WE ARE IN BIOLOGICAL ORIGIN ‘ALIEN’ FROM OUTER SPACE (A FIREWORK THEORY)
I am proposing to replace all the commonly believed in theories of the origins on Earth of people and animals with an alternative theory that better and far more logically explains the extraordinary nature of human and animal life on Earth. This is not simple and for greater clarity I have divided my detailed reasoned arguments into Parts and Sections.
PART 1 – GREAT ARE THE PROBLEMS
A) THE FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS OF HUMAN AND ANIMAL ORIGINATION
Over two hundred years ago William Paley (in his book Natural Theology) made a perfectly valid initial point. He stated that if during a walk one comes across a rock in the path, that is so basic and unsophisticated that it does not really require an explanation. Yet if one sees a watch lying on the path that does prompt the question about how it arose because it is so complex with interconnected parts. That is a valid point and a valid question. However I don’t agree with Paley’s further argument that because great complexity requires an explanation which it does, ultimately the explanation for our complex world is God.
I come to the things or anomalies, biological anomalies in the world that bother me. Though we think we live our lives consciously (such as your choosing to read this article) and are therefore responsible for and consciously choose our actions, if one thinks about it one can see that most of what happens in our lives and in our bodies is very complex and thoroughly subconscious. For instance we all breathe, take in and exhale air and oxygen subconsciously. Yet that is minor compared to the fact of having eaten, our bodies without our attention and completely naturally, though our internal organs are complex, process that food, ingesting some and eventually produce waste in various forms, liquid and solid and sweat, discarded skin and the rest. Much more can be said. Even more remarkable we, as indeed do animals with in relative terms very little brain, naturally cure ourselves of most ailments and diseases that fall upon us. Then for women reproduction is so very complicated, especially the development of life within the womb, that nobody could have devised it.
My fundamental problem is so much of this is so massively complicated, sophisticated and advanced that it is beyond the scope of anything on Earth to have developed it or initiated it. This is highlighted by the fact that nothing more advanced than mankind seems ever to have existed on Earth so far as we can tell from evidence. So nothing on Earth could have devised this system. Indeed in its essentials this great complexity in animal life long predated humans. It was around when mammals first lived on Earth; crocodiles and their primitive ancestors had most of it, as presumably did the dinosaurs, the dinosaurs of little brain for their size!
Of course some people would simplistically say all this happened via Evolution. Yet I ask, how did this hugely complex system of evolution, reinforced by DNA coding, arise? How did DNA arise or even get to Earth? Though I do believe some evolution/adaptation exists on Earth, I am sceptical that it is the final answer to everything. Where I am most sceptical about Evolution is where it entails massive leaps. So I think that making enormously complex systems of reproduction along with infant development and self-healing in numerous ways of animal bodies is just too big an explanatory load for Evolution, evolution in small stages, on Earth or any other explanation on Earth to bear.
A further concern for me is the route to us or advanced life is not direct but rambling and circuitous, though, as the birth mechanism in mammals does not work if it is only partial, much of it must have been achieved by colossal leaps. So our origins are hybrid between direct advances with rather straightforward development, as primarily happens in Artificial Intelligence (such as in the development of Chess Computers) and indirect, systemic, perhaps pointless, meanderings such as populating the world with dinosaurs and then changing types of mammals and apes. So this is surely not a uniform original invention or development but a ‘derivative ‘ system – something like a Lego set with well manufactured building blocs but messily arranged or rearranged by some fallible infant! So where was this Lego or DNA factory? Where is the sophisticated entity that conceived and made these essential sophisticated building blocs and where are the muddling creatures or ‘infants’ who assembled (or patterned) them? All we can say for sure is we find no trace of any of them on Earth or from Earth’s history!
B) FURTHER PROBLEMS NEEDING CONSIDERATION
(i) The Horrible System Problem
The problem here is that if we are a creation (or part of a ‘creation system’), especially a creation by something very intelligent or at least something very sophisticated we are indeed a very poor, a very far from ideal ‘creation’!
For a start we live in a world based on predation where during the course of living animals eat other animals who in turn eat the vegetation which is sort of recycled via the waste products of the system combined with the circulation of water and other elements around the system. Furthermore the system is somewhat unpredictable, subject to harmful ‘shocks’ or ‘malfunctions’, not to mention ‘extinctions’ and characterised by pain, suffering for many living within it and frequent inconvenience to almost all living within it.
One might argue that some of these ‘systemic’ problems are or at least could be inevitable to any system of life. For instance within any specific area it might well be that there cannot be birth or coming to life of some things if other things or entities (or creatures) occupying that very same space don’t die to create the space or room for the new entities. So some cycle of life and death may be inevitable. One may even argue within a self contained area a system, especially a biologically based system, can hardly exist except on the basis of ‘predation’. If animals require food or infusions of energy within a spatially closed system (as our Earth largely is and our Universe certainly is) maybe that can only come from destroying, ingesting and using other parts of the system that in turn may renew itself or rearise through the waste products of the ingesters. Those elements, death and birth, predation of other things within the system and recycling may be necessary parts of a system of life and so broadly excusable. However there are considerable annoying or painful parts of the system that are horrible to those within the system and most certainly are not essential to systems of life. Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) famously described life as ‘nasty, brutish and short’. He could also have added it is a lottery and subject wantonly to random distortions and disruptions and surrounded by dangerous, nasty neighbours! None of that is necessary for a system of life to exist. While much predictability may be necessary for living things (otherwise animate life could not accustom itself to live in nor even survive in its environment) damaging unpredictability is not necessary. Indeed in modern times manufactured artifacts with unpredictable and random damaging faults (or flaws) would be prohibited from being sold or used. Yet our world’s life is subject to destruction by wind, water, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, large meteorites and even solar flares and radiation! Individual lives may be blighted by blindness or painful sickness or medical conditions that may be cured in some relatively technologically advanced ages but not in other more technologically backward societies. Our system has indeed (for instance in relation to reproduction, subconscious living and much else besides) been developed in a very sophisticated way but also in a random and frequently yet unnecessarily horrible way for many who live or exist within it! It is clearly not the creation of some morally benevolent or pleasant God or even Creator even though it cannot quite be said to have been (because of the sophistication of the inner workings of living entities) entirely incompetently created (or developed). So when Charles Bradlaugh (1833-1891) suggested our world is the work of some incompetent adolescent sub-God-like entity that seems plausible! At best it is a mixture, akin to a child playing Lego combining sophisticated well made parts (such as animals’ internal workings, DNA and reproduction) with that child’s messy and harmful arrangement of those parts. Nor can this be accounted for just by an adaptation of a system to its environment because that adaptation to its environment (especially from a sophisticated basic system) could have been much better, as could the very nature of those beings (animals and us) that needed to adapt to live in Earth’s environment.
So we see the combination of great sophistication in the fundamentals of our development combined with frequently and unnecessarily horrible life experiences (intermingled with much joy for some animals, especially those with a basically happy or good temperament) in life on Earth. Perhaps it is the design, creation or development of some Chamber of Horrors except that it is not even consistently that! This combination of great sophistication and frequently unnecessarily horrible life experience undoubtedly co-exists in the world but why it should be so or how this came to exist is undoubtedly a mystery, a big mystery. It could be that unlike modern humans (and more akin to humans in the past) what created or developed us may just be concerned with our production and development and not ethics, least of all ethics in relation to those living within its world or system! Yet I can still say the sheer sophistication in parts of it indicates, especially without evidence on Earth for any sophisticated developer on Earth, that it did not ultimately originate on Earth. However I cannot satisfactorily explain why the horrible experiences parts came to combine with the extremely sophisticated parts of animal life on Earth.
(ii) The No Trace Of Other Life Problem
One of the great mysteries of our ever improving Astronomy is that no proof of life, least of all of advanced life akin to us has yet been found to exist elsewhere in the Universe or even in our galaxy. Yet one would have naturally thought, not least due to the developmental sophistication that has taken place to lead to us, that there would be life elsewhere in the Universe not too dissimilar to us. Indeed if it was anything like us humans it would relatively soon have explored, then conquered, then exploited the resources of neighbouring regions. Yet there is no genuine trace of that ever having occurred in the history of the world. I discount flying saucers or alleged spaceships because any life form technologically advanced enough to have transported itself to Earth would surely not have wasted its considerable efforts and technology just by flying around slowly enough and near enough to Earth’s surface to be seen by a few humans and then fly away (seemingly time and again in various guises) just to disappear from sight.
There are indeed possible explanations of why there has been no discernible contact between life forms on Earth and advanced life from other parts of the Universe, apart from such life never having existed! Maybe even if other life forms exist they may not want to travel so far as us or see no real benefit in doing so!
It may of course also be that though other advanced life forms like us existed in the past but when they became so advanced in short order they blew themselves up or destroyed themselves or their environment through technological mishap and so no longer survive! However though that probably sometimes happens, I doubt it always happens!
It may well be (and I suspect it quite likely is) that Space, especially the distance between stars is so vast that it is simply not physically possible for living entities, however technologically advanced they are, to travel the gigantic distances between star systems. Certainly one can well understand that such distances may just be too vast for biologically based life forms to traverse, even in a spaceship. In the case of humans our bodies apart from not living long enough to survive such journeys would deteriorate (even if we could solve irradiation and maybe lack of fuel/energy) during the course of the journey! We think or imagine the problems of travel over such distances are potentially soluble but maybe they are not soluble even for more technologically advanced life forms than we are! That seems quite likely to me.
It is also very likely that advanced life forms far from advertising their existence (by radio waves, television and telephonic activity) which potentially exposes them to enemies as well as explorers and friends, would prefer to block out radio and other signals and prudently hide their existence.
However what I also say is that many or most life forms or intelligences in the Universe may not be at all like us in being carbon based nor even necessarily biologically based. While astronomers are busy looking for planets in our type of habitable zone with water within them to indicate where life is allegedly possible, intelligent ‘life’ may be viable in many other regions of Space. Even technologically advanced biological, carbon based life forms may be able to adapt themselves to live in places without natural water, in surface temperatures below and above our range and even amid different atmospheres. They may for instance have acquired thick enough shells or coverings to protect themselves from hostile environments. Even more plausibly other life forms may not be water and carbon based but based around some other elements such as maybe silicon which could enable them to ‘live’ in other environments too hostile for us to live in. So indeed life forms of fundamentally different kinds may indeed exist practically anywhere in the Universe. So we should not assume we are correct in confining our search for other life in the Universe to environments similar to our own on Earth!
Furthermore it may well be that other forms of ‘life’ may have arisen in whole or in part as in some way akin to ‘Artificial Intelligence’. It may be direct robot-like Artificial Intelligence or it may be a form of life with infusions or admixtures of Artificial Intelligence within it. We are better able to appreciate how possible this is now that it is looking increasingly feasible – more than in past ages where such thoughts arose in our minds only as a product of science fiction! Such Artificial Intelligence based life forms which certainly need not be carbon nor water based could be more resilient than us and far more capable of surviving in a much greater range of different atmospheric and environmental conditions than we are.
So despite there being no apparent trace of advanced life like us anywhere in the Universe, I still think on the strong balance of probabilities we did not develop with great sophistication as a one off. I think other life not fundamentally different to us (water and carbon based) albeit differently adapted to its environment does exist very far away from us within the Universe and probably within our own galaxy. However I believe even more strongly that other advanced intelligences very different in form from us also exist elsewhere in the Universe. Indeed I think we humans and animals on Earth are derivative from and originated through some other ‘intelligence’, in Space.
