“Comprehension of processes” or “Theory of everything” Modern scientific thinking has given our planet, with all its species and forms of life, to be torn to pieces by technological progress. The world of traditional religious thinking has given the human soul to be torn to pieces. Lead to

Chapter 12 Worldview, world order, world creation. Understanding the goals and objectives of human existence. Laws of society management. Theory of anomalies Everywhere is a yoke, an ax or a crown, Everywhere is a villain or a coward, And man is everywhere a tyrant or a flatterer, Or a slave of prejudices

Philosophical understanding of the nature of the tragic “I am” (in the world) tends to mean that I exist only if I can separate from being... “I hold on to the depths of non-existence”, this is sad and alarming, but it also speaks of that miracle that nothingness is in my power, that I can not

Philosophical understanding of the world and man – in – the world “image of the world” as a way of knowing man and the world – style of thinking as a characteristic of individual consciousness – two types of philosophizing – “classical” and “non-classical” philosophizing – “aesthetic

“As a child, I often composed deliberate nonsense and, moreover, always only in order to arouse the surprise of those around me. Once, for example, I plucked many excellent fruits from the trees that belonged to my father, hid them in the bushes, and then ran headlong to spread the news about that I discovered a warehouse of stolen fruits"
Charles Darwin

It is believed that one of the founders of the theory of evolution is Charles Darwin, who expressed his views and results of scientific activity in his work “The Origin of Species.” The model of development of living beings proposed by Darwin contradicted the main dogma of biblical civilization about the creation of the world and life on Earth. A necessary condition for the emergence of evolutionary theory was a significant weakening of the influence of the church on the life and culture of society. What happened to Darwin, for example, at the height of the Inquisition during the Middle Ages? This article will not address criticism of the work done by the English naturalist. The purpose of the article is to show, based on biography and known facts: who promoted the Charles Darwin brand and how" Marx, Freud, Haeckel are trendsetters in the life of world society, who formed their worldview on the basis of the work of Darwin. Those who promoted Charles Darwin and his theory received a powerful tool for managing the historical process in the 19th and 20th centuries.

“Since most people of the Middle Ages believed in God, and the Christian church occupied leading positions in the life of many European countries, members of various secret societies aimed their arrows against God and the church. In order to destroy the universal belief in God, it was necessary to scientifically prove that the world appeared without the participation of a creator, and the Bible is not God’s revelation at all, but a collection of myths. Then, through intermediate atheism, it will be possible to introduce your own religion, universal for all humanity. This is what the Illuminati and other similar “enlighteners” strived for.”
“To achieve this goal, it was necessary to write a convincing work in a scientific style that would explain the emergence of the world without the participation of God. And such work was created. His the first, tentative part was published by Charles Darwin's grandfather, Erasmus(1682-1754), member of the Masonic lodge." But the presence of Masons in kinship is not proof of Darwin’s involvement in the conspiracies or goals of the Masons and other structures. But this fact will still be useful when considering Darwin's diary.
Charles Darwin's father, Dr. Robert Darwin, was a staunch supporter of deism, which denied Christianity, but did not deny a creator God. According to deists, although God created the world, he withdrew from his affairs, leaving people and nature to develop on their own. As a rule, supporters of deism, persecuted by the official church, organized secret societies.
Darwin's father was a Freemason. “My father told me about two ancient cases involving bleeding. One of them happened to him when, as a very young man, he became a Freemason. A Freemason friend of his, pretending to have no idea of ​​the intense agitation which the sight of blood aroused in his father, said to him, as if unintentionally, as they were on their way to a [Masonic lodge] meeting: “I suppose you will not be troubled by the loss of a few drops of blood? When my father was accepted into membership [of the lodge], he was blindfolded and the sleeves of his jacket were turned up,” Charles Darwin wrote in his diary.
The young Darwin was not distinguished by any abilities and was unlikely to write anything like the “Origin of Species”. After studying for seven years, he never graduated from school. He was then sent to Edinburgh University so that he could follow in his father's footsteps. After two years of study, due to poor academic performance, Charles’s father takes him out of the medical university and sends him to a prestigious theological institution. Darwin explained his poor performance in his personal diary by saying that the lectures he gave were boring and uninteresting. “The three years I spent at Cambridge were as completely wasted in academic studies as the years I spent at Edinburgh and at school,” Darwin would later sincerely write about his education.
The Charles Darwin brand was created to introduce new ideological bombs into the consciousness of the world community. Most likely, Darwin's work was created by a group of scientists, and Charles' name was used only as a trademark. There is indirect evidence of this.
On June 30, 1860, a meeting took place in the Natural History Museum of Oxford University. Great Debate", who made the theory of evolution not only a scientific, but also a social event. The situation was fueled by rumors about the bishop’s desire to “smear Darwin.” Darwin, as always, was absent! As a result, up to a thousand spectators crammed into the audience, ready to watch “Darwin’s Bulldog” (Huxley) tear apart “Slippery Sam” (Wilberforce). The audience was dominated by theology students and priests, who seemed to almost guarantee support for whatever the bishop said. However, in practice, Huxley's caustic remarks made no less impression on his listeners.
Often During public appearances, Darwin did not remember certain aspects of his own work. He pleaded bad memory and opened the book to quote. Apparently, the “author” not only did not write, but also did not read these atheistic works concocted by scientific technologists very well. Most likely, the real Darwin exists only in autobiographies, of which there are plenty written all over the world.
Who is Huxley, who spoke instead of Darwin, zealously defending the theory of evolution? “Darwin’s Bulldog” Huxley - founder of the secret club “X-club”, to which Darwin and many other scientists were invited as guests. This club also included a neighbor, friend and one of the first to read Darwin's manuscript - an influential banker, member of parliament John Lubbock. With such influential club members and bankers' money, it was not difficult to spread Darwin's theory. All X-club members, except Spencer, were members of the Royal Society.
To implement your ideas, members of “X-club” purchased the weekly Reader, with the support of Lubbock, Rolleston, Busk and Carpenter. The magazine followed a pro-Darwinian line. The X-club's influence peaked between 1873 and 1885, when Hooker, Spottiswoode and Huxley alternated as presidents of the Royal Society.
Let's return to the history of the creation of Darwin's theory. To promote Darwin's authority as a scientist, he was credited with some discoveries in the field of various sciences. Then, for reliable material confirmation of high research, Charles was sent on a long trip around the world on the Beagle. Although Darwin's work could have been successfully written while sitting in London, this trip added scientific weight to it. And to refute it, someone would need to repeat a similar journey. Returning from his trip on October 2, 1836, Darwin began processing the material he had collected. His collections were processed by Owen (fossil mammals), Waterhouse (modern mammals), Gould (birds), Bell (reptiles and amphibians) and Jennins (insects); This general work was published under the title "Zoology of Travel." Darwin himself took upon himself the processing of geological material.

Now pay attention! During the voyage on the Beagle, Darwin wrote in his diary: “Towards the end of the voyage, when we were on Ascension Island, I received a letter from my sisters, in which they reported that Sedgwick visited my father and said that I would take my place among the eminent men of science. Then I could not understand how he managed to find out anything about my works, but I heard (but it seems later) that Henslow reported some of my letters to him at the Cambridge Philosophical Society and printed them for distribution among a limited circle of people " What can I add here? Father Mason agreed!
It is not surprising that the distribution of Darwin's book proceeded at a tremendous pace. From Charles's diary: “From the first moment she was an extremely great success. The first small edition of 1250 copies sold out on the day of publication, and soon after that second edition in 3000 copies. To date (1876) sixteen thousand copies have been sold in England, and considering how difficult the book is to read, it must be admitted that this is a large number. It has been translated into almost all European languages, even Spanish, Czech, Polish and Russian. It has also been translated into Japanese and is being studied widely in Japan, Ms. Baird said. Even an essay about it appeared in Hebrew, proving that my theory is contained in the Old Testament! Truly a bestseller. And tell me: is this possible without attracting huge capital and a large-scale PR company?
In Russia, Darwin's new book appeared even earlier than in England. An amazing fact, isn't it? But as soon as church censorship became familiar with the work on the origins of man, the already published copies were confiscated. 15 years later, censorship stopped an attempt by the editors of the journal “Scientific Review” to publish Charles Darwin’s book “The Descent of Man and Sexual Selection” as an appendix to the magazine. Other biology lovers had to either read the book in the original or look for references to it in illegal literature. Darwin's theory had enormous ideological significance in preparing Russian society for the abolition of the monarchy, for atheism, Marxism and, as a consequence, the great [Jewish] October Revolution.
Ideologist of the world socialist revolution Karl Marx admitted that he owed his main ideas to Darwin: "Darwin's book is very important; it forms the basis of my idea of ​​natural selection in the class struggle throughout history...it [Darwin's book] not only dealt the death blow to "teleology" in natural science, but also empirically explained its rational meaning." Both Marx and Darwin believed that struggle was the driving force of progress.
For Adolf Hitler, evolution was the most important criterion for contemporary science, and his “views on history, politics, religion, Christianity, nature, eugenics, science, art and evolution...were largely consistent with the views of the Darwinist Ernst Haeckel.” In Darwin's biological theory, Hitler found his most powerful weapon against traditional values. Evidence for these claims can be found in Adolf Hitler's famous book Mein Kampf (My Struggle), which places particular emphasis on Darwin's "struggle for existence" and "survival of the fittest."
PR instantly made Charles Darwin, as they say now, a “star” - in a short time he became known as the greatest scientist of all time. His unqualified observations began to be considered a scientific standard, and moreover, a new religious dogma, apostasy from which was declared heresy, and methods much more sophisticated than simply burning at the stake began to be used against heretics. They stopped looking for truth - they began to create it.
Marx, Freud, Haeckel - grew their ideas on the basis of pseudoscientific work authored by Charles Darwin. Darwin's theory has become a powerful tool in achieving global goals. Who paid for the order and promoted Darwin: Freemasons, bankers, the world government - it is hardly possible to find out. But we managed to get on the trail and show the purposeful advancement of evolutionary theory.

IUPD:Darwin's theory of the development of organic forms appeared at the time of the heyday of capitalism. The many-faced owner of the means of production and the hoarding banker saw in the Englishman and navigator Darwin the commodity and raw material messiah. From their point of view, the scientist offered a life-giving seed from which the ideology of the modern Western world sprang.It turned out that the initial capital earned by the robbery of colonies, piracy, the slave trade, genocide of backward peoples and outright crime was removed from the blow of Darwin’s theory

Starting with the “Manifesto of the Communist Party” (1848), K. Marx, F. Engels, and subsequently V.I. Lenin developed the foundations of communist ideology and developed a plan for building socialism. All this has begun to be actively implemented in practice in Russia. But, as we can now definitely say, it was not a success. Moreover, it was a crushing fiasco. What are the reasons for such an obvious failure? Why did such a romantic idea fail? Where did the founders of communism go wrong? The work written in the late 1980s - early 1990s is devoted to the analysis of these issues, and, judging by the direction of thought of some sociologists (see introduction), it still retains its relevance.

Sweet poison of utopia

In 1859, when Marx and Engels were in full swing developing their theory of communism, Charles Darwin’s book “On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection” was published, which very clearly indicated the place of man in the general row with all other organisms of the biosphere and their subordination to a single laws of nature. However, such a modest place did not suit everyone, nor did it suit the classics of communism.

All biological systems, be it a virus, the human body or animal communities, are self-regulating, and this regulation, as is known, is carried out according to the feedback principle. The same principle is embedded in an economic system built on market relations; government intervention in this mechanism is very limited. Marxism proposes the destruction of feedback loops and total centralized control. What considerations guided the classics of Marxism when they proposed this path can be understood by examining their ideas about the theory of evolution.

Darwin's work deeply offended the founders of communism with the best feelings for all humanity. “Darwin did not suspect what a bitter satire he painted on people and, especially on his fellow countrymen, when he argued that free competition, the struggle for existence, glorified by economists as the greatest historical achievement, is the normal state of the animal world. Only the conscious organization of social production with planned production and planned distribution can raise people above other animals...".

This is why the principles of feedback should be destroyed, in order to “raise people above other animals”!

