October 21, 2006

• Eee-volution.

      I don't get it.
  
      Not evolution, that I get/accept/firmly support. What I don't get is why people don't agree with evolution or "believe" in it as I often hear people say. I don't believe in evolution either. Nor do I believe in gravity or plate tectonics. These are theories, not articles of faith. I accept them. I don't worship them or have faith in them - they just are.
  
      Why don't I understand evolutionary non-supporters? There is evidence for evolution. Oodles. Hell, if you want one of the best sources (and easiest to understand) read Darwin's The Origin of Species. He explains his theory very well (though there is no use of the words natural selection or survival of the fittest) and defends them very clearly - not in words that current scientist/evolutionist/cocky-arrogant-I'm-a-scientist-and-I-have-my-PhD-so-I'm-smarter-than-you terms but in words that I believe anyone can understand (assuming you can dredge past the slightly dated vernacular at points, and the pigeons. The man really liked his pigeons). Why Darwin? One of his largest sources of evidence for evolution or change in species over time were domesticated animals. I don't know anyone who doesn't accept that all breeds of dogs are simply genetic variations. The step to speciation is a simple one in my mind (though, I suppose, it could be considered too simple but I digress because who really wants a long, long [er, longer] blog about evolution?). The best summary of Darwin and evolution I can give?
  

  1. More organisms are produced than the environment can support.
  2. There is distinguishable variation in these organisms that allows some of them to outcompete others for food/mates/burrows/etc and those variations can be passed down into their offspring.
  3. Those offspring that inherit the characteristics are more likely to survive themselves and pass on the distinguishing characteristics to their offspring - propagating a cycle.

  
      The biggest factor in all of this? Time. Time. Time. Time beyond imagining. Time beyond scope, or at least my scope. 3.5 billion years to go from one cell to now (give or take a couple of million). It's taken fairly minimal time for humans to breed dogs in all their variety (squashy faced pugs to naked little mexican hairless dogs to massive st bernards...) from wolves - somewhere around 15000 years. A little division....and that means (if I can work a calculator) that there has been about 233,333.3 (repeating) times as long for evolution to take place. And that is with a force of nature driving it, not just man and his desires/needs/er...whatever reasoning caused the existence of such strange dogs as the toy breeds.
  
      Other arguments that I've often encountered about evolution have to do with creation and god. I'll state point blank. I am an atheist. I believe in no religion, no god and no supernatural. That being said, I find my wonders and awe and source of inspiration in the glory of nature and all that it has produced and will continue to produce - no matter what we humans believe or expect. Mountains, sunshine, kittens, brooks, spiderwebs, trees, seasons, stars....all of it - that is wonder enough for me. But enough on my belief about god or lack thereof. I also firmly avow/aver/swear - and this I will use capital letters for - EVOLUTION MAKES NO STATEMENTS ABOUT THE ORIGIN OF LIFE. It makes claims about the origin of species - but all the arguments for evolution pre-suppose an exisiting system of self-replication organisms. This argument is dodging the issue hardcore.
  
      You're probably wondering what the hell triggered all of this arguing (some of which I'm sure isn't the most logical as I am admittedly more emotionally involved in evolution arguments than I want to be) and that brings me to the final and perhaps most irritating argument to me about evolution. "If man came from monkeys, why do we still have monkeys?" Why does this irritate me? Because I had a microbiology b.s. graduate ask me this question. I cannot even comprehend how you can make it through a college level biology course and not understand this question is just a piss-poor one. Not because of what it asks, but because of how it asks. Simply stated, the question should be "If man and monkeys evolved from the same common ancestor, what was the common ancestor?" Men didn't come from monkeys. They just didn't. Men and monkeys share an ancestor way the fuck back in time (well, not really way the fuck as 100,000 years or more really doesn't matter to geology, but it does to a human mind). There are some proto-human skeletons and fossils that have been found - Lucy, anyone? They have characteristics of monkeys and of humans. She was neither human nor monkey (chimp or whatever primate you want to refer to her as) she and all her kind have gone extinct. 
     
      This argument also irritates me because I feel it brings up a very interesting view into the human mind. We, for some reason, don't want to come from the same tree as all the rest of the animals and plants and fungi and one-celled little beasties. It seems overwhelming arrogance to think that somehow WE are special, WE are unique, WE are different - just because. We share DNA with just about every organism on earth. We are similar in so many ways to everything - carbon-based, oxygen-needing, water-needing organisms. I do understand that people want to be special. I want to be special myself. But I don't look for specialness in a creator. I don't believe I was created by a god to be unique and distinct and somehow above animals. Rather, I believe everything is unique. On a genetic level - no one like you or I or your dad or anyone else have EVER existed before. And never will again. Ever. I don't now how much more unique you can be! I am a beautiful and unique snowflake - and so are you. For that matter, so is your cat! And your toenail fungus. Big deal, everyone is special - doesn't that mean no one is then? Not to my way of thinking - to me it just means that we humans are not as alone as we think. We are connected to and part of EVERYTHING. We share similarities with plants and fruit flies! It is amazing to think that we are all vehicles for DNA, speeding through life, replicating and mutating and changing -- evolving.
  
      *sigh* I fear this may have gotten a bit more disjointed than I wanted. I may come back and brush-up some of this. My coherency is not what it used to be. And *argh* I still don't get it. I really don't.
  
  

  • 6:46 pm
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