The next time you turn on your television or open your morning paper you will inevitably read a headline similar to the one I found online. "Physicists around the world…hope to unlock the secrets of the universe and its origins." Now in order to accomplish this magnificent feat, they have spent 11 billion dollars to create the Large Hadron Collider which essentially smashes particles together in a bid to recreate the conditions of the Big Bang of 13.7 billion years ago. The LHC sends beams of subatomic particles (protons) dancing around the 17 miles of tubing at or near the speed of light. The idea is for the protons to collide with one another and explode in a burst of new particles. The scientists are confident this will explain the origins of the universe.
But that is where the 11 billion dollar machine ends. It cannot tell us how life began (Perhaps another 11 billion might do the trick). Nevertheless, there is speculation about the origins of life. A brief summation from the evolutionary perspective is:
"Despite the uncertainty on how life began, it is clear that prokaryotes were the first organisms to inhabit Earth, approximately 3–4 billion years ago. No obvious changes in morphology or cellular organization occurred in these organisms over the next few billion years.
The eukaryotes were the next major innovation in evolution. These came from ancient bacteria being engulfed by the ancestors of eukaryotic cells, in a cooperative association called endosymbiosis. The engulfed bacteria and the host cell then underwent co-evolution, with the bacteria evolving into either mitochondria or hydrogenosomes. An independent second engulfment of cyanobacterial-like organisms led to the formation of chloroplasts in algae and plants.
The history of life was that of the unicellular eukaryotes, prokaryotes, and archaea until about a billion years ago when multicellular organisms began to appear in the oceans in the Ediacaran period. The evolution of multicellularity occurred in multiple independent events, in organisms as diverse as sponges, brown algae, cyanobacteria, slime moulds and myxobacteria.
Soon after the emergence of these first multicellular organisms, a remarkable amount of biological diversity appeared over approximately 10 million years, in an event called the Cambrian explosion. Here, the majority of types of modern animals appeared in the fossil record, as well as unique lineages that subsequently became extinct. Various triggers for the Cambrian explosion have been proposed, including the accumulation of oxygen in the atmosphere from photosynthesis. About 500 million years ago, plants and fungi colonized the land, and were soon followed by arthropods and other animals. Amphibians first appeared around 300 million years ago, followed by early amniotes, then mammals around 200 million years ago and birds around 100 million years ago (both from "reptile"-like lineages). However, despite the evolution of these large animals, smaller organisms similar to the types that evolved early in this process continue to be highly successful and dominate the Earth, with the majority of both biomass and species being prokaryotes."
Hmmm…and we are told that is takes more faith to believe, "In the beginning, God…" Perhaps I could have saved the scientific community 11 billion dollars and have sent them my Bible.
