Waiting for a Miracle - Leonard Cohen [Evolution]

My friend and I spoke of evolution last night. He said that Pius XII in his Humani Generis laid out a kind of map for how evolution fits into things. He said that - he said that the idea is that the body or the animal element of us, is straightforwardly studied as part of an evolutionary chain, but that the rational soul - that is the part of us that is rational and above the animals - not just toolmaking, because birds weave nests, but maybe when we first made an equilateral triangle or drew something cool on a cave wall. I guess maybe you could call it , when we first had a unique understanding of abstract objects.

Catechism 390 says "The account of the fall in Genesis 3 uses figurative language, but affirms a primeval event that took place at the beginning of the history of man". The Original happiness of Adam and Eve, in a state of justice, integrity and immortality, the command of obedience, the sin and fall from the state of innocence and the promise of the Redeemer are not such as to be verifiable in the fossil record or testable against evolution theory. Pius XII's Humani Generis explicitly rejects the opposing theory of theological polygenism , which maintains that Adam represents a number of adams, not just one. And that all of these multiple Adams are somehow the progenitors of all of us. Monogenism means that all human beings have their origin in a single species. Genetic traces show that to be traced almost completely down to one being which lived in what is now Africa. The trace is through the female XX pairs because they are easier to trace I guess. People call this the "Out of Africa" model. Its actually pretty popular in modern anthropology.

I am not sure where I am going with this, really except that its pretty easy to think about how entropy really takes almost everything and there are just a few of us here who know how to fight it really well. Its probably instinct in us to find them. They are sometimes beautiful. Sometimes clever. Sometimes all of the above . And they are in a special place. Aren't they?

I did +much needed+ 42 miles on the bike last night. I am feeling nice. Didn't do the run but then after 42 miles you don't care. I flew past Jenny's monument and everyone's water bottle was piled up over there. There must have been, 50 water bottles there. Not just recyclables but good ones like my USAT one that I had on my bike.(filled with fermented cytomax. note to self. refrigerate). Some people say that when you die, thats it. You are gone. I was gone from there. It was a small light on the trail. Lots of water bottles. Right near the railroad tracks.

I was flying home in the dark. You can think there on the bike. Sometimes its fun to find out how little you have to really think about something in order to get it right. I have been trying to write about what might happen if say, energy driven networks of molecules could be the progenitor of life. Maybe I just miss moshing. Actually I seem to recall it was slamdancing before it was moshing. At any rate 20 mph in pitch black helps you concentrate. You fly down the trail either keeping sharp focus on what is right in front of you, these faded lines on the trail just in front of your tire, or maybe a light part of the shadow to the right or left you can keep an equal distance from. Or a point way out in front. The faster you go the better sometimes. And you can think clearly. Maybe I was.

So which came first, the chicken or the egg?

Well. DNA holds the recipe for protein construction. Yet that information cannot be copied or retrieved without proteins. Which large molecule then appeared first. Proteins (the chicken) or DNA (the egg) ?