TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Misunderstanding the theory of evolution
One year after its bicentennial celebration, there are still many people who regard the theory of evolution as propaganda to spread anti-religious thought
Change Size
O
ne year after its bicentennial celebration, there are still many people who regard the theory of evolution as propaganda to spread anti-religious thought.
I suspect that it is due to the misperception of the theory in the mind of common people. Most of them perceive the theory of evolution only as the gradual change from monkey to human which is insulting to their faith.
They grasp the theory only on a superficial level without understanding the mechanism of the theory itself.
Given the comment made by Prof. Boedi Hartono from the University of Indonesia in The Jakarta Post this month, commenting on an article by Michael Casey, he said that the finding of Homo floresiensis as a new species did not challenge the theory of evolution.
I agree with him since the concept of the Hobbit as a new species is an interpretation that may only affect the theory of human evolution. It has nothing to do with the evolution of cats, dogs, or orchids.
But what has happened in the mind of many people is that the theory of evolution is only applied to humans. So the article by Michael Casey is enough for them to deny the controversial theory. Of course this is a shallow view.
The theory of evolution itself is the explanation of how the diversity of all living things on earth came into existence. It is a fact that there are other kinds of organisms besides human on this earth such as cats, trees, dogs etc.
But how did those diverse organisms come into existence? We can accept the explanation of how a volcanic rock can exist in this world by inferring that the rock is the result of an eruption of a mountain hundreds of years ago.
So why can’t we accept the explanation of how a living thing comes into existence?
Every living thing is the product of their progenitor. For instance, we are the product of the mating of our parents. We inherit their genes in a new combination that shapes our physical and physiological characteristics.
No one would say that they come into the world out of nothing; they must have biological parents to exist in the world.
And so is with our cats, dogs, trees, they all originated from their parents. One important piece of evidence for the theory of evolution comes from this very fact: Every living thing has genetic material and they get it from their parents.
And their parents, as living things, get their genetic material from their grandparents, and so on and so forth until we meet the ancestors.
But the problem is the genetic material in every organism may change in a random pattern called mutation. Since the genes are the blueprint of an organism, mutation often affects the physical and physiological characteristic of an organism.
If the change is good and suitable for the environment, the mutant organism may survive and pass the mutant gene to their children, which will finally replace the dominancy of the normal one.
The mutant individuals may become a new species. Thus, we can infer that the new species is the descendant of the previous species. I think it is reasonable for us to accept this explanation.
The same mechanism can be applied in all organisms which procreate through sexual reproduction.
Their existence can be explained by the changing of genetic material of their ancestors, correlated with its suitability with the environment. But, of course, as a scientific theory, this mechanism is not the ultimate truth of everything.
Recently, scientists have found another way for an organism to acquire new genes: horizontal genetic transfer (HGT). Unlike normal genetic inheritance, which is passed from parents to the offspring, HGT is the mechanism where the genetic material can be transferred from one individual to the other without producing offspring.
This finding means that the genomic pattern in one organism may not be used to determine its ancestors. The theory of evolution is confounded here.
This confounder makes me think that we should not consider the theory of evolution as a threat to our faith.
It is a scientific theory that can be either confounded or corroborated. We should not place it as something that is equal to the ultimate truth in which we may believe.
The author is a science writer.