(iii) The Developmental Leaps Problem
The now conventional scientific view is that humans developed over time on Earth from single celled simple entities to ever more sophisticated forms of life. More recently various types of life (such as dinosaurs) or species (such as woolly mammoths or hominids) came into and out of existence not only individually but also collectively. So far as scientists now know there was once only primitive cellular life on Earth. Thereafter historically animal types did come into and in due course go out of existence. It is indeed part of a very sophisticated complex system that changes its patterns. Though this system has clearly been manifested on Earth, did it really all originate on Earth? One of my problems with origin on Earth are the great leaps of development or change within the system and that the system itself seems far more sophisticated (or intelligent) than anything that has ever lived or existed on Earth!
There are elements of these leaps that may be explained and may have arisen in different ways from the fashionable modern explanations. For instance there are clearly distinct demarcations and considerable leaps in development as one species gives way to or is superseded by another species. The conventional way to explain that is by gradual and step by step evolutionary development. One of the problems with that sort of explanation is that just as the parts of a television set are of no use (as parts of a television) until all or nearly all come together in combination, most evolutionary changes (such as the development of lungs to breathe air on land instead of gills) are of no use until all or nearly all the parts have somehow come together in combination. That is not to deny that there is clearly some evolution or adaptation of species to their environment or changing environment. Camouflage in animals is an example, an evident example of that. However the origin of distinct species is problematic for Evolution, especially as there does not seem to be any (or much) in the way of fossil examples of intermediate animals in an intermediate stage between two separate species. A simpler explanation than new species being caused by evolutionary steps would appear to be (as was advocated to me by an intelligent lady, Victoria Clark of the Isle of Wight I met while on holiday) simple inter-breeding among existing species. We in fact know interbreeding can produce a consistent and distinct effect such as mules being consistently born from interbreeding between horses and donkeys (though the sterility of mules and their inability to thereafter breed mules limits this particular example to being merely indicative). However we do know from the DNA record that there was interbreeding between the now extinct Neanderthal and Homo Sapiens species. So upon Occam’s Razor Law of economy in explanation interbreeding between existing species may be a better explanation for the origination of new species than the traditional evolutionary explanation, especially as it would explain the lack of intermediate species in the fossil record. However though I prefer the ‘interbreeding’ explanation to evolutionary steps, I am not now fully convinced that rather than ‘pre-programming’ is the solution.
However there are many other and probably greater leaps in development that seemingly cannot be explained away by simpler explanations of systemic developments on Earth. Birth, growth and the complex organs and systems within our own bodies are all very remarkable. Just think about the self-healing aspect of our bodies such as our skin as an example – a normal manufactured article such as a television or a car doesn’t self-heal but our bodies usually do! Advanced biological life such as mammals are enormously complex and are a great change from even say reptiles – and it is all subconscious. Human and animal life is massively complicated and intricate as a system. It may be transmitted primarily by DNA (with some element of learning through experience) but how and where did such a system originate? It hardly looks like the result of simple, even evolutionary steps and one can find no trace of its origination, invention nor creation on Earth, let alone something on Earth capable of having originated or developed it there.
(iv) Surprisingly We Are In A System Based On Instinct, Not Intelligence – Problematic!
If one examines it the prime foundation of all life on Earth is ‘instinct’, not ‘intelligence’. Yet a system based on ‘instinct’ is paradoxically far more difficult to construct, run, manage or even change than system based on ‘intelligence’ would be!
Let me explain.
Animals (on Earth) live primarily if not exclusively by their instincts. They instinctively search or hunt for food, reproduce, sleep as well breathe and digest food. Their birth, growth and development are instinctive and their internal organs work and often heal themselves by instinct. People are not much different as most of what they do is instinctive and usually subconscious. However humans have transformed their lives by beginning to live in part and do some things by intelligence. That seemingly began with the use of tools and then starting settled, non-nomadic agriculture and building houses and thereafter very critically developing writing and then developing ever advancing technologies. Thus people developed from being one animal among many to the governors and controllers of the world. By intelligence they developed from being a next to helpless part of their environment to becoming shapers and to a large extent changers of their environment. They then transformed the world to benefit themselves!
The paradox is that a system based on instinct though more primitive is technically harder to run and create than a system based on intelligence! As an indication of that people are developing from scratch (computer based) Artificial Intelligence but are a very long way from creating (rather than some rearranging) from scratch any system of Artificial Instinct! For a start Intelligence becomes cumulative and among intelligent entities just one may make the advance and all the others can follow and benefit from it whereas with instinct the whole lot has to be inculcated or infused into each individual animal. Furthermore after a critical mass has been reached, intelligence and further intelligence can become self-generating and self-improving within society as a whole whereas instinct alone just never really seems to become self generating and self improving within society as a whole!
Intelligence, at least artificial intelligence seems simpler to create and advance than biological instinct. After all artificial intelligence can be created with silicon chips and simple parts and be fuelled by electricity and even perhaps by stellar energy or heat. In contrast biological systems require coding (via DNA or suchlike), deteriorating biological parts, balance, intricate feeding and digestion and are brittle, liable to biological harm, deterioration and component failure. Intelligent non-biological systems are hardier, much less volatile, more fuel efficient, not so subject to deterioration, easier to ‘repair’ and at least potentially much longer lasting. They are so much easier to put together and their route to ‘intelligence’ is a lot simpler than the route to life (with all their combination of instincts and subconscious behaviours) that biological life requires.
On Earth biological life has been inventing Artificial Intelligence – instinct has been developing intelligence. However that is itself surprising because the natural way of things would presumably be for a system based at least primarily on ‘intelligence’ to develop or morph into a system based upon ‘instinct’ (assuming it would have any use for an ‘instinct’ based system which at least seems inherently more inefficient). That, along with other apparent factors I have mentioned, leads me to suppose that we are a derivative life system seeded onto this planet, ultimately derivative from a more advanced, more intelligent force, very likely based primarily (if not exclusively) upon intelligence rather than a biological system based primarily upon instinct.
This is yet another factor that indicates the same conclusion that we, or at least our system is in origin a foreign import from elsewhere in Space.
C) A GREAT DEAL TO EXPLAIN
The regular and presently conventional theory is that most people and indeed animals evolved here on Earth (nobody or at least no rationalist is questioning whether the system arose from outside the planet Earth) over much time from single celled or even multi-celled entities to our present glory and complexity.
Now I don’t think there is necessarily that much remarkable about entities of a small number of cells that take energy from the Sun and may even reproduce but lack feelings, senses (our five senses), intelligence and memory, do not gestate and have no complex instincts. Indeed it is entirely possible that such cellular collections or entities could have arisen naturally on Earth. There would not be that much more remarkable about that coming over time to exist on Earth than there is with rocks existing on Earth. I am not saying whether such primitive life is indigenous to Earth or whether even that came to us and effectively colonised us from outer Space. I know of no way of determining that matter either way concerning the long distant past. So I do not know whether the code or system for complex life arrived from outer space into a world (Earth) where there was already primitive cellular life or whether even the very simplest most basic cellular life came originally to Earth from a system constructed in outer Space. I might even accept the simplest vegetation such as potatoes that have a basic outer skin, collects its simple innards from the Earth and has a simple reproductive system and little else (it is variable in shape) might be indigenous to Earth. I would be very suspicious about anything more complex (even oranges) arising conceptually originally on Earth.
So what I do say is that hugely complex life (or life code or system to enable it and its developments) is far too complex to have arisen on Earth where so far as we know no greater intelligence than humans, no mastermind (nor even sophisticated form of Artificial Intelligence) has ever been known to exist in the past. Therefore it is only logical to suppose that such complex yet unified systems as animals, be they humans, mammals, reptiles or birds must surely have arisen and come to Earth from outer Space.
Let us contemplate just how complex animal life really is and how very many different but effective (or at least partly effective) and harmoniously arranged systems exist (mainly subconsciously) within each individual animal. Indeed I will just list those systems I can readily think of. Animals have:-
a) a system for growth (and then ageing)
b) a reproductive system that is very complex, including producing variations or differences for individuals while maintaining group similarity, a group system within the basic model. (Contrast that with an assembly line manufacture of say cars where there is no mechanism for individual variation and usually different contributions from two sexes)
c) a system for breathing (inhalation and exhalation of air)
d) a system for taking in of solid food, ingesting it and allocating it to those parts where it is needed
e) a system for converting food into energy
f) a system for taking in and expelling liquids (especially water)
g) a system for seeing
h) a system for hearing
i) a system of touch
j) a system of taste
k) a system of smell
l) a system for thinking
m) an outer covering of skin which is weatherproof
n) a system of adjustment of the body to varying temperatures and climates
o) the incorporation of natural instincts (essential for survival, parenting and most living and enabling quick reactions that are faster than the brain can work out reactions for)
p) a system of intelligence, especially recognition of recurring patterns or recurring near patterns which is so important for practical life
q) a system for learning
r) a system for the very many facets of parenting
s) the storage of memory and a system for retrieving memories
t) a system of mobility to enable effective movement
u) a system of vocalisation and communication
v) a facility for the many and various facets of self healing and resisting harms from the environment, including from viruses too small to see. We also regenerate our energy when exhausted not merely by eating but also by sleeping (which is yet another complex system in itself!)
w) the conveyance of the code (DNA or whatever) for every individual to receive at birth and in many cases pass on the formulas for doing all this
x) a system for decay and facilitating death (as births without deaths would destroy the viability of a species as there would eventually be insufficient food)
y) the arrangement of everything into one, usually harmoniously intermingled and effectively coordinated whole body.
Almost all of this happens subconsciously and gets to humans and animals and develops or grows as a system within them subconsciously and usually without effort or conscious intervention on their parts. It is basically primarily if not only what might be called the higher brain or intelligence functions which require conscious intervention from us – it is functions such as learning a language or writing an essay or holding a conversation that are done or mainly done consciously by us humans. Yet underlying all those ‘intelligence’ functions are massive and complex, enormously complex, albeit coordinated and integrated and absolutely essential, subconsciously operating functions within all of us.
I wonder how William Paley might have waxed lyrical about each of these dozens of systems within mammalian life when he found so much that is extraordinarily complex and coordinated in just one of those systems, eyesight. Paley was able to point out (and the eye isn’t a particularly strong example in this, as for instance inadequate expulsion of waste products from our bodies would be even more devastating and indeed fatal than poor eyesight) that the effectiveness of the eye in facilitating sight is largely an all or nothing affair. Paley observed that uncoordinated parts or inadequately put together or missing parts would usually render an eye useless and sight would then be impossible. What Paley was saying (before Charles Darwin was even born) was that partial invention or gradual staged evolution is not feasible in developing a working, effective system -almost everything must be in place and coordinated or nothing works. This is akin to a television set not working unless practically all its many parts are in place and properly coordinated. This applies, I say, not just to each individual element of animal life but also to having a satisfactory combination and harmonious intermingling of practically all of the above (a-y) systems. That must all occur simultaneously in animals (in contrast to say the relative simplicity of potatoes whose seeds only need information about gaining nutrition to grow and seeding to produce successor potatoes – that is not really at all complex compared to the living needs of even the simplest animal, let alone a mouse or a human).
