The Evolution Revolution

This may be a little different, today. That’s okay, a little something different now and again makes for a nice change; a breath of fresh air, you might say.
The subject of evolution (as opposed to creationism) has come up. If you’ve been reading my blog for very long, you probably know (or at least could make a reasonable assumption, based on other things that I have written) that I am a creationist. I don’t really have anything against evolution, I think that it’s probably the best guess that the scientific community could come up with, given the available evidence. I do get a little annoyed when people try to pass evolution off as fact. It’s called the theory of evolution for a reason. Scientifically, it is not considered proven fact. Now, some would have us believe that it’s so close to being a proven fact that we shouldn’t worry about that, but, really it’s still just a theory.
Now, the book of Genesis tells us that God formed man from the dust of the earth, and breathed the breath of life into him, and Adam became a living soul. I will admit, that sounds a little on the superstitious side, even to me, and I believe it happened just like that. Now you might be able to convince me that the account in Genesis is largely metaphorical, that really God placed microbes in the mud, and guided those microbes to combine in wondrous ways, and over the course of several millennia, eventually human form took shape. I will admit, that if God had tried to explain that to Moses, Moses’ head probably would have exploded, because he just didn’t have the background to understand it; so okay, maybe God simplified the explanation for Moses’ benefit. As I said, I don’t really believe that, but I will concede the possibility.
Now, as far as evolution by the process of natural selection, let’s consider for a moment. To be honest, I have read a number of explanations of how evolution is supposed to happen, but they almost always seem to be explaining intelligent design rather than natural selection. Almost without exception, they will say something along the lines of, something happened to the environment of some poor creature, forcing a mutation, which led to an evolutionary change. That’s fine, if we have some intellect in charge of making sure that poor creatures don’t go extinct just because of changes in the environment (other than man, of course). But how does a change in the environment force an evolutionary change? The simple answer is that it doesn’t. What the evolutionists are really trying to say at this point is that mutations happen every so often, but usually, those changes do not result in a net benefit for the species undergoing mutation. When an environmental change coincides with a mutation, then that mutation may (or may not) benefit the mutated being. Of course, theoretically, the mutation doesn’t have to coincide with an environmental change in order to be effective. For example, theoretically, giraffes developed long necks because that mutation made it possible for giraffes to eat leaves from higher up in trees, where there was less competition for food.
One thing that biologists seem to over look (or perhaps there is a mechanism at work that I am not aware of) is the fact that mutations are almost always represent recessive traits. In other words, in order for an evolutionary change to happen, each of the new species has to inherit the mutant trait from both parents. For example, suppose that a man is born with six fingers on each hand. That may or may not be an evolutionary advantage, but, in order for him to pass on that trait to his children, he would almost certainly have to find a woman that also had six fingers on each hand to be the mother of his children. Or failing that, perhaps one of his offspring has children by another individual with six fingers; some of those children may inherit the six-finger trait from both parents, even though one parent only has five fingers on each hand and is only carrying the trait. This makes it fairly obvious that true evolutionary changes are extremely rare. Many biologists figure that there is about one evolutionary change per species per 10,000 years (of course, a lot depends on how complex an organism one is referring to. Single-celled creatures are considered to be considerably more prone to mutation simply because their DNA is so much simpler). Now, maybe I’m overestimating the biologically complexity of the human body, but it seems to me that it would have taken a whole lot longer for us to have evolved through natural selection that scientists generally figure the world has been around. It’s generally believed that the earth is about 4 .6 billion years old. At 10,000 years per change, that puts us at a result of less than half a million changes. When you stop to consider that they don’t believe life formed on earth for the first 1.5 billion years, our evolutionary timeline gets even shorter.
As I said before, the theory of evolution is the best scientific explanation that exists currently. Some people have a bad tendency to refer to natural selection as Darwinism, on the grounds that it was first proposed by Charles Darwin. The theory has been modified several times in the years since Darwin, though. Keep in mind that when Darwin first proposed natural selection, it was considered to be scientific fact that heavier-than-air craft could never fly, and that the atom would never be split. We have learned a lot since Darwin, and sometimes it seems that we still know so little.

UPDATE: It occured to me, belatedly, that I should have included a plug for Ben Stein's new movie, "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed," that opens Friday, April 18th. Let me also point out that, although Ben Stein is noted for having been a game show host, he is a Harvard graduate, and a very intelligent man (perhaps in spite of his education). I am sure that he and I would disagree on many things, but I have a lot of respect for him, and I think that this is a movie that everyone should see (although I reserve the right to change my mind after I see it).

