Eve & Darwin

PREFACE
This work, in the style of a novel, describes, in a pleasant way, important and curious aspects of the two main schools of thought, apparently antagonistic, on the origin of life.

In the course of the text, the reader is taken to plunge into the bottom in this fascinating subject, experiencing a heated debate that ultimately turns into a beautiful union.

Whatever your position on the topic, it is worth spending a few minutes reflecting on this exciting subject and letting yourself be embraced by the romanticism and by the common points that unite Eve & Darwin.

                                                                                     Marcos Vieira
Portuguese version: Eva e Darwin French version: Eve et Darwin
German version: Eva & Darwin Greek version: Eva & Darwin
Spanish version: Eva y Darwin Italian version: Eva e Darwin
Read also: Ishmael & Isaac, Curious Bible,The Angel Man and God Man
Talk to the author: Eimaldo Vieira

CONTENT

It was all for nothing! /We and the monkeys

A curious gill /Traces

Fossils that speak /Similarities and contrasts

Human fossils /Painters of caves

Science of yesterday and today /Numbers speak

Origin of matter /Origin of life

Perfect universe /Are there mysteries yet?

Love stories

IT WAS ALL FOR NOTHING!

Eve: Do you think, Darwin, this immense universe is all a great work of chance?

Darwin: Not just a guess, Eve. I claim this as truth. Science does not think or imagine anything. Only notes. My positivist training keeps me from accepting any statement that is not scientifically proven.

Eve: But can't you at least doubt a perfect chance, since the universe presents a constant perfection?

Darwin: In fact I bring with me many questions that have not yet been clarified. But who removes my doubts are the concrete facts. When they don't help me, I prefer to continue looking for my answers in science. Behind stories I don't run.

Eve: But don't you think every search is subject to failure? What happens to the historical research also applies to biological research. There is a big difference between science and scientific research. Science does not fail. Scientist fails.

Darwin: But with me is like that. I have to see happen. Black on the white. Eye on the eye. Nothing like I have heard.

Eve: Gee, Darwin, you look like Thomas. He needed see to believe. See that he received the evidence and also a scolding, Oh, Thomas, you had to see it to believe it. Happy those who have not seen and have believed. But since you're hard to fall, at the next meeting we will start debating the facts scientifically proved.

WE AND THE MONKEYS

Eve: Do you really like that story that we came from monkeys?

Darwin: In fact, Eve, I don't like. I Love. It´s the apple of my evolutionist eyes. Here is my best-known tool, called anatomical similarity between species. This similarity is not happening only between us and the monkeys. It is not by chance that nature presents these coincidences.

Eve: I liked that, Darwin. It is not by chance, as you yourself said. This reminds me of a time when my father almost hit me because I had gone with the book he was reading. Actually he saw me reading a book like that of his reading. But he forgot to look a detail. I was reading the second volume. It was a second edition of cover totally equal, but content entirely different. It is no coincidence that the editors had planned all that likeness. A volume was our earthly nature. The other, our eternal nature.

Darwin: You forget that the similarities are not only in living things. Atoms, for example, look a lot like the solar systems, although they are only thumbnails of them. Don't you think logical that some have exited from the others?

Eve: I prefer to say that both can have left ones from others, as they can all be left from the same source. You say that the higher beings always come out of minors. I have no difficulty to accept the stars came from atoms.
By the way, think about atom. Unbreakable. They thought they had come to the small part of the universe. But, now we know inside the atom there is a real miniuniverse.
Darwin: But, let us come back to living beings. You have not thought about the apendix. The more evolve the animal, the less its appendix and vice-verse. Don´t it seems to you that may be an evidence of evolution?
Eve: But, Darwin, today it is known that is not a general rull. There are evolve animals with biggest appendix and vice-verse. According to your rull, from the smallest to the biggest, monkeys must have come from man! And man from marsupials or rabbits! 

