An Analogy (Humans)

by George Jelliss , Crewe, Thursday, October 22, 2009, 10:41 (5510 days ago)

Did we get here by accident or by design?-I've just been listening to this week's "In Our Time" programme on BBC Radio 4 with Melvin Bragg. It was all about the geological evolution of the British Isles. It occurred to me that there is an instructive analogy between this and the evolution of humankind.-According to the three geologists on the programme, the British Isles is the most varied place geologically speaking on the face of the Earth. There is no other place to compare with it. Other places, even the whole of Canada, are boring by comparison. -In other words these islands are a jewel set in a silver sea, a place created from out the sea by divine command, a special piece of heaven on earth, and so on, as various patriotic poets have put it. This is also why Britain was the cradle of geological science.-However, how did the British Isles come about? It seems that Scotland and England began as separate parts of an old continent in the antactic region and through tectonic shifts have travelled from there to their present position. On the way they underwent enormously varied geological conditions.-Rocks in Wales were laid down at great depths in an antarctic ocean, coal beds resulted from the period when the midlands and south wales were on the equator and covered with forest that was repeatedkly flooded, chalk was the deposit of many marine lifeforms in a shallow sea, then there were volcanic periods and mountain-building periods when Scotland and England collided and were fused together. Later these were eroded by ice ages.-Clearly, the British Isles is such a special place that it must have been designed that way. Every move in the progress of this geological evolution must have been planned in advance. Every one was necessary to produce the final incomparable result. It represents the peak of geological evolution, gods own country, this green and pleasant land.-Of course I don't believe this, but you get the analogy?

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GPJ