Paradeisia: The Complete Trilogy: Origin of Paradise, Violation of Paradise, Fall of Paradise

by B. C. CHASE

  “To imagine a leg growing out of a fin over millions of years due to de novo gene origination would represent gross ignorance of the process of protein synthesis, developmental noise, histrone modification, and the precise specificity of the functionality of proteins themselves. De novo gene origination from so-called non-coding regions is in itself an absurd notion because of the complexity of a single proto gene. There must be an open reading frame, as well as a perfectly located promoter, not to mention, of course, the requirement that the gene, when transcripted and translated, must produce a complementary, synergetic arrangement of amino acids.[19] For this reason, the only kind of genetic change that has been witnessed, and in fact, the only kind that has occurred, is mutation.”

  “We always alluded to the idea that Darwinian evolution took place over millions of years, conveniently unobservable, but of course the possibility to experimentally observe this phenomenon has been available to us. Yet we never availed ourselves of the opportunity.”

  “What do you mean? How could anyone observe something that happens over millions of years?”

  “Bacteria. In the course of 150 years, rapidly-reproducing bacteria can produce something on the order of 300,000 generations. By comparison, humans produce about five generations in that much time.[20] According to that generational lifespan, there have been approximately sixty-six thousand generations since humans evolved. Since bacteria reproduce asexually, they are by far the most prolific life forms. If evolution is occurring, if de novo gene origination is taking place, then surely we could have observed it in action by maintaining hundreds of cultures and systematically documenting their phenotypes and genotypes over time.[21] You would think that all science universities the world over would have been performing such experiments continuously, providing an extraordinarily large sample size. But there has been only one experiment which even tried to do something close to this, and after over sixty thousand generations, or one million years of evolution in human terms, it failed miserably. There were billions upon billions of mutations—most of them with deleterious effects, but no new genes. That isn’t to say the bacteria did not increase their fitness, inevitable given the high-citrate environment in which they were placed, because they certainly did, and this was to be expected. But they are the same species of bacteria they were and they have the same set of genes that they started with.”[22]

  “When they found the bacteria Helicobacter pylori in the gut of the famous 5,300-year-old Iceman mummy and compared its genes to that of a modern sample, there turned out to be 43,000 single-nucleotide polymorphisms, or differences in one component of a given base pair, and thirty-nine deletions that ranged from ninety-five base pairs to 17,000 base pairs—an amount of difference that is less than the typical variation between different strains of this bacteria. No new genes have developed in 5,000 years of Helicobacter pylori evolution.”[23]

  “And that brings up another question. If asexual reproduction is the penultimate method of propagation, why complicate things with sex? In bacteria, asexual reproduction takes place when an individual duplicates itself. One would think that this process would produce a population bottleneck of decreasing genetic diversity, but surprisingly the process includes genetic recombination in its formula, so diversity in genetic composition is accrued just as in sexual reproduction. This genetic recombination occurs either by picking up extra DNA from the environment (such as dead bacteria), by a physical connection of two bacteria that transfer the genes via a protein tube, or by acquisition of another bacterium's DNA from a bacterial virus. And bacteria, like humans or any other animals, are individuals, as individualistic as we are.[24] So the development of sexual reproduction was clearly not as a result of the necessity for genetic recombination. With all its complexities and required components, sexual reproduction seems not only to be an evolutionary nightmare, but a totally unnecessary nightmare at that. Bacteria are vastly more populous than any other form of life largely thanks to the relative simplicity and speed of asexual reproduction. Sexual creatures are not the “fittest” by any stretch of the imagination as compared to asexual creatures. In all respects, the contrary is true. Sex is a serious liability, no matter how much fun it is.”

  “And that brings up yet another problem. With all the genetic change through mutation that should be occurring during the reproduction process, why do we have all these extant, non-evolved species?”

  “What species?”

  “Living fossils. The lamprey, for example. It was supposedly a transitional species between the early vertebrate swimmers and fish. It doesn’t have a fully formed jaw or teeth. It sucks in order to derive nourishment. But if it was only a blip on evolution’s radar, a small step toward the ultimately more fit and robust fish, why is it still around? Wouldn’t it have continued evolving since the Devonian period four hundred million years ago when it first appeared? So we said, ‘oh it must be yet another logic-defying example of convergent evolution.’”

  “Anyway, I suppose it is irrelevant now. We were wrong, yet we didn’t realize we were wrong, for whatever reason. The relevant question now is,” he looked Zhang in the eye for the first time since he sat down, “Have you ever thought about what it means?”

