Uti index-papers-e-chapter2-dawkins-evolution-theory

Chapter 2 Dawkins’ Evolution Theory Seen from
Dawkins’

Unification Thought

Richard Dawkins is probably the most influential evolutionist today, taking up the
mantle from the late Stephen Jay Gould. He recently published The God Delusion,
positioning it as a manifesto to deny God.
These days, the theory of evolution is accepted by many as scientific truth around
the world. Many religious people, including Christians, also seem to uncritically accept
the theory of evolution. However, Dawkins has clearly emphasized that the inevitable
conclusion of a belief in evolutionism is a thorough atheism, exulting that, “If this book
works as I intend, religious readers who open it will be atheists when they put it down.”1
There is a historical tradition of atheism from Greek materialism to the
Enlightenment of France. According to Dawkins, however, “Although atheism might
have been logically tenable before Darwin, Darwin made it possible to be an
intellectually fulfilled atheist.”2
Creationism stands in opposition to evolutionism, but the most creation theories
expounded have only been those in the Bible or in myth. It is the Christian creation
theory has been most influential, a perspective which Dawkins ridicules:

Nearly all peoples have developed their own creation myth, and the Genesis story is
just the one that happened to have been adopted by one particular tribe of Middle
Eastern herders. It has no more special status than the belief of a particular West
African tribe that the world was created from the excrement of ants.3

According to Genesis, God created all things “according to their kinds,” and the
kinds of species have been considered as being eternal and invariable from the time of
their creation. However, Dawkins denies the existence of clearly defined species in his
extreme anti-punctuationist view:

A species never has a clearly defined beginning, and it only sometimes has a clearly
defined end (extinction). . . . The extreme anti-punctuationist sees ‘the species’ as
an arbitrary stretch of a continuously flowing river, with no particular reason to
draw lines delimiting its beginning and end.4

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In his view, therefore, it is a grave mistake to raise the status of human being to that
of lord of creation. Dawkins insists that there is no discontinuous gap between humans
and apes: “I have argued that the discontinuous gap between humans and ‘apes’ that we
erect in our minds is regrettable. I have also argued that, in any case, the present
position of the hallowed gap is arbitrary, the result of evolutionary accident.”5
If there is no discontinuous gap between humans and ape, it is theoretically possible
for a scientist to make a hybrid of human and ape. If this were to happen, the absolute
ethics and morality based on God’s commandments given to people would lose their
meaning. Furthermore, the structure of many academic disciplines would collapse, as
Dawkins boasts, “Politics would never be the same again, nor would theology,
sociology, psychology or most branches of philosophy.”6
Dawkins further reveals his hostility toward religion and God by saying that the
idea of God is a meme, a virus of the mind. He also says that God is like a doctor’s
placebo, which is effective in alleviating suffering by the power of imagination. He also
claims that it is necessary to protect children from religion, which spread memes
because children are gullible and vulnerable.
Dawkins openly denies the existence of God and he has declared war on God and
religion. Unification Thought perspective on Dawkins’ evolutionism, and the opposition
between the two views, is the subject of this chapter.

I. Is a Gene Selfish?
Dawkins asserts that one of the fundamental principles of evolutionism is that a
“gene is selfish,” and that “We are survival machines—robot vehicles blindly
programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes.”7 He also views the
natural world as “a battleground of replicators (genes),” while admitting, “My own
feeling is that a human society based simply on the gene’s law of universal ruthless
selfishness would be a very nasty society in which to live. But unfortunately, however
much we may deplore something, it does not stop it being true.”8
Dawkins never allows that harmony and cooperation are essential in living beings.
A gene is selfish, an individual is selfish, and nature is selfish: “The selfish-herd model
in itself has no place for cooperative interactions. There is no altruism here, only selfish
exploitation by each individual of every other individual.”9 Furthermore, “Every one of
the species in a tropical rainforest consists of a gene pool. . . . A much truer vision, still
poetic science but good poetic science, sees the forest as an anarchistic federation of
selfish genes.”10
While it is Dawkins’ basic position that the gene is selfish, he has to admit to their
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cooperative aspects: “Genes, however ‘selfish’, must also be ‘cooperative’—in an Adam
Smithian sense.”11 The position of Adam Smith invoked here is that economic
development is based on the selfish human mind, but that the whole society is
harmonized by an ‘invisible hand’.
Dawkins admits that, “There are circumstances—not particularly rare—in which
genes ensure their own selfish survival by influencing organisms to behave
altruistically.”12 One such circumstance is ‘kin altruism’. Kin altruism refers to being
good to one’s own children, or when elder siblings take care of younger siblings, for by
doing so the survival of the shared genes is enhanced. A second example is ‘reciprocal
altruism,’ which refers to the idea that “you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours,” so
both sides benefit in the transaction. Third, is the Darwinian benefit of an organism
acquiring a reputation for generosity and kindness. Fourth, is the benefit of conspicuous
generosity as a way of obtaining the support and cooperation of others. Dawkins insists
that all such altruistic behaviors are in the service of selfish genes:

It is now widely understood that altruism at the level of the individual organism can
be a means by which the underlying genes maximize their self-interest. . . . Genes,
though in one way purely selfish, at the same time enter into cooperative cartels
with each other.13

Genes might cooperate in the communal enterprise of building individual bodies,
but it is an anarchistic, ‘each gene for itself’ kind of cooperation. The cooperation,
indeed, is fragile and breaks down whenever the chance arises.14

There is a fundamental conflict at the level of the genes. But, since the environment
of a gene is dominated by all the other genes, cooperation and ‘networking’ arise
automatically as a favored manifestation of that conflict.15

