About the Black Squirrels

I wrote the following in response to Brad's post about Black Squirrels. This version is a little bit different, as I thought of some additional points (and rewrote a few bits) after replying to Brad's blog. If you're inclined to spend the time on either, I'd say read this version, not the comment I left on his site.

Let me preface this with I believe in Evolution just to make sure I'm not misinterpreted. Much of what follows is merely an attempt to myself in other's shoes or head-space, and figure out why we all (humanity) disagree so strongly about such basic concepts.


The black squirrel, and mutations of it's ilk, will probably never convince creationists - and the rationale of why it doesn't sway them is actually pretty justified. The black squirrel isn't a new species. It's just a grey squirrel, with a new dominant gene that gives it a different fur color and increased testosterone. It still interbreeds with grey squirrels, and is currently winning out in the sexual competition arena.

That does prove (or at least stongly support) Natural Selection, but not Evolution. Natural Selection is a prime motivator in Darwinian Evolution, but NS could also exist and only lead to familial evolution. That's evolution with a small "e" - it's the same logic that dictates children look something like their parents. I've yet to meet a creationist who argues against that logic. Instead, they argue against large-scale Evolution - the change from one species to another.

One of the causes of the rift in thought between Evolutionists and Creationists is the fact that it would take thousands of generations for little changes like that Squirrel example to accumulate to such an extent that an entirely new species existed. Many Creationists think the world is only a few thousand years old. If that were the case, there'd be no way an organism as complex as Humanity could evolve up from single-celled life. So, if you assume a 5,000 year old Earth, then you're correct in assuming that evolution couldn't possibly result in Evolution in that time.

That 5,000 year date the church defends strikes me as preposterous, and it's evidenced against by not just carbon-dating, but also geologic process, the red-shifting of light from other stars, and fields of history such as egyptology. But if you take it as true, then you get the above "no time for Evolution" conclusion.

And really, how can I argue against it? If you believe the Pope is infallible, or that the Prophets were inspired directly by God, then the arguments of someone such as myself (who has no great works of magic or statesmanship or even science on his resume) will seem pretty trivial.

But here's the second argument that Creationists have at their disposal, and this one is even harder to argue against (at least, unless my understanding of biology is fundamentally flawed) - variations in the number of chromosomes. If you grab a hundred species at random from throughout the animal kingdom, you'll get several different chromosome counts. In order for chromosomes to shift like that, you need a pretty massive mutation. Most such mutations in nature are fatal. Those that aren't, typically result in a mutated offspring that is either sterile or just can't reproduce with an unmutated partner. Following that logic, in order for a new species to have a different number of chromosomes, you'd need at least two members in a region, one of each gender, to get roughly the same mutation yet survive to reproduce with each other.

Even if that occurred, you'd have massive genetic bottlenecking which wouldn't be likely to result in the continued health and survival of the new species. So effectively, you'd need several hundred members of the species to spontaneously develop a drastic but non-fatal mutation and then keep reproducing. Off the top of my head, it's hard to think of anything that would result in that, except perhaps overt genetic manipulation by an outside hand.

That's where Creationists assume God must be the designer. But there are other possibilities. Things that reproduce asexually could (and d0) Evolve without outside forces requiring a simultaneous identical mutation amongst multiple members of the original species. A single organism could drastically mutate, and if it survived, pass that mutation on asexually. So viruses and bacteria can be shown to Evolve without an outside hand, as evidenced by SARS, AIDS and Ebola. Some viruses have the ability to alter the DNA of creatures they infect. Thus it's possible that some prehistoric retrovirus was the cause of most large-scale chromosomal shifts. A virus could evolve to cause a specific mutation to affect an entire generation of newborns. It's a bit of a stretch, but not impossible. Such a virus could have since died off, leaving us with little conclusive evidence of how the big changes happened.

Even if you do assume that some higher power (not merely a virus) must have been behind the diversification of species, there's little reason to assume that any single popular God is the right one. Every holybook I've read includes at least one statement that can be proven false or at least grossly oversimplified - thus putting the infallability of the authors into question. But such flaws don't necessarily prove the non-existence of any given God, they just demonstrate the human nature of it's chief followers. Some godlike intelligence - be that Jehovah, Gaia, Eris, or something we have yet to correctly identify - could be guiding the course of the universe. Such an intelligence could even be using Evolution as it's tool to do so - YHWH could well have created Evolution as his method of Creation.

Or we could all be effectively cells in a self-aware universe intuitively guiding it's own Evolution - that's my favorite way to look at it.

For that matter, the Intelligent Designer could be literal. We could be the end product of intentional and overt genetic manipulation by alien Greys. Knowing nothing of their planet(s?), we can't rule out Evolution occurring there naturally (they could be asexual, or there could be factors there that are absent on Earth), and then having been reverse-engineered here for unknown motives. The earth could be a petri dish, a zoo, or a farm.

I suppose it could even be a giant analog super-computer, covertly run by mice and observed cautiously by dolphins. :) Or I could be a Cartesian brain in a jar.

Point being, even something concrete like Black Squirrels is unlikely to ever convince die-hard Creationists that Evolution exists. Chances are, we'll never all see eye-to-eye on this. There's at least 3 ways to proceed from there.

1. We can continue to hate and war amongst ourselves - sadly, this is the most common historical path taken by Religions and Nations.
2. We can mock and insult each other - like Bill Mahrer and Richard Dawkins like to do to the Religious communities.
3. We can try to be understanding and tolerant of those who view the universe through a different lens.

I aim for goal #3, but occasionally relapse into plan 2 when I'm having a bad day.