Most organisms are much more alike than one would think just by casual observation. If you look deep inside most species you would realize that they are more than 90% the same.
Consider these three animals:
A jellyfish.
An elephant.
An amoeba eukaryote
(A eukaryote is a unicellular organism).
What species could be more different? If you look very deeply the jellyfish and the elephant are more alike than you think. In fact under the surface they are more than 90% similar. Would you agree that the the Indian elephant and the African elephant are more than 90% similar?. Apart from the fact that the African elephant has bigger ears and the (female) Indian elephant has no tusks, they are pretty much the same, this is without question. On the other hand you would probably call me crazy to even suggest that an elephant and a jellyfish have anything at all in common. It is true; looking at the surface they have very little in common. But if you look real real close both of them have a great deal in common, and both are very much like an amoeba! Is this really true? On a chance scale of 0 - 10 where '0' means 'it is no way likely, and ' '10' means 'it is a virtual certainty' will your numbers be closer to 0 or 10?
Now I went out and bought myself an amoeba (one penny), a jellyfish ($1.00) and a baby elephant ($2000.00). Your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to disprove that these three organisms are almost identical in basic body plan. You have all the instruments and tools of science to carry out your mission, including a microscope.
LINNY reports:
my animal has 4 thick meaty legs, two big eyes and a tail. It has hairless rough skin and is warm blooded. My animal has an unusually long nose with powerful musculature. My research reveals that this long nose, called a trunk, is used to suck up and spray water; to uproot bundles of grass, tear off tree limbs and it is used to stuff food in the mouth. My animal has out sized ears. My research informs me that its ears are not just for hearing but that it is also a cooling device. My animal has two huge horns called tusks that can reach up to six feet long in the adult. My animal is an herbivore; it weighs in at fifty pounds. It has a tail. My research shows that my animal is part of a herd of 15 - 25 animals. It is clear to me, from my observations to this point, that elephants and jellyfishes have almost nothing in common.
JASON reports:
My animal weighs about a quarter pound. It has many jelly strand-like “legs” called tentacles. These legs are not used for swimming. My animal simply floats about in the sea. These tentacles are used to catch its food and stuff food in its mouth. My animal has smooth skin of jelly consistency. In fact it feels like a bowl of Jell-O gelatin. It has no hair. My animal is neither warm blooded nor cold blooded because it has no blood. It has a pair of eyes. My animal is not an herbivore. I can now safely say that jellyfishes and elephants are quite different.
LINNY next looks more closely at the elephant with her microscope: My animal is made up of about a trillion eukaryotic cells. A eukaryotic cell has a membrane enclosing organelles like ribosomes and mitochondrias and a nucleus at its center. Inside that nucleus is the blueprint of how to make an elephant. This blueprint is written in DNA “language”.
It appears, at closer observation, that this baby elephant is a eukaryotic cell repeated a trillion times!
JASON next looks more closely at the jelly fish with his microscope:
My animal is made up of about four billion eukaryotic cells. Each cell has a membrane enclosing organelles like ribosomes and mitochondrias and a nucleus at its center. Inside that nucleus is the blueprint of how to make a jellyfish. This blueprint is written in
DNA “language”. It appears, at closer observation, that a jellyfish is an extremely large repetition of eukaryotic cells!
ASHLEY can only see her “
animal” under the microscope.
My animal weighs in at an impressive ten billionth of an ounce. It is a single eukaryotic cell. Each cell has a membrane enclosing organelles like ribosomes and mitochondrias and a nucleus at its center. Inside that nucleus is the blueprint of how to make an amoeba. This blueprint is written in DNA “language”. From my observations it appears that elephants, jellyfishes and amoebas have a lot in common, and they are easily 90%
similar!
If you organize a trillion amoeba-like eukaryotes in the right way (that is determined by the genetic blueprint ) you end up with a baby elephant.
If you put four billion amoeba-like cells together in a certain way you could make a jellyfish.
Both the jellyfish and the baby elephant began life from amoeba sized, that is, as a single amoeba-like cell.
The animals seemingly have glaring differences. However when you tally up the stupendously huge similarities at the basic cellular level you might want to go ahead and revise your numbers further and further away from zero and closer and closer to ten. The glaring differences are secondary as compared to the fundamental and essential similarities. If you compare the three with an anteater you will find similar differences and similarities. The differences are modifications in form, size, shape and function. The fundamental and numerous deep structural similarities are mostly overlooked. In terms of basic body plan goats, elephants, jellyfishes, amoebas, mice and men are practically the same. This is no accident.
When we properly examine the merits of
Darwinism and Creationism we will see that that these essential structural similarities are not accidental. The argument will be made that an intelligent designer is not required to explain the existence of the many different organisms we find around us. The argument can be made that it is easier to see that one can start out from a simple form and over time have it modified into a complex form. Now you ask the question: "How and where did that man come in to being?" The right Answer is: "He developed from an egg to a fetus to a baby and then from a child into a man". It is not unreasonable to argue that a wrong answer is: "The man arose from a more complex man and that more complex man from a superman and that superman from a super superman and that super superman from a more complex super superman and. . .” It just does not add up. Simple things can add up to bigger things. How can the absolutely biggest thing "add up" to another absolutely biggest thing! By this same reasoning, the most super intelligent being to date must arise from a less intelligent one, and all the way back to dumb beings, and not the other way around. Just as how the most complex computer today (called Deep Blue),
that has beaten the world's all-time best human chest grandmaster (Garry Kasparov),
arose from dumb computers.
