Evolution is still touted as the Devil’s tool, debated and refused as required curriculum in science classrooms by religious fundamentalists who refute scientific findings.
Bacterial strains, now able to resist antibiotics, only fifty years in use, and malaria’s total resistance to any of the last fifteen years’ known cures, surely both illustrate and represent evolution, in its clearest sense.
Such minds assert and retort that the Devil plants dinosaur bones to confound us and that our Earth, as the Bible states, is merely 6,000 years old- Carbon 14 dating be damned- that man coexisted, lived with dinosaurs.
What can science do to deter such minds who deny the fossil record and who see, “The Flintstones”, as a documentary?
Family Of Man: Evolution and The Human Genome Project
Surprisingly, they may find it hard to deny DNA research findings.
Why?
Because even if they will not admit science into their classrooms or churches, they will admit it into their living rooms!
Through television crime stories, they’re well acquainted with how DNA mirrors an individual’s unique identity and now from genome research we also know it reflects how closely related we all really are to one another and to all Earth life.
The Human Genome Experiment Research Project has determined some additional scientific findings that may further illuminate these unknowingly -television-educated Bible Thumpers.
Research has determined that the DNA relationships among ALL of Earth’s organisms, are almost as alike as we are to all other humans.
DNA, Deoxyribonucleic acid, the building tool of living tissues and all of their functions, has molecular codes that regulate the output of genes, the timing and extent of protein-making, and these are remarkably identical and alike in almost all aspects from the oak tree to a human being, from a whale to a worm, with negligible differences.
Don’t be fooled; despite the fact that we LOOK different, from each other, all over the world, or seem different from a tree or a whale, we, all of life, are a family and are all almost exactly identical in our DNA!
The genetic difference between individual humans today is minuscule – about 0.1%, on average.
What about being a “monkey’s uncle”?
Was Darwin onto something?
Surprisingly, the species of African great apes, including humans, has a closer kinship bond with one another than the African apes have with orangutans or other primates.
DNA research p;cemented that fact.
The scientific surmise and prediction that was made in 1871 – that human evolution began in Africa, has been upheld by DNA research, as well.
Because of many billions of years of constant evolution, humans share genes with each other and all living Earth organisms.
The raw percentage of genes or DNA that organisms share, records their similarities.
Of course, we share more genes with organisms that are more closely related to us, but only a smidgen more.
Today’s humans belong to the unique biological group known as Primates, and are classified with the great apes, one of the larger groups of the primate evolutionary tree.
Besides our distinct similarities in anatomy and behavior, our close biological brotherhood with other primate species is clearly indicated by DNA research evidence.
It clearly confirms that our closest living biological relatives are indeed chimpanzees with whom we share many common traits.
However,we did not evolve directly from any of the primates living today.
Preachers, at revival meetings get, “AMENS!” when they hollar from the pulpit, “Iff’en evolution is a happen’en, why don’cha see monkeys STILL a changin’ to people, these a days!?”
Scientific research hollars back and tells them to seek more ‘light’ and less ‘heat’, in their search, for understanding.
DNA evidence from research clearly shows that our species and chimpanzees diverged from a common ancestor species that lived between 8 and 6 million years ago.
Also, the terminal, last common ancestor of monkeys and apes lived about 25 million years ago.
Our species’ almost negligible genetic DNA variation reveals a common African root for all people living today.
The movement of humans, the permanent migration dispersal to other continents, from Africa, began only a mere 60,000 years ago.
Human beings differ widely in skin color and other facile, superficial features, but these characteristics occur as gradients, not as separate geographic clusters; the pigmy and tall Nordic basketball player are closest DNA brothers.
Research into ancient DNA reveals amazing insights about ancient forms of mankind before Homo Sapien.
Ancient DNA has been found, recovered and analyzed in Neanderthal fossil remains.
These ancient preserved DNA molecules disclose the status of Neanderthals as a separate species, some characteristics of Neanderthal physical appearance, their likely speech capabilities, and population structure.
One species of humankind, living worldwide, is my family of mankind,
an amazingly adaptable creature, Homo sapiens; written into our genes, and into the fossil and behavioral evidence, is our Family Story.
Evolution’s rudiments, can be proved and explained remarkably easily, to any open mind: Ontology recapitulates Phylology. It’s that simple.
That is, the stages of development of an embryo, from a unicellular entity, to a fishlike entity with gills, to an amphibean-like entity, to a primate with a tail, within utero, mirror and reflect all the stages of evolution from our beginnings in the oceans, to our upright status now, as developing, evolving creatures.
I just heard you say,”Well, I’ll be a monkey’s uncle!”
All forms of life farmed throughout the Universe may well be seen as an enormous molecular nanotech creation by a intelligent Creator using amino- acid -thoughts, expressed mathematically.
Crick, DNA’s discoverer, perhaps, said it best:
“Life did not evolve first on Earth, a highly advanced civilization became threatened so they devised a way to pass on their existence.
They genetically-modified their DNA and sent it out from their planet on bacteria or meteorites with the hope that it would collide with another planet.
It did, and that’s why we’re here.
The DNA molecule is the most efficient information storage system in the entire universe.
The immensity of complex, coded and precisely sequenced information is absolutely staggering. The DNA evidence speaks of intelligent, information-bearing design.
Complex DNA coding would have been necessary for even the hypothetical first ‘so-called’ simple cell(s).
Our DNA was encoded with messages from that other civilization.
They programmed the molecules so that when we reached a certain level of intelligence, we would be able to access their information, and they could therefore “teach” us about ourselves, and how to progress.
For life to form by chance is mathematically virtually impossible.”
(Crick)
QUOTES
“The probability of life originating from accident is comparable to the probability of the unabridged dictionary resulting from an explosion in a printing shop.”
Conklin, Edward
Bookmark quote
“Natural selection, as it has operated in human history, favors not only the clever but the murderous.”
Ehrenreich, Barbara
“Darwinian man, though well-behaved, at best is only a monkey shaved.”
Gilbert, W. S.
“The pre-human creature from which man evolved was unlike any other living thing in its malicious viciousness toward its own kind. Humanization was not a leap forward but a groping toward survival.”
Hoffer, Eric
“I believe that our Heavenly Father invented man because he was disappointed in the monkey.”
Twain, Mark
“We are the products of editing, rather than of authorship.”
Wald, George