Therefore, according to Dawkins, genes are fundamentally selfish, but their selfish
goals are accomplished through cooperation at many levels. When Dawkins first
introduced the concept of “selfish genes”, he emphasized the selfish aspect in River Out
of Eden (1995). There he referred to “an uncoordinated scramble for selfish gain”16 and,
“So long as DNA is passed on, it does not matter who or what gets hurt in the
process. . . . Genes don’t care about suffering, because they don’t care about
anything.”17
In Unweaving the Rainbow (1998), however, Dawkins recognized that there must
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also be a cooperative aspect to genes. As molecular biologist Shinichi Fukuoka says, it
seems that the background against which Dawkins proposed the cooperative aspect of
genes, is the recent development of genome analysis.18 As the concept of genome
becomes clearer, it becomes clear that each gene is just a paragraph, and the genome as
a whole must be considered as the functional unit on which natural selection acts.
As Dawkins himself explains, a chromosome corresponds to the volume of a book,
and DNA is an instruction or a direction written in the book. Therefore, genes
correspond to “pages” (or “paragraphs”) of the book.19 Then, according to Dawkins, it
comes to be that selfish pages fight each other in one book. It is ridiculous.
Attempting to retain the concept of the selfish gene, he restates it as “the metaphor
of the intelligent gene reckoning up how best to ensure its own survival.”20 Here he is
admitting that a “selfish gene” is just a figure of speech. However, as science writer Yuji
Tarumi says, the word “selfish gene” promotes the view that the gene itself has a selfish
will, and that it controls the individual so that the gene will prosper.21 Thus, it is the
concepts of selfishness and conflict that Dawkins wishes to promote, and his
repositioning of the selfish gene as a metaphor is nothing but an evasive answer.
It is clear that Dawkins’ fundamental principle of a “selfish gene” is a mere fiction
as a gene is nothing but a paragraph in a book. From the viewpoint of Unification
Thought, genes are blocks of information written in DNA code, and this information is
for the construction of the organism.

II. Struggle or Harmony?
Dawkins makes his views about struggle and conflict clear: “I think ‘nature red in
tooth and claw’ sums up our modern understanding of natural selection admirably.”22
“Universal love and the welfare of the species as a whole are concepts that simply do
not make evolutionary sense.”23
However, as Konrad Lorenz stresses, animal fighting is, in general, restrained and
gentlemanlike: It is rare for individuals of the same species fight to the death. In most
cases, intra-species fights are between males to obtain or maintain territory, or during
the breeding season for the right to mate. In such fights, no matter how severely they
attack each other, it is rarely to the death, the fight ends when one of the combatants
surrenders and takes flight.
Dawkins admits this fact of nature: “Although murder and cannibalism do occur in
nature, they are not as common as a naïve interpretation of the selfish gene theory might
predict. . . . Whether a naturalist stresses the violence or the restraint of animal
aggression depends partly on the kind of animals he is used to watching, and partly on
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his evolutionary preconceptions.”24 He cites the vampire bat to illustrate the two
opposing points of view:

Vampires are great mythmakers. To devotees of Victorian Gothic they are dark
forces that terrorize by night, sapping vital fluids, sacrificing an innocent life
merely to gratify a thirst. Combine this with that other Victorian myth, nature red in
tooth and claw, and aren’t vampires the very incarnation of deepest fears about the
world of the selfish gene? (italics added)25

To the bats themselves, not only is blood thicker than water. They rise above
the bonds of kinship, forming their own lasting ties of loyal blood-brotherhood.
Vampires could form the vanguard of a comfortable new myth, a myth of sharing,
mutualistic cooperation. They could herald the benignant idea that, even with
selfish genes at the helm, nice guys can finish first (italics added).26

This is an admission that two different interpretations of nature can appear
depending on philosophy. Dawkins’ viewpoint, needless to say, is ‘nature red in tooth
and claw’ embodied in his concept of the selfish gene. He says, “Natural selection is the
process whereby replicators out-propagate each other.”27 That is to say, evolution is
driven through the struggle of genes in the process of natural selection.
Dawkins says that the natural world is “a battleground of replicators.”28 It might be
said that he introduces the theory of struggle from other realms into the realm of
biology—Heraclitus’ “war is the father of all things,” Hobbes’ “the war of all against
all,” and Marx’s “development through the struggle of opposites.” Succinctly: Dawkins’
position is the biological version of the materialist dialectic.
In contrast to Dawkins’ view of a natural world of struggle and conflict, Unification
Thought contends that “Nature is the textbook of love.” As Rev. Sun Myung Moon
explains:

The creator made all things for love without exception. Love is the motive for the
creation. The love is not for God Himself, but for serving others. God created all
things by this principle.29

What is the purpose for the creation of minerals, plants, and animals? It is not for
humans to be joyful in seeing their lives. They are created in the image of true love.
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They express true love symbolically or substantially: one from east or west, another
from above or below, and the other from front or back.30

A cheetah captures and eats gazelles. Dawkins emphasizes the cruelty of such life:
“We may therefore guess that gazelles suffer horrible pain and fear when they are
pursued to the death—as most of them eventually are.”31 In contrast, as seen in the
article “Cheetah’s mother’s love” in National Geographic (January 2005), strong bonds
of love between parent and child are seen in their way of living, a pattern which is
passed on from mother to child.
In the natural world, smaller organisms nourish larger ones by being eaten.
However, small beings multiply rapidly and never run out. A lot of plankton is
generated and becomes food for fish. Small fish multiply a lot and become food for
larger fish. Whales and tuna are at the top of the food chain. The shark, called the
gangster of the sea, cleanses the sea of damaged or weakened fish. On land, many
herbivorous animals are born, and they support carnivorous animals. If there were no
carnivorous animals while the herbivores continued to multiply, their food plants would
be depleted and they would starve. Plants, herbivorous animals, and carnivorous
animals all coexist while maintaining a balance in their numbers.
Dawkins considers that all living beings are equal in position and that it is pitiless
and cold-hearted for animals and humans to kill and eat other animals. His emphasis is
that nature is misery: “During the minute it takes me to compose this sentence,
thousands of animals are being eaten alive; others are running for their lives,
whimpering with fear; others are being slowly devoured from within by rasping
parasites; thousands of all kinds are dying of starvation, thirst and disease.”32
However, it is incorrect to view all living beings in the same position. When
animals eat plants, do the plants feel pain? When larger fish eat smaller fish, do they
feel pain and fear? No, they don’t. When herbivores are eaten by carnivores, they feel
fear and pain on a rudimentary level. However, such fear and pain cannot be compared
to that of human beings when they are attacked and killed. It is proper to think: When
smaller animals are captured and eaten by larger animals, the smaller ones are
supporting the larger ones by being absorbed, and sacrificing themselves to the larger
ones. It is not good to treat and kill animals cruelly, but it is not a merciless act to eat
animals with appreciation for their sacrifice.