Here is another brain teaser. Is it impossible for lesser intelligent beings (man) to give rise to more advance super intelligent beings
(advanced AI robots)?
Is it really true that intelligence must and can only arise from a greater intelligent designer (a god, say)? Is it really true that a complex organism must and can only arise from a more complex organism? Really? The real world proves otherwise. Were the most complex computers built first before earlier simpler computers or did simpler computers advanced into more complex computers? And isn’t it really true that you could never have the more complex unless simpler types evolved in time into the more complex? More complex is not required to explain how the most complex organism arose but simpler organism can, has and will continue to grow into the complex; you simply add less complex things together and, given enough time, you get the very complex. Life proves this every second of every minute of every hour of every day when a child is conceived: one cell becomes two; two cells become four; four becomes eight; then 16; 32; 64; 128; 256; 512 to over a thousand and after nine months or so you have one of the most complex beings of more than a million million cells that the world has ever seen (so far). That is, a baby human being about to burst forward in the near future as a complex intelligent consciousness
Darwinism, or evolution by natural selection, can be summarized in a three-word sentence: Descent by modification
Let us break it down. Descent refers to descendants. Descendants are a particular individual's children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, 2-greatgrand, 3-greatgrand, 4-greatgrand . . . 20-greatgrand . . . Descendants are modified copies of past ancestors.
Let us say that a particular ancestor has a gene that conferred upon her survival skills that gave her a critical edge over her other sisters, brothers, cousins; a critical survival edge over her other fellow descendants. The great majority of gene mutations are not good. However, once in a blue moon, fortune smiles upon a very lucky individual. She was the only one to get a mutation that gave her a competitive critical survival edge. Out of tens of thousands of her fellow descendants she is The One. Let us say an exact copy of an earlier ancestor's 1%-vision-improvement gene was passed on from one generation to the next, down to her parents who passed on an exact copy of the ancestor's 1%-vision-improvement- gene to her.
Within a breeding population life sustaining resources deplete faster and faster as population growth mounts. Eventually there comes a season, crunch time, when individual survival is now a life and death struggle in the extreme. The slightest of disadvantage of one can mean being out-competed by another; the slightest of individual difference now means he dies and I/You live.
Let us look at a particular individual descendant; let’s call him Wong. A mutation of the 1%-vision-improvement gene resulted in a 2%-vision-improvement gene. Wong is born into the unlucky generation. However, he will survive less by luck than his other luckless competitors. This generation finds itself under tremendous pressures due to rapidly dwindling resources. They are a generation of descendants with their backs up against the wall. Wong has a critical survival edge conferred upon him by the new and improved 2%-vision gene. Mr. Wong is poised to be the ancestor of his own line of descent.
Has the generations passes from one to the next more 1%-vision descendants are weeded out of future generations of the breeding population by natural selection. 1%-vision is no longer good enough. More and more of the Wong line of descendants slowly fill up future breeding populations. Natural selection is single minded and biased. Natural selection continuously weeds out the less adaptive individuals, and so allows the better adapted Wong descendants easier access to the limited resources. An exact copy of the new and improved 2%-vision improvement gene is passed on only along the Wong line of descent. Finally more than 95% of vision genes in the gene pool are 2%-vision genes. This does not happen by chance; Natural selection is quite nonrandom.
A Chang is born. He is a descendant of ancestor Wong. Chang is about to have his carbon copy 2%-vision-improvement gene mutated into the newest and latest improvement. Chang's copy of the Wong ancestor’s 2%-vision gene just mutated into a 10%-vision improvement gene!
Gene mutation is the opposite of natural selection. Gene mutation is absolutely random. However, random gene mutation creates the pool of raw materials which natural selection searches through to find that one needle in the haystack, a good gene; a better gene or an improvement on the current version of a gene. If a mutation occurs that brings about the maladaptation of an individual descendant, it is quickly rooted out of the gene pool by natural selection. A good gene mutation is a one in a million lucky find. However, if genes were to stop mutating, there would not be any more scope for species improvement, and species adaptation would actually come to a screeching halt. You will hardly find a maladaptive bad mutant gene swimming in the gene pool for any length of time because, sooner rather than later, they are found out and summarily ejected from the gene pool. The gene pool is an exclusive club. To get accepted into this exclusive of exclusives you have to survive through thousands of generations and hundreds of lines of descent. Only the proven very best of the very best are invited to join this very exclusive club. You might even call this club the "Gene Pool Club". Club motto: “Many are called but only a rare few are chosen”.
The genome of a particular species, or the set of genes of a given species, is the blueprint instructions of how to construct that particular species body plan. The body plan you find yourself with is an exact replica of the body plan of your most recent ancestor. Let us call it "Body Plan Ver.10.9". This is the latest modified version of "Body Plan Ver.10.0”. This earlier one was modified by later ancestors. The last ancestor's line of descent passed an exact copy of Ver.10.9 to your parents, and you received an exact replica of "Body Plan Ver.10.9", which includes all the modifications of all the versions that it replaced.
