Fear Of Extinction And Evolution

Last updated on January 8th, 2022

Why is there fear of extinction?

The fear of extinction among those who believe in evolution seems rather strange.  According to evolution, each living thing is supposed to have evolved from one simple life form, based on a ‘primeval soup’ of organic molecules. Of course, the origin of the particles making up these molecules is mostly ignored, as is the origin of the entire physical existence of the universe and everything in it; but that is another matter.

My point is that, if all complex organisms alive today evolved from one very simple organism, surely the extinction of any one species is not so tragic?  Surely the same evolution of simple organisms to complex organisms can occur again?  Perhaps life on Earth could do with a reset; after all, no one seems to be very happy with it.

Mass extinction and evolution

If all living things today really did evolve from one simple life form, why is there such fear of extinction within species? Surely, based on evolutionary theory, within a few hundred million years all species will have evolved into different forms anyway?

Well, some seem to not have bothered evolving: we refer to certain creatures alive today as being ancient and prehistoric.  One example of this is the Horseshoe Crab, which is supposed to have barely evolved at all during the last 500 million years. I find it peculiar how this archaic creature possesses the ability to regrow its limbs, which is an ability we could do with — and we’re supposedly quite a modern evolutionary outcome!

We are led to believe that many species became extinct during mass extinction events millions of years ago.  The Permian-Triassic extinction event, which occurred around 250 million years ago, is claimed to have caused the extinction of around 95% of species.  Scientists tell us that, millions of years ago, we have had temperature fluctuations far greater than what we are experiencing now. If the living things that survived those mass extinction events evolved into the hundreds of thousands of different life forms we see today, most of which would die out if we experienced temperature extremes again, why is there such fear of extinction?

Supposedly evolution is an ongoing transformation, and things naturally evolve around their environment?  We find life forms in even the most harshest environments on earth, some of which are almost beyond belief. Evolution says that life shall go on regardless, that new and diverse species can develop from the most simple life forms. It is claimed that when the big bang occurred the environment was extremely hostile, and yet life supposedly arose from it. Why the concern?

Evolution and interdependence

Evolution has no limitations: it takes a single form of life and metamorphoses it into many vastly differing and more complex forms. The thing that makes evolution seem such a foolish idea is that all of these forms of life are interdependent upon each other. If one species died out it could affect another, and so on and so forth. In the end all forms of life could die because of this interdependence. Surely it would have been better that the very first life form had not evolved at all? But I digress.

The problem with interdependence is that it doesn’t seem to fit in with the theory of evolution. For example, flowers produce nectar to attract bees, so that when retrieving the nectar the bees brush against the flower’s stamens and receive pollen grains. When the bee takes a drink of nectar from another flower the pollen grains it was carrying will fertilise this flower.

How did the flowers come to produce nectar in order to attract bees? Why does the flower seem designed to depend upon an external source to fertilise it rather than being self-pollinating? Surely a flower would have to know that living things exist around it that could take its pollen to another flower, know that such things are able to ingest nectar, and would have to know their size, and the way they could ingest? Flowers cannot know these facts, so how did this happen?

Perhaps the bees just evolved to take advantage of the nectar the flowers produced… but why would a flower produce something like nectar unless it had a reason? How did the flowers evolve ultraviolet signals specifically to attract the bees, considering that there is no other benefit or use of the ultraviolet signals?

Evolution claims that insects evolved before flowers, and that insects had photoreceptors in their eyes that could see ultraviolet before flowers came into being, so it is clear that evolution claims flowers evolved for the bees, and not the other way around.  And why did bees decide to try sticking their tongues into flowers when they didn’t know anything about nectar? Evolution cannot explain this. Evolution cannot explain how a bee, from birth, knows how to find nectar from a flower.

People do not seem to trust in evolution, at least where extinction is involved.  Regardless of this, they still convince themselves that evolution is how life arose, even without knowing hardly any of the facts surrounding it, and without asking some fundamental questions.  This leads me to believe that any excuse for not believing in God will be gladly received by mankind.