HE WISDOM OF THE WORLD LIES OPEN TO YOU
JUST WAITING FOR YOU TO TAP IT.
Robert M. Hutchins
THE THEORY OF EVOLUTION
After a mighty lengthy journey from the sea human life evolved from the chimpanzees.
There are still several families of chimpanzees on this planet. Why did only some of us "make it"? Research has shown that we share, by 98%, the same DNA as the chimps.
"Some evidence suggests that a chimpanzee is smarter at birth than a new born baby "
(Irven DeVore, Harvard University Sociobiologist)
Chimps are far more closely related to us than they are to the gorilla. Some scientists now believe there is no "missing link" in our evolution.
If this is so, are we to assume that all remaining chimps are potential humans whose evolution was stunted for some reason?
Another fact that managed to surprise me came from those who study DNA. According to these scientists birds are more closely related to Tyrannosaurus Rex than Tyannosaurus Rex is to other dinosaurs.
That sweet, gentle little bird, chirping outside your window, or perhaps in a cage in your house, is a descendent of a "terrible lizard." (Translated into Greek: "Tyrannosaurus.")
Going back several millennia, Evolution tells us that all life began in the sea with the formation of nucleic acid.
It must have been but one tiny drop of it in the beginning. That, to me, is a startling idea, especially if we contemplate the notion that not only plant life and insect life but everything the many varieties of plants, beasts, birds, reptiles and fishes sprang from the same ancestor as you and I.
There is also the nagging question of just how the drop of nucleic acid got there in the first place. Did an extremely patient someone or something just plop it in the sea and then sit back to watch the show?
Proponents of Evolution hold that a certain combination of acids happened to bump into one another one day or night before the dawn of any life on this planet and zap! Nucleic Acid!
Over simplified, I know, but the theory pondered by a non-scientist boils down to those, and these, basics:
You and I and all other animals (including the grizzly bear and the toad) and insects (butterflies and cockroaches) birds (canaries and vultures) and plant life (pine trees and poison ivy) are on this earth thanks to that one auspicious collision.
Whatever or whomever was an overseer of life on Earth must have been following an explicit plan. I cant conceive of how all the varieties of life could have come about if it were not for some mighty intricate planning. It therefore follows that all life including rodents and rutabagas must still be following that plan.
The very word, Evolution, denotes a continuous action.
But how? And to where? And why?
According to Darwinian thinking, we came down from the trees (progress), developed the ability to make and use tools (a progress shared some members of the still-ape families) and eventually developed the knack to communicate.
That last accomplishment is now believed to be present in other animals, whales, apes, and dolphins for example.
There was also a time when it was believed that only humans were capable of developing and using tools.
Not so. Jane Goodall, amongst others, discovered that chimpanzees fashion (make) tools out of branches and utilize them to poke into termite mounds for what they consider a scrumptious meal.
There were other changes during these evolutionary steps including the loss of most of our lush growth of body hair.
Whether or not this particular step was progress seems to be up for grabs, since we spend considerable time and effort, not to mention money, covering up the bodies that Evolution denuded.
Evolution has now brought us to this point:
We are living in disease and pain prone bodies, enshrouded in a wrapping that suffers from too much heat, too much cold, hunger, fatigue, illness, and occasionally hives.
Not the best of arrangements!
I have heard it hypothesized that the human soul was, at one time, totally free and not forced to dwell inside a cumbersome body. If this is so, why did our Evolution slip backwards?
Maybe it didnt. Maybe it came full circle.
Evolution = continuing changes. Infinity = no beginning or end.
Perhaps eons into the future we will once again find ourselves totally covered with hair and perched on tree branches.
Or bear in mind that 90% of all species ever alive on Earth are now extinct. Most disturbing of all is the fact that all species eventually become extinct and that surely must include us.
Many years later, when I began parapsychological experiments, some plausible answers were presented to me.
It was also years later when I read SHADOWS OF FORGOTTEN ANCESTORS, A SEARCH
FOR WHO WE ARE (written by the late Carl Sagan and his wife, Ann Druyan) that I came across the theory that expounds there was no overseer to life on Earth.
All life that now walks, swims, slithers or flies on, in, or above our planet came about by what can only be termed chance.
The dinosaurs, some believe, disappeared from life due to an impact from colossal comets or asteroids.
If this were true and if those alleged collisions had not occurred and the rise of mammals on Earth had not been achieved as a direct result mankind may not have evolved.
Sagan and Druyan refer to this theory as, "cosmic collision roulette," or "the extinction lottery."
If we agree with this assumption, then the mere fact that were here can only be thought of as an incomparable example of blind luck.