Sadly I am neither competent nor would even have the space to go into the details, complexities, limitations and remarkable nature and massive combinations of elements that make up each of the above (a-y, not even anywhere near an exhaustive list) two dozen and more component features of animal (including human) existence. It not only all exists (indeed exists frequently in different ways in different animal species) but is all interconnected in animals to work reasonably harmoniously and usually subconsciously. Talk about the Seven Wonders of the world (such as the Great Pyramid in Giza, Egypt) which were so remarkable and difficult to construct but each and every mammal is in itself individually a much greater wonder than any of them! I cannot emphasise this enough in terms of pointing out the sheer scale and difficulty of what has to be explained in explaining the origins and development of life on Earth. This is not just one massive problem (as hearing, let alone raising progeny would be) to explain but dozens of massive complicated problems to explain. Whereas one relatively simple invention, writing (the translation of sounds into a paper code) may be said to have facilitated and be at the root of our advanced technological development, the dozens of diverse, complex systems at work in each mammalian body cannot readily be so simplified, certainly by anything ever native on Earth. That is the massive mystery at the root of determining the origin of life. It is indeed, I say, too great, too complex, too wonderful a system for it to have been developed within the capacity of some of the supposed explanations said to have arisen on Earth, be it chance or evolution (the God notion has other basic flaws). I will explain this more fully later. So the scale of mystery we are left with is truly immense, virtually incomprehensibly immense.
So the fundamental question is how all this simultaneous effective development arose in the first place even if we now believe it is encoded in tiny super-complex D.N.A.
D.N.A. itself has been found to be enormously complex. Upon examination D.N.A. itself has a lot of interrelated parts. Its effects are achieved not in the main from just one isolated bit but from the complex interactions of numerous parts within D.N.A. It is so complex and opaque that numerous top scientific awards have been given to people for unravelling tiny bits of its mysterious workings and thereby alleviating one of the huge number of ailments that affect some people. As D.N.A. is itself so very complicated, it does not satisfactorily answer the question as to how huge complexity (such as human beings) could have developed or arisen out of some original simplicity (as Evolution is generally rather mis-sold as doing). Indeed D.N.A. begs the question of how such a very complex system as D.N.A. itself (with so very many complex and interacting parts) could itself have arisen or developed in our world? How did D.N.A. originate? What caused D.N.A.? Or rather what caused D.N.A. to become so complex and yet still work efficiently – and that in our world where no huge intelligence prior to and comparable to D.N.A. (or even comparable to us moderately intelligent humans) has been known or shown any signs of existing on Earth before ourselves?
Of course there may be scope for a bit of fine tuning here and there once the system is in operation but it must surely have originally all come into operation pretty much as one coordinated, harmonious whole, development. This is also true when new distinct species of animals arise (not mere variations as between say an African or Asian elephant but any elephant, or any say giraffe, at all, especially as there is an absence of evidence for hybrid or fundamentally evolving species). This is even more true as between categories of species such as reptiles, marsupials or mammals who have fundamentally different systems of body temperature control and most of all of reproduction and youth development. So the question I am putting is how did the life codes we have now discovered to exist such as DNA originally come about and come to us? The question I am asking you to consider rationally is did they develop on Earth or did they develop originally elsewhere in Space? Note I say ‘develop’ because where I believe the notion of evolution is correct is in the contention that ultimately complexity can only arise from a development starting in primal simplicity rather from an aboriginal complexity, in contrast to say from a derivative complexity (that was once originally formed from simplicity or simple parts) causing simplicity. Original complexity that was supposedly aboriginally existent such as a Creator God would necessarily be is inherently so improbable (even apart from the logical inconsistencies in relation to God) as to be logical nonsense that may exist in human imagination but not in reality.
D) THE FLAWED HUMAN AND SCIENTIFIC MENTALITY
Let me be clear. I don’t deny Evolution can happen to some extent and cause us to adapt rather than suffer and maybe even die. The real disagreement I have is with the amount and significance of evolution and the poor contextualisation of Evolution within the scheme of things.
Unfortunately contextualisation has long been a shortcoming in Science and extends very widely. It is like scientists saying ‘whoopee, we have discovered or even proved something very interesting we did not know about before. Therefore it is surely the magic solution for everything’. Yet the reality of it is that is probably just a feature, albeit an interesting feature of reality but it is not necessarily the solution to the overriding problems in reality.
Long ago people worked out that humans have relatively large brains and more than any other animal used their brainpower to develop technology. So conscious thought was extended in popular imagination from being a means of survival for people (like ostriches burying their heads in the sand, like cheetahs being able to sprint very fast or like lions having great strength) into the most important and greatest wonder of human life. In reality the most remarkable thing is not our ability (and a few people’s exceptional mental ability) to think consciously but the way we all live with so many subconscious systems that enable animal life existing in such a complicated, integrated and harmonious way!
Likewise when people discovered Newfoundland they thought it was something greater, America. When later people scientifically discovered that atoms existed, they initially thought that was the ultimate building block of the Universe and the answer to everything – that is until later subdivisions of atoms into protons, neutrons and electrons were discovered.
Likewise when astronomers worked out that a cataclysmic event happened eight (well now, post-Hubble fourteen) billion years ago they fairly universally supposed that (which was called The Big Bang) was the beginning of everything and the ultimate origin of both ourselves and the Universe as a whole. Now, assisted by the James Webb telescope, that theory that that cataclysmic (and I think broadly speaking ‘local’ event) is the answer to and physical origin of everything is starting to unravel or at least be seriously questioned.
Scientists upon discovering something major have time and again and again jumped to an erroneous conclusion that that discovery resolves absolutely everything on that topic (just as mystics think their visions are a hotline to God rather than at most just to some entity or force that happens to be more powerful than themselves). That unfortunately just seems to be an aspect of human nature rather than any feature of absolute reality and scientists tend to be human!
One might say the same of ‘climate change’ theories and of Covid vaccines (which could fairly be said to have helped prevent deaths but contrary to their initial claims did not prevent the spread of Covid infections!).
Certainly the same can and should be said about the Theory Of Evolution. The discovery of apparent evidence for Evolution taking place among animals (and the human species) was indeed significant but not as significant as scientists have claimed it is. My suggestion is that it is not a primary cause of life or new life but a secondary tweaking or adjusting effect within life. Furthermore what was overlooked by scientists is that the observed phenomena (including remarkable developments concerning fossils and the close relationship in terms of DNA between people and apes) is compatible with not just a theory of Evolution (a theory that was being floated before Charles Darwin, including by his own grandfather) but maybe also with some other theory or theories.
It would be harsh to blame scientists particularly for what is a general trait among humans of exaggerating the significance of their own views and experiences and not thinking rationally about logically possible alternatives that could equally or better explain their own observations and experiences. This is especially pertinent since there is an excessive tendency among scientists to extrapolate from the observed or supposedly observed to the unobserved (relying on absolute uniformity between the observed and the unobserved),indeed even to what is far beyond possible observations which tends to result in distorted and unreliable theories. Though such theories based on distant extrapolation are necessarily tentative (and the greater the extrapolation the more tentative they necessarily are) they are all too often asserted to be established and proven facts by scientists.
In short in several respects scientists suffer from a flawed mentality that all too often affects, distorts and produces flaws in their theorising. This is exacerbated by scientists jealously guarding their areas of supposed expertise and denying the right or sense of anybody outside their particular area of expertise challenging them or their theories. This stunts scientific enquiry and easily leads to the false consensus of ‘groupthink’. In this they rather reflect human nature, albeit flaws in human nature as in the end scientists are humans first and scientists second.
E) THE EXPLANATORY LOAD PROBLEM
My biggest objection to The Theory of Evolution on Earth or indeed to sheer Chance as the explanation for our origin is that it is putting too heavy an explanatory load on an otherwise feasible means of explanation.
Let me explain what I mean by explanatory load and explanatory overload and why it is an important concept.
At its simplest it is akin to building a wooden bridge over a river that will as a bridge support a weight of one ton and then using it as a bridge for fifty ton lorries. It works as a bridge for people and light cars but it doesn’t work as a bridge for fifty ton lorries – it would collapse under that weight and fail as a bridge for fifty ton lorries.
Let me try another example. Women may bear children and that can explain how people came to be born but no human mother can bear either one hundred children in a lifetime or a dozen children simultaneously. Imagine an island where all people except one blond and blue eyed woman are dark haired and brown eyed. If one year one or two blond and blue eyed babies are born on that island it is a reasonable guess that the one blond and blue eyed woman on the island is the mother. However if one year suddenly twenty blond and blue eyed babies are seen living on that island, it becomes impossible that the one blond and blue eyed woman on that island is the cause of all this and the mother (by natural processes) of them all. Some other explanation is then needed. Maybe blond and blue eyed babies could arise from recessive genes; maybe placing non-native babies and secret fostering had started on that island; maybe artificial insemination had become popular on that island – anyhow there must be some other explanation than birth from that one native blond blue eyed woman for the observed phenomena. Likewise with human (and animal) origins if one or other theory has become overwhelmed by sheer numbers, then some other theory that is more viable needs to be sought.
This ‘explanatory load’ or ‘explanatory overload’ problem is cloaked in the case of our origin by the massive numbers involved. It is not in dispute that there is only a very small chance of any change leading to us occurring but that does not seem to matter when there are so very many opportunities for such changes to take place. The fallacy in that argument (the conventional argument) is that it really does matter how small the chance of such changes occurring really is. For instance suppose one hundred million tickets are issued for a one prize national lottery. If you have ten million tickets you have a reasonable chance of winning but if you get just one ticket you might as well forget it. Even in a multi-chance sphere the exact number of chances one has and the size of the chance pool is critical. For a theory to be viable it cannot be overwhelmed by unlikelihood even in a large multiple chances game.
Let me illustrate again. I recently heard a Muslim street advocate say that if you had ten numbered marbles in a bag the chance of your putting your hand (without seeing) in the bag and picking up the marbles in the sequence 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10 is one in 27 million. By my calculations it is about 1 in 4 million but no matter if there were 11 numbered marbles the chances would be much worse than 1 in 27 million. Yet if there were 100 marbles I expect the chances would be so small that if everybody on the planet spent their whole lives doing it, people would still fail to do it by chance and certainly so with 1,000 marbles. However if you or some machine could see the numbering on the marbles and so no longer did it by chance it would not be a problem. That illustrates that an explanation reliant on chance or a considerable chance element (as both sheer Chance and even Evolution are, evolution with respect to useful, separable chance mutations) can soon cease due to its being overwhelmed by the remoteness of the chances to be a useful, sensible or viable explanation. That above all is what I mean by the ‘explanatory load’ problem and the explanatory load becoming too great for the theory to bear because numerically speaking the chances of its being true have become either impossible or far too small (which in reality amounts to impossible).
PART 2 – THE PROFFERED SOLUTIONS ARE HOPELESS
F) THREE EXPLANATORY IDEAS
Up to now there have basically been three theories (with some variants) to explain why people came to exist on Earth – sheer Chance, creation by God and Evolution.
I submit all three theories are fundamentally flawed. Let me explain.
G) WHY CHANCE THEORY IS HOPELESS
The notion that everything happened by sheer chance has never been much advocated for (in contrast to being advocated against by theists) as it stretches credibility. It is worse than the classic notion of putting a monkey in front of a typewriter and getting the monkey to type at random and working out how many millions of years it would take the monkey before by chance he had replicated a play by William Shakespeare.
The theory of sheer chance has been in effect given a new lease of life by an astronomical theory that we live in a ‘multiverse’ that is infinitely ‘multi’, resulting in everything that could exist (including us) existing within some ‘universe’. We just happen to live, according to this theory, in the small part of the multiverse where everything is just right for our existence!
