613
assertions,
8
and at a time when, like never before, it can be adduced that human life
translates into ecological paradox, as well as one of its demonstrable subsets, the
William Stanley Jevons Paradox, pertaining to more efficient extraction of natural
resources increasing the actual human consumption of said resources.
9
Rapid turnabouts, saltative, single-step speciation, polyploidy in plants -the
macromutational theories of John Christopher Willis, Richard Goldschmidt and
S Ø ren L Ø vtrup, versus phyletic gradualism, or its evolutionary variants (punctuated
equilibria), as devised by Stephen Gould and Niles Eldredge: These insights to
change and transition represent scratches on a chalkboard of speculation and outright conjecture; what we have recently explored in The Hypothetical Species.
10
The change in allele frequencies, compounding theoretically correlated shifts in
populations, has become the surrogate landscape of questions with downstream
implications for every aspect of human cultural introspection. Population genetics,
taking after the theoretical models of Sewall Wright, Ronald Fisher, J.B.S. Haldane,
and then Ernst Mayr’s 1942 work on founder effects and speciation,
11
has obsessed
upon these abstractions, in the guise of the whole panoply of genes. And, ultimately, of genomes and their wildly flagrant characteristics, so celebrated is the
1953 saga of the James Watson/Francis Crick double helix tale of DNA, that all
other diagnoses have largely dissipated. To the extent that to cite some other infrastructure entirely would be deemed archaic, foolish, and, most damaging, useless.
Yet, if polymerase chain reactions oriented toward the efficient manufacture of
millions of copies of DNA sequences in molecular biology and biomedical research
are among the latest phantasms of the human endgame, we must carefully add that
something else entirely has been overlooked. It is not that we shall ever return to a flat
world; an earth around which the Sun orbits. But that the very rudiments of inquiry
that accelerate human curiosity, the hammering of nails, the erection of scaffolding
around each and every intellectual question mark have never prepared an anxious
brain for self-destruction, or even expiation. That is the story of our colossal rub; and
not just at present, but from our near origins. Whether it is genetic or some other
language that yields the ultimate insights about our species is yet to be discovered.
8 See “Vaclav Smil: ‘Growth must end. Our economist friends don’t seem to realise that.’ By
Jonathan Watts September 21, 2019.
9 See, for example, “Modern Life On Planet Earth Is An Ecological Paradox,” by Marlene Cimons,
February 4, 2018, CleanTechnica, Nexus Media, https://cleantechnica.com/2018/02/04/modernlife-planet-earth-ecological-paradox/, Accessed September 22, 2019; See also, “Ecological
Paradoxes: William Stanley Jevons and the Paperless Office,” Human Ecology Review 13(2):
December 2006, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/238684194_Ecological_Paradoxes_
William_Stanley_Jevons_and_the_Paperless_Office
10 See M. C. Tobias and J. G. Morrison, The Hypothetical Species: Variables of Human Evolution,
Springer Nature, New York 2019. For polyploidy in plants, we are using here the definition as
propounded by nature.com, namely, “Polyploidy is the presence in cells of more than a single pair
of each chromosome … the result of a spontaneous multiplication of a plants genetic material or
through hybridization.” See “Latest Research and Reviews,” https://www.nature.com/subjects/
polyploidy-in-plants#:~:text=Polyploidy%20is%20the%20presence%20in,extremely%20
common%20in%20domesticated%20crops, Accessed July 19, 2020.
11 See W. B. Provine, “Ernst Mayr: Genetics and Speciation,” Genetics 167 (3): 1041–6. PMC
1470966. PMID 15280221.
65.2 Natural, Unnatural?
assertions,
8
and at a time when, like never before, it can be adduced that human life
translates into ecological paradox, as well as one of its demonstrable subsets, the
William Stanley Jevons Paradox, pertaining to more efficient extraction of natural
resources increasing the actual human consumption of said resources.
9
Rapid turnabouts, saltative, single-step speciation, polyploidy in plants -the
macromutational theories of John Christopher Willis, Richard Goldschmidt and
S Ø ren L Ø vtrup, versus phyletic gradualism, or its evolutionary variants (punctuated
equilibria), as devised by Stephen Gould and Niles Eldredge: These insights to
change and transition represent scratches on a chalkboard of speculation and outright conjecture; what we have recently explored in The Hypothetical Species.
10
The change in allele frequencies, compounding theoretically correlated shifts in
populations, has become the surrogate landscape of questions with downstream
implications for every aspect of human cultural introspection. Population genetics,
taking after the theoretical models of Sewall Wright, Ronald Fisher, J.B.S. Haldane,
and then Ernst Mayr’s 1942 work on founder effects and speciation,
11
has obsessed
upon these abstractions, in the guise of the whole panoply of genes. And, ultimately, of genomes and their wildly flagrant characteristics, so celebrated is the
1953 saga of the James Watson/Francis Crick double helix tale of DNA, that all
other diagnoses have largely dissipated. To the extent that to cite some other infrastructure entirely would be deemed archaic, foolish, and, most damaging, useless.
Yet, if polymerase chain reactions oriented toward the efficient manufacture of
millions of copies of DNA sequences in molecular biology and biomedical research
are among the latest phantasms of the human endgame, we must carefully add that
something else entirely has been overlooked. It is not that we shall ever return to a flat
world; an earth around which the Sun orbits. But that the very rudiments of inquiry
that accelerate human curiosity, the hammering of nails, the erection of scaffolding
around each and every intellectual question mark have never prepared an anxious
brain for self-destruction, or even expiation. That is the story of our colossal rub; and
not just at present, but from our near origins. Whether it is genetic or some other
language that yields the ultimate insights about our species is yet to be discovered.
8 See “Vaclav Smil: ‘Growth must end. Our economist friends don’t seem to realise that.’ By
Jonathan Watts September 21, 2019.
9 See, for example, “Modern Life On Planet Earth Is An Ecological Paradox,” by Marlene Cimons,
February 4, 2018, CleanTechnica, Nexus Media, https://cleantechnica.com/2018/02/04/modernlife-planet-earth-ecological-paradox/, Accessed September 22, 2019; See also, “Ecological
Paradoxes: William Stanley Jevons and the Paperless Office,” Human Ecology Review 13(2):
December 2006, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/238684194_Ecological_Paradoxes_
William_Stanley_Jevons_and_the_Paperless_Office
10 See M. C. Tobias and J. G. Morrison, The Hypothetical Species: Variables of Human Evolution,
Springer Nature, New York 2019. For polyploidy in plants, we are using here the definition as
propounded by nature.com, namely, “Polyploidy is the presence in cells of more than a single pair
of each chromosome … the result of a spontaneous multiplication of a plants genetic material or
through hybridization.” See “Latest Research and Reviews,” https://www.nature.com/subjects/
polyploidy-in-plants#:~:text=Polyploidy%20is%20the%20presence%20in,extremely%20
common%20in%20domesticated%20crops, Accessed July 19, 2020.
11 See W. B. Provine, “Ernst Mayr: Genetics and Speciation,” Genetics 167 (3): 1041–6. PMC
1470966. PMID 15280221.
65.2 Natural, Unnatural?