[Marxism] Re. Clitoris, orgasm and Darwinism

["Graham M." <gkmilner@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Dear Friends,
                   I have followed the thread on evolutionary theory with 
interest.   About fifteen years ago I read an excellent biographical study of 
Charles Darwin's ideas by Ronald W. Clark, 'The Survival of Charles Darwin: A 
Biography of a Man and an Idea' (Random House, New York, 1984).   This book 
brought the story down into the 20th century, and concluded with a discussion 
of then recent debates between evolutionists and creationists.

   I find that Darwinian evolutionary concepts do make a great deal of sense as 
an organising principle for the biological sciences, and I have read some of 
Stephen Jay Gould's essays.   It might be my own ignorance of the natural 
sciences showing, but I do question some of the certainties of materialism and 
evolutionary theory in explaining phenomena in the life sciences.   There does 
seem to me to be a 'hierarchy of nature' - something like Kipling's notion as 
expressed in 'The Jungle Book', for instance.   And of course, in Kipling's 
view, man is at the apex of the hierarchy.   How do we account for the genetic 
transmission of sophisticated social structures in the insect world, for 
example?   Some of my questions about this latter issue were answered by a 
viewing again recently of Jacob Bronowski's wonderful series (made by BBC 
Television in the early 1970s, I believe) 'The Ascent of Man'.   That series is 
resolutely materialist, and a tremendous exposition of the history of science, 
yet may have been made in a less uncertain era than our own.

   It seems to me that we Marxists should be prepared to acknowledge the 
existence of design and purpose in the universe (the architecture of it is 
visible all around), and thus consider the possibility of an originating 
intelligence.   I am currently reading a biographical study of the ideas of 
Stephen Hawking, and admit to finding the advanced theoretical physics pretty 
tough going.   I was impressed by Hawking's own book, 'A Brief History of 
Time', and found it for the most part to be quite materialist.   But I have 
never been completely satisfied by the 'Big Bang' theory of the origin of the 
universe, with its notion of a beginning 'singularity' of an infinitely dense, 
infinitely small particle.   This idea doesn't  answer any questions, really, 
and I am not surprised that many people turn away from physical cosmology to 
religion, in an attempt to make sense of the universe and their own situation 
within it.


                                                                                
       In solidarity,


                                                                                
                        Graham Milner
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