Psychologically, such a desire is quite understandable - nature, alas, does not have morality, every second on earth an astronomical number of living beings die, losing in the struggle for existence. Such wastefulness of nature is the price to pay for evolution, and, by the way, it does not occur to anyone to eliminate this universal injustice by fighting the feedback principles that regulate all these processes, especially since individual experiments in this direction, as a rule, end very badly . Let us recall, for example, the famous episode of beating wolves for the benefit of hares, after which the hares safely died from epidemics. Nature always takes revenge for attempts to correct its laws.

Let us return, however, to the classics. Darwin's theory initially made a favorable impression on them, but only so long as, in their opinion, it was grist for their mill. "The book provides a natural historical basis for our views." But as soon as they noticed that Darwin’s theory was similar to the market principle “glorified by economists,” they suddenly fell out of love with the great Charles Darwin. “The entire Darwinian doctrine of the struggle for existence is simply a transfer from society to the realm of living nature of the Hobbesian doctrine of bellum omnium contra omnes (war of all against all) and the bourgeois economic doctrine of competition, as well as the Malthusian theory of population. Having done this trick (unconditional the legality of which - especially as regards the Malthusian teaching - is still very controversial - L.O.-D.), it is very easy to then again transfer these teachings from the history of nature back to the history of society."

I dare to stand up for the “magician” Darwin, for whom Malthus’s theory really served as the key to explaining the origin of species. However, for such a “simply” transfer even Darwin’s genius was not enough (and even unsafe at that time), if he had not had an excellent natural science base and a huge number of irrefutable facts collected by him over the course of 20 years, which, ultimately account, and convinced the whole world of the correctness of his theory, but not Marx and Engels.

Marx and Engels, having branded Malthus's theory, "throw out the baby with the bathwater." Meanwhile, brilliant insight leading to great discoveries sometimes occurs under the influence of more prosaic phenomena than scientific theory. For example, the legendary apple that fell on Newton’s head, or Archimedes’ bath, and sometimes already proven scientific truths cannot break through the inertia or bias of contemporaries.

It is completely unclear what exactly is meant by the word “transfer” in this case. The only thing that Darwin could “simply endure” is simply the very fact of the existence of this struggle, and it, as they say, is evident both in human society and in the rest of the biosphere. However, Marx was by no means such a zealous admirer of the purity of boundaries between fields of science. In a letter to Lassalle in 1861, he writes: “Darwin’s very significant book, it suits me as a natural scientific basis for understanding the historical struggle of classes.” Therefore, it is suitable for class struggle, but not suitable for the doctrine of competition. The reasons for such discrimination are quite understandable: if we admit that competition is a natural process occurring in human society, then we will have to agree that in the biosphere the struggle for existence is the driving force of evolution. Consequently, there is every reason to assume that competitive struggle is the driving force of progress, and since competitive struggle and class struggle are completely united under the general name of “struggle for existence,” Marx later preferred to understand the historical struggle of classes without Darwin’s book.

Engels also did not have a particularly consistent view in understanding the driving forces of evolution. This phrase about Charles Darwin’s circus talents can also be read in Engels’ letter to Pyotr Lavrovich Lavrov, written in 1875, but Anti-Dühring (1871-1878) already contains criticism of this position. “First of all, Darwin is reproached for transferring Malthus’ theory of population from political economy to natural science,” and then for several pages there is an argument with Dühring in favor of Darwin and Haeckel. One might assume that Engels' views had changed, but, apparently, they changed only temporarily in order to “defeat” Dühring, since later they returned to the level of 1875. What should be taken as a basis if the scientist’s views, to put it mildly, were not consistent? Probably his last work, unless, of course, we assume that by that time he had already lost clarity of thought.

Engels’s “Dialectics of Nature” is such a work, and I based it on it, although one often hears the fair remark that it is not finished. Of course, following the logic of the above facts, one can assume that if Engels had finished it, we could read something completely opposite, but if we do not resort to the help of spiritualists, we can be content with what we have.

In addition, our task is not to quarrelsomely seek out contradictory statements from the classics and make accusations of scientific dishonesty, but to highlight exactly that line in their understanding of the laws of nature, which led to the formation of a new “anti-Darwinian” trend in natural science . Of course, it was not the only one, and before Darwin, and in his time right up to the present day, more and more new hypotheses of the driving forces of the evolutionary process were put forward, are being put forward and, in all likelihood, will be put forward, some of them complement Darwin's teachings, others contradict him, but none of them led to such sad consequences that we have experienced.

It is not known who first came up with the idea of ​​accusing Darwin of plagiarism - Marx, Engels or Dühring, but the classics liked it so much that it is repeated many times in their works, and therefore, it can be considered a program in their understanding of the teachings of their great contemporary. But what remains of Darwin’s theory if the struggle for existence is deleted from it?!

In 1862, Marx wrote to Engels: “...I am amused by his (Darwin - L.O.-D..) assertion that he applies the “Malthusian” theory also to plants and animals...”. The possibility of such an application amused Marx so much that he probably considered Darwin to be a frivolous person, and paid very little attention to his theory of the formation of species.

Engels is another matter; he not only gives a formula about Darwin’s great love for Malthus’s theory, but also significantly “supplements” the causes of speciation, finds “errors,” and provides “evidence.” “Darwin’s mistake lies precisely in the fact that in his “natural selection or survival of the fittest” he confuses two completely different things:

1. Selection under the pressure of overpopulation, where the strongest, perhaps, survive first, but may at the same time be the weakest in some respects (here, probably, Engels understands “selection under the pressure of overpopulation” in the most literal sense of the word - as a physical fight - L.O.-D.).

2. Selection due to a greater ability to adapt to changed circumstances, where surviving individuals are better adapted to these circumstances...".

Therefore, a fight is one thing, but adaptation to circumstances is another, and it would be a mistake to confuse these two “completely different things.” But I think that an animal dying, for example, from hunger will not agree with Engels, because it is, in essence, indifferent to whether a stronger neighbor takes food from it or drought has destroyed the food supply of the entire population of a given species. Moreover, for him it is generally indifferent to what to die from: whether from cold, from hunger, or being eaten by his fellows (this is a lyrical question, which death is better - on the chopping block, in a noose or in the electric chair; in any case, milk soup is preferable), for The main thing for him is to survive and give fertile offspring, thereby, therefore, establishing the advantages of his own genotype in the biosphere.

To study the ecology of organisms, of course, all the details of life are important, but the genius of Charles Darwin lies in the fact that he was able to summarize all the diversity of life and saw the driving forces of evolution in the survival of those most adapted to the entire complex of environmental conditions, and even called this process capacious formula ("meager and one-sided" according to Engels) - "the struggle for existence."

“Before Darwin, his current supporters emphasized precisely the harmonious cooperation in organic nature, pointing out how plants provide food and oxygen to animals, and animals provide fertilizers, ammonia and carbon dioxide to plants. But as soon as Darwin’s teachings were recognized, these same people became see only struggle everywhere." It is not known who “these same people” are, but it is quite obvious that Engels himself was unable to overcome the everyday meaning of the word “Struggle” and, as a result, understood the struggle for existence in a very vulgar way, as a total mutual beating of all life on our planet.

If Engels, in his criticism of Darwin’s teachings, had limited himself only to the dubious division of certain forms of adaptation of organisms to the environment, the meaning of which can be explained, perhaps, by the classic’s deep aversion to physical violence. However, he turned his attention to the deeper laws of nature, to the driving forces of evolution, which later led to very dramatic consequences, which, unfortunately, the great humanist could not foresee.

"...species change - old ones die out, and their place is taken by new, more developed ones (it would be more correct to say more adapted - L.O.-D.) ... for example, when plants and animals move to new places, where new climatic, soil and other conditions cause changes." Therefore, Engels sees the causes of evolution in changes arising under the influence of the environment, and considers it possible “... to ensure the entire development process without the need for selection and Malthusianism.”

Engels’s ideas about heredity are even more fantastic: “Modern natural science recognizes the heredity of acquired properties and thereby expands the subject of experience, extending it from the individual to the race: it is no longer considered necessary for each individual to personally experience everything; his individual experience can be to a certain extent replaced by the results of the experience of a number of his ancestors. If, for example, in our country mathematical axioms seem to every eight-year-old child as something self-evident, not requiring any experimental proof, then this is only the result of “accumulated heredity.”

This theory of evolution by Engels, which ignores selection and affirms the inheritance of the experience of ancestors down to mathematical axioms, may be successful in our time only with an eight-year-old child, but if scientists around the world did not dare to challenge this theory, then most likely genetics would not exist at all would have formed as a science. Therefore, I.T. Frolov’s statement that “Marxism...does not exclude, on the contrary, it presupposes the study of his (man’s - L.O.-D.) biological nature, his genetics” - can be regarded as the desire of the Soviet scientist to be greater royalist than the king himself.

To compare Engels's views with modern science, let's take a short excursion through a general biology course for high school.

Genetics brilliantly confirmed Darwin's theory. According to its laws, the genotype of any organism is stable throughout its life and no external conditions can change it. Only during the process of fertilization does a new set arise, which is still much closer to the parental forms than to the genotype of any other organism. And with this relatively new set, the daughter organism is destined to live its entire life, which, in turn, will reveal how successfully the parental genes were combined. But these changes are not happening in a directional way. We can only obtain the necessary forms by selecting producers with the desired qualities.

Of course, the environment plays a big role in the formation and life of the organism. If we keep a cow in excellent conditions, but she has genetically low milk yield, then she will be able to produce more milk than a cow of the best dairy breed, but kept in harsh conditions of central planning. However, these qualities are not inherited. And no matter how much you raise the first cow, no matter how much you entice her with the title of “medalist” and a trip to the Exhibition of Economic Achievements of the USSR, as was customary in our country at one time, neither she nor, most likely, her offspring, can compare with the second cow in terms of milk yield , but subject to the same content.

Thus, the environment shapes the organism within the limits of its genotype, and no changes that arose under the influence of the environment are inherited; the new generation starts everything from scratch, as if all its ancestors had not experienced any environmental influence at all. The very fact of the appearance of offspring indicates that the parental genotype fully meets the requirements of the environment, that it is this hereditary information, which allowed them to survive, that has the right to continue the “pedigree” of this species in new and different variants, since it has an undeniable advantage over its brothers who did not survive before puberty or for other reasons, without leaving offspring and, therefore, losing in the struggle for existence.

Marx and Engels were not professional biologists, and any Darwinist could easily cope with the bogeyman of Malthusianism. But the trouble is that their works were canonized, and any doubts about the sterile sinlessness of every letter of their works (and, as a rule, precisely the letter that was officially recognized at the moment) were regarded as terrible sedition, and in other times, in professional terms, they did not contribute to survival.

And here before us stands the ominous shadow of the unforgettable academician Lysenko, in whose teaching Marxism (in the field of natural science) reached its apogee. The academician not only denied the existence of selection and its leading role in evolution, but also gave his own interpretation of changes in the heredity of organisms, which, in his opinion, occurs due to changes in metabolism under the influence of the environment.

So, we can note two mutually exclusive directions in natural science, the fundamental principles of which are as follows:

I 1. The genetic code of an organism is stable throughout its life.

2. The mutation process occurs undirectedly, all changes in the new organism are random.

3. New forms arise due to the survival of the fittest.

II 1. Hereditary information undergoes constant changes during the life of the organism.

2. All changes are adequate.

3. New forms arise due to these changes in heredity under the influence of the environment. There is no struggle for existence.

The first direction was created by Darwinism, genetics, generalized by the modern synthetic theory of evolution, and is based on the facts of scientific research.

The second is purely emotional, aimed not at knowing the truth, but at discrediting the opponent by any means. Hence the corresponding methods: denial of facts, labeling, contradictory statements, “scientific” argumentation, such as accusations of “anti-nationality” and “adherence to bourgeois remnants,” calls for partisanship in science, etc. and so on. How else to deal with facts? There is simply no other way.

