Mankind… Descent, Ascent or Extinction?
Where did we come from? How did we get here? Where are we going?
Where we came from ➨ in The Descent of Man, Charles Darwin claimed that humans evolved from apes to homo sapiens through natural and sexual selection.
Where we are now ➨ in The Ascent of Man, Jacob Bronowksi explained the role of science in our progress from foragers to farmers, caves to cities.
Where we might be going ➨ in The Sixth Extinction, I explored the reasons why we might be headed for catastrophe.
In this article ➨ I explain my reasons for concluding that Evidence trumps words, Knowledge trumps belief and Science trumps scripture. Fossil, geological and genetic evidence trumps the idea that we were created in one fell swoop or that we evolved gradually with the guidance of a god.
Creation or Intelligent Design?
Our ancestors became obsessed with the belief that humans stood apart from the rest of nature. That belief was strengthened by religions which preached that humans were the special object of creation.
Creationists admit that minor changes in size and shape might occur over time, a process called micro-evolution. But they reject the idea that one very different kind of animal or plant can come from another, a process called macro-evolution. The genetic record, however, is evidence that evolution can yield living structures of almost arbitrary complexity from a basic set of building blocks.
Intelligent Design advocates argue that this kind of difference requires the direct intervention of God. Everything in nature seems to be perfectly designed. The universe was designed for life to develop and progress, not by random accident, but with astonishing precision.
★Earth orbits the sun at a distance that keeps it from being too hot or too cold for living things.
★Earth’s orbit is designed so it doesn’t collide with the other planets.
★Earth’s mass provides enough gravity to retain oceans and an atmosphere with oxygen, nitrogen and carbon dioxide to support plants and animals.
★In those oceans, octopuses change color to blend with their surroundings.
★In the air, bats have radar to locate insects at night. Humming birds hover and change position more skillfully than helicopters. And flowers are the perfect sexual partners for hummingbirds and bees.
★Humans walk upright so our hands are free to use tools, and our brains are large and sophisticated, so our minds are free to worship our creator.
People who believe in Creation or Intelligent Design cite the foregoing things as evidence of a perfect designer (God) who created everything from scratch (In the Beginning) to be perfectly suited for life on Earth (Creationism). Or guided the evolution of plants and animals in perfect ways (Intelligent Design).
People who support Evolution have many reasons to contest Creation or Intelligent Design. Here are a few.
★Photographs taken with terrestrial and space launched telescopes are evidence that most of the universe is cold, dark and hostile to the formation of life.
★The only planets that survived the early history of our solar system were the ones with an orbit that did not collide with other objects whirling around the Sun.
★Scientists have discovered hundreds of Earthlike planets but they have not yet found one with water, an atmosphere, and a range of daytime and night temperatures suitable for biological life.
★If we find terrestrial life on one of these eco planets, intelligent or otherwise, it’s reasonable to conclude that God did not create Earth for us but no other beings. We are just one of a zillion other creatures in the Cosmos.
★If we never find life anywhere else in the universe, it’s also reasonable to embrace the possibility that God created everything beyond our solar system to exercise his omnipotent, creative power. If so, then Earth is just one of a zillion celestial objects in the Cosmos.
★If divine creation or divine design are true, why did God design plants and animals with so many defects?
Robin Williams called attention to the fallacy of divine design when he said, “Religious people say we must teach intelligent design, but look at the human body. Is that intelligent? You have a waste processing plant next to a recreation area!”
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Robin was trying to be funny, of course, but bad design is no joke. Scientists have discovered hundreds of examples of why imperfect design is evidence of evolution. Evolution doesn’t start from scratch. It builds on what it already has and that leads to imperfections. And these imperfect adaptations don’t fit into any grand scheme of creation or intelligent design.
★Vestigial organs once useful in an ancestor — appendix, coccyx, spleen.
★Birds without wings because it’s metabolically better to run than fly.
★Dormant genes that were once useful but no longer serve any function.
★Testes create weak spots in abdominal cavity that can cause hernias.
★Urethra runs through the prostate gland making urinating difficult.
★Avocados evolved seeds for the digestive system of the giant sloth.
★The misalignment of the human weight axis and knee joint surface.
★Women birthing babies with large heads (big brains) through the pelvis.
★The same route for food, air and water makes it dangerous to eat.
★Blood-sucking insects that carry disease, parasites and death.
Fossil & Genetic Evidence of Evolution
If evolution is true, rock strata should show early life to be quite simple, with more complex species appearing over time and the youngest fossils should be those that are most similar to living species. That’s exactly what archeologists have found. We don’t find mammals in Precambrian rocks, humans in the same layers as dinosaurs, or any other fossils out of evolutionary order.
Theists contest the fossil record as evidence of evolution by saying that God deliberately created phony artifacts to confuse human reason. That portrays God as malicious, not mysterious, and makes it more likely that people, especially school children, will look for God in all the wrong places.