I grant we live in a small part of the Universe, a Universe probably far larger than the area influenced by a ‘Big Bang’ fourteen billion years ago (just as the Universe is far larger than our solar system, wherein our Sun is the predominant influence). However I do not agree with the ‘multiverse’ explanation. For a start it is at least nowadays rather predicated upon complete distinction and separation between Universes, much like Leibniz’ discredited theory of completely separated ‘windowless monads’ (or the description of ‘black holes’ as originally formulated). It is contrary to all experience and all likelihood that within a system one part does not seep into nor react with another part at all. A super-entity might cross from one Universe in the multiverse to another Universe. Anyhow there might over time be natural seepage or collisions between one Universe and another Universe within the supposed multiverse! However even more seriously there are such an infinite number of possibilities (for instance thousands of different small things may happen to each and every one of us not just over a lifetime but each day) that even within a supposed infinity, the supposition that everything that might happen does happen somewhere is arithmetically just plain absurd. (It is absurd because every life form or other component of each existence is itself alone creating a practically infinite number of alternative scenarios and alternative hypothetical existences.)
Another problem with origination by sheer chance theories is extinctions. If life (or even life forms) were to become extinct, as seems periodically to happen, one has to start all over again in rolling the dice of incredibly improbable sheer chance. Then not only would one have to talk in terms of infinitesimally improbable sheer chance to produce our world once but also thereafter further massively improbable sheer chances to produce other successor life forms.
I suppose the Eastern notion of cyclical existences over aeons of time is a variation (based primarily on infinite Time rather than on the more usual basis of infinite Space) to accommodate sheer chance leading to our existence. I note this is not traditionally being used by Hindus and Buddhists and Easterners as a way of explaining the origin of life. Certainly Hindus have been much more inclined to talk of some creator God like Vishnu and in terms of just variations of existence rather than an origin of existence within our cosmic system. Certainly remote chance within cycles of time would still be an extremely improbable and certainly unparsimonious way (compared to say an Artificial Intelligence-like development) way of explaining the origins of our system.
So like most others I think the random chance explanation for our existence (even if it were a multiverse) is just absurd. The best that might be said for it is that if we weren’t here in the first place we would not be around to discuss our existence and our origins which consideration might make the notion of chance irrelevant in this context.
H) WHY THE GOD NOTION IS HOPELESS
A second alternative supposedly explanatory theory, creation by God (or formerly Gods) seems attractive to many people. However the problems, especially with the monotheistic version of creation by God are logically insuperable.
First of all is the question if God created us, who or what created God? If we are so sophisticated, great and advanced that we need a Creator to explain our origins, therefore as God is a great deal more powerful and advanced than us, he would be even more in need of some creator to explain its origins than we are! If however God was somehow uncreated and eternal, why shouldn’t the Universe from which we somehow arose not be uncreated and eternal?
A second and grave logical flaw with the creation by God theory is that even if we had some great Creator, why should that creator also be God? Granted our Creator (if such existed) would presumably be clever and powerful, but our being created is not proof (nor I would say even evidence) that that creator is actually all-powerful (omnipotent), all-knowing (omniscient) and immortal (will not die some day) as well as supremely good. Indeed within William Paley’s analysis of a watch requiring a watchmaker, that watchmaker is not omnipotent, omniscient, immortal (all watchmakers died some day) nor supremely good. It is a giant and unwarranted (unwarranted even by our hypothetical Creation!) leap of Logic to go from something being more powerful than us to being supremely powerful and from clever to being omniscient in addition to somehow being immortal and being supremely good.
Indeed we have a lot of evidence that whatever else our Creator (if such existed) may be it is not supremely good and therefore is not a God morally worthy of worship. For instance even if the system requires that we must all die some day (which is arguable) it certainly does not require that many of us by seeming chance have to die painfully such as by a prolonged agonising cancer rather than practically painlessly (such as by a heart attack in our sleep).
Additionally for other fundamental logical reasons the notion of a monotheistic God is actually contrary to Logic. For instance not only is there no possible means for any potential god to be omniscient (nor even logically confirmable by mentally limited humans as God) but no potential God can actually know all that god would have to know to be God. For instance nothing (including an otherwise potential God) could know for certain that it is actually God and that its power and existence is not just temporary and itself subject to death and extinction!
So for many reasons (described in greater detail in my book The Six Ways Of Atheism ) God cannot logically exist and therefore we cannot have been created by God.
I) THE CORE PROBLEM OF EVOLUTION ON EARTH (Multiplicity In Changes)
The biggest single problem with the theory of Evolution based on occasional useful mutations is a feature everybody seems to have overlooked which is that nobody or no animal at birth is different in just one particular way from its parents. Every animal is born with multiple differences from its parents. A particular mutation would just be one of many hundreds, nay thousands of differences that differentiate a newborn from its parents. So in reality we are never dealing with a single isolated mutation but simultaneous multiple changes between entities. Likewise when new species (and even subspecies) arise there are multiple concomitant simultaneous changes rather than random individual evolutionary changes at work. Every new species has at minimum a different bone structure, outward appearance and skin colour, not to mention numerous other species characteristics and details to distinguish it from all other species.
So just for a moment speculate that some single ‘mutation’ (change) is particularly advantageous to a newborn animal – how could one or even Nature possibly know which particular single mutation or change among its huge number of often microscopic changes is especially advantageous to that newborn? How would any system based on Evolution actually know to replicate that particular change rather than any of the very numerous other changes? (I exclude the odd example like occasional examples of camouflage which are not so much mutations as elimination by predators of those along with their genes of an unadapted colour).
So ‘evolution’ or the evolutionary process (inasmuch as it exists) suffers from the same problem as medical research (and Sociology). It is like the problem of identifying and isolating and then preserving any particular change or difference from the pre-existing model (the parents). In practice within a process of a multiplicity of random changes it is next to impossible to easily identify or even identify one particular change (‘mutation’) as being beneficial. This indicates that changes do not readily now probably arise from random mutations.
Evolutionary change is sometimes distinguished from random changes by being said to be like a fruit machine with a ‘Hold’ button that can preserve advantageous changes. For instance if one has a random fruit machine with three reels and one can give it a spin and then hold on to the most advantageous reel or two (so it doesn’t turn while the non-advantageous reels of the last spin do turn) one can dramatically increase one’s chance of getting to the most advantageous positions that will pay out a prize. However if instead of three reels the fruit machine has one hundred or even one thousand changing reels the ability to press ‘Hold’ on one or two reels out of a very large number of reels would do practically nothing to help one to get to the most advantageous combination to get a prize. Likewise with evolutionary theory, the multiplicity of changes negates any real prospect of achieving any advantageous change by pressing ‘Hold’ even if what is really advantageous could be determined within a great multiplicity of changes all with different (and probably often interacting) effects! The notion that a system (of supposed evolution) that causes very numerous simultaneous changes each time can definitely locate and hold on to one particularly advantageous change, let alone align it (as conventional evolutionary theory requires) for further gradual evolutionary change along the same direction of travel as that particular one feature is statistical and I venture practical nonsense! Evolutionary theory could potentially work in a system where animals were born cloned with only a feature or two that was different from that of their parents. However in a system wherein there are always a huge number of simultaneous changes within the process of animal birth, change by evolutionary process is just not a viable or anyhow not a sufficient explanation for what is really happening or for how it all really originated!
The multiplicity of simultaneous biological changes in the real world is the most compelling reason (though there are other reasons) why the Theory Of Evolution is fundamentally wrong. That is why other explanations for the phenomena, especially when the phenomena are observed in proper detail, should be searched for, investigated and hopefully found.
J) EVOLUTION’S STOP AND GO PROBLEM
In addition to the problem of how new species with multiple different features arise in the first place, there is a non-random similarities feature not merely between and within species but even within subspecies.
Although some features (usually mere details rather than fundamental features) do vary within species and sub-species there seem to be clear and rather rigid limits to such variations. For instance one does not find giraffes with short legs or short necks (more akin to other animals). Even the colours of giraffes or zebras do not vary that much. This could not be said to be random.
Even among subspecies there is a uniformity among them that makes them clearly separate from other subspecies of the same animal. For instance African and Asian elephants are clearly and rather uniformly different from each other, so different that it is unmistakable which subspecies just about any particular elephant belongs to.
The same applies to hominids. There are multiple non-random differences between the now extinct Neanderthal and Denisova men and homo sapiens man. Although there are differences among homo sapiens people, none have the shape of skull or forehead brows or many other features of Neanderthal people that are different to homo sapiens – even though modern people apparently have some Neanderthal DNA within them. So somehow despite some variations between individuals, the clear distinctions between species and even sub-species are clearly maintained and maintained in a non-random way. For instance there are differences between Chinese yellow, European white, African black and Indian brown people but these are slight differences compared to the differences between homo sapiens and Neanderthal people. The rigid maintenance of multiple species and sub-species features is a problem for a system based on dynamic evolutionary changes, especially if such change leads from one species to another better adapted species. There is even a fixed regularity within inter-breeding as for example a horse and a donkey interbreeding always produces a mule with mule characteristics, not something random between a donkey and a horse!
So the system that produced us does not show real statistical randomness and proper statistical variation in characteristics, at least not within a wide range of possibilities, such as one would expect in a system that is fundamentally evolutionary in nature. There is evidently and clearly some inbuilt control mechanism that keeps variations within the rather clear boundaries of the species or the sub-species and prevents variations from being statistically random. This makes Evolution or controls evolution inasmuch as Evolution really exists into a stop-go mechanism at best. Not only are there fast simultaneous changes of numerous often unconnected features (such as bones, physique, skin colour and skin pattern at minimum) when producing new species (evolution ‘going’ at a rate of knots) but there also seems to be a ‘stop’ button or mechanism to keep species and even sub-species very recognisably distinct once they exist. If DNA mutates and changes between species and sub-species to produce variation, most of the time it and evolution is under a strict ‘stop’ control not to evolve nor change beyond the strict boundaries of any given species or sub-species. How does a supposedly evolutionary system also have an anti-evolutionary mechanism that mostly stops random changes and puts and keeps species and sub-species within clear boundaries? Are we really talking about ‘evolution’ here or is this ‘Stop-Go’ overriding device a symptom divergent from genuine evolution that is indicative of some other overriding system at work?
It is all rather analogous to an automobile factory. A car factory does not manufacture random cars. Rather it has controlled models, each model with its range of cars from a relatively basic economy version to a more luxurious top of the range version. Occasionally a factory brings out an entire new model with its own range of cars. Very, very occasionally it may bring out an entirely reworked new concept – such as diesel or electric rather than petrol powered cars. The situation among animals we observe on Earth is analogous. First, there are different types or sub-species of animal – for instance African and Asian elephants, or among hominids, Neanderthal, Sapiens and Denisovans. These are alternative versions of the basic elephant or hominid model. Then there are different models that occasionally arise such as among apes, chimpanzees and gorillas, or among mammals more generally, horses and giraffes. Finally very occasionally the whole workings and concept are fundamentally reworked such as between reptiles and mammals which are designed in very different ways. So the analogy between the various standardised products of a car factory is very close to the various animal products that inhabit the Earth. Maybe I might have called my theory of pre-fabrication of our system the ‘Car Factory Theory’ instead of ‘The Firework Theory’!
I suggest this control mechanism is surely a fabricated or prefabricated feature of D.N.A. or of whatever is now regulating the system. That prefabrication would accord with my innovative ‘firework’ theory to be set out later.