If Marx and Engels assumed that it would be sufficient to “raise people above other animals” to introduce “planned production and planned distribution,” then Lysenko was in more difficult conditions, since planned economy already existed, but people were in no hurry to “rise” and everyone strived to live according to - the old fashioned way - by making good, by bargaining, by violating the planned management of the economy with your unplanned actions. Therefore, the primary task was “raising a new person”, without which the construction of a new society became unthinkable, but it is precisely this task from the point of view of natural sciences and especially genetics that is absolutely impossible. This statement deserves special attention and, like any other, requires proof, and therefore let’s leave Marx and the Marxists for now and turn to human genetics and problems of education.

Behavioral genetics is a relatively young science and is now in its infancy, although the successes it has already achieved can hardly be overestimated. Studies of various groups of animals, from bacteria to primates, provide compelling evidence of genetic control over a wide variety of behaviors. Studying the genetics of human behavior is much more difficult, since most methods used on animals are not applicable to humans for ethical reasons. And yet, research is being carried out very energetically, new methods are being developed, and facts are accumulating.

Of course, man would like to believe that, unlike other animals, all his actions are solely acts of free will and that he himself, thus, determines his own destiny. However, it would sound more strange to assume that the genotype, while controlling the vast majority of physical parameters, does not have any influence on human behavior, although the physical indicators themselves have such an influence. However, extremely pronounced examples of genetic control over human behavior have been known for a long time. For example, Down syndrome, in which the appearance of an extra chromosome causes physical deformities, as well as delayed mental, physical and sexual development. There are also other chromosomal changes that have a strong impact on behavior. As you know, humans have two sex chromosomes: XX (female) and XY (male). However, there are women with karyotype XXX, XXXX and even XXXXX, but, unfortunately, such individuals are not distinguished by super-feminine qualities, moreover, women with karyotype XXX are characterized by a decrease in IQ, and with karyotype XXXX and XXXXX serious mental disorders and are unable to have children Men with the "XYY karyotype are highly irresponsible and infantile individuals in whom the tendency to crime manifests itself at a very early age." This conclusion was made by Price and Watmore, studying prisoners in a hospital in one of the prisons in Scotland.

In addition to those listed above, many different chromosomal abnormalities are known that have a significant impact on behavior. It is difficult to imagine that the connection between a person’s genotype and his behavior is limited to such serious chromosomal pathologies; it would be more logical to assume that genetic control over behavior is exercised not only in the case of genetic abnormalities, but also in the normal state. Currently, science already has experimental data on the influence of genotype on such important behavioral traits as: speech fluency, spatial imagination, attentiveness, etc. Especially a lot of work is devoted to the influence of the genetic program on intelligence due to its great influence on the general structure of personality. We will not consider in detail the methods and results of these works; we will only quote the conclusions drawn by Wilson based on many years of research on twins raised in different conditions. “Individual differences in people’s intelligence will never be smoothed out, despite all the perfection of methods and the enthusiasm of educators.

Genotypically determined differences are too deep-rooted to be eliminated by special training. But the maximum realization of the mental abilities of each child is a very real goal...” Similar conclusions can be drawn based on familiarization with studies conducted to determine the dependence of the mental abilities of children on the mental abilities of their true parents and adoptive parents. It turned out that the mental abilities of children are in In any case, they are much closer to their true parents than to their adoptive parents and are almost no different in their indicators from children raised in their own families.

Following the logic of the above facts, it is difficult not to conclude that human behavior largely depends on the genetic program embedded in it. Of course, it is not the behavior itself that is determined, but the predisposition to a certain kind of action, but the extent to which this program will be implemented depends on the environment. How will we “correct “genetic” defects”? While the formation of personality occurs spontaneously, there can be no talk of any “new man”; in this case, we will always have only what we have - a motley kaleidoscope of all possible options.

Let's try to bring all this diversity into a system using the science of random variables. It is known that any continuous random trait, be it the size of leaves on trees, the height of a person or his intellectual abilities, with a large number of samples, has a normal distribution, i.e. Most of all there will be options with an average value, and the more a characteristic deviates from the average values, the less often it will occur. Let's take intelligence for example. Whatever population we choose, most of it will contain people with average intelligence. And the more or less we take the indicator of this sign, the less often we will encounter it. According to the same law, any behavioral trait will be distributed, for example, altruism, extraversion, tendency to deceit, memory, neuroticism, etc.

We need to direct the educational process in such a way that, for example, we exclude area “A” (see figure), that is, (in case of successful work) the normal distribution curve should move to the right and by average values ​​we will already understand what was previously we called tall. However, perhaps this would have suited us already if we had just moved the curve to the right ad infinitum. And we will, for example, have pure geniuses, and people with average intelligence will turn out to be a rare phenomenon.

A B C

Rice. Normal distribution curve. A - low low rates; B - average values; C - high performance.

But, alas, genetics does not leave us any hope for such a favorable development of events, because the genetic fund, due to the randomness of mutations, gives us the most diverse material, and if, say, a child does not have natural mathematical abilities, and we raise a great mathematician, then a great one will not come out, we will end up with an average mathematician (we do not know how to obtain directed mutations and We are unlikely to learn in the foreseeable future). Therefore, the normal distribution curve in its movement to the right has a limit determined by the genetic fund, and even the movement of the curve that was described above can only occur due to a more complete implementation of genetic programs, through favorable upbringing.

What can you do, statistics are an exact science! In order for our curve to move in the desired direction, we must act as in ancient Sparta, where they selected for physical endurance and, without further ado, threw weak children into the abyss, thereby clearing the gene pool of unwanted predisposition. Appropriate education completed the matter. Thus, in order to completely eliminate vices, without following the example of the Spartans, we need to get rid of accidents no less!!! Try to imagine a world in which random events are completely absent! Perhaps it will be beyond the power of even the richest imagination.

But even if we went so far in our desire to raise a “new man” that we became worthy followers of the ancient Spartans, and genetics reached such perfection that we could take into account all the desirable and undesirable tendencies in newborns, we would have to decide Dilemmas arise all the time: who do we need more - a brilliant egoist or a mentally retarded altruist. In addition, collective education, attempts to instill approximately the same traits in all children, often leads to undesirable consequences. Let's say that we are trying to cultivate in children such traits as altruism, sensitivity towards others, and kindness. If a child has the makings of an egoist and money-grubber, then this upbringing will certainly be beneficial, and if the genetic predisposition of another child is directed towards softness, compliance, and responsiveness, then a similar upbringing will lead to the fact that we will get a weak, amorphous, weak-willed person , unable to stand up for himself or his ideas.

We all have the opportunity to observe similar paradoxes when in the same family (with the same upbringing), having a similar genotype, siblings (brothers and sisters) grow up to have people with diametrically opposite character traits. It remains to return to the individual approach, but in this case, it is still better for children to remain in their families, and parents should have precise instructions on how they should raise each of their offspring, if, of course, their genetic inclinations are already known. But who raised parents before this? And, as mentioned above, we still never manage to equalize all the diversity of genetic programs through education.

In this case, all hope lies in genetics (eugenics). But geneticists will tell us that sometimes one gene encodes several traits, and it happens that several genes control one trait, in addition, there is linked inheritance, when several traits are transmitted together, and even the presence of random mutations, and a huge number of genes themselves, and even their mutual influences, plus the environment - that is why we are all so different - is the result of the interaction of a large number of random events that leave us no hope for the complete elimination of personality defects in the process of raising a “new person”.

However, given the state in which our pedagogy is today, we can conclude that we have large reserves. And still, we will have to come to terms with the unfortunate fact that we will always have a certain percentage of vices, and this will be the payment for virtues.

Or maybe, in order to get rid of accidents in the formation of the genotype of each person, we will give genetic engineering not only the editorial office, but we will completely give into its hands the task of forming the human race. Let them use a computer to calculate the optimal options and assemble chromosomes in vitro. But then what about the environment? How will we deal with unpredictable random events that occur in the environment and influence the formation and implementation of the genetic program? After all, it is known that even people who have the same genotype - monozygotic twins - and are brought up in the same family, sometimes implement this program very ambiguously, which largely depends on further conditions of existence. Therefore, even a standard, pre-calculated environment in which personality formation would take place does not guarantee against diversity, which is always laid out according to the normal distribution described above. In addition, many personality traits manifest themselves depending on circumstances and sometimes quite unexpectedly. And what in one case we take as a virtue, in another situation will be regarded as a vice.

In general, any standardization of the human gene pool would be extremely harmful, since it would reduce its adaptive value. Simply put, the enormous variety of human conditions requires a correspondingly unlimited variety of human abilities, otherwise our species will simply go extinct.

But let’s imagine for a moment the life of a standard person under standard conditions! It is unlikely that anyone will be tempted by such a prospect. However, the hope for the complete elimination of random events even in the most distant future is absolutely unrealistic. Or will we be able to create an environment in which there will be no place for vices, and the best qualities of the individual will be most fully revealed? But can an imperfect society create perfect conditions? It is more realistic to assume that both of these processes will occur simultaneously - human society will improve the environment of its existence, which in turn will influence society and each of its members. But it should be especially noted that the perfection of the environment and of man cannot be absolute. We can only talk about the degree of adaptation, i.e. correspondence of the qualities that a person possesses to specific environmental conditions.

Our hopes for creating an optimal society are similar to the expectation that an ideal biosphere will suddenly form on our Earth, where no one will eat anyone, all species will live in complete peace, harmony, in food and territorial abundance!

It is quite possible that many ideologists of communism truly believed in the infallibility of their views, moreover, they saw in their theories the path to a bright future for humanity. The whole trouble is that they accepted the idea of ​​​​creating a “new society” without any criticism, as a matter of course, and instead of first solving the question - “is it possible to do this?”, they immediately moved on to the problem - “how is it possible?” do". How can you do something that cannot be done? And it is quite natural that in order to solve such, frankly speaking, a difficult task, we had to pull in all sorts of scientific fantasies and deny scientific facts. For any scientist who has set himself the task of putting genuine science into the “Procrustean bed” of the Marxist idea of ​​​​building a new society will inevitably have to cut off more and more scientific facts from it, until there is absolutely nothing left of it, and the resulting void will have to be filled with all kinds of scientific-like surrogate .

If Marx and Engels had to fight Darwinism, then Lysenko, in addition to Darwinism, to which he opposed “Soviet creative Darwinism” (?!), also had to fight with genetics and the theory of probability. Regarding the latter, the academician looked straight to the root, calling “...to expel accidents from biological science without any ceremony.”

Such decisive actions in relation to genetics and the theory of probability were fully part of the plans to destroy everything that could cast doubt on the correctness of the chosen path, and it is these sciences, as indicated above, that leave no hope for the possibility of educating a “new man”, and therefore to create a "new society".

So Lysenko came to court with his theory of evolution, which assumes the infinite plasticity of human nature, easily changed under the influence of educational measures. A very convenient theory for trying to create a human slave, subordinate to a single will, and it must be admitted that the “father of the people” was very successful in this. True, despite the denial of genetics, he carried out, according to all the rules, real artificial selection on the basis of personal devotion. And he did not wait for the environment to re-educate the geneticists, but took and completely destroyed genetics, and geneticists, and not only them... Apparently, Comrade Stalin did not really trust Academician Lysenko.

It doesn’t take much insight to miss the recognition in Marx’s desire to “raise man above other animals” that, at least by that time, this had not happened. Subsequently, as we noted, Marx’s recipe was not successful, and hopes for educational measures did not materialize and even the most daring eugenic projects, as already mentioned, have no prospects. It would seem that it was already possible to conclude that humanity, both now and in the future, will not have fundamental differences with all other organisms on the planet, and therefore, the laws of existence and development are the same. However, humanity is in no hurry to draw conclusions. Our anthropocentric thinking refuses to understand the logic of the behavior of other organisms, regarding it as a lack of thinking. For example, we are fascinated by “swan fidelity,” when a swan, having lost its “faithful friend,” commits suicide. But it is unlikely that anyone will sing about the high feelings of a spider that eats its “husband” after sexual intercourse. Meanwhile, these events have a completely similar ecological meaning, since they eliminate “extra” animals so that they do not compete with their own offspring.

But let's think about how logically we act ourselves. Just look at the beating of the bell in Uglich, which brought bad news. This, of course, was a long time ago, but modern people sometimes act no more logically: they break dishes during family quarrels, throw the receiver onto the lever of an innocent telephone, send curses in full confidence that the addressee will not hear them. .. Is there much logic in the actions of our politicians?

