A prodigious amount of effort and very considerable financial treasure has been expended over more than 150 years by learned scholars, researchers, and scientists from many disciplines to learn about the natural changes undergone by organisms and species over time. Those students of the natural world had a driving curiosity about what happened, and how, which could not be satisfied by simple and untested aphorisms or didactic scriptural pronouncements which declared supernatural explanations. The same kind of interest spurred the present author to investigate what has been learned—a daunting task—and to try and make sense about what remains a controversial, almost unmentionable subject in the social world in which he lives. It is reasonable to ask at this point, why bother? What is it about the study of evolution in general or any of its aspects or ramifications that makes investigation worthwhile, either from the perspective of intellectual curiosity or from the viewpoint of practical outcomes. In short, is the study of evolution of value?
The answer to that query is yes. The first reason has to do with the value of the truth. It is of inestimable value to serious and objective scholars to know–from best evidence–what is true about the origins of plants, animals, the earth, and of man, absent the dogma of true believers of any kind who reject evidence, and to seek to convey such truth to students who follow after them.
In more directly pragmatic terms, scholars of physics cannot describe in sensory terms what gravity is; but all of them and most even minimally educated people, accept the principle as a full-fledged theory or even a law. As predicted from gravity theory, a rocket can be launched into space, orbit the earth and return to its starting place unscathed. The Atomic Theory of Matter involves particles and forces so small that they can only be detected by costly elaborate devices or by inference from some of the effects of manipulating the principles of the theory. Albert Einstein reduced a part of the theory to a mathematical principle now known by most people, but understood by a very few—E=mc²–which equates energy and material mass. That the
theory is correct is widely appreciated despite the fact that a majority of the world’s population does not understand the arcane mathematics involved. That notwithstanding, however, the fruits of that theory (law) are well known; fusion of atoms provides safe, clean, and controlled heat and energy for homes and factories, and also has produced horrific explosions used as weapons of mass destruction. In 1916, Einstein, in his general theory of relativity, predicted that light would be bent as it passed by a large celestial body. He had a great many scoffers and detractors. However, in 1919, Arthur Addington verified Einstein’s prediction by showing during a solar eclipse, that light coming from distant stars was bent as it went by the sun, shifting the stars’ apparent positions.
The Cell Theory of Living Matter posits that tiny semi-independent structures–unseen except by a microscope–are complicated and crucial factories of energy production and life-sustaining processes for all animals and plants. Scarcely any educated person doubts the veracity of that description despite having never directly seen a biological cell in their life. The predictable results of cell nutrition, function, deterioration, and death are repeatable with regularity in the laboratory and in observations of life. The invention of electronic scanning microscopes enabled scientists to observe even minute intracellular structures and processes in living creatures. Each of these theories could comfortably be elevated to the status of being a law without much controversy in the scientific community or the general public.
The Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection is as fundamental a biological principle of nature as are any of the above theories in their realms of physics, chemistry, and biology. One significant argument in favor of that statement is the fact that practical and useful functions derive from the application of the principles and processes of evolutionary science. Those practical contributions regularly serve as important verifications of the Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection itself. Scientific concepts that reach the level of being a theory almost always are required to show that actions predictable from application of the principles of the theory occur with regularity.
Here are some of the practical contributions of evolutionary studies to a number of fields of human interest:
- The human genome. The study of evolution and its genetic underpinnings drove the scientific community and governments to undertake the massive worldwide effort to map the entire genetic/chromosomal structure of human genetic makeup. Using huge computer data programs, that task has been accomplished and is available gratis via the world-wide electronic net. The ability to view the entire genetic makeup or select portions of the human genome has permitted an explosion of understanding of genetic based diseases, to follow population shifts around the world over time, to date occurrences during evolution, and to make comparisons of human genetics with that of other animals to gain insight into naturally occurring relationships such as homologies and analogies and to develop a growing genuine understanding of the interrelationships in the tree (or bush) of life on earth. Such questions as where did particular populations originate are of interest to religionists (e.g. Mormons and their fascination with the Pacific Islanders and the indigenous inhabitants of the Americas), to genealogists, to linguists, and to historians (especially for those whose interest is pre-history). Knowledge of the genome helps to verify the reality of the claims of ancestry and gives insight into what life was like prior to mankind communicating experience through writing.
- Genomes of other animals and plants. A close off-shoot of human genome studies was the ability to use the same methodology and technology to map the genetic structures of a large and growing number of animals. This has allowed the study of animal diseases and their possible relationship to disease processes seen in man. Morals and ethics forbid certain studies to be done on humans; so, knowledge of comparative genomes allows investigation and manipulation of genetic material for application in disease prevention and treatment, for improvement in domesticated species, for the opportunity to make new plants or animal stock that can survive or be productive in heretofore hostile environmental conditions to solve problems of hunger and cost, and for the comparative study of species and taxa to further knowledge of the processes of evolution.