III. Are We Vehicles for Genes?
Concerning the origin of life, Dawkins writes, “At some point a particularly
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remarkable molecule was formed by accident. We will call it the Replicator. It may not
necessarily have been the biggest or the most complex molecule around, but it had the
extraordinary property of being able to create copies of itself. This may seem a very
unlikely sort of accident to happen.”33
Later in life’s history, he says, “Replicators began not merely to exist, but to
construct for themselves containers, vehicles for their continued existence. The
replicators that survived were the ones that built survival machines for themselves to
live in.”34 Dawkins calls these survival machines “vehicles” for the replicators.
The vehicles for the replicators then became more complex, becoming
chromosomes, bacteria, then cells and later, many-celled bodies. Nowadays, after the
end of four billion years of development, these replicators “are in you and in me; they
created us, body and mind; and their preservation is the ultimate rationale for our
existence. They have come a long way, those replicators. Now they go by the name of
genes, and we are their survival machines.”35
In Dawkins’ view, humans are survival machines programmed to propagate copies
of genes. The genes “are the replicators and we are their survival machines. When we
have served our purpose, we are cast aside. But genes are denizens of geological time:
genes are forever.”36 Dawkins’ basic position can be summarized as: In the beginning
was the gene, and the gene is forever. Dawkins’ vehicle theory is shown in figure 2.1.
In the Unification Thought view, every entity has the dual characteristics of
sungsang and hyungsang. Sungsang is the mind or internal directive nature, while
hyungsang is the body or the external form and structure. The relation between
sungsang and hyungsang can be thought of like that of radio wave and radio receiver: if
sungsang is the radio wave being broadcast, hyungsang corresponds to a receiver, such
as a radio or television set. In the relation of sungsang and hyungsang, hyungsang is the
carrier or vehicle of the sungsang. In living systems, the DNA (genes) is hyungsang,
which receives and carries the “life wave.”
There exists a life field in the universe, and the universe is filled with life waves.
DNA (genes) catches life waves. Therefore, DNA (genes) is the vehicle of life. While
living on earth, humans attain spiritual growth through their physical lives. While
growing spiritually, love is cultivated and completed. In this view, the DNA (genes) is a
vehicle of life, and life is a vehicle of love. God’s creation was performed motivated by
love. Therefore, it is not “In the beginning was the gene, and the gene is forever,” but
rather “In the beginning was love, and love is forever.” Unification Thought view of
vehicle is shown in figure 2.2.

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IV. The Extended Phenotype
According to Dawkins, the effect of a gene appears as the external phenotype, and
the phenotype is a representative of the gene. Genes fight each other for their survival
inside of the individual, and outside individuals fight each other for their survival. Thus,
the phenotype is the battlefield, and the genes are in the headquarters.
Dawkins explains the Central Theorem of the Extended Phenotype: “An animal’s
behavior tends to maximize the survival of the genes ‘for’ that behavior, whether or not
those genes happen to be in the body of the particular animal performing it.”37Therefore,
the effect of the gene reaches not only to the animal in which the gene is located, but
also to other animals. Dawkins explains the process by which the power of the gene
reaches out to other animals as follows:

The locus of primary gene power is, therefore, the cell, in particular the cytoplasm
surrounding the nucleus in which the gene sits. . . . The phenotypic expression of a
gene is then, in the first place, its influence on cytoplasmic biochemistry. In its turn,
this influences the form and structure of the whole cell, and the nature of its
chemical and physical interactions with neighboring cells. This affects the build-up
of multicellular tissues, and in turn the differentiation of a variety of tissues in the
developing body. Finally emerge the attributes of the whole organism.38

Not all the phenotypic effects of a gene are bound up in the individual body in
which it sits. . . . The gene reaches out through the individual body wall and
manipulates objects in the world outside, some of them inanimate, some of them
other living beings, some of them a long way away. With only a little imagination
we can see the gene as sitting at the centre of a radiating web of extended
phenotypic power. And an object in the world is the centre of a converging web of
influences from many genes sitting in many organisms. The long reach of the gene
knows no obvious boundaries. The whole world is criss-crossed with causal arrows
joining genes to phenotypic effects, far and near (italics added).39

The gene in the individual body is like a transmitter of the radio wave, and the
power extends outwards over a considerable distance. For example, a beaver dam is an
extended phenotypic effect of beaver genes, and in this sense “beaver lakes are extended
phenotypic effects of beaver genes.”40 In the case of large lakes, the influence of the
beaver genes can reach out over several miles.
A cuckoo lays its egg in the nest of other birds, such as robins or reed-warblers, and
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lets them incubate the egg and raise the cuckoo chick. Dawkins says this is also an
example of an extended phenotypic action over a distance by the cuckoo genes.
On the other hand, he mentions an example to deny the action of genes. In the
formation of a termite mound, the individual worker is not following specific genetic
instructions. Rather, each worker is responding to local stimuli emanating from the
work already accomplished.