The passing along of an exact body plan from parent to offsprings is called the process of heredity. Heredity preserves Body Plan Ver.10.0 by passing it along to the following generation. Later on when Ver.10.0 goes through modifications (say to an improved Ver.10.3) heredity protects this new and improved version from being lost to future generations by passing it along exactly without fail. As a result of heredity no gains are lost. When natural selection improves earlier versions by finding and adding good mutants to the species genome, heredity provides a safe haven for the improved modified genome, preserving it for posterity. A new mutant gene, if found worthy, becomes an invited guest to the very exclusive Gene Pool Club. If it proves to be a good guest, if it can hang tough with this elitist crowd, then in time it is inducted as a permanent member in good standing. Very few genes that do not belong to this club of elites survive to make it onto the ship that is heredity. The captain of the ship of Heredity, Natural Selection, guards the ship against stowaways; he will only freely allow these elitist club members to board the good ship. There are always a few stowaways that sneak into the ship but almost all are caught, eventually. Only a very rare few escape detection, ninety-nine point nine percent are caught. When they do get caught they are fed to the sharks.
Chang does not know it but his descendant lineage is going to grow into unstoppable ascendancy, and in the near future. Timmy Chang and nine of his friends are out camping. They are practically equal in all abilities. They are almost equally matched in running. On a good day any one of them can edge out the other in the 100 meter dash. The same goes for swimming, jumping, climbing, figure skating, etc. There is only one marked difference between Timmy and his friends. His nine friends can only see clearly within a five-feet radius; Timmy Chang can see clearly a mile away. One day a hungry bear was on the prowl. While relieving himself he spotted the grizzly bear that was just within a mile away. He ran back to the camp site to warn his friends. They all looked into the distance and said they saw nothing. And they refused to take heed of his warning. The bear viciously attacked them, ripping Johnny to pieces, mauling JT and swallowing up little Maryjane with one bite. AC, DC and JT, three of the six survivors, are lucky to be alive; they escaped the attack by climbing up the nearest tree.
At his point you say “but wait a minute; I thought the lion attack was on ten friends?” Timmy Chang survived the mauling, eating and ripping attack, but he did not survive it by chance. The lion attack occurred one hour ago in New Jersey. Timmy Chang had left his unheeding friends about 45 minutes ago. His pleadings of great danger fell on deaf ears. Timmy Chang's survival depended very little on fate unlike his other six friends who luckily survived the attack. Timmy's survival advantage is his exact carbon copy of the 10%-vision-improvement gene he inherited from his parent, Mrs. Chang.
If you ask a creationist about the development of life on Earth they will tell you that about six thousand years ago God created each of the thirty million plus different types of species. How did they figure this out, maybe by
Radiocarbon dating? No. Did God tell this to them? No. They “proved” this by adding up all the “begets” in the bible from Adam and Eve to the present! Darwinism teaches there is only one tree of life. All life grows on this tree, evolving by modifications of the genome of the root ancestor.
But Creationists will deny that evolution ever took place; they will deny that any species are related. They will claim He created them one by one separately, without exception. So why does all species speak the same "language"? The language I am speaking of consists of four letters;
G, C, A & T. This common genetic language contains just 64 code words and their related 20 amino acids. For example the
genetic code for the amino acid lysine is AAA. When any animal queries its
DNA and asks "What is the code word for lysine again?" the DNA shouts "I will tell you just like I tell all your other thirty million cousins: the genetic code word for the amino acid lysine is AAA; I am spamming all of you a copy".
When any of the 30 million plus species requests from their DNA the genetic instructions, the genetic code sentence, to produce a protein containing lysine it is sent the word AAA. This same word is understood by every single organism to mean lysine. What are the chances that a million unrelated organisms could invent all the exact same 64 genetic code words by accident? When scientists do the math it comes to more than one chance in 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,00
0,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. In other words more than a mind bending, mind boggling staggering one chance in a googol!!
It is hard to believe that a creative god, who could make any amount of different genetic codes he desired, used just one code for every single organism. One may suppose this is possible for God. Why didn’t He even make a special unique code for us? One can suppose that for God all life is special. Why did He go ahead and share over 98% of our genes with chimpanzees? He made us and the chimpanzee in the images of each other?
What is more plausible? God made us in his image and shared almost all chimpanzee traits with us
OR
Possibly, maybe, God created the evolutionary process. Maybe, possibly, he made an absolutely perfect genetic code. Humans and chimpanzees share a common ancestor whose traits we both carry, and through the process of evolution by natural selection some few of the common ancestor's traits were modified in the descendant line leading to humans, and some few of the common ancestor's traits were modified in the descendant line leading to the chimpanzees.
In order to adapt and survive in different environments the same essential basic structures they both received from the common ancestor was modified in shape, form, size and function. This line of reasoning has been borne out again and again by scientific observation and research guided by the theory of Darwinism. How can science explain the undisputed fact that all living organism from a blade of grass to a whale share the exact same genetic code? No kind of luck could have 30 million plus unrelated species share the exact same genetic code. Remember, the chances are more than one in a googol, that is, more than one chance in an unimaginable huge number that contains one followed by a hundred zeros? see above! Again! If winning the New Jersey Pick Six required such luck, you would be more likely to be struck by lightning more than a million times before you could win it!
Evolution science has a huge amount of scientific evidence that shows that all species are related. Every single one of the species on Earth today can trace their lines of descent of more than three billion years to a single common ancestor. This common ancestor of all species passed down an exact copy of the genetic code to all of us. All of us without a single exception are the descendants of this common ancestor.
The history of life on Space Ship Earth is knowable because it has been recorded in the genomes of her 30 million plus species. Properly read and understood, this recorded history of life reveals that each species shares a common story line. Each species records this story of oneness a little differently than the other. However, the broad outlines of the different stories give us the big picture.
