What is evolution?

We have been discussing the past discoveries and ideas that try to explain how life came into existence.  It is now important to discuss what exactly the model of evolution says today with all the current knowledge that we have in science.

According to Eugene C. Scott (2009), “The broad definition of evolution is a cumulative change through time” (p. 26).  Evolution claims that galaxies, planets, and forms of life are different now than they were in the past (Scott, 2009, p. 24).  Scott (2009) says that “cosmologists conclude that the universe as we know it today originated from a dense mass, known as the Big Bang Theory” (p. 24).  The Earth that we know today formed from matter that was rotating around the sun coming together and that comets and meteors smashed into the Earth until around 3.8 billion years ago (Scott, 2009, p. 24).

Cosmologists believe that the organic sources that served as the origin of life on earth came from the compounds that were in space (Scott, 2009, p. 24).  Scientists, in the past and recently, have been trying to recreate scenarios of what may have first formed the first life.  As stated before, Miller and Urey in 1952 made amino acids out of gases that were speculated to have been in the environment at the time that life originated (Meyer, 2009).  More recently, scientists have tried to create amino acids by exposure to ultrasonic waves in an aqueous, reductive environment (Soheila, Jean-Marc, & Micheline, 2010).

Peptide Nucleic Acid (gold)
entering DNA's major groove

Even if life was created from organic chemicals in the environment, the cell that was created would need to be able to replicate.  In order for this process, and many other processes, in the cell to occur, DNA would need to exist in the cell.  DNA is a molecule that is used to create RNA which in turn is used to create proteins (Scott, 2009, p. 26).  DNA is also important because it controls heredity, the passing of genetic information from one generation to another (Scott, 2009, p. 26).  Evolutionists are challenged with the question, “Which came first: DNA, RNA or PNA?” (Scott, 2009, p. 27).

Many believe that the answer to that question may be RNA (Sankaran, 2012, p. 741).  Others believe that DNA may have originated before RNA and PNA (Swadling, Coveney, & Christopher Greenwell, 2012).  Scientists also believe that PNA, peptide nucleic acid, and less complex nucleic acid, may have been the first to originate (Scott, 2009, p. 26).  The answer to the question of which nucleic acid came first (and many other topics revolving around how life came about from inorganic molecules) has not been answered by evolutionary scientists and yet they still claim that that life came from inorganic molecules. 

There is another branch of evolution, known as biological evolution that became popular with Charles Darwin’s proposals on the origin of life.  According to Scott (2009), “Evolutionary biologists are concerned both with the history of life-the tracing of life’s genealogy- and with the processes and mechanisms that produced the tree of life” (Scott, 2009, p. 28).  One of the main ideas of biological evolution is the idea of natural selection (Scott, 2009, p. 35).  This is a term that Darwin coined (Scott, 2009, p. 35).  Natural selection is the basically the idea that organisms with the better qualities for the environment that they live in will live longer and therefore produce more offspring and organisms (Scott, 2009, p. 35).  The organisms that do not have these qualities that suit the environment that it lives in will die and will most likely not reproduce and create offspring (Scott, 2009, p. 35).  Reproduction is important to genetics as this is the only way that DNA is passed on to future generations.

There is also another branch of evolution that discusses geology.  How old is Earth?  This is one of the central controversial issues in the topic of evolution and creation (Morris, 1974, p. 131).  James Ussher believed that the universe was created in 4004 B.C. due to the biblical chronology and this has led to many advocates of creationism to believe that this is the true age of the Earth (Abell, 1983, p.33).  According to Newell (1982), creationists think that the world is around 10,000 years old and geologists believe the world to be around 460,000 years old (pg. 109).  No matter what years we use, creationists generally think that the world is younger than geologists believe it to be.  Is the dating of rocks reliable?

According to Morris (1974), the dating of rocks is not very accurate.  The way that rocks are dated is through the use of fossils within the rocks through their record of evolution (Morris, 1974, p. 134-135).  Besides the fact that the dating is based on evolution, there are other flaws in this method of dating the rock of the earth.  These methods of dating are based on assumptions (as outlined in Morris, 1974, p. 137-170) that are not necessarily true.  One assumption is that the earth is a closed system, which it is not (Morris, 1974, p. 138-139).  Since this method of measure is based on so many assumptions, how then can we believe that it is accurate?

Now that a synopsis of the ideas of evolution has been presented, a synopsis of creationist beliefs can be presented in my next post.  In following posts, details about each type of science and why the creation scientists and the evolutionary scientist believe what they believe can be discussed and this can bring us to the conclusion of which science is more believable and why this is.

References:

Abell, G.O. (1983). The Ages of the Earth and the Universe. In L.R. Godfrey (Eds.), Scientists confront creationism (33-47). New York, New York: W.W. Norton 7 Company.

Meyer, S. (2009). The Evolution of a Mystery and Why It Matters. Signature in the cell [Kindle version]. HarperCollins Publishers.

 Morris, H. M. (1974). Scientific creationism. Master Books.

Sankaran, N. (2012). How the discovery of ribozymes cast rna in the roles of both chicken and egg in origin-of-life theories.  Causality in the Biomedical and Social Sciences, 43(4), 741-830. doi: http://0-dx.doi.org.wncln.wncln.org/10.1016/j.shpsc.2012.06.002

Scott, E. C. (2009). Evolution vs. creationism, an introduction. (2nd ed.). Westport, Conneticut: Greenwood Pub Group.

Soheila, S., Jean-Marc, L., & Micheline, D. (2010). Amino-acid synthesis in aqueous media under ultrasonic irradiation. Chemistry Of Natural Compounds,46(1), 75-78. doi:10.1007/s10600-010-9529-1

Swadling, J. B., Coveney, P. V., & Christopher Greenwell, H. H. (2012). Stability of free and mineral-protected nucleic acids: Implications for the RNA world. Geochimica Et Cosmochimica Acta, 83360-378. doi:10.1016/j.gca.2011.12.023

[Untitled photograph of the Earth]. (n.d.). Retrieved April 10, 2013, from 

                http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/view.php?id=57723

[Untitled photograph of PNP].  (n.d.). Retrieved April 10, 2013, from

                http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=triple-helix-designing-a-new-molecule