Evolution Explained as promised

If you are going to reply about “creation dragons” or the infallibility of the Bible in any way that insults or condescends another person that replies to this hub, I will disapprove your comment and send it off to the webmaster.

What a busy day for hubbing! This is two in one day! In my previous hub, I promised that I was going to talk about evolution. Here it is.

Most people think that an all-powerful creator simply willed life into existence over the biblical period of six days. They have no concept of the foundations of life (scientifically speaking of course), no understanding of evolution, and consequently, believe in the biblical creation account.

These people aren't stupid. Far form it. They interact on a normal level with everyone, driving their cars, running for Governor of the state of Texas... By all accounts, they are normal, intelligent human beings. They have simply been brought up to believe something that is false by their parents, and their pastor and their friends, and consequently, hold it as a generally accepted truth, unworthy of questioning.

But the biblical account makes no sense. Rather than argue the bible portion, I will present Science's portion as best I can (though I am not a scientist)

Picture this planet, billions of years ago, before there was mankind or a bible. Picture it as a hot rock, speeding through space in a wide orbit around a small yellow sun. It so happens that our planet is at the right distance for the sun to warm it through ultraviolet and other spectra of light. And its creation has left toxic gases and carbon dioxide in great abundance that causes storms and holds the heat in. Water forms, and storms arise, and we now have weather.

In a small pool of water (though this is happening all over the planet, we will focus on a small pool) water runs over silica, carbon, and many other elements until enzymes are produced. Enzymes are chains of proteins molecules. Long strings of amino acids. These enzymes (also known colloquially as amino acids), with the help of ionized (charged) water, formed the basis for RNA (Ribonucleic Acid). As these enzymes strung themselves together, the first cells began to take shape. This was not life as we know it, not yet. This wasn't even awareness. This was simply a collection of proteins that changed (marginally) whatever passed through them.

As time went on (millions of years), the outside enzymes began to grow thicker. And the cell wall was formed, and then eventually the nucleus, and we started to have what is generally recognized as the beginnings of life. These strung together proteins and molecules began to add through themselves by absorbing smaller cells and particles, and you also had the beginnings of natural selection. Or, more appropriately, evolution.

Evolution deals with something called “change through necessity”. If an organism is well suited for its current environment, there will be little change. Sharks are a classic example of that. Crocodiles are yet another classic example. I think that you will find most animals that are “classic examples” will come from the predator family. This is because their survival depends on their efficiency.

In the plant world, ferns, lichen and millions of other species also fall into this category. The best examples can be found in the life-sustaining tropics, as long as we don't clear cut them away.

Just because two things are similar, however, it does not mean that one is an ancestor of the other. Lions and tigers are great examples. We all know that the lion is not descended from the tiger, and the tiger not descended from the lion. The share a common ancestor, however, much in the same way that we do with apes, or your puppy does with the dire wolf. Being related does not mean direct descendence.

Many people seem to think that evolution claims humans are descended from apes. Evolution makes no such claim. As a matter of fact, it is creationists that generally say this about evolution in an attempt to discredit it as a theory. Instead, evolution makes the reasonable claim that we share a common ancestor. If you picture evolution as a tree, and follow it up until you hit the “primate” branch, you can follow along that branch and see many offshoots. One of those developed into a certain kind of ape, and another into a certain kind of gorilla, and another into a certain kind of orangutan and still another into a certain kind of person.

In fact, the fossil record tells us that there were several kinds of persons, and most were bred out through natural selection. One specific one, the Neanderthal, mated with human kind until it, too was extinct.

As an interesting aside, the only place where the Neanderthal did NOT interbreed with homo-sapiens is Africa. So when Hitler went around exterminating everyone but the master race, he had the whole thing backward. The only pure “master race” is from the African continent and everyone else was simply genetic mutts.

So picture a tiger and a lion sitting side by side. Their parents behind them, and their parents parents behind them for thousands upon thousands of generations. As you walk back, every one will look the same. Any differences between them are so small as to be unnoticeable. But when you start comparing that tiger to its ancestor from two hundred generations ago, you may notice a slight variation. Perhaps the legs are shorter, making it suitable for shorter vegetation. Or perhaps the eyes are larger, adapting it better for night time hunting.