If I write out the recipe of how to make Shrimp Scampi and gave it to you, you would have very little trouble cooking it up deliciously. Given the recipe of any dish you could pretend to be a master chef who can create any gourmet dish. Of course if the recipe is written in a language very foreign to you, like Chinese, you would have a harder time because you might have to hire a Chinese interpreter to read it to you or translate it into English. The genetic information is not Japanese in the “HUMAN BODY” recipe and French in the “ELEPHANT BODY” recipe. You don’t need to hire thirty million plus translators to read out the different “recipes” to you because they are, every last one, written in the same language.
Intelligent Design (ID) "theorists" will tell you that evolution by natural selection, or Darwinism, cannot explain the history of life. ID is pseudo-science. They have yet to collect any real scientific data in support of their ID "theory". They have yet to demonstrate any experiments that would prove their "theory". They have designed no experiment that can stand up to
scientific peer review. ID'ers are demanding that the proven and time tested principles of biological, biochemical and biophysical science, and even
the scientific method itself, be revamped to accommodate ID, “faith based theory".
Evolution theory is well grounded. Darwinism is supported by a wealth of scientific peer reviewed data and scientific observations. The Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection draws its data from many different fields of science: physics, chemistry, geology, biology, biochemistry and especially genetics. Unlike ID, Darwinism does not plead for special treatment. Darwinism subjects its experiments, observational data and its postulates to rigorous and repeated scientific peer review.
Darwinism is scientific fact. It is as much a scientific fact as Newton's
gravitational theory is a well grounded and proven fact of science.
ID'ers are in the tradition of the early church fathers who ruled the Dark Ages.
They claimed that the sun and the other planets, as well as the universe, revolved around the Earth, And what was their proof? They claim the bible implies this. Anyone who dared say "Actually, the Earth and the other planets revolve around the sun. Here is the scientific experimental data, here is the scientific proof" would find them self in deep Sh.. (Dog poop)
"’scientific proof?’ Why this is heresy! This is the Devil’s evil handiwork”, the church fathers would admonish. Then they would give you a stern warning, invite you to visit the Spanish Inquisition and have them give you a tour of their torture chambers of horrors and take you out on the town to watch as Satan’s minions and witches are barbecued on the steak.
Intelligent Design "theorists" do not give a fig about scientific proof and in truth ID is a fig leaf for sneaking religion into American class rooms through the back door. They want to file law suits after law suits to have "ID theory" taught in science classes alongside evolution theory, a well founded and thoroughly proven scientific theory. ID'ers are shameless and disingenuous. They won't come out and say they are really Creationists in disguise. They won't come out and say what they are really about. They want everyone to pretend that they are not trying to inject religion in our science classes. They cannot get around or get rid of the separation of church and state from the American Constitution. Instead they manufacture this bogus "scientific theory" with the reasonable sounding name "Intelligent Design" to dupe the unwary average American who is too busy in their day to day lives to discover what they are really up to. They take their circus show on the road, filing law suits in state after state. They have very deep pockets because of very wealthy supporters so they can create all kind of shameless mischief all around the country.
Intelligent Design is not science. I like to be honest with people. Let's call a spade a spade, and if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, let's not pretend it's not a duck. ID's motivations have nothing to do with the principles of science; it is not trying to improve the scientific method as they claim. ID is wolf in sheep's guise. It has nothing to do with teaching a science and has everything to do with attempting to preach a religion in our science classes. Of course, they will insist on imposing the Christian religion. What about the Jewish religion? What about Islam? What about Buddhism, Confucianism and Gnosticism? Let’s be fair and grant them all equal time (including
FSM). They too have plausible sounding "theories" about the origins of life. Don't kid yourselves. ID'ers don't want equal time! They want to outlaw and remove the teaching of evolution from all class rooms in the country. It would be unchristian-like to teach Buddhism in a Christian nation. "Equal time" is just a ploy. ID'ers want all the marbles. They want ALL THE TIME. Forget everybody else.
When I make statements like "Natural Selection closely examines and test every mutant gene. It mostly finds bad genes; these genes will face the firing squad sooner rather than later. It finds some genes that used to do good works but who now cannot hack it in this new environment. These genes are slowly retired and eventually they disappear from the gene pool."
I am, of course, speaking metaphorically to make a point. Actual genes have no intentions, and “Natural Selection does this and natural selection examine genes. . .", is just a metaphorical personification to better get the point across about the real process of evolution. Here is the real situation.
Genes are entities that can replicate, that is, get themselves copied. Some copies are identical but copying errors produce copies that are not identical. you begin with one replicator. A copy of it is made. Now you have a generation of two replicators the next generation has four gene copies, the next has eight, then the next is now sixteen; 32; 64; 128; 256; 512. After ten copying you have over 1000 replicator copies. As you can see the generation before multiplies so that the next generation is double the previous population size. After twenty copying you have over 1,000,000. After thirty copying you have 1,000,000,000+ (one billion plus copies). After sixty copying you have a billion billion copies! If something did not limit this exponential growth, then after a certain time, one replicator would produce so much copy of itself, it would cover the surface of the earth ten feet deep, then a thousand feet deep; if this exponential growth rate is not put in check you could potentially have a single replicator produce copies of itself a mile deep! As the resources used to copy replicators are used up faster and faster limited copying resources put a check on further growth.
Genes are replicating molecules that are subject to evolution by natural selection. Evolution by natural selection requires three basic properties. They are
(1)
Replication: the ability to self copy.
(2) Variation: self copying results in copying error producing varying individual differences in the copies made.
