The platypus: on transitional forms, evolution and creationism


Ladies and gentlemen: the platypus is no ordinary mammal! He lays eggs! He has a crucially primitive digestive system, so primitive that there is only one other mammal like him in the world. He is aquatic, but furred. He has a massive instrument covering his mouth that most uneducated think is a duck bill, but is actually a soft, rubbery instrument of sensitivity and electroreception. The platypus is both reptile and mammal according to his DNA.


The platypus, my friends, is one of the few, if only, truly transitional animals in existence.


A transitional animal is one which bridges the gaps between species. He links different worlds, different eras and is thus, concurrently, the bones upon which evolutionary theory rests. Evolution doesn't happen in big, blocky, segmented chunks; it is a gradual process which is dependent upon the slow and subtle transition from one kind of animal into another. It is Drosophilus flies mutating to new kinds of their species within hours. It is animals adapting. It is biological diversity. It is reptiles with feathers, mammals who lay eggs, chimps who look like humans, domestic dogs who have bigger and more hard-core counterparts out in the wild.


How did the platypus become a part of the evolution vs. creationism controversy? The evolutionists seize upon the transitional nature of the platypus as a blessed piece to their endless archaeological puzzle, elated to see such an obvious example of evolution's reality, that transitional animals do exist, right here, in the flesh, in modern times. The platypus is a walking, breathing missing link, a rare side-turn onto a rarely-visited alleyway off the Evolution Highway.



But:
Not so fast, the creationists say, shaking their deified heads. Things don't happen randomly. Material scientists are the ruin of this world, they say, because they deny the gifts of God. Life is beautiful, and each animal is intrinsically unique, designed with precision by God's own hand. The platypus cannot be a product of evolution, a transitional form, because, according to the Creationists, transitional fossils and animals do not exist. They point to the many missing pieces in the evolutionary theory, the patchwork nature of it, the guess work.
[As an aside: This insistence of creationists that transitional fossils and animals do not exist directly contradicts a huge fossil log.


I cannot address the entire evolution/creationism controversy. But any archaeologist or zoologist or any sort of scientist who knows what he's doing knows that the lines drawn in science aren't so concrete. Rigid categories do not exist. Transitional forms occur everywhere.



There are the transitional states found in the animal kindgom. The platypus: half reptile, half mammal. Scientists, for the sake of order and simplicity, in an attempt to understand and classify the world around them, order the world of animals into distinct categories. Reptile. Bird. Mammal. Insect. Spongy sea-thing. What category does the platypus fit into? Do we put him into reptile cuz he lays eggs, or mammal because he's warm-blooded and is covered with a pelt? It's hard to figure out which man-made category to put him into, because he's so transitional.


Take another transitional state found in the animal kingdom. A human definitely isn't a monkey, right? But a human has more in common with a monkey than with an elephant, doesn't he? (Some people would say that likening a human to a monkey is an insult. But I'm not so sure. Given some examples of human behavior I've seen, I'd rather be a Bonobos monkey anyday.)


Transitional forms are threaded throughout the world around us, in animal forms, in architecture...


They occur in human gender:
the xy (mixed male/female) chromosome is much more prevalent in mainstream society that you might think. Just ask any of the thousands of hermaphrodites that are born or anyone who knows anything about transgender issues.


They occur in the human brain:
Human awareness occurs as a gradual state, ranging from focal awareness (that which we are most focused on and acutely aware of) down to fuzzier awareness (things that are on the tip of the tongue, peripheral vision) deeper down to the murky depths of the subconscious (dreams), and then deeper still to the basic limbic level, the level which regulates breathing and the autonomic nervous sytem and heartbeat. We are always constantly conscious on many different levels.
The study of the physiology of the human brain is fascinating, because you learn that the human creature is a mind-bending mix of different brain halves (right brain, which is abstraction, and left brain, which is analytical and ordered),
lobes (Wernicke's area, which regulates speaking, and Broca's expressive area, which deals with intuition, and many others)
the limbic system (the primitive part of the brain which deals with base instincts, and which is the most animal-like)
vs. the neocortex (the most recent part of the human brain, which allows for detached awareness and abstraction and advanced intelligence and science....)


Transitional forms occur in art
Pablo Picasso had to master photorealism and classical traditionalism before he ventured into the wildly abstract and cubist method of painting he became famous for. Was Picasso a traditionalist or an abstract modernist? It depends on how you look at it.


Transitional forms occur in sexual orientation
There is much more to sexual orientation than just straight, gay and bi. Given the complex nature of humans, do you think people would be content to force themselves into three generic categories?


Transitional forms occur in identity
Take someone I know for instance
She is female (what do you assume about this person already based on me using that word?)
She goes to lesbian bars frequently (oh, she's a lesbian)
She is attracted to cross-dressers and gay men (um, why does she go to lesbian bars then?)
She is attracted to women as well (uh, is she a lesbian or not?)
She goes to goth clubs (oh, she's a goth chick, I like those types)
She can also do a mean 2 step and some pretty fancy swing (wow, that's kind of cool, she seems pretty diverse)
She loves being the center of attention (ah, she's an exhibitionist)
She can be frequently seen on the sidelines watching other exhibitionists (is she an exhibitionist or a voyeur? whatever, I bet she's pretty interesting)
When you talk to her online, she is fascinatingly intense and dramatic (Wow! I want to meet this chick!)
When you meet her in person, she's very quiet and withdrawn (which is more real, the quiet her or the intense her?)
it goes on and on....


It gets very difficult to precisely define this person, doesn't it? What generic identity would you choose to label her with? In coming up with this label, which part of who she is would you choose to focus on? Would your focusing on one part of her come at the expense of all the other parts of her identity?



What specific category does the platypus fit into in the animal kingdom? Is he a remarkable example of evolutionary diversity (yay! diversity!) or is he uniquely designed by the Creationist god? I'm not sure. science and mythology, and logic and art, all make the world go 'round.


What do I believe, personally? Here's an Australian aboriginal dream story that I came across recently:


In our Dreaming, before time began, the Old Woman Who lives in the Pleiades, the creator of all living things, came down to Earth to help a Wood Duck, a Black Duck, a Water Rat and a Plover. She had these wounded creatures in her dilly-bag when the Rainbow Serpent, one of her creations who was, unfortunately, given to mischief, called up a wild storm. The wind roared, the lightning flashed across the sky and the land shuddered with thunder. The Old Woman took shelter beneath a huge Redgum but lost her dilly- bag which tumbled with some large rocks, loosened by the rain, into the river. When the storm abated she recovered her dilly-bag but the poor creatures had drowned, the Water Rat crushed flat by a large rock. Quickly she lit a fire and softened some Spinifex gum with which she fashioned, from the body of the Water Rat with its flat tail, the feet and bill of the ducks and the spurs of the Plover, a most curious creature. She then breathed life into her creation and placed it in the river and Platypus remains thus, even today.