You may think you’re the boss, but you’re not. Your genes are the boss. Your genes are the immortal ones (replicated down through generations through offsprings (natural selection and genetic variation)), whose sole purpose – evolutionary mandate – is to survive: to replicate: to immortalize. Call it an Evolutionarily Directed Compulsion: the operations of genes are comparative to biological colonies, e.g. ants and bees, in their extraordinary structures of social organization – exhibiting division of labor, intercommunication, organized militancy and collaborative problem solving; and just as individual members don’t have any intimate knowledge of their self-worth, but respond to the directive inherent to establishing the colony – to build, to protect, to serve – so also do genes that build-up into an organism have the inherent imperative to immortalize – to survive from age to age to age to age, from environment to environment – through replication, adoption and adaptation. So, your urges, your instincts to vice: your lust, greed, your envy… are not demons, or demonic. Your unruly feelings are your genes, having founded a communication channel to brain, saying: “we’ve decided down here that ‘this’ is good for our replication, our survival”. It is your duty to acquire as much relevant knowledge (the truth) to educate your genes via the same channel (your brain) and tell them: “there are other factors beyond your selfishness at this higher level – I see what you can’t see: an external that is a composition of other elements including other genes that are not you ONLY: the universe, nature, society. And our survival and their survival are inextricably connected and indispensably dependent. So, gene, if you truly want to survive (not end up extinct or diminished in capacity and capability: not end up dead or in jail, incapacitated, or miserable, or without purpose and self-worth and self-respect), listen to me and get trained in the program of discipline, self-awareness and morality”.

Your genes form structural arrangements called DNA (and RNA – the functional form of DNA). This structural arrangement consists of information encoded by random yet naturally selected replication and/or mutation within a gene pool (aka when sperm meets egg; each copied from preceding gene pool – parents’ from grand parents’ from great grand parents’…). The DNA structure is made up of two helical strands of sugar and phosphate bonded together by four bases: adenine(a), thymine(t), cytosine(c), and guanine(g). The pairing and consequential sequencing of these bases along the helixes carry the information that generate the coding and decoding for further organism-building – analogous to the pairing and sequencing of musical notes/tunes to produce melodies. RNA is the form in which DNA coding and decoding, translation and expression, and transfer and transmission of gene data and information occur. These progression (DNA/RNA from atcg) colonize to form further higher ordered structures with the chromosome (the defined structural arrangement of DNA) along with the nucleus which houses it, forming the central activities, and the cytoplasm and membrane constituting the peripheral activities – all coming together to constitute a cell. This one cell now self-replicates (cell division) into more and more (‘daughter’) cells. Cells build-up (combine) based on decoded information from their respective chromosomes, into even higher order compositions and structures consistent with specific functionalities: organs and systems, and ultimately, into the singularity symphony of all the different levels of structures and functionalities – the organism. This morphology (of cell to organism) is sustained as a cycle in the evolution of species through breeding – with the seeds or pollen of plants and flowers transferred by insects or wind or a stream of water; or with procreation of insemination or sexual propagation among species. Clearly, the complexity of this processes of accumulation and replication guarantees the inevitability of ‘genetic variation’ – distinctions and variations that are consistent/present/inherent to any copywriting process no matter how good the copier machine. As a result, there is to be an ever so slight deviation in characteristics from the original. When this deviation is fundamental, that is when it produces a deviancy in make-up and configuration from the original (e.g., replacing an “a” with a “g” in a DNA sequencing), it is called mutation.

As the gene pool expands and the organisms spread into different environments and varying climatic conditions – ranging from severe to mild – the influence of ‘selection’ adjusts accordingly. Selection is the functioning of a web of complex relations between the compositions of nature (species and their environments). In nature all compositions are or can be connected directly or indirectly. ‘selection’ is this connectivity towards each component’s individual contribution to nature’s equilibrium, or skew away from wholesome annihilation, which it (selection) accomplishes through the functions and occurrences of migration, geological formations and transformations, cross-interactions and intersections of ecosystems, relations and interrelations of species and the accumulation of gene variations. Embedded in this general selection and a factor as well as a benefactor of it, is ‘natural selection’. Natural selection is the connectivity of the living components of nature towards their individual survival and the accumulation, perennial preservation and augmentation of their very own components – genes.

