5. Evolution of life


  1. Questions about evolution

   When it comes to speak about evolution of life, there are two questions for many people that can seem like a mystery, and nowadays they are, but a mystery that shows perhaps philosophical and theological difficulties. The first one that can give that impression is how does this evolution take place? Does it happen randomly or is there any kind of a plan in order that life goes on evolving?

      And the second question: if this kind of evolution has brought us so different forms of life, is evolution enough explanation for the existence of human being? To the first question I’d like to answer paying attention to something obvious. Let us remember how a chick builds itself. A scientist will tell us about a microscopic programming, so microscopic that in the nucleus of a cell (and a cell is only visible through a microscope) there is a molecule that has ten billion atoms, and every group of atoms is a command. In some way, all the developing of that organism is fixed there. But it is marked in such a mysterious way that not only a cell but even a million cells have exactly the same programming, all of them; and yet one of them gets to the point of changing into a core cell, and another one into a nerve system cell, and another into a cell for seeing, and another into a cell of a muscle, and another one into a digestive system cell.

   How do they know when they have to do it, and how does every cell decide what they get to do? We are talking about something that is really a mystery due to the fact that components of life are not the most important thing, but the way they are structured, why you can say that information is necessary there, because if not nothing meaningful happens.

  A. Choose the right answer, a, b, c. (If the letter turns up red the answer is correct)

  1. There are philosophical and _______ difficulties

    a. physiological
    b. anatomical
    c. theological

  2. The question about whether evolution happens randomly is

    a. the first question
    b. the second question
    c. none of them

 3. The existence of human being is

    a. the first question
    b. the second question
    c. none of them

 4. The cited example has to do with

    a. a chick
    b. a rabbit
    c. a mouse

 5. At the microscopic level into the chick there is

    a. coincidence
    b. fate
    c. programming

 6. The components are not the important thing, but the way they are…

    a. classified
    b. structured
    c. thought



  2. The computer and the programme

   Let us think about a computer. It is just out of the factory. It has billions of transistors in loads of printed circuits. What can it do? Nothing. Someone has to write a programme and somebody else has to put that programme using a code designed by another one and then that programme forces electricity to do something that the computer has absolutely no idea, neither it takes advantage for it, but even so, it makes sense for the expert in the meaning of that programme and their connections.

   Well then, who makes the programme for a living being? Who places the programme into every cell, so that the organism makes as it is has to do? Saying that this happens randomly is as absurd as saying that a computer has the programme because the computer itself does it, randomly. Ah, no; the computer never makes its programme by its own.

   And what is chance in the end? Nothing. Can you measure chance as an experiment in a laboratory? No. Give me a kilo of chance. And so it is. Chance is nothing more than a word to hide ignorance. It is the same as a father telling his child that the sun shines just so, because it is bright. That is no explanation. So it is necessary something else than speaking in terms of chance.

   To explain how every living being is formed with such complex programming the probability not only about all the human genetic material but also of a single molecule of human genome is produced randomly, has been calculated. And there is no probability of getting one molecule even in a trillion worlds, and if every atom of all of those universes was making one million operations per second for it. There is no possibility to explain it. So, we can speak clearly in philosophical and theological terms about how the Creator when created the universe, gave it a way of action in the sense of following physical laws from original conditions, because He knows that such conditions stem from another ones and with those physical laws this and that is going to be produced over the entire life of the universe.

  B. Choose the right answer: a, b, c.

  1. What can a computer do without a programme?

    a. Not at all
    b. a lot
    c. some

  2. Who forces electricity to do anything?

    a. the circuits
    b. the programme
    c. the transistors

 3. ¿Does the computer take advantage of the programme?

    a. sometimes
    b. yes
    c. no

 4. ¿Does the human being need a programme?

    a. sometimes
    b. yes
    c. no

 5. Chance is a word to disguise

    a. ignorance
    b. wisdom
    c. mystery

 6. The Creator has set the laws

    a. philosophical
    b. theological
    c. physical

  3. The origin of man

   Therefore, we can accept evolution philosophically and theologically, but saying that this evolution is due to the chance, is not scientific. And so, we have to ask, can that evolution lead to explain men from a biological point of view? Or if the biological difference between men and chimpanzees is just a little over 1%, is all of it explained in the genetic material? And so, can we already explain that men appear though pure evolution? No, because evolution only produce a new organ or a new type of behavior in a specific way. A spider does not change its cobweb style because of fashion; a bee does not calculate how to make the honeycomb to be prettier. They make things in a specific, determined way.

   Men, on the contrary, have freedom, decide what the want to do and go for it responsibly and freely. Can we explain The Quijote at randomly? Nonsense. What is the meaning of speaking about everything belonging to the human mind? Is human intelligence a chemical secretion of brain? No, nobody says that. Is the human mind something we can reduce to the four forces of matter? No, neither the force of gravitation can write a poem, nor the force of electromagnetism or the nuclear force can do it. Therefore, we have to admit that in human beings there is something that cannot come from the matter, that cannot appear as a result of a pure evolution of the matter, and only a spirit is a right explanation. Every human activity, the artistic and the ethic one, the sense of responsibility, and freedom; all of them requires a non material cause, and then the only one who can origin that non material existence is the Creator, non material himself, who has done their existence to the universe. Men cannot be explained at randomly, but need a programmer in order to that evolution, we have described before, can be real.

  (Original text by P. Manuel M. Carreira, S.J. Astrophysicist)

   C. Choose the right option: a, b, c.

  1. Evolution cannot be explained by

    a. mathematics
    b. chance
    c. wisdom

  2. Can we explain men from a biological point of view?

    a. no
    b. yes
    c. sometimes

 3. Do men appear by pure evolution?

    a. yes
    b. sometimes
    c. no

 4. Can a spider change its cobcomb style?

    a. no
    b. yes
    c. sometimes

 5. Is the human mind a chemical secretion of brain?

    a. yes
    b. no
    c. sometimes

 6. Who is the man programmer?

    a. chance
    b. biology
    c. the Creator



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®Arturo Ramo García.-Record of intellectual property of Teruel (Spain) No 141, of 29-IX-1999 Plaza Playa de Aro, 3, 1º DO 44002-TERUEL





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