Page 10 - RD (English) - Sample
P. 10

2 IntroductIon



        community, and offers an alternative viewpoint to standard modern
        evolutionary thinking.
           One distinguishing feature of this book is that it is written from the
        standpoint of someone trained in the thoughts of Eastern philosophy,
        or, more precisely, in the Vedic tradition of ancient India. This natu-
                                     rally has a bearing on the material
                                     selected and the issues discussed
                                     in the book, and the last chapter
                                     directly outlines a Vedic philoso-
                                     phy of nature as an alternative to
                                     Darwinism.
                                        Not only is this book about evo-
                                     lution; it is also, in its own right,
                                     the result of an evolution. It started
                                     as an idea to present some Vedic
                                     perspectives on Darwinism in the
                                     form of an easy-to-read booklet,
                                     to be published and widely dis-
                                     tributed during the Darwin bicen-
                                     tennial in 2009. As the material
                                     accumulated, I saw that more
     Charles Darwin (1809–1882)      than a small publication was tak-
                                     ing shape. At one point I contacted
        three of the world’s leading proponents of Intelligent Design, profes-
        sor of biochemistry Dr. Michael Behe, mathematician and philosopher
        Dr. William A. Dembski, and biologist Dr. Jonathan Wells. They all
        found the idea of a book with a Vedic angle an interesting challenge,
        and each agreed to contribute a chapter. Then historian of archeology
        Dr. Michael Cremo, co-author of the taboo-breaking book Forbidden
        Archeology – a work directly inspired by the Vedic account of a human
        presence in ancient times – also consented to write a chapter. Clearly,
        a unique publication was unfolding. The result is what you now hold
        in your hand.
           Until  Darwin’s  time,  mainstream  science  had  concluded  that
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