The same holds true on the lion's side as well. Generations back you will begin to see slight differences. And if you go back far enough, on both lines, of species, it is possible that you will find that they each originated from another species, that may or may not be extinct. If you go back far enough, you will see that all cats of the same predator type evolved from a common ancestor, which most likely would look nothing like either of them and would be completely unsuitable for today's modern world.

If you apply the same thought process to humans and apes, or humans and gorillas, you would be able to go back and see a common ancestor. But not a direct link. Perhaps this explains why we share 98.55 of our DNA with chimpanzees.

So why are there still apes, then, if we proved to be the “dominant species”? We are Not the dominant species anywhere but in our own environment. We are suited to our lives and they to theirs. In the jungle, the tiger may be the dominant species, perfectly adapted to eat us. Or the boa constrictor, perfectly adapted to kill us silently. The dominance of humanity is nothing more than a manifestation of arrogance, which leads us out of harmony with our own world.

Many people attempt to debunk evolution by claiming gaps in the fossil record disprove evolution entirely. After all, how can you prove evolution if there are no links between species? If there is a gap, it must be because God made a necessary change to that creature for its environment. There are two (or more) problems here, and I will deal with them individually.

The gaps occur mostly because fossils are rare. It may not seem like they are, but when you look at the sheer number of animals that have lived over billions of years, the fossils cannot account for more than 1% of the total species population, and that doesn't even include the ocean. It is natural that there should be gaps in the fossil record. We have only been digging up fossils for a few hundred years, and built cities on top of many places where fossils might be found.

The idea that God must have made the changes for evolution first implies that he made a mistake. After all, if he had gotten it right in the initial planning, there would be no need for these changes. This “god of the gaps” theory essentially says that if science hasn't found the answer, it's because the only answer is spiritual. That doesn't follow. You see, science is finding more answers every day. If the “gaps” theory is taken seriously, its in danger, as the size of the gaps themselves grows smaller with each passing second.

So if you accept that God directed evolution, you must believe that he made mistakes. You see, changes happen when an environment dictates their necessity.

Many people claim that evolution is false, because no one has seen it happen. Well, as I have said above, it takes generations, sometimes hundreds of thousands of generations. But sometimes it is quick, as well.

Moths in London in the 1800s were observed to “mutate” to have darker wings. This allowed them to hide on soot covered birch trees while factories poured smog and pollution into the air. Moths that had this genetic “defect” previously had been hunted and eaten. Now that the world was darker and soot covered, this genetic abnormality became an evolutionary advantage. The fact that they could now hide again preserved them from aerial predators. When the air cleared up after a few decades, the moths turned white again, as being dark was no longer to their advantage.

Researchers with Princeton University have observed finches on the Galapagos Islands that evolve their beaks in response to the available foods. Medium ground finches were imported to the Galapagos islands, and found themselves unable to compete with the local finches, which had larger beaks. The local finches ate the majority of the large seeds, and over generations, the imported finches developed smaller beaks. These smaller beaks allowed the new finches to compete in their own ecological niche by eating the rest of the seeds that the native finches were uninterested in. This is yet another case of evolution in action.

I am not going to touch on human evolution at the moment except to say that it is visible in fetal development as well. The coccyx (tail bone) is a great example, as is the inner ear potions known as the “hammer” and “anvil”, which are genetic variations of the same structures in lizards that form the lower jawbone.

Frequently in discussions about evolution the eye, and “irreducible complexity” are brought up. Irreducible complexity means that if you were to take away just one thing, the whole structure would become useless. After all, what is an eye, without a lens? And what good is a wing without feathers, or half a wing for that matter?

Well, let's deal with wings and eyes. Half a wing is better than none. Flightless birds often flap their wings to look larger, and fight off predators. Penguins, another type of flightless bird, use their wings underwater as flippers. But what about the origin of birds? Where did wings come from?

