BY DR. JOSE MA. EDUARDO P. DACUDAO
“BOTH biological and cultural diversity are now severely threatened and working for their preservation is a critical task.” – Murray Gell-Mann (1929 – ), American physicist, co-founder of Quantum Chromodynamics and Nobel Prize Winner
“The principle of maximum diversity operates both at the physical and at the mental level. It says that the laws of nature and the initial conditions are such as to make the Universe as interesting as possible.” – Freeman Dyson (1923 – ), English physicist, and co-founder of Quantum Electrodynamics
The Universe is meant to be complex and diverse. The good theologian or the mystic might say that the world is meant to be complex (or diverse) by the Creator. He would be in complete agreement with the geneticist who would say that genetic diversity is good for a species, the ecologist who would say that biodiversity is good for an ecosystem, and the Federalist who would say that the cultural diversity fostered by Federalism is good for the country.
Most physicists today would now agree that the Universe started as a mathematical point known as a singularity (or started nearly as a singularity) and exploded in a Big Bang about 12 to 14 billion years ago.
From a single force of nature back then, there emerged four forces (gravity, strong nuclear, weak nuclear, electromagnetic forces), and all the elementary particles. These elementary particles combined in various ways to form all the elements of the periodic table. These elements combined interactively to form all the molecules of the Universe.
Somehow wonderfully complex life, self-replicating and evolving, managed to emerge from these molecules.
The Universe started with a very simple structure, and bloomed into a myriad of complex diverse forms.
The things that we regard as fundamentally ‘evil’ may have something to do with lessening the diversity of the Universe.
The things that we regard as fundamentally ‘good’ may have something to do with increasing the diversity of the Universe.
We ourselves, human beings, all started from one relatively simple cell that divided repeatedly and developed into a vastly complex structure, the human body. For us, who are products of the complexity of the Universe, to use ourselves as instruments of the destruction of our world’s complexity is an abominable perversion of our very nature.
Here’s a short story of how a relatively simple cell becomes an immensely complex human being, whose brain is the single most complex structure in the Universe known to scientists.
All human beings start as a single cell, the zygote. A sperm cell carrying 23 chromosomes fertilizes an egg cell (the ovum), also with 23 chromosomes, to form a zygote, a single cell with 46 chromosomes (23 pairs of chromosomes). Even as adults, the normal somatic human cell has 23 pairs of chromosomes, all ultimately derived from this zygote.
After fertilization, the single-cell zygote repeatedly undergoes division (cleavage), eventually forming several cells, each cell being called a blastomere. Each blastomere is essentially the same as the other, and if two groups of blastomeres are separated, the two separated groups may, barring complications, become identical twins, each twin a natural clone of the other with the same genetic make-up (or genome). Even a single blastomere separated from its fellows could become an individual human being. (To be continued)/PN