It is very interesting what some aliens would think of us if they suddenly decided to study the mental abilities of the species Homo sapiens using the example of the economic structure of our state during the period of socialist construction. I am afraid that they would deny us not only the ability to think, but would also doubt that we have such elementary instincts, characteristic of all living things, such as, for example, the instinct of self-preservation!

Moreover, when attempts are made to define the difference between man and other animals, by man is meant not all representatives of the human race, but only some of its most developed part. After all, even now there are tribes in the depths of the continents that have not gone beyond gathering in their way of life. However, even among developed nations there are many representatives, the difference between which and other animals is far from so obvious.

And yet, it is difficult for a person to come to terms with the idea that all the successes of civilization have been achieved thanks to the same laws of nature according to which not only humans, but also all other organisms of our biosphere exist.

In the history of the development of natural science, one can observe how humanity desperately resists attempts to unite it with the rest of the Earth’s biosphere and how it gradually surrenders under the onslaught of irrefutable scientific facts, pushing the field of scientific research further and further into poorly studied areas, such as ways of thinking. But we still know so little about how humans think, and even less about how other animals do it, that it would be more correct to evaluate the higher nervous activity of humans and other organisms by its results, i.e. on environmental impact.

The most ancient representatives of the species Homo sapiens hardly opposed themselves to the environment and nature. Subsequently, all kinds of religious teachings presented differently the relationship between man and the world around him, although, usually, they recognized the fundamental difference between man and other animals. However, not a single religion placed man at the center of the World; on the contrary, it called for humility before the forces of nature, before the deities personifying these forces. This probably has important adaptive significance, since it corrects human actions in the biosphere.

In the middle of the last century, there was a reassessment of ideas about the place of man in Nature, and it went in two mutually opposite directions, based on the natural science theories described above. One of them was given impetus by the great Darwin, and since then the proof of the general plan of the structure of man and other animals, general patterns of development of embryos, recognition of man as an animal species, etc., and recently the success of such sciences as behavioral genetics, ethology, zoopsychology and others are rapidly bringing humans closer together in our consciousness with other organisms of our planet, punching holes in the anthropocentric consciousness of humanity. The other direction, the theoretical foundations of which were laid by Marx and Engels, and practically embodied in our country, is directly opposite and orients a person toward anthropocentric claims of gigantic proportions unprecedented anywhere before.

The old religiosity, where man was assigned a rather modest role, was done away with; in its place a new religion arose with its idols, shrines, sermons, worldview, and dogmas. Psychologically, it had a stronger impact, since it turned out to be more flattering, and, in addition, paradise was promised while still alive on Earth. The role of a deity was assigned to a person who, as stated, CAN EVERYTHING: move mountains, turn back rivers, control the weather, and build this paradise on earth itself, and gain immortality in it. However, it is now quite obvious that the steam was only enough for the whistle.

Although the classics mourned the fact that man had not yet “risen above the animals,” nevertheless, with their inherent logic, they proved the fundamental difference between man and other animals, blaming humanity for the obvious analogies between Darwin’s “struggle for existence” and economic struggle in human society, trying to prove the existence of different laws of development and driving forces of evolution between humans and other animals, which was necessary for the theoretical justification of more humane, better laws of development of human society than the rest of the biosphere. Although I personally can’t wrap my head around: what other laws of nature could there be besides the LAWS OF NATURE?!

Engels paid most attention to this issue in “Dialectics of Nature.” “But let us accept for a moment for argument sake (in order to analyze the argument itself) this formula: “The struggle for existence.” An animal, at best, reaches the point of gathering, but a person produces. . This makes impossible any transfer without appropriate reservations of the laws of animal life to the human society" . But at the time of Engels, producing animals were already known, but Engels is not so easily confused - “...states of insects (ordinary insects do not go beyond the framework of purely natural relations) - [hence, according to Engels, there are natural relations, and there are unnatural! - L.O.-D.] - there is even a social rudiment here. The same is true for producing animals with organ-tools (bees, beavers, etc.): however, this is something only incidental and does not have an impact impact on the situation as a whole." Thus, there is no need to prove anything, since it does not fit into his theory, it is naturally “something only incidental” and, of course, “does not have an impact” on Engels’ views “as a whole.” If Engels had been a more impartial researcher of this question, he would have paid more attention to the presence of production in various species of animals and would have noticed that in this case the phenomenon does occur and, therefore, does not give the right to draw a qualitative boundary between man and other animals, since the question who produces more and who produces less is a quantitative question.

In addition, Engels denies animals a purposeful change in the environment, which he also offers as an argument in favor of the human right to special laws of development: “... when animals have a lasting impact on the nature around them, this happens without any intention on their part and is something accidental in relation to these animals themselves..." “An animal destroys the vegetation of some area, not knowing what it is doing. Man destroys it in order to sow grain on the freed soil...” It’s amazing how Engels manages to know the intentions of all animals, or rather the absence of any intentions? While, at times, they are completely obvious, for example, some species of fish destroy aquatic vegetation with a very specific intention - to create an area for spawning grounds and raising offspring, beavers also cut down trees with very obvious intentions, thereby obtaining material for the construction of "huts" and dams, moles dig underground labyrinths in order to subsequently collect small animals that get there, etc.

“In short, animals only use external nature and make changes in it simply by virtue of their presence; man, by the changes he makes, makes it serve his purposes, dominates it. And this is the last significant difference between man and other animals...” This conclusion sounds more like a declarative wish than a scientific statement, especially since Engels himself gives examples when a person “only uses external nature,” causing harm not only to this very “external nature,” but also to himself, and even “ a planned mode of action already exists in the embryo wherever living protein exists and reacts...".

Thus, in this case, it is impossible to notice a qualitative difference between a person and other animals, since in any case, be it a person or other animals, there is a deliberate impact, but the consequences can go far beyond these intentions in both cases. in another case.

However, despite the fact that Engels himself actually proves the inconsistency of his position, he still concludes: “...we, unlike all other creatures, know how to cognize its (Nature - L.O.-D.) laws and apply them correctly,” without realizing that knowledge is infinite, and therefore, the “correctness” of applying the laws of nature will always be very, very relative and cannot insure against the same consequences that go beyond intentions. Moreover, Engels “did not notice” that other organisms also cognize nature and the whole difference between them and man is only in the scale of cognition, i.e. again quantitative!

Engels dismissed the deliberate actions of various organisms, recognizing them as “something accidental,” which allowed him to raise similar human actions to the dizzying heights of domination over Nature, and recognize the possibility of “...subordinating to our domination and regulation... the social consequences of our production activity", from which, judging by the experience of our state, one can once again be convinced that the road to Hell is paved with good intentions.

Shortly after the publication of Darwin’s book “On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or in the Struggle for Life, the Worthy Survive,” a conference of the British Association took place in Oxford, at which Darwin’s main opponent, Bishop Samuel Wilberforce, asked Darwin’s friend and like-minded person Thomas Huxley: “You Great-grandmother is a monkey, why are you so zealously defending your origin?” To which Huxley gave a brilliant answer, which, in a slightly modified form, spread throughout England in the form of an aphorism: “It is better to have a monkey as a great-grandmother than a bishop.”

Following this example, I would like to respond to Marx’s desire to raise man, with the help of a planned economy, above other animals with my aphorism: “It is better not to raise man above an animal and live like a human, than to raise him and live like a pig.”

Marx and Engels were outstanding thinkers and could not fail to notice in the works of Darwin a fundamental discovery in the field of natural science.

I think that "the whole of Darwin's teaching" became for Marx and Engels "simply a transference" at the moment when emotions prevailed over impartial research.

Here is what Marx writes in a letter to Lafargue in 1869: “The struggle for existence in English society is universal competition, bellum omnium contra omnes, led Darwin to the discovery of a fierce competitive struggle for existence as the fundamental law of the “animal” and plant world.” (It is difficult to imagine that Darwin, traveling on the Beagle ship as a naturalist, was engaged not so much in the study of nature, but in the study of general competition in English society. But it was the impressions received on this journey that formed the basis of his theory - L.O .-D..). But we read further - “Darwinism, on the contrary, considers this the decisive argument to prove that humanity will never get rid of its bestiality.”

Of course, in a friendly letter such elegant expressions are quite appropriate, but if we replace the word “bestiality” with more scientific terminology, then we get the following: humanity will never get rid of its belonging to a biological species with all the ensuing consequences.

Everyday expressions are unlikely to be appropriate in scientific research, much less serve as arguments. The laws of nature generally cannot be bad or good, they simply exist, and we should meet them with open eyes, and not bury our heads in the sand like an ostrich, claiming that we are different, that the laws of nature are not written for us. But for now we are forced to live according to these laws, since we have not yet created a person capable of living according to other, more humane, in our opinion, laws.

It is a pity that the ancient slave owners could not familiarize themselves with the idea of ​​\u200b\u200braising a “new man”. They would be delighted at the prospect of creating a man for whom work is the first necessity.

However, some of our ideologists would not be averse to enhancing the effect through coercion, even to the point of physical destruction. This is how easy it was to affirm slavery, elitism, and genocide under the banner of “freedom, equality, fraternity.”

This reminds me of Zeno’s famous aporias or sophisms, where a deliberate or involuntary error is introduced into a logical construction, which is sometimes very difficult to detect, and the result is paradoxical. Using such constructions, one can, for example, prove that there is no movement, the lengths of all circles are equal, and two plus two equals five. In the latter case, for example, in the process of algebraic operations, division by zero is performed, which leads to an erroneous result.

In our case, such a “division by zero” was carried out in two logical constructions, which ultimately made it possible to put an equal sign between freedom and slavery.

1. Attribution of special laws of development to human society, based on the erroneous postulate of a qualitative difference between man and the entire other biosphere of the Earth.

However, it soon became clear that man does not possess the qualities that allow him to live according to these new laws and continues to live according to the old ones, according to which all life on Earth has existed for millions of years. In order to eliminate such an obvious discrepancy between theory and practice, it was necessary to support the theory with another logical construction.

2. The person with whom we are dealing is not the same person; it is necessary to fashion a person who would comply with these laws, i.e. bring a person under the new laws. To do this, it was necessary to make another “division by zero” - to accept the dogma of the infinite plasticity of human nature. But in this case it was impossible to make a decisive distinction with the rest of nature, so we had to simply cross out the science of genetics.

Alas, neither Mohammed went to the mountain, nor the mountain to Mohammed.

As a result of this “improvement” of the laws of nature, we received broken feedback principles and, as a consequence, complete chaos in the economy instead of the expected complete order, and from all sides the same forbidden feedback principles crawled out, but in the form of ugly, criminal or semi-criminal phenomena.

Generally speaking, planning is a necessary thing both in economics and in ordinary human life. For example, it would certainly be a good idea for people to take an umbrella with them in case of wet weather, but no one would think of walking around with an open umbrella all day based on the morning forecast. Likewise, in economics there is a sufficient field of activity for planning, if, of course, planning is introduced not for reasons of “raising man above other animals,” but out of objective economic necessity.

You can mourn as much as you like over the unsuccessful attempt to make all of humanity happy, however, a mistake is a mistake; a planned person in a planned society did not work out. However, is it really so sad? Let us remember the words of the great ancient thinker, the founder of objective dialectics, Heraclitus: “It would not be better for people if all their desires were fulfilled.”

The fact that man belongs to the animal species and his existence according to the general laws of nature does not at all humiliate humanity (our painful anthropocentrism is very similar to the offended feelings of Chekhov’s hero Vasily Semi-Bulatov from the village of Bliny-Sedeny, who in his letter to his learned neighbor states that “.. .if man, the ruler of the world, the smartest of breathing creatures, descended from a stupid and ignorant monkey, then he would have a tail and a wild voice"), and, of course, does not relieve him of responsibility for his actions, for the fate of his neighbors and fate humanity, especially since other animals, at their level, also solve similar problems. Sometimes, wolves defend their offspring to the death, and people sometimes eat up the defeated one no worse than any wolf pack.

It is better to understand and feel this harmony of our community with the “lesser brothers” and all of nature; there may be more benefit from this than from the arrogant desire to dominate it. And you can improve your society as much as you like without inventing new laws of nature, you just need to discover and study existing ones. Just don’t take any good idea to the point of absurdity.

