If the theory of evolution is true, how soon will it take to prove it?
Someone once asked Professor Haldane, one of the three leaders who created Neo-Darwinism , and more thoroughly, she actually asked how to convince herself to believe in the theory of evolution?
Because according to this woman, even if there are more than a billion years left for evolution, she cannot believe that a single cell can evolve to form such a complex human body today, a system that contains trillions of cells that make up bones, muscles, organs, and nerves. The blood vessels and renal tubules alone are several miles long. Not to mention that such a complex and exquisite system can feel, think, and speak.
Haldane's answer is that this woman actually did such a miraculous thing herself, and it only took 9 months.
html was pregnant for nine months, and a fertilized egg developed perfectly into a crying baby.
But this answer will definitely not satisfy those who believe in various kinds of creationism. Perhaps the development of an egg into a fetus is God's instruction and arrangement. If there is no unified design, just these cells flying around like headless flies for billions of years can piece together this rich and colorful world?
In fact, opponents of evolution have many more and more difficult questions about evolution. But without exception, these arguments against evolution have turned into excellent evidence in its favor. The book " The Greatest Show on Earth " lists the six key questions in sequence and explains how these questions contain the seeds of the answer and refute its own seeds.
1 Seeing is believing, how to directly "see" evolution?
Yes, evolutionary changes visible to the naked eye will take at least tens of millions of years. How can a person who can only live for about a hundred years if he is lucky see something that takes tens of millions of years to happen? The book gives two answers to this point, a thought experiment and a practical verification.
This thought experiment is called the "hairpin bend thought experiment" by the author. A hairpin is something like a V-shape placed horizontally, with one end open and the other end fixed together. Suppose that at one point of the two endpoints of the opening stands a rabbit, and at the other point stands a leopard , and at the fixed place stands the common ancestor of the rabbit and the leopard.
Rabbit and Leopard
Next, let’s look at the evolution from the rabbit to the ancestors. Representatives of each generation of evolution over tens of millions of years stand on this hairpin. You can imagine that this will be a super long hairpin, and the difference between each generation of rabbits is actually minimal. If you scan this row of rabbits one by one with your eyes, even if you live to see them all, you won't realize how the rabbit in front of you turned into that weird ancestor. Same thing from the leopard side.
But we can be lazy and put this scanning process in our heads: from the rabbit to the ancestor (I don’t know what it “looks” like), and then change the scanning direction, scanning from this ancestor to the leopard. We will not "see" the changes in rabbits or leopards during this process, but what will we find as a result? After this "double" evolutionary time, a rabbit becomes a leopard that is recognizable to the naked eye. You see, this is how you "see" evolution, right?
Of course, this is just a metaphorical thought experiment. In reality, there is no such thing as a "rabbit-leopard" evolving from a rabbit to a leopard. Through this metaphor, we really realize that evolution can indeed change life, both externally and internally. In addition to this thought experiment, the " E. coli " experiment mentioned in the book actually allows you to see evolution.
Escherichia coli can be seen everywhere
We say that the process of evolutionary change takes tens of millions of years, which is correct, but that is estimated based on the life of an average size. For example, for us humans, the intergenerational time is twenty or thirty years.This is not the case for bacteria under a microscope. The generation time of bacteria is only a few hours or even minutes. What would you see if you tracked the evolution of bacteria for thirty or forty years?
In 1988, bacteriologist Richard Lensky of Michigan State University and his colleagues conducted such a long-term experiment on "E. coli". They put an E. coli into a flask , and every day extracted 1% of the bacterial flora in the old bottle and put it into a new glucose nutrient-rich bottle - this is an excellent environment for evolution. Each new bacterial group will go through the process of glucose nutrition from abundance to poverty, that is, the process of survival from easy to difficult, and this process is what promotes evolution to adapt to the needs of crises.
Lenski’s team has repeated this process every day for more than 20 years. In the past 20 years, they have changed about 7,000 flasks, passing a total of 45,000 generations of bacterial descendants, an average of 6 to 7 generations every day. The results showed that over tens of thousands of generations, the average size of E. coli increased significantly.
This evolutionary change shows that when bacteria are struggling to survive in this alternating "glucose nutrient-rich/poor" environment, for some reason, it is beneficial for the bacteria to become larger and larger. Because Lenski's team placed the bacterial colonies in 12 flasks and allowed the 12 groups to evolve independently, the results showed that the 12 bacterial groups all began to increase in bacterial size at similar time points.