(3) Selection: the different individual copies compete with each other in the environment they find themselves in for copying resources and space. The gene that has the ability to grab up most of the limited copying resources will leave the most copies in the limited space. A gene that has the least ability will leave less and less copies of its self and most likely disappears over time. After a certain amount of generations of copying, one type of gene survives and the other type dies out. That is, selection removes the less adaptive and this allows the more adaptive to predominate in the environment
To reiterate, a particular type of gene produces copies of itself. Every so often a copy is produced with the ability to get itself copied faster and will outcompete slower copiers for replication resources. Eventually the faster copiers are greater in numbers than the slower copiers until they are the only type of genes around. The copying continues among this type, say gene W, until they are almost the only type of gene copy around. If it happens that a particular W gene (let us call this mutant gene, Z) is produced with better copying accuracy, Z will make less copying errors. On the other hand, the original W gene is more error prone. The less error prone Z will have more copies of itself in the population. Eventually the population is 99% Z. Z now has the ability to (1), copy at the fastest rate and (2) copy with the highest accuracy. Now Z produces a mutant gene that is more long living than the other Z copies. Let us call this different gene, Methuselah. M for short. Whereas the original Z has an average lifespan of x-years, M has a life span of (x+50)-years. Because M is better in longevity than Z its copies will outlive Z types. M is the equal of Z except M has a greater lifespan than Z. In time M will be in greater numbers in the population until mostly M-type can be found in the population. So M has all the adaptive abilities and improvements of W and Z put together, plus greater longevity.
There are three important concepts regarding gene evolution here. They are
(1) fecundity: copying rate. A replicator that copies its self fastest becomes more numerous.
(2) fidelity: a replicator that make the fewest copying errors has less defects.
(3) longevity: a replicator that lives the longest will make copies that can outlive the copies of the other replicators.
Gene M is an evolved descendant of gene W and gene Z. M is an improvement. Evolution has occurred.
By "improvement" is meant that it is much better adapted to the environment than past generations; improvement does not mean anything more than this. Those that make a better fit to their environments have a greater chance of having off springs than those that do not fit as well. With the help of natural selection the more adapted later generations become so because heredity passes on to the future generations all the modifications picked up by earlier generations who are their ancestors. Natural selection unrelentingly weeds out the less adapted in droves and clear the field for the more adapted descendants of M to thrive more freely and easily. Once in a while genes pool their resources by teaming up. It is easier to adapt and survive by working as a team than as an individual gene. Eventually team work dominates and now teams of genes compete with each other. The unfit teams are slowly weeded out by natural selection. The fittest team is protected by natural selection.
Any entity subject to replication, variation and selection must evolve. This is called “THE EVOLUTIONARY ALGORITHIM”. If each copy of the entity is identical in every respect (no variation) all future generations will be exactly identical (there are no differences to select from). Evolution (that is, development from a simpler to a complex form) requires changing over time. Each generation of the replicating gene (or gene team) is subject to the replication-variation-selection formula and it causes the gene team replicant to evolve. Selection of the fittest variant of the copies of the genes occurs simply because the environment is not unlimited in resources and cannot support all the copies made; some gene team variants will get enough resources to copy its self. Other variants will be left without copying resources and therefore make no copies. A particular gene that copies its self fastest (greater fecundity), that makes a minimum of copying errors (better fidelity) or lives longer (longevity) will naturally make more copies of itself than those gene teams who are slower, makes more copying errors or do not live as long. Every generation, without fail, is subject to this evolutionary formula of replication-variation-selection. Every gene team variant competes for the limited resources with respect to these modes: fecundity, fidelity and longevity. The evolutionary algorithm and these modes of competition among gene teams give rise to Evolution by Natural Selection.
Do not be fooled by the metaphorical prose and begin to think that natural selection is some strange, mysterious enigmatic force of nature. It can be easily compared to artificial selection. Consider the dog. In artificial selection humans produce different dog breeds by deliberately selecting a trait. The Greyhound was bred by selecting traits for speed. In a population of dogs the fastest runners are selected. Only these fastest runners are allowed to have pups. In the next generation again only the fastest runners are allowed to have pups. By so doing traits for speed and running stamina are artificially selected for. Traits for fast running were selected and improved upon from generation to generation. In each generation slower runners were actively prevented from mating with the faster ones. So traits for slow running practically disappeared from later generations of greyhounds. This process of artificial selection isolates a descendant line until it approaches near 100% purity. Artificial Selection by breeders has been so successful that one breed of dog can look very different from another breed. Compare a wolf
to a Chihuahua,
a great Dane,
a Pit Bull
or most any other breed of dog and you would be hard pressed to believe that Chihuahuas, Pugs, Dalmatians, Shih Tzu’s,
Poodles
and all the dog breeds the world over are modified wolves. Yes, through artificial selection by man, the domestic dog was bred from The Gray Wolf.
The Gray Wolf is the direct ancestor of the domestic dog. Natural selection operates much like artificial selection but whereas artificial selection has only been operating for a few thousand years (10,000 to about 20,000 years) on very few choice species (dogs, pigeons, certain choice flowers and certain food plants), natural selection has been in operation for hundreds of millions of years, and on hundreds of thousands of different species all at the same time.
Let me illustrate a simplified example of natural selection so as to demystify it. A species of moth that has its home in England is commonly known there as the Peppered Moth. It comes in two versions, a white type and a black type.
