I believe in evolution. I believe in gravity. I believe in God.
The idea of evolution is that some individuals of a species find themselves with an advantage over their cousins and therefore live long enough to reproduce. Hopefully, some of the good stuff gets passed to their progeny and they find themselves with the same advantage. In this way, the advantage spreads and the whole species is improved.
Sometimes advantages creep slowly into a species, like giraffes growing longer and longer necks.
Sometimes an advantage is thrust upon an individual through a genetic mutation.
A genetic mutation is caused by an error in the copying of DNA or in the sudden movement of atoms in DNA due to radiation like ultraviolet light or gamma rays or perhaps collisions with atomic nuclei from supernovae (known as cosmic rays).
Genetic mutations from copying errors happen about once every 100,000,000 base pairs, but most of these errors are fixed when the DNA is translated into protein chains.
Most unfixed genetic mutations cause problems such as an ineffective protein or perhaps a cell which reproduces out of control (cancer). The chance of a genetic mutation producing a benefit is just one in a butt-load (scientific term).
The argument is made by scientists that there have been so many butt-loads that it was inevitable that the Earth progressed from some loosely organized carbon atoms to the complexity of the human brain in just a few billion years. We didn’t just win the lottery, we were destined to win the lottery thanks to the miracle of huge numbers.
Myth #1: Human beings evolved from lower species due to a necessity to survive.
The chimpanzee does pretty well just using simple tools.
The cockroach is thriving without opposable thumbs.
Bacteria kicks ass in every nook and cranny on this planet, including your nose, your fingernails, and your butt-load.
The Earth seems to have been built for life. Everywhere you look, animals are living in their garden of Eden. Exactly what about the Earth required us to adapt into our modern incarnation?
Myth #2: Human beings evolved from lower species thanks to an inevitable series of genetic mutations.
Let’s look at some numbers.
It’s said that humans and chimpanzees diverged from a common ancestor just 5-7 million years ago. Archaic Homo Sapiens evolved just 400,000 years ago.
Let’s say a human generation takes 15 years and let’s say we took 7 million years. Rounded up, this means there were 500,000 generations from the time of divergence to someone like you. That’s a lot of generations!! Gosh, surely in that time, there were enough random genetic mutations coupled with pure adaptations to add up to you.
Now let’s look at the last 300 million years of the fruit fly.
A fruit fly generation is just 7-11 days depending on the temperature.
Using 11 days, there are 33 fruit fruit fly generations per year.
In 300 million years, there have been nearly 10 billion generations.
Humans: 7 million years scored us some pretty incredible mutations. 500,000 generations scored us some great adaptations.
Fruit Flies: 300 million years of mutations and 10 billion generations and they’re still basically the same.
There was no need for human beings to become this intelligent in order to survive, so I’m throwing out adaptation all together. If everything was left to adaptation, we would be living in some warm forest somewhere picking bugs out of our mate’s fur.
Heck, it could be said that our intelligence actually threatens our survival. Which other species kills it’s own for the heck of it or commits suicide for it’s own reasons (I’m not talking about altruism).
And if there was a need to be this smart, then all species would benefit and surely, by now, some other animal would smarter than a chimp or a porpoise.
We should be serving our insect masters by now.
All hail the Queen Bee!
About genetic mutations: The densely inhabited regions of the Earth are all struck by about the same amount of radiation. Over time, all species have the same opportunity for genetic mutation.
Ok, sure, the fruit fly has only 165 million base pairs in their DNA and we have 3 billion. Since our cells are copying so many more base pairs, we have more opportunities for mutations. But we collected those extra pairs from somewhere. Why is the fruit fly hanging out down in simple-town?
Fruit flies are slackers.
Flipping a coin results, for all practical purposes, in a random string of heads and tails. The longer you flip the coin, the more likely you’ll end up with exactly 50% of one and 50% of the other. It’s possible to get short spurts of heads. How many? Five in a row is a good trick. Ten in a row is practically impossible.
There are four types of nucleotides in DNA, but they only combine in two ways (any one type of nucleotide will only bond with one other kind). So, DNA is sort of a coin toss — two possibilities. It’s actually more complicated because they can be left- or right-handed, but hey, we’re just talking here.
How many times do you have to flip coins to turn an ancestor of a chimpanzee into a human being?
Wow! You’re pretty lucky!!
God?
Well, something happened.
Ever heard of entropy? It’s the natural way things in a closed system go from order to disorder. You know, if you throw a bunch of bricks up in the air, the chance of them landing in some sort of stack is about zero. They’re usually going to end up in a big mess.
To put things in order takes some sort of influence.
God doesn’t care if you believe in Him.
He believes in you and so do I.
🙂
Article: What Causes DNA Mutations
Source: Genetics Science Learning Center at the University of Utah
Article: Human Evolution
Source: Wikipedia (sources sited)
Article: Drosophila Melanogaster (Fruit Fly)
Source: Wikipedia (sources sited)
Article: Base Pair
Source: Wikipedia (sources sited)
Article: Entropy and Disorder
Source: Physics Department at Georgia State University
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