Intelligent Design Takes a Hit

The May 20 "Science News" reports research guaranteed to make your average fundementalist Christian shudder. While the human and chimp genomes split between 6.5 and 7 million years ago, there is evidence on the human and chimp X chromosone that indicates that chimps and protohumans continued to interbreed for the next 1.2 million years or so.

For over a century now, the religious conservatives have had to battle the heretical picture of man/apes climbing down out of the trees to become men. Now they have the equally disquieting picture of them climbing back into the trees on Saturday nights to mate with the chimps. It makes me wonder what the come on lines were: "Hey, baby, I've got stone tools!", or "Big hands, big feet, larger brain case." It also makes me wonder what the ape men said when their wives discovered what they were doing: "She means nothing to me honey, she's just a chimp.", or "Unlike us, honey, the chimp and I had nothing to talk about."

I know that I'm being silly, but I do have a point. We are neither special nor divine. We have not been given dominion over the earth. We have just evolved a little intelligence. We are just a part of the landscape during this epoch. In a few million years, we will be replaced by another dominant species. In the past 6 billion years it has happened before, and it will happen again. Evolution does not care whether we believe in it or not. Our only hope is that we change our thinking and learn to live sustainably on this little planet.