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The participation of Brown University biochemist in two controversial essays over the last decade, however, has helped, for example, limit the teaching of creationism in US public schools. However, in his latest book, Miller says that it's also time to back up the evolutionary biology of some of his misplaced fans.
The problem identified by the researcher is the same one that drove many to flee Darwin's ideas through Such hatred of the theory of evolution is nurtured by the idea that according to Darwinism , the "human being" is only another animal ", or that the notions of good and evil, of love of beauty or even of free will would pbad illusions rooted in our primate brains by natural selection.
Miller's argument, entitled "The Human Instinct", without a Brazilian edition, is insurmountable. For the researcher, the elements traditionally badociated with the privileged position of Homo sapiens in Creation, such as the reason, the conscience and the free will quoted in the subtitle of the book, are truly exceptional. In other words, treating them as illusions or irrelevant details of an indistinct kind of all others would be tantamount to betraying one's own science.
However, to defend this position, Miller does not resort to anything. an explicitly religious or supernatural vision of the human condition. Although he is Catholic, his patron saint, at least in this book, is an agnostic, astronomer Carl Sagan (1934-1996), according to which the most extraordinary element of our species is the fact that we are in a way a play
Or, as Miller himself summarizes: "What is truly remarkable is that a spirit composed of atoms was able to discover the atom; A creature composed of cells was able to discover, dissect and understand cells, that an animal produced by evolution was able to identify that same process. "
In summary, this concept comes up in almost every chapter of the book. The work can in part be interpreted as an example of what Miller does best: explain with clarity and grace the most modern version of the theory of evolution. In keeping with its biochemical background, the excerpts detailing the molecular clues linking human DNA to that of other primates are particularly enlightening.
Like the quote above, the researcher does not subscribe to the growing arguments for physicalism, ie, the demonstration that the human spirit is essentially the result of Physical operations performed by brain cells. It is here however that the researcher presents the point of his argument that differentiates it from the figures that we might call radical Darwinists. like zoologist Richard Dawkins and neuroscientist Sam Harris. The thesis can be summed up in two words: emerging properties.
Such properties result from the interaction of the elements underlying them, but can not be predicted simply by their sum.
Take as an example the brain of a monkey-prey, that of a chimpanzee and that of a human being.
All are made up of similar neurons, but nothing in these cells guarantees that the brain of the chimpanzee is recognized in the mirror, while that of a human being allows for both self-recognition and production. A syntactic language, and that of a monkey nail, neither one nor the other.
This means, says Miller, that the possibility of human free will can only be denied because it stems from a brain subject to the laws of physics (which, to our knowledge, never change). And although natural selection has shaped human behavior and emotions in different ways, different cultures have also shown their ability to channel and transform these fundamental elements of functioning.
It makes sense to take care of the babies we do and our close relatives (helping to propagate copies of our own genes), but people also routinely give time and their money to help strangers is what it is worth doing, for example.
Above all, the book is a celebration of the beauty that you can see when you see yourself as part of the 4 billion year old epic of the story of life, if connected to everything that lives or has lived. It's a breathtaking image, says Miller, which should prompt us to take care of it so that it can continue to flourish, as we are the only creatures able to understand it.
The human instinct: How we evolved to be right, conscience and free will
Author: Kenneth Miller. Publisher: Simon & Schuster. R $ 47.90 (e-book, 305 pages)
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