Before the year 1800 the white type was the more numerous and the black type very rare. During the Industrial Revolution, soot and other industrial wastes darkened tree trunks. The white version of the moth became rare and the dark type became abundant. The cause of this change was selective predation by birds. Birds could now easily see the white moths against the blackened tree trunks and could hardly pick out the black types because they were now camouflaged while resting on the industrial soot-blackened tree trunks. As a result of this change from white tree trunk to black tree trunk, the birds selectively preyed upon the white type moths, and giving the black type moths a survival advantage such that after a very short time, just under 70 years, the black versions became abundant in industrial areas of England and the white types became rare in these areas. So now the black moths adapted better to an environment of blackened trees than the white types. The natural selection by birds for one type, the white kind, over the other, the black type, weeded out the white type and allowed the black type to flourish easier that it would if its black coloration did not make it more adaptable to its environment than the white version.
Why is it that Olympic sprinting ability
within a country that competes in the Olympics does not increase among its sprint athletes from generation to generation until a future generation is reached in which almost all its sprint athletes are Olympic sprinters? Why is it that the number of Olympic swimming athletes within any country competing in the Olympics will for all time continue to remain a small rare few swimmers? Why doesn't natural selection operate here and improve and increase the number of Olympic swimmers from generation to generation? Why is it that within a prey species that depends on running away from its predator, a certain level of speediness increases from one generation to the next until a generation is reached in which almost all the individuals within the prey population reach that level of speediness? Why does natural selection operates in this situation and not in the other? There is no mystery here. For a prey species that depends on speed to escape its predators, the ones that can outrun their predators will not be eaten. Here running is not for fun; here you are running for your life. So those individuals among the prey population who survive live to have off springs. Prey animals are subject to natural selection. The natural selection forces here are the prey species’ predators. Predators unrelentingly eat up the slow prey individuals from generation to generation until a generation is reached in which almost all the prey population are at the same faster level of speed. If running was not a critical survival need the population would not evolve so that almost all the individuals were at almost the same speed level.
Swimming athletes within any country that competes in the Olympics are not swimming for their lives; swimming is not critical for survival and therefore natural selection does not operate in this situation (that is, slower swimmers are not weeded out of the population). However 'natural selection' would come into effect if one of the countries competing in the Olympics would shoot
and kill the slowest swimmers or prevent the slowest sprinters from having offspring’s and only allowing the fastest swimmers in each generation to mate with each other. If the country only allows the fastest swimmers from generation to generation to have off springs then a generation of swimmers can arise in which nearly all swimmers in the country are Olympic swimmers.
Here is another example. Why are more and more species of bacteria developing resistance
to more and more of our antibiotic drugs? When penicillin was first discovered it was hailed as the miracle drug that was going to wipe out most, if not all, bacterial diseases. However, as penicillin came into widespread use, more and more bacterial species became resistant to it. Why? Within a bacterial population random gene mutations generate a very rare few individuals inside of which one of these many different mutated genes just happen by chance to neutralize the effects of penicillin. So penicillin continued to wipe out those bacterial strains that had no resistance to penicillin, leaving the tiny few penicillin resistant strain to become more numerous from one generation to the next. Eventually, thanks to penicillin weeding out the weaker bacteria, only the penicillin resistant bacteria are now around; being preserved by natural selection. Other kinds of antibiotics were developed to deal with these new penicillin resistant "super bugs". However the same thing happened. Not long after the new antibiotics were put into widespread use the bacteria, through random gene mutations, developed bacterial strains resistant to the newer and newer antibiotics. Today more and more antibiotics are becoming useless against bacteria and are in fact making bacteria stronger; as the weaker types are wiped out by stronger and more powerful antibiotics, bacteria are in fact evolving into super duper "super bugs". If we don't start to take seriously the principles of Evolution by Natural Selection we are going to continue along this dangerous path in which we are using antibiotics to weed out the weakest bacteria. Eventually there won't be any antibiotics left that are able to combat bacterial diseases!
There are species of beetles that do not fly.
Most species of beetles fly. However, the ones that live close to a large body of water do not fly. What is the natural selection force that produces flightless beetles? Those species living near the sea or the ocean are flightless. Why? Because the strong winds blow the flying beetles into the water and drown them. Those mutant beetles that are born unable to fly are not easily blown into the water. Because of natural selection (the strong winds) after many generations the only kind of beetles found near oceans and seas are species of flightless beetles.
Why did the Dodo bird
become extinct? The Dodo was a flightless bird that lived on the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius until their complete extinction around 1681. Because they had no natural predators they did not have an instinct of fear. When explorers discovered this island around 1598, they found to their wonderful surprise Dodo birds walking up to them and following them around fearlessly. They would walk up to a man who then proceeded to knock them over the head and have them for dinner. Not developing an instinct of fear saw the demise of these flightless birds. Just over a century of man's arrival on these islands, the Dodo bird had disappeared into extinction. You see, natural selection works over hundreds and thousands of generations. Natural selection hardly ever operates over a short time. One century is a blink of an eye in evolutionary time. Natural selection did not have enough time to evolve in the flightless Dodo bird a fear of humans who brought about their quick extinction not too long after these two species met.
Then look at HIV.
A great deal of research resources from the biggest labs of biochemistry around the world with their latest gene research has thrown their most powerful antiviral drug weapons against HIV with very little success. It was said in the early 1980’s that HIV’s days were numbered but this virus is as virulent as ever, killing millions worldwide so far! HIV mutates much much faster than bacteria. So by the time an antiviral is thrown at it one of its mutants has discovered a way to neutralize it. What the antiviral drug does is to selectively kill off its competition leaving the mutant strain all the copying resources free for the taking. It slips into an immune cell (an army trooper cell) of the body. It freely uses the DNA copying machinery in the cell’s nucleus to make millions of copies of itself then kills the cell, bursting out in the millions to attack the rest of the body. HIV evolves rapidly by natural selection and stays many steps ahead of our best scientific efforts. It has been almost thirty years. However, armed with the knowledge of Darwinism we are doing a much better job at it than a decade ago and HIV victims are living longer with a better quality of life. And what was the response of Creationists and ID’ers to this worldwide AIDS epidemic? “God is punishing gay people”. HIV does not discriminate with respect to lifestyle, ethnicity, gender, nationality, color or creed .This is just plain hating. Creationists and ID’ers need to stop the hating.