Computers, Death, and God

There's a bumper sticker out that says, "We are Microsoft. Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated." When things like this and this show up in the news on the same day, I really think that bumper sticker is not so funny. Maybe it's just me, but I don't want ads in my applications, even it does allow me to get free Wi-Fi access.
We now have a computer that can play checkers (draughts in the UK) and never lose, and a car with AI.
I'm curious as to how a goddess can sin. Shouldn't their goddess being telling her priests what is, or is not, a sin?
Meanwhile, a couple of thought-provoking things in Newsweek: I See Dead People, and Rabbi Marc Gellman's take on near death experiences. Rabbi Gellman postulates that research into NDE's is dangerous from both a religious and a scientific standpoint. I have read his arguments, and I have to disagree. I don't see any danger to either. Quite frankly, I do think that it is a waste of time and money, but I fail to see the danger. I don't expect that the research will ever find definitive proof one way or the other about the afterlife. That is a matter of faith. There is the idea of placing objects in the ER out of sight of the clinicly dead individual, to see if said individual remembers seeing them in their recollections of their out-of-body experience. Interesting thought, but a good number of NDE'rs don't report seeing the ER from the ceiling, and most of the ones that do are focused on their own bodies, with some attention given to the medical team attempting to revive them. If someone does get revived, and then recalls seeing the number for Dial-A-Prayer written on the top of the ER room light fixture, is that sufficient proof that they had an out-of-body experience? It would be quite a stretch to consider that proof of life after death. I must admit, I have a certain amount of curiosity as to whether the experiences reported by NDE'rs are real, or simply elaborate hallucinations, but, IMHO, it really only matters to the people who went through it.
I do appreciate the fact that Rabbi Gellman states that Genesis tells us why we are here, while Darwin tells us how we are here, and goes on to say that they do not conflict. I'm not entirely sure that they don't conflict, but they can co-exist. The bottom line is that religion tells us that God made the universe, and then made man; science attempts to explain the process by which God did that. I do think that people on both sides tend to get a little too serious. There has been some discussion as to whether the 6 days mentioned in Genesis are literally six twenty-four hour periods of time. It seems to me, that since God didn't create the sun and moon until the fourth day, that isn't talking about a day in the sense of sun-up to sun-rise. Also note that in 2nd Peter 3:8, the scriptures tell us that, "But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day." So, am I saying that creation actually took 6,000 years, instead of six days? No, I'm saying that time, with God, is pretty insignificant, even though, with us, it seems vastly important. 6 days, 6,000 years, 6,000 millennia; it's all the same to God. At the same time, the evolutionists insist that mutations happen randomly, but when a random mutation happens to benefit the species, then the mutant strain becomes dominant. If the mutation is not beneficial, then it quietly fades away. They readily admit that most mutation are harmful. That makes evolution a painfully long process, doesn't it? Quite frankly, the odds against humanity evolving by the process of natural selection would seem to be astronomical, and yet, the evolutionists tell us that this must be the case. Look, it's a theory. Granted, right now, that's the most plausible scientific explanation for how we came to be here that anybody has been able to come up with so far, but it is a long way from being considered scientific fact. Don't get all in an uproar if some people challenge its veracity. I can understand that some people are still upset that Galileo Galilei was placed under house arrest by the church for suggesting that the earth orbited the sun (even though I still haven't found any scripture that contradicts him), but that was a long time ago, by people that didn't like having their beliefs challenged. You should be able to empathize with that.

Evolution

A couple of things hit the news regarding evolution that struck me as odd. First: Wired magazine has published a political commentary on "The Evolutionary Brain Glitch that Makes Terrorism Fail." It's an interesting read, but I have to say that I though terrorism failed because it's based on faulty logic to start with--not because the victims engage in faulty logic. The idea behind terrorism is that if I can scare you, you will give me what I want. That works on the playground (usually), but not so much in adult life. It's much easier to bully one kid, than to bully large numbers of adults. If something bad happens to someone I know, my natural reaction is to go after the person that I blame for what happened. I think most people feel the same way. If you kill my sister, you better watch your back. If you kill people indiscriminately, then I can't help but think that the next time, it might be my sister. You didn't know it wasn't my sister. Heck, you didn't even know that it wasn't your sister. You expect me to give you something for that? You think you've created a platform for negotiation? Let me assure you, you have not. If you had threatened me, personally, with bodily harm, that might have gotten you somewhere, but to attack large groups of us, no, that dog just don't hunt. The commentary also makes reference to something known as 'correspondent inference theory,' which holds that people tend to make assumptions about motivation based on results. For example, if we go to war with an oil-producing country like Iraq, and gas prices go up, then clearly, our government's purpose in invading Iraq was to force gas prices to go up. Okay, nobody's quite buying that, but a lot of people believe that the government's purpose was to affect gas prices, it just didn't work out the way they had planned (our government is not known for being good at planning things). Second: The BBC has published an article about an observed evolutionary change in the tropical blue moon butterfly. It seems that a bacteria called Wolbachia that is carried by female butterflies, but is deadly to males. If the mother passes the bacteria to her eggs, then the males die before they even hatch. Six years ago, the males numbered about 1% of the blue moon butterfly population, now they number about 40%. Apparently the butterflies have developed a suppressor gene which controls the parasitical bacteria. Gregory Hurst, a University College researcher stated, "We usually think of natural selection as acting slowly, over hundreds of thousands of years. But the example in this study happened in the blink of an eye, in terms of evolutionary time, and is a remarkable thing to get to observe." Several thing occur to me: If the gene existed before, but only in a small percentage of the population, then once the parasite killed off all of the males that didn't have the gene, only the ones that had the gene would be left to repopulate the species. The gene would have represented no evolutionary advantage until the bacteria became widespread. Perhaps this change did not happen so much 'in the blink of an eye' as first thought.
Also, if evolution can happen that quickly, how long will it take us, as a species, to adjust to the new environmental conditions that result from global warming?