Posted on 04/27/2008 2:42:03 AM PDT by canuck_conservative
"Oh what a piece of work is man," wrote Shakespeare, long before Darwin suggested just how little work went into us. Somehow, that same process that gave us reason, language and art also left us with hernias, flatulence and hiccups.
One argument scientists often make against so-called intelligent design — the idea that evolution cannot by itself explain life — is that on closer inspection, we look like we've been put together by someone who didn't read the manual, or at least did a somewhat sloppy job of things.
Viewed as products of evolution, however, our anatomical quirks start to make sense, says University of Chicago fossil hunter and anatomy professor Neil Shubin, author of the recent book Your Inner Fish. And by focusing on our less lofty traits, evolutionary biology can help dispel one of the most egregious and even tragic fallacies surrounding Darwinian evolution — that it moves toward perfection, with man at the apex of some towering ladder.
Evolution of Hiccups
That misreading of evolution has been connected to the eugenics movement of the early 20th century, with the Nazis extending the man-as-ideal notion to blue-eyed blond German-man-as-ideal notion.
"Darwin didn't believe it, but some, who saw it through a more religious light, tended to want to interpret evolution as a steady march toward the pinnacle of humanity," says University of Pennsylvania ethicist Art Caplan, who has written extensively on the eugenics movement.
By today's understanding, evolution by natural selection doesn't march toward anything — it just modifies existing creatures to better compete in ever-shifting environments.
Understanding something as seemingly trivial as the evolution of hiccups can help clear up some profound misperceptions on the nature of life and humanity.
The sound of a hiccup echoes back to our very distant past as fish and amphibians some 375 million years ago, says Shubin. It's really just a spasm that causes a sharp intake of breath followed by a quick partial closing of our upper airway with that flap of skin known as the glottis. It's best if you can nip it in the first couple of hics, he says.
It's much harder to stop once you've let yourself get up to 10. By that point you've reverted to an ancient breathing pattern orchestrated by the brain stem that once helped amphibians breath, letting water pass the gills without leaking into the lungs.
"Tadpoles normally breathe with something like a hiccup," Shubin says.
The theme of his book is that we owe much of our anatomy to our animal ancestors. "Parts that evolved in one setting are now jury-rigged to work in another," he says. "When you look at the human body, you see layer after layer of history inside of us."
The first layer is what we share with chimpanzees and gorillas. The next goes back to mice and cows, while further down, you get to the relatively underappreciated layers we share with fish — which include the backbone and basic layout of the body.
Fishy news about hernias
Our descent from fish explains why men are so much more prone to hernias than women. In fish, Shubin explains, the testicles lie up near the heart.
(Had they remained there, he said, it would give a whole new meaning to the Pledge of Allegiance.)
The budding gonads still form up high in a human embryo, but male mammals reproduce better with their sperm kept a bit cooler than body temperature. And so during gestation, human testicles take an incredible journey down through the body to their destination in the scrotum.
The trip downward puts a loop in the cord that connects the testes to the penis, leaving a weakness in the body wall where the cord attaches that never quite repairs itself.
Hence the trouble with hernias down the road.
The matter of milk
No good story about human design flaws can pass up a discussion of flatulence — and science has addressed the kind that would occur if everyone in the world drank a tall glass of milk at the same time.
Geneticist Pragna Patel of the University of Southern California said one of her favorite examples of evolution in progress involves the gene that determines who can digest the sugars in milk and who cannot.
From genetic studies it appears that so-called lactose intolerance was our ancestral state.
A few people, however, were genetically gifted with an enzyme called lactase, which breaks down lactose, and in groups that started drinking lots of milk around 10,000 years ago, that version of the gene started to take over.
Scientists recently sequenced the lactase gene and found 43 different variations that allow adults to drink the milk of other animals.
"It's the first clear evidence of convergent evolution," Patel said, though it's not known whether those lacking this innovation failed to pass on their genes because they suffered from lack of nutrition or just didn't get invited to any parties.
I have made this case many times. The imperfection of biology suggests evolution, rather than ID/Creationism. In fact, the complexity of biological processes that is the main pillar of ID, is really an argument AGAINST ID.
A supernatural being/God doesn’t have to create through complexity. It/He is not subject to the laws of nature. Nature, on the other hand, must obey the laws of physics.
I have made this case many times. The imperfection of biology suggests evolution, rather than ID/Creationism. In fact, the complexity of biological processes that is the main pillar of ID, is really an argument AGAINST ID.
A supernatural being/God doesn’t have to create through complexity. It/He is not subject to the laws of nature. Nature, on the other hand, must obey the laws of physics.