A gene pool at the level of organism is called ‘species’: group that has at least two in the population physiologically capable of fertile reproduction of offspring; distinct by reproductive and other features; and/or gene varieties that are linked by a recent common ancestor. Variety is simply genetic variations in the evolutionary descent that cannot be identified distinctly as species. It is through variety that diversity and ultimately speciation (the forming of species) occur, the absence of which results in extinction. Speciation and extinction can be regarded as equalizers of evolution – acting as pluses and minuses to the equation of evolution through the agents of selection, natural selection and the environment in which the species is influenced. Environments constitute the habitats in which species operate, and migrate to and from. We know now from data that shifting of tectonic plates occurring over a long period of time were responsible for the formation of many islands, continents and other geological formations as known today. The effect of this was the inadvertent creation of new habitats with distinct environmental conditions, and in some cases causing perennial separation of species populations.

When a species population becomes divided by geological and environmental conditions, forcing different migratory paths, the now separate populations begin to evolve independently subject to their environments and the newly established gene pool (genetic drift). But Species migration invariably produces gene migration over time because different species populations eventually meet and begin to interact. And at first, this facilitates drastic gene variations; but that becomes less and less drastic over time until a single population and consequently, a single species is formed (gene flow).

Exhibition of natural selection is gene information (not necessarily the survival of the fittest, but the survival of the well-connected – to other of nature’s components offering means of survival and thriving) that dictates: “I [the gene] rather combine with these genes and not those genes, because archived records decoded from within my same gene-info, has shown that the gene I favor possesses specific traits that can advance my cause for immortalization” {at the level of organism, this manifests as ‘selective breeding’ or ‘sexual selection’: “I [Miss/Mr. A] rather mate with him/her [Mr./Miss B], and not him/her [Mr./Miss C] , because the gene-info translated by my brain coupled with personal experiences retained by same my brain, compels me identifying him/her as having the characteristics, the qualities for my survival, thriving, happiness}). Evolution through selection and natural selection influences not just at the gene level, but can act on the individual organism as a whole, the singular colony or an ensemble of organisms and colonies as one body. Applying a cross-environmental comparison to the modern era, evolution is akin to deep learning in a computer environment with selection and natural selection being the operating system and software in the ecological realm of nature. It (evolution) takes a much more solid and out-reaching effect in advancing genetic variation – producing distinctions and variations in physiology and genealogy constituting in more than one species (genuses and families). Humans are members of a family of primates known as apes; a process that has span 6 million years. How do we know all this? Because we can identify an unbroken link in DNA copyrighted distinctions and variations consistencies from gene to specie to genus to family, as well as extensive body of evidence in nature revealed through strata and stratification phenomena – for humans as with any other organism – linking and sequencing down to the ‘last universal ancestor’ 4 billion years ago.

Evidentiary strata and stratification phenomena refer to the numerous ways nature employs for recording evolutionary timelines – each stratum or stratified segment/sector/layer having internally consistent characteristics that distinguish it from the other:

(1) tree-ring dating: a cross-sectional cut through the stem of a tree will reveal rings (growth rings) about the center. Growth rings form outwards from the center, the most currently formed ring being the most outer diameter next to the tree back; each ring marking a year in the life of the tree. The formation of these rings is a factor of climatic conditions under which the trees grow in the same periods of time – each single ring pattern forms identically for tress growing at the same time in the same geographical zone. So, suppose you have cross-sections revealing their growth rings intact, and you line-up the remains of a hundred trees of varying but increasing ages, where the periods (the years) in which they grow overlap unbroken, you can identify (a. the date of outshoot and death of the trees (b. how old each tree was before death (c. which trees existed in the same periods, say in 50500 BCE to 5000BCE, and draw a chronological timeline of their existence

