Energy and Evolution

I have called my lecture Energy and Evolution, and that embraces Physics and Biology. I suppose that what I have in mind are the great things that have happened in the last 135 years since Charles Darwin; and the great problems that we have in this field today. In 1859 Charles Darwin wrote history on a grand scale and he gave mankind an intellectual shock which changed our concept of ourselves and our place in the world. Rather suddenly we have come to realize that the process of natural evolution which he described and which has served the world for three billion years may be about to cease or least to change in a profound way. The Darwinian changes of evolution occurred slowly, unnoticed by participants who had very little to say about the forms that their descendants would take. They merely flocked to survive and if they survived they had one privilege only and that was the privilege of handing on their genes. The situation has changed drastically in the last few years. One species, man now so dominates the earth that it is in his part to eliminate most of the other species if he so wishes. Those who do survive do so only because man finds them interesting and useful and he is busy with the natural evolution even of these. It is the end of the evolution, as Darwin knew it. Far greater powers to play God will soon be in our hands. Genetic Engineering will enable us to eliminate conquered genes and other unfavorable genetic information and even to change the nature of mankind. We may not wish to do this but it will become possible. What we see happening is a rapid transfer of responsibility for the future evolution into the hands of ourselves, the hands of one species, homosapiens. We are no longer pawns in the game of evolution. We are not even the kings and queens, we are the players.