Evolution

Nature has many surprises. There is a little one cell animal that not only performs all life functions, eating, elimination, and reproduction, it builds fish traps!. The microscopic flagellate called Oikopleura according to Guy Murchie in the The Seven Mysteries of Life (page 91), is shaped like a human sperm and has a similar size. The Oikopleura builds a "fish trap" for catching bacteria-sized food so elaborate and efficient that nothing in man's vast array of fishing gear can approach it. This contraption first appears as a kind of second skin secreted out of his own body pores, a clinging envelope around him that is both transparent and elastic. Then, having neatly pared himself from it with his long tail, he undulates the same tail to pump water into it, rapidly inflating it about him like a balloon, the while spinning thread inside it and weaving a set of webs beyond the capacity of any spider.

"Survival of The Fittest" Produces Incredible Designs

We don't see natural selection taking place as it takes many lifetimes in most cases. During times of high ultra-violet, beta, and gamma radiation there is more mutation taking place and this helps explain why at certain times new species evolved. Natural selection is a process where many mutated plants or animals are produced, but only rarely does one mutate so it has an advantage. An animal with a little longer neck, can eat leaves, that others cannot.

If you consider the number of one celled animals in a glass of water, just think of the billions and billions of one-celled animals in the ocean. And there is even a bigger ocean, on a moon of Jupiter called Europa. With this much room, there could be all kinds of interesting life forms on this moon.

Creationism

It is wierd that people use cell phones, broadcast over radio and television and still say science is not true. A cell phone is the result of a huge amount of scientific study and experiment. The soul of mind may have been created 2000 years ago, but the body of man evolved over countless years.

The Earth is Old

The best way to tell how old a rock is, is through radioactive dating. A particular radioactive element decays at a known rate. It has a half life when half its atoms have changed. By using the radioactive decay curve of certain material we can determine the age of a rock. The curve is formed by making time the horizontal axis, and the percentage of original atoms the vertical axis. One can find the half life of an radioactive element, by reading off the number of years when the curve passes 50%

For example, each decay of a Uranium-238 atom ends up producing one Lead-206 atom. Lets say we have thirty Uranium-238 atoms and ten Lead-206 atoms in a given sample. We will assume that there were originally 40 Uranium-238 atoms in that sample when it formed. Based on this, we then know that ten out of forty of the original Uranium-238 atoms have decayed. The half life of Uranium 238 is 4.51 billion years. Using the curve, and knowing that 25% of the original Uranium-238 atoms have decayed we can see the rock is 0.4 times 4.51 billion or 1.8 billion years old.

Fossils are dated in the same way using Carbon-16.

The dating methods are quite simple compared to the calculations that go into building atomic bombs.

Evolution

Some people discount human evolution based on their religion. There are two popular theories, Darwinism, which says we evolved from an unknown primate and Creationism which says were created by God.

Abdu'l Baha in Some Answered Questions pages 177-184 (Baha'i Scripture) gives us a third answer :
For all existing beings, terrestrial and celestial, ... have been created and organized, composed, arranged and perfected as they ought to be; the universe has no imperfection. There is no doubt that this perfection which is all beings is caused by the creation of God, from the composing elements, by their appropriate mingling and proportionate quantities... . For all beings are connected together like a chain. ... from an accidental composition no being can come into existence. But even when the in womb of the mother and in ... [a] strange form, he is the embryo of the superior species and not an animal.

Thus man is a separate species. By examination of life in the womb it is plain that we have progressed from more primitive forms, but the evolution of man is a special evolution. Even when we did not look like modern man and had a tail, we were truly men and women as we had the potential to become developed as we are now. I believe, Man has always had the that something special, the soul, which perhaps also has evolved.

There is no need to think that our animal body makes us an animal any more than there is need to think that our previous form makes us an animal. Our animal nature is the demonic force that is in conflict with our higher spiritual self.

Are Rocks Smart?

Throw a rock. Who calculates all the wind resistances, the force of gravity, and all the forces on the rock. Does the forces or the rock calculate where it will go. It always gets the answer exactly right. Do atoms, and force fields contain the equations we learn in physics classes? Where do they get these equations? It seems that there is a huge amount of intelligence built into matter. Morphic Resonance is a theory that once something does something for the first time, the process become imbedded into the morphic resonance field, and all similar things are copies based on the first event.

This is according to Rupert Sheldrake who wrote A New Science of LIfe, (1995) On page 109 he explains further that after sub-atomic particles have aggregated into atoms, the atoms combined into molecules, and the molecules into crystals. The first molecule and the first crystals were models for all similar molecules and and crystals. Molecules associated with life allow life to repeat itself over and over again.

What is interesting is how you would prove this. If you produced a new molecule, then you set the first mold. On the other hand, if the mold was part of the universal laws of nature, created at the big bang, then the mold was set for the first new molecule anyway.

One might try an experiment, where many people are given a puzzle. If one person solves the puzzle, then it should be easier for everyone else to do it. You give a class a test, and as soon as one person finds the answer, the rest of class suddenly knows it. This is not part of my experience. Perhaps, some people in the class find it slightly easier, but again how could you measure this. People, give more time can figure more things out.

So I guess, morphic resonance cannot be proven on a lower level, or does it happen a little on a complex upper level. But it does indicate that nature has tucked away a great reservoir of information, as I pointed out when I ask if rocks are smart.

Rock and Other Spirits

When a child of four plays a musical instrument quite well, we wonder where he got the talent. Is it reincarnation? Or is it through the help of a ghost?

We we assume that there is an afterlife, then I don't think God would drug us full of happiness in heaven forever. There should be deeper things to do. (According to Baha'i teachings, we cannot even guess at this, as we are but embryos.) So perhaps we go to school and then to work in heaven. If we did and came back as spirits or ghosts we could do some tricks at the quantum physics level that would not upset the universe laws of physics. (If the laws of physics were changed, I think the universe would blow up.) One of the tricks might be to change some genetic material in a way that would look random to the scientists, but would be done on purpose to make the wonderful plants and animals we see in nature.

It seems that however evolution works, something in the process is very intelligent and has a sense of great beauty about it, that goes beyond natural selection by itself. Look at angel fish. Do their large graceful fins help them survive? Might be, but there are so many fish that are just plain. Perhaps pretty fish select pretty mates. Our current scientific theories are probably true as far as they go, but there is much to understand. There is more than survival of the fittest.

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