HOME | POLITICS | SPORTS | LIFE | SCI/TECH | OPEDS | HELPFUL TIPS
|
Jan. 5, 2006 Lets say for the sake of argument that abiogenesis did come about. For some reason, against all odds, the carbon, nitrogen, oxygen and all of those other atoms came togather, bumped, mingled, swapped some electrons, did some covalent bonding, and formed the 20 amino acids necessary for life on this planet. Those amino acids got togather; bumped, mingled, rubbed up against each other, and formed some proteins and these proteins figured out that we need to join in a specific way to form some rudimentary DNA. Then the DNA figured out how to form other proteins to generate energy, move waste products, put up some protection from the outside, repair, mobility, make new structures, form scaffolding to generate urban renewal, patrolling the cell to deal with threats, read itself, to know where to start and stop, make copies and error checking to make sure that mistakes weren’t made. The asexual revolution was born. For millions of years, life was good. Simple but good. Cells started hanging out togather and suddenly, life got a little more complex. Life moves on for a while when suddenly, lets call him Bob, notices something is wrong. Bob needs a female to reproduce. As luck would have it not only has this mistake managed to creep in to put the kaput on asexual reproduction, it has also managed to create the information to enable Bob to know what to do and created, lets call her Sue, in the same area with information also on what needs to happen. The original sexual revolution begins. Life is definatly more complex but still good. Bob and Sue have many more kids as time goes by but Bob and Sue didn't live to see it. You see, there were other things going on. More mistakes had crept into the old genetic code. One day, lets call him Fred, was born and decided that this sunlight and Oxygen crap just wasn't enough anymore so he ate Bob and Sue. Life went on and became even more complex when a near tragedy struck. Lots of these early forms of life got trapped in a tidal pool that was slowly (very slowly) ((very, very slowly)) running dry. Instead of dying as you would expect, some mistakes crept into the genetic code and as luck would have it, in just a few short hundred thousand years, they devolped the ability to breath air. Not only that, they were lucky that descendants of Fred weren’t trapped with them. So, for years and years they lived in the sea and the land and it was mostly good. Some more mistakes crept into the genetic code and for some of them they lost their fins and grew legs and feet and lost the ability to go back to the sea. Some of them never evolved any further and stayed just where they were. Mostly good because some of the descendants of Fred had some mistakes in the genetic code also and moved up on land and well, they had to eat. Millions of more years passed and more mistakes crept into the genetic code and some of them grew very large and could rip through the salad bar with no trouble. Some of them grew very large and grew some very large teeth to punish those that took unfair advantage of the all you could eat specials at the salad bar by eating some of them. Those that were getting eaten grew faster and some of them had some more genetic blunders and devolped spiked tails, clubbed tails and armor plates to avoid getting ate. Some of them didn’t grow very big but evolution gave them the knowledge to hunt in packs. Something had to give them the knowledge to form packs, dinosaurs weren’t known for their problem solving skills. Life was exciting and good. Millions of more years passed and life was good for most of the dinosaurs, unless you were the one’s getting eaten. There were more genetic mistakes and some of them became new species. The new species were small and furry. Small and furry wasn’t good because they were either getting stepped on by big plant eating dinosaurs, getting eaten by meat eating dinosaurs or trying to sleep after a tyrannosaurs rex at a few dozen of your friends and was attempting to hack up a fur ball. So, they burrowed under ground. So the dinosaurs went “roar, roar, roar” which loosely translated means “there is nothing to stop us from ruling forever. Hahahahaha.” Then a meteor slammed into the Yucatan Peninsula wiping the whole lot of them out because if there’s one thing that evolution can’t stand is a species that is too full of itself. Then thousands of years passed while the small burrowing mammals giggled hysterically. The planet warmed up and the mammals crawled out from the earth. Well, some of them did. Some of them stayed right were they were at. “We will populate the entire planet and we will live in peace,” they thought to themselves. Then some genetic mistakes crept in and new species came about, lions, tigers and bears which instantly began hunting the others. There were dogs, cats, birds, monkeys, apes and thousands of other species that all came about by accident, thanks to some genetic accidents. Many more years passed and mean while on the savanna the giraffes were thinking “you know, those leaves on the top of the trees are certainly better then these lower leaves”, so evolution got to work and giraffes slowly started to grow taller. Elephants noticed this and demanded equal rights. “Sorry”, the giraffes said, “we have a copyright on the long neck thing.” It was almost over. Almost everything had been accidentally evolved to its genetic potential with the exception of the apes. Some of them retreated to the mountains and deep forest to wait. Some of them went deeper in the forest and practiced climbing, yelling and other skills. One species, tired of falling out of trees while napping and getting crap thrown at them by their near cousins, decided to head for the burbs. “Here on the edge of the forest,” they thought, “we can carve out a place for us to live.” So, off they ventured and promptly discovered that they weren’t well equipped to fight out a place to exist. They were weaker and slower then most of the other species already out there. Some genetic changes later and they were walking upright. That helped somewhat, at least you could see what was about to eat you and get a head start. Some genetic changes later and there was a lot less hair covering the body which cut the drag coefficient and the 100 yard dash down to 12 seconds. Some more genetic changes later and intelligence came about. With intelligence came philosophy and the thought that the race doesn’t always go to the swift. Unfortunately, that philosophy is only true if you’re not being chased by something desiring to eat you, which was quickly discovered. Ultimately, it didn’t matter. The species survived, learned to grow their own food and figured out that meat is much easier to catch if you fence it in. 50,000 years ago or so they leaned to work togather to build boats and migrate to different lands and then promptly forgot everything till roughly 10,000 years ago and then decided to create civilization. They studied the stars, figured out the seasons and built a henge made of stone in what was to someday become England. Then they promptly forgot everything again, decided that the world was flat and refused to leave home for a while. People eventually got impatient again and sailed off to discover things again. Then they settled new lands, fought some wars and eventually decided what this planet really needs is a McDonalds and a Wal-Mart every 47 feet. Just a general humorous outline of what some people believe to have taken place during the history of the planet. I’m just a gullible, ignorant and irrational person. Then again, I choose not to go to Vegas and place all of my money to roll a 13 on a craps table. ------------ Email Tracey Stevens: phoque62@hotmail.com Tell a friend about this site! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com. Please link to this article rather than copying and pasting it onto your site (which would be unauthorized and illegal). |
||||||
|
|
|||||||
|
