread through the X chromosome over dozens or hundreds of generations as compared to the mutation rate in other, non-sex, chromosomes.

Keinan and colleagues reasoned that if X-chromosomes changed more quickly than expected, then it almost certainly meant that our common ancestors who wandered out of Africa were predominantly male.

To test their theory, they compared the genetic makeup of Africans first with northern Europeans, and then again with Asians.

"The results point to a period of accelerated drift on chromosome X that largely occurred after the split of West Africa and non-Africans, but before the separation of North Europeans and East Asian," the conclude.

Genetic drift is a term that refers to random mutations in genes, as opposed to changes that occur through natural selection.

Keinan acknowledged that if a small fraction of the women in the migratory exodus from Africa had given birth to all of the children, there might still have been parity in the number of males and females.

But this seemed highly unlikely, he said, adding that his findings were "in line with what anthropologists have taught us about hunter-gatherer populations in which short distance migration is primarily by women and long distance migration primarily by men."

The study was published in Nature Publishing Group's journal Nature Genetics."

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In an earlier post on "History, Memory and Ways of Knowing", some of the points that make up our knowledge were listed and can be referred to. As far as anthropology, we generally acknowledge Darwinain theory as the same karmic intellectual cause that we ascribe to Newton's apple or an explanation of re-incarnation; that is, in causality, time and space and an inter-dependent cause and effect sequence to the nature of things. Natural Selection to Mutation to 100th Monkey Syndrone, the interdependent influences determine evolution and giving importance to one or the other seems to depend on which end of the scale our assumptions are - material to spiritual. For me what is apparent is that 100th Monkey Syndrome is another name for the cause being consciousness or God rather than the accidental random reasons the person bent towards the material end ascribes to - purely natural selection.

And, with Michael Gladwells books "Tipping Point" and "Blink" bringing the 100th Monkey into business language and a social Darwinianism based on Consciousness, it has been used often by Al Gore in the whole quantum approach to climate change; that if enough of a critical mass of people change with their thoughts, attitudes and actions, an exponential tipping point can be reached to cause a fundamental consciousness transformation rippling throughout the world. From the advances in physics to "Pass it forward" approach that even Oprah is now promoting through public receptivity and consciousness, all reveals this subtle change that is coming about towards a massive critical point perhaps in 2012-3 (the acopolyptic point in prophecies and swami's mission?).

However, I do not want to ditract from the question of this post on knowledge vs discrimination using this example of anthropology; that is, whilst the intellect continues to seek outwardly through the imagination extrapolating more information on the touchstone of reason for fact, this knowledge will always remain conjecture but is obviously the mirror of the world that the mind needs in its own evolutionary split to find unity, synthesis, healing and wholeness. It seems in our time this is happening not just on the individual scale but on a mass one for all humanity. But it still makes me point to the dangers of science. Its "objectivity" and knowledge grants power and that same power can manipulate. This for me becomes apparent when I think of how BBC; often considered as one of the most objective journalist sources, was so biassed in their story of swami. It's true that this could be the negative publicity Swami in His Maya is manipulating Himself but, reveals to me the strange game of science in its small scale and applied appraoch through marketing objectivity. Not saying it is not required and I love BBC but just playing devils advicate for something to post about!

The question is of discrimanation. For example, with regards to this post, Swami on His authority, says Rama and Krishna did exists and gives their history and dates. And if we travel to the north of India, remanats of their story are found in the locations throughout the region. Part of the Hindu life. But swami says that the ratio of these incarnations limbs was larger than ours making Krishna something like 12 ft and Rama the height of a lamp post! And there have been many cases of swami assuring that these incarnations did live. (And swami advocates the concept of karma and causality with it taking Him 3 blows to bring back the same wood from the crucifiction to materialise a small cross of Christ!)

And then there is Edgar Cayce and others who indicate that Atlantis existed up until 10,000 years ago and Lemuria (to the west of near where Australia is) over 100,000 years ago (and Swami told a close devotee in the 60's that the Corg people of Australia were the original people of the earth). And then there is my theory I suggested in the post on Jiva Gypsies about their connection to Draviadians after the land mass shift. So the whole thing become quite confusing, and the discrimination has to remember that all of it might not be true; that ethnocentricity, bias of, or ignorance of the scientist and media as well as the tricky nature of swami all have to be accounted for by the discrimination.

From the spiritual point of view, that discrimination has to use the same approach as training for the inner discrimination as denying absolute truth to anything and by knowing the Self, all is known and not inferred; and that all knowledge is a symptom of ignorance of ones true nature? As Socrates said " I know that I do not know" which is wisdom not ignorance... Any thoughts anyone ...?