Moreover, DNA sequencing supports the evolutionary relationships of species originally deduced from the fossil record. Our common genetic heritage with other creatures is proof beyond a reasonable doubt that evolution is true. Humans ascended biologically over millions of years from less advanced life forms from changes at the molecular level (DNA), not from changes at the anatomical level (form). Molecular changes are inherited, whereas anatomical changes are acquired.
You can’t, for example, cut the tail off a monkey to produce an ape in its offspring. But its offspring can evolve into apes if that monkey’s genes change from generation to generation to produce apes.
Moreover, if that monkey has genes that make it skilled at escaping tigers, its offspring will inherit genes that make it better at escaping tigers. If that monkey teaches its offspring how to escape tigers, its offspring will acquire the ability to escape tigers.
Evolution results from genetic variation and natural selection. Genetic changes are caused by mutations. If those changes are beneficial to survival, nature selects for the change. If those changes are not beneficial to survival, nature selects against the change. Mutations add (variations) and nature subtracts (selection).
Mutation and natural selection continue to be nature’s way of changing things. Yes, the changes are too small to see in the short span of your life, but you can see the changes humans have made with artificial selection to domesticate plants and animals. We created dogs from wolves, chickens from a red jungle fowl, cattle from wild oxen, corn from maize, and wheat from ancient varieties of einkorn, emmer, and spelt.
My Conclusion
So, what does divine creation, divine design and biological evolution have to do with the ascent, descent and extinction of mankind? Good question, and you probably asked it because you thought I had drifted away from the original topic.
Well, I didn’t, because the opposite of the biblical claim that God created the world (or manipulating its development) is the biblical claim that he destroyed the world — once near the beginning of creation and again at the end of creation. That’s not ascension or descension. That’s extinction.
Religion is based on words in a book. Science is grounded on evidence in the world.
The theology of Creationism and Intelligent Design is based on the scriptural world of faith in words. But words are only handles to carry the idea of something to another person. Not the thing itself. Not things we can verify with our five senses, scientific research, and empirical evidence.
The theory of Evolution is based on the scientific world of facts, and facts are the things themselves. Things we can see, not believe.
Evolution is true because we have fossil and genetic evidence that it really happened. Creationism and Intelligent Design are false because there is no historical or scientific evidence that either happened, just bible-biased, faith-based apologetics.
Proponents of Creation and Intelligent Design say God made man. I think it’s the other way around. In fact, man created lots of gods and religions, each claiming that their god is the only true god and that their god created the world. That explains why the world’s religions are so different and so at odds with each other. And these differences cannot justify the idea that we have lots of worlds, each created by a different god. No, we only have one world.
The elegant, intricate, ordered and synergistic way in which everything works convinces me that the Cosmos didn’t require a Big Bang beginning, seven days to be created or a zillion years to be designed.
The Cosmos has always been here, and life has always been designing itself through natural selection and genetic mutation.
Your Conclusion
I don’t expect you to swallow my conclusions as indisputable facts. I’m encouraging you to begin, or continue, your own research into our descent from the past, our ascent to the present and our journey into the future. If you do, keep in mind that your conclusion, like mine, will be based on…
★Your objective interpretation of books, blogs and bibles.
★Your subjective interpretation of feelings, forums and friends.
Whatever side of the fence your research brings you down on, keep in mind that how we got here is irrelevant to where we are now and its impact on where we are going — with or without the intervention of a god. Tomorrow trumps yesterday, especially if today’s disagreements prevent us from avoiding the catastrophe of extinction.
Food for Thought
[from both sides of the fence]
★A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari
★A Christian’s Guide by Bruce Malone
★A Guide to the Evolution/Creation Controversy by Brian J. Alters
★A History of God by Karen Armstrong
★Breaking the Spell by Daniel C. Dennett
★Creationism’s Trojan Horse by Barbara Forrest and Paul R Gross
★Endless Forms Most Beautiful by Sean B Carroll
★Evolution by Carl Zimer
★Evolution and Christianity by Joan Roughgarden
★Finding Darwin’s God by Kenneth R. Miller
★Mistakes Were Made by Carol Tavris & Elliot Aronson
★Saving Darwin by Karl Giberson
★Scientists Confront Intelligent Design & Creationism by Andrew Petto
★The Bible and Evolution by Matthew J. Ramage
★The Blind Watchmaker by Richard Dawkins
★The Descent of Man by Charles Darwin
★The Ascent of Man by Jacob Bronowksi
★The Devil in Dover by Lauri Lebo
★The Greatest Show on Earth by Richard Dawkins
★The Illusion of Intelligent Design by Leonard Susskind.
★The Language of God by Francis S. Collins
★Triumph of Evolution and Failure of Creationism by Niles Eldredge
★Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
★Why Evolution Is True by Jerry A. Coyne
★Why Intelligent Design Fails by Taner Edis
★Your Inner Fish by Neil Shubin
