Taken from Richard Dawkins' "The Greatest Show on Earth"
- Evolution skeptic: Professor Haldane, even given the billions of years that you say were available for evolution, I simply cannot believe it is possible to go from a single cell to a complicated human body, with its trillion of cells organized into bones and muscles and nerves, a heart that pumps without ceasing for decades, miles and miles of blood vessels and kidney tubules, and a brain capable of thinking and talking and feeling.
- J. B. S. Haldane: But madam, you did it yourself. And it only took you nine months.
Evolution is a theory?
No, and here’s why. There is an overwhelming body of evidence that evolution occurs, and has occurred over the history of life on Earth. It is simply too much evidence to honestly consider the phenomenon of evolution as a “theory” (a word we’ll get to later).
At one time there were no chimps, but there were Deinoneichus. Now, there are chimps and no animals recognizable as dinosaurs…
We can actually watch organisms, like fruit flies, evolve over generations in much less than a human life time. The selective breeding of domestic animals over time is evolution in action (look at the various forms of pig, cow, dog, and other animals that have departed radically in form from their wild sources). There is the evidence from comparative embryology of vertebrates, modern knowledge of rates of genetics and genetic variation, the fossil record and geologic stratigraphy, knowledge of zoogeography, understanding of plate tectonics continental drift, the ability to date both rock and organic material with an amazing amount of accuracy, comparative anatomy and physiology, and comparative biochemistry.
At this point, there is simply too much evidence AND direct observation to classify evolution as a theory, even a scientific theory. It is fact. There simply is no reasonable conclusion one can reach scientifically, after over 200 years of work in geology, zoology, genetics, chemistry and a variety of other fields have independently lead us in this direction.
Life on Earth did not start as it is now. It started in a very simple way, probably from one kind of organism, and it branched out into the multitude of complex forms you see today… you and me and the snail and the oak tree, etc. Life continues to evolve right now. Selective pressures and horozontal gene transfer and random genetic mutation are working to change organisms as populations, slightly ever so slightly so that one day they will be markedly different organisms.
To understand all this, one does need to read a bit, but there is so much evidence, there has been so much work… there is a good reason that the VAST MAJORITY of scientists operate under the framework of evolution as scientists. I do not use the word “believe” no more than i would state that I believe that there is gravity or that water will evaporate at a certain temperature under certain conditions.
If you have any more comments or questions about evolution, or the theories of how it operates, feel free to ask. Also, the work is there…
