Happy Sunday, everyone! It's time again for an evolution article. This week we will be breaking from our normal tack of examining scientific evidence, and instead consider the issue from a different perspective. We will be looking at whether or not the bible really supports it.
For those who do not believe in the bible, this article will be of only academic interest. However, for those that do believe in the bible, I think this article should provide interesting food for thought. As we shall see, if the bible is literally true, then evolution must also be true.
Specifically, it is the account of the flood which weighs strongly in favor of evolution. Let's note some important facts about the biblical flood:
- The flood was earthwide, the highest mountains being covered by water (Genesis 7:19).
- Every land animal ("from man to beast, to moving animal to flying creature of the heavens") not inside the ark perished (Genesis 7:22, 23).
- Bible chronology places the time of this mass extinction at about 4300 years ago. (http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v4/i1/noahs_flood.asp)
These facts have a very important implication. They mean that, if the flood account is true, then all land-based animal life has come to exist in its present variety in the 4300 years since the time of the flood.
Let's examine some facts about the current diversity of life. How many species exist in the world currently? Scientists have named and catalogued over 1.5 million species so far, but they believe that this number represents only a tiny fraction of the total number yet undiscovered (http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2003/FelixNisimov.shtml). The true number of animal species could be as high as 20 to 100 million.
The web site earthtrends.wri.org gives the following numbers for named land animal species earthwide:
Mammals: 4,629
Birds: 10,000
Reptiles: 8,173
Amphibians: 5,699
Additionally, there are about 800,000 insect species (http://www.canadianbiodiversity.mcgill.ca/english/species/) worldwide. Note that these are the named and catalogued species. If you do any research in this area, you will find that the following quote is standard (source: the above cited site):
There are currently between 1.5 to 1.8 million named species in the world, about half of which are insects. The largest group of insects is the beetles (the order Coleoptera), with 300 000 species. In contrast, there are only 4 500 species of mammals.
These numbers are just for the known and named species. No one knows how many species are still to be discovered. Estimates for the total number of species on the planet range from three million to 100 million, though most generally accepted estimates are between five and 20 million.
So there are a lot of animals species on the earth. It is important to understand what a species is. It is not like a dog breed, where you can selectively breed for a few generations and get a new species. In science, the exact definition of species can be kind of tricky because of the diversity of life, but for the forms of life that humans are most familiar with in our day-to-day experience, we can define a species as a group of organisms that is reproductively isolated from other groups. That is to say, "if two creatures can produce viable offspring, they are the same species" (http://wiki.cotch.net/index.php/Species).
It's important to grasp this definition before we proceed. Dogs and cats are different species because you cannot breed a dog and a cat and get viable offspring (or any offspring at all, for that matter, in this case). They are reproductively isolated. However, a beagle and Labrador retriever, say, are the same species because they can produce viable offspring together.
Now, when you consider the number of animal species in the world today, it is clear that there are literally millions more species than could ever have fit into Noah's ark. Just to prove this, let's consider the case of mammals alone. Genesis says that, depending on whether the animal was "clean" or "unclean," either two or seven were taken on board. We'll be conservative and pretend that all mammals were clean, even though we know that is not true. We'll also avoid the entire debate about how many animals could physically fit on the the boat. Clearly it is a small number, much smaller than the current number of animal species. Food and water for a year had to be carried, which would arguably have taken up more space than the animals themselves.
Let's imagine that Noah and family manage to round up 1000 different mammal species. That would be at least 2000 individual animals. Each of these animals needs to eat and drink every day. Each one will be producing waste in large quantities, which will need to be shoveled. If we imagine Noah and his family working at the breakneck speed of 10 minutes per animal pair, we are talking about a total of 10,000 minutes, or 166 hours, per day. Each human passenger would be required to work 21 hours per day just to keep up with feeding and cleaning the mammals.
I don't think it's necessary to pursue this line of reasoning much further. It should be clear that the number of species on the boat would have been dramatically lower - due to many constraints - than the number alive on earth today.
And that's where it gets interesting. Because if we say that the small number of species that came off the ark is responsible for the millions of animals species that exist today, than we are forced to acknowledge evolutionary processes. In fact, since we are saying that a few thousands animals (at most) speciated into the millions we have today in the space of only 4300 years, we are not only relying on evolution, but we are relying on hyper-speed evolution. Therefore, if we accept that the story of the flood is true, than we must accept that evolution is true.
Lest anyone misunderstand me, I do not believe in the bible, and I find the story of the flood amusingly full of holes. But when I was a Witness, I was seriously concerned with the reality of the flood, and during that time I realized this irony: the flood story cannot be true unless evolution is true too.
So in the end, both science and the bible support evolution. What more could you ask for?
SNG
Previous articles:
Retroviral sequences: http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/6/86797/1.ashx
Cytochrome c: http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/6/87238/1.ashx
What evolution is not: The role of randomness: http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/6/87711/1.ashx
Mitochondrial DNA, part 1: http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/6/87781/1.ashx
Mitochondrias DNA, part 2: Neandertals: http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/6/88271/1.ashx
Atavisms and Vitamin C: http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/6/88649/1.ashx
Isolated Species: http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/6/89867/1.ashx