An explanation for every living being. Well, almost! (Evolution)

Member Name: ross1979

Product:	Evolution
Date:	16/08/01 (99 review reads)
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I am currently looking out the window at an enormous, ugly seagull which has just flown into a skip and is pecking away to see what scraps it can find to satisfy its insatiable appetite. But I am not telling you this just to describe the wonderful wildlife and waste disposal system in Aberdeen, I am telling you this because this creature is an excellent example of natural selection - a process which has determined and influenced every living organism which we see in the world today, including ourselves. This argument may go on for some time, so either relax and get comfortable or just give up now!!

Let me extrapolate. Decades or even centuries ago, seagulls were not enormous creatures which scavenged around city streets looking for scraps. They lived quite happily in and around the water 'munching' away on wholesome fish from the North Sea. But then a few, by chance, came inland and tried a little bit of energy-rich human rubbish. You know the stuff, a few crisps dropped by a child or the hamburger and chips which someone couldn't quite finish. The gulls which could effectively digest this food survived ahead of the ones which could not. They then passed on their scrap food-digesting genes to their offspring and, before long, there was a new niche for our white feathered friends.

But as competition for the food increased, they scrapped for it - screeching and tearing out eachothers feathers to defend their food or their territory. The result? The bigger, tuffer, meaner, agressive seagulls survived ahead of the rest and passed on their 'big, tuff, mean, agressive' genes to their offspring. This explains the frighteningly large beast looking at me with beady eyes from outside the window right this second.

This anecdote is a good example of natural selection, a process by which a species will evolve to effectively survive differing environmental conditions or to fill potential environmental niches. The bare bon
es of it are that, if an individual is better suited to that envornment, then it has a better chance of survival and is more likely to pass its genes on to its offspring. Simple as it seems, this process can explain every living organism we see today. We are the most clever species on the planet simply because there was an advantage to being clever millions of years ago. Having an improved brain to other species helped us to effectively hunt food, to build shelter, to make and use weapons and tools, etc. Those that were cleverer survived and those that were not died. The clever genes were passed on and the process began again.

It is the same reason why our bodies are so finely tuned, robust and amazing instruments. It is because, in the past, if things went wrong with our body, we died, therefore, we did not pass these detrimental genes on. If something went unexpectedly right with our body, we survived and passed the beneficial genes on. Throughout millions of years, this process has ensured that we have, amongst other things, a brain more complex and powerful than anything else on Earth, muscles which can perform immense feats of strength and skill and a heart which continues beating and adapting to various conditions for 80 odd years. It is truly remarkable!

This process is how I explain how we came to be as magnificent as we all are. I can fully understand why people, especially in the past, have turned to religion as an explanation for the amazing gifts we have. Before science offered a reasonable explanation for these gifts, to look to a greater being would have been a logical process to help explain the seemedly unexplainable. Even now, people still believe (and they have every right to do so) that humans were created exactly as they are now, in the form of Adam and Eve. Others believe in evolution from a creation which was given to us by a god, and while this seems like a compromise, it is a viable opinion. However, in my p
ersonal opinion, I believe that we evolved, ultimately from a single molecule, by a process of natural selection to the intricate beings which we are today, without the help of any higher being.

But, to pick holes in my own theory, there are two factors which remain unexplained in my mind as to how we are what we are. I am perfectly happy that once there was a molecule which could make copies of itself, that variation in the copies would ensure that some survived better than other, thus starting off the whole natural selection process until molecules became more and more complex. Where I am a little stuck is, how did this molecule which could make copies of itself come about? The only explanation I can come up with is pure chance in a timescale of many millions of years. But I still remain utterly perplexed at how this could happen.

My other factor which I cannot explain is how and why there was ever an opportunity for natural selection and evolution to occur? What I mean by this (and I am going quite philosophical now) is where did all the material come from? Where did the atoms come from which made the molecules? Where did the protons, neutrons and electrons come from which made the atoms? People say the big bang created the Earth, but where did the material from the big bang come from? I'm not asking for answers on a postcard but I just think about this sort of thing from time to time!!!

All this may seem a little far fetched from the seagull which has now disappeared from my window. But it is all related, and if you are looking for explanations you have to look for full explanations. Natural selection and evolution do a pretty good job of explaining how we are why we are, but a full explanation which is accepted by everyone will ultimately never be reached.

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