Stargazing Monkeys

        

        We are as specks on a cosmic fabric, a vapor in the celestial wind.  However, our species have become conscious not only of our existence but also of the happenings of the universe we inhabit.   How is this revelation of existence evolutionarily significant?  Or is this question a leading one due to the assumptions imbedded?  There is strong fossil, genetic, and experimental data to support the selfishness of genes.  Meaning that genes that survive are the ones that promote the reproduction of the organism.  Or in some rare cases simply the reproduction of the gene itself.  This is not a complex idea, for something to exist it must have properties that support its continual existence.  However, these properties are conditional to the environment that the organism is in.  So it would make sense for an organism to contain a gene network that is meant to observe its environment so that the organism can adapt.  But this is astringent to aspects of the environment that will actually effect survival.  It would seem the events occurring in the outer reaches of the solar system would not be of evolutionary significance to man but still we gaze into the abyss, possibly for a new world to call home or extraterrestrial life to interact with.  This means somehow this network of genes has become so complex that the happenings of celestial bodies have become of interest to man, well at least some men.  Every step man takes forward is a brand new frontier and the new environment we are just beginning to get a taste of is beyond the thin atmosphere of the earth.  Man has become in awe of the heavens and claws at the sky to find what it hides.  But is this a product of mans genetic code or some higher calling?   

-by: Brett Vollert

Carl Segan describes how "life searches for life" in his book, The Pale Blue Dot

Video: The Segan Series