To prove that evolution is imperfect you double posted your reply. Right?
This website has hiccups, not the posters fault.
This reminds me of the theory that wings evolved because of the natural advantage that flight gave birds. However, unless one generation of birds emerged with fully functional wings, those many many generations with partially formed non functional wings would have been at a serious disadvantage, and yet we have birds all over the place.
The presence of hiccups no more disproves the existence of God than does the existence of liberals or other religious bigots.
Sore, WV? Where is that. I live near the Rio Mall (pronounced RY’O, since this is WV)...
Except for spermatogenesis, which requires a temperature lower than internal. Back to school for you, budding biologist.
“The imperfection of biology suggests ...”
Spotting “imperfections” would require an understanding of Creation that no man can posess.
“A supernatural being/God doesn’t have to create through complexity.”
“Complexity” is a reletive term. Anyone who can understand all of Creation may not regard it as bing all that complex.
Calm Down. No one is trying to "disprove the existance of God". No one suggests thet wings formed complete in one step. There is evidence in the fossil record and animals alive today that have vestigal wings unsuitable for flight. Why would God "design" an ostrich with wings if he didn't want it to fly?
evolution, OK; Evolution, mot so much. God does in fact work more through nature and the natural law He ordains than through “miracles”.
It’s quite a leap of faith to lay all to blind chance.
Imperfections are called "disease". It is spotted all of the time. At the time of Jesus, everyone thought that infectious disease was caused by angering God. Now we know it is caused by microbes. Penicillin has cured more people than all of the saints combined (except Archie Manning).
Until someone has EVIDENCE for an alternative theory, natural selection is the best we have.
I had a friend demonstrate the TOE for me. He took an old pocket watch and placed it in a cloth bag. He laid it on a table and beat the bag with a hammer, destroying the watch inside.
He then shook the bag, and shook the bag, and then poured it onto the table. His statement still rings true..." there is a better chance of the watch coming out whole, than man having evolved from a spark in the ether..."
There is no "natural selection". There is just a "theory" about it...
the·o·ry (thē'ə-rē, thîr'ē) pronunciation n., pl. -ries.
1. A set of statements or principles devised to explain a group of facts or phenomena, especially one that has been repeatedly tested or is widely accepted and can be used to make predictions about natural phenomena.
2. The branch of a science or art consisting of its explanatory statements, accepted principles, and methods of analysis, as opposed to practice: a fine musician who had never studied theory.
3. A set of theorems that constitute a systematic view of a branch of mathematics.
4. Abstract reasoning; speculation: a decision based on experience rather than theory.
5. A belief or principle that guides action or assists comprehension or judgment: staked out the house on the theory that criminals usually return to the scene of the crime.
6. An assumption based on limited information or knowledge; a conjecture.
-answers.com
The brain, superior to any computer made today.
The eye, superior to any camera made today.
To create a self reproducing robot with all the attributes of man, is way beyond our ability for a long time to come.
And you base evolution on a hiccup.
I think he understands that.
He probably doesn’t see a reason that they would move all the way down there over the course of time. Why wasn’t the original point sufficient? It must have worked at it’s original point?
If the new point outside the main part of the body didn’t happen all at once, how many millions of years would it take for this accident to happen, and what possible benefit could there be during the journey, to make the accidental slight movement an advantage, and worthwhile?
LOL - well said.
god created us in his image... flatulence was a way for man to amuse himself before he learned how to make gameboys... evidence in the painting of god having his finger pulled by adam...
as for hernias... i am doing extensive research compiling lots of taxpayers money which shows that men suffer more hernias than women because they lift heavier things...
as for hiccups... again... god thinks of everything... how else could an ignorant man know when he has had too much to drink...
teeman
the argument should be where life began, In the begining, there was nothing, How can something come from nothing. A big bang? From what?
the origins of life... its takes nore faith to believe that something came from absolute nothing than created by an eternal God... (even though my mind goes to Who created God even though he always was, my finite mind has a hard tine grasping the beginning assuming all things have a starting point.)
the beginning... when there was nothing. All matter has to be created or to have come from some pre-existing matter for any proccess live evolution to start. A big bang needed to have at least some form of matter to have the bang no?
think about it...
something from nothing... I’m not buying it. Then there is “reason, spirit, emotion. Sorry, I also don’t buy mixing chemicals together will create reason and spirit. If life is so easy to create spontaneously, how is it the smart scientists have not yet created life by mixing the raw components of life together to create life?
mind boggling...
and birds are flightless because they choose to be... god gave them wings for man to barbecue them and cause flatulence...
t
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