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.
God has challenged men for thousands of years to test Him.
Psalm 34:8 Taste and see that the LORD is good; blessed is the man who takes refuge in him.
Where did you get the idea Jesus was a superhuman? Certainly not the bible.
I see know that you are coming from a position of total ignorance.
You should read about Jesus before taking such a firm stance against the truth in Him.
You have a very unscientific approach toward Jesus and the bible.
So, was Jesus human?
If Jesus is to be assumed neither superhuman, nor human, then why do the test in the first place?
You are jumping through hoops.
In an animal evolving high core body temps, there would be two solutions. Individuals with gene mutations allowing efficient sperm production at higher temps would out compete an animal that was slowly evolving a way to get its testicles outside the body.
The bird’s solution makes sense.
I'v tried it. Several times. Over years on end. It doesn't work. What do I do next?
Why not read the evidence laid out by the witnesses and decide for yourself? What do you have to fear from a fairy tail and at least you can come to these arguments armed with knowledge rather than ignorance?
I see no signs in your writing that your heart is seeking God at all let alone earnestly.
You are assuming that the former method might achieve success faster than the latter one. You are also assuming competition as equally distributed. The evolutionary path of birds might have resulted in the heat-fighting method, which involves complex biochemcal changes, more successful than the descended testicles method.
In mammals with generally low frequency of reproduction as compared to birds, the physical descention method might have been more viable.
The variables are vast; and the success of each evolutionary path depends on those variables, and their timing of play.
I’d try driving thru the express lane at McDonalds.
Seriously, it can take allot of time, and earnest soul searching (it did for me). It costs nothing though, so you lose nothing while you search.
You don't have to see it. Perhaps the intensity disillusionment is the product of the weariness from innumerable failed attempts at seeking your illusionary opiate.
If I had tried just once and failed, I would have been more mild in criticism, don't you think?
The "witnesses"? As I said earlier, they are of highly suspect nature. How can you prove otherwise?
You are apparently more trusting of what the illiterate masses in a foreign land heard and saw, than you are of the real people around you, today. Why would the oppressed people born 2000 years ago be any more trustworthy than the people you see on the streets, today? What effect could a person like David Blaine have on them, were he to go back in time and perform his stunning tricks?
And please don't bring the "can't fool people all the time" excuse. Religions like Islam spread from one individual to the present billions, with just the same kinds if incidents of miracles and other trickeries, as in other religions. Since these beliefs cumulate over time, they can grow into massive entities of ignorance, as they are, today.
The only shreds of support that you clutch, are derived of 2000-year old scrolls. You have nothing else in support of your beliefs. Without the matter in those scrolls brought to you, you would not hold these beliefs.
I’m aware of the time it takes. But sane people do come to a point when it becomes pretty obvious that the efforts are futile.
Atheists don’t wish there was no God. They just don’t see Him, no matter what efforts are put in to believe. It gets tiring after a while, and giving up is the most sane thing to do. Betraying one’s own sanity is akin to mental adultery.
Your cynicism is noted...
I guess it’s a choice you can make (I was dragged). I’d tell you not to give up.
BTW: your post above, once it happens you do know 100% that there is GOD. You’d have proof, but only others who have been through the same thing could understand. I’d never really looked at a bible, other than seeing one when I got dragged to church as a kid. There was practically 0 bible knowledge, and no want to get it.
...and from where, exactly, did the “laws of physics” come?
More than that, you just reveal how weak your beliefs are, that you swallow illogic hook, line and sinker, to avoid having to test your own faith. When you come to a point where you are forced to do it, I hope you survive the accrued agony that’ll pour hard on you, when your beliefs shatter.
from objective observation of nature
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