Undeniable - Evolution and the Science of Creation

295 Pages·2014·1.44 MB·English

by  Bill Nye

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Dedicated to science students of all ages, wishing you countless safe journeys
and the infinite joy of discovery
CONTENTS
Title
Copyright Notice
Dedication

1 Me and You and Evolution, Too
2 The Great Creationism Debate
3 Creation and the Second Law of Thermodynamics
4 Bottom-Up Design
5 A Deep Dive into Deep Time
6 On the Origin of Evolution
7 Lamarck and His Not-Acquired Traits
8 My Prom and Sexual Selection
9 The Tale of the Red Queen
10 Dogs Are All Dogs
11 The Tree of Life—Or Is It a Bush?
12 Biodiversity Comes in the Territory
13 Fossil Records and Explosions
14 Mass Extinctions and You
15 Ancient Dinosaurs and the Asteroid Test
16 Punctuated Equilibrium
17 Contingency, Bottlenecking, and Founding
18 Mosquitos in the Tube
19 Convergence, Analogy, and Homology
20 What Good Is Half a Wing?
21 Human Bodies Are Walking, Talking, and Good-Enough
22 Evolution Is Why We Don’t Believe in Evolution
23 Micro or Macro—It’s All Evolution
24 Michael Faraday and the Joy of Discovery
25 Medicine and You—Evolution at the Doctor’s Office
26 Antibiotic Drug Resistance—Evolution Strikes Back
27 The Irresistable Urge of Altruism
28 Games Species Play
29 Costly Signals
30 Genetically Modified Foods—What the GMF?
31 Human Cloning—Not Cool
32 Our Skin Colors
33 Is the Human Species Still Evolving?
34 Astrobiologically Speaking: Is Anyone There?
35 The Sparks That Started It All
36 A Second Genesis—of Life?
37 Life’s Cosmic Imperative