Presumably, an individual termite working on a little corner of a big mound is in a
similar position to a cell in a developing embryo, or a single soldier tirelessly
obeying orders whose purpose in the larger scheme of things he does not
understand. Nowhere in the single termite’s nervous system is there anything
remotely equivalent to a complete image of what the finished mound will look like.
Each worker is equipped with a small toolkit of behavioral rules, and is probably
stimulated to choose an item of behavior by local stimuli emanating from the work
already accomplished, no matter whether he/she or other workers accomplished
it—stimuli emanating from the present state of the nest in the worker’s immediate
vicinity.41

In discussing bees and termites that make large families, he says, “It is the
environment, not the genes, that determines whether an individual termite, say, becomes
a reproducer or a sterile worker.”42 How are such concepts of Dawkins dealt with in
Unification Thought?
As for gene action at a distance, it is odd to say that instructions are generated from
genes like a radio wave from an antenna that reach out for several miles. Is the gene
such a strong generator of genetic waves? From the viewpoint of Unification Thought,
DNA is the hyungsang aspect of life activity, and there is life itself as the sungsang
aspect. The life of an individual is connected with the life field that fills the universe.
When this life field reaches DNA, it reads the information of the DNA, and guides the
living being to grow and act in accordance with the instruction of the information.
The life field itself contains the plan of each individual living being. Therefore, for
the life field to read the DNA information of an individual means that the information in
the life field is collated with the information in the DNA of the individual. Then, the life
field sets to work when the collation is made.
Seen from the viewpoint of the action of the life field, the long arm of the extended
phenotype of Dawkins can be understood. In the case of the beaver’s dam, the life field
reads the plan of the dam from the beaver’s gene, and guides the beaver to make the
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dam. In the case of a cuckoo’s using a reed-warbler as a foster parent, the life field reads
the genes of the cuckoo and the reed-warbler and guides them to cooperate with each
other.
In making a termite mound, Dawkins says, workers accomplish their mission by
being influenced by a part of the surrounding mound that has already been completed.
Nevertheless, a plan or an instruction to guide the workers is still necessary, even
though they are not aware of it. It is reasonable to think that the life field itself reads the
termite’s genes and thus can guide termite workers to form a mound.
In addition, the life field, which has read and understood the plan of a termite’s or
bee’s colony, guides the termites or bees to become a queen, or to become infertile
workers. It is not the physical environment makes them do so. According to Dawkins,
the power of a beaver’s genes reaches across an entire lake, while the power of a
termite’s genes hardly reaches itself and the other termites nearby. Doesn’t this seem
strange? It is reasonable to understand that the life field, which reads the plan of a
beaver’s dam or a termite’s mound, leads them to do so.
Harold Saxton Burr, who was a professor of anatomy at the Yale University School
of Medicine, proposed the existence of such a life field:

The life field, the invisible field of electric force, enables every living being to grow
according to its design. All living beings whether fungi, plants, or animals, are born
and formed according to this eternal blueprint. They constantly receive various
messages coming from far away places in the universe. The waves they effect
instantly cover the entire earth.43

According to Burr, the life field is akin to a jelly-mould or an invisible life-mould
that guides the external matter involved. He says:

Nature keeps an infinite variety of electro-dynamic ‘jelly-moulds’ on her shelves
with which she shapes the countless different forms of life that exists on this planet.
L-fields have been detected and measured not only in men and women but also in
animals, trees, plants, seeds, eggs, and even in one of the lowest forms of life,
slime-moulds.44

Burr also says that “it is the L-field which gives direction to the energy flow, the
result of which is a pattern of organization.” However, he says that “one of the key
problems of modern science is that of organization or of the design of living systems.”46
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Shoji Makishima, who was a physical chemist at Tokyo University, challenged the
problem of the pattern of organization. According to him, the pattern of organization is
an anti-entropy phenomenon which science could not have dealt with, and he proposed
a “pattern dynamics” using topology.47
Seen from Unification Thought, the life-mould proposed by Burr and organizational
patterns proposed by Makishima derive from God’s plan or blueprint for living and non-
living beings. In other words, cosmic life carries God’s plan or blueprint for all things
and guides them to appear, grow and multiply.
According to Burr, the life field receives messages, or blueprints, coming from far
away in the universe. In Unification Thought, however, a blueprint also exists in DNA,
and through the collation of a blueprint in the life field and that in DNA, a “mold of
invisible life,” or a three-dimensional blueprint, like an image made by a hologram, is
formed around the individual.
It can be said that the extended reach of the phenotype proposed by Dawkins
testifies, from the materialistic point of view, to the existence of the life field, which
invisibly guides living beings. Dawkins’ view of the power of the gene reaching a long
distance is compared in figure 2.3 and figure 2.4 with the Unification Thought view of
DNA (genes) as the receiver or carrier of the life wave.

V. What Is Meme?
According to Darwinism, genes were produced in the primitive organic soup, the
evolution of living beings commenced, and finally human beings were born. Moreover,
Dawkins says that a new ‘soup’ appeared as the human brain, and in this memes
appeared as a new type of replicator that multiplied there. Dawkins states that memes
multiply using brains as their vehicles just as genes multiply using bodies as their
vehicle:

Just as genes propagate themselves in the gene pool by leaping from body to body
via sperms or eggs, so memes propagate themselves in the meme pool by leaping
from brain to brain via a process which, in the broad sense, can be called
imitation.48

According to Dawkins, memes are viruses of the mind that leap from mind to mind
like computer viruses: “Our minds are invaded by memes. . . . Cheshire Cat-like, memes
merge into our minds, even becoming our minds.”49
Discussing the variety of memes, he comments that the “belief in life after death
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meme” and the “God meme” have spread throughout history and around the world
because of their great psychological appeal:

It [meme] provides a superficially plausible answer to deep and troubling questions
about existence. It suggests that injustices in this world may be rectified in the next.
The ‘everlasting arms’ hold out a cushion against our own inadequacies which, like
a doctor’s placebo, is none the less effective for being imaginary. These are some of
the reasons why the idea of God is copied so readily by successive generations of
individual brains. God exists, if only in the form of a meme with high survival
value, or infective power, in the environment provided by human culture.50

