With the sky overhead in full bloom and the stars, galaxies, shooting stars and nebulae engaged in a joyous celestial dance, we rough it out on a small planet, not unmindful of the reality that our stay here is but brief, and full of events beyond our control, but mercifully within our comprehension. In that vein we shall continue from where we left off.

My hob-nob with the issue of evolution left me rambling in bed for long, still wondering to what extent I, or Charles Darwin (sic), was right in asserting that evolution was the answer to human and animal development. My prolonged exertion of mind, going back several decades as I embraced, then discarded several ideas in its favour, or against this, alternatively, one of the greatest outcomes of human minds. As I came to the conclusion, that I was too small a fry to delve upon the great idea on my own. For it is settled that I do not accept ideas (great or not) simply lying down, as they are put before me, yet there were still some problems as far as evolution is concerned.

The abrupt disappearance of dinosaurs was too sudden and “event-less” in more than one way. First, it left no trace of the colossal pounding (except bones, found 65 million years later). Second, who was there to witness or chronicle the event? With the types and vast variety of dinosaurs, far too few left any natural history except scattered shards of their bodies. That any history survived for posterity is thanks to the tremendous effort of the many prevailing scientists all the way from China to Alaska, not to forget those in Europe and Alduvai Gorge, and their painstaking discoveries.

However, it must be stated that there were more than five such annihilations (or more) during the period, and many more mini ones in the period since. Some brought about by an impact, some others by the rapidly changing climate. These have collectively bashed our lovely planet like little else, but usually the top surface up to a few miles (crust). Vast plains and forest lands were flattened together with their goods. Many mountain ranges too. You never know.

Everything that exists in the universe is the fruit of Chance and Necessity.— Democritus,Circa 400 BC

All this turbulent activity on land in the last 500 million years or so, has led to activity of the worst kind on planet Earth and other moons and planets too.

Now the question: evolution!

Evolution is the process of life by which life progresses very gradually. A very gradual progression of life indeed in which it must undergo incremental improvement discarding all such factors, and elements as are unable to develop, or, withstand the change as and when it encounters. A million years mean nothing for a perceptible change to show itself.

For a noticeable change to take place, and show itself, it must take longer than just a few measly million years — again the evolution! There are many points that go in favour and against both. In the previous write-up, I only gave you one for you to think hard, on your own. The most important thing about it is the facility of time. Here we have at our disposal billions of years to ruminate upon. But all we did was ‘develop’ lazily from green-blue algae to green-blue algae, and little else. We squandered the first three billion years repeating just the earliest forms of life with all the time available to us. Then life truly went in hard gear towards the last 500- 700 MY.

But we have some explaining to do for the first four billion years. True, some of it went into compressing and other requirements of nucleus, mantle and crust of land. And then the gases. Formation of seas and mountain ranges came next. So did the minerals, rivers and forests. All of this took place alternatively, not usually in turns.

Next again came the most rudimentary animals: trilobites, worms, earliest of fishes, etc. However, the more the variety developed, the more they came to proliferate and dominate and spread all over the planet, so that snakes, crocs, roaches, etc., are there in that form or habitat for the past 100 MY or so. Soon they began to leave their watery abode and head towards land where food was aplenty and the struggle for life less pronounced. This still leaves us with the cardinal question: why evolution?

It is not difficult to answer a large portion of this one if you’re prepared to answer it only partially, and get away with it. But the science is in the habit of biting more than it can chew. So no mercy here. You had better answer fully, or get out of the party. The doors are flung open.

I’ll buy evolution any time if answers are provided to the following:

1. Why snakes have to bite to stay alive?

2. Why only snakes have venom?

3. Why most animals have different patterns on their coats?

4. Why some animals are herbivores, the others indulge in predation?

5. Why do whales, sharks and hippos have such large size, while some others are microscopic?

Are you trying to say that some animals are meat eaters, and others are not? That is permissible in the animal kingdom. I agree. But take a harder look and you’d be confused like me. I have to give up, not fully believing in evolution yet.

Published in Dawn, Young World, March 5th, 2015