CURIOUS GILL

Darwin: You may have noticed that I am a passionate evolutionist. See what we can call the biogenetic law. By this law, we know that the embryo in its development,  passes through the same stages that humans in their evolutionary process. You can't deny the similarity between the human embryo and certain lower forms of life.

Eve: What it happens, Darwin, is that the tiny genes found in the first cell of a new individual already contain the full program of its future development. Genes are like the program that configures itself in a computer, telling it what to do and how should fulfill the orders it received. Only by an anomaly these genes could produce a variation of the adult form in its embryonic stage.

It is easy to understand this similarity by the basic needs of human beings by their oxygenation and feeding of their organisms.

Darwin: Have you ever heard about the famous fish gill? With a month old, the human embryo shows certain similarity to the cavities of a fish gill. Doesn't it remind you something very important?

 Eve: It's true. Those cavities resemble gills of fish. With the development of the fetus, such similarities disappear to make way only for the necks, chins and other organs. Thomas Heinze reminds us that the so-called gills of fish prove  both that man evolved from him as the face of a Moon of a Chinese  proves that it evolved from the moon.

Don't take this the wrong way, Darwin. I noticed you didn't like my irony. I promise that in the coming meetings I will seek to control my impulses.

TRACES

Eve: Can you tell me something, Darwin, regarding vestigial organs?

Darwin: Surely,  Eve.  They are organs found in the body of animals, or rather, traces of organs that still remain in living things, but do not have a known function. For me this is an evidence that in the evolutionary chain, there was a time when these organs were bigger and had effective functions.

Eve: since you do not have a scientific proof of the function of these traces, isn't it better to admit that, if they were full one day, certainly they have been helpful for some time, being no longer needed?

Science has discovered that many of these wasted organs are glands that produce hormones needed by the body. Others work only in the embryo stage of life. Some are only reservations for any emergency. Others were eliminated. Others have not had their functions known by science.

Darwin: But you haven't thought about the case of the appendix. The more evolved is the animal, less is its appendix, and this is a proof of evolution in species.

Eve: But, Darwin, we know that this is not a general rule. There are evolved animals with smaller appendix and less evolved animals with biggest ones. As a matter of fact, that is the case of  monkeys in relation to man. 

Darwin: I haven't talked of two other important vestigial, yet. Nobody needs to be a scientist to recognize. They are the ears and the hair of the head of animals, especially horses, compared with man. Both are smaller in the human body because we don't need them any more to scare off flies and mosquitoes, since we develop this hands´ skill.

Eve: Again I realize that you're just running through the land of assumptions. I'd be offended, Darwin, if you say that I can't scare the flies with a simple shake of the head or have to lose an important sporting competition, just for not being able to use my hands.

FOSSILS THAT SPEAK

Eve: Do you consider the fossils a good source of information on the origins of species, Darwin?

Darwin: Surely, Eve. But you touched on my big Achilles´ heel. As well as the scale of these fossilized beings is enormous in geological layers, so too, in the same proportion should be enormous intermediate varieties within these same layers. This, however, does not happen. The species appear ready, varying only their ages, from early stage to adulthood.

But this difficulty doesn't make me give up my theories. The problem is not only in that lamentable lack of evidence, but mostly in the extreme imperfection of the geological record. My namesake spoke about this in his The Origin of Species.

Eve: But, from the point of view that nature does not practice errors, don't you think here is the time to put into practice the philosophy of Thomas, seeing is believing? If you do not see in nature those missing links, isn´t just we give up on the puzzle?

Now, let's think a little about the ages of fossils. The oldest rocks in which fossils can be found are of the Cambrian period.  In these  sedimentary deposits, billions and billions of fossils of  highly complex forms of life are found. The evolutionary ancestors of the Cambrian fauna were never found. The fossil record does not give us any evidence that these Cambrian animals come from early ancestral forms. No found fossil can be considered a transition between species of higher forms. The types of these invertebrates are exactly the same as those we know today.