In Dawkins’ view, a meme is substantial, not insubstantial: “A meme should in
principle be visible under a microscope as a definite pattern of synaptic structure.”51 A
meme resides in the brain and has its associated phenotype:

The phenotypic effects of a meme may be in the form of words, music, visual
images, styles of clothes, facial or hand gestures, skills such as opening milk bottles
in tits, or panning wheat in Japanese macaques. They are the outward and visible
(audible, etc.) manifestations of the memes within the brain. They may be
perceived by the sense organs of other individuals, and they may so imprint
themselves on the brains of the receiving individuals that a copy (not necessarily
exact) of the original meme is graven in the receiving brain.52

From the Unification Thought view, the meme proposed by Dawkins corresponds
to an idea or a concept in the mind. Dawkins’ view that memes continuously propagate
themselves in the brain is similar to the Hegelian dialectic that ideas and concepts
develop by themselves through their contradictions in the human mind or in God’s mind.
However, neither ideas nor concepts develop by themselves in the mind.
Our mind has the apperception of intellect, emotion and will as a united being.
Centering on heart (or love), a thought (or plan, scenario, design) is formed through the
reciprocal interaction between the apperception and the images in the mind (ideas and
concepts). Ideas or concepts are resources in the mind for thinking. Therefore, ideas or
concepts do not, and cannot, develop by themselves, but rather they are created and
develop through their recombination by engagement with the apperception of the mind.
Dawkins says that the idea of God is a meme. If this is the case, it can also be said
that the idea of “the denial of God” is also a meme, and that this meme is building a nest
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in the brain of Dawkins, and he is trying to energetically propagate it.
Dawkins says that a meme resides physically in the brain, and that it is, in principle,
visible under a microscope. However, a meme is different from a gene, which physically
exists, and it is impossible to detect a meme itself physically, since an idea or a concept
does not exist in the brain, but rather exists in the mind of the spirit self. We recognize
the idea and the concept through the interaction of the mind and the brain, whereby the
physical action such as electric current or chemical flow appears in the brain, but it is
impossible to detect an idea or a concept itself physically.
Dawkins says that human beings are meme machines as well as gene machines.
However, he says, “We have the power to turn against our creators. We, alone on earth,
can rebel against the tyranny of the selfish replicators.”53
This raises a problem. How can human beings, who are meme machines ruled by
memes, rebel against memes? Dawkins takes the same line as Freud, who claimed that
the human mind is originally an id (Es), which corresponds to the jungle of wild
animals, and that an ego, which corresponds to the cultivated land surrounding the
jungle, appears in the human mind. He concluded that the id should be suppressed by
the ego. In this case, then why did the ego appear in the human mind, and not in animals?
It is because humans have a spirit self wherein resides the spirit mind, whereas animals
do not have a spirit self and, therefore, they cannot have egos.
Similarly, it is a leap of logic to claim that human beings, who are meme machines,
will come to dominate the memes. In order to control memes in one’s mind, a spirit self,
wherein resides the spiritual apperception, is necessary.

VI. Can Natural Selection Climb Mount Improbable?
According to Dawkins, “Core Darwinism, I shall suggest, is the minimal theory that
evolution is guided in adaptively nonrandom directions by the nonrandom survival of
small random hereditary changes.”54 Thus, the motive force of evolution is natural
selection. Dawkins insists that natural selection has created us:

Chimp and human, lizard and fungus, we have all evolved over some three billion
years by a process known as natural selection. Within each species, some
individuals leave more surviving offspring than others, so that the inheritable traits
(genes) of the reproductively successful become more numerous in the next
generation. This is natural selection: the non-random differential reproduction of
genes. Natural selection has built us (italics added).55

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Dawkins says that we need to understand natural selection, to understand its basic
qualities. One of these qualities, as he views it, is that natural selection is positive and
constructive:

Natural selection is positive and constructive. It is no more negative than a sculptor
subtracting marble from a block. It carves out of gene pools complexes of mutually
interacting, co-adapted genes: fundamentally selfish but pragmatically cooperating.
The unit that the Darwinian sculptor carves is the gene pool of a species (italics
added).56

Dawkins also attributes the quality of “improvement” to natural selection. He uses
as an example the ear, where a part of the skin became sensitive to vibrations and
evolves into the ear by step-by-step improvements:

How did ears get their start? Any piece of skin can detect vibrations if they come
into contact with vibrating objects. This is a natural outgrowth of the sense of touch.
Natural selection could easily have enhanced this faculty by gradual degrees until it
was sensitive enough to pick up very slight contact vibrations. At this point it would
automatically have been sensitive enough to pick up airborne vibrations of
sufficient loudness and/or sufficient nearness of origin. Natural selection would
then favor the evolution of special organs—ears—for picking up airborne
vibrations originating from steadily increasing distances. It is easy to see that there
would have been a continuous trajectory of step-by-step improvement, all the way
(italics added). 57

What about the eye? Is it random errors and natural selection, which are supposed
to make step-by-step upward improvements, that has brought about appropriately
harmonized upper and lower eyelids, a well-modulated iris diaphragm to control the
amount of sunlight, eyelashes to prevent dust to come into the eye, blinking to prevent
the cornea to become dry, a variably focused transparent lens, a correction mechanism
against aberration, and so on?
Evolution by natural selection does not make sudden leaps creating
macroevolutionary steps; evolution is gradual and cumulative. Concerning this
accumulative aspect of natural selection, Dawkins states, “There is a ratchet, such that
small gains are saved,”58 and “Cumulative selection, by slow and gradual degrees, is the
explanation, the only workable explanation that has ever been proposed, for the
14

existence of life’s complex design.”59
Cumulative evolution through natural selection can be compared to the climbing of
a mountain: A climber climbs up a mountain, which seems impossible to scale, wearing
shoes with ratchets, step by step and finally reaches the summit. Dawkins explains:

