There is a lasting and great debate over evolution both scientific and non-scientific. Some is based upon good scientific research and some is just hearsay or even religious dogma. Is what you believe about evolution based upon facts or is it speculation and assumption?
The purpose of this article is to get people to think beyond normal protocol and to view greater possibilities that still need investigation. Many just listen to what others say or have said and do not formulate their own questions. Below is a list of questions to consider that relate to evolution.
1. What is natural selection?
2. What is a mutation?
3. How is genetic material added in the evolutionary process and where does this new genetic material come from?
4. How much genetic material, DNA, would need to be added for a change from gills to lungs, for example. This would be a fish evolving to an amphibian and one of the needed changes for that process.
5. I read some place that the amount of information storedin the DNA molecule surpasses what a super computer could store. Is this true or just someone's speculation?
6. How is all this complex information stored on the DNA molecule?
7. What "software" is used to unlock or retrieve it and put it to proper use?
8. What causes an organism to "adapt" or change form in order to evolve? Is it a decision the living thing makes (whether animal or plant or virus) oris it just by chance only?
9. Can the thought process of thinking organisms possibly affect the outcome of a next generation to bring about some positive change?
10. If we have, on Earth, so quickly developed an absolutely incredible diversity of life via evolution, then wouldn't we expect the same such processes to be happening throughout the known universe? With the exception of the dark matter, all we can see is made up of the exact same elements as our Earth. And the same natural laws are ubiquitously at work eliciting the same actions and reactions atomically, physically and chemically.
11. What would be the end point of evolution?
12. Where would mankind be if he had another 4 billion years on the Earth?
13. How much time has there been in the past for evolution to have run its course? Is past time limited and if so, how can we really know how much time has already gone by? Currently it is limited by how far we can see with our best telescopes. Certainly more may lie beyond what we can currently see with available technology, but how much?
14. Could time possibly be infinite in the past and future?
15. Is it possible that evolution has reached its end point some place in the vast known universe?
16. Has the decoding of the human genome shown our heritage and evolutionary line? Is the DNA still there for the lower life forms from which we came? (one celled form, mufti-celled form, aquatic form, amphibian form, lower mammalian and chimpanzee.
There is more to evolution that meets the eye. Some state that it is a fact of life and that "natural selection over time equals evolution". Natural selection is just that, selection from amonng available usable traits in an organism's already existing gene pool and having an expression among the population of those traits that aid survival. This always reduces the gene pool because undesirable traits, such as a certain coloration that aids predators in seeing the prey, can be eliminated over time because those with that trait are easily found and killed.
Mutation is rarely beneficial and usually does not add new genetic material. There are cases where viruses add genetic material from other viruses by simply creating a longer sting of DNA including that of both organisms. This does not usually happen with higher forms of life and most mutations involve changes in sequencing of various molecules manufactured inside the cell such as proteins.
For a change to occur, the proper selection in the DNA code would need to be there first for any change inf orm or structure to be selected in order to manifest. Any old traits (worm traits, amphibian traits, lower amammal traits and chimpanzee traits, for example) would have to remain in the gene pool. I was told by a professor at the University of Arkansas that this lower DNA is "hidden DNA", but that is just another theory.
There has been some very good scientific research that has shown protein links or similarities between human and lower life forms. But this is also necessary in the food chain for assimilation. This proves similarity but not evolution. Much more information is needed for difinive proof.
The second law of thermodynamics states that all must tend toward disorder. Things should breakdown, cool off and disperse. An outside force is always needed to create or maintain order. With the Earth that energy source would be the Sun. So it is a fact that order can be maintained or even increased to a degree, but that only lasts as long as the Sun lasts.
Let us take a look at some probabilities. In 1967, Max Perutz and others at Cambridge University succeeded in solving the structure of the hemoglobin molecule, the most important protein in the blood. It consists of four chains fastened together and folded in a complex pattern. In all, hemoglobin has 574 amino acid links. The molecule has 10,000 atoms. Every person has exactly the same hemoglobin molecule right down to the very last atom. Any variations are usually fatal, such as sickle cell anemia, where only two of the 574 amino acids are in a reversed order. The simplest living form requires 238 different proteins all in the proper order to function and survive. Many are far more complex than hemoglobin. All must be in one place at one time somehow contained in a unit called a cell or organism. Otherwise they would simply disperse and breakdown in the environment. We would also need the extremely complex DNA molecule exactly coded to build those proteins and all the intercellular mechanism to make them on a continual basis. The mathematical probability of that happening by chance is an absurdity.
According to scientists when somehting reaches a probability of 10 to the 52nd power it becomes an absurdity. The probability of just one usable protein being formed by random chance in the 5 billion year history of the Earth given ideal conditions is one with 161 zeroes behind it. As noted above, 238 different proteins are needed for normal life functions in a single cell. Therefore, I am not convinced at all that evolution is a fact as taught in our educational system. It is a good theory with some basis in fact but many questions remain unanswered. I am sure the future will unlock more of these mysteries.