What if Darwin ate at the Restaurant at the End of the Universe?

*Huge spoiler alert: please don’t read this post if you have any interest in reading The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy because I completely give away the ending!!! Otherwise, carry on J

Although we already have a long list of great reads from Lang, I couldn’t help but write this post on a book from a different class. When thinking of philosophy and all of its complexity, one book from the summer reading list freshman year very clearly sticks out in my mind: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. For anyone who hasn’t read the book, Douglas Adams is fairly similar to Gaarden in that he makes the reader question the significance and purpose of their existence (except through aliens, not philosophy) in a fairly complicated way, making it rather difficult to give a proper summary of his book. However, for the purpose of this post, I will be focusing on the part of the story that revolves around Earth.

Near the very beginning of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Earth is destroyed in order to make space for a hyper-space express route, leaving only one human, Arthur Dent, to roam the universe. However, near the very end, Arthur discovers that Earth was created and controlled completely by mice. This concept somewhat reminds me of Darwin’s theory of “natural selection”.

Charles Darwin was an English naturalist who believed in the concept of evolution and “survival of the fittest”. Gaarden points out in his book, Sophie’s World, that Darwin “proposed that all existing vegetable and animal forms were descended from earlier, more primitive forms by way of a biological evolution” (Gaarden 405). Gaarden also states that “Darwin proved that mankind had developed from animals” (Gaarden 197). Therefore, at least according to Gaarden, Darwin felt that the only separating factor between humans and animals was a human’s abilities to evolve faster than most animals.

However, notice my choice in wording. Although, in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Adams claims both mice and dolphins are superior species in intelligence and universal understanding, he does not seem to portray any other animals in such a way. Therefore, it is interesting to consider what Darwin’s beliefs may have been on the matter. Perhaps Darwin, being the scientific, well-educated man that he was, would question what in evolution separates mice and dolphins from other animals in Adams’s opinion. However, it’s also very possible that the concept of talking mice would be too absurd for a man of Darwin’s status.

Either way, it is clear that Douglas Adams agreed with Darwin rather strongly in a sort of “eat or be eaten” outlook towards the universe. In Adams’s book, humans were far behind in regards to the understanding of anything other than their own planet, and were therefore no longer seen as important to the rest of the life forms in the universe. The concept of extra-terrestrial activity would perhaps be too hard for Darwin to comprehend, considering topics such as aliens and space travel were most likely not as common in the early 1800s. However, “in Darwin's time there were a number of observations and finds which were putting traditional beliefs to the test” (Gaarden 405), so he may have in fact appreciated a concept so new and advanced to completely appall the church with, and hopefully use to make further philosophical and scientific discoveries.

Whether Darwin ever imaged such a system of science fiction so far ahead of the 19^th century as that going on in the head of Douglas Adams, their views on “natural selection” were noticeably similar, and the idea of one species completely dominating another in order to survive is prominent throughout the book The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and also throughout the teachings and views of naturalist Charles Darwin. 

Works Cited:
Gaarder, Jostein. Sophie's World. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1994. Print.