In Climbing Mount Improbable, I expressed the point in a parable. One side of the
mountain is a sheer cliff, impossible to climb, but on the other side is a gentle slope
to the summit. On the summit sits a complex device such as an eye or a bacterial
flagellar motor. The absurd notion that such complexity could spontaneously self-
assemble is symbolized by leaping from the foot of the cliff to the top in one bound.
Evolution, by contrast, goes around the back of the mountain and creeps up the
gentle slope to the summit: easy! 60

If the climbing is gradual, cumulative, and step-by-step, then what might be its
mechanism? Concerning this point, Dawkins explains that natural selection is a positive
process, as we can see in the two processes of co-evolution and co-adaptation, which are
based on the mutual interaction of genes. Thus, the mountain of evolution is gradually
climbed through the mutual interaction of genes. Dawkins explains:

Co-evolution—arms races, the mutual evolution of genes in different gene pools—is
one answer to the skeptic who thinks natural selection is a purely negative process.
The other answer is co-adaptation, the mutual evolution of genes in the same gene
pool. . . . At the gene level, as we have seen, selection puts together harmonious
complexes, not by choosing whole complexes but by favoring each part of the
complex within gene pools that are dominated by the other parts of the complex
(italics added).61

Unification Thought’s critique of, and alternative explanation, to Dawkins’
assertion is as follows: In contrast to Dawkins’ “gradual evolution through cumulative
natural selection,” Unification Thought proposes a “step-by-step creation through the
engagement of creative force.” Unification Thought is in accord with Dawkins in his
assertion of a gradual and step-by-step ascension. Natural selection itself, however, has
no power of ascension; it only selects what has already ascended. Even the ascension of
a small step, with just a small improvement, requires some creative force with design.
Dawkins says that evolution occurs through the mutual interactions of genes—
between genes of different individuals, or between genes in a gene pool of each
15

individual—without any purpose. This is no different from the materialist dialectic,
which holds that development occurs through mutual interactions between opposites,
without any purpose.
Today, such a way of thinking prevails throughout the academic world. It is widely
held that things develop through mutual interactions between elements without
recognizing any purpose. This is the viewpoint of brain scientists, who claim that mind
appears through interactions of neurons in the brain. However, it is not reasonable to say
that something appears and develops merely through mutual interactions between
elements without purpose. This is almost an “interactionist belief.”
In Unification Thought, things appear and develop through harmonious give and
receive actions between correlative elements that are centered on a purpose with an
inherent design (plan). A chicken egg has the purpose of becoming a chicken through its
design (plan), and by means of the harmonious give and receive action between the
embryo on the one hand, and the yolk and white on the other, the egg hatches, and a
chick is born. An apple seed has the purpose and the design (plan), of becoming an
apple tree with fruit, and through the harmonious give and receive action between its
embryo and albumen, the seed sprouts, grows to become a tree, and produces fruits.
Whenever a new being or a new quality appears through the interaction between
elements, a field of force is necessary behind the interaction. Even if a TV set is
equipped with complex circuits of semiconductors, no image or sound will appear if the
radio waves from the broadcasting station do not reach it. In the physical world, with
the engagement of the Higgs field, particles with mass appear and four kinds of
forces—the weak force, the strong force, electromagnetic force, and gravity— emerge
through the give and receive actions between particles. Similarly, in the living (organic)
world, under the influence of the life field, life activity appears through the mutual
interactions between the various elements in the cell. There is no case where things
develop, or new qualities appear, only through mutual interaction between elements
without the engagement of a field behind it.
Dawkins says, “Like a river, natural selection blindly meliorizes its way down
successive lines of immediately available least resistance.”62 However, it is no more
than a dogma to insist that an improvement occurs through blind interactions without
any element of purpose or design.
The evolution by natural selection emphasized by Dawkins is only a philosophical
perspective, an interpretation. Dawkins himself admits this fact saying, “The theory of
evolution by cumulative natural selection is the only theory we know of that is in
principle capable of explaining the existence of organized complexity. Even if the
16

evidence did not favor it, it would still be the best theory available!”63 However, it is a
false theory since it is merely an application of the false philosophy of dialectical
materialism to the field of biology. We can now apply the viewpoint of Unification
Thought to the concepts discussed in Dawkins’ Climbing Mount Improbable.
The Biblical book of Genesis states that the tree of life and the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil were at the center of the Garden of Eden. The tree of life
symbolizes a man (Adam) who has completed the ideal of creation, and the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil symbolizes a woman (Eve) who has completed the ideal of
creation. The plan for their perfection was visualized in God’s mind before the Creation.
Thus, God first made the plan for the two human beings. Then, taking this human
image as a model, and by abstracting from and transforming it, God conceived the
images of various animals and plants, from higher beings to lower beings, Then, by
abstracting from and transforming the images of animals and plants, God conceived in
His mind the images of heavenly bodies, atoms, elementary particles, and finally light.
Therefore, the formation of the plan was made in a “descending of the mount of the
ideal of creation,” wherein human beings are at the top. Plato, who saw the world of
Ideas centering on human beings, presented the world in such a way as the “descending
of the mount of ideas.”
After the formation of the scenario (plan) of Creation, the phenomenal world was
created in accordance with the plan, but in reverse order. The universe started with the
Big Bang explosion of light, the various heavenly bodies were formed, and finally the
special planet Earth appeared. After a while, on the Earth, living beings appeared,
starting from single-celled organisms and then, moving from lower to higher multi-
cellular living beings, and finally human beings appeared. Therefore, the creation was
made in such a way as to be the “climbing of the mount of the ideal of creation.”
Dawkins asserts that elimination and substitution of replicator genes is necessary
for evolutionary advance by natural selection:

