Space will bring a quantum leap in evolution

Disclaimer: this is not a science paper It is a story based on science!

For 500 million years, life on Earth was a single-cell paradise. Tiny prokaryotes roamed around in a world much different than the one we have today. Sure there was water, but plants were still 3 billion years away. I imagine that the planet back then looked more like a sphinx cat than a plush Persian. There was no oxygen in the air. The atmosphere was made of nitrogen and carbon dioxide. To say the Earth was inhospitable is an understatement. It was toxic. Neither you nor I would be able to survive in this environment unless we were in a life suit, totally sheltered from the outside. Yet, somehow, life emerged. We don’t know how. There are theories but since we can’t go back in time or apply the scientific method and recreate the experiment, we are left debating on hypothesis. Personally, I believe it was seeded from the sky. In the same way yeast finds its way to ferment dough or a seed magically lands in the middle of a lava field so that a sprout emerges out of nothing. I mean have you ever walked around a volcano and stubbled on a flower growing in the tiny crack that has no soil? How did it find its way there? How can it grow there? We see the sky and the water empty of everything unless we can see it with our own eyes. But in reality, they are filled with tiny living organisms. I believe it is the same in the Universe. Why would it be different? Why would the principles of nature on Earth be different from the nature of the Universe? There are exactly the same but just on a different scale.?

Then, at one point, single cells started to bond together. I guess the desire to connect is not just a human trait. Perhaps every life form reaches out hoping for something to reach back. Or maybe if you keep bumping into something over and over, you get tired of the commotion and decide to join forces. Imagine yourself in a room full of people, everyone trying to go somewhere, but at the same time going nowhere. Then someone realizes that if you start connecting the dots, you can move more efficiently. Now that strategy doesn’t work if there are a few of you, but when there are too many of you, that connection becomes priceless, it is the best thing ever! It facilitates the exchange of information and next thing you know, you have figured out how to move from point A to point B in the most efficient way. Do that for millions of years, and you figure out how to do it yourself without having to spend energy seeking others.

That is how multi-celled organisms appeared, about 3 billion years ago (we believe so). Prokaryotes became eukaryotes. And eukaryotes are why we are here. Ok, one could say that single cells are the reason for our existence, but being single works for so long. Try to have a family on your own or start a business by yourself and let me know how it goes. The power of evolution and longevity really comes about when you team up. When cells started to gather, things started to accelerate. In the first 2.5 billion years of the planet, life went from nothing to single cells. In the last 2 billion years, life went from multiple cell organisms to a species that is building spaceships and is about to take life to other planets. More has happened in the last 600 million years than it did in the first 4 billion. So yes, power to the ones who share the information.

In the history of life on this planet, going from single-celled to multicelled was the first quantum leap in evolution. The second leap of infinite magnitude was when the first vertebrates came out of the water more than 385 million years ago. It took 380 million years before another event changed the course of evolution - our ancestors stopped swinging in the trees and started walking on the ground. Some will say that the reptiles or dinosaurs were a success story. Perhaps, but reptiles have lived on earth for more than 300 million years and have never become more than primitive animals. The mammals, who really rose after the disappearance of the dinosaurs, have done more in terms of evolution in the last 65 million years than any other species. If you, given you are 50 years old, were to compare yourself as an entrepreneur to the evolution of life on Earth, it would vaguely look like this:?

• 10 years old (single-celled), you start writing and calculating on paper
• 27 years old (multi-celled), you get your first computer
• 42 years old (plants), your first job
• 45 years old (reptile), your first startup
• 49 years old (extinction of dinosaurs) bankruptcy
• 49.1 years old (rise of mammals) new startup
• 50 years old (today) billionaire?

In less than a year, you went from nothing to building rockets.?

And now, life is about to take its next quantum leap. 2 billion years ago, single cells became multi-celled and changed everything. Today, life is about to go from a single planet to multi-planetary and propel evolution to a place we can’t even imagine.?

NOTES:

Take a moment to watch this short film by Jan van IJken about the miraculous genesis of animal life. In great microscopic detail, we see the 'making of' an Alpine Newt in its transparent egg from the first cell division to hatching. A single cell is transformed into a complete, complex living organism with a beating heart and running bloodstream.

Then learn more about the dynamics found in nature to assure evolution - Tension / Disruptions / Rhythm / Growth and Renewal