Alas, what went wrong?

[GoodTaste]

Does the expression "Alas, what went wrong?" point out the way of animal survival is disturbed? Or is it simply irrelevant to what he just said?

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Richard Dawkins tweeted 15h:


Animals engage in a struggle for existence & for resources, to avoid being eaten & to breed … Environmental factors influence organisms to develop new characteristics to ensure survival, thus transforming into new species”


al-Jahiz, Baghdad, 9th century. Alas, what went wrong?

 

[Tdol]

Could it be a criticism of the decline of science, as he sees it, in that part of the world? He has been critical before- here's someone a thousand years ahead of Darwin....

 

[GoodTaste]

He or his work went through the Dark Ages, in which cultural decline went hand in hand with economic deterioration, for one thousand years! Could he be independently flourished? Darwin was not alone, the great tide of the Enlightenment movement gave him enormous spiritual power to systematically analyze the evolution. So he succeeded in becoming a giant in science, profoundly influenced the human history.

 

[jutfrank]

Could it be a criticism of the decline of science, as he sees it, in that part of the world?

Yes, I'm sure of it. This is a dig at the rise of Islamism at the expense of scientific thought.

 

[Tarheel]

Could he be independently flourished?

I don't know. What does that mean?

(I wouldn't say he went through the Dark Ages, but that humanity did so. Also I would say that the Enlightenment allowed him to view the world without being forced to do so through the lens of dogma.)