Now that I have demystified Evolution by Natural Selection, I now return to painting it in colorful prose and rich metaphor.
Without the firm helping and guiding hands of natural selection and ancestors to pass on the accumulated adaptations through the hereditary process, there would not be any evolution of the species. Not a single one of your ancestors failed to survive into adulthood. Not a single one of your ancestors failed to have off springs. You are a result of an unbroken chain of ancestors. From your N-great grandfather to your. . . 10-great grandfather. . . to your great-great grandfather to your great grandfather to your grandfather to your father the chain is unbroken. This unbroken chain of heredity passed down the precious vault of family jewels to you. If you do not make it to reproductive age the family jewels may be lost. If you do not have children the family jewels may not pass to the next generation. You are a link in the hereditary chain. Your child is the next link. Your grandchild is the next link. Your great grandchild is the next. . .Those descendants who do not make the next potential link in the chain (babies!)
will fail to become the next potential ancestors of a new line of descendants.
We should have the greatest respect for ancestors.
Not a single one of them failed us. If any single one of them failed to pass on the family jewels (the species genome) to the next generation we would not be here. Remember Lucy because one of your ancestors was a descendant of Austhralopithecine afarensis. Remember Homo habilis because one of your ancestors was a descendant of habilis. Do not forget Homo ergaster. The ancestors of the Homo sapiens line of descent evolved from ergaster’s line of descent. Pay homage to the Neanderthals and Homo erectus. We are hominids. They were hominids too; they are our extinct hominid cousins. Learn more about Chimpanzees because a truth is that we share a very close common ancestor with chimpanzees just only about six million years ago.
Let us call one
ancestor “humanzee”. Humanzee would be the last common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees. Humanzees with the most human traits evolved into humanity. Humanzees with the most chimp traits evolved into chimpanzee-kind. About 6 to 7 million years ago lived two siblings of humanzee parents. Let’s call one humanzee sibling Mr. Bono (or Ms. Bono). Let’s call the other humanzee sibling Mr. Homo (or Ms. Homo). Bono Humanzee is the earliest ancestor of the chimpanzee line of descendants, and Homo humanzee is the earliest ancestor of the human line of descendants. Let’s consider a chimpanzee today. Let’s call him Henry. There is an unbroken line of descent from Henry to his ancestor, Bono Humanzee. Let’s consider a human being today. Let’s call her LC. There is an unbroken line of descent from LC to her ancestor, Homo Humanzee. The ancestors, Homo Humanzee and Bono Humanzee, are siblings, so of course they share the same parents, Mr. & Mrs. Humanzee.
Clearly Mr. & Mrs. Humanzee is the last common ancestor of LC & Henry.
Let us time travel some. Let us meet and greet the family. We travel back 28,000 years to meet one of our cousins.
We find cousin Neanderthal
warming himself by the fire in his cozy little cave. It has been an unusually cold winter in Eastern Europe. This is the middle of the last Ice Age. We leave the Ice Age together and continue our walk back 50,000 years. Here in this era it is a balmy 70 degrees. We are in the Middle East now. Cousin Neanderthal thanks me for inviting him on my journey.
We meet my cousin, Erectus.
Cousin Neanderthal greets his ancestor, and my cousin, Erectus in a long warm embrace. We sat and talked from morning till night and into the next day. Cousin Neanderthal begs him to join us and he agrees. Our journey takes us back 800, 000 years. Along the way we are joined by Cousins Rhodesianensis, Heidelbergensis, Antecessor and cousin Georgicus. They all were very glad to see us but they were especially overjoyed to meet my cousin, Erectus. For two reasons, first being that he is their ancestor and secondly he was a brave explorer who was the first to leave the African cradle of humanity. We sat together for two straight days and nights as he described all his adventures from Africa to the Middle East and through all of Asia. The next day we left very early as we headed for the African continent. We travelled back a further 200,000 years to look up one of our vintage VIP family members, the common ancestor of this travelling band.
Ergaster
was very glad to get such a wonderful visit from so many of his descendants! He was especially proud of Erectus, his oldest descendant, but also a little curious about his youngest descendant.(They call me Sapiens).
He doted on cousin Erectus. At first Ergaster thought Erectus was in too much of a hurry to leave his (and all of humanity's) African home. He later came to love cousin Erectus for his courage and great adventuresome spirit. Another descendant of Ergaster, (H. sapiens)
no doubt inspired by Erectus, left Africa to explore the rest of the world. After the grand banquet we threw in homage and honor of "grand daddy" Ergaster, we packed him up and carried him aloft on our shoulders. He feigned protestations about "all the fussing" over him but we were all well aware he was having a grand old time and the time of his life; and so were we, his humbled and proud descendants!
