The Library: Revised and Condensed
Some of you aren’t going to believe this, but all living things on this planet—from human beings all the way to plants and even bacteria—are at least your one trillionth cousins.
That’s right. The newspaper delivered to your home each day comes from a tree that’s your hundred millionth cousin. The grass you mowed last Sunday was made up of some of your five hundredth millionth cousins. The last person you had sex with is probably your thousandth cousin. And even that jerk who cut you off this morning is at least your ten thousandth cousin. (There has to be at least one jerk in every family.)
Because we all stem from the same family tree (except for Tom Cruise)—and over the years, we branched out into all of the species you see before you today, not to mention the God may or may not know how many outdated and extinct ones.
Some of you might say: “Mr. Darwin—you’re out of your mind. Humans give birth to humans, dogs give birth to dogs, sheep give birth to sheep, bacteria split into bacteria, chickens lay chicken eggs, fish lay fish eggs, carrot seeds grow into carrots, and watermelon seeds grow into watermelons. I’ve never seen a carrot seed grow into a fish, a bacteria give birth to a dog, or a chicken lay a snake egg—and I damn sure well have never seen a watermelon seed grow into a human, or a sheep give birth to a human. So how exactly do certain species give rise to other species?”
My response is:
Species turn into other species very slowly, through gradual changes that add up over a ton of generations. As huge chunks of time pass, little changes add up.
It’s kind of like what would happen if you took one step east each day, your child continued taking a step east each day after your death, his child took a step east each day after your son’s death, and so on and so forth, generation after generation. As the days, weeks, months, years, decades, and lifetimes passed, your family would still be in the same country, the same part of the country, and probably even the same state—but three thousand years from now, your distant descendant will end up drowning in some ocean or lake.
Wait a second. Uh… bad example.
It’s actually like what happens to a young, passionate, newlywed couple over time. Day eight seems no different than day seven, day nine seems no different than day eight, and day ten seems no different than day nine—but forty years later, there’s not a thing about your spouse that you find the least bit tolerable, let alone likeable or lovable.
Living things tend to change the same way. A tweak here and a tweak there, and the next thing you know, you’re Fred and Ethel Mertz. Or, um… a tweak here, a tweak there, and within a billion years, an amoeba will become some piss drunk college guy puking into a toilet.
But there’s more to it than that. The tweaks are guided and shaped by something.
Suppose we lived in a world where the biggest asshole usually ended up living the longest and having the most children. Well, after ten thousand years, the world would be nothing but a bunch of enormous assholes (—sort of like modern day France, but bigger and with more people), due to a process known as Natural Selection of Assholes, or Survival of the Biggest Asshole.
In other words, when certain traits (like, say, assholeness) give a living thing a better chance of living longer and having more children, those traits tend to spread as they’re passed on from generation by generation.
But there’s just a bit more to it than that. The world isn’t the same everywhere you look, and it hasn’t remained the same since day one. A 1500s Las Vegas desert favors people who can bear hot weather, while a 2000s Las Vegas casino favors people who can count cards; and in the 20,000s BC, no on gave a crap if you could hit a small ball into a small hole with a club, whereas nowadays, Nike might give 20 million craps a year.
In other words, the world is filled with a wide variety of ever changing environments—and different environments favor different qualities, and shape living things differently over the generations.
But there’s just a bit more to it than that. The world has contained and still contains barriers that prevent living things from migrating. If it weren’t for those barriers, living things and their genes would have the opportunity to get around and prevent a species from branching into two.
In other words, the world is sort of like a bunch of clubs—each of which has its own unique rules regarding who gets in (and no—the bouncer can’t be bribed). Or better yet, it’s kind of like a bunch of clubs that almost never let anyone out, almost never let anyone new in, and only allow certain type of people to survive. (And you thought clubs in Harlem were violent.)
But there’s just a bit more to it than that.
Or actually, there isn’t.
Isaac Newton - Principia
Einstein - Relativity: The Special & General Theory
Nietzsche: The Anti Tzschurch & The Nietzschruth
Teachings of Reality’s Only True Non-Existent God