Fabulous
Odds
June
1 2026
Let
time run backwards,
trace
the branches back
until
they converge,
and
imagine the primordial cell
where
we all began.
How
many billions of years have passed
since
the common ancestor
of
every living thing?
The we that
supersedes
the
narcissism of small difference
on
the planet we share.
Contingency,
serendipity,
an
accident of chemistry
on
an airless rock
that
barely had time to cool,
a
small planet circling a random star
in
a remote arm
of
a minor galaxy.
It
took 6 days for God
and
they call it a miracle.
But
I’d rather consider the fabulous odds
of
life beginning like this,
than
a father figure, made in our image
who
summoned-up existence
with
a wave of his hand.
Who
watches over us still,
yet
keeps a careful distance
as
we fumble through life.
An
endless 7th day
on
which an absent God
persists
in his rest.
So
the Buddhist
who
refuses to kill a fly
is
truly his brother’s keeper.
How
can one not admire
his
reverence for life
and
abhorrence of suffering,
no
matter how bothersome or humble
a
life form it is?
What,
then, would LUCA* think of us?
Distant
cousins
who
kill our own kind.
Who
imagine ourselves
overlords
of the world
doing
what we like with it.
Who
believe there’s a plan
and
its purpose is us,
a
Creator
who
made Man on the final day
by
breathing life into dust;
as
good a metaphor as any
for
the the virtue of humility,
even
if it somehow still does
put
us at the centre.
Yet
what could be more humbling
than
cultivating gratitude
for
the accident of birth?
For
having beaten
such
unfathomable odds;
surviving,
for 4 billion years
all
the wild contingencies
of
life on earth?
*LUCA: “Last Universal Common
Ancestor”
(According to “Perplexity”:
The hypothetical ancestor from which
bacteria, archaea, and eukaryotes all descended. Recent studies
suggest LUCA may have lived about 4.2 billion years ago, very early
in Earth’s history. It was likely a complex microbe-like organism,
probably anaerobic and able to use hydrogen and carbon dioxide for
energy. LUCA was not the first life form, but the last population
from which all present-day life shares common ancestry. That means
earlier life may have existed, but its lineages did not all survive
to the present.)
I was reading about an experiment
involving exposing octopuses to Ecstasy (MDMA). Apparently —
despite a decentralized brain organized with completely different
anatomy than ours, and despite 800 million years of divergence from a
common ancestor — we share a serotonin-like molecule that still
binds with Ecstasy and produces similar behavioural changes. (Some
commentators have offered an alternative hypothesis, finding fault
with the experimental protocol. But never mind!)
So it would appear that back in the
mists of time a direction is taken or a choice made, a random
accident sets life on a certain track, and then these fundamental
features are conserved. Because they work. Because nothing better
comes along. And we still share them: a striking commonality despite
our apparent differences.
Or think of the symmetrical body
pattern so many multi-cellular organisms share. Is this the optimum
architecture, or the result of some random choice back in the day?
Intelligent aliens certainly won’t look like this — two arms and
legs, 5 digits, topped by a 2-eyed head — no matter how
unimaginatively most science fiction depicts them.
So the similarities of life on earth
are arguably more striking than our differences. One can’t help but
think of Sigmund Freud’s trenchant observation of human foibles,
“the narcissism of small difference”.
Of course, the difference between us
and a banana is bigger than a different language or skin colour. Yet
bananas still possess 60% of the genes found in the human genome;
presumably, genes inherited from a common ancestor. Or in looking at
similarities in another way, back to the octopus, who evolved eyes on
a completely separate track than we did, but with both of us
ultimately converging on similar solutions. Necessity is not only the
mother of invention; its offspring often seem singular and
inevitable.