(2) fossil record: when organisms die, they have the tendency, under the right conditions (composition and structure at death, environmental conditions, etc.), to fossilize – the deposition or accumulation (sedimentation) over time, of minerals and/or organic particles on organisms’ remains that are embedded in the Earth’s crust . These depositions stratify; that is, form in strata (layers). The process of sedimentation produces rocks – sedimentary rocks. The expansive bed of fossil-containing sedimentary rocks in all the Earth’s crust is call ‘fossil record’. Extracting from the fossil record, you can then employ the process of radiometric (radioactive) dating to measure radioactive decay in isotopes of an organism’s remains, and thereby with more or less accuracy, determine within an error of 1/100th, the period of the organism’s existence. In a sense, radioactive dating of isotopes (of the chemical elements (carbon, potassium, argon, uranium, lead, etc.) with distinct number of neutrons in atomic nucleus) is stratification on the microscopic level in reverse: consistency in loss (decay) of energy per year from a fossil (or half-life – the amount of time (number of years) for the isotope’s initial energy to fall to half). The decay – of carbon-14-isotope, or of potassium into argon, or of uranium to lead, etc. – is consistent from the date of the organism’s death.

(3) coral calendar: corals (marine organisms that form colonies) come together to form ‘reefs’ (underwater ecosystems knitted together by calcium carbonate). Here, physics meets biology meets aquatic science: the moon exacts gravitational pull on the earth, and the earth on the moon (where and when this gravitation pull of the moon on the earth is experienced on earth’s body of water, high-tides result on the side tilted towards the pull, and low-tides at the other end). This gravitational tug-of-war causes the earth’s and the moon’s rotations to slow down over time. Recall: the time for the Earth to complete on rotation about its axis is one day; the time for the moon to complete its revolution around the Earth is one month; the time for this system of the Earth and the moon to make one complete revolution around the sun is one year. So, this slow-down in momentum will mean that fewer and fewer days will go by in completing each subsequent revolution around the sun. Much like tree-rings, corals deposit growth lines of lime (growth bands) on and/or within its structure. These growth bands correspond to the diurnal and annual time scales of the earth-moon-sun systems. So, for modern corals, you can count a band a day and 365 bands per year. Fossilized corals also stratify producing geological time scales (relating the strata to time); therefore, the number of growth bands for fossils from different geographical locations, but extracted from the same stratum (or rock layer) will have the same number of growth band for the same time periods. And for deeper time analysis, radiometric dating can then be used to place a time on the corals’ period of existences. Some fossilized corals have revealed growth bands that indicate periods of varying number of days; of periods of less loss in momentum; of periods when it took the Earth-moon systems more days than currently, to revolve once around the sun – a period when it took 435 days per year; 412 days per year; 387 days per year.

Bringing it all together (evidentiary strata and stratification phenomena, and DNA copywriting distinctions and variations consistencies) and by reverse engineering and sound scientific premises, we infer that in time, we can draw an unbroken link: from the elementary constituting the first molecular bonds to the biological composite forming the very first self-replicating cell/bacterium to the estimated 8.7 million species in nature.

The understanding and appreciation of evolution is found in the understanding and appreciation of two of its key components: ‘natural selection’ and ‘genetic variation’ already introduced above.

As explained, genes structure into DNA, carrying information that is continually decoded for higher and higher levels of structural build-up, eventually forming an/the organism. In picking what genes are eligible from the gene pool, genes perform discrimination and bias – towards securing traits with the most ‘potent’ characteristics for survival and immortalization (based on the information at its disposal). But it is in the mutating and combining that the ‘selection’ and ‘variation’ become key in understanding evolution.

