Another Nerdy Post

Those of you who have been reading this blog for a while may remember this post, where I argue for the existence of God through a combination of Astrophysics and Quantum Mechanics. If you don't remember it or weren't here for it, whatever. This post will be similar to it. This time, we're going to argue from Evolutionary Biology.

I'll start with a little information before I jump into the big stuff. As many of you probably know, humans have 46 chromosomes (23 pairs). Having an even number of chromosomes means that we can successfully procreate. An odd number usually results in death--in utero or shortly after birth. The rest of the time, an odd number will result in sterility--like breeding a horse with a donkey to get a mule.

Now, according to the Theory of Evolution, we broke off from the other great apes--chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans--most recently, so they are our closest living relatives. So they should have 46 chromosomes as well, right? WRONG. They have 48 chromosomes. What happened there?

Close analysis of our DNA vs. a chimp's DNA reveals that our chromosome pair #2 (they're numbered from 1-22, generally largest to smallest, and then the sex chromosomes--X and Y--are 23) closely matches two of the chimp's put together. This would mean that at some point, these chromosomes fused together into one. However, this kind of mutation is rare, and it usually doesn't end well. And then there's another problem. It would have to happen TWICE to make one viable (non-sterile) individual.

But wait, the odds are stacked even further against this working out. It has to happen twice to get one individual, but that individual would not be able to procreate with its former species--it would need to find another individual with the same rare mutation. This means it has to happen at least four times to be able to produce viable offspring. Noticing the pattern yet? It still gets worse. We'd have to have a breeding population of this new species, large enough to offset any deaths with new births--and extra births so they can grow in population. If the breeding population is far too small, they will die off faster than they can reproduce, and we wouldn't exist. If it is only a little too small, inbreeding becomes a problem, and genetic defects begin to run rampant through the population, and they would die off--albeit more slowly than in the first scenario--and we wouldn't exist.

Obviously, we exist, so the breeding population of this new 46-chromosomed species was large enough to survive for the past 5-7 million years (the best estimate of how long since we split from the apes).

You know, it seems the more I study the natural sciences, the more I see God-shaped holes in our understanding of the world. Life's funny that way.