K) SUPPLEMENTARY COMMENTS CONCERNING EVOLUTION
There is a lot more to be said here concerning Evolution and I make these points:
(i) There Is An Appearance Of Evolution
There has for a long time even before Charles Darwin been animal breeding which can naturally lead to a Theory of Evolution.
For instance pigeons are bred for speed. Dogs are bred. Horses are bred either for racing speed or (at least formerly) for strength in pulling heavy weights. However what cannot be done or anyhow has not been done is produce an entirely new species of animal by breeding (or even as yet resurrect extinct animals). Breeding is done within the bounds of changing details wherein generational change is permitted and occurs rather than within the scope of fundamental species change.
There may well be two different systems or mechanisms at play. One is for the detailed characteristics within the range of a single species wherein breeding and indeed evolution seems possible but the other concerns species formation which is much more complicated and involves very numerous simultaneous and often fundamental changes that occur instantly or almost instantly. It may well be scientists have made a big mistake of extrapolation. They have extrapolated from adaptive or even evolutionary changes of details within species for which there is much evidence to the much greater changes involved in starting new species for which there is no good evidence. Scientists have extrapolated from the simple known to the complicated unknown which is a very hazardous procedure and can be a big fundamental error.
It should also be said that while I have been pointing to phenomena incompatible with or at least scarcely compatible (such as multiple simultaneous changes) with the Theory Of Evolution there are other observable phenomena that at least give the appearance of evolution. The broad (ignoring what is circuitous) sequence from single cellular life to more complex life forms over time is indeed somewhat suggestive of Evolution. So too is the fossil record, so far as the fossil record goes. Some adaptations of life to its environment such as dwarfism of animal species (such as elephants, rhinoceroses, and even perhaps hominids on the island of Flores) on small islands also suggest an adaptation or indeed evolution of species, at least existing species, to their environment, at least sometimes. Above all the discovery of DNA by Francis Crick and James Watson was widely seen as strong confirmation of the Theory Of Evolution. Indeed D.N.A. shows genetic relationships between species. Even more significant, D.N.A. seems to be the code by which huge amounts of information and probably instincts are passed from parents to offspring. The discovery of DNA which is a very sophisticated system of subconscious coded ‘instructions’ was indeed hugely significant, not least for medicine. Yet it does not actually prove that new species arise via evolution by gradual nor even rapid evolutionary steps or changes. All we can really say about D.N.A. in our context is that it is enormously complex and advanced as a system but we don’t know how it (DNA) arose on Earth or developed.
So while I am in this thesis pointing to considerations that undermine the Theory Of Evolution (on Earth), one can certainly point to phenomena compatible with and even suggestive of Evolution. What is really needed is another theory that offers a possible solution that is compatible with resolving both the criticisms (or shortcomings) of Evolution and also is compatible with those observations that have been made that create an appearance of evolution.
That said, I will now make some further criticisms (albeit less decisive criticisms than those made in sections I and J above) of the notion of Evolution on Earth.
(ii) Limitations Due To The Age Of Reproduction
One problem for evolutionary theory is that the age at which one’s genes or DNA are passed onto one’s children is typically around one third the way through one’s life. So even if an adaptation seems advantageous at that stage, it may become a problem and disadvantageous later in one’s life, say if the change is carcinogenic (since usually cancers occur later in life). So one can find fault with this timing in accordance with the saying attributed to the ancient Greek, Solon – ‘call no man fortunate until he is dead’. Genetic mutations overlook that wise precept.
(iii) Lack Of Intermediate Forms
A traditional criticism of the Theory Of Evolution is there is a distinct lack of examples of intermediate creatures, intermediate between known animal types, showing evolutionary development from one animal species type to another. It is a fair criticism to say there is no sufficient evidence of an evolutionary process in action moving from one animal type to another type. It remains a reasonable, albeit lesser criticism, even if one claims ( a claim that would itself benefit from justification) evolutionary changes do not operate as a continual progression but take place in evolutionary spurts. Indeed it is for instance hard to imagine that cows that have (exceptionally) four stomachs for digesting food would have gradually have evolved into having four stomachs via creatures with two, then three stomachs.
(iv) Evolution Does Not Lead To Continual Improvements (As It Theoretically Should)
We have been constantly told that evolution is a consistent process leading to continuing improvements for animals. Thus predators supposedly evolve into better predators and prey species evolve into animals better able to resist or evade predators. Likewise there is a progression from apes to anthropoid species, then to other types of humans such as Denisovans and Neanderthals, culminating in our great selves, homo sapiens. The fact is that is far from being entirely true. For instance present day tigers don’t seem to be better predators than the now extinct sabre toothed tigers. In truth the ‘progression’ of species seems to be much more circuitous than evolutionists are leading us to believe as well as being punctuated by numerous species extinctions. So there seem to be many steps back as well as steps forward in the alleged progression of animals to some ever better (if not perfect) state. I just point that out in passing.
(v) The Evolutionary System Is Not Geared To Intelligence
People pride themselves both (in many cases) individually and as a race on their intelligence. They believe it is through their greater intelligence that mankind has come to dominate both other animals and the world at large. People certainly see intelligence as a prime virtue.
However evolution on Earth is not at all geared to intelligence. For a start it operates at a subconscious level and uses subconscious processes such as our DNA, its presumed medium being subconscious. Furthermore so far as we know nothing more intelligent than us humans has ever lived on Earth and so nothing intelligent on Earth so far as we know could either have invented or affected or even tweaked evolution. Intelligent though we may be, the system is so complicated that we could not have invented it -it is far beyond our present and future (at least for a considerable time) abilities to have invented it. Yet though the system reveals great intelligence in some aspects of its workings, a massive intelligence (let alone a benevolent intelligence) would have made the life experience far more reliable and consistent and far less topsy-turvy than it is. For instance digestion is very reliable and generally efficient in animals with separation and different systems for processing solids and liquids, food ingestion and waste. Sight is rather less reliable, it being subject to illusions, deficiencies and much deterioration. Yet intelligence for all animals is very limited and permeated with blind spots and many errors. Indeed in this topsy-turvy world what works subconsciously is usually (but not always) more reliable and efficient than what works through conscious endeavour.
Come to think of it, the very intricate and complex and supposedly highly evolved nature of animals such as gazelles and zebras seems very wasteful just to end up as food for lions – likewise with cattle, chickens and pigs ending up as highly developed food for humans! What a waste of sophistication!
(vi) The Development Of Life Forms Is Circuitous, Not Direct (Adding Complication)
A further and major concern for me is that the route to us or advanced life is not direct but rambling and circuitous, though as the birth mechanism in mammals does not work if it is only partial much of it must have been achieved by colossal leaps. So it is hybrid between direct and rather straightforward development as primarily happens in Artificial Intelligence such as the development of Chess computers and systemic, perhaps pointless, meanderings such as populating the world with dinosaurs and then changing types of mammals. It is surely not a uniform original invention or development but a derivative system – something like a Meccano or a Lego set with well manufactured building blocks, messily arranged and rearranged by some very fallible infant! So where was this Lego or DNA factory, where is this sophisticated thing that conceived and made these essential, sophisticated building blocks and where are the muddling infantile type things who ‘ordered’ or arranged them? All we can say for sure is there is no trace of any of them on Earth or from what we can find from Earth’s history.
(vii) Evolutionary Theory Explains Our World Via Great Complexity, Not Simplicity
The Theory Of Evolution is ‘sold’ as a theory to explain simply how great and initial simplicity (original cellular life) on Earth through simple gradual steps through stages or ‘mutations’ leads to complex life such as we are.
I challenge that view. Whatever else the supposed system of evolution is , it cannot be simple but must be hugely complex. The view of simplicity is based on multiple single mutations over time leading to ever more developed life. The problem is in fact that what we observe are never stand alone single changes (or mutations) but there are always in changes between parents and offspring multiple simultaneous changes in any new born animal body. Furthermore there are internal within-species boundaries to change in each species that would need to be overcome. Furthermore alleged evolution is not direct but circuitous and does not travel along the simplest methods, taking just the simplest steps to achieve change and improvements as Artificial Intelligence tends to do.
Whatever else the process we are observing in its operation on Earth it cannot properly be said to be ‘simple’ in its operation but rather it is immensely complex. So it is a fallacy to argue, as is generally done, that Evolution is likely to be correct as it is simple in origin and moves forward via very simple steps (as that is plain untrue).
PART 3 THE UNLIKELY UNIQUENESS PROBLEM
L) ANOTHER LINE OF ARGUMENT AGAINST EVOLUTION ON EARTH
There is a second, different line of argument (completely separate and independent from the line of arguments I have used hitherto concerning the flaws and weaknesses in evolutionary theory when set against observed realities) against the current theory of ‘evolution on Earth’. That separate different argument should lead us to think this is all an imported system and not an original production on Earth that led to us.
Suppose somebody or some group invents some sophisticated yet useful novelty such as a helicopter or even a better printing machine. He (or they) wouldn’t want to expend enormous time and energy just to produce one such, one helicopter or one printing machine. Once they have produced the first, they will for their own satisfaction, let alone their own financial benefit, want to populate the world with many such devices. Likewise after going to what must be all the considerable and complicated effort to produce our life system, including its coding device, D.N.A., it is very reasonable to surmise any such developer (or inventor, be it animate or inanimate) would wish to populate the Universe with many similar systems in various parts of the Universe. Therefore our sort of hyper-advanced system in great probability is not unique to Earth but also exists in many unknown parts of the Universe, adapted to environmental conditions elsewhere as well as here. So it probably arose elsewhere in Space, probably a long way from us rather than being an Earthly invention. Most likely it ‘floated’ or travelled like tree seeds do and eventually landed on Earth and developed afresh on Earth. I much prefer that transportation explanation to a more dramatic version of some Space alien landing on Earth and depositing its ‘seeding box system’ here, but who knows?
PART 4 THE SCOPE OF OUTER SPACE
M) IF ORIGINATION WAS NOT ON EARTH IT MUST BE FROM SPACE
It is said we are star dust, meaning the chemicals in our bodies came from the scattered remnants of events in outer Space. I say we also have alien origins meaning the mechanism of our biological development originated from outer Space.
If our origins are not from Earth they logically must be from somewhere in Space. I say there are two compelling lines of reasoning, each fortifying each other for coming to this practically novel and astounding conclusion that our human origins do not lie on Earth. I do not claim this amounts to proof beyond reasonable doubt but I do claim it is a case of a very strong ‘balance of probabilities’. It would be difficult to absolutely prove such a notion in the absence of positive evidence and I am mindful we know little about the deep oceans, Antarctica and what exists deep underneath the surface of Earth. However what we can observe, including what is apparently absent from our Earth, logically indicates that the origin of our biological system lies in outer Space and Earth was merely a location in which it could take root, develop, live and survive.
After all there was more time and practically infinitely more Space and therefore much, much more scope for such original development to take place elsewhere in the Universe rather than on Earth.
I am not saying that humans directly came from outer Space. There was no Adam and Eve that came from some spaceship from outer Space to start breeding humanity just as there was no father Hippopotamus that came from some other spaceship to start breeding hippopotamuses. Rather I am saying that the sophisticated system that produced birds, dinosaurs, mammals and ultimately us must surely have originated in outer Space. DNA has relatively recently been discovered (less than a hundred years ago) as the code that has been passed on from parents to children to their children to enable life and even more remarkably variations in life but how did that in all its sophistication arise? There is no evidence at all that anything so sophisticated that it could devise it and the sophistications it produces ever existed on Earth. Humans and other things on Earth may be sophisticated, advanced and clever. Yet nobody (and indeed nothing) on Earth is or seemingly ever has been as sophisticated, advanced and clever as what goes on, even subconsciously within our own bodies. The same even applies to the bodies and behaviour of elephants and dinosaurs! That in itself should indicate ultimate origination from beyond Earth.
