Supernal

Chapter 6

11:10 pm Thursday, 21st June 2029

Secure Briefing Room on the OCF

"I don't totally deny the theory of evolution," Toby stressed. "I absolutely believe that single-cell life evolved from a chemical soup in ponds and puddles and eventually crawled onto land. Then over millions of years, many different primitive species emerged and were transformed over time by environmental changes. In other words, Darwin's 'survival of the fittest'.

There is good scientific evidence for the survival of the fittest. For instance, during the Industrial Revolution in Britain, generations of a type of moth grew successively darker in color. That was because the increased pollution made the darker moths harder for birds to see, so they didn't get eaten and over time became predominant. I have no problem with logical examples of natural selection like that.

My beef is with the big leaps. For example, Darwin proposed that whales evolved from bears that spent all their time in the sea hunting for food. He suggested that their mouths grew huge to catch fish and their nostrils gradually moved to the tops of their heads to make breathing easier. They became the whale's blowholes. But, no fossil evidence has ever been found of a creature that was halfway between a bear and a whale. In fact, we've only ever discovered the remains of fully formed bears, and fully formed whales, never anything 'in transition' as it were."

"So, if Darwin was right, you'd expect to find a fossilized bear with a big mouth and nostrils on its forehead," Rob frowned. "That's just weird."

"Yes, it would be extremely weird. But according to the conventional evolutionary theory of transmutation, an animal like that must have existed at some time in the dim and distant past. I believe that the mutation scenario doesn't hold water. Although mutations are common, only a minute proportion can be passed on to the next generation. Only germline mutations are hereditary, and unless both parents have the same mutation it would be diluted over the succeeding generations so any offspring would gradually revert back to the original form. So evolution through mutation has an infinitesimal chance of success."

"So how can you rule out the existence of God as the creator of life?" Summers asked.

"Because physics has proved how the universe came into being through the Big Bang," Toby pointed out. "And science has proved how simple life began. There is no reason to believe that a god was involved and I'm sure that, if there was a god, we'd have found some real evidence of its existence by now."

"So the only alternative, according to your theories, is that aliens have been manipulating life on Earth?"

"Basically, yes. I believe an intelligent life form has used genetic engineering to construct new species, and it was the example that I used in my paper that caused all the trouble."

"And that was?"

"That humans couldn't have evolved from apes without intelligent design."

#

"You know that the big leap forward in primate development was the ability to stand upright?" Toby continued.

"Yeah, standing upright meant we could see the lions charging," Rob answered for the other two.

"That's right. It gave huge advantages when hunting. But did you know that apes can flex their feet until the top of the foot almost touches the ankle?"

All three shook their heads.

"An ape's ankle joint is adapted for climbing trees so it needs to allow the foot to swivel to an acute angle, but that's very unstable when the ape tries to stand. The ball and socket in a human ankle are completely different. Our ankle joint has limited movement to hold the foot steady at ninety degrees so we can stand upright steadily.

Another fundamental difference is that humans have a tendon called the nuchal ligament between the back of the head and neck. It helps to hold your head level when you're running. That tendon has attachment points on a human skeleton that apes don't have.

So, what I'm getting at, is that there are significant differences between the skeletons of apes and humans, but of all the early remains that have been found of both, none have shown any sort of developmental signs of ankle bone or cranial changes. If these changes had been the result of natural evolution they would have taken hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of years. Some fossil evidence should have been left behind."

"I see," Summers said thoughtfully. "You're saying that there are plenty of remains of ape skeletons, and of human skeletons, but nothing in between?"

"The missing link," Charlie added.

"Exactly.  The link has never been found" Toby nodded. "It's as if the changes happened overnight. And that doesn't apply only to primates, there are missing links in dozens of other species."

"It sounds to me like my conspiracy theory is not far short of the mark," Rob said. "I think a bunch of aliens have been having fun, messing with our livestock for the last few million years."

Toby found himself starting to agree with Rob's opinions. He had always assumed that the alien race he believed was responsible for genetic manipulation must be extinct. But, if they were still around and observing Earth, what was their objective?

#

"My wife is a very clever lady," Summers remarked. "I'm starting to see now why she decided to keep a tight lid on all this. She and Phil Taylor must have deduced what the aliens might reveal to us from researching the background information on the two of you and reading your papers. This stuff is dynamite. If it turns out to be the case it could stir up all sorts of problems from religious extremists."

Rob laughed. "I wonder what the Pope would think of all this? He might be out of a job by next week!"

"It's not funny, Rob," Charlie admonished. "If the God that billions of people worship is proved to be false, they'll be devastated. Just think of all the poor souls who endure dreadful lives in the hope of an afterlife. If their faith is destroyed they'll have nothing left to live for."

Rob looked suitably chastised.

"Sorry, I wasn't thinking about them, I've always believed in extra-terrestrials myself so this is all pretty much what I expected to happen ... one day."

"And that day is today," Summers announced. "It's midnight. It is now the 22nd of June 2029. A date that may well go down in history."