To Whom Much is Gibbon, Much is Undesired

I have long struggled with the point of view of those on the left of the political spectrum. I have tongue-cheek suggested that alien body snatching has been at work. I have also idly speculated on the existence of a morbidity which selectively arrests the development of susceptible brains, keeping those who have them in a state of childhood. The average brain takes 25 years until it properly matures. Imagine having a brain stuck at 12 years. Likely you would become a Green. If at 16 to 17, a Laborite. And 18 to 20 years, a wet Liberal of whom there are many.

A common symptom of arrested development is supporting grand schemes without investigating any downstream consequences. Having all hat and no cattle is an analogy. Emotion sans nous is another way to sum it up. The NDIS is the most prominent current example of such a grand scheme; aside, that is, from Chris Bowen’s unanchored delusional fantasies about Australia ditching fossil fuels and becoming “a renewable energy superpower”. Now, you just must have a child’s brain to believe in that fairytale.

My brain must have been stuck at one time. I admit to voting for Gough, twice. Luckily for me I was saved by a road to Damascus experience, inexplicable in earthly terms, which gave my brain a late growth spurt. Thus, overnight, I became a conservative. It was and is a tremendously freeing thing. Agendas lose their power over you. It means boldly going into the unseen, à la Frédéric Bastiat, where consequences lurk, to search for the truth. It means being an adult or, at least, trying to be.

This all sprang to mind when watching a video on evolution sent to me by a friend. This chap, Dr Mario Fasoli, who you can view here if you wish (about 30 minutes’ worth), is sceptical about evolutionary theory, as am I. For me, it is not primarily a religious thing. I just don’t think it rings true.

Given the irreducible complexity of the simplest life form (i.e., many interdependent moving parts without one of which the organism is kaput) it seems a stretch to imagine it being spontaneously created out of primordial soup or some such. Also it is hard to accept, even over billions of years, that one species will spawn another as a result of blind mutations and natural selection.

It seems to me that hedgehogs mating with other hedgehogs will beget just hedgehogs, however many years go by. And if hedgehogs are prone to spawn a mutant hedgehog which will eventually turn into another critter, then among the extensive fossil record where are the in-between critters? No, some very clever scientist in future will likely develop a better theory and Darwin will go the way of Ptolemy. Or will he? Not, necessarily, if we are becoming dumber.

One of the objections Fasoli makes to natural selection turns on the second law of thermodynamics. That is, that things become disordered if left unattended. Entropy rules, in other words. This would mean that, say, a jellyfish can’t spontaneously spawn some changed version of itself which goes on to turn into a more sophisticated life form. Equally, our imaginary ape-like common ancestor could not have produced us due the self-evident fact that humans are much cleverer than apes. It would confound the second law, according to Fasoli.

Disquietingly, however, Fasoli says that one consequence of the second law is that we humans are becoming less robust and intelligent over time. Entropy will have its way. Sure, better sanitation, nutrition, and healthcare have delayed and camouflaged the inevitable decline, but it is happening just the same. Have you more vigour than your great-great-grandfather? Are you wiser? Apparently not. Art modern-day playwrights better or inferior to Shakespeare?

Becoming dumber. Hmm, it’s a theory. It would surely account for the evident decline of our civilisation. How can we tell it is in decline, objectively speaking?

One way is to compare Biden with JFK or FDR or Honest Abe; Albanese with Hawke, Curtin or Fisher; Sunak with Thatcher or Churchill or Disraeli; Michael Mann with Sir Isaac Newton. It seems self-evident. For more proof consider the enthusiasm for killing prenatal babies among large sections of society; the mutilation of children as part of the beat-up transgender fad; the shameless appetite among men purporting to be women to compete in women’s sports; the politicisation of the rule of law in the United States; the cult of climate change and the attendant witless destruction of affordable energy; and, finally, in my severely condensed list, the antisemitic chanting on the very steps of the Sydney Opera House.

A general dumbing down could also be an added factor to that of arrested development among leftists. How else to account for Adam Bandt and company. How else to account for “Queers for Palestine.” Rebellious teenagers of yore could have seen the flaw. It points to Fasoli being right. Humans are becoming dumber. Apehood lies ahead in a perverse rewriting of Darwinian biology. Except for you and me and our descendants of course.