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The Island is an engine of evolutionary change



“Careful observation is the only key to true and complete awareness” - Karyn DeGroot (Episode - ?)

Thesis

The Lost Island is an engine for evolutionary change

The purpose of the Island’s actions is to be the catalyst for a significant evolutionary leap, a phenomenon known as Punctuated Equilibrium (See reference at the end of this post). Separated from the rest of the population, the humans on the island are able to avoid the homogenizing evolutionary inertia of the modern world and evolve to an alternative state at an ever increasing rate. Some humans on the island have achieved this evolutionary state (the whispers and to a lesser extent, Jacob) and have begun to actively accelerate the island’s natural properties to bring the evolution to an accelerated pace.

Initial Assumptions

This theory is based solely on the information presented in the broadcast show.

The Primary Mystery

There is some active, purposeful agent on or in the island. This agent may actually BE the island. It has its own agenda and is sentient. It is able to affect the world in an attempt to accomplish its agenda. This agent and its purpose is the core mystery of the series. In order to simplify the presentation of the theory, this agent will simply be referred to as the Island.

Also, for simplicity, someone who has been co-opted to the Island’s agenda, either in whole or in part, is referred to here as having “gone native”.

“You were all focused on getting off the island and you couldn’t see things clearly” – Locke (The greater good)
“Do you really think this is an accident?” – Locke (Exodus Part 2)
“Places on the Earth have great energy”- Claire’s Psychic (S.O.S.)


Primary Characteristics of the Island
1) The capability to facilitate or accelerate healing in people.

a. Locke's recovery from paralysis (and dozen’s of other wounds, including gunshot)
b. Rose's recovery from cancer.
c. Ben’s tumor recovery (delayed possibly due to Ben’s estrangement from the Island)
d. Richard has not aged


2) The Island's control over a person is lasting... i.e., the person who has "gone native" (been "infected," fallen under the Island's control) is still "gone native" even if he leaves the island.

a. The Others are trying to contain the Island's sphere of influence by prohibiting anyone from leaving even as they try to establish control over the Island.

i. The Others' destruction of Michael's raft at sea, leaving the Losties on it to die.
ii. Ben's displeasure at the deal that the Others cut with Michael to provide him with
transportation off the Island.
iii. The Others' violent confiscation of Desmond's sailboat from the Losties.


3) The Island has the ability to perform physical acts on the island to accomplish its goals. Smokie is an agent of these events.

a. Apparitions of persons not on the Island for the purpose of manipulation of the inhabitants (Jack’s Father, Dave, Yemi, Kate’s Horse, Ben’s Mother)
b. Scanning of persons on the Island (assessing the “gone native-ness”?)
c. Kills pilot of Oceanic 815 before he says too much
d. Kills those who are immune to “going native” (Eko)


4) The Island has the ability to influence the mental state, behavior, and even the personality of humans to enlist them to accomplish its goals.

a. Locke has completely "gone native."
b. Rousseau's description of how her colleagues "became infected" and she had to kill them.
Rousseau's admonition to Sayid "Your people – watch them – watch them closely." (Solitary)
c. Ben wants Locke to lose his faith in the Island so that Locke will fail to “go native”


i. Ben tells Locke that nothing happened when Ben failed to push the buttons (Episode - ?)
ii. “He’s not who we thought he was” - Ben speaking to the Others (The Brig).


d. The Dharma Initiative realized that it needed to effectively counter the Island's ability to begin exerting control over humans. An inoculation was developed that enabled the Dharma Initiative personnel to resist the Island's control

. i. The inoculations the Others give themselves at registration, the Swan staff.
ii. This explains why the Others are so implacably hostile to the Losties (without apparent provocation). Since the Losties are not inoculated, they are susceptible to the Island's control...
and hence unpredictably dangerous to the Others' safety and/or goals.


e. Initially Ben is an agent of change for the Island to purge itself of the influence resistant Dharma Initiative.
f. Ben has departed from the Island’s agenda and led the Others away from the Island’s goals.


i. Richard’s comments that the issue of pregnancy is a diversion (The Brig)

ii. The occupants of Flight 815 and Locke in particular along with Desmond are the Island’s attempt at “course correcting” Ben’s diversion from how the purge of the Dharma Initiative should have developed

iii. Desmond is told that the lives “every one of us” depend on Desmond’s actions” (Flashes Before Your Eyes)

5) The Island's ability to control events in the physical world can extend beyond the borders of the Island.

a. The statistically impossible way that the other characters' paths have crossed in the years leading up to the crash of Oceanic 815.

6) Astoundingly powerful electromagnetic capabilities.

a. The incident at the Swan that pulls down the airliner. b. Another previous "incident" referred to in the orientation film.

Conclusion

To sum up, the Island is undertaking to accelerate human evolution through a rational, sentient approach.

Visit this thread at the conclusion of Season 4 for a refined theory based on what is likely to be a wealth of new data.

I’m looking forward to your comments!

(Note: Depending on how things work out with the strike, I may revise if there is a mid-season hiatus)

Reference

The evolutionary theory of Punctuated Equilibrium was theorized by Niles and Gould in the landmark paper “Punctuated equilibria: an alternative to phyletic gradualism”, presented to the Annual Meeting of the Geological Society of America in 1971. Stephan Jay Gould summarized the concept in a 1977 essay for Natural History magazine.

"A new species can arise when a small segment of the ancestral population is isolated at the periphery of the ancestral range. Large, stable central populations exert a strong homogenizing influence. New and favorable mutations are diluted by the sheer bulk of the population through which they must spread. They may build slowly in frequency, but changing environments usually cancel their selective value long before they reach fixation. Thus, phyletic transformation in large populations should be very rare—as the fossil record proclaims. But small, peripherally isolated groups are cut off from their parental stock. They live as tiny populations in geographic corners of the ancestral range. Selective pressures are usually intense because peripheries mark the edge of ecological tolerance for ancestral forms. Favorable variations spread quickly. Small peripheral isolates are a laboratory of evolutionary change."



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