Darwin: With these words, Eve, you just stare one more arrow in my poor Achilles´ heel.

In fact, I have always believed in a natural evolution of the species, the one without any interference from anyone, harmonic, progressive, walking over billions of years, always from the simplest to the most complex.

Eve: You just provide me a great hook, from the simplest to the most complex. But as this hook should be a little longer, I propose that we will return to it in our next meeting. My parents must already be worried of me. Combined?

Darwin: Combined. Listen, Eve, you spoke of his parents. You haven't invited me to meet his family, yet.

Eve: Not bad, Darwin. Sorry, but this is not the best time.

SIMILARITIES AND CONTRASTS

Darwin: We spoke about the progressive complexity of species. In my mind, I can't see anything bigger evolving into another smaller than it. This idea makes me see things upside down. Also I can't imagine a universe finished, especially if it comes from something as abstract as authority, purpose, intelligence.

Eve: As fossil records don't provide any evidence of transition between the species, who knows you can show this evidence between animals who were not fossilized or are still living in nature?

Darwin: one of my favorite samples is the horse, since I can't speak of numerous extinct species through the ages. Besides similarity, their fossils show that they were smaller than their current copies, such as the eohippus. They had just the average size of our dog.

Eve: I'd like indeed to see those small horses recovered  by science, jumping about in my backyard, Darwin. But leaving my utopia aside, since we cannot prove a perfect link between the two species, can you tell me something about the members of those mascots?

Darwin: Of course, yes, Eve. Very similar to our horses. Only a few small different details. I'll remember that they had more teeth and four fingers in the hind legs and three in the back, while our have only one finger on all legs.

Eve: For me, that can even seem small details. But for you that should make a huge difference. You know, Darwin, that the natural and fundamental law of evolution is against the grain of this example. We are facing a typical case of simplification and not complexity in nature, doesn't it?

Your silence and this thoughtful face agree as gloves on your hands.

HUMAN FOSSILS

Eve: Once we could not prove any link between the animal species, you have something to say about pre human fossils?

Darwin: This is precisely my favorite theme. After all, how wouldn´t I like to prove the origin of the more evolved species of the planet, i.e. my own identity?

I'll start showing the Piltdown man, discovered in England in 1912. For forty years, scholars have placed in him great hopes of being on of the first homo-sapiens, but not yet this time. The copies of Pilt were removed from museums and their images from the books.

The man from Nebraska came to be our best expectation. But our joy was short-lived because very soon it has been proved that his only strong point, his teething, belonged to a pig and not a man.

Our hope turned to the man from Australia, nicknamed Zinjanthropus. Experts have calculated their age between 600 thousand and 1 million and a half years. It was found by Dr. Leakey, in Africa. The big problem in the study of this fossil was the precarious situation in which it found itself. A colleague of Dr. Leakey came to compare it to an egg smashed by a truck. Once again we had to postpone the news of long-awaited discovery, the presence of a progenitor of our species.

Eve: Did the geological records already show some sample copy of homoerectus with more than ten thousand years?

Darwin: It is assumed that there were some samples of this man there are about half a million years. They lived between the Zinjanthropus and our era. The most important fossil of this group is Peking Man, so named because it has been found in China. The copies were lower jaws and teeth, parts of fourteen skulls, broken by other animals, probably due to a thousand cc. of flesh they brought in their interior. There is evidence of the presence of fire and tools, but we cannot prove that these elements were used by themselves or by other beings, many years later.

Another example of homo erectus is what became known as Java man. His bonnet shaped head and articulation in the pelvis are its highlights, as well as some similarities in teeth with humans. It was first found by Eugene Dubois, along with various human skulls. We consider these samples important because they show heads similar to gorillas´.

Eve: Darwin, Do you agree that living together, the Java man and humans, it is impossible to have the possibility of being a proof of evolutionary theory?

Darwin: Certainly, Eve. But, remember, the Geology is not an exact science. At least until it can offer some accuracy of its data. Like all other sciences, its searches are constant, always seeking the truth from facts.