Still have any questions? Just take a look at these bacteria under a microscope.
2 Is there a missing link in the fossil chain?
"Missing link" in the theory of evolution refers to, for example, from human ancestors millions of years ago to today, there must be complete fossil remains, forming a coherent fossil chain. If there is a gap in the remains, it is a missing link. This is a very tricky word. "Vacancy" can also be interpreted as meaning that it is not discovered yet, but it may be possible in the future. But since the "missing link" became popular in late-Victorian England, it was aimed at the process of evolution, and it wanted to directly deny its existence.
First of all, although we said above that the missing link is at least for real objects like fossils, in fact many people who oppose the theory of evolution, and even ordinary people who are not disgusted with the theory of evolution, have completely wrong imaginations about the process of evolution. In these people's conception, the so-called evolutionary process is equivalent to the "existing" hierarchy of life. In this understanding, everything on earth is on different steps on the same ladder, with God at the top, followed by angels, humans, animals, plants, and inorganic matter.
Further, lower animals will evolve towards higher animals. For example, earthworms lower animals will evolve towards relatively higher animals such as monkeys. If the so-called intermediate biological fossils such as "earthworms" are not discovered, some people who oppose the theory of evolution will turn around and blame the evolutionary process mentioned in the theory of evolution. Unconsciously believing that the hierarchical ladder is naturally correct, and that evolution's "explanation" of the ladder is wrong.
However, it is just the opposite. First, the so-called hierarchy does not exist objectively. It only exists in the minds of some people. In the minds of such people, women are inferior to men, and blacks are inferior to whites.
Second, looking for "earth monkeys" is actually reversing cause and effect. Remember the “hairpin bend thought experiment” from earlier? The common ancestor of rabbits and leopards evolved and separated the two evolutionary results. However, it is logically impossible to ask rabbits or leopards to go back and "evolve" to the common ancestor-the so-called "rabbit leopard".
Even if today's genetic technology can create a combination of a rabbit and a leopard, then this combination is the evolutionary result of a common ancestor - in which humans played a role as an environmental factor - and absolutely cannot be the ancestor itself.
At this time, in terms of concept and actual fossil excavation, the gaps in the material fossil chain have been filled in large quantities and continuously, and it cannot be said that there is a missing link.
Lucy Fossils
Take human fossils as an example, from "Lucy" and the "First Family" more than 3 million years ago, to the "Towne Children" 2.5 million years ago, to "Mrs. Price" and "Twiggy" 1.9 million years ago, to the "Turkana Boys" 1.6 million years ago, and then to "Javanese", "Peking Man", "Georgian" and so on. Not to mention that there are so many in the middle that they can only be coded and named with the labels "KNM ER 1813" and "KNM ER 1470".
In short, as far as human fossils are concerned, more and more archaeological discoveries have eloquently proved that the problem of missing fossil chains no longer exists today. Unless those skeptics won’t give up until they see a family photo of generations holding hands.
3 Why not fully evolve to be the best?
There is a dental disease called dental caries , which is not only a big problem for humans, but also for mice. This disease will directly threaten their survival in mice, just like lions and tigers without sharp teeth. Therefore, those who oppose the theory of evolution ask again, if there is such a terrible flaw, why have rats not repaired this problem during tens of millions of years of evolution?
The answer is as the old saying goes, there is no free lunch. When it comes to repairing cavities or not, evolution in mice may have ultimately chosen the counterintuitive option of keeping cavities intact. And this just shows that evolution is random and survival of the fittest, and there is no God who makes the best arrangements.
We can think about it, what changes will happen to mice in order to repair dental caries?
The main way to improve tooth decay resistance is to make teeth thicker, and doing so requires extra calcium. In a living environment, in terms of ability, the amount of calcium each mouse can obtain is limited. The need for more calcium on the teeth means that the demand for calcium in other places is being deducted.
There is a "calcium economy" in the body of mice just like humans. Calcium is needed in bones and in milk. Suppose a mouse cleverly adds calcium to prevent dental caries, as far as teeth are concerned, it will live longer than those mice with rotten teeth. But there is more calcium in these teeth, and there is correspondingly less calcium in the bones or milk. Bad bones will cause big trouble for it to find food and escape from natural enemies, and low milk supply will directly affect the survival rate of its offspring.
The lesser of two evils, with stable calcium acquisition, good bones and the survival of offspring are more important.