Acknowledgments
Index
About the Authors
Copyright
1
ME AND YOU AND EVOLUTION,
TOO
I think it started with the bees. I was about seven years old, and I watched
them … all day. That Sunday, I had read the “Ripley’s Believe It or Not” column
in The Washington Post, which claimed, “The Bumblebee: Considering its size,
shape, and wingspan, is an aerodynamic misfit—which should be unable to fly!”
It was frustrating, because here they were flying. I got caught up in the details.
Their wings looked like decoration, no more useful than a store-bought bow
glued to a gift. I looked closely at my mother’s azalea flowers—so many delicate
parts. Somehow, the bees were able to get in there, fill their pollen baskets from
the flowers, and fly away again and again.
How did bees learn to do all that? Where did they come from? Where did the
flowers come from? Come to think of it, how did any of us get here? Why did
Ripley’s have it so obviously wrong? I was getting pulled into something much
larger than myself. The yearning to know about nature and where or how we fit
in is deep within all of us. As I learned about evolution and descent by natural
selection, the answers fell into place.
We are all aware that evolution happens, because we all have parents. Many
of us have, or will have, children. We see the effects of heredity up close and
personal. We’ve also experienced firsthand what Charles Darwin called descent
with modification: the way that an entire population of living things can change
from generation to generation. Think about the food grown on farms. For about
twelve thousand years, exploiting the phenomenon of evolution, humans have
been able to modify plants through a process known as artificial selection. In
wheat farming and horse racing we call it breeding. Darwin realized that
breeding (and domesticating) plants and animals involves exactly the same
process that occurs naturally in evolution, only accelerated with the help of
humans. This natural process produced you and me.
Once you become aware—once you see how evolution works—so many
familiar aspects of the world take on new significance. The affectionate nuzzling
of a dog, the annoying bite of a mosquito, the annual flu shot: All are direct
consequences of evolution. As you read this book, I hope you will also come
away with a deeper appreciation for the universe and our place within it. We are
the results of billions of years of cosmic events that led to the cozy, habitable
planet we live on.
We experience evolution every day in our culture as well. People everywhere
are fascinated with other people. That’s why we have sidewalk cafés, televisions,
and gossip magazines. We interact to produce more of us for future generations.
People are fascinated with their bodies. Turn on the television to any channel. If
it’s youth-oriented music programming, you’ll see advertisements for skin
medicines to make you look healthy, for deodorants to modify your natural
scents, and for hair and makeup products to render you more attractive to a
potential mate. If it’s a staid news channel, you’ll see ads for improving your
breathing, your bones, and, of course, your sexual performance. None of these
products would be produced were we not walking, talking products of evolution.
We are all so much alike, because we are all human. But it goes deeper than
that. Every species you’ll encounter on Earth is, near as we can tell, chemically
the same inside. We are all descended from a common ancestor. We are shaped
by the same forces and factors that influence every other living thing, and yet we
emerged as something unique. Among the estimated 16 million species on Earth,
we alone have the ability to comprehend the process that brought us here. Any
way you reckon it, evolution is inspiring.
Despite all of that, a great number of people in many parts of the world—
even in well-educated parts of the developed world—are resistant or hostile to
the idea of evolution. Even in places like Pennsylvania and Kentucky, here in the
United States, the whole idea of evolution is overwhelming, confusing,
frightening, and even threatening to many individuals. I can understand why. It’s
an enormous process, unfolding over times that dwarf a human lifespan—across
billions of years and in every part of the world. And it’s profoundly humbling.
As I learned more about evolution, I realized that from nature’s point of view,
you and I ain’t such a big deal. Humans are just another species on this planet
trying to make a go of it, trying to pass our genes into the future, just like
chrysanthemums, muskrats, sea jellies, poison ivy … and bumblebees.
Many people who are troubled by evolution want to suppress teaching the
whole concept of descent through natural selection in schools. Others try to push
it aside or dilute it by casting doubt on the established science that supports it.
State education standards allow the teaching of fictitious alternatives to
evolution in Texas, Louisiana, and Tennessee. Even though the people who
support these curricula live lives that are enriched in many ways by science and
engineering (everything from running water and abundant food to television and
the Internet) they avoid the exploration of evolution, because it reminds us all
that humankind may not be that special in nature’s scheme. What happens to
other species also happens to us.
I continually remind people what is at stake here. Our understanding of
evolution came to us by exactly the same method of scientific discovery that led
to printing presses, polio vaccines, and smartphones. Just as mass and motion are
fundamental ideas in physics, and the movement of tectonic plates is a
fundamental idea in geology, evolution is the fundamental idea in all of life
science. Evolution has essential practical applications in agriculture,
environmental protection, medicine, and public health. What would the deniers
have us do? Ignore all the scientific discoveries that make our technologically
driven world possible, things like the ability to rotate crops, pump water,
generate electricity, and broadcast baseball?
Even the theological objections to evolution stand on shaky ground. For the
last century and a half, ever since the publication of Darwin’s On the Origin of
Species in 1859, many people have come to believe that evolution is in conflict
with their religious beliefs. At the same time, many people around the world
who hold deep religious convictions see no conflict between their spiritual
beliefs and their scientific understanding of evolution. So the naysayers are not
only casting doubt on science and nonbelievers; they are also ignoring the
billions of non-conflicted believers around the world, dismissing their views as
unworthy.
I’ll admit that the discovery of evolution is humbling, but it is also
empowering. It transforms our relationship to the life around us. Instead of being
outsiders watching the natural world go by, we are insiders. We are part of the
process; we are the exquisite result of billions of years of natural research and
development.
Frankly, my concern is not so much for the deniers of evolution as it is for
their kids. We cannot address the problems facing humankind today without
science—both the body of scientific knowledge and, more important, the
process. Science is the way in which we know nature and our place within it.
Like any useful scientific theory, evolution enables us to make predictions
about what we observe in nature. Since it was developed in the nineteenth
century, the theory itself has also evolved, by which I mean that it’s been refined
and expanded. Some of the most wonderful aspects and consequences of
evolution have been discovered only recently. This is in stark contrast to
creationism, which offers a static view of the world, one that cannot be
challenged or tested with reason. And because it cannot make predictions, it
cannot lead to new discoveries, new medicines, or new ways to feed all of us.
Evolutionary theory takes us into the future. As the foundation of biology,