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.
Only God knows why we have an appendix.
Even in our language, it’s something leftover.
I have studied Darwinism, and rejected it. My question is not about ewolution. It is very simple. Please explain how life began... Surely that is easy for you.
Give me reason to believe your "theory". I understand the premise. Tell me how life starts! How can it change, from inert matter into life form with the ability to reproduce itself. Provide a good hypothesis. Then I may get on board your ideas...
Until you get your answer, I can refer you to Genesis 1 and take you through the Book of Revelations. It offers a better explanation than I have seen elsewhere... and it's a whole lot more believable than the EVO Liturgy, and it's apologists.
No benefit? Staying alive is the main benefit. You talk as if there is a long-term goal of evolution---there isn't...merely staying around on the planet and reproducing is the goal for most organisms.
The appendix is just assumed to be useless. There were some late findings about it secreting certain substances of essence. I’ll search for it and post it here.
Some of these medicos are too enthusiastic to label parts “useless” and “unnecessary”. That sort of thinking is wrong.
Rest assured, it occurs, despite the lack of argument. But that is not the only variation. Some animal's gonads disappear altogether during certain parts of the year, and these are cold-blooded animals. Yet, in others, the gonads shrink and regrow. In (most--I think) mammals internal male gonads are a risk for cancer. So, there are many different gonadal "strategies" used for the complexities of spermatogenesis.
read later
Correction to my previous post. Meant to reply to trebb.
I’m not arguing for or against “natural selection”. Natural selection is small “e” evolution.
You miss the point.
Evolution would make more heat resistent testes, not move them across the abdomen, through a hole that doesn’t exist for any other purpose and leave them dangling in a skin sack. That’s almost proof of sardonic creation.
BTW, birds have very high internal temps and their testes work just fine.
We may have made a tiny step forward. This dialog started out with my objection to confusing Evolution with the origin of life. I guess you don't question Evolution. Your question is about abiogenesis. Those who study that topic do not have a claim on a theory yet so far as i know. I'm actually not much interested in the topic. I just get disgusted by Creationists dismissing Darwin's Natural Selection because they confuse it with an alternative to Creationism. Darwin devoted his life to sorting out one aspect of the mystery of life. He put a lot of good thought into his work. Yet, he is routinely dismissed by an irrational belief rooted in a childlike view of Biblical Creation. I suggest to those who hold such beliefs to take another look for a pattern of Evolution in Genesis
That is false. The theory of evolution is a theory. And there is a tremendous amount of evidence supporting that theory.
There is no "natural selection". There is just a "theory" about it...
the·o·ry (thÄ“'É™-rÄ“, thîr'Ä“) 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
Those may be the full range of definitions for the word "theory" but science does not use all of those when describing how it works.
The following definitions are much closer to what science means when it speaks of a scientific theory:
Theory: a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world; an organized system of accepted knowledge that applies in a variety of circumstances to explain a specific set of phenomena; "theories can incorporate facts and laws and tested hypotheses." Addendum: "Theories do not grow up to be laws. Theories explain laws."
Theory: A scientifically testable general principle or body of principles offered to explain observed phenomena. In scientific usage, a theory is distinct from a hypothesis (or conjecture) that is proposed to explain previously observed phenomena. For a hypothesis to rise to the level of theory, it must predict the existence of new phenomena that are subsequently observed. A theory can be overturned if new phenomena are observed that directly contradict the theory. [Source]
When a scientific theory has a long history of being supported by verifiable evidence, it is appropriate to speak about "acceptance" of (not "belief" in) the theory; or we can say that we have "confidence" (not "faith") in the theory. It is the dependence on verifiable data and the capability of testing that distinguish scientific theories from matters of faith.
Some think/interpret that the laws of Moses were “amended”, but if you do some research, you will find that there is no historical proof that it is so. Of course, if that’s what you want to believe, you will discount the naysayers and only give credence to those that believe as you do. I will admit that I give more credence to those that question the “amendment” theory.
Neanderthal.
Paranthropus.
God isn't bound by any laws as He is the Law. He is a humble God who allows us our self will despite the fact that our actions can be directly counter to His Will. I believe that we were designed to be immortal and the Garden of Eden blew it. The Bible has references of many living inordinately long lives, but it also tells us that God gave us, as sinners, a shorter life span. We are also promised new, perfect, immortal bodies if we accept the gift of Christ on the Cross as God's Love for us.
I read your page, so I figure you are much more educated than I in this area. Please don't take offense if I offer up a prayer for you to get over your experiences with men of the religious world and listen to the Word of God as only the Bible telss it.
God Bless
My dear friend, I appreciate the spirit of your prayers. Thank you!
So, what is the theory of the origin of the universe from whence your other evo theories evolve? In order for change, life had to begin. Please provide a reasonable hypothesis, from your religion, “science”.
Not necessarily. Evolution isn't about perfection.
"...not move them across the abdomen, through a hole that doesn’t exist for any other purpose and leave them dangling in a skin sack. That’s almost proof of sardonic creation.
Well, you're painting a picture of beings where the testicles have moved a large, improbable distance, through a large body mass. We don't know when this change happened, and more importantly, the details about the size of the creature that first began to develop descending testicles.
For all we know, this might have occurred in a mouse-sized(or smaller) creature, where the distention might not have been as dramatic, or as intricate. The complex features in modern mammals with completely descended testicles might have formed over those initial modifications.
The testes might have descended in order to shorten the length of travel between the epididymis and the urethra, along the vasa deferentia.
It might have evolved in such a manner, in order to increase the force of ejaculation, and the development might have followed the evolution of placental viviparity, in tandem with the evolution of larger body masses.
Birds might have taken another course of evolution where the sperm can be produced at high internal temperatures. Evolution allows the diversity of solutions.
Another example would be whales. Do they have external genitalia?
That's the thing about studying evolution- its like having a prepared dish, and deducing its recipe, from its taste, feel and appearance.
Just because it's complex, it does not mean we have to give up deducing, and just let go, declaring that the chef made it, and that's all there is to it.
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