Whole Dude – Whole Spirituality

The Status of Human Species in the Order of Nature

The term ‘man’ has been loosely applied to describe a variety of animal species that belong to Family Hominidae. To understand the status of man in nature, it is important to make the distinctions between Paleolithic, Archaic, Prehistoric or Ancient Man and Modern Man.

Since the term ‘Man’ may cause confusion, a distinction between ‘Man’ and ‘Human’ is all the more important.  The Hominids belong to Class-Mammals, Order-Primates, Suborder – Anthropoidea, Superfamily – Hominoidea, Family – Hominidae, Subfamily – Homininae which includes the Genus-Homo and species such as sapiens, erectus, habilis, and etc., The Hominid Family members share important skeletal features and similarities and yet the same time, the size and shape of the skull can be used to make distinctions between the various species. The Study of Human Anatomy determines the place of Human Species in the Order of Nature. The Origin of Anatomically Modern Man or Human Species: There is no Natural Cause, no Natural Factor, no Natural Condition, or Natural Mechanism to account for the variation seen when the Neanderthal Skull is compared with the Skull of the Anatomically Modern Man.

In 1965, while I was a student of Human Anatomy at Kurnool Medical College, I had the opportunity to know about Dr. J. C. B. Grant (1886-1973), the author of Grant’s Atlas of Anatomy. The 5th Edition of his Atlas was published in 1962 and was available in India in our Medical College Library.

Born in Loanhead (south of Edinburgh) in 1886, Grant studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh Medical School and graduated with an M.B., Ch.B. degree in 1908. While at Edinburgh, he worked under the renowned anatomist Daniel John Cunningham. Grant became a decorated serviceman of the Royal Army Medical Corps during the First World War before moving to Canada. He established himself as an ‘anatomist extraordinary’ at the University of Toronto, publishing three textbooks that form the basis of Grant’s Anatomy. The textbooks are still used in anatomy classes today, and made unforgettable memories for those who found themselves in his classes nearly a century ago. One of Grant’s many accomplishments was establishing a division of histology within the department.

The Study of Human Anatomy is about knowing the building blocks and the structural units and organization of the human body. Medical Science can defend human existence if it lays emphasis on knowing the person who is at risk apart from knowing the agent posing the risk.

The Identity of Multicellular Human Organism:

Daniel John Cunningham was born on 15 April 1850 in Scotland. After his initial schooling at his home town, Crieff, he took up the study of medicine at the University of Edinburgh and passed with honours. He is best known for the excellent series of dissection manuals, namely Cunningham’s Dissection Manuals. Cunningham’s Manual of Practical Anatomy has provided me the learning tools to know and understand Man’s External and Internal Reality and its Identity as described by Cells, Tissues, Organs, and Organ Systems and know him as a new Species that has not existed before.

I learned the truths about the living human body and about Life while dissecting the dead human bodies in a systematic manner using Cunningham’s Manual of Practical Anatomy.  

What is the Identity of this Human person or Human subject who experiences his life using the Sensory Experience such as taste? How does the living Human organism maintains its Identity and Individuality? Apart from the Cultural Traditions of India, several Schools of Religious Thought claim that the Human Individuality and true or real Human Identity is represented by Human Soul. Where does this Soul exist in the human body? What is the location if Soul is present in the living person? How does the human organism acquires Knowledge about its own structures and the functions they perform? To know the burdens of Life, I ask my readers to know the reality of Human Being and the nature of his existence.

THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN SPECIES: THERE IS NO NATURAL CAUSE, NATURAL FACTOR, NATURAL CONDITION, OR NATURAL MECHANISM TO ACCOUNT FOR THE VARIATION SEEN WHEN THE NEANDERTHAL SKULL IS COMPARED WITH THE HUMAN SKULL.

The Status of Human Species in Nature. Who or What formed the Human Being?

Michelangelo’s famous painting in Sistine Chapel – Human Being is added to Nature by a Special Act of Creation.

Human Being is a Created Being: 

“You turn things upside down, 

as if the potter were thought to be like the clay! 

Shall what is formed say to Him who formed it, 

“He did not make me” ? 

Can the pot say of the potter, 

“He knows nothing”? (Isaiah, Chapter 29, verse 16) 

The Place of Man as “Human” in the Order of Nature: 

Does man have an animal ancestry ? Currently, there is no other living species that can be recognized as Man, the species identified as sapiens variety of Sapiens species.

Could we view the behavior of man and animals and the phenomena of intelligence or mind and the constitution of psyche in confirmation with the doctrine of evolution ? 

There are two different views about the place of man in nature. 

Man is a special creation in Body and Soul: 

Plants and animals did not actually exist when the world began. The Book of Genesis speaks about the successive appearance of the various forms of life. The actual production of plants and animals in their various kinds is an act of creation. An increase in the number of species on earth is merely a matter of addition, they attribute stability to each species new as well as old. Man is simply added to the life forms already in existence without any change in the status as species of the pre-existing forms. To quote from the Book of Psalms, 104:24 

“How many are your works, O LORD ! 