Now, let's talk a little about the Neanderthal man. Its discovery is in the beginning of 20 century. The skeleton bore the curvature of the body while walking, and so, for a long time, people thought and taught that it was a species intermediate between the curved gorilla and man. But with the discovery of  neanderthal new copies, it was found that it was a generation of erectus and that copy had suffered a disability in his knee during his lifetime.

The fact that the so called Neanderthal man has skull 100 cc. greater than the average of  ours today, also brings a serious difficulty to our evolutionary theory. You know that we always come from the simplest to the most complex.

PAINTERS OF CAVES

Eve: Another my curiosity. What do you know about the paintings of the Caveman?

Darwin: This is one more case of samples of  the homo sapiens. Especially important are the paintings of Lascaux in France, calculated by the radiocarbon method as in the year 8000 BC. This is the Cro-Magnon man. Curious how those paintings, compared to those of modern painters, were not destroyed by fire for so many years. Interesting also that the brain of those inhabitants comes to be 400 cc. greater than the people today. Hence, we cannot say that this is a natural evolution of our generation.

The skull of Swanscombe, discovered in 1935 is regarded by evolutionists one of the world oldest human fosssils, situated before the Neanderthal. Therefore, our hope of finding an ancestor non-human to human is becoming increasingly distant.

  Eva: The fact that so ancient paintings are also so advanced is a good sign that the intellectual potential of man is always the same. Had he more sophisticated technical resources, Darwin, your surprise would be even greater. Even assuming some intellectual evolution in our species, we must not confuse this progress with evolution of the species.

CSIENCE OF YESTERDAY AND TODAY

Darwin: Can you comment this affirmation of my namesake, IIf it was proved the existence of a body that has not been formed by numerous, successive and soft modifications, my theory would be fully struck.?

Eve: The modern studies and the new instruments of science have much to offer us, Darwin. The microscope that Darwin did not know is a fine example. Today, the complexity of the cells would cause him a stunning surprise. There isn´t a single cell so sought by him throughout his life. Simply they were born ready.

The law of the strongest, for example, can be explained by another law, that is the law of mutations. We know that changes in species are accidental. They are like a computer's programs. As I said before, the product fails because the supply failures. But as soon as you can change the board causing the problem, the machine continues producing his sons on the standard of its inventor. Change from one species to another it's like a robot programmed to produce a video game generating a small truck.

The mutations are exceptions rather than the rule. And being deviations, they are always something to try avoiding. These anomalies do not happen often and almost always are degenerative or recessive and not evolutionary. When they happen, they don´t perpetuate through their descendants, whether plants, animals or people. Each genome or DNA is potentially prior established as true matrix.

Some animals and plants can turn into new species, but speciation is not evolution. They don't migrate to higher groups. Never fishes were seen turning frogs.

NUMBERS SPEAK

Darwin: Do you believe the numbers favor,  or works against the evolutionary theory?

Eve: Apparently, they favor, Darwin. When you think of billions of years of formation of the universe and  human beings, so seems a pretty logic theory. But when you analyze the data more thoroughly, the matter presents itself differently.

For example, why those primitive sapiens didn´t form civilizations for so long, creating at least community cities very much before the Mediterranean or Mesopotamian?

Another question. If the first human couple appeared about 1 million years, as evolutionists believe, long would have been an unbearable population explosion on the planet.

On the other hand, a generation of some 6 thousand years forming a civilization of 3 thousand and 500 years, yields exactly in 6 billion that we are today. And this thanks to the flood, because without it the situation would be totally different. This, according to the calculations of Ussher of 4 thousand and 300 years to the flood. Important fact that the good Geology proves a sharp decline in the population of terrestrial animals and humans, recovering gradually in the post-flood period.