N) OTHER ‘OUT OF THIS WORLD’ HUMAN DEVELOPMENT THEORISTS
So far as I know nobody else and certainly nobody preeminent has put forward either a similar view to mine about people and animals developing (or even evolving) due to a system that was implanted on Earth from outer Space. Nor has anybody criticised as comprehensively as I do the inadequacy of ‘the theory of evolution on Earth’ to fully explain human development. However there have been others who have posited some extra-terrestrial intervention to explain some phenomena on Earth though none of them has achieved significant support from contemporary scientists.
Erich von Daniken (born 1935) wrote what was then a bestselling book ‘Chariots Of The Gods’ suggesting from primitive human drawings and from some phenomena on Earth that aliens had earlier in human history visited Earth. He claimed they left some artefacts (such as the Pyramid Of Cheops in Egypt) that human technology was not capable of creating at the time they were constructed. Erich von Daniken has since been much discredited and it is vigorously disputed that anything he cited could not have been created by people then on Earth. Nevertheless the principle he cited and his motivation for searching the world for artefacts that were not naturally made and beyond human capabilities to construct was fundamentally correct. If anything unnatural that people of the time of its construction could not possibly create were to be found it would be conclusive evidence that either unbeknown to us a very advanced form of life had previously (maybe briefly) lived on Earth which is not absolutely impossible or else that entities from Space have indeed previously visited or at the very least placed objects on Earth. That is undeniable and von Daniken was not wrong to search the Earth for phenomena that exist but were beyond human technology to construct at the time of their construction. Come to think of it von Daniken’s research was almost infinitely cheaper than the much respected but so far fruitless S.E.T.I. astronomical project! So though von Daniken probably when properly considered found no such phenomena, certainly nothing that cannot reasonably be contested, I say two cheers for Erich von Daniken!
Arthur C Clarke (1917-2008) in the film ‘2001 A Space Odyssey’ also suggested the possibility that human development may have been supercharged by outside intervention. This seems to be improbable, not least because the crucial intervention would then have been at the wrong, or at least not the most appropriate time. If it were to have been really significant it should have been far earlier. Although the expansion of the use of human (and even hominid) brains and intelligence did eventually lead to human dominance over the world, in biological and evolutionary terms it is certainly not the most remarkable thing. Human dominance can most simply be explained by relatively simple systems of communication, language and in particular writing. Writing conveyed information from one human to another and so consolidated knowledge, spreading it eventually to humanity at large. More recently computers and Artificial Intelligence have further expanded what humans can technologically do and this has had far more to do with human advancement and domination than have biological changes in human anatomy. Humans have existed with the same anatomy and brainpower as now for thousands of years but only very recently have they come to entirely dominate the world. The brain is after all just one organ. Far harder to explain is how the whole anatomies (that vary according to species) of animals came to exist. The real wonder is how different species with multiple different yet synchronised biological systems (be it for eating, digesting, breathing, reproducing, often self-healing, instincts and habits and much more besides with hearts, lungs, kidneys, spleens , strategically based bones and muscles) working in a harmonious but usually entirely subconscious coordination came to exist on Earth. Humans may have developed advanced technology but almost all the biological complexities of living existed in the earliest mammals and even dinosaurs many millions of years before the first hominid arose! So any extra-terrestrial assistance to primitive humans would have come when almost all the ‘work’ of evolution or the development of advanced life on Earth had already been done! Though human intelligence is what naturally fascinates modern people the most, it is nowhere near as complex in origin as the origin and development of all animal (including apes, cats and birds as well as us humans) anatomy!
Perhaps the closest, though very distant approach to mine was taken by Fred Hoyle (1915-2001). His contentions and proposed alterations to the conventional view were very modest indeed compared to mine. Hoyle just surmised a relatively minor feature now found on Earth (viruses that cause some human illnesses) were not to be found originally on Earth. So he proposed that it was comets landing on Earth that really originally caused the development of advanced life on Earth. In contrast I have surmised by an array of appropriate points that the whole system of evolution, concomitant ‘evolution’ of our whole anatomy (and the very many co-ordinated systems within it) is so complicated as not to have been caused by chance nor random mutational evolution on Earth – so it must therefore be largely the result of very sophisticated pre-programming or prefabrication from outside Earth. Furthermore I think comets are too small and indeed too near to us to be a credible solution (certainly for mass-production of such complicated features probably not just on Earth but also on other planets and stars elsewhere in the Universe) for the origination of complex life on Earth. So I think Hoyle’s problems and solutions were nowhere near big enough nor radical enough when compared to what I am now setting out.
PART 5 – TOWARDS A SOLUTION
O) INTELLIGENCE AT A CRITICAL MASS CAN BECOME SELF-GENERATING
Speaking in very general terms it has been the human experience (and it is certainly even more true of Artificial Intelligence) that additional knowledge is initially (when like animals one has little knowledge and that is mainly instinctive) hard to come by. Yet as an entity becomes more advanced in knowledge, techniques and then technical aids for achieving yet more knowledge are discovered and become available, making yet further advances in knowledge ever easier. Critical discoveries occur along the way, such as (for humans) writing and then computing and then the development of Artificial Intelligence that help in communicating and organising knowledge and also help lead to ever more knowledge. Eventually knowledge reaches a critical mass whereby it becomes largely self-generating. An efficient (in terms of intelligence) system would develop to the critical mass where knowledge becomes self-generating as fast as possible and then things like inventing new systems and new, better technologies become ever easier.
Indeed one could hardly create or form or originate or fabricate a very complicated system that generates complicated life before one has reached the stage where knowledge is effectively self generating. We humans are reaching that stage with computerisation and the invention of Artificial Intelligence on Earth now but nothing living on Earth has so far as we can see ever reached that stage previously. That is yet another reason to believe the system that produced us is not original to Earth but came out of a place where entities had already reached the critical mass (or stage) where their knowledge had become self-generating and consequently the fabrication of complex living systems had become feasible and maybe relatively easy for them.
P) SIMPLIFIED ( A.I .TYPE) DEVELOPMENT IS MORE EXPLICABLE AND LIKELY
One of the most remarkable (indeed alarmingly risky) features of our age is that people have developed Artificial Intelligence, a computer or silicon derived form of intelligence. It is in many ways a far superior, far purer and certainly far quicker form of intelligence than us. It may yet destroy humanity along with itself or else it may supplant us as the master or dominating force on Earth.
A.I. is a direct form of intelligence with simple construction and a simple way of working compared to us or biological life. In essence all it needs is a power source which is now normally electricity but could be direct solar energy and silicon chips, properly arranged and properly working. It does not breathe, digest , nor have ‘instincts’ nor rely on DNA nor have (at least in the same complicated way as us) ears, eyes, liver, heart nor skin. It is very simple to make compared to us. Unlike us it would take few evolutionary steps to create and few more before it reached the critical point where it can become self-generating or self reproducing (i.e. self replicating). It is therefore much easier to imagine how it could have ‘evolved’ into existence and become self-enhancing, just accumulating more silicon chips and eventually more efficiency within each silicon chip. It wouldn’t have the evolutionary problems of either creating different species or of the simultaneous generation of multiple harmoniously interacting different internal parts that biologically based systems have. Evolution into an Artificial Intelligence artefact could be relatively simple (unlike evolution into animals and us) and direct with few evolutionary stages. So it is tempting to speculate that (contrary to the sequence on Earth) it was a kind of Artificial Intelligence that first evolved out of simple atoms in the Universe and then that created or assisted into creation much more complex biological life forms! The reservation I have about committing myself to that scenario is that it is hard to think that computers like Artificial Intelligence would have the initial motivation to get themselves started in the first place. So maybe there was a very simple biological element that duly transformed itself and its life into a predominantly Artificial Intelligence machine! Of course I don’t know and that goes far beyond the simple question as to whether the system that led to us and formed us originated from Earth or from Outer Space, my topic here. However the very recent development of Artificial Intelligence has given us the scope for considerable insight into what alternative and indeed superior forms of intelligence could be like!
It may also be that other forms of biological intelligence, indeed maybe even much simpler forms of biological intelligence are greatly enhanced in intelligence (and indeed in their biological workings) by implanting chips composed of Artificial Intelligence within themselves. That is just like some people now have heart pacemakers placed within themselves! I expect doing that would be much cheaper and more reliable than paying teachers to try and endow us with knowledge and hopefully critical thinking in a long and costly education system – so humans might do that at some future time!
I can also reasonably surmise that if we have progenitors (from elsewhere in Space I think) they are or were far more likely to be akin to Star Trek’s Mr. Spock than us. As Mr. Spock’s primary attribute is logical intelligence, presumably the developmental or evolutionary process leading (from original basic simplicity) to him (as with the development of Computers and Artificial Intelligence) is more direct and quicker and rooted in intelligence. In contrast we humans appear to have gradually developed some intelligence as a collective aid to survival within a hostile world of stronger and more athletic animals though we were mainly dominated by and live mainly by our instincts and emotions! So the human route to intelligence has been circuitous, slow and indirect. However the original intelligent beings in the Universe or our part of the Universe were more likely to have developed or evolved as purer intelligences that then created or manufactured derivative (derived from them) systems that could adapt to other worlds and gradually led to entities like us humans!
Q) DERIVATIVE LIFE FORMS
In essence I think we are too complicated (we rely on systems based on the subconscious instinctive workings of interrelated biological parts) to have originally arisen by pure evolutionary development, least of all here on Earth. I therefore think we are ‘derivative’ from some other, greater intelligence that produced the system that produced us. That producer’s system is probably based on a more direct and simpler development deriving entirely or largely from an evolution of intelligence (which was possibly either wholly or substantially non-biological) that occurred elsewhere in the Universe. After all there was much more Time and practically infinitely more Space and therefore much more scope for such development to take place elsewhere in the Universe than on Earth. So I do think that while we are derived from producers, our ultimate producers did ‘evolve’ from sheer simplicity elsewhere in the Universe and then ‘seeded’ our system in embryo onto Earth. I am aided in coming to this view by some things that have become apparent in our age:
– (i) sophisticated systems are seldom for one use but are usually for multiple uses in various places – i.e. it is more sensible to suppose our system or type or something rather similar to our type does not just exist on Earth but also in multiple places in the Universe
– (ii) as we now know it is simpler and far more straightforward both in hardware and in software terms to create or produce Artificial Intelligence than it is to produce biological or instinct-based life, especially our type of very complex life
– (iii) there comes a point when systems of intelligence become (or at least can become) self-generating in their intelligence and easily able to transmit advances in intelligence to other intelligences whereas this hardly or scarcely happens within instinct-based biological life forms.
So I conclude at least on the strong balance of probabilities that we or rather the system that developed (via coding such as D.N.A.) into us was created or was produced both elsewhere in the Universe and by some intelligence greater than our own (but not God). Furthermore I suspect that intelligence which produced (or ultimately produced) us itself originally arose from original substance by chance combinations or by various evolutionary steps which at least got it to the stage where its intelligence could thereafter become self expanding and self generating.
It may well be, indeed it is likely that we are not first generation out of Creation creations but a later development out of an ultimate system of Evolution or out of Artificial Intelligence or whatever.
