My new alternative “theory of evolution” evolved in the last post a bit. Now it is like this. There were four creation events (though it does not mean that we need an intelligent designer for explaining them)
The first was when life started some 2 billion years ago. It started an era that released oxygen to the atmosphere and developed cells with a nucleus. The era ended to finding a gene (or genes) for multicellular life. At the end of this era was a catastrophe, the snowball earth.
The second creation event was at the beginning of the Paleozoic era. All present phylas developed in this time. Forests grew during this era. Trilobes were the dominant animal species order. Life moved to the ground. The era ended to a catastrophe.
The third creation event was at the beginning of the Mesozoic era. There were large sea creatures and dinosaurs. Five orders of dinosaurs developed in a short time in the beginning of this ear. Birds developed during this era, but a bit later. The era ended to a catastrophe.
The fourth creation event was at the beginning of the Cenozoic era. Fourteen new orders of mammals developed in 10-15 million years. Human developed late in this era. We are presently witnessing a mass extinction event.
In all but the present mass extinction events it seems that our sun was passing the spirals of the Milky Way. There were more meteor showers and comets, but probably also higher cosmic radiation. I still do not think that cosmic radiation was high enough to explain the emergence of new orders of animals. Mutations from cosmic radiation are more probably responsible for extinctions of species than for creation of new ones. I prefer to find some other mechanism to explain in the creation events, since it seems quite improbable for life to find new useful exons by random mutations.
During these eras there was evolution. It was evolution by single mutations. Single mutations in the protein-coding sections create alleles. They mostly stay functional and have only minor effect on the way the gene works. Single mutations in the control section of a gene have often very large effect. They can turn functionalities on and off and they can easily create new species, but by using existing genetic material. Single mutations on the control part explain well the creation of new species during the eras. Yet, it is unclear if humans appeared as a result of these mutations or if there was a special creation event. This is because humans developed the capability for creating higher culture that other animals do not have.
The good thing is that if a biologist is working on any of these eras, he will not need an assumption of an intelligent designer. If he is wise, he will stay away of the four special times when he might need such an assumption.
Let us go to these creation events. One solution is to have an intelligent designer who creates the useful exons, but there are other possibilities. On is what I earlier suggested, viruses or bacteria would carry genes across species, orders of species and even phylas. That is not impossible and in this way the problem how to get the exons could be pushed all the way to the 2 billion years of single cell life.
You naturally think that this is highly speculative while the evolution theory is a scientific theory and has much better explanations. So, let me remember how in the early 1970ies I was taught evolution: here we have whales, seals and sea otters. All were originally land animals. The whales have been longest in the sea, so they evolved a tail like fish, seals have been medium time in the sea, so they almost have a tail but it is still feet, while otters just went to the sea, so they still have their four feet and they swim with their tail. This is evolution theory just like Darwin would have liked it and this is totally speculative. There is no whatsoever reason why the sea otter would one day have a fish tail. How I would explain these is maybe that the whales may have got a gene for the tail from Ichthyosaurs, transmitted by viruses, seals and otters have evolved by mutations in the control parts of the genes and the former has feet shortened and moved to the end of the body, while the latter has got a developed tail. These two latter cases are examples of such evolution that can happen through a small number of random mutations and selection guides the mutations, while the first one may be special as it may be a transfer of a gene from former species. I do not know which explanation is more speculative. They both are.
Taking the option that genes can transfer from older species via viruses makes it unnecessary to have the intelligent designer in each of the four creation events. But there is an argument why we may still want to have intelligent and either eternal or at least very long lived beings in our model. It is that the first creation story in the Bible corresponds so well with what happened in the history of life. The fifth day is the Mesozoic era, the sixt day is the Cenozoic era, the third day is the Paleozoic era. In the middle of the Paleozoic era life moved from the sea to the land and that explains why the visionary sees the sun and moon appearing in the fourth day. The second day starts from the beginning of the life and the first day starts from the Big Bang. So, there is a very good match. We may assume that this story is based on a vision. The Biblical story is probably not the original version since in reality all of these days ended in a catastrophe while in the Bible God always looks and says it is good. There are other versions of this story, such as the Hindu version where every day ends to a catastrophe and there appears Manu, the savior. Or the Islandic version where the present era will end to Ragnarök. It is very possible that the story is originally from the beginning of the Iron Age and maybe even Indo-European, from Persia.
This being the case, how can a visionary see what happened to the Earth in the last 4.5 billion years? Obviously only if there are beings who remember what happened. Let us call them angels. So, a prophet or visionary can see a vision from angel’s memory. Some prophets can even predict the future, though much worse. How can they do that as future has not yet happened? They can see visions of angel’s plans or expectations for the future. Angels probably can guess what God intends to do.
This some would say is already too speculative, but I do not know. It would be great if the past is remembered by some beings. Then we only need to invent a way to get these memories out and historians would have a much easier job. We could check many riddles of history just by finding a way to see visions. Maybe the angels do not remember the small things, but I would at least suggest that paleologists would start studying meditation techniques in order to see visions of the evolution of the life on the earth. That would solve the problem if the evolution theory is correct. Ups, according to that theory there is no God, so there are no angels. Well, it is worth to try anyway.
There is another reason to suspect that there may be eternal or very long living beings. It is because we apparently have a soul. People, who do not like the term soul, call it consciousness, but that is not correct: you can lose consciousness when sleeping or being unconscious, but you still are you. The soul is still there. The conscious mind is not born as a side-effect of a brain. We can build computers which have a brain but they do not have a conscious mind. Trust me on this, they are just machines.
In order to explain the soul, or the conscious mind, the assumption of the intelligent designer is quite useful. I mean, there is no better explanation. The mind could be a part of the mind of the intelligent designer, not born when a creature is born and not necessarily dying when a creature is dying. All mammals have a soul, as they are very similar to us. All birds also have a soul. Then it gets less clear, but at some point animals do not have a soul. A bacterium does not have a conscious mind. It could be like with electronics: some can connect to the Internet, some are just stupid machines. The commentators in the Internet are not machines, though the connection is through machines.
If the soul does not necessarily die when we die, then what happens to the soul? I think that the ideas of the Heaven and the Hell came from Zoroastrism. They let birds eat their dead. Birds fly to the sky, to the heaven, so their souls went to the Heaven. The neighboring countries cremated their bodies. Their souls perished in flames, so they went to the Hell. While if you bury the dead to the ground, then their souls are sleeping in the ground. Maybe these concepts developed in this way. Especially people who thought that the soul is in blood, the fate of the blood would have been the most important: up to the sky, to the flames or to the grave. At one point Jews used a sarcophagus, a flesh eater, a calcium coffin. Flesh, including blood, disappears from the coffin and only bones are left. Obviously, the soul has gone to the Heaven with the blood.
These old beliefs aside, we may indeed think that the soul is sleeping after death, nonfunctional. It would be natural since we do not see ghosts or lost souls looking for bodies. At some future time these sleeping souls may become functional, who knows.
Clearly, the evolution theory leads to very religious concepts. There is another creation story in the Bible right after the first one. It seems to be much older. I think it is the polar star, world pillar myth and this myth probably dates to 16,000 years ago when Deneb was the Polar Star. The two creation stories are in this way not at all alternatives. One describes billions of years, while another covers only thousands of years.
Let us return to the original problem. The evolution theory has serious problems and I cannot fix them in these posts, but we more or less agree what has been the history of the life. The creation story in the Bible matches quite well with the known history. Is it not then so that the creation story is just as good explanation of what happened than the evolution theory?
No, I am not joking, why should I be joking? It is a serious matter.