In wisdom you made them all; 

the earth is full of your creatures.” 

The first appearance of man at a historical moment was an act of spontaneous generation, due to a special act of creation. Man is created as an individual human soul. 

So God created man in his own image, 

in the image of God He created him ; 

male and female He created them. (Book of Genesis 1:27) 

Man is essentially and abruptly distinct from animals. Man and ape as they now exist in the world, are essentially distinct – different in kind. 

“the Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.” (Book of Genesis 2:7) 

The Law of Biogenesis – Like generating Like: 

An important fact about generation or reproduction is that a species always breeds true; its members always generate organisms which can be classified as belonging to the same species however much they vary among themselves as individuals within the group. Furthermore, the subgroups the races or varieties of species are able to breed with one another, but diverse species cannot interbreed. If crossbred, like the horse and the ass, they produce a sterile hybrid like the mule. 

Species are distinguished by their stability from generation to generation. Species are thus self-perpetuating, they in turn give stability to all the larger groupings – the genera, phyla, families – which remain as fixed from generation to generation as the species which constitute them. Nobody has actually observed or demonstrated the transformation of one species into a different species. Species of living things appear to be fixed in number and immutable in type throughout the ages. 

By the Law of Natural Generation, offspring will always be of the same species as the parent organisms. No origin of species would be possible except by a special act of creation. If in the course of ages new species have arisen, their appearance cannot be accounted by natural generation. 

Modern science tends to affirm the Law of Biogenesis, living organisms are generated only by living organisms. 

Life could have sprung up from the nature of what is void of life

In the words of Aristotle, “nature proceeds little by little from things lifeless to animal life.” In terms of structure and function, animals and plants tend to demonstrate a common scheme and this analogy of forms seem to be produced in accordance with a common type. They have an actual kinship due to descent from a common parent. The facts of comparative anatomy and embryology reveal affinities in organic structure and development between organisms distinct in species. The geological record of earth indicates the great antiquity of life upon the earth, also gives evidence of the cataclysmic changes in the earth’s surface with consequences for the survival of life. The fossil remains of forms of life now extinct are not dissimilar from species alive in the present age. The Theory of Evolution describes a developmental or genetic relation among the various forms of life. 

Charles Darwin claims that new species do originate in the course of time. He describes the circumstances under which new species arise and other forms become extinct. He formulates the various factors in the differentiation of species. A new species does not require a special act of creation and it is entirely the result of a natural process which requires no factors other than those at work every day in the life, death, and breeding of plants and animals. According to Darwin, new species arises when, among the varieties of an existing species, certain intermediate forms become extinct, and the surviving varieties become more sharply separated from one another in type, and in the course of many generations of inbreeding, also tend to breed true. The process of natural selection may exterminate the parent-forms and the intermediate links. Thus the origin of species is associated with the extinction of intermediate varieties, combined with the survival of one or more of the extreme varieties. This theory requires the existence of an infinite number of intermediate members lying between two given species. 

Man is a by-product of the evolutionary process and has arrived from already existing organic forms by “descent with modification.” Man is a species and differs from other animals only by continuous variation. Man and ape differ only in degree and intermediate varieties have existed to account for their descent from a common ancestor. The genetic code of man and other primates is nearly identical and they also share the same pseudo genes (genes that are present but their character is not expressed). Man and the anthropoid apes have descended from a common ancestral form which is now extinct as are also many of the intermediate varieties in the chain of development -some fossil remains supply some of the missing links. Some of the transitional forms which are described as part-ape, part-human are identified as ‘Australopithecus’, and ‘paranthropines’. Man has become a distinct species through the extinction of intermediate varieties and he differs from animals in an accidental manner. 

The Law of Individuality and Creation:

Ultimately, each individual living creature differs from every other in the same group with whom, at the same time, it shares certain characteristics of the race, the species, the genus, and all the larger classes to which they belong. This uniqueness is important to describe the intrinsic value of human life and the notion of Human Individuality and Individualism. Man has arrived as an Individual and essentially exists as an Individual as per the Law of Individuality, a biological characteristic of all living organisms and creatures. 

We have two choices about the position of man in nature. There is an aspect of human existence which is not governed by our choice. Man, when viewed as a physical being, the physical being is mortal and would eventually die and everything that is born comes with its own plan for its dissolution. If man is a created being, he would exist as a spiritual being, and spirituality describes the connection between man and his Creator. If an immortal principle is involved in the creation of man, the nature or essence of man would describe the nature of that immortal principle. 

“By the sweat of your brow 

you will eat your food 

until you return to the ground, 

since from it you were taken; 

for dust you are 

and to dust you will return.” (Genesis, Chapter 3, verse 19)

Dr. Rudranarasimham, Rebbapragada, B.Sc., M.B.B.S.,

Father’s Name: R. Suryanarayana Murty

Sri Venkateswara University, M.B.B.S. Class of April, 1970

Andhra Pradesh Medical Council Medical Registration Number: AMC5282; Date of Registration: September 16, 1971