Biology
Scientific Pretensions of Evolutionary Theory
There is a difference between evolution and the theory of evolution. It’s the same difference as that between planetary motion and Newton’s theory of planetary motion. This distinction appears as that between facts and truths. They are not the same thing. Evolution is a fact, but the theory of evolution can be true or false. Likewise, planetary motion is a fact,...
The Problem in the Intelligent Design Argument
The Intelligent Design Argument has a well-known flaw that is often used by critics against it: The world is not perfectly designed. In a hilariously perverse example of this argument (that I saw on YouTube a few weeks ago), an atheist argues that men’s testicles are not perfectly designed because they are hanging outside the body which makes them susceptible to...
How Living Systems Violate the Second Law of Thermodynamics
When James Clerk Maxwell proposed the second law of thermodynamics, he envisioned a thought experiment in which two chambers of gas were joined by a small door under the control of a ‘demon’ who would selectively open the door depending on which direction the gas molecules were moving. If we think of the two chambers as containing mixtures of blue and...
Why the Genome Incompletely Describes the Body
Genetic determinism—or the idea that we are fully determined by our genes taken from our parents—is now a thing of the past. Empirical evidence now shows that genes may exist but may not be expressed. The expression is controlled by some ‘epigenetic’ factors (which are also molecules) but enabled and disabled by the environment. OK, says the geneticist, let’s add the...
What is Morphic Resonance?
Biologist Rupert Sheldrake coined the term Morphic Resonance to describe the idea that the occurrence of events in one place seems to recreate those same events in other places. For example, he notes that once a crystal has been synthesized in one place, synthesizing crystals in other places subsequently becomes much easier, and though the initial synthesis takes a long time,...
The Vedic Evolutionary Model
The following is the transcript of the fourth episode of my podcast. This episode talks about an alternative model of evolution based upon the notions of matter derived from quantum physics rather than classical physics. In classical physics, a particle established continuity between successive states, but in quantum physics there are successive states but no continuity. The episode discusses how in...
Species – The Vedic Perspective
Species in modern science are defined by the type of body and often by their DNA, and they evolve through random mutations and natural selection by the environment. Cracks in this notion of evolution appear when one zooms out to look at ecosystems. An ecosystem is defined by interrelations between species and the study of ecosystems is concerned with their stability. The...
Can Biology Be Based on the Nature of the Soul?
In Vedic philosophy, the soul has three properties—sat or consciousness, chit or meanings, and ananda or pleasure. These three aspects of the soul are also reflected in matter and pervade throughout the body—the parts of the body are due to chit, the functions of each of the parts is due to sat, and the purpose associated with the functions of the...
Reasoning and Semantic Computation
Since the advent of computers, it has been widely believed that the human mind is just like a computer. I have previously described why this is a false analogy due to two problems: (1) the problem of meaning, and (2) the problem of choice. I have also discussed the problem of meaning in computing theory in the book Gödel’s Mistake. However,...
Lessons of Ayurveda for Vedic Cosmology
The previous post discussed the model of the human body in Ayurveda. If you haven’t noticed, the most surprising aspect of Ayurveda is that it remains silent on what modern medicine calls heart, lungs, intestines, brain, pancreas, spleen, etc. It is surprising because modern medical education begins with anatomy and memorizing anatomy is every student’s job in the first year of...
The Ayurveda Model of a Living Body
Vedic knowledge provides detailed information about many aspects of material nature such as cosmology, sociology, psychology, and biology. For example, the Śrimad Bhāgavatam provides a detailed cosmic model. Varṇāśrama is a sociological model. Sāńkhya is a cognitive model. And Ayurveda is a biological model. All these models have structural resemblances and by understanding one model we can understand the others too....