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Humans did not do it

Iqbal Latif - 4/29/2008

A journey into where we're from and where we're going... I like what Carl Sagan said, "I don't want to believe, I want to know." Nature has its own path to create balance and ensure survival of the fittest. Some 99.9 percent of all species that ever lived on earth are now extinct. The charges that we humans are causing the next mass extinction - the sixth in the history of life on Earth - are nothing but fiction. A latest study by researchers at Stanford University estimated that the number of early humans may have shrunk as low as 2,000, before numbers began to expand again in early Stone Age. Nature has its own cruel ways to ensure evolution - we were reduced to a mere 2000 individuals as recently as 70,000 years BC as a result of climatic changes; the same picky and cruel nature has now ensured 6.6 billion people to live on this earth without droughts and major famines.

Charles Darwin introduced the theory of evolution through natural selection. My simple thesis is that life would not flourish to this high level of diversity and richness of mind if we were in disagreement with nature; natural selection would eliminate it. Cyanobacteria, about two and one-half billion years ago, nearly destroyed all life. Nature does what it has to do. The very reason we are 6.6 billion is a great sign of our agreement with nature; nature is rewarding our intelligence and cooperation. Nature is the sum total of all physical forces and these physical forces should be in sync for life to flourish. Natural selection has become a strong argument for rebuking the clergy on the insanity of 6,000 years old universe but is put on a back-burner when it comes to the issues of growth and population. It is Natural Selection that continues to ensure our survival. It seems God was quite busy with extinction between 200 million to 65 million years ago; these were the years of massive change as life forms evolved one after the other and gave way to better life forms as a part of natural selection of genes. God was not unhappy with the reptiles living then nor was deity punishing a Tyrannosaurus Rex for ripping the neck of a Diplodocus Carnegiei.

In its 4.6 billion year history, Earth has undergone massive geologic and climatic changes and provided habitat to an ever-changing cast of life forms. In recent years, the origin and early evolution of life has seen an unprecedented development. The Earth provides the requisite conditions of liquid water, an environment where complex organic molecules can assemble. (1) In this 4.6 billion year history, we are relatively new entrants on the life scene, and inspite of it, have survived against massive odds. According to a report published in the American Journal of Human Genetics, the new study looks at the mitochondrial DNA of the Khoi and San people in South Africa which appear to have diverged from other people between 90,000 and 150,000 years ago.

The researches, led by Doron Behar of Rambam Medical Center in Haifa, Israel and Saharon Rosset of IBM T.J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, N.Y., and Tel Aviv University, concluded that humans separated into small populations prior to Stone Age, when they came back together and began to increase in numbers and spread to other areas.

Human beings' brush with extinction 70,000 years ago, after an extensive genetic study, reduced the human population to small isolated groups in Africa, apparently because of drought. It only reinforces one opinion that extinctions and eliminations, death and rebirth, construction and destruction are integral part of evolutionary processes of nature. (Mass extinctions are ecological disasters (1)) Yet they also create evolutionary opportunities by removing once-dominant groups. Some biologists conclude that humans owe our present dominance to mass extinction -- the K/T event that saw the end of dinosaurs and cleared the way for mammals to diversify into all the many ecological roles they now occupy.

A collision in the asteroid belt sent debris tumbling into the inner solar system, hitting the earth, the moon and possibly Mars and Venus. This is the puted source of the K/T extinction event which is believed to have wiped out the dinosaurs. If the meteor had missed and the dinosaurs were still around now, would we? "Was humanity inevitable? Or is humanity just something that happened to arise because of this sequence of events that took place. Also, it should be kept in mind that mass extinctions probably account for the disappearance of only five percent of extinct species, the remainder having disappeared through the constant winnowing of natural selection and other continuous processes.

One can perhaps argue that conditions must be really ideal today for us to see population and growth happening. If we were exploiting nature the way Mr.Gore presents, nature would destroy us; our longevity and our better standards are one indication of improving life on this big blue planet of ours. It's a question of a glass half full or half empty; it is about how one looks at things. Genetics is proving that we and our environs are extremely robust and whatever we have achieved so far is sustainable.

Eastern Africa experienced a series of severe droughts between 135,000 and 90,000 years ago and researchers said this climatological shift may have contributed to population changes, dividing into small, isolated groups which developed independently. Today our world has conquered famine, has conquered lethal disease leading to a longer life expectancy and have led humans to think far and beyond. It us no longer gazing into the skies like aimless chimps. We are at the verge of defining our origin, our moment of birth, the Big Bang; we will see it happening from the eyes of the next generation of the Hubble Telescope (2). In the next few years, global warming and global climatic changes will happen but we play a a very little part in that. We need to redefine our role in nature as very peripheral. We don´t damage anything; our span of life on this planet is indicative of our agreement with nature to live in peace - a ´human-nature contract´ that has not been violated.

Paleontologist Meave Leakey, a Genographic adviser, commented: "Who would have thought that as recently as 70,000 years ago, extremes of climate had reduced our population to such small numbers that we were on the very edge of extinction."

And here we are, 70,000 years later, growing in numbers, thriving, flourishing and prospering – a testament to man’s intrinsic constructive nature. The biggest challenge for us now is to transfer this continuing growth and prosperity to the lowest strata of society. In the name of “environment preservation,” let’s not deplete and waste Mother Earth’s precious resources in producing bio fuels and deprive the poor of nature’s wealth. Nature does what it does, and will do it again. If we have to go into extinction, it will be because of forces beyond our control – we will see the “Katrinas” and the tsunamis and will deal with whatever lies in our destiny. It is in the nature of things. Let’s not play God. Interestingly this DNA based Genetic study put a spanner in the work of 'answersingenesis.org' as it inadvertently concludes that there was no global flood hence?´s the 'Noah’s Ark—was it big enough for dinosaurs is a question that I will now have to struggle to answer.'

1. Origin of Life´-http://www.beyondgenes.com/

2- One final Hubble servicing mission is now planned for August 2008.The planned repairs to the Hubble will allow the telescope to function until at least 2013, when its successor, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), is due to be launched. The JWST will be far superior to Hubble for many astronomical research programs, but will only observe in infrared. ( Wikipedia)