It seems that evolution is not as generous as God. Life must be lived down to earth, and we cannot expect good things like pie in the sky. Evolution is a process of constantly seeking the "optimal solution", and this principle of "barter" applies to all living things. We can expect the body to function well in order to survive, but this does not mean that every part of the body must be perfect. Evolution is, in a sense, made up of many compromised choices.
4 Why not just start over?
This question is very similar to the one above. Speaking of which, God doesn’t have to bother to arrange all-round evolution. If he is unhappy, he can send a flood and drown them all, and start over to create a better life in his opinion. But since evolution is not completed in seven days, we have to follow the rules of history first come first served. Otherwise, when the ancestors of whales re-entered the sea, they should have re-evolved gills that were both trouble-free and efficient. Why would they still need to maintain a pair of lungs and a blowhole on the top of their head?
Let’s take another example. The picture below shows the genitourinary system of a human male. You can see that the vas deferens, which carries sperm from the testicles to the penis, has to go around in a circle, rest on the ureter, and then go down to the penis instead of doing it directly. This does not look good-looking and is inefficient. If evolution had this power, it could destroy all these ugly creatures and create a new batch of men with vas deferens directly connected to the penis.
Unfortunately, evolution by natural selection cannot do it. It can only explain to you that these small flaws are inevitable. During the re-evolution of our ancestors, the testicles originally hidden in the body gradually descended to the position of the scrotum where they are today, so that the sperm would not be killed by the gradually increasing temperature in the human body.The original position should be at the dotted line.
If there is really such a designer arranging all this, it can only be said that the level of this designer is open to question. Unless you think that those designs that are neither beautiful nor necessary have an ulterior and mysterious purpose.
5 The Necessity of Pain
After experiencing pain and suffering, theologians realized the profound will of God: suffering is a test of God and is linked to free will. But in the eyes of evolutionists: Heaven and earth are unkind, and they regard all things as stupid dogs. If life did not suffer, there would be no hard struggle for survival. This inevitably invites attacks from opponents. Such an inhumane approach cannot be true from a bioethical perspective unless it comes from God's will.
You might as well take a look at these two paragraphs in " Origin of Species ":
There is an idea that may not be logical, but according to my imagination, for young cuckoo birds ht The instinct to reject a sworn brother, the instinct of an ant to breed a slave, the instinct of the larvae of a wasp to inhabit the living body of a caterpillar, are more satisfactory to be regarded as small consequences of a general law than to be regarded as specially endowed or created instincts. This universal law is: reproduction and mutation, allowing the strongest to survive and the weakest to die - this law brings progress to all living things.
All we can do is to tighten this string in our minds: every living thing strives to multiply at a geometric rate; and that at certain stages of its life, or at certain seasons of the year, or at each generation or interval, every living thing must struggle for existence and suffer great destruction. When we think about these struggles, we can take comfort in the belief that the wars of nature are not without interruptions, that fear is imperceptible, that death always comes quickly, and that the strong, healthy, and happy always survive and reproduce.
After-reading thoughts - some of my own thoughts
First, the author of this book still leaves a small tail for the theory of evolution, or to be precise, modern evolutionary theory - all evolutionary matters can ultimately be attributed to the genes of in the gene library, but why do genes need to be expressed in a specific sequence? This question is essentially the question of "the first driving force". Where is the earliest driving force for everything to start? Perhaps, we should read " selfish gene " next, hoping to find an acceptable explanation.
Secondly, the whole book refers to the entire mechanism of survival of the fittest and the actual historical process as "natural selection". This is of course a cheap approach, but the result is that it inevitably personifies "natural selection" and makes people think that "natural selection is preventing life from living a comfortable life", or even "natural selection" is another god who claims to be godless, and it replaces the old gods that it has denied to arrange the world.
This understanding is as fallacious as "weapons have always harmed our human lives", because it is us humans who invent and use weapons. Just as what leads to natural selection is actually countless living entities competing with similar species in the constructed environment, if we want to find someone responsible for this, it is the living entities themselves.
certainly believes that this small oversight was not the author's intention.
The last feeling is that the author of the book has been using the creationists who oppose the theory of evolution as imaginary enemies. He tries hard to reason and present the facts, but in the end he is no match for their "discussing others". In fact, one is at the empirical level of scientific research and the other is at the ideological level of spiritual belief. No one can be convinced.
Unless their god himself tells his followers: I do not exist, evolution is true.
