Revolving Around Evolving

 “I don't see how you can write anything of value if you don't offend someone.” ― Marvin Harris

It's true. Pretty much anything that is worth saying will absolutely insult the pants off someone. It's like saying that McDonalds is horribly bad for your health in front of my best mate, Joe - it's valuable because it's true and offensive to him because he has worked (bloody hard) for them for seven years. I could tell Schapelle Corby's family that she should probably just do her time and deal with it because she was caught with over 4kg of marijuana in a zero drug tolerance country - again, valuable to the Indonesian Supreme Court because it serves their justice system, but offensive to the Corby family because they quite like her.

Today I'm going to touch very lightly on one of the biggest and all time controversial topics in the history of history of history. It's the science vs. religion debate. It's the 'where did Adam Sandler and Eva Longoria really come from?' debate. It's evolution.

From what we can gather, we are indeed the most intelligent and evolutionarily lucky creatures to come about. Although, we don't have the warmth or defense mechanisms of a bear, we could kick their arses in 'Who wants to be a millionaire?' any day.... if you know what I'm sayin'.

I simply couldn't touch very lightly on the topic of evolution without touching very lightly on Darwin's Theory of Evolution could I? More particularly his idea of "Survival of the Fittest". The simple theory behind this is that the future of anything that is born with a slight mutation can swing either way. If the mutation causes disability, then this creature is more likely to die before reproducing, thus putting a stop to this weak evolutionary link. Whereas if the mutation was something positive, the creature will be more likely to survive, reproduce and pass on its great new skills to its offspring, thus adding a strong new trait to the mix for the species.

I have found a pretty hilarious science blogger, who gave a good/funny example:

"Imagine a Gazelle that evolved to be slightly faster. Now put it next to a ‘normal’ Gazelle. OK we have two Gazelle’s one slightly faster due to a random mutation from Evolution. Let’s say that they are being chased by a hungry tiger that wants to eat one. Who is more likely to survive?

Yep the faster one is more likely. That means that the normal one has died, whilst the faster, more evolved, Gazelle can go on to have more babies."

(http://sciencedefined.wordpress.com)

With the earth being as old as 4 billion years, we have come a mighty long way, survived a hell of a lot of climate change, weathered a world of storms and had some very positive genetic mutations to get to where we are today.

The earth itself has evolved and changed so much over these 4 billion years. It certainly wasn't a cute little bundle of joy like we all were when we were born. The earth was born all hot and molten (liquefied by heat) and loved a good volcanic eruption. But overtime, due to various and  fortunate cosmic happenings, the earth was able to cool down a bit and give a fitting home to large amounts of water, life, oxygen and oh so much more.

As we progressed along the long line of life and its various mutations and stages, we probably hated the idea of oxygen at one point, then maybe a few million years later, we literally couldn't live without it. We no doubt soured the skies with our feathered wings, laid big fat eggs that no one thought to eat with bacon and enjoyed dining on decaying flesh, regularly. Things that we turn our noses up at now (like when my dog ate my brother's vomit) our ancestors definitely would have enjoyed in the past. 

As Bill Bryson (good old Bill Bryson right..) points out "The tiniest deviation from any of these evolutionary imperatives and you might now be licking algae from cave walls or lolling walrus-like on some stony shore or disgorging air through a blowhole in the top of your head before diving sixty feet for a mouthful of delicious sandworms." 

The slightest variation guys. That's astonishing. Imagine if the climate had of been a few degrees colder each year for a few million. Some other daring species may very well have flourished in this time, leaving the potential human line behind, all weak and wanting a blanky.  

Only about six million years ago did we hit the era where the primate lineage of the chimpanzees come about. These guys are our closest living relatives. Of course we didn't evolve directly from them or there wouldn't be any of them left. But somewhere along the lines we had the same ancestors and our family tree forked off into the modern human while theirs grew off into the planet with the apes. 

I will conclude with the same thought as my previous post.... gosh darn we are lucky sons (& daughters) of guns.

Billions of Times Luckier Than Winning the Lottery

It's hard to know where to start when there is so much in this big old universe to shed the speed of light on. I'm also feeling a little perplexed about this blog because of the high expectations I set for my readers in the introduction. How about me and my big promise that I would never write anything that wasn't good? I guess without such ambition and confidence humankind would never have flourished into the dominant creatures they did.

Oh look at me, very smooth, totally just steered my way to the START position.

It's such an astonishing thing, this little human life we've all luckily stumbled into, and I simply can't put enough emphasis on how little our lives are on the scale of things, but this is something I will explore further with you in a future post.

You and I being here today is without a doubt, the luckiest thing that will ever happen to us. Do you realise how many times various ancestors of yours must have cheated death to get you to where you are today? From one of your distant great grannies, about 500 million years ago, who smelled like fish and well, probably looked exactly like a fish too, to a furry distant great grandaddy, probably around the size of a mouse, who roamed the earth about 60 million years ago and perhaps missed being stepped on by a dinosaur. Quite obviously it doesn't stop there. The amount of people, animals, reptiles, fish, creatures and small one-celled creatures in your family tree, would bedazzle your pants off. From the very beginning when life on earth started as just a small one-celled creature, your lifeline started to grow and evolve, eventually into human form for millions of years. My favourite part about this visualisation, is when I consider the reality of how ridiculously and stupidly lucky we are to be alive and kicking. As Bill Bryson pointed out in A Short History of Nearly Everything, for us to be here today "...for 3.8 billion years, a period of time older than the Earth's mountains and rivers and oceans, every one of your forebears on both sides has been attractive enough to find a mate, healthy enough to reproduce..." I'd just like to reiterate lucky, lucky, lucky enough. 

It's not just putting it in the perspective of "Oh, yes, it's very lucky my Grandaddy mouse didn't get stepped on by a dinosaur" but it could be a case of "Geez, I'm glad my ancestors weren't beheaded for offending the king like in Game of Thrones." Or in my own case, I am 100 different kinds of lucky that my great grandfather didn't die in World War 1 when a hand grenade landed on his machine gun and blew the heads off the two people beside him. It left him with parts missing from his hands and metal imbedded in his face. All his mates fighting in Gallipoli that day thought he was dead, but it turned out that his face was just completely black with bruising and he was temporarily unconscious. BUT HOLY SUGAR! Can you imagine? If he had of died that day, he would never have made babies with my great grandmother, one of which included my grandmother. So my grandmother would never have married a New Zealand sheep farmer, David, to have six children together, one who was of course my dad, Anthony. If that Anthony guy had never have been born, not only would me and my three brothers never have graced the earth with our silliness, but there would have been a lot less tears shed over the All Black's World Cup losses for four consecutive cups.

So there, you see? For millions of years (billions depending on where we're counting from,) our ancestors would have had to have stayed alive just long enough to deliver a genetic seed strong enough to reproduce just one more offspring and this process would have had to continue all the way to 2012 where you are today.

So far the average species on earth has only lasted about four million years before it becomes extinct, which stinks. The modern human has only been around for about one million years, so we only have three million left. That is, if we don't completely take our lucky lives for granted and destroy ourselves earlier. 

So if reading this hasn't made you feel lucky to be alive, well then read it again and pay closer attention.

I hope you enjoyed reading my first installment of The Extraordinary Explained Ordinarily. Until next time you lucky ducks.

Introduction

Guys, gals and goofballs - hello and thank you for visiting my blog.

I suspect that you aren't as excited as I am that you're here, but that's OK, that is a common happening in most aspects of my life.

This blog is my second blog and it's going to be good - good like a hot shower and warm socks.
I won't write anything that doesn't have a bucket load of goodness to it, simply because there's far too many good things in this world. Any excuse I tried to give you about why it's not good would be like a sheep farmer telling you that you can't have lamb for dinner because he doesn't have access to sheep.

I’ve never considered myself an academic, which is fair because I don’t think anyone has ever considered me an academic.
But I'm going to write about extraordinary things, which can sometimes be perceived as ordinary things. I could give you my perception of the incredible stages of evolution on one day and the next day it could be my perception of why I found so much happiness in discovering that avocado and jam taste superb together on toast.

There are things in this vast universe that too many of us don't know about and would never think about. Things that would bring meaning to other things and would make you feel richer just for reading about it.

My inspiration comes from two people; one is my father, Ant (like the insect, but short for Anthony - pronounced anne-ton-ie) and the other is Bill Bryson (like the travel writer - exactly like the travel writer because it is him.) Father has inspired me with his contagious curiosity about the stars, the planets and the universe. He appreciates and understands how extraordinary it is, that humans are here and has blessed me with the motivation to search, seek and destroy (just kidding, it should say discover.) Hey - shout out to my Da!



Bill Bryson wrote a book called A Short History of Everything in 2003 and has given an incredible wealth of knowledge to my otherwise uninformed little brain. I feel like a better person for having read his book and aspire to be as great as him one day (vomit, listen to me.) A lot of my work from this point on, as I seek to be an accomplished writer, will be fueled by his book and all the research and exploring he has done. Cheers Billy.



Like many Gen Ys I suffer from impatience, a little bit of narcissism and the attention span of gold fish. But I will endeavour to make this experience as little about me as possible and will continually touch on interesting subjects.

I look forward to you reading.