Fans of science fiction know that not a single, even the most talented writer, has been able to depict an ideal society or any other society at all except our earthly one, with wings, with horns, with two heads, and all our dear ones, with our passions, with our contradictions, with our imperfections... Without conflict, it is generally impossible to establish any plot, either in life or in literature.

Marx and Engels were prevented from being objective researchers by their ardent desire to make all of humanity happy in one fell swoop, even jumping over the natural laws of nature to do this. And yet, giving them their due, I want to conclude with the words of Marx, which in a few lines prove everything that I had to spend so much paper on.

“The coexistence of two mutually opposite sides, their merging into a new category constitutes the essence of the dialectical movement. Anyone who sets himself the task of eliminating the bad side immediately puts an end to the dialectical movement.”

LITERATURE

1. Marx and Engels, complete works vol. 20 p. 359.

2. ibid., vol. 30, p. 102.

3. ibid., vol. 20, p. 622.

4. ibid., vol. 30, p. 475.

5. ibid., vol. 34, p. 137.

6. ibid., vol. 20, p. 323

7. ibid., vol. 30, p. 204.

8. ibid., vol. 20, p. 621.

9. ibid., vol. 20, p. 622.

10. ibid., vol. 20, p. 621.

11. ibid., vol. 20, p. 621.

12. ibid., vol. 20, p. 424

13 L. Erman, P. Parsons Behavioral genetics and evolution M., Mir, 1984, pp. 104-106

14. ibid., p.103.

15. ibid., p.202.

16. ibid., pp.412-413.

17 Lysenko T.D., Agrobiology, p. 579.

18. Marx and Engels, complete works vol. 20 p.622.

19. ibid., vol. 20, p. 624.

20. ibid., vol. 20, p. 494.

21. ibid., vol. 20, p. 495.

22. ibid., vol. 20, p. 495.

23. ibid., vol. 20, p. 496.

24. ibid., vol. 20, p. 497.

25. ibid., vol. 32, p. 493.

26. ibid., vol. 4, p. 136.

Darwinism as the basis of communism

Conclusion

A study of the works of the founders of communism shows that the theory of evolution, especially as presented by Darwin, played a very important role in the formation of communism in its modern form. Many communist theorists, including Stalin, Lenin, Marx and Engels, adhered to the world view outlined in the Book of Genesis, but exposure to the works of Darwin and other thinkers of his time ultimately changed their worldview. Darwin's works played a huge role in their conversion to the communist faith and the transition to atheistic thinking. Moreover, the fundamental idea of ​​communism, namely the idea of ​​violent revolution in which the strong overthrow the weak, is a natural and inevitable consequence of viewing history through the prism of Darwinian ideas.

Wikipedia.org Karl Marx (1818–1883)

Darwinism as a worldview became a decisive factor not only in the development of Nazism, but also in the emergence of communism and the communist catastrophe, which, according to some estimates, claimed more than a hundred million lives. Marx, as well as his predecessors, associates and followers, was a convinced evolutionist and tried to build a society on evolutionary principles. This point of view is confirmed by many documents and is practically beyond doubt.

Wilder-Smith believes that the theory of evolution is

"the cornerstone of modern Marxism. At one time, the Nazis, just like the Communists today, were convinced that evolution is a fact, that all life spontaneously developed from lower forms to higher ones, and that intermediate links (or less perfect forms) must be destroyed. They believed that natural selection could and should be actively promoted, and that is why they introduced political measures to exterminate the disabled, Jews and blacks, who were considered "underdeveloped (emphasis added)."

Ideological extremists existed before the publication of Darwin's seminal work On the Origin of Species in 1859, but since scientists before Darwin, like most people, believed in God, it was very difficult for these extremists to indoctrinate the people with communist or other left-wing ideology. Partly for this reason, Western peoples have been able to contain the most radical ideas for centuries. Darwin opened the doors to Marxism, offering the world a “scientific” (according to Marx) basis for denying Creation, and after that the Creator. Departure from God and acquaintance with the ideas of Darwin inspired Marx to create a new worldview in which there was no place for God and which we know as “communism.” And like other Darwinists, Marx emphasized that his communist worldview was “scientific” and involved “scientific methodology and scientific views.” Bethell notes that Marx admired Darwin's book

"for a reason more fundamental than economic: Darwin's universe was entirely materialistic, and its understanding required no more recourse to unobservable or immaterial causes "outside" or beyond it. In this respect, Darwin and Marx were true comrades and like-minded people."

And the historian Hofstadter writes that early orthodox Marxists, as a rule, “felt at home in a Darwinian environment. On the shelves of socialist bookstores in Germany, the works of Marx and Darwin stood side by side.” He also adds that the covers of the Communist books that poured out of Chicago's Kerr Presses [the main publisher of Communist literature in the United States] often bore fashionable quotations from Darwin, Huxley, Spencer and Haeckel.

Karl Marx

Karl Marx, born in 1818, was baptized in the Lutheran Church in 1824, attended a Lutheran school, where teachers praised his “thoughtful” writings on morals and religion, and his knowledge of theology was assessed as “fair” (his first The written work was dedicated to "Christ's love"). , , But all this lasted until, at the University of Berlin, he discovered the ideas and works of Darwin. All his life, Marx wrote tirelessly; Hundreds of books, monographs and articles came from his pen. Sir Isaiah Berlin even assured that no thinker of the 19th century had such a direct, purposeful and powerful influence on humanity as Karl Marx.

Marx viewed the living world from the point of view of Darwin’s ‘survival of the fittest’, the struggle for existence.

Marx viewed the living world from the point of view of Darwin's “survival of the fittest,” a struggle for existence in which the strongest win and the weak are forced to submit. Darwin teaches that "survival of the fittest" is characteristic of all life forms. Based on this, Marx came to the conclusion that a person’s “struggle for existence”, as a rule, takes the form of a class struggle. According to Barzun, Marx considered his work to be an exact copy of Darwin's:

“...like Darwin, Marx believed that he had discovered the law of development. He represented history in the form of separate eras, as the Darwinists represented it in the form of geological eras and successive forms of life... both Marx and Darwin considered struggle to be the driving force of progress. In addition, the highest value according to Darwin is the survival of the offspring, an unconditional fact that occurs over time and is in no way correlated with the moral and aesthetic qualities of the product. The highest value according to Marx is measured in labor costs - also an unconditional fact that occurs over time and in no way correlated with the usefulness of the product. Both Darwin and Marx maneuvered in the face of their opponents, trying to adapt their mechanistic constructions to the circumstances."

Marx owes his main ideas to Darwin. He wrote: "Darwin's book is very important; it forms the basis of my idea of ​​natural selection in the class struggle throughout history...it [Darwin's book] not only dealt the death blow to 'teleology' in natural science and empirically explained its rational meaning." Marx first read The Origin of Species just a year after its publication, and liked the book so much that he read it again two years later. He attended Thomas Huxley's lectures on Darwin's ideas and "spoke for months about nothing but Darwin and the enormous significance of his scientific discoveries." A close friend of Marx testifies that Marx was

"one of the first to realize the significance of Darwin's research. Even before the publication of "The Origin of Species" in 1859 - by a strange coincidence, the same year Marx's work "On the Critique of Political Economy" was published - Marx noted the epoch-making importance of Darwin's works. For Darwin ... was preparing a revolution very similar to the one for which Marx worked.... Marx followed the news of the press and noticed every step forward, especially in the field of natural sciences...”

According to Berlin, Marx, having become a communist, passionately hated belief in the supernatural." Stein noted that "Marx himself considered Darwin's work to be the natural scientific proof of his views...." Hyman included Marx and Darwin in the list of four people responsible , in his opinion, for the most important events of the 20th century. Heyer claims that Marx was “madly in love” with Darwin, whose ideas clearly had a great influence not only on him and Engels, but also on Lenin and Stalin. Moreover, in many of their works they all referred to Darwin's ideas. Marx and Engels "enthusiastically embraced" Darwinism, closely followed Darwin's works and, in correspondence with each other and with others, often exchanged views on his theories. , The communists understood how important Darwinism was for their movement , and defended him with all their might:

"The socialist movement was initially aware of the importance of Darwinism as an important part of the general worldview. In 1859, when Darwin published On the Origin of Species, Karl Marx wrote to Friedrich Engels: "... in this book the natural historical foundations of our views are laid." ... Of all the outstanding scientists of the 19th century who left us such a rich heritage, we are especially grateful to Charles Darwin, who opened the way for us to an evolutionary, dialectical understanding of nature."

The eminent communist Friedrich Lessner declares that Capital and The Origin of Species are “the two greatest scientific works of the century.” Darwinism's "contribution" to the one hundred and forty million deaths that communism cost the world is determined in part by the fact that

“from the point of view of Marx, man has no “nature”... Man is his own creator; he becomes such consciously, without any dependence on the laws of morality, nature and God.... That is why Marxism justifies the ruthless sacrifice of people living today, people who, at this point in history, are only partly human."

Halstead adds that the theory of communism is based on

"dialectical materialism, so clearly explained by Friedrich Engels in Anti-Dühring and Dialectics of Nature. He realized how important the contribution of geology is to the understanding of the constant movement and changes in nature, and how significant the fact that Darwin extended this conclusion to living nature. ...And yet the main problem of the theory is the nature of qualitative changes. This is also discussed in Engels’ “Dialectics of Nature”: “development, during which qualitative changes do not occur gradually, but quickly and suddenly, taking the form of a leap from one state to something else..." This is the recipe for revolution."

Conner adds that, according to communist doctrine, "by upholding Darwinism, working people strengthen their defenses against reactionary attacks and prepare the way for a change in the social order," that is, a communist revolution.

Friedrich Engels

Engels, Marx's colleague and co-author, was raised by his father, a very strict and pious man; but Engels also renounced Christianity - in particular, after studying at the University of Berlin. At Marx's funeral, Engels said: "As Darwin discovered the law of evolution of organic nature, so Marx discovered the law of evolution of human history..." Himmelfarb, who studied Darwin's work, concluded that much of this in the eulogy was true:

"Both of them glorified the internal rhythm and flow of life; one - life in nature, the other - life in society; life, which develops according to certain laws, not subject to the will of God or man. There were no catastrophes either in history or in nature. There were no inexplicable events; nothing disturbed the natural order. God was powerless, like people, and could not intervene in the internal, self-regulating dialectic of change and development."

Alexander Herzen

There are a number of other personalities without whom it is impossible to imagine the communist movement. One of these people is Alexander Herzen (1812-1870). Herzen was the first to formulate new radical ideas in Russia and, having wholeheartedly accepted Marxism, was the first to call on the people to revolt and establish communist power. His theory represented a distinctively Russian version of socialism, based on the idea of ​​a peasant commune, and became the ideological basis for revolutionary activity in Russia until 1917. Herzen was also influenced by the theory of evolution:

"Most of Herzen's university work was devoted to the topic of the origin of life... Herzen demonstrates a good knowledge of the serious scientific literature of the time... especially those works that put forward the idea of ​​evolution... [including] the work of Erasmus Darwin, Charles's grandfather and to some extent his ideological predecessor. ... Herzen closely followed the debate between the followers of Cuvier, who defended the idea of ​​​​the immutability of species, and the transformist, that is, the evolutionist, Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire; of course, he was on the side of the latter, since the idea of ​​​​continuous evolution was necessary for him to illustrate the progressive unfolding of the Absolute. In short, scientific Herzen's education is based on the raw materials for the biology of Naturphilosophie."

