Nature's Art

 

Nature strives to achieve perfection. The theory of natural selection elucidates this. Every being that lives with its own unique set of Genes is because those Genes help the organism survive in its environment. Those which are not suited to live in that habitat either migrate or disappear from the tree of life. A bird has feathers that help maintain body temperature even at the colder levels of the atmosphere. Herbivores like deer have a four-chamber digestive system that helps them digest the cellulose in the plant better. Microbes like Bacteria have their genome that helps it survive in its chosen environment. Plants that bear fruits make sure that the fruit is delicious so the seeds are scattered by the animals that eat it. To put simply, evolution is nature’s art, each being is the perfect organism to live in its chosen environment, with each generation slowly changing to adapt to the changing world.

Now, we come to Humans. We too are a product of evolution. Our greatest advantage is our brain.  Not because it helps us think independently and creatively, that is secondary, but mainly because it helps form groups of large number, more than any other species can form. It also helps us to store information in a quicker way, not through the genes, but through the brain. This meant that instead of waiting for the right mutation in the gene to say that the plant is poisonous or fire is dangerous, we can either say by experience (ours or others) that it is or create a stimulus and response to avoid the consequence. This may seem obvious and insignificant to us, but let us remember that a cockroach or ants keep coming back to the same room despite using HIT, while a human would think why the previous batch that went there never came back and avoid that place or if a person survives, he would warn the others to avoid that place. So evolution has helped us develop an advanced brain, one that helps us think and react differently than other animals. Further it gives us the ability to use abstract concepts such as right, wrong, religion, society, law, economics, philosophy... etc., but most animals have only instincts that say either live or die. Evolution here is our friend. We are able to form a complex system due to a complex brain, but does this necessarily make us superior? The simple, short answer is no.

For the long answer (the kind that you write in exams), it doesn’t make us the superior creature. Despite our best effort to isolate from nature, we are still a part of it, and are still subject to its laws. To circumvent any law of nature on the short term might very well result in disaster on the long term, and to circumvent it on the long term is impossible. History is full of these examples, while a surplus produce leads to a population boom on a short term, on a long term, maintaining the surplus will be hard, harder if the population keeps increasing at that exponential rate, making the food less accessible to the poor, and more accessible to the rich, creating an economic divide, that ultimately ends up resulting in a famine at a later date, and also followed by epidemics. Nature plays an equalizer here, the balance is maintained. We choose to blame the system for causing this, but hey, being honest, it was coming for a long time; we just chose to ignore it and be blind to it. Another example of this is the use of antibiotics, by logic it is understood that the smaller the organism is, the quicker it can adapt to its surroundings, so on a long term, we are going to be no better placed than before, if not worse, because we have no cure for the worst cases, the most logical course would be to let nature have its way, and let those who can survive live, and let those who can’t die. Of course this is a heartless solution, one which none would recommend, and the search for alternative is afoot, but until a viable alternative emerges, the most merciful course for our species would be to make antibiotics a rare medicine, only to be used when no alternative emerges, else let our immune system adapt to the changes and fight the infection, and prevent more bacteria from adapting to the antibiotics. Evolution here is our foe, it makes life saving drugs temporary, as bacteria can evolve and adapt to the antibiotics, resulting in the short term effectiveness of these medicines.

So what is our solution? The ultimate goal of every species is to survive and propagate its genes. Epidemics and famine will come and go, our surroundings will keep changing, and we, as a species, will one day face a problem too hard for us to overcome. To avoid complete extinction of our species, the best course of action would be to start colonizing space. A planet wide extinction event will not result in complete extinction of a species if we are spread throughout space. We live in an era of surplus, and instead of repeating the cycle of surplus and famine, it would be wise to use the resource and technology available now and begin colonizing space. This is our safest bet to escape the ultimate extinction of our species, for evolution is neither our friend nor our foe, but it has given us the capacity to start moving away from the planet, an advantage no species before us had.