Why an understanding of evolution is a necessary foundation for an environmental ethic

Let's say that rather than "setting the grandeur of life in motion" (Darwin in On the Origin of Species), God built each species with similar building blocks. One could argue against the vast amounts of genetic evidence for human evolution that humans are built with the same pieces as chimps much like a truck and a van share similar engines and frames. Obviously, many species have hearts because they work for circulating blood and who's to say God didn't make each heart based of a central model. Maybe he even got better and better at "building" as He worked up to humans. That then sets humans at the top of Aristotle's ladder. From our view, we are the pinnacle..the most sentient beings with big 4-chambered hearts and bipedal strides. From this haughty spot, we look down to chimps and frogs and emphasize our differences to maintain our perch on the top rung.

But what of the squid's eye and the insects' open circulatory systems. Those work in their own right and are amazingly complex and unique. Each morphotype of fly has a unique arrangement of hairs distinct for that species and lizards form an amazing rainbow from species to species. Are they any less than us? Yes, perhaps, if we view ourselves as the pinnacle of creation, above all else and unconnected to it.

Now assume that all the beauty and diversity we see is created through the process of evolution. Species have diverged and accumulated mutations and new functions over time. We can trace this history through similarity in the structure of four limbs with five digits and the "junk" in our DNA. No one species is superior to another because each is a product of gradual shaping by a different environment. Some survived better small, some big, some with long necks, some with stubby legs. But deep down we're all the same. AGC&T.

With a proper understanding of evolution, we begin to notice our similarities, rather than our differences from other species. We share hundreds of DNA relics with chimpanzees. We have the similar bone structure to fish and frogs and felines. We are not inferior because of these similarities, rather we are one unique strategy to surviving the pressures of being earth-bound.

The very recognition of our ties to this earth and how our species is shaped by millions of years on it, is what we needed to become a heaven-bound society. If we acknowledge, rather than reject, the theory of evolution, we recognize our connectivity to all other living things. The earth becomes not something we own or are entitled to, but a home for life on all scales. When one of our cities impinges on the space of a threatened species, would we not then stop and think about the bit of humanness we displace if we barrel down in the name of progress? If a chamber of my heart ceased to function when I extracted logs from the habitat of a tiny warbler, then would I recognize it's contribution to my existence? What if every time I washed my dishes, my lungs felt a little weak as I lost the evolutionary contribution of the fish who's lake is now damed and oxygen deprived. Maybe if we realized all the earth has done for us beyond providing raw materials and living space, we wouldn't sprawl to our greatest extent just because we are able to.

The earth is and continues to be an experiment of epic proportions. We are only on the edge of understanding how rock and ooze gave way to such diverse life. If we damage the laboratory, where will we find the answers? We not only won't understand the process of speciation, but also the tenets that medicine and agriculture rely on. With the natural laboratory gone (or gone awry), it will be difficult to improve the human condition. On one hand, because we do not reap the benefits of materials and medicine, but even more so because we will sever the connection that makes us human....our origins. The genealogy that is evolution teaches us that we are not alone, that we are indebted to all creatures that came before, that we are delicate and dependent on the natural world, and that something great, even God, is behind the magnificence.