Passing from the human nature, see the case of the fig and the wasp which gives the pollen. They depend one another to live. I can't imagine that both have developed  over millions of years and at the same time have reached the point where mutually feed as it happens today. I prefer to see the two as those who received this harmonious interdependence from the beginning.
  Beyond the numbers still, consider the presence of sea shells on the top of mountains, lakes, caves, canyons, oil, coal and fossils through the layers, representing living creatures and plants of all ages, showing an undeniable taken by surprise. Food in the mouth of fossilized animals shoulld not be overlooked. Out of a gigantic and unprecedented catastrophe, such facts would not be built even in billions of years, through a spontaneous evolution of nature.

ORIGIN OF MATTER

Darwin: I have always read on my favorite authors that there has always been matter. Eve. Could that be just one more madness? Or has good chance in your imagination?

Eve: Among hundreds of examples, I'll remember only three. See the Sun loses a base of 5 million tons per second. This calculation is possible today thanks to Einstein's formula E = mc². In the event that always have existed, there was a time when he himself would take the entire universe. The same with all the stars.

If the stars consume hydrogen or any other radioactive material means or by some other means, in infinite time all fuel would've been consumed.

The Sun and the other stars that make up our universe are extremely hot, while the interstellar space, including the Earth, is extremely cold. The metals cannot retain their heat in cold environment for an indefinite period. Being the universe infinitely old, after a certain time, the two substances would have acquired a uniform temperature, as also all matter in the universe. As this is not the case, the matter cannot be eternal.

The decomposition of the particles Alpha Uranium is used to determine the age of rocks. But nobody can say that the rate of loss has always been the same as today, launching the origins of such rocks to millions of years ago.

The presence of radio halos in granite Polonius shows an instantaneous creation, since they do not resist changes in temperature and state for more than a few seconds. The conclusion, then, is, with Halos, no evolution. According to Dr. Robert Gentry, the Halos can be the fingerprints of creation.

ORIGIN OF LIFE

Darwin: We haven't talk more specifically about the origin of life, yet. You know my namesake imagined life been born of stagnant water. Is the law of spontaneous generation. Have you heard of this law?

Eve: Your namesake died in the year of birth of Louis Pasteur. The knowledge and instruments of his days allowed them to believe that non living matter could generate living bodies as the cell.

Your namesake still believed that the Earth's atmosphere did not contain oxygen yet when life began. But today we know that life would be impossible without the protective layer of ozone that shroud us against ultraviolet rays in unbearable quantities. You know, Darwin, that ozone is formed from the oxygen of the air.

And how to understand the principle of perfection of the organs from the fluke? Just remember this wonderful hearing you carry in your head, where each part has its specific function. As you listen to the voice of a loved one or some beautiful music, can you think of a spontaneous generation?

And what about the principle of sexuality of the living beings, mainly the human one the ones, where the two exchange not only pleasure, but share characters,  generating lives equal theirs through  a process fantastically mysterious?

And we have not talked of eyes! Well that they could have been spontaneously put in place of the ears! Don't you think that you'd be more interesting?

Darwin: In me, even it could be, but I can't see you so beautiful otherwise. Even more when you get red with shame as you became now. Can I give my first kiss of love?

Eve: If this is your desire!

Darwin: Before you start talking of human intelligence, I'll even suggest we rest a little. I need a while to think of these follies of yours. And don't forget your promise. You didn´t introduce me to your parents, yet.

Eve: Don't worry, Darwin. Let's take a break in our follies. I have spoken with my parents. I hope for you this Sunday at our house.

PERFECT UNIVERSE

Darwin: I have always heard creationists talking of perfection of the universe as something very important to their theory. Did you also believe in that such a perfection of the universe?

Eve: No, Darwin, I don't believe. I simply see. I will consider only the part of the universe where the animal man created several follies. The Earth is aligned at an angle of 23 degrees relative to the equator line. If this position were another, the water vapor of the oceans would condense in the   South and North Pole, creating mountains of ice. Losing the Sun half of its heat through there, the villagers would die all frozen, or simply there would be no life on those hemispheres. Increasing it half of its heat in the tropics, the villagers would die all burned, or rather not have place to live. Result. The Earth would be an empty desert.