So, let’s consider gene pool containing genes named 1, 2, 3…, 10. Let’s say in the initial discrimination and biasing process, 1, 2, 3 and 4 are selected as eligible. 1, 2, 3 and 4 then combine/mutate to form the next-level structure. Consider the following scenarios of combination that each produces an outcome:

I. (4 )1÷2×3=6

II. 1÷2×3=1.5

III. -1+2×3=5

Consider that the outcomes (results) illustrate the structuring of organism and consequently, species; and the operators (+,-,÷, etc.) as illustrative of the operation of mutation and combination guided by the degree of favor or bias towards each gene and its corresponding traits. So, for instance, let’s suppose gene 2 carries traits for adaptation in water; 1 carries for survival mechanism by flight; 4, adaptation at high altitude; and 3 for predator deterrence, or dominance over prey:

Scenario (I): strongly favoring genes 1, 4 and 3, implying aerial dominance. Wings and the hawk can be construed as an organism from the species represented by the outcome 6.

Scenario (II): strongly favoring genes 2 and 3, implying aquatic dominance. Fins and the shark can be construed as an organism from the species represented by the outcome 1.5

Scenario (III): biasing for 1 and favoring for 3; can be construed as an organism from the species of land creatures represented by the outcome 5. Man is a good example on this scenario. But man has been able to surpass (on standards of ‘survival of the fittest’ criteria) all other organisms emerging from our proverbial ‘outcome 5’, by man’s evolutionary course favoring the genetic advancement of intellectual capacity (bigger {higher functioning capabilities} brain; more neurons).

It’s necessary to point out that evolution occurs over an immensely large periods of time – in a microscopic scale beyond our minds’ comprehension. I mention this to counter the argument that “if evolution is real, why do we not see it happening today?” It is happening, and continues to happen. I can theorize based on empirical evidence (surrounding experiences and observations) that many a nature’s species have approached critical mass: criteria spurring physiological evolution in order of magnitude of a few billion years ago have been greatly tapered by evolutionary stable strategies/states (ESS) adopted by and evolved in species – that is, a hawk doesn’t necessarily need to fly higher for its survival; a lion doesn’t necessarily need more teeth or claws to successfully hunt down preys; and man’s evolution has turned to intellectual evolution as the tool for survival and thriving. However, if the criteria change tomorrow, say, the skies begin to spit fire and brimstone (and no species come up with an adaptive/intellectual/technological solution), genes of any surviving organism will begin to strategize long term. Nonetheless, there is such manifestations as ‘rapid evolution’. Under intense and existential duress like imminent death and explicit demand for survival and thriving, the evolution process in a variety, species, genus or family can progress rapidly and occur in a matter of one generation or less – like bacteria evolving to become immune to a specific drug, or the progressive growth of intelligence in humans. In fact, even faster and more definite than rapid evolution are the capabilities at hand today and for the future – in the form of gene editing and the like. Gene editing tools and processes like CRISPR and Cas 9 can be used very simply to direct or redirect evolutionary growth of individual organisms by replacing one unwanted gene ID with a desired one, or in fact used to create species by altering genes in sequence in a manner that sustains and advances the change’s heritability within the species (gene drive).

There’s little doubt that modernization through technology, industrialization and globalization at the same time as altering the compositions of the components of nature (and ultimately, nature’s response to the changes – sometimes to the point of irreversibility), has transformed a large swath of our habitable world into domesticated and statically cultured environments, leaving more room for intersections with artifacts rather than organic interactions with the deeper and broader roots and branches of nature. In other words, the reach of selection is inadvertently and consistently being confined with the proliferation of modern civilization. It is worthwhile addressing at this point the fact that unless a solution is found, the same evolutionary journey that has spurred man’s intellectual ascent has the capacity to produce drastic and ominous destruction – not from without (as with a meteorite striking), but from within (from unmitigated effects of disruptions to ecological and climatic balance through activities of modern civilization). Nevertheless, all experiences within or without the ecological habitats of all species undeniably boosters the fact that evolution through selection, geological transformation, natural selection and genetic variation is fundamentally, the origin story of species and life.