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Sunday, October 18, 2009
Vestigial Thoughts

The vestiges of human evolution – non-functional genes and organs – appear to provide very strong evidence that humans weren’t created as we are now*. It is as Darwin states: “Man still bears in his bodily frame the indelible stamp of lowly origins”, “lowly” here meaning an organism that appears lower down on the tree of life.

It certainly should not be taken to connote any social, cultural and very human judgments on the status of such a being, as some are wont to do. Just because it is “lower” does not mean it is inferior; rather it means it existed before us.

Sometimes it feels like those who oppose the idea that humans descended from an earlier life form oppose it because it makes humanity inferior, because it makes us no different from all the other living creatures. But what makes us superior to any other living creature?

What are we better at, and what are we better than? We're not better at swimming, not better at running, hunting, hearing, seeing, jumping, smelling, surviving, reproducing, and certainly not flying.


Is it because we're more complex? We have more genes (no we don't - some amoebas have more than twice as many genes). We have more cells, more bones, more organs, more body parts? No we don't.

We're better at thinking, is that it? We have more sophisticated brains? Is that the basis for discriminating against other animals? We're only better at thinking, and that makes us better than all the other creatures? Then why is it so politically, morally, psychologically and even biologically against ourselves to openly discriminate against other less intelligent human beings?

What is it that makes humans human?
That some people can believe in evolution, EXCEPT in humans?


(I say “appear to” not because I suspect it to be untrue but because in the absence further knowledge I can only accept that it is true as told to me by what little I have read. This is not to discount the fact that should I delve further into the topic I would no doubt be able to find compelling evidence to believe this statement to be scientifically true.)

Labels: evolution, random write, religion

12:31 AM