There is one thing that many of the Evolution Priests do forget. That thing is that Evolution is just one process like many others. But because there is a need of Evolution Dissemination, processes like Selection, Mutation and Speciation are wrapped inside the Evolution process. It is possible Evolution without Mutation? No, obviously not. However, you don’t see any one spreading the word Mutation like Evolution (click for 10-fold Google results). So, we end up with the ridiculous thoughts, that Selection makes Evolution, that Mutation is part of Evolution, that Speciation is just a classification, and, consequently, that Migration is no more than a mere curiosity, without a real relationship to Speciation.
Darwin suggested as the perfect spot for the source of life, a warm little pond. Until now, many Evolutionary Priests suggested the miraculous spark for life origin. However, in a landmark discovery, chemist John Sutherland has created the conditions in which the building blocks of RNA, one of the key molecules of life and the probable precursor to DNA, assemble themselves naturally. The problem until now relates to the view of a spontaneous life generation from the ideal environment conditions, like a prebiotic soup of chemicals. If you think a little, this has to do with the view of evolution, that evolution is a product of life, and in this way, you are unable to view evolution previous to life, you are unable to see evolution as a natural process predicted by environment and completely independent of life.
The solution became simple if you get rid of the life restriction, and realize that the complex molecules necessary to life became “cooked”, by important and intermediate steps resulting in new increased complex molecules, instead a single step from a group of ingredients. However, the Evolution Priests don’t predict Evolution outside the biological world, at least in a serious way.
Revealing the Origins of Life (Jul 08, 2011)
There is another reason for this kind of Evolutionary culture. The English culture is made of sounding figures, figures that give extreme force to the Anglo Saxon view of the world. There are three particular figures that any one recognizes. Those figures are:
- William Shakespeare;
- Charles Darwin;
- Isaac Newton.
Albeit they being old in history, we still regard them as contemporary. It’s frequently the references to William Shakespeare in movies and other media. Charles Darwin is referred as a “know all” about evolution, and the fader of all answers in biologic world, at least in conceptual terms. And last but not least, Isaac Newton gave origin to the Apple marketing machine, the biggest Pop culture icon of our times. We may compare those with other similar figures, but with much less recognition. Those figures are:
- Miguel de Cervantes;
- August Weismann or Gregor Mendel;
- Gottfried Leibniz, Rudolf Clausius or Ludwig Boltzmann.
The English culture is like a species, which abstraction needs its eternal figures albeit their real significance, because the real important thing in a species is its survival, not the truth.
Now we will try to put some order in the extended expressions that are interpreted as the same, when in reality, aren’t. Using our English culture analogy, we may ask for the differences between the follow expressions:
- England;
- Great Britain;
- United Kingdom;
- Common Wealth.
The Difference between the United Kingdom, Great Britain and England Explained
For the majority, the previous expressions basically means the same, because is in the best interest of the English culture that, for instance, England means the same as Common Wealth, and so the ambiguity. Why? Because bigger is better.
The Evolution Priests are equally interested that other expressions became misunderstood with Evolution, and the common people interpret the following expressions has basically meaning the same:
- Mutation;
- Replication;
- Selection;
- Speciation;
- Migration.
For instance, if Evolution is the product of Mutation, becomes hard to make Evolution the big deal, unless, Mutation is referred as an instrument of Evolution, and not as a distinct process.
Now we may try to interpret those processes in a distinct way, in an isolated way, and give to them a place like Evolution has. Recognizing that Environment Processes are external to life, we may figure out a layout for those Environment Processes. This layout is a rude expression of what may be, however it gives a good idea of how much it’s possible to realize thinking in distinct environmental processes.
Thinking in distinct environmental processes, may give you the answer for why life started only once. The Saturation process may have been triggered only shortly after the Replication one. Thinking in terms of processes you are able to make good analogies, like Internet, or Mobile Phones or even human languages. After the adoption of a particular protocol, the following Saturation makes impossible the appearance of a new one. It will be like a country enacting and replacing an official language.
To end this post, I will explain why the use of the expression Evolution Priests. To start with, I quote the Selfish Gene book of Richard Dawkins in the end of the Immortal coils chapter. He states:
“It is good to get into the habit, whenever we are trying to explain the evolution of some characteristic, such as altruistic behavior, of asking ourselves simply: ‘what effect will this characteristic have on frequencies of genes in the gene pool?’” – Richard Dawkins.
Now, what is wrong with the previous quote?
In fact, nothing is.
Now, what is wrong with the next one?
“It is good to get into the habit, whenever we are trying to explain the selection of some characteristic, such as altruistic behavior, of asking ourselves simply: ‘what effect will this characteristic have on frequencies of genes in the gene pool?’”
Equally nothing wrong!
We may rephrase with the words, mutation, replication, speciation, migration, and so on, that albeit a different meaning, still has nothing wrong with it.
My point is the following, surely Evolution makes part of genes and life, however, there are other processes equally important and distinct that genes depend on. And more important, in the universe of genes, not all of them have all the processes, for instance, not all life have speciation, because not all of them have greater genomes, because the speciation process has the simple effect on genes of increasing its quantity in the genome (complexity). However, for an Evolution Priest, everything becomes reduced to Evolution.
