In my preview to the third Republican debate, I ruthlessly and pitilessly listed out the innumerable, plentiful, bountiful reasons why Governor Rick Perry is 'dumb'. And clearly the most egregious is his denial of evolution.
I also noted that I was so inspired by coming across an actual Darwinian Denier here in the advent of the Second Millennium that I immediately rewatched my one Darwin disc, then ordered a bunch more from Netflix. Thanks, Rick, for the reminder of what a truly great man Charles Darwin was.
Since I'm currently real 'up' on Darwin, I thought I'd compile a handful of different observations and such on the subject, including my own encounter with a small evolutionary experiment taking place right before my very eyes.
To get us in the mood, let's start off with the one big tool that Darwin didn't have.
For those who don't believe in evolution, the one big argument is that "the fossil record is incomplete." And they're right, there are huge gaps in the fossil record, and understandably so. Bones are just organic material, after all, and it's astonishing that any bones have survived the onslaught of countless millennia.
For every thousand cave men who died, one had to clutch his chest from a heart attack or enemy spear, go "Arrggh!", stumble three steps and fall into a great big tar or mud pit. For every thousand dinosaurs that died, one had to collapse by the river bank — and at precisely that moment a huge water surge created a massive mud flow that covered the entire body with 10 feet of mud before it could be eaten and the bones scattered — just as the rainy season ended so the fresh mud wouldn't be washed away by the next big rain — then the next rainy season would have to be lighter than normal so the rains wouldn't wash away the mud down to the rotting carcass.
The circumstances that would allow organic material like bones — much less skeletons — to sit around long enough to be fossilized by the millennia would had to have been few and far between. So it's certainly understandable that the fossil record is incomplete.
Of course, fossils aren't the only record.
That's from the great Carl Sagan series,
Cosmos. You might have noted he said the dinosaurs "all mysteriously disappeared".
Cosmos was filmed in the early 80's, before the iridium layer left by the asteroid was discovered. To Sagan's credit, he theorizes elsewhere on the dinosaurs' mysterious and rapid extinction and put a possible asteroid event at the top of the list.
Okay, now that we're in the mood, I have a theological question.
During the third debate, Jon Huntsman lit into Rick Perry over Perry's stance against man-made global warming and evolution. He basically said, "Since 98% of the world's scientists are in agreement on these two issues, what kind of blithering idiot would think otherwise?"
Mr. Huntsman is, as I understand it, a Mormon. And Mormonism isn't like conventional Christianity, where you can be a 'Christian in spirit' but not actually be 'formally' involved, like with a church and pastor. You're basically either a true Mormon or you aren't.
Yet this self-proclaimed Mormon apparently believes in evolution.
My question is, don't Mormons believe God created the earth and heavens?
One thing about Charles Darwin that's generally overlooked is how loath he was to come to his conclusions. Like everyone else in his time, he had been taught from birth that God created the whole shebang, and any disagreement with that notion was considered blasphemy of the highest order, in that you're basically calling the Bible a lie right from the get-go.
Darwin spent his entire life begrudging one conclusion after another, because every one went against everything he'd been taught. I suppose the Deniers view him as some kind of wild-eyed zealot intent upon destroying mankind, but such was far from the truth. If there was ever a 'reluctant hero', it was Darwin.
Factoid: It wasn't the finches on the Galápagos that sparked the whole thing. That's the general story you'll read, but the finches, even with their wildly-varying beaks, really didn't interest him very much. Of the ones he brought back to England, he didn't even label which island they came from.
It was the mockingbirds that so intrigued him. Like the finches, they, too, have beaks that vary from island to island, each designed for the exact type of grub or bug or worm or slug they feed on.
If there's an irony to the whole story, it's that pigeon breeders in Darwin's England were doing exactly what people were saying couldn't be done by anyone but God; creating a new sub-species. But through selective breeding, they ended up with pigeons displaying either massive tail fluffs, foot feathers, huge puffy breasts or large ear tufts. Whether it's two different pigeons, one with huge feet feathers and one with huge ear tufts, or two different mockingbirds, one with a curved beak to root out a certain type of ground bug and the other with a straight beak to pry out a certain type of tree bark critter, the essence is the same. The logical conclusion Darwin came to was, "If man can do it, then nature should certainly be able to."
For starters, man is usually in a hurry, whereas nature has all the time in the world.
It might also be noted that the Galápagos were hardly the only thing on the Beagle's voyage that made an impression. There's a spot in the highlands of Argentina where a river splits the land. On the north side are large rheas (a flightless ostrich-like bird), and on the south are small rheas. Why? Well, ask Mother Nature. One possibility is that there had once been more rhea food on the north side, so a large bird evolved, whereas the pickings were a little slimmer on the south side, hence a smaller bird. Or maybe it's colder on the south side and nature decided a large body wasted too much heat. Whatever the reason, the point is that they don't just vary by size a little here and there; there actually are two distinct sub-species, a large and a small. They are 100% identical in every way but size.
When you ask why, the answer "Because God decreed it so" just isn't very fulfilling.
It also didn't make for a very satisfactory answer when Darwin found sea shells high in the Andes. God may have a master plan, but it's at least supposed to make some kind of sense.
The Beagle's voyage (1831 - 1836):
Of the Darwin discs on Netflix, I'd recommend Darwin: Evolution's Voice, Darwin's Secret Notebooks, and The Voyage That Shook The World. You can skip Darwin: Genius, it didn't add anything new after the above three.
And I, myself, have witnessed what I believe to be evolution in action. I spent years raising pet rats and would always throw one on my shoulder when I went downstairs from the computer room to grab a bite to eat or whatever. As you'd expect, they'd widen their stance a bit and dig in for the ride. After a few years of this, I obviously had a good idea of what a rat feels like being carried around on one's shoulder.
Then I got Malinda.
The first time I put her on my shoulder, I immediately noticed something felt different, so I went over to a mirror to check it out. Her rear legs were widely splayed. I called them 'pontoon legs'. I figured evolution was making a small experiment.
Suddenly, the rock ledge the rats are cowering on shifts violently during the thunderous storm or earthquake. All of the rats slide off and perish except for the one with the pontoon legs who just barely manages to hang on. Eight feet away, the same thing has happened, and elsewhere around the globe. The surviving pontoon-leg rats pass along the genetic trait and the experiment is repeated again and again and again.
And, one million years from today, all rats have pontoon legs. The experiment worked.
Evolution never sleeps.