Well, as any 6^th grade dinosaur fanatic can tell you, birds evolved form lizards, who evolved from fish and also spawned dinosaurs. The pterosaurs/pterodactyl is commonly mistaken to be a dinosaur, but is in fact a bird, distinguished by merely the lack of teeth (it has a beak) and an additional bone on the foot. It is a bird without feathers, and a direct link between reptiles and birds. At some point, the ability to jump and glide through the air became an evolutionary advantage, and reptiles developed a membrane that allowed them to “catch some air”.

Over hundreds of thousands of years, this developed into wings. As the flying lizards move north and south, scales became feathers for warmth. So what use is half a wing? It's great if you want to scare predators away, or glide short distances.

What about eyes? What about the lens? If you are still asking that question, you are looking at the question backwards. The eye started out most likely as a photoreceptor of one cell or more, able to tell light from dark in varying shades. From there, it most likely grew the ability to distinguish shapes, so as to discern food visually and identify predators. As the need for keen eyesight became an evolutionary advantage, certain species developed refined lenses, such as hawks, and falcons. Other species, like certain deep water fish, had no need for refined lenses, as their world included very little light, so eyes were a minimal advantage. Teeth were more important, and so we have angler fish with massive jaws and tiny tiny eyes.

People often say that evolution is a theory. Technically, gravity, thermodynamics and Christianity are just theories as well. A theory is something that can be tested. Nothing more. We define evolution as a theory so that we can invite rational inquiry and testing that certain qualified reasoned individuals can continue to test and find flaws. Unfortunately for creationists, the flaws and gaps are getting smaller and smaller as we refine our theory. The basic theory put forth by Darwin (who did NOT recant upon his death bed as is usually accused) still holds. He may have gotten some of the facts wrong and the details, but his premise for the origin of the species through natural selection has been proven time and time again through testable, demonstrable experiments and research.

So then, why have humans stopped evolving? Well, I personally have a couple of thoughts on this. First, I believe that we haven't stopped evolving. Our life span has increased, as has our average height over the last several thousand years. We have evolved into different “races”, though the differences are really minimal and inconsequential. And we still see genetic defects that have their niches. Sickle cell anemia is one of those. Though it stops the blood from clotting, it allows the person afflicted to have a much higher chance of survival when afflicted with malaria. I never said that evolution was kind.

Additionally, I believe that we are not noticing our evolution because we are evolving the world to fit us faster than we are evolving ourselves. Our cities, our technology and the fact that we are quickly moving towards functional bionics and cybernetics means that these small physical changes are going unnoticed. Just as you did above with the lion and the tiger though, you can compare us with apes and see our long evolutionary chain stretching back. Maybe then the changes will become noticeable.

Finally, opponents of evolution like to scream that evolution violates the second law of thermodynamics. Most people don't even know what the laws of thermodynamics are, so a little lesson is needed here. The second law of thermodynamics says that the entropy (disorder) of a closed system cannot decrease. Put another way, things tend towards disorder in a closed system. Well, there are several problems with that. First, when applying that, the creationists are claiming that the Earth is a closed system. It is not. It lets in light, and heat and various other forms of radiation. That's not a closed system.

Secondly, the only thing that is truly a closed system is the universe itself, and though the law applies across the universe, it doesn't say that everything decays or becomes disordered at the same rate. Creation of life implies the beginning of order, which means that somewhere else, disorder is occurring. If disorder is still occurring, even elsewhere, then evolution cannot possible violate the second law of thermodynamics.

QUICK! Don't look it up! What's the third law of thermodynamics? Most of you don't even know that they are numbered 0-2. The next time a creationist asks you about the second law, ask them what the first one is, or the “zeroth” law. That ought to shut them up.

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EDIT: Many of these ideas and explanations come from Richard Dawkins, through whose works I have gained a greater understanding of the process of evolution. If you find any errors, they are mine and mine alone. For more information, please read "The Greatest Show on Earth", an in-depth explanation of the evolutionary process vs. creationism,