Vladimir Lenin

Lenin, who was also influenced by Darwinism, acted on the principle of “less is more” - a paraphrase of the idea of ​​natural selection. The family in which he grew up was true believers and belonged to the middle class. But around 1892 he discovered the works of Darwin and Marx - and his life changed forever. His transition to the ranks of Marxists was spurred by the imperfections of the Russian education system - his father was unfairly removed from office, and the family found itself in a sad situation. Less than a year had passed since my father died. This story embittered and embittered Vladimir, who was then sixteen years old. Lenin adored his father - a hardworking, pious and intelligent man. Koster adds:

“In Lenin’s office there was only one decoration - a figurine of a monkey sitting on a pile of books (among which was “The Origin of Species”) and examining a human skull. Working at his desk, approving plans, signing death warrants, Lenin constantly saw this before his eyes ... the clay embodiment of Darwin's attitude towards man. The monkey and the skull were symbols of his faith, the Darwinian belief that people are animals, the world is a jungle, and the life of an individual does not matter. Most likely, Lenin was not flawed from birth, but On his orders, a great many terrible things were done. Perhaps the monkey and the skull served as a reminder to him that in a world organized according to Darwin's laws, man's cruelty to man is inevitable. The path to the "worker's paradise" paved with the help of "scientific" means ", was strewn with corpses - on Lenin's orders. Perhaps the monkey and the skull helped him suppress in himself the good and humane that had been preserved from the time of his healthy and cheerful childhood."

Joseph Stalin

Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin (real name Dzhugashvili) killed about sixty million people. Like Darwin, he studied theology; like Darwin, he was transformed by the idea of ​​evolution, turning him from a Christian preacher into a communist and an atheist. , Yaroslavsky notes that while studying at the seminary, Stalin “began to read Darwin and became an atheist.”

Stalin became “a passionate Darwinist, renounced belief in God and began to tell his fellow seminarians that people did not descend from Adam, but from monkeys.” Yaroslavsky notes that “at the seminary in Gori, Stalin became acquainted not only with Darwin’s theory, but also with the ideas of Marxism.” Miller adds that Stalin had a phenomenal memory and absorbed material with such ease that the monks who taught him foreshadowed his fate

"... an outstanding figure of the Russian Orthodox Church. But during five years at the seminary, he became interested in the Georgian national liberation movement, the theories of Darwin and the works of Victor Hugo about the French Revolution. Having become a nationalist, he became passionate about the idea of ​​overthrowing the tsar and joined a secret socialist society."

As a result

"his harsh childhood and the views he learned from it, reinforced by his reading of Darwin, convinced him that tolerance and mercy were a sign of weakness and stupidity. With a composure that Hitler himself might have envied, he destroyed even more people than the latter."

Koster clarifies that Stalin killed for two reasons:

“... people posed a threat either to him personally or to progress, which, from the point of view of Marxism-Darwinism, boiled down to movement towards an unprecedented earthly paradise, where peace, non-violence and love for one’s neighbor should reign.”

Parkadze, Stalin's childhood friend, also emphasizes the influence of Darwinism:

“In our youth, we greedily sought knowledge. And in order to debunk in the minds of seminarians the myth of the creation of the world in six days, we had to familiarize ourselves with geological theories about the origin and age of the Earth, and be able to prove them in disputes; we had to familiarize ourselves with the works of Darwin . We were helped in this by... "The Antiquity of Man" by Lyell, "The Descent of Man" by Darwin in translation edited by Sechenov. Comrade Stalin read Sechenov's scientific works with great interest. Gradually we reached the doctrine of the development of class society and began to read the works of Marx, Engels and Lenin. At that time, reading Marxist literature was punished, since it was considered revolutionary propaganda. This was especially felt in the seminary, where the mere mention of Darwin's name was accompanied by reproaches and curses. Comrade Stalin drew our attention to these books. He said that, first of all, , we had to become atheists.Many of us began to adhere to a materialistic worldview and ignore theological disciplines. Reading a wide variety of scientific literature not only helped many of us get rid of the fanatical and narrow-minded spirit of the seminary, but also prepared our minds to embrace Marxism. Everything we read - be it a book about archaeology, geology, astronomy or primitive people - helped us to become convinced of the truth of Marxist ideas.

Thanks to the influence of Lenin, Stalin and other Soviet leaders, Darwin became "the master of minds in the Soviet Union. There is an excellent Darwin Museum in Moscow, and for the centenary of the Origin of Species, the Soviet authorities instituted a special Darwin medal."

Marx against religion

The rejection of religion and the spread of Darwinism were of utmost importance for the development of the communist movement. Having rejected the Christian faith and become an atheist, Marx came to the conclusion that religion is a tool of the rich to enslave the poor. He openly declared religion “the opium of the people,” and in almost all countries where communists came to power, the activities of churches were, if not completely abolished, then reduced to a minimum. Opium is a painkiller, and Marx believed that religion served the same function, that is, to pacify the oppressed.

Marx believed that religion is not just a mirage, but a harmful mirage: it poses a threat to society by distracting the oppressed from realizing that they are being oppressed and preventing them from reflecting on the terrible conditions under which they live. As long as the working people and the oppressed believe that their patience, virtues and suffering are the price for freedom and happiness in paradise, they will allow themselves to be oppressed. Consequently, Marx decided, working people will learn to perceive reality differently only when they understand that there is no God, no life after death, and therefore no reason not to have what you want, even if you have to take it from others.

As a solution to the problem, Marx proposed to abolish religion and thereby give the poor the opportunity to openly rebel against their oppressors (landowners, rich people, businessmen, etc.) and take away their wealth so that the poor could enjoy the pleasures of this life. And since the rich and powerful are not going to give it all away for nothing, the masses will have to use force. Eidelberg noted that "Marx's eschatology, his materialist understanding of history boils down to the doctrine of permanent revolution - a doctrine that cannot do without violence, terror and tyranny."

That is why Marx came to the conclusion that the “abolition of religion” is a necessary condition for achieving the true happiness of the people. Therefore, one of the main goals of communism is to take away opium (religion) from people and explain to them that they need to eat, drink and be merry right now, because tomorrow they may die (and in order for them to have something to eat, drink and be merry, they must steal from the rich and successful). Marx emphasized that, from the point of view of Darwinism, life in the grand scheme of things has no meaning except for pleasure, because our existence is just an accident, a whim of nature, which, in all likelihood, will never happen again on Earth.

However, while building his idealistic (but unrealistic) worldview, Marx did not take into account one fact - namely, that, as the Bible teaches, workers deserve rewards for their work. When starting a business, a person usually takes a lot of risks; To achieve success, you need to work hard and have remarkable leadership talent. Most new ventures fail, and less than a fifth of entrepreneurs achieve success—usually only moderate success.

On the other hand, the reward if successful is enormous; This is not only wealth and prestige, but also satisfaction from the achieved goal - the creation of a prosperous enterprise. For people to take risks, the rewards had to be very large. Many who have failed in business have lost everything they had. These are the reasons why communism as an economic theory was doomed to fail.

In order for Communism not to lose its basic position, it is necessary to turn people against religion - especially against Christianity, Judaism and Islam, since all these religions teach that depriving people of property without proper compensation is wrong, and that killing a person in order to take his property is wrong. the gravest sin.

In order for Communism not to lose its basic position, it is necessary to turn people against religion - especially against Christianity, Judaism and Islam, since all these religions teach that depriving people of property without proper compensation is wrong, and that killing a person in order to take his property is wrong. the gravest sin. Additionally, these religions emphasize that although we must fight for what is right, justice in this world is not guaranteed (however, God promises the righteous a reward after death).

Rejecting Christianity and its moral values ​​and turning to an agnostic/atheistic worldview became the cornerstone of Marx's theory, as well as that of many of his followers. Holy Scripture teaches us compassion for the poor, the widowed, the orphaned, the sick, the outcast, and even those who have broken the law. But it also teaches that the worker is worthy of his reward, and condemns murder (even during the social revolution - “whoever kills with the sword must also be killed with the sword”; Revelation 13:10). Christianity has always acted as a force opposing attempts to deprive people of the fruits of their labor.

The consequences of Marx's atheistic ideal are now, alas, all too obvious. The communist motto “from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs” continually turned into “take more and give less.” As a result, the economies of most communist countries collapsed. Ten years ago we witnessed the collapse of all communist regimes; they were replaced by capitalist or socialist forms of government. (Thus, China, in an effort to coexist with the capitalist world, has carried out a number of fundamental capitalist reforms, and North Korea is rapidly approaching socialist rule). The quality of life of a society depends on the moral qualities of its leaders. Schools, factories and countries as a whole must be led by qualified specialists. The economic impoverishment of Russia and a large part of Eastern Europe (due to a whole complex of interrelated factors) eloquently testifies to the collapse of communism.

Why communism is inextricably linked with atheism, and why it led to disaster

Karl Marx (1818–1883) was strongly influenced by Hegel's dialectical concept. Georg Hegel (1770–1831) believed that religion, science, history, and “almost everything else” evolve over time to a higher stage of development. This process is called the dialectical process, where the thesis (idea) eventually encounters the antithesis (opposite idea) and gives birth to a synthesis or mixture of the best of both ideas, new and old. Marx came to the conclusion that the thesis is capitalism, and the antithesis is the organized proletariat. Essentially, the main conflict of capitalism was the conflict between those who control the means of production (the owners, the rich, or the bourgeoisie) and those who actually do the hard physical work (the workers, or the proletariat). Marx's main idea was that synthesis (that is, communism) was to be born from the struggle of the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. A striking example of this is Marx’s famous call: “Workers of all countries, unite and overthrow your oppressors.”

Marx believed that the masses (workers - those who worked in factories and farms) would fight the owners, the rich and entrepreneurs. Since there were many more workers than owners, Marx believed that over time, through a violent revolution, they would overthrow the entrepreneurs and take away their factories and all their wealth. As a result, Marx believed, the dictatorship of the proletariat would be established, private property would be abolished, and the working people would jointly own the country, including agricultural enterprises and the means of production. They will all share the results of their labor equally, and thus a classless society will arise where everyone will earn the same amount of money. This view of the world certainly appealed to millions of people, especially the poor and oppressed, and many middle-class people who sympathized with the poor.

During the communist revolutions, property was taken from landowners, the rich, industrialists and many others by force - and this caused fierce resistance from the rightful owners. After all, many of them made their fortune through hard work and smart business decisions. And, of course, people did not want to give away for nothing what they had often worked for for years.

All this resulted in a bloodbath that claimed millions of lives. Among those killed were often the best of the best - the most capable entrepreneurs, the most qualified industrialists, the "brains" of the nation. Companies and factories that had previously been run by what Marx called the “bourgeoisie” were now led by workers—who often lacked the skills and personal qualities needed to successfully run a business. As a result, for entire generations raised under communist rule, poor quality goods, low labor productivity, and unimaginably high levels of manufacturing defects became the norm.

As Jorafsky notes, no matter how harshly history judges Marxism, there is no escaping the fact that it inextricably combined Darwinism and revolution:

“...it is unlikely that any historian will argue with the fact that one of the main reasons for the enormous influence of Marxism was Marx’s claim to a scientific basis for changing society.”

Communism in China

Darwinism also played a decisive role in the communist revolution in China: "Mao Zedong considered Darwin - as described by German Darwinists - the creator of the foundations of Chinese scientific socialism." , Mao's policies ruined eighty million human lives. The extent to which the ideas of Darwinism were implemented is well described by Kenneth Hsu. When he studied in China in the forties, in the mornings the whole class had to do exercises to strengthen the body, and the remaining time before breakfast the students listened to the impassioned speeches of the school principal. “He said that we must strengthen our will to fight for existence, that the weak will perish, and only the strongest will survive.”

The schoolchildren were taught, Hsu adds, that a person's strength comes not from the approval of others, as their mothers taught them, but from one's own hatred. Ironically, he notes,

"at the same time, on the other side of the front line, a German teenager listened to Goebbels' speeches and signed up for the Hitler Youth. Our teachers, both mine and his, said that one of us should rule over the other, but my mother would not have been at all surprised, if someone had told her that we were colleagues, neighbors or even friends. Having survived the war, we nevertheless fell victims to a cruel social ideology that asserted that the struggle between people, classes, nations and races is a natural condition of life, and that the oppression of the weak by the strong is no less natural. For more than a century this ideology has been considered a law of nature, the mechanism of evolution, so clearly formulated by Charles Darwin in 1859 in The Origin of Species... It is now thirty years since I marched through the schoolyard and listened to the rector trying to refute the wisdom of my ancestors with the help of Darwinian ideas about the superiority of the strong over the weak."