Out of the Earth the universe is in an order even more perfect. Hoping that this was possible without the presence of a purpose or mind is as expecting a nice Swiss watch appearing from an explosion in a bunch of garbage.

ARE THERE MYSTERIES YEY?

Darwin: I confess to you, Eve, there are still some doubts in my poor mind. I feel that we must extend this our conversation for a long time. That is the only way to take some crickets from my head.

Eve: don't tell my poor mind, Darwin. You are quite intelligent. Let us not think that the finite can understand the infinite.

I know that we have not exhausted the topics that we started.  That isn´t even possible. At least while we're limited by our natural finiteness.

When we think, for example, in those intelligent fossils before  Neanderthal, we can make some considerations. Those beings may have been a generation created long before our own, eliminated by big cataclysms, like so many other animals, with no chance to populate the Earth or creating civilizations never found. On the other hand, if they were not so smarts, despite his human anatomy,  fallen angels may have been those painters in caves.

When we think in a universe as old, the Earth is estimated in 4 billion years, compared to a human generation so new, we can make also some other considerations.

Consider, for example, when the water was turned into wine at the wedding of Cana of Galilee. How many years that wine should have taken to become the best wine of the feast. However, he became the best wine in fraction of a minute that night. Try to do a calculation of the ratio between time and quality and will find billions of minutes for that wine t o be appreciated.

Now consider those breads and fishes that fed thousands of people at the sea of Galilee. Those five loaves and two fishes didn´t have the lifespan and fermentation they need to be ingested by the crowd. This process was speeded up and people were not intoxicated. Children and others didn´t suspect of something special.

The same reasoning could be done in the first couple. They hadn't time to develop their complex organs. But there they were, matured, adults. Well that I would appreciate I had been my namesake. Think the same with regard to plants.

So also the universe may well have passed through a similar process of maturation before offering the necessary conditions to fulfill its role. This gets even more reasonable in the Earth and Sun vital  relationship. We can say that we received a ready universe. The universe shows us a prehistory that didn't exist.

LOVE SRORIES

Darwin: Eve. Will I someday know the author of this wonderful universe?

Eve: Not only to know, but live together with him, Darwin. If he made us in his image and likeness, we could not be separated from him forever. Sin separated us from him. But his son took our guilt.

Darwin: But how can I know I can have this right guaranteed without any possibility to fail?

Eve: That's what he himself guarantees. One who believes in the son has eternal life. Believing is much more than a verb. It is a deed of consent that produces life. But it is a personal attitude. Talk to him. He listen you. Tell him, I am a sinner and I receive your Son as Savior and Lord. Do you want to do this just now?

Darwin: Why not, Eve?

Now I feel a joy and peace that I have never experienced. How can that be?

Eve: As Dostoyevsky said, every human person has at heart an empty the size of the creator. You have just filled this emptiness in your heart. You have just made the most important discovery of the universe. This is the song only can be sung by one who received it in his heart.

Darwin: Now, I can only ask you, Eve. Do you want to marry me?

Eve: You took me by surprise, Darwin. My answer may not be another. I want. Let's ask for the consent of our parents to our engagement. From now on, we will together discover a new world, the world of love.

Two years later, Darwin and Eve were married before the Creator, family and friends. They continued investigating the secrets of this wonderful creation. They had four children, Fidel, Veronica, Justin and Irene. And they lived happy forever.

(Copyright of Eimaldo A. Vieira. Free use of portions, once the author´s name is quoted)

The more consulted books: Criation Vs Evolution, by Thomas F. Heinze. La Ciencia Habla, by Peter W. Stoner. La Ciencia Retorna a Dios, by J. H. Jauncey. The Origin of Species, by Charles Darwin.

Talk to the author: Eimaldo Vieira