Our next stop was one million more years away. It was a long arduous journey but we reminisced in good cheer and did not mind too much. Cousin Antecessor suddenly stopped and sniffed the air. She thought she smelt something burning. We all hurried behind as she followed her nose. As we climbed a little hill swirling smoke and ash blanketed all of us. We thought we saw two figures up one side of the hill. "Habilis? Is that you?"
cousin Erectus asked. As the smoke cleared they came into plain view. It was cousin Rudolfensis and his cousin Habilis
(An ancestor of Ergastus). They were trying to start a camp fire going but were having a little trouble, ironically enough. Ironic because it was Habilis, one of our earlier ancestors, who taught us how to make fire! Ergaster was laughing and teasing them "Let me teach you two how to start a fire". Then he turned to me and said "You, Sapiens, yes you young whipper snapper with all the new fangled inventions, give your cousin Rudolfensis some matches". We all fell to the earth tickled with laughter. Then we all playfully slapped their backs and made mint tea when Habilis finally got his camp fire to work.
While I was rolling around on the ground getting in stitches because I could not stop laughing, I looked up and saw a giant man-like creature. He had odd features. He had a flattish head and was low browed, but he had a broad face and huge powerful jaws, and when he tried to speak he made apish sounds (and he had a tiny head atop his massive body). I stood up and backed away from this Ape-Man, backing up into cousin Rudolfensis. "Don't be afraid. That's just cousin Robustus.
He apes around a lot but he is like an over grown baby, and he his quite harmless. He is a bit slow witted though" explained Rudolfensis, a little apologetically.
In fact I had just met my first Australopithecine. Robustus, or Australopithecine robustus, was not the most famous Australopithecine. His "Grandma" Lucy is world famous. You can talk all day about the other Australopithecines until the cows come home (Aethiopicus, Garhi, Boisei and Anamensis) but Australopithecine Afarensis, Lucy
, is THE QUEEN of all Australopithecines. Hands down!
I am using the above bit of creative prose to introduce some of our ancestors and cousins but the anthropological names are not fiction; I did not make those up. Let us do some comparisons
below so we can see the evolutionary transition for ape-like to man-like.
What is the most distinguishing difference between Homo and Australopithecine? Homo has a much larger brain than Australopithecine
What is the most distinguishing difference between Australopithecine and Pan? Australopithecine was bipedal, that is, walked upright on two legs. The chimpanzee, Pan, walks on all four.
If you place Homo
side by side with Australopithecine
the most distinguishing similarity is that they both stand on two legs. If you place the brain of Homo next to the brain of Australopithecine you see that it is less than half the size of Homo's.
Place Homo side by side with Pan. The most distinguishing differences are that Homo has a brain about three times bigger and is bipedal
whereas Pan is not bipedal and not big-brained.
As you go back in time
along the human descendant lineage the main transition is from bigger brain to smaller brain (Homo has a bigger brain than Australopithecus), and from walking on two legs to walking on four legs (Australopithecus is bipedal, the direct ancestor of Pan walked on four legs)
The
Australopithecines (A. anamensis, A. afarensis, and A. robustus) were part ape part man (small-brain/bipedal). The Homos (H. habilis, H. ergaster, H. neanderthalensis) are fully formed man (big-brain/bipedal). Pan paniscus and Pan troglodyte are apes (small-brain/quadripedal)
From the common ancestor (of P. troglodyte and H. sapiens) to Australopithecine afarensis to Homo neanderthalensis the human descendant lineage is a forward transition from more ape-like to less ape-like to ape-man to more man-like.
(Note: there are two species of chimpanzees. There is the common chimpanzee (Pan troglodyte)
and the Bonobo Chimpanzee (Pan paniscus).
If we trace the history of primates we reach the mammalian line: The human, the common chimpanzee and the “pygmy” bonobo chimpanzee (African great apes); then the orangutan and the gorilla (great apes); then the gibbons (small apes). Before we reach the mammalian line the last primate lines are the various species of monkeys. Yes we are,
deep deep down, primates .
This will offend creationist and so-called Intelligent Design “theorists”. Sometimes the truth is strange. However, that is not a good reason to be dishonest about the facts. One particular line of research, genetic research, clearly reveals for all to see if they choose to look at it and study it, that the human genome is more than 98% identical to the chimpanzee genome. Furthermore the genetic clock shows that we and chimps shared a last common ancestor between five and seven million years ago (mya). The genetic clock ticks off gene mutations, or measures gene mutation rate; this clock ticks very slowly. The tick interval for a typical genetic clock is measured in hundreds of generations. For example, a clock tick would be one mutation per 500 generations (about 12,000 years). In other words, a ‘second’ ticked off by this clock is equivalent to 12,000 years, and a ‘second’ is equal to one mutation. When the number of mutations since the last common ancestor is counted it up it comes close to six million years ago.
A second independent line of research, human anthropology, points to the same time frame to the last common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees. The fossil records, through
potassium-argon dating (similar to
carbon dating), also dates the lca to between five and seven mya.
Creationists and ID’ers would like us not to be curious or think for ourselves or investigate the world around us. The bible is filled with moral teachings. And we should all learn from it and respect it. But, I am sorry; The Holy Bible absolutely does not belong in our science classes. What is their one answer to our hardest and toughest scientific questions? “The Lord made it so”. Case closed. The Lord might have made all things great and small but that does not mean we should not be curious about them and figure out how he made things great and small and what are the deep inner workings and connections between things great and small. The truth is the truth is the truth is the truth no matter what quarters it comes from. Evolution by natural selection is an undisputed scientific truth. The mountain of
evidence speaks for itself. If Darwinism is true and if there is a god, then it would seem He created the evolutionary process from which the family of life arose and through which processes
the tree of life continues to grow.
