Today, I’m offering a short excerpt from the beginning of Chapter 5, “Concocting Genetic Clues,” in our recently released book The Evolution Conspiracy, Vol 1: Exposing Life’s Inexplicable Origins & The Cult of Darwin by Lisa A. Shiel. (Words in bold are included in the book’s extensive glossary. A complete bibliography is included at the end of each chapter.)
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For at least 2 billion years, life on earth consisted of single-celled organisms. A mist hovers over this period in our planet’s history, a veil of murk that clouds our understanding of life’s supposed origins. One might suspect that when multicellular life-forms emerged, once simple cells transmuted into complex life, the fossil record should clear. The origins of complexity, however, remain as murky as the birth of the first cell.
The rise of complexity, according to evolutionary theories, transpired in two stages. First, a new kind of cell evolved. Second, those cells rounded themselves up into a coherent whole, a new entity composed of multiple cells.
Every cell has a nucleus, the DNA-containing center, as well as specialized entities called organelles (akin to itsy-bitsy organs). The first organisms, the one-celled bacteria whose fossils scientists argue over, lacked enclosed nuclei and organelles. Although a membrane hemmed in the entire cell, everything inside it drifted around unencumbered and unprotected. Cells like those, known as prokaryotic cells, still exist today. Cells like the ones in our bodies, called eukaryotic cells (see fig. 5.1), possess interior membranes that fence in both the nucleus and the individual organelles. We refer to the organisms who feature the two types of cells as prokaryotes and eukaryotes. Humans qualify as eukaryotes, while the cyanobacteria heralded as earth’s first life fit within the prokaryote definition.
The questions of when and how eukaryotes arose have stimulated plenty of speculation. Nobody knows when the change happened, or if it happened at all. The evidence is nonexistent. As with the genesis of the first cell, and the diversification of that one cell into hordes of life-forms, scientists can rally only vague and largely imagined evidence in support of one theory or another. The evidence splits into two categories known as morphology and phylogenetics.
While technically connected, since both classes of evidence concern the fossil record, the two lines diverge more oft en than they converge. Morphology considers the anatomy of a creature, from its outward appearance to the structure of its bones. Phylogenetics deals with the evolutionary relationships between living things, or the lineages of species. Now that science treats DNA as an infallible tool, scientists bank on the analysis of modern DNA as a time capsule for the phylogenetic past.
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“Gem of a book…concise, lucid, and to the point.”—Michael A. Cremo, Author, Forbidden Archeology and Human Devolution — click here to read Michael Cremo’s full review
“Shiel is consistently convincing…evolutionary scientists have circumvented the true scientific method.”—Dr. Quinton R. Rogers, Distinguished Professor Emeritus, Department of Molecular Biosciences, School of Veterinary Medicine, University of California Davis — click here to read Dr. Rogers’ full review
Read more reviews on The Evolution Conspiracy website.