Accepting Eldredge and Gould’s belief that natural selection is a general theory that
can be phrased on many levels, the putting together of a certain quantity of
evolutionary change demands a certain minimum number of selective replicator
eliminations. Whether the replicators that are selectively eliminated are genes or
species, a simple evolutionary change requires only a few replicator substitutions. A
large number of replicator substitutions, however, are needed for the evolution of a
complex adaptation.64

17

In Unification Thought, living beings were planned through the transformation and
abstraction of the image of human beings. We would thus expect that, in the process of
evolution (actually creation), the injection of new genes, as the reverse process of
abstraction, occurred as well as the transformation (elimination and substitution) of
genes. In addition, there is the injection of new genes beforehand into a lineage, in
preparation for higher living beings, without the immediate manifestation of their
function.
The more conflict there is in a society, the sooner it will fall into ruin. This was
illustrated by the collapse of Communism that is based on the materialist dialectic. In
modern Communist China, the class-struggle theory—that is, development through
struggle—has been abandoned. Darwinism, promoted by Dawkins as the mutual
struggle between selfish genes without any purpose or design, will lose its allure in
biology just as the materialist dialectic has lost its allure in politics.

VII. Is Natural Selection the Creator?
Dawkins says that natural selection is a magnificent crane that elevates life:
“Natural selection is the champion crane of all time. It has lifted life from primeval
simplicity to the dizzy heights of complexity, beauty and apparent design that dazzle us
today.”65
Enzymes, which are supposed to be created by natural selection, perform thousands
of sophisticated chemical transformations in a cell. In a manmade chemical factory,
hundreds of different chemical reactions may be going on at the same time, but they are
separated from each other by “walls” into compartments such as flasks and reactors. A
living cell, however, has a similar number of chemical reactions (and probably more)
taking place inside of it simultaneously, with each reaction being catalyzed by its own
special enzyme. Dawkins explains the work of enzymes:

An enzyme is a very large molecule whose three-dimensional shape speeds up one
particular kind of chemical reaction by providing a surface that encourages that
reaction. Since what matters about biological molecules is their three-dimensional
shape, we could regard an enzyme as a large machine tool, carefully jigged to turn
out a production line of molecules of a particular shape. Any one cell, therefore,
may have hundreds of separate chemical reactions going on inside it
simultaneously and separately, on the surfaces of different enzyme molecules.
Which particular chemical reactions go on in a given cell is determined by which
particular kinds of enzyme molecules are present in large numbers. Each enzyme
18

molecule, including its all-important shape, is assembled under the deterministic
influence of a particular gene (italics added).66

In his view, natural selection created mitochondria—the powerhouses of the cell—
whose complex chemical activity is unmatched by any human chemical factory:

The area afforded by these membranes is much larger than you’d think from the
outside appearance of mitochondria, and it is used. The membranes are the
production lines of a chemical factory—more precisely, a power station. A carefully
controlled chain reaction is strung out along the membranes—a chain reaction
involving more stages than those in any human chemical factory. The result is that
energy, originating in food molecules, is released in controlled steps and stored in
reusable form for burning later, wherever it is needed, anywhere in the body.
Without our mitochondria, we’d die in a second (italics added).67

Is it possible that natural selection would have produced such marvelous enzymes
and intricate mitochondria? In Dawkins’ view, however, natural selection is the best
chemist, much greater than any human chemist. He also says that natural selection is the
best genetic engineer, and human beings have just started to learn the techniques that
natural selection has invented.

The legal definition of gene manipulation in Britain is ‘the formation of new
combinations of heritable material by the insertion of nucleic acid molecules,
produced by whatever means outside the cell, into any virus, bacterial plasmid or
other vector system so as to allow their incorporation into a host organism in which
they do not naturally occur but in which they are capable of continued propagation.’
But of course, human genetic engineers are beginners in the game. They are just
learning to tap the expertise of the natural genetic engineers, the viruses and
plasmids that have been selected to make their living at the trade.68

However, is it reasonable to think that natural selection has such creativity? Let us
consider the motive force of evolution in the context of developments in evolutionary
developmental biology called evo-devo.
In comparing human DNA and chimp DNA, about 98.8 percent of their sequences
are identical, with a difference of just 1.2 percent. According to Sean B. Carroll, a
leading proponent of evo-devo, “The sets of genes for making these animals and
19

humans are very similar; the differences in form between them, both great and small,
must lie in how they are used—or, as we will see in one case, not used.”69 Genes are just
elements that are unified and manipulated by other mechanisms behind them.
Furthermore, he says that “neither natural selection nor DNA directly explains how
individual forms are made or how they evolved.”70
Then what is the driving force of evolution? According to evo-devo, every animal
has a tool kit of master genes, some of which are the recently-discovered Hox genes.
There are arrays of switches nested around the tool kit genes that give the instruction to
activate the tool kit genes. The conclusion of evo-devo is that “switch evolution” has
driven the course of evolution. According to evo-devo, the tool kit genes were around at
least 50 million years before the Cambrian Explosion, and that genetic switches evolved
during the period. This conclusion contradicts the concept that the Cambrian Explosion
happened through the mutation of genes and natural selection at the time of the
Explosion.
Carroll insists that natural selection inserted information into the genetic switches
during the 50 million years before the Cambrian Explosion. But one of the basic tenets
of Darwinism is that “Evolution has no foresight.” It is unreasonable, therefore, from
the point view of Darwinism, to suggest that natural selection prepared tool kit genes
and genetic switches for the Explosion during 50 million years before it actually
happened, since natural selection is merely the action of selecting the fit and discarding
the unfit at the time that the random errors occur.
Some think that evo-devo has clarified how genetic switches and Hox proteins
determine the shape of animals such as butterfly wings. However, as Carroll admits,
evo-devo has clarified only one moment in the course of an animal’s development, and
that each pattern evo-devo describes is as a still photo to a movie. Carroll says that a
larger “network” is necessary to make the body of animals:

Larger sets of interconnected switches and proteins form local “circuits” that are
part of still larger “networks” that govern the development of complex structures.
Animal architecture is a product of genetic regulatory network architecture (italics
added).71

What is the larger network? It is exactly the entire plan of the organism. At this
point, it becomes necessary to admit a plan or a design, which determines the form and
the function of the individual species. While Carroll insists on Darwinist evolution by
natural selection, contrary to his intention, evo-devo has established the existence of a
20

plan or a design that underlies the evolution of living beings.
Carroll states that the key actor of evolution is the genetic switch, and the switches
are exactly “hotspots of evolution,” and the evolution of humans is brought about by the
evolution of the switches.

