Evolution - the answer to it all?

After Friday's talk and discussion, one of the things I thought a lot about was whether theories of evolution could explain everything about human behavior and intelligence today. I believe that this is fundamentally so, and there might be many reasons why, but I came up with an interesting hypothesis about it, and so thought I'd pen it down here. Here's how it goes.

Most scientists today would accept that pretty much all of animal behavior and characteristics can be explained by evolution. Similarly, most of us would agree that most of animal behavior as we know it is instinctual. It is therefore quite easy to make the link between evolutionary laws and animal behavior - any behavior/characteristic that does not benefit their survival would get weeded out through the process of natural selection.

Now how do humans differ? In two very critical ways, I believe. One, unlike all other animals, we actually possess knowledge about these laws of evolution. Therefore in some sense we are already greater than them. Two, we have a significant amount of choice and free will, using which we can choose to go against these laws. This complementary effect of possessing knowledge and free will can be seen in many situations - once I learn about the law of gravity, and apply my mind and will to it, I can come up with ways of overcoming the gravitational force that otherwise binds us to this earth. In a similar way, I can at times choose to perform actions that go directly against the laws of evolution.

Now do we actually do that? Sure, all the time. We do so when we exemplify one of those many spiritual qualities of our higher self - love, compassion, sacrifice, kindness etc. For example, when I see some unknown child playing on the road, and a car barreling down the road towards it, I can choose to give up my own life to save the child - even if I don't know the child, don't have any relationship with it. In fact, I might do the same even for my dog - which actually belongs to another species! By doing so, I in no way benefit my own gene pool, or my species. However, even though I know that to be true, I still choose to go against those laws. And such an action, I believe cannot fundamentally be explained by those very laws.

But why can this not be put down to just a freak deviation from the norm? Why can we not just argue that of course, based on random variation of characteristics, there are some people who would do such things, and their genes would not survive and so they would get weeded out of the gene pool? How is this any different from the random mutative behavior that would exist in animals as well? We can see that such behavior actually does not get weeded out by natural selection - there have always been, and always will continue to be many people who exhibit these qualities and act in ways that defy those laws. And the key reason why that is so, and why this is not just random variation, is that these are not instinctual actions, but rather conscious and voluntary. Additionally, as I mentioned earlier, are done with full knowledge of those laws and the consequences of going against them. Therefore I postulate that such behavior is outside the purview of all laws of evolution and natural selection.

When I proposed the above to A, she pointed out that altruistic behavior of various kinds has been seen in animals as well. For example, bees risk their own lives when stinging intruders in order to protect their hives. Vervet Monkeys give alarm calls to warn fellow monkeys of the presence of predators, even though in doing so they attract attention to themselves, increasing their personal chance of being attacked. Wolves and wild dogs bring meat back to members of the pack not present at the kill. So one does see many examples of altruism in animals. But I would argue that these examples make sense evolutionarily, because by committing these altruistic actions, these animals still benefit their own herd/family/species. To my knowledge, there do not exist examples of animals sacrificing themselves for members of a competing herd, or for animals of another species voluntarily. Even if there did exist such instances, the genes of those animals would get weeded out by natural selection, because the behavior would just be instinctual and random.

All good so far? Ok, now here's the final step of the argument. Now given that there exist a whole set of human actions that are not governed by evolutionary laws - what, then governs them? Are those actions totally random? Or is there a greater set of laws that controls these actions as well? I believe yes - spiritual laws. It is these laws that define our higher selves, and give us the ability to exemplify certain qualities that we would otherwise not possess. The above argument, I believe, also suggests that the inability of evolution to explain everything is a fundamental one, not one due to just the limitations of science today.

Of course, I am not arguing against evolution - I believe that a lot of the characteristics we have today are the result of evolution - both physical and cultural. However I do think that there are certain qualities and traits that do not make sense from an evolutionary perspective, and can only be ascribed to something deeper within us all that impels us to such action.

I wonder if all that made any sense...