	Bob Hostetler > Writing

A Disappointed Descendant

by Bob Hostetler

Despite its logical and scientific flaws, the theory of evolution continues to carry the day among many in the scientific and scholastic communities. That being the case, I'd like to register my extreme disappointment with my presumptive ancestors, human and otherwise, for some of the many evolutionary "choices" that leave me feeling cheated.

A cardinal tenet of evolutionary theory is that beneficial changes that aid an organism's ability to survive tend to be preserved over time via a process Darwin called "natural selection." Yeah, well, if that's the case, where are my gills?

That's right, gills. After all, way back when my distant ancestor crawled out of the primordial ooze and somehow figured out how to breathe air, for a generation or two it must have possessed a highly adaptable breathing apparatus, or it would have quickly and desperately flopped back into the water, right? You know, like the mud skipper, a fish (albeit a contemporary one, which means if it did contribute to our evolutionary development, modern-day mud skippers are really slow learners). Mud skippers possess a swim-bladder that can serve as a temporary 'lung,' enabling it to function in water and, briefly, on land. So why did we ever get rid of that? Who made the decision that it would NOT be an advantageous mutation to be able to breathe under water as well as on land? Think how easy it would have been to escape harm if our ancient precursors could have left air-breathing predators panting on the shore or water-bound predators frustratedly flapping their fins while they splashed ashore! Plus, it would still be a handy mutation even today. It would make swimming sooo much easier. Not to mention fishing. And scuba diving (except we'd just call it "diving," wouldn't we?). So I want my gills. Or swim bladder. Or whatever.

Fur wouldn't be bad, either. Darwinists claim it was just a blink of an eye ago, evolution-wise, when our forebears supposedly lumbered around in permanent fur coats. But someone in our (literal) family tree apparently shed the fur…which meant time had to be spent hunting and killing animals, and then skinning them and tanning their skins to replace the covering that once came as part of the hominid package! Whose idea was that? Do you know how much money we could have saved if Abercrombie and Fitch had both been naturally fur-covered?

Another source of bitter disappointment is the human gestation period. Given that some species of primates race from conception to birth in four or five months, and other mammals take only weeks to give birth, who in their right mind thought it evolutionarily advantageous for homo sapiens mommies to suffer through nine months of pregnancy? If my wife had been in attendance at that prehistoric meeting, there would have been nothing short of an evolution revolution, believe you me!

While we're on the subject, since species after species of our evolutionary progenitors were born in a more or less viable state-like the baby aye-aye (a primate) that can catch and eat its own food from the moment it tumbles out of the bun-warmer, so to speak-what short-sighted ancestor began the process by which human infants came to be born absolutely helpless? If that's what Darwinians consider an advantageous mutation, I hate to think what my great-grandkids are going to have to put up with (of course, even today, some of us have thirty-year-old children who still haven't reached viability, a certain indication that human evolution must be as frequently regressive as it is progressive).

But I digress. I've only begun to register my disappointment with my theoretical antecedents. I think it's high time the human race collected all of the cool anatomical and biological features our predecessors inexplicably surrendered, if evolutionary theory is to be believed. Except maybe tails. That might have been fun when I was a kid (and still able to climb trees), but these days it's hard enough to find clothes that fit me. So that mutation we can keep.

As for the others…who do I talk to?

This article appeared in the March 7, 2003 edition of the Hamilton Journal-News.

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