Switches are key actors in both dramas here—development and evolution. . . . It is
the switches that encode instructions unique to individual species and that enable
different animals to be made using essentially the same tool kit. And switches are
hotspots of evolution—they are the real source of Kipling’s delight—the makers of
spots, stripes, bumps, and the like (italics added).72

It is only logical that switch evolution would be important in the evolution of
humans as well. Everything in our bodies is a variation on a mammalian or primate
template. Thus, I believe that the weight of the genetic evidence is telling us that
the evolution of primates, great apes, and humans is due to changes more in the
control of genes than in the proteins the genes encode (italics added).73

At this point, we can ask just what is it that turns the genetic switches on or off?
Carroll says that tool kit proteins turn the switches on or off, and the tool kit proteins are
also controlled by genetic switches. Furthermore, he says that “the important point to
know is that the throwing of every switch is set up by preceding events, and that a
switch, by turning on its gene in a new pattern, in turn sets up the next set of patterns
and events in development.”74 After all, every switch is set up by preceding events
(genetic switch), and it goes around in circles. Science writer, Masataka Watanabe
summarizes his idea as follows:

Carroll calls the arrays of genes, which are common in making various animals’
bodies, tool kit genes. In addition, he claims that the genetic switches hold the key
in making different bodies using this common tool kit. Genetic switches are genes
that line up around each tool kit gene. These genes manifest themselves
appropriately at particular time and place in an individual species, generating
proteins through the translation process. These proteins turn the switches of the tool
kit gene on, and the specific shape of a species is formed (italics added).75

Then, what makes “the genes [genetic switches] manifest themselves appropriately”?
This is an aporia that cannot be solved through materialistic argument. It can be solved,
21

however, if we admit the existence of the life field, which is working behind genes. It is
the life field which controls the on and off state of the genes.
According to Darwin: “It may be said that natural selection is daily and hourly
scrutinizing, throughout the world, every variation, even the slightest; rejecting that
which is bad, preserving and adding up all that is good; silently and insensibly working,
whenever and wherever opportunity offers, at the improvement of each organic being in
relation to its organic and inorganic conditions of life.”76 Dobzhansky compared natural
selection to a composer; Simpson, to a poet; Mayr, to a sculptor; Huxley, to Shakespeare;
and Dawkins, to the best scientist (the genetic engineer). Putting together all of their
views, the conclusion is that evolutionists regard natural selection as equal to the
Creator. In other words, they have elevated natural selection, which is merely a function
of selecting the fit, to the position of the Creator.

VIII. The Encounter of Dawkins and Unification Thought
Dawkins equates natural selection with the Creator. In other words, Dawkins steps
into the realm of God with his view of natural selection, while denying God. He does
not admit a God with personality. However, he does face God, the Creator.
We can find similarities between Dawkins’ evolution theory and Unification
Thought creation theory in terms of the appearance of things. Dawkins proposes
“gradual and accumulative evolution,” while Unification Thought proposes a “step-by-
step creation.” Dawkins claims that “evolution is driven through the conflicts of selfish
genes,” while Unification Thought claims that “the creation occurs through the
harmonious give and receive action (injection, elimination, recombination etc.) of
genes,” centering on purpose and accompanied by the design (logos). Dawkins claims
that “we are vehicles of genes,” while Unification Thought claims that “genes are
vehicles of life, and life is a vehicle of love.”
Dawkins says that gene power reaches out to a distance, as a radio wave is
transmitted from the broadcasting station, giving rise to the extended phenotype.
Unification Thought, however, understands that the life field is engaged in the mutual
interaction with genes, giving rise to an invisible mold, whereby the individual species
is shaped.
Dawkins says that the replicator, called a meme, multiplies in the brain and leaps
from brain to brain like a virus, while Unification Thought considers that ideas or
concepts are not products of the brain, but they are in the spirit mind, where they are
formed or synthesized by the apperception of our intellect, emotion and will. A concept
or an idea is conveyed from mind to mind in a conversation between two persons, while
22

the mind and brain of each person are engaged in a give and receive action.
Finally, Dawkins claims that evolution is the “climbing of mount improbable” by
natural selection, while Unification Thought claims that creation is the “climbing of the
mount of the ideal of creation.”
It can be said that Dawkins has followed the path of Creation from the standpoint of
materialism. At the end of The Ancestor’s Tale, Dawkins says:

I suspect that many who call themselves religious would find themselves agreeing
with me. To them I would only quote a favorite remark that I overheard at a
scientific conference. A distinguished elder statesman of my subject was having a
long argument with a colleague. As the altercation came to an end, he twinkled and
said; ‘You know, we really do agree. It’s just that you say it wrong!’ I feel I have
returned from a true pilgrimage.77

If only Dawkins would cease clinging to the standpoint of materialism and admit to
natural selection as being God’s work, an intriguing agreement will emerge between
Dawkins’ evolution theory and Unification Thought creation theory.

23

Fig.2.1. Dawkins’ Vehicle Theory

Fig.2.2. Unification Thought View of Vehicle

24

Fig.2.3. Dawkins’ Long Reach of the Power of the Gene

Fig.2.4. Unification Thought View of DNA as the Receiver of Life Wave

25

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