In light of events that occurred during and after the war (and quite likely in the future), Hsu concludes: “I cannot help but ask the question: what kind of fitness is produced as a result of such a struggle for existence? As a scientist, I have an obligation to think seriously about the scientific value of an idea that can cause such damage! ,

Hsu reports that Theo Sumner, during a trip to China with German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, also noted the special influence of Darwinism. Theo was amazed to hear Mao Zedong say that he owed a lot to Darwinism and, in particular, to Ernst Haeckel (a Darwinist who also had a great influence on Hitler). Mao was confident, Hsu concludes, that “without the constant pressure of natural selection, humanity would deteriorate.” This idea inspired Mao to side with “the continuous revolution that brought my homeland to the brink of destruction.”

Conclusion

From the point of view of Hitler, Stalin and Mao Zedong, there was nothing wrong with treating people like animals, since, in their opinion, Darwin “proved” that people were not created by God, but came from some kind of single-celled organism. All three believed that there was nothing immoral in destroying the less fit, or in “herding them like cattle into boxcars bound for concentration camps and gulags,” as long as these measures furthered the main goal of Darwinian philosophy.

The famous English scientist, naturalist and traveler was born on February 12, 1809 Charles Darwin. His theory of evolution and the origin of species is studied in school biology classes. Nevertheless, many misconceptions, inaccuracies and myths are associated with the name of Darwin,

You all know the official version and more details about Darwin. Let's first go over the myths that currently exist:

Myth 1. Darwin came up with the theory of evolution. In fact, he developed the first scientific theory of evolution at the beginning of the 19th century. Jean Baptiste Lamarck. He came up with the idea that acquired characteristics are inherited. For example, if an animal feeds on leaves from tall trees, its neck will elongate, and each successive generation will have a slightly longer neck than its ancestors. This is how, according to Lamarck, giraffes appeared.

Charles Darwin improved this theory and introduced the concept of “natural selection” into it. According to the theory, individuals with those characteristics and qualities that are most conducive to survival have a greater chance of procreation.

Myth 2. Darwin claimed that man descended from apes. The scientist never said anything like that. Charles Darwin suggested that apes and humans may have had a common ape-like ancestor. Based on comparative anatomical and embryological studies, he was able to show that the anatomical, physiological and ontogenetic characteristics of humans and representatives of the order of primates are very similar. This is how the simial (monkey) theory of anthropogenesis was born.

Myth 3. Before Darwin, scientists did not correlate humans with primates. In fact, the similarities between humans and monkeys were noticed by scientists at the end of the 18th century. The French naturalist Buffon suggested that people are descendants of monkeys, and the Swedish scientist Carl Linnaeus classified humans as primates, where in modern science we coexist as a species with monkeys.

Myth 4. According to Darwin's theory of evolution, survival of the fittest. This myth stems from a misunderstanding of the term “natural selection.” According to Darwin, it is not the strongest that survives, but the fittest. Often the simplest organisms are the most resilient. This explains why strong dinosaurs became extinct, and single-celled organisms survived both the meteorite explosion and the subsequent ice age.

Myth 5. Darwin renounced his theory at the end of his life. This is nothing more than an urban legend. 33 years after the scientist’s death, in 1915, a Baptist publication published the story of how Darwin renounced his theory just before his death. There is no reliable evidence of this fact.

Myth 6. Darwin's theory of evolution is a Masonic conspiracy. Fans of conspiracy theories claim that Darwin and his relatives were Freemasons. Freemasons are members of a secret religious society that arose in the 18th century in Europe. Noble people became members of Masonic lodges; they are often credited with invisible leadership of the whole world.

Historians do not confirm the fact that Darwin or any of his relatives were members of any secret societies. The scientist, on the contrary, was in no hurry to publish his theory, work on which was carried out for 20 years. In addition, many of the facts discovered by Darwin were confirmed by further researchers.

Now we’ll take a closer look at what opponents of Darwin’s theory say:

The man who put forward the theory of evolution was the English amateur naturalist Charles Robert Darwin. Darwin never really studied biology, but had only an amateur interest in nature and animals. And as a result of this interest, in 1832 he volunteered to travel from England on the state research ship Beagle and sailed to different parts of the world for five years. During the trip, young Darwin was impressed by the animal species he saw, especially the various species of finches that lived on the Galapagos Islands. He thought that the difference in the beaks of these birds depended on the environment. Based on this assumption, he made a conclusion for himself: living organisms were not created by God separately, but originated from a single ancestor and then modified depending on the conditions of nature.

This hypothesis of Darwin was not based on any scientific explanation or experiment. Only thanks to the support of the then famous materialist biologists, over time this Darwinian hypothesis became established as a theory. According to this theory, living organisms descend from one ancestor, but over a long period of time undergo small changes and begin to differ from each other. Species that have more successfully adapted to natural conditions pass on their characteristics to the next generation. Thus, these beneficial changes, over time, transform the individual into a living organism completely different from its ancestor. What was meant by “useful changes” remained unknown. According to Darwin, man was the most developed product of this mechanism. Having brought this mechanism to life in his imagination, Darwin called it “evolution by natural selection.” From now on he thought that he had found the roots of the “origin of species”: the basis of one species is another species. He revealed these ideas in 1859 in his book On the Origin of Species.

However, Darwin realized that there was much that was unresolved in his theory. He admits this in his book Difficulties of Theory. These difficulties lay in the complex organs of living organisms that could not appear by chance (for example, eyes), as well as fossil remains, and the instincts of animals. Darwin hoped that these difficulties would be overcome in the process of new discoveries, but he gave incomplete explanations for some of them

In contrast to the purely naturalistic theory of evolution, two alternatives are put forward. One is of a purely religious nature: this is the so-called “creationism,” a literal perception of the biblical legend about how the Almighty created the universe and life in all its diversity. Creationism is professed only by religious fundamentalists; this doctrine has a narrow base, it is on the periphery of scientific thought. Therefore, due to lack of space, we will limit ourselves to just mentioning its existence.

But another alternative has made a very serious bid for a place under the scientific sun. The theory of “intelligent design,” among whose supporters there are many serious scientists, while recognizing evolution as a mechanism of intraspecific adaptation to changing environmental conditions (microevolution), categorically rejects its claims to be the key to the mystery of the origin of species (macroevolution), not to mention about the origin of life itself.

Life is so complex and diverse that it is absurd to think about the possibility of its spontaneous origin and development: it must inevitably be based on intelligent design, say the proponents of this theory. What kind of mind this is is not important. Proponents of intelligent design theory belong to the category of agnostics rather than believers; they are not particularly interested in theology. They are busy only punching gaping holes in the theory of evolution, and they have succeeded in riddling it so much that the dominant dogma in biology now resembles not so much a granite monolith as Swiss cheese.

Throughout the history of Western civilization, it has been an axiom that life was created by a higher power. Even Aristotle expressed the conviction that the incredible complexity, elegant harmony and harmony of life and the universe cannot be a random product of spontaneous processes. The most famous teleological argument for the existence of intelligence was formulated by the English religious thinker William Paley in his book Natural Theology, published in 1802.

Paley reasoned as follows: if, while walking in the forest, I trip over a stone, I will have no doubt about its natural origin. But if I see a clock lying on the ground, I will have to assume, willingly or unwillingly, that it could not have arisen on its own; someone had to collect it. And if a clock (a relatively small and simple device) has an intelligent organizer - a watchmaker, then the Universe itself (a large device) and the biological objects filling it (more complex devices than a clock) must have a great organizer - the Creator.

But then Charles Darwin showed up and everything changed. In 1859, he published a landmark work entitled “On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Survival of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life,” which was destined to revolutionize scientific and social thought. Based on the advances of plant breeders (“artificial selection”) and his own observations of birds (finches) in the Galapagos Islands, Darwin concluded that organisms could undergo small changes to adapt to changing environmental conditions through “natural selection.”

He further concluded that, given a long enough time, the sum of such small changes gives rise to larger changes and, in particular, leads to the appearance of new species. According to Darwin, new traits that reduce an organism's chances of survival are ruthlessly rejected by nature, while traits that provide an advantage in the struggle for life, gradually accumulating, over time allow their carriers to gain the upper hand over less adapted competitors and displace them from contested ecological niches.

This purely naturalistic mechanism, absolutely devoid of any purpose or design, from Darwin's point of view exhaustively explained how life developed and why all living beings are so perfectly adapted to the conditions of their environment. The theory of evolution implies a continuous progression of gradually changing living beings in a series from the most primitive forms to higher organisms, the crown of which is man.

The problem, however, is that Darwin's theory was purely speculative, because in those years the paleontological evidence did not provide any basis for his conclusions. All over the world, scientists have unearthed many fossil remains of extinct organisms from past geological eras, but they all fit within the clear boundaries of the same immutable taxonomy. In the fossil record there was not a single intermediate species, not a single creature with morphological characteristics that would confirm the correctness of the theory formulated on the basis of abstract conclusions without reliance on facts.

Darwin clearly saw the weakness of his theory. It was not for nothing that he did not dare to publish it for more than two decades and sent his major work to print only when he learned that another English naturalist, Alfred Russel Wallace, was preparing to come up with his own theory, strikingly similar to Darwin’s.

It is interesting to note that both opponents behaved like true gentlemen. Darwin wrote a polite letter to Wallace outlining evidence of his primacy, and he responded with an equally polite message inviting him to present a joint report at the Royal Society. After this, Wallace publicly acknowledged Darwin's priority and until the end of his days he never complained about his bitter fate. These were the morals of the Victorian era. Talk about progress afterwards.

The theory of evolution was reminiscent of a building erected on grass so that later, when the necessary materials were brought in, a foundation could be laid under it. Its author relied on the progress of paleontology, which, he was convinced, would make it possible in the future to find transitional forms of life and confirm the validity of his theoretical calculations.

But the collections of paleontologists grew and grew, and there was no trace of confirmation of Darwin’s theory. Scientists found similar species, but could not find a single bridge from one species to another. But from the theory of evolution it follows that such bridges not only existed, but that there should have been a great many of them, for the paleontological record must reflect all the countless stages of the long history of evolution and, in fact, consist entirely of transitional links.

Some of Darwin's followers, like himself, believe that we just need to be patient - we just haven't found intermediate forms yet, but we will certainly find them in the future. Alas, their hopes are unlikely to come true, since the existence of such transitional links would conflict with one of the fundamental postulates of the theory of evolution itself.

Let us imagine, for example, that the front legs of dinosaurs gradually evolved into bird wings. But this means that during a long transitional period these limbs were neither paws nor wings, and their functional uselessness doomed the owners of such useless stumps to obvious defeat in the cruel struggle for life. According to Darwinian teaching, nature had to mercilessly uproot such intermediate species and, therefore, nip the process of speciation in the bud.

But it is generally accepted that birds descended from lizards. That's not what the debate is about. Opponents of Darwinian teachings fully admit that the prototype of a bird's wing could indeed be the front paw of a dinosaur. They only assert that no matter what disturbances occur in living nature, they could not occur through the mechanism of natural selection. Some other principle had to operate - say, the use by the carrier of the intelligent principle of universal prototype templates.

The fossil record stubbornly demonstrates the failure of evolutionism. During the first three-plus billion years of the existence of life, only the simplest single-celled organisms lived on our planet. But then, approximately 570 million years ago, the Cambrian period began, and within a few million years (by geological standards - a fleeting moment), as if by magic, almost the entire diversity of life in its current form arose out of nowhere, without any intermediate links According to Darwin's theory, this “Cambrian explosion,” as it is called, simply could not have happened.

Another example: during the so-called Permian-Triassic extinction event 250 million years ago, life on earth almost ceased: 90% of all species of marine organisms and 70% of terrestrial ones disappeared. However, the basic taxonomy of the fauna has not undergone any significant changes - the main types of living creatures that lived on our planet before the “great extinction” were completely preserved after the disaster. But if we proceed from Darwin’s concept of natural selection, during this period of intense competition to fill vacant ecological niches, numerous transitional species would certainly have arisen. However, this did not happen, from which it again follows that the theory is incorrect.

Darwinists are desperately looking for transitional forms of life, but all their efforts have not yet been crowned with success. The maximum that they can find is the similarities between different species, but the signs of genuine intermediate creatures are still only a dream for evolutionists. Sensations break out periodically: a transition link has been found! But in practice it invariably turns out that the alarm is false, that the found organism is nothing more than a manifestation of ordinary intraspecific variability. Or even just a falsification like the notorious Piltdown man.

