History of an Idea

1. First began to think this thought in a Physical Anthropology class in the second semester of my sophomore year at USC in January 1978.

2. Continued discussing my idea at Korty Films with Brad Jones in 1982 after being inspired by an article on evolution in the April 1982 issue of Life Magazine. 

3. Was drawing images illustrating my concept of an inside-out evolution in 1991 in San Francisco. 

4. Got inspired to write a book when I came to Fayetteville for good on March 13, 1997 when Megan was one year old.

5. Attended school in Little Rock in June 1997 to complete my bachelor’s degree. Worked on my idea at the library after class each day. 

6. Spoke to my father about my studying philosophy and planning a book shortly before he died. He died April 25, 1998.

7. Took my first undergraduate summer school philosophy class in June 1998, less than two months after my father’s death.

8. Everything got clear by the start of my second semester of graduate school. January 1999.

9. 1999 was the year I became intoxicated with philosophy. 

10. Graduated in May 2001 with my M.A.

11. Completed writing The Evolution of Perception in May 2004. Published in June.

12. Published my second book, Evolution of Perception Re-Explained, in February 2021.

April 1982 Life Magazine, Was Darwin Wrong About Evolution?

The idea of an "inside-out" evolution is quite simple. It is what I now call "psychic emergence," where the force driving evolutionary change is an internal psychic one, a drive to gain consciousness, rather than external pressures from the environment that cull or promote random mutations. The reason the idea hit me in a Physical Anthropology college class when I was 18 is that I saw through the course that evolution was not actually occurring all the time in nature, but had once occurred and had ceased to occur after homo sapiens evolved, and that once a species evolved homeostasis set in. This was in perfect agreement with Baba's explanation of evolution in God Speaks. 

The Life Magazine article I read in 1982 that got me excited titled "Was Darwin Wrong About Evolution?" said that what scientists had discovered in the 120 years since Charles Darwin originally published his book On the Origen of Species was that specimens in the fossil record did not show the variety that Darwin had predicted would be found. See my December 2021 blog post Evolution is no longer taking place on Earth.

It has taken me almost 50 years to communicate my idea. I'm as convinced of it now as I was then.