It may also well be that the original life forms or ‘intelligences’ created, or more likely, generated other life forms or ‘intelligences’ that themselves reproduced and maybe migrated from planet to planet (or even between stars) across the Universe and it all led to us. So we may be derivative from derivative entities, derivative maybe from a few or maybe many generations of entities!
However what is certain is that if our origination does not lie on Earth, which is what based on various strands of evidence I am proclaiming, we must at the very least be a derivative life form, derivative from what was originated elsewhere.
R) THE TRANSPORTATION PROBLEM
One might well say that even if my theory of our life system originating from outer Space were a reasonable idea there could be difficulties with getting here from outer Space and then surviving on this planet.
After all the distances between stars in Space are absolutely massive and atmospheric conditions vary enormously between planets and few indeed are like Earth. Earth is particularly stable in its atmosphere and climate (in its temperature, lack of enormous winds or deadly gases, protection from radiation and general environmental stability).
I concede transportation onto Earth through vast distances of Space is potentially a major problem, especially for biological life (which is likely why we do not get visits from aliens). Yet given the potential time scale of maybe many millions of years, it should not be an insuperable problem. Certainly as Space is mainly empty and almost a vacuum there is little to stop travel (albeit relatively slow travel when compared to the distances in Space) once something, especially something resistant to radiation, has successfully been launched into Space. Meteors are known to travel through Space and even it seems between stars. Even solar flares travel great distances. Spaceships can travel into Space and it is thought Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 will be travelling indefinitely through Space even if their equipment in time ceases to be functional. Even if living biological entities may not survive, small quantities of say cells that could in favourable circumstances activate later may be put in very protective casings and be sent vast distances into Space. So even if biological life could not survive long Space travel (as seems very possible) seeds or the building blocks of life might still travel far into Space.
The second problem of what may travel through Space, acclimatising to conditions elsewhere is also very significant. It seems evidently true that our type of biological life cannot acclimatise to and survive on most stars and planets elsewhere – after all no other ‘life’ has yet been discovered in our solar system. It is also true that if a life form had to find a planet just like Earth for it to survive in, it is unlikely to survive at all as there seem to be so very few such places. (I don’t think astronomers have yet found a place with very similar atmosphere, composition, geography and climactic conditions to Earth). So even if a potential life form cannot adapt to everywhere it would need to be able to adapt itself to a considerable range of conditions to have any real prospect of living away from its indigenous native location in Space. Therefore I venture that any life form that is geared to being or going to become interplanetary has to be considerably adaptive to quite a wide range of locations (planets, moons etc;) in Space. It therefore must to a considerable extent ‘mutate’ itself. Perhaps that ability to mutate and adapt itself to a wide range of various local conditions might understandably be mistaken for primeval evolution in the system. So I suspect the ability to withstand a wide range of conditions, or indeed mutate to adapt to various conditions would need to be present and ‘priced in’ to any potential interplanetary life system. Surely a sufficiently advanced fabrication system could do that, just as our astronauts can obtain and use spacesuits to protect them against and survive hostile conditions in Space. So like the transportation problem, I see the adaptation problem as soluble or at least sufficiently soluble for sufficiently intelligent entities so as to enable them or their creations to exist in some places, even if not in most places in Space.
I certainly think the feasibility of there being practical solutions for an advanced intelligence for conveying embryonic advanced life and making it adaptable to conditions on this alien world (Earth) is far, far better than the feasibility of there being any wholly indigenous solutions for developing advanced biological life here on Earth, starting from scratch with original rocks and molecules.
S) POSSIBLE MODES OF IMMIGRATION ONTO EARTH
One may well ask why would anybody or anything send DNA or the material to seed Earth with the codes, formulas and mechanisms for developing advanced life on Earth?
Of course we do not know and are unlikely ever to find out. However I can envisage a possible rational reason (apparently similar to a ‘possibility’ that Francis Crick of DNA fame also envisaged) though it is just one possibility and there are undoubtedly many other possibilities.
Imagine a biologically based form of life that is a bit more technologically advanced than us living elsewhere in the Universe in another solar system. Then suppose that that ‘civilisation’ is facing certain or at least possible destruction from maybe warfare amongst themselves or climate change or through the Artificial Intelligence they themselves have developed or indeed from something else. That danger of possible annihilation is not significantly different from the dangers now facing us. Apart from hoping to avoid such extinction, we humans speculate about the possibility of colonising (by terraforming) the Moon or Mars or maybe somewhere else in the solar system so as to preserve humanity. However suppose that is impractical (as it is with our present technology and might well be in future, say because of radiation or inadequate technology) for both us and that alien civilisation in another solar system. Suppose also we were keen to take our best shot at preserving humanity if not here then elsewhere, or at the very least our biologically based system of sentient, quasi-intelligent life. That might be a particular concern if we faced extinction from metallic or silicon based non-biological Artificial Intelligence. What would we do then? That could we do? Well, what we do have (and what the advanced biologically based endangered life form on another solar system might well have in much greater quantities) are a couple of space rockets, Voyager 1 and Voyager 2. They are travelling beyond our solar system, albeit relatively slowly in astronomical terms to other regions of Space and maybe eventually to land (or crash) on another star or planet, be it habitable or uninhabitable. Obviously that could take maybe millions of years, anyhow far longer than any human life span. However we or the endangered aliens on another solar system could rationally think that the best chance of preserving some life like or akin to us if we were to become extinct on our native planet would be to launch rockets, numerous rockets, millions of rockets if we could manage it, carrying on those rockets DNA, RNA, soil and the necessary ingredients for setting up embryonically a system of advanced life for later maturation and development. Those rockets would travel eventually into distant regions of Space and eventually land somewhere, occasionally somewhere potentially habitable. They would then discharge (maybe parachute-like) that embryonic ‘life basics starter system’ onto the place where that rocket has arrived at. In some places the conditions would be too hostile for that embryonic life system to survive in but in other places that embryonic life system might be able to adapt itself to conditions on that planet (or place). Then it might develop eventually into advanced life, maybe very unlike ourselves or maybe very like ourselves (due to the DNA being sent from ourselves) though of course somewhat adapted to survive in the atmospheric and other conditions on that place.
Just possibly we on Earth, we animals and humans are the result of such a venture. Maybe it was born out of a desperate attempt for that advanced biological life form on a different solar system to survive. Or rather partly survive (in the sense that humans survive through having children, albeit children individually different from ourselves) through replicating and planting their life system, if not their precise selves, from another location onto Earth. That is rather rational. Consider any civilisation that did that, or at least did that successfully, is likely to have impregnated numerous, perhaps millions of places in the Universe with the seeds and means for the development of advanced life. So it is far more likely that that is the explanation for why humans originated than is any theory about animals having evolved unaided and unseeded and uniquely on Earth! I am not saying this possibility of our system deliberately having been transported onto Earth from another civilisation to facilitate the survival of their biological system is really the most probable explanation for our existence as advanced life on Earth. It is merely a reasonable possibility! I would add that if that were the case we would not be a first generation derivative life form from straightforward origination of ‘intelligent life’ in the Universe. We would then be a derivative from a derivative life form, possibly a derivative life form many times removed from the original explanation for our life system in the Universe. However being a derivative from a derivative life form is not inherently unlikely but very likely, indeed highly probable.
So I commend as possible, even if not probable, advanced life on Earth having originated from a capsule (or whatever) implanted very long ago from another distant civilisation seeking to perpetuate or at least safeguard its type of biological life by seeding other places in the Universe.
Speaking personally, I think a ‘seeding’ from initial prefabricated DNA type seed dispatched to Earth from a seeding factory far away in Space to be the most likely start to the development of advanced biological life on Earth.
However there are other, doubtless many other, possibilities. For instance there could even be a long distance seeding process (relying on winds in Space as some tree seeding on Earth relies on winds) as a form of reproduction (producing progeny) from far away entities or life forms elsewhere in the Universe. There are numerous possibilities but I do think prefabrication in some form is pretty well necessary and inevitable.
PART 6 – THE FIREWORK THEORY
T) MY FIREWORK THEORY EXPLAINED
I have called the theory I am putting forward to better explain the likely origin of the sophisticated living biological phenomena we observe on Earth ‘the firework theory’. The reason why I have called it ‘the firework theory’ is that modern, multi-coloured phased fireworks are the best common analogy I can think of to what is happening and what has caused human and animal life here on Earth.
Modern fireworks are pre-manufactured and pre-programmed in factories and when set off go off in sequential stages during which different colours and maybe different patterns occur. One stage ends giving way sequentially to another differently coloured phase which in turn ends and sets off and develops into yet another phase. In the end after multiple sequential phases the show all ends and all that remains is some detritus. A particularly appropriate firework to envisage in this respect are modern rocket fireworks. Indeed originally rocket fireworks were far simpler and more basic than now. They started out with a single colour display when launched into the sky. When more advanced fireworks that were sequentially multi-colour began to occur, people did not say the original fireworks had gone through a process of Evolution into something better. No, everybody thought the factory pre-fabrication had been improved and become more advanced. So why is it when animals develop, people then think they have evolved into something better rather than that they were pre-fabricated in an improved way?
Likewise I believe (on a massive balance of probabilities) the system for advanced life on Earth has been premanufactured and pre-set (or pre-programmed) from elsewhere remote in Space (in all probability, as in fireworks in a mass-manufacturing factory or depot) and delivered to Earth. I suspect the means of dispatch is via seed or encapsulated seed sent hurtling through Space much like Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 spacecraft which are travelling, albeit relatively slowly, beyond the solar system into deep Space. I believe this firework seed travelling through Space is probably not especially directed to reach a ‘habitable planet or region’ and many such ‘fireworks’ are wasted in Space or reach stars and planets they cannot operate in due to adverse, inoperable conditions. However when they do reach somewhere where advanced animal life can develop in, they can adapt (or ‘evolve’) their animal development system to conditions in that place and so make sophisticated animal life possible. That and some randomising element is, I believe, the source or main source of the ‘evolution’ we have ‘observed’ to exist on Earth.
Incidentally though the system giving rise to life on Earth has been pre-set and its phases (or changes) pre-programmed from something like a factory elsewhere in Space, I think that like a firework it merely ‘interacts with’ rather than completely ‘controls’ its environment. Like firework rockets, though often successful in operating within the environment, it can sometimes (probably in this case mostly) be disrupted or nullified by the environment. I surmise this because it is not too hard to manufacture something (like a firework or a television set) that will sometimes operate successfully within an environment but to control every facet of an environment would require massive knowledge. Indeed it would require almost God-like knowledge to completely ensure the successful and detailed operation of its product from a faraway place. It would then almost be like God at least in respect of its power, if not necessarily in other godly qualities like immortality and supreme goodness.
So I think there is some evolution-like adaptation and some randomising but most critically there is pre-programming for instance in the mechanism that creates and differentiates the different animal species we observe on Earth. There is pre-programming within the ‘life-seeds’ despatched to Earth (among other places) that originally causes all that is necessary to form the intricate coordination of the multiple systems within biological animals. We have recently discovered that the code in the system one animal passes onto another animal (its offspring) is DNA which every animal appears to receive and receive just one of. That in itself is very remarkable. We also know that components in factories nowadays are often fine tuned and harmonised with the aid of computerised systems. Computers (or A.I.) calculate at enormous speed and can do a lot in setting and pre-setting ‘co-ordinates’ for optimal performance which biologically based thinking cannot do or at least cannot do within any reasonable amount of time. So the process of creating advanced biological life on Earth could well have been fine tuned by such computer-type aids. Finally like a firework the system (or device) will I suspect eventually run out and die but it could possibly be substituted by eventually self -generating Artificial Intelligence.