It is impossible to describe the joy of evolutionists when a fossil skull of a human type with an ape-like lower jaw was found in England in 1908. Here it is, real proof that Charles Darwin was right! The jubilant scientists had no incentive to take a good look at the treasured find, otherwise they might not have failed to notice the obvious absurdities in its structure and not realize that the “fossil” was a fake, and a very crude one at that. And a full 40 years passed before the scientific world was forced to officially admit that he had been played. It turned out that some hitherto unknown prankster simply glued the lower jaw of a by no means fossil orangutan with the skull of an equally fresh dead homosapien.

By the way, Darwin’s personal discovery - the microevolution of Galapagos finches under environmental pressure - also did not stand the test of time. Several decades later, climatic conditions on these Pacific islands changed again, and the birds' beak length returned to its previous normal. No speciation occurred, just the same species of birds temporarily adapted to changing environmental conditions - the most trivial intraspecific variability.

Some Darwinists realize that their theory has reached a dead end and are feverishly maneuvering. For example, the late Harvard biologist Stephen Jay Gould proposed the hypothesis of “punctuated equilibrium” or “dotted evolution.” This is a kind of hybrid of Darwinism with the “catastrophism” of Cuvier, who postulated the discontinuous development of life through a series of catastrophes. According to Gould, evolution occurred in leaps and bounds, and each leap followed some universal natural disaster with such speed that it did not have time to leave any trace in the fossil record.

Although Gould considered himself an evolutionist, his theory undermined the basic tenet of Darwin's doctrine of speciation through the gradual accumulation of favorable traits. However, “dotted evolution” is just as speculative and as devoid of empirical evidence as classical Darwinism.

Thus, paleontological evidence strongly refutes the concept of macroevolution. But this is far from the only evidence of its inconsistency. The development of genetics has completely destroyed the belief that environmental pressures can cause morphological changes. There are countless mice whose tails have been cut off by researchers in the hope that their offspring will inherit a new trait. Alas, tailed offspring persistently were born to tailless parents. The laws of genetics are inexorable: all the characteristics of an organism are encoded in parental genes and are directly transmitted from them to descendants.

Evolutionists had to, following the principles of their teaching, adapt to new conditions. “Neo-Darwinism” appeared, in which the place of classical “adaptation” was taken by the mutation mechanism. According to neo-Darwinists, it is by no means impossible that random gene mutations could give rise to a fairly high degree of variability, which again could contribute to the survival of the species and, being inherited by the offspring, could gain a foothold and give its carriers a decisive advantage in the struggle for an ecological niche.

However, deciphering the genetic code dealt a crushing blow to this theory. Mutations occur rarely and in the vast majority of cases are of an unfavorable nature, due to which the likelihood that a “new favorable trait” will become established in any population for a long enough period to give it an advantage in the fight against competitors is practically zero.

In addition, natural selection destroys genetic information as it weeds out traits that are not conducive to survival, leaving only “selected” traits. But they can in no way be considered “favorable” mutations, because in all cases these genetic traits were originally inherent in the population and were only waiting in the wings to manifest themselves when environmental pressure “cleared out” unnecessary or harmful debris.

The progress of molecular biology in recent decades has finally driven evolutionists into a corner. In 1996, Lehigh University biochemistry professor Michael Bahe published the acclaimed book “Darwin’s Black Box,” in which he showed that the body contains incredibly complex biochemical systems that cannot be explained from a Darwinian perspective. The author described a number of intracellular molecular machines and biological processes characterized by “irreducible complexity.”

Michael Bahe used this term to describe systems consisting of many components, each of which is of critical importance. That is, the mechanism can only work if all its components are present; As soon as even one of them fails, the whole system goes wrong. The inevitable conclusion follows from this: in order for the mechanism to fulfill its functional purpose, all its component parts had to be born and “turned on” at the same time - contrary to the main postulate of the theory of evolution.

The book also describes cascade phenomena, for example, the mechanism of blood clotting, which involves one and a half dozen specialized proteins plus intermediate forms formed during the process. When a cut occurs in the blood, a multi-stage reaction is triggered, in which proteins activate each other in a chain. In the absence of any of these proteins, the reaction automatically stops. At the same time, the cascade proteins are highly specialized; none of them performs any function other than the formation of a blood clot. In other words, “they certainly had to arise immediately in the form of a single complex,” writes Bahe.

Cascading is the antagonist of evolution. It is impossible to imagine that the blind, chaotic process of natural selection would ensure that many useless elements are stored for future use, which remain in a latent state until the last of them finally appears in the light of God and allows the system to immediately turn on and earn money. full power. Such a concept fundamentally contradicts the fundamental principles of the theory of evolution, which Charles Darwin himself was well aware of.

“If the possibility of the existence of any complex organ, which could in no way be the result of numerous successive small changes, be proven, my theory will crumble to dust,” Darwin frankly admitted. In particular, he was extremely concerned about the problem of the eye: how to explain the evolution of this most complex organ, which acquires functional significance only at the very last moment, when all its component parts are already in place? After all, if you follow the logic of his teaching, any attempt by the organism to begin the multi-stage process of creating a vision mechanism would be mercilessly suppressed by natural selection. And where, out of the blue, did trilobites, the first living creatures on earth, develop developed organs of vision?

After the publication of Darwin's Black Box, its author was hit with a hail of violent attacks and threats (mainly on the Internet). Moreover, the overwhelming majority of supporters of the theory of evolution expressed confidence that “Darwin’s model of the origin of unsimplified complex biochemical systems is set forth in hundreds of thousands of scientific publications.” However, nothing could be further from the truth.

Anticipating the storm his book would cause as he worked on it, Michael Bahe immersed himself in studying the scientific literature to gain insight into how evolutionists explained the origins of complex biochemical systems. And... I found absolutely nothing. It turned out that there is not a single hypothesis for the evolutionary path of formation of such systems. Official science formed a conspiracy of silence around an inconvenient topic: not a single scientific report, not a single scientific monograph, not a single scientific symposium was devoted to it.

Since then, several attempts have been made to develop an evolutionary model for the formation of systems of this kind, but all of them have invariably failed. Many scientists of the naturalistic school clearly understand what a dead end their favorite theory has reached. “We fundamentally refuse to put intelligent design in the place of chance and necessity,” writes biochemist Franklin Harold. “But at the same time, we must admit that, apart from fruitless speculation, to this day no one has been able to propose a detailed Darwinian mechanism for the evolution of any biochemical system.”

Like this: we refuse on principle, and that’s it! Just like Martin Luther: “Here I stand and cannot help it”! But the leader of the Reformation at least substantiated his position with 95 theses, but here there is only one bare principle, dictated by blind worship of the ruling dogma, and nothing more. I believe, O Lord!

Even more problematic is the neo-Darwinian theory of the spontaneous generation of life. To Darwin's credit, he did not touch upon this topic at all. His book deals with the origin of species, not life. But the founder’s followers went a step further and proposed an evolutionary explanation of the phenomenon of life itself. According to the naturalistic model, the barrier between inanimate nature and life was overcome spontaneously due to a combination of favorable environmental conditions.

However, the concept of the spontaneous generation of life is built on sand, because it is in blatant contradiction with one of the most fundamental laws of nature - the second law of thermodynamics. It states that in a closed system (in the absence of a targeted supply of energy from the outside), entropy inevitably increases, i.e. the level of organization or degree of complexity of such a system inexorably decreases. But the reverse process is impossible.

The great English astrophysicist Stephen Hawking in his book “A Brief History of Time” writes: “According to the second law of thermodynamics, the entropy of an isolated system always and in all cases increases, and when two systems merge, the entropy of the combined system is higher than the sum of the entropies of the individual systems included in it.” . Hawking adds: “In any closed system the level of disorganization, i.e. entropy inevitably increases with time.”

But if entropic decay is the fate of any system, then the possibility of spontaneous generation of life is absolutely excluded, i.e. spontaneous increase in the level of organization of the system when a biological barrier is broken. The spontaneous generation of life under any circumstances must be accompanied by an increase in the degree of complexity of the system at the molecular level, and entropy prevents this. Chaos cannot by itself generate order; this is prohibited by the law of nature.

Information theory dealt another blow to the concept of spontaneous generation of life. In Darwin's time, science believed that a cell was simply a primitive container filled with protoplasm. However, with the development of molecular biology, it became clear that a living cell is a mechanism of incredible complexity, carrying an incomprehensible amount of information. But information by itself does not appear out of nothing. According to the law of conservation of information, its quantity in a closed system never increases under any circumstances. External pressure can cause a “shuffling” of information already available in the system, but its total volume will remain at the same level or decrease due to an increase in entropy.

In a word, as the world-famous English physicist, astronomer and science fiction writer Sir Fred Hoyle writes: “There is not a single shred of objective evidence in favor of the hypothesis that life spontaneously arose in an organic soup on our earth.” Hoyle's co-author, astrobiologist Chandra Wickramasinghe, expressed the same idea more colorfully: "The probability of spontaneous generation of life is as insignificant as the probability of a hurricane wind sweeping over a landfill and in one gust reassembling a working airliner from the garbage."

Many other pieces of evidence can be cited to refute attempts to present evolution as a universal mechanism for the origin and development of life in all its diversity. But the above facts, I believe, are sufficient to show what a difficult situation Darwin’s teaching found itself in.

And how do advocates of evolution react to all this? Some of them, in particular Francis Crick (who shared the Nobel Prize with James Watson for the discovery of the structure of DNA), became disillusioned with Darwinism and believed that life was brought to earth from outer space. This idea was first put forward more than a century ago by another Nobel laureate, the outstanding Swedish scientist Svante Arrhenius, who proposed the “panspermia” hypothesis.

However, supporters of the theory of seeding the earth with the germs of life from space do not notice or prefer not to notice that such an approach only pushes the problem back one step, but does not solve it at all. Let us assume that life was indeed brought from space, but then the question arises: where did it come from there - did it spontaneously originate or was it created?

Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe, who share this point of view, found an elegantly ironic way out of the situation. Having given a lot of evidence in favor of the hypothesis that life was brought to our planet from outside in their book Evolution from Space, Sir Fred and his co-author ask: how did life originate there, outside the earth? And they answer: it is known how - the Almighty created it. In other words, the authors make it clear that they have set themselves a narrow task and are not going to go beyond it, they are not up to it.

However, the bulk of evolutionists categorically reject any attempts to cast a shadow on their teaching. The intelligent design hypothesis, like a red rag used to tease a bull, evokes in them paroxysms of uncontrollable (one is tempted to say animal) rage. Evolutionary biologist Richard von Sternberg, while not sharing the concept of intelligent design, nevertheless allowed a scientific article in support of this hypothesis to be published in the journal Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington, which he headed. After which the editor was hit with such a barrage of abuse, curses and threats that he was forced to seek protection from the FBI.

The position of the evolutionists was eloquently summed up by one of the most vociferous Darwinists, the English zoologist Richard Dawkins: “We can say with absolute certainty that anyone who does not believe in evolution is either an ignorant, a fool, or insane (and maybe even a scumbag, although in the latter I don’t want to believe it).” This phrase alone is enough to lose all respect for Dawkins. Like orthodox Marxists waging war against revisionism, Darwinists do not argue with their opponents, but denounce them; they do not debate with them, but anathematize them.

This is the classic reaction of a mainstream religion to a challenge from a dangerous heresy. This comparison is quite appropriate. Like Marxism, Darwinism has long degenerated, petrified and turned into an inert pseudo-religious dogma. Yes, by the way, that’s what they called it - Marxism in biology. Karl Max himself enthusiastically welcomed Darwin's theory as “the natural scientific basis of the class struggle in history.”

And the more holes are discovered in the dilapidated teaching, the more fierce is the resistance of its adherents. Their material well-being and spiritual comfort are under threat, their entire universe is collapsing, and there is no anger more uncontrollable than the anger of a true believer, whose faith is crumbling under the blows of an inexorable reality. They will cling to their beliefs tooth and nail and stand to the last. For when an idea dies, it is reborn into an ideology, and ideology is absolutely intolerant of competition.