To the educated in science, I am not going to be talking about anything that has not been common knowledge for decades. But I have friends who think science is not essential, that education makes sinners, and asking questions that do not get answered in religious text is evil! So this is for you!
We will be talking about sciences like paleontology, molecular biology, evolutionary biologists, and general biology, you know, the birds and the bees!
Let’s start with Molecular biology, as it is there we find one of the most significant discoveries in modern times, DNA! Because DNA is universal to all life, its presence strongly suggests that all creatures on Earth evolved from a common ancestor! It also explains how the proliferation of genetic mutations (copy errors), combined with the processes of natural selection, enables evolution to happen. Ultimately, DNA is the engine that drives evolution. So every time you make a copy of yourself by procreation, no matter if you are a frog, a gnat, or a human being, sometimes there is an error in the copy, or DNA! So this is when natural selection kicks in! If that copy or DNA error makes you better able to cope with your environment, then it lives on. If it doesn’t, it becomes fertilizer! It is a brutal process that takes eons, but, it does not need a guiding hand! By that I mean no guy in the sky looking down and thinking I didn’t create that, I think I’ll drop a boulder on it!
So let’s move on to the paleontologist and evolutionary biologist, as they are both significant here as I bring up the very massive and prolific fossil record! Let point out that no, the fossil record is not some gigantic scam by millions of scientists that planted fake bones, skeletons, and fossilized plant-matter over every continent, and sub-continent of the globe to put one over on you.
Species come and go, but life does go on! This is the essential lesson of the fossil record that dates back 3.8 billion years! Oh yeah, not 6000, as some have tried to tell me! I think a few of us must have felt the Flintstones was a documentary! Hell, gators, whales, and sharks have been around for just a tad longer! In the case of the shark, about 450 million years. The alligator developed into what we see today about 85 million years ago, but has relatives that date back 200 million years! The whale was once a land animal, and they still have vestigial evidence of the legs they used to use to move around! They evolved into whales about 50 million years ago. The hippo is their nearest relative! The fossil record is considered to be anything found that is over 10,000 years old. We can date fossils using another scientific method called carbon dating. We are all carbon-based creatures! So by measuring the carbon-12 and carbon-14 that it contains, we can determine the age. What they do is to measure the difference between the two as the radioactive carbon-14 decays at a constant and measurable rate, so we can date the fossils we find!
So, evolution is real, with real science behind it! You cannot solve our problems if you do not understand the planet you live on and how it came to be! You also cannot understand how to nurture it, heal it, without this knowledge. All scientific knowledge is crucial if we are going to continue to live in this world without destroying it and ourselves. Science is the most critical survival tool in your arsenal, not your damn gun! Ok, get off your high horse, I am not advocating getting rid of your weapons, I can see that argument going off the rails already!
I wrote this blog because I just saw another article where schools in our country are refusing to teach evolution. Case in point, the new Florida Education Chair just stated that he would not support evolution being taught in that state as factual, making the old argument that it is just a theory! He does not understand that in the realm of science, a theory is generally accepted as true! Now a hypothesis would be accurate for his argument, but again, he does not understand or know his words! A person who has sway over education should know his words and their meaning! But you have to be adequately educated! You cannot understand the world you live in if you are not educated in how it came to be! This is not some off the wall new deal; evolution has been an accepted fact for a very long time by 97% of scientists the world over. There is just too much evidence to back it up!
My other pet peeve is history. Again, you cannot know why the world is the way it is without knowing the history that shaped it! Some politician said recently that history is not important, because it was in the past. He and the Florida guy must get their education from the same source! Illegitimate U.
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