So I commend the analogy I have made with a modern ‘firework’ that is pre-manufactured elsewhere and travels to its display site. There it goes off in a pre-set colourful sequence with one pattern designed to replace another phase within its system. I submit that firework type system has been essential for and caused the (otherwise not credibly explicable) complicated and internally harmonious, yet mainly subconsciously working, animal and human life on Earth.
U) SPECULATING AS TO THE ULTIMATE ORIGINS OF PRE-FABRICATION
Scientists say Evolution on Earth is the foundation of the system of advanced life on Earth: I say prefabrication of a relatively adaptable system that travelled to Earth is the foundation of life on Earth.
So I have been shifting the problem of how it all began from Earth to outer Space -kicking the can down Space, you might say. One could ask how did the system of pre-fabrication originally arise? That is very speculative. It might, probably does go a long way back through many intermediaries. However I will do some speculation.
We would be left with the same three possibilities as formerly on Earth, God, Chance and Evolution as pre-fabrication cannot logically be an ultimate answer in terms of the ultimate origin of life in the Universe as a whole. However I contend not only have we thereby increased the scope in Time and Space to operate within but more importantly we have also thereby eliminated some of the difficulties caused by the big simultaneous changes in developments and a ‘single use’ advanced ‘mechanism’ that we have in explanations confined to Earth. Furthermore we can speculate about a much more direct route to self-generating intelligence that would require much less ‘evolution’ or much less ‘chance’ than is possible in Earth based theories. We can speculate that chance or evolution did not itself produce advanced species sequentially changing biological life but just pure intelligences akin to Artificial Intelligence and that type of AI did the rest! I would also say that the real or most significant underlying question is ultimately not how humans came to exist but how ‘intelligence’ came to exist in the Universe because ‘intelligence’ (akin to sophisticated AI) would be or become capable of devising derivative life and the system that led to DNA, mankind and even fine tuning to make our area of the cosmos habitable for biological entities.
To run through the possibilities, the notion of God would then be just as impossible as it ever was with human origin on Earth. One should not explain the mystery of complexity existing by yet greater complexity because that leaves more in terms of mysterious complexity to be explained than what we started with. Put simply the question what created God (who would be a much more wondrous entity than us) is more difficult to explain than the original question. We are still left with ‘the problem of evil’ in the Universe and the impossibility of anything being justifiably certain of its own omniscience. So the notion of God is not logically possible.
By reducing the amount to be explained (to intelligent entities or AI type entities that might then produce biological life) from the many complications of advanced biological life, one has rather increased the credibility of random chance being the true explanation. However the production of a self-replicating advanced Artificial Intelligence would still be a more difficult matter than a monkey correctly typing one of Shakespeare’s plays with a keyboard by sheer random chance. So I still don’t much fancy the random chance explanation.
I must admit I am rather drawn to the concept of ultimate initial origin elsewhere in the Universe by Evolution when Evolution is shorn of problems, particularly multiple simultaneous changes that would afflict it on Earth and when the path of Evolution would be much shorter and much more direct. The central concept in Evolution of advantageous small staged random changes being ‘banked’ and preserved, making advantageous changes cumulative, to reduce the amount of random chance in the development of our life system is, I think, an attractive one. So what I suspect is there may have been evolution of maybe cellular life (if not just AI type parts) gradually becoming loaded with intelligence ‘chips’, powered by sun or cosmic (maybe light) energy (instead of powered by eating) that saw the advantage of intelligence. So it accumulated by evolution further intelligence chips or improved intelligence chips onto itself (much like the development of man made silicon chip computers) until it was powerful enough in intelligence to become self-generating in extra intelligence and self-replicating. Then the role of evolution was done and Artificial Intelligence type features took over and developed via ‘intelligent design’, or to be more precise ‘semi-intelligent design’ ( given the unnecessary waste and hardship in our world) biological or anyhow advanced biological life with all its complications and eventually spread the advanced biological life systems it created to places like Earth. That would be more in line with Evolution via one stage or mutation at a time (rather than multiple simultaneous changes) development. It would explain how ‘intelligence’ developed, intelligence that would then be responsible for effecting the multiple simultaneous changes in an advanced biological life system. I would myself say I believe ultimately in (as probable) Evolution way outside Earth until the point when a basic semi-intelligent design entity has evolved and can take over in developing complex biological life.
An advantage of Intelligent Design or rather Semi-Intelligent Design (somewhat akin to modern Artificial Intelligence, not God) is that while Evolution is a slow and even doubtful process, Artificial-type or computer-type Intelligence soon becomes extremely fast. Evolution would only cause changes over many generations and it is doubtful whether Evolution can know what changes to proceed with among the multiplicity of changes it makes within advanced life forms such as animals. By contrast computers can calculate almost infinitely faster than humans, let alone Evolution, even in a mere second. Therefore for instance the ‘fine-tuning’ of life to its environment is a big problem for evolutionary theories but hardly an obstacle for computer-like intelligence. In essence the ‘fine-tuning problem’ (relatively recently depicted by theists) practically disappears in my Firework Theory. An AI type intelligence could arise without a very fine tuned Universe – for instance silicon or some other non-biological substances can be far more durable and far less vulnerable to environmental conditions than us humans. (Even little basic biological parts or cells might then be protected by some type of shell or spacesuit.) Then as computer-like intelligence characterised by its enormously rapid calculating power could rapidly adapt animals to their environment or maybe even adapt the local environment to animals thus resolving the fine-tuning problem!
I am herein reversing the sequence seen on Earth by which first advanced biological life arose which then created Artificial Intelligence. I am saying if Evolution (or even Chance) was rather to cause a purer Intelligence (akin to Artificial Intelligence) first, which Intelligence then created advanced biological life, the ultimate origins of life on Earth (and elsewhere) would have far less stages and complications and be far, far easier to explain! So that is what I propose. I speculate mankind first arose from an AI type fabricator (after simple evolution to develop to that fabricator) elsewhere in the Universe and mankind will quite likely be destroyed by the different or variant system of AI we humans have ourselves created and developed!
If you then ask what is the ultimate purpose or meaning of this whole system, including our lives, I can only say that like everything in the Universe it is all ultimately a show, a spectacle, an experience without either ultimate or any possible meaning. I say you might as well ask what is the ultimate purpose people have for growing and displaying inedible exotic flowers or even for exotic flowers existing at all. Exotic flowers are surely ultimately just a materially useless show, a spectacle without either ultimate or any possible ultimate meaning. I say our lives are merely a journey, an often interesting journey from birth to death!
V) WHY THE FIREWORK THEORY IS A BETTER THEORY
In short The Firework Theory is better than the traditional Theory Of Evolution on Earth because it aligns better with the observed and observable phenomena.
I have not produced any new research nor any data that is not presently available to everybody. However I have reviewed the relevant main data available to anyone concerning our origins and evolution more carefully and more questioningly than others have done. My claim is that upon this review I have worked out a theory far more consistent with the relevant facts and observations than others have done.
I think many scientists should have publicly done this by now but it seems they haven’t. They have generally followed each other like sheep in a form of ‘groupthink’. At best they have overlooked much (especially the great complexity of the multiple simultaneous changes that appear, particularly in new animal species or even subspecies) and in other places they have mistaken symptoms for causes. Yes there are adaptations to one’s environment (indeed changing environment) but that has to be built into any system if it is going to be viable as a system and survive. Yes, there is a broad (very broadly speaking) sequence of development from cellular entities to animals, maybe even to humans but why should that necessarily be evolution rather than stages in prefabrication? Yes, there is DNA that is passed from parents to offspring but isn’t that necessary for or at least compatible with any system of life rather than just Evolution? Then the assumption that it all arose on Earth is treated as axiomatic rather than questioned.
Somehow anything incompatible (or at least very difficult to reconcile) with Evolution on Earth is neither assessed nor generally even observed. The fact that variations seem to be limited to certain characteristics (generally comprising details rather than fundamentals) within species and even sub-species and the boundaries to random change that keep animals recognisably within their sub-species are overlooked. Very significantly the multiple simultaneous nature of all variations between parents and offspring and its great importance, notably in turning a simple theory into a very complex theory, is overlooked. Above all it is overlooked that evolutionary theory cannot satisfactorily explain (nor cope with) multiple simultaneous changes but Artificial Intelligence (which is geared to very rapid calculations and assessments) and pre-programming can do so. Surely that would indicate that some type of A.I. (of which so far as we know none has existed on Earth previous to humans) should be an important element in an explanation of our origins and development but that too is overlooked.
However rather than just enumerate what is weak or wrong with the existing theory I have sought to create a new and better theory compatible not merely with some but with all the existing data we have. I have constructed this theory anew. I have reversed some longstanding assumptions such as our origins lie on Earth; we created Artificial Intelligence rather than ultimately some other Artificial Intelligence-type entity created or did much to create us, and above all that our system evolved rather than was prefabricated in some way and travelled to Earth. In doing so I have reconciled all the observable data, both that which is compatible with Evolution and that which is incompatible with Evolution. Unlike the Theory Of Evolution my Firework Theory is compatible and indeed fits in with all the available data (as observable by us on Earth) and is accordingly the better theory.
PART 7 – CONCLUSION
W) THE FIREWORK THEORY ENTAILS CHANGES OF PERSPECTIVE
I have neither discovered nor put forward any new facts in this treatise. I have just examined, reassessed and re-evaluated basic existing facts.
I, a non-scientist without any background whatsoever in Biology have just carried out a fresh de novo review, encouraged by growing suspicions about the Theory Of Evolution that I have relatively recently developed. (Hitherto I had willingly and blindly accepted the Theory Of Evolution, as had most other people apart from some religious fundamentalists, on the say so of a consensus of scientists.) In this review I have, as is proper, not assumed anything and have been willing to logically question everything. I have, even where that is unconventional, been willing to reject theories that are insufficiently logical or insufficiently explain the evidence.
I have developed in accordance with logical principles an entirely new theory, a ‘Firework Theory’. That results from a new, yet logical approach. This new theory essentially involves prefabrication of our system in Outer Space and unlike the existing three theories, God, Chance and Evolution properly accords with all the available evidence and logic. I think this type of theory or at the very least a kind of fabrication of our advanced biological system in outer Space while not being true beyond reasonable doubt (which perhaps speculative theories should never be) is true on the strong (I would say at least 90%) balance of probabilities.
The other significant thing this new ‘Firework Theory’ does is it practically completes the process that Nicholas Copernicus (1473-1543) began five hundred years ago. It ends the last vestiges of the cosmic centrality and overriding importance in Nature of the planet we live on, Earth. Before Copernicus most people thought, probably because they lived on it, that Earth was the centre of the Universe around which the Sun and everything else revolved. Charles Darwin by insisting that we are an animal among many animals further undermined the centrality of mankind in the scheme of things. Then astronomers came to the view that our bodies are composed of stardust, elements that were ejected from stars and travelled to Earth. Now I am saying that we (or our system) did not even originate on Earth but came as an immigrant onto Earth and our origins lie elsewhere in Space. We are not merely made from stardust, but we were almost certainly not in biological terms originally developed nor conceived on Earth but were biologically systemically produced in Outer Space and merely ‘seeded’ onto Earth. Earth in practically every way (and indeed our existence on Earth) is in fact nothing special in the Universe even though it has hitherto seemed so cosmically special to us humans.
Geoffrey H. L. Berg