Sex, Death, and Evolution... and Copernicus.

I am in the middle of reading a great book called "13 things that don't make sense" - this brilliant book talks about the thirteen biggest scientific mysteries of our time, and I have just finished reading the chapters on Sex and Death not making sense in an evolutionary context. Let me summarise for you what the book says.

firstly, there is the problem of death - and we mean natural death here, in terms of a lifeform having a limited lifespan. Eukaryotes (these are the more complex cells that make up you and I, as well as plants and animals) and prokaryotes (simpler cells that make up amoebas and bacteria) have one difference, and that is that Eukaryotes will die of old age, prokaryotes will not. And the reason for this difference is telomeres - every time you create a new cell your telomere will reduce - when this is finished, then you will die. Scientists have been able to switch off this in small animals, but are uncertain of the long term effects on humans to be able to prolong life - and the animals died anyway - we cannot live forever yet. But we know how we die, but the question is why? what evolutionary benefit is there? The argument that death evolved and stayed around because overpopulation can lead to the downfall of a species doesn't work here, since, as Richard Dawkins himself put it, evolution cannot possibly function for the benefit of the entire species or group, it can only function for the purpose of the indivdual organism that has the new mutation.

The second problem is Sex - which is, oddly enough, seemingly linked in with death - since the telomeres came about as a result of sexual reproduction - but the fact of the matter is, is that there are much better ways to reproduce (possibly not quite so enjoyable, but that is a different discussion entirely...) - ones that do not have the cost of death. What evolutionary benefit was there in having sexual reproduction? what made it stick? Why do we now have to reproduce with another organism of the same kind, instead of producing an exact replica of ourselves using our own genes to be passed on? after all, there is another cost - by having to find a mate, our offspring may inherit some bad genes, ones which could damage the chance of the species prolonging it's life.

The Author hits upon a revolutionary idea, refencing ancient astronomy. Back in the greek times, Ptolemy observed the planets and postulated that the plantes revolve around the earth - after all, we humans are special, why would God not have us at the centre of the universe? This seemed to fit with Ptolemy's observations, until some fellow astronomers pointed out some issues with their observations. exception upon exception upon exception was produced, and ptolemy's model was constantly refined and rebuilt so that everything could agree - in the end, it was a complete mess. Copernicus simplified things, and realised that the movements of the planets made a lot more sense if everything revolved around the sun, and not the sun and all the planets revolving around the earth. The new age of astronomy was born on this much simpler and more accurate model.

So the author suggests that this is what we are missing in these problems - be have the wrong basis, the wrong foundations for explaining biology - this is why it doesn't make sense yet... you can see where I am going with this. I personally think the author is right - until he starts talking babble about how they both work around each other, sex and death, and one breeds the other etc.

balderdash - so close, but no cigar, because that still does not explain the WHY in this question. Hence why he still ends the chapter with nothing resolved. Because let us stip down to the bare bones of this - what is the one foundation we are working on? Evolution.

Mental exercise here: If we took evolution out of the equation, and placed in an intelligent creator, everything makes more sense - Let us take death, for example - a lot more sensible to keep populations down, because this time an intelligent designer can actually design a species for the benefit of the whole population - evolution is simply not intelligent enough to design the world we have and live in - second to that, in the bible, during the days where people were living to 900 years old, and God saw the people on the earth getting too numerous for their own good, it says that he decided to shorten their lifespan - intelligent input for the benefit of the group. As for sexual reproduction, this is once again another piece of intelligent design - produce only two people on the earth, and by sexual reproduction a hugely diverse population can be created - diversity means that the whole group can survive - since everyone gains their own individual skill - because they might have inherited better intelligence, or stronger muscles and bones, or more nimble hands - so some can provide the law and development of the community, some can be the soldiers to defend the group, while others can be the craftsmen who can build houses and shelters - if you only have a group of intelligent people or strong people, then you are missing other skills - again, evolution is not intelligent enough to explain everything in this world - and as a hypothesis, clearly does not meet up to the standards of what we have discovered in science - and like the ptolemaic astronomic model, should be scrapped before we keep adding any more ridiculous ideas to explain what the hypothesis is just not up to scratch enough to explain.

one final thing I wish to address, and that is that you might discover another problem that we have if you look at the question that was asked - they both start with the same word, "WHY" - WHY have we evolved sexual reproduction? WHY have we evolved death? science has already answered the WHAT and the HOW - but it is simply not built to answer the why - because then it has to fall on evolution - why have we EVOLVED these traits? This is no longer scientific question, but philosophical - and it is after the origins of man - this is not philosophy of science, but the philosophy of religion - the scientific community is now touting evolution as it's new god - the new being that is the answer to all, our creator, that which is untouchable - which is why the author of my book did not question this as the foundation - Evolution is UNFALSIFIABLE - it cannot be falsified! Modern scientific method and assumption does not allow us to try and find fault with evolution. Because as soon as we come up against some evidence, or some argument against it, we immediately do not question evolution as the problem, but we look to find other reasons - despite evolution being the only missing link - we are like the greek astronomers who once they find an anomaly with the position of the planets and stars from where they should be in our earth-centred model, we find a possible addition to the model to overcomplicate things, because it cannot possibly be that our initial premise is wrong.

The search for man's origins by the path of science has become a new religion - and Evolution is it's god - the battle of creation versus evolution is a battle of religions - so for true science to keep to the evolutionary hypothesis is to tout a god as the answer to our origins - so no argument that we should find out where life came from without god is applicable, because evolution is a god in it's own right - atheism, in it's attempt to live life without God, has turned full circle to develop a new one. so how do we answer this? Well, the decision is up to science - we can choose to now rebuke evolution and carry on living our lives to develop new cures, beat cancer, discover new species and new planets, develop new technological advances - and keep god, in whatever form it comes in, out of the science books and in the religious texts, or we have to allow creationism to have a chance in the scientific world - to be credible as an alternative to evolution - and long then may the battle of which theory is right continue. If scientists choose neither and to keep evolution, then I now name you as members of earth's most modern religion, scientism (despite your religious text being 150 years old and "messiah" being 200).

Thank you. Rather important and poignant rant over.

Please note, that Scientism is not to be confused with the rather misleadingly named Scientology, which has actually has no scientific fact behind it at all)