  “What what means?”

  “Well, we found that Darwinian evolution is a fantasy. All life shares common DNA, and always has. That implies it came all at once. All life, a single beginning.” He sighed, “How?” He looked out the window again, “Why?”

  Zhang suggested, “I think to answer that question you must know what life is.”

  “And what is it?”

  “Why is it that the scientist is the one asking me all the questions?”

  “Science still doesn’t know what life is. There has never been an acceptable definition.”

  “No?”

  “No, there hasn’t. And in fact, when one considers life at its basest chemical level, autocatalytic reactions, one must simply accept it as a natural, innate part of the universe, as fundamental as Newtonian physics. The irony in that is, of course, that autocatalytic reactions are, as I said, a gross violation of the second law of thermodynamics.”

  Zhang said, “Well then that begs the question, where did the laws of physics come from? Why do they exist? That, I think, is a question no one can answer.”

  “Well, I hesitate to say that any question is not answerable. With time and advances in understanding and technology, many of the questions that have been thought unanswerable have been answered. It is ignorant to assume that a question is unanswerable. Someday, we might have the wherewithal and you wouldn’t want to end up looking foolish when that day arrives. But, on the other hand, because the laws of physics are so fundamental to the existence of the universe and the universe is so inexplicable in its existence, the question becomes did the laws make the universe possible and give birth to its existence? If so, who wrote the laws, so to speak? How did they arise?”

  Zhang said, “Now you are delving into philosophy. You might as well be asking ‘what is the nature of reality.’”

  “You’re right.”

  There was silence for a moment. Then Doctor Ming-Zhen said, “You are probably wondering why I am obsessively blathering like this when I have only just lost my wife and daughter.”

  Zhang leaned forward, “You are coping, friend. And I am content to listen.”

  Doctor Ming-Zhen acknowledged the gesture. Then, he said, “I want to go back.”

  “We are going back.”

  “No, not to Beijing. To Antarctica.”

  “I thought you said you would never return? Why would you want to go back now?”

  Doctor Ming-Zhen took a breath, looked Zhang in the eye, and for the second time in his career told him something he himself found preposterous.

  Paradeisia Under the Earth

  Aubrey was aware of an intense pain on the right side of her neck. Then she felt herself being dragged on the ground in jerking movements, toward the river. She couldn't s
ee what was dragging her, but when she pushed against it her hands slipped on grotesque slime.

  She was in the water now, and she screamed as her face went under the surface. It was shallow, but still deep enough for her to drown. Worse still was the fact that she was being drug further in, and now the current was carrying her toward what she knew was the edge of the waterfall. She struggled to plant herself in the gravel, but it was no use: the slimy thing was pulling her and the current was pushing her ever closer to the edge.

  Suddenly she was jerked by her neck around and over the precipice of the fall. Water rushed into her face, inundating her nose and throat, and she felt her feet dangling down in empty space. The slimy thing was holding her over the edge of the waterfall by her neck. She couldn't breathe, and the pain was so intense, she wondered if her neck would snap. Isn't that what happened when people were hanged, she thought. Their necks snapped before they had a chance to die of strangulation?

  Suddenly she felt a hand grasp her arm and pull her up over the edge. The slimy thing detached and the pain ceased. She was face-down in the pool, but the arm lifted her up from the water. She coughed as Adriaan helped her away from the waterfall edge and onto dry land. “What was that?” she gasped, wiping her face.

  Adriaan said, “Look,” and pointed to the pool.

  Looking back, she saw blood seeping into the water around what appeared to be an eleven-foot-long eel with black and brown mottled spots.

  Adriaan explained, “It looks like a lamprey. When you wade in water in Africa you have a good chance of coming out with one on your leg, but those are usually only about a foot long. This one is gigantic. They're blood lovers. He just jumped from the water and hit you with his sucker. Very aggressive. Probably thought your blood would make an especially tasty treat. Are you all right?”

  “Yeah, I think I am.” She touched her neck and could feel concentric rings with a raised edge where the creature's sucker had grasped her. When she looked at her hand it was soiled with blood.

  Reacting to her evident alarm, Adriaan said, “They have tiny teeth on their suckers. Might sting a bit, but you should be okay, love. Just think of it as a giant lovebite.”

  “You mean like a hickie? Ew.” She gave him a friendly nudge, “Thanks for rescuing me.”

  Adriaan smiled, “Bridges never should have brought a woman on a man’s junket.”

  Her friendly grin disappeared and she shoved him hard enough that he lost his balance. He regained his footing, smiling, “What, the truth hurts?”

  “You are unbelievably sexist,” she said dismissively.

  “I believe in the symbiotic division of labor,” he said cheerfully. “If you want to get all moody about it, be my guest, but I’ll only think you’re being an emotional woman.” He smiled, “But seriously, a virtually universal sexual division of labor is found among species in which the eggs are fertilized within the female. Males are primarily engaged in market activities (the collection of food, the defense of the family unit and establishment of territory) and the females are engaged in childrearing). The name of the game in nature is symbiotic division by sex. And that is not me: that is what the Nobel-prize winning scientist Gary Stanley Becker said.”[25]

  “He probably said that because he is a lazy, couch-potato man.”

  They crossed the river and followed the tracks up steep, forested slopes which grew ever higher. Adriaan stopped and looked up, “I just don't get this.”

  “What?” Bridges asked.

  “How could Andrews have possibly run this far? How far have we come?”

  “Forty miles.”

  “That's almost two marathons.

  “Maybe he was being pursued,” Bridges replied.

  “Surely whatever was pursuing him could have caught him in all that time, and there is no sign of pursuit.”

  Nimitz proposed, “Maybe he was so scared he couldn't stop.”

  Bridges raised his eyebrows and nodded his head toward Aubrey, “Maybe you should stop trying to scare the ladies.”

  Aubrey put her hands on her hips, “The only thing that scares me right now is all the sexism I’m hearing.”

  Andrews' tracks eventually led them straight into the near-vertical rock cliff. Adriaan said, “Well this certainly boggles the mind. It seems Andrews climbed straight down this rock face and resumed his marathon. How he managed that with a lame leg I'd really like to know.”

  Nimitz smiled, “Maybe that's how he went lame.”

  Bridges said, “Maybe he wasn’t lame at all.” Turning to the rest of the group, “Gentlemen, get out your gear. Looks like we have to make an ascent.”

  Aubrey wouldn't have admitted it, but she got a cold chill just looking up at the dizzying height of the cliff.

  Doctor Kaufmann protested, “That looks like at least a thousand feet! That's suicide!”

  “What will be suicide is if you say another word,” Bridges said.

  As the men attached their harnesses and prepared their ropes, carabiners, drills, anchors and other gear, Bridges nodded to Adriaan's missing arm and asked, “You good with this?”

  Adriaan smiled, “Won't be a problem.” Bridges educated everyone on some climbing basics, such as being sure to lodge a foot out from their center of gravity so they wouldn't “barn-door” (swing out wildly and lose their grip). He showed them how to use the equipment, especially the ascending clamps; by attaching two to a rope, they could gradually climb it by raising one with a hand, latching it, and raising the next one, latching it, and so forth.

  At the beginning, the climbing was easier than Aubrey expected, if she didn't look down. There were plenty of craggy outcroppings and plant branches to hold onto or plant her feet on, and she was able to rest as necessary. The air seemed to get cool as they climbed, and an occasional wind would whip her pony tail. As they gained some distance off the ground, however, she developed a constant trembling from fear and adrenaline.

  Aubrey marveled at the how Adriaan was able to ascend with only one hand. After he had both feet firmly positioned, he would launch himself, kind of like a frog, to seize a new handhold. It was clear he had to work twice as hard as everyone else to achieve the same height, but it was also apparent that he was twice as strong as everyone else.

  They kept the packs on ropes and the strongest men hoisted them up after every twenty to thirty feet and attached them to the rock with the special drills and anchors.

  The ground gradually distanced beneath them until the trees looked very small and they could see a gondola floating in the far distance with the giant rib structure supporting it from the ground.

  Bridges held out a device from his body and shouted, “Still can't get reception to the gondola. We must be too far.”

  Doctor Kaufmann suggested, “It's probably the atmosphere: it's too dense.”

  From his perch above, Bridges nodded, “Well, the good news is we've reached two hundred feet. Congratulations: if anyone falls, it's certain death.”

  They kept climbing, and what little vegetation there had been thinned out to almost nothing.

  At three hundred feet, they had been climbing for five hours, and, despite her muscles protesting in pain, she was feeling slightly more comfortable if only because they had been going for so long.

  By four hundred feet, though, the surface was becoming excruciatingly more vertical and smoothing out, with fewer outcroppings to hold