Evolution - A Modern Fairy Tale

Evolution is an amazing thing. It consists of a vast number of strange events that have almost zero probability of happening. It is so unbelievable that nobody would take it seriously except for the fact that EvolutionIsTrue™.

EvolutionIsTrue™ is a mechanism that has evolved over about 100-150 years. Once there was this bloke named Charlie Darwin, and he imagined that living creatures evolved from one another, and he wrote a very boring book about it. He didn't really have a clue how it would work, because science kinda sucked back then. Many people said he was bonkers, but others took him seriously. Several decades later, science stopped sucking so much, and it became obvious that this evolution thing couldn't work. But some people liked Charlie's idea so much that, instead of disposing of it safely, they decided to promote it even more, despite the evidence. That was the foundation for EvolutionIsTrue™.

But there were still people who kept pointing out that evolution is nonsense, and this really annoyed the Darwin fan club. So over the next 50 years or so, they attacked and ridiculed the opposition and all but outlawed any criticism of evolution. Evolution was 'proved science' because they said so, despite all the proof against it, and they gained so much power that they were able to finally proclaim with utmost authority that EvolutionIsTrue™ and questioning it is not allowed.

This was a smart move, because now not only could any remaining dissent be easily dismissed, but so could any evidence against evolution, simply because of the fact that EvolutionIsTrue™. Code cannot self-assemble? Surely it must have, because EvolutionIsTrue™. Making new proteins by chance is impossible? It must be possible because EvolutionIsTrue™. Common ancestry is disproved by differences in embryonic stages? No sir! EvolutionIsTrue™! Problem solved.

I will now tell you the story of evolution, because some people aren't sufficiently familiar with it. This is the official version, written in a simple language that anybody can understand. Here's how it happened...

Long ago, there was no life on Earth. There was only this thing called Primordial Soup (at least according to a few people), which had magical properties because it could create life out of random atoms. Atoms randomly joined to make molecules, and for a long time, the resulting chemicals were just hanging around. But then, somehow - nobody knows how - these chemicals, instead of naturally degrading, accidentally assembled into something so complex that even today we cannot make anything so sophisticated. We are just not as smart as random processes in a magical soup.

Now brace yourself, because this part may be difficult to accept because it's so unbelievable, but remember, EvolutionIsTrue™, so it must have happened, somehow. The first living cell appeared! Just out of the blue, or whatever colour was prevalent back then. And this cell could replicate and thus create more cells. To do this, it needed a lot of things. It needed DNA with at least tens of thousands of nucleotides. Nucleotides are simple chemicals that join together to form a helix. They don't normally just do that on their own, but they did in the magical soup. So many thousands of them randomly joined together, with no aim and for no reason, and then there was DNA.

That in itself may seem utterly amazing, but only until you learn that this random sequence of nucleotides apparently wasn't so random after all. It was in fact very specific, because it coded for functional proteins! Lots of them. Randomly coding for functional proteins is something so improbable that no rational person would seriously entertain such a thought, but rational people are in short supply these days, and besides, EvolutionIsTrue™, so it happened. If you don't know how improbable it is to randomly code for functional proteins, you can read this, but I will tell you the chances to make the right protein randomly are about one in 10⁷⁷ for a chain of only 150 amino acids. That's literally worse than a snowball's chance in Hell! Even if all the atoms on Earth were doing nothing else than trying to make proteins, they would be very unlikely to make even one during the few billion years of Earth's existence. And many essential proteins are over 1000 amino acids long, and usually several proteins need to work together to accomplish anything. Now that's amazing, some might even say incredible, or unbelievable.

The really funny thing is that proteins are needed to read DNA, and DNA must be read in order to make proteins. You may think that this would make cell replication impossible to start, but worry not! EvolutionIsTrue™. We have no clue how the first cell could be created, but we know it was, so it's all good. Someone will figure out the details later. However it happened, there was now a cell with DNA with a super-sophisticated code that could make proteins and could replicate itself. And all these things came to be one step at a time. Many such things occurring at once is so improbable that even evolutionists consider it impossible. And these are the guys who are in the business of regularly overcoming the impossible (in their imagination, at least). So one step at a time, for hundreds of thousands of such steps, the first cell somehow formed with everything necessary to self-replicate and presumably do some other things like move around. Considering that proteins degrade within a day or two and RNA degrades within a few minutes, this is very impressive! How could it be? Magic? No, just... well, actually, yes, it's more or less magic since there's no accepted scientific theory for this. But we know it happened because we are here and EvolutionIsTrue™!

So now there were all these bacteria swimming in the ocean with their ridiculously complex flagella that evolved randomly one step at a time, even though nobody has a clue what those steps could be. At some point, viruses also appeared. Nobody really knows how. Some say they appeared even before bacteria. Others say it's nonsense because they need a host. Some believe viruses have evolved from DNA or RNA that had escaped from bacteria. Others say that's nonsense because viruses contain structures never seen in bacteria. Some people believe some other things and other people believe those are nonsense as well, so virologists are trying to figure out a theory that isn't complete nonsense. It will probably take a while, but in the meantime, you may be consoled by the fact that EvolutionIsTrue™, so this isn't really a problem.

For 2-3 billion years, evolution was randomly slow, bacteria were still bacteria, viruses were still viruses, and not much happened. They were all just lying in wait, preparing to accidentally explode into dinosaurs, even though they didn't know it. When the Cambrian Period arrived, evolution sped up about a million times, for no apparent reason. In roughly 20 million years, most animal phyla appeared, with many subgroups. This was kind of like evolution on steroids, but we don't talk about that because evolution is supposed to be gradual and the Cambrian Period is really inconvenient. Why are intermediate stages conspicuously missing? We don't know. We can safely ignore it, though, because EvolutionIsTrue™, and that's all that matters.

There was a bit of evolution going on before that, mainly in the Ediacaran Period, but strangely enough, most of the life forms of that time went extinct during the Cambrian Period. Evolution is random. Sometimes you evolve, sometimes you die. The Ediacaran creatures were weird, and we don't even know whether they were animals or lichens or algae or fungi or something else, so it's just as well that they disappeared. Good riddance, freaks.

How did single-celled organisms evolve into multi-celled ones? There are three hypotheses for that, which means that nobody knows. Future generations can figure it out, if they want, but it's not necessary because EvolutionIsTrue™. We already have all the answers we really need, so scientists can take it easy.

How is it possible that so many disparate life forms suddenly evolved so quickly from bacteria that had been just boringly swimming around for 3 billion years? Nobody knows. Some say that it isn't possible, but those people must be silenced, because EvolutionIsTrue™.

Millions of new genes must have randomly appeared, which is interesting, because it's really difficult to make new genes and there's hardly any evidence of this ever happening. And these genes would have to accidentally code for millions of new proteins, which, as we have seen, is completely ridiculous. The chance of getting a protein of 150 amino acids that will fold (out of all possible combinations) is one in 10⁷⁴. There are about 10⁶⁸ atoms in our galaxy. So you have a better chance picking a specific atom in our galaxy blindfolded than randomly making a 150-amino-acid chain that will fold at all, never mind be useful. And there are proteins containing up to tens of thousands of amino acids! The chances of randomly making those are probably about one in 10⁴²¹⁸⁶ or so. I'm not sure exactly because when I tried to feed my calculator numbers this ridiculous, it exploded. But it's kind of like flipping 100,000 coins and getting all heads. Good luck with that. But millions of new genes must have arisen randomly and must have accidentally coded for millions of virtually impossible proteins. Can you believe that? I certainly can't, but it must have happened, because EvolutionIsTrue™.

As things went on, we got some new cool things like birds and lots of plants, though lots of other cool things went extinct. The original bacteria randomly mutated into so many diverse and completely improbable things that you would almost think they had to be designed. But you can't! Why would you even suggest such heresy?! EvolutionIsTrue™! We don't need no intelligence here, okay? Just let things be, and everything will slowly improve, smashing through entropy like a boss.

Now, as you may know, birds randomly evolved wings. Their predecessors' arms accidentally mutated into wings one step at a time. Those were dinosaurs, by the way. Dinosaurs with 12% of their arms turning into wings totally outperformed dinosaurs with 11% of their arms turning into wings, so natural selection killed off the 11-percenters. And so it went with each 1% increase until their wings were 100% complete. That's how evolution works. No doubt about that.

Many interesting things were happening everywhere. Kangaroos randomly evolved pockets for no reason, but they sure came in handy for carrying their young. Talk about luck! Deer randomly evolved antlers, goats randomly evolved horns, turtles and snails accidentally evolved shelters to hide in, zebras and tigers randomly evolved stripes, plants evolved photosynthesis (which may seem really smart, but it was an accident), dinosaurs-soon-to-be-birds randomly mutated their mouths with teeth into beaks, porcupines accidentally evolved quills, cactuses randomly evolved spines, some snakes randomly made new genes that accidentally coded for new proteins that happened to produce various kinds of venom, which turned out to be unexpectedly helpful, flytraps randomly evolved fly traps, ants randomly evolved a complex social structure, octopuses randomly evolved tentacles from whatever they had before, some planthoppers randomly evolved gears, one cog at a time, whales randomly evolved singing, spiders accidentally learned to make webs out of a material that randomly popped out of their bodies, and pandas randomly evolved cool make-up. The platypus accidentally evolved features of ducks, beavers and otters all mixed together. (To be fair, that really does look like an accident.) Giraffes randomly evolved huge hearts, some valves, constricting blood vessels and other useful things that miraculously saved them from blowing their brains out every time they tried to drink.
There was never any intelligence involved in any of it. Everything was completely random, so any creature could have evolved anything or into anything. Check the image at the top of the page to see what we've missed.

Towards the end of this story, in a really funny accident, humans evolved a sense of humour. (At least some of them.) This was only possible because somewhere along the way, something accidentally evolved consciousness. We don't quite know what this consciousness really is and when it first appeared and why, but some people insist it exists, so if it exists, it must have randomly evolved. There's really no other way anything can happen.

Recently, humans evolved an affinity for destroying their own environment. This may seem rather strange, because genes are supposed to push every creature towards survival, and destroying one's own environment is rather suicidal, but there must be a good reason for this because EvolutionIsTrue™. If the almighty natural selection selected for it, then it must be good for survival. In a series of much less controversial events, humans have driven many other species towards extinction. This is called survival of the fittest, and humans are the fittest. They are about to show everyone their evolutionary superiority by exterminating everything else and then starve to death (possibly after a short period of rampant cannibalism) because there will be nothing else left to do (or eat). And perhaps that was the point of evolution all along. Who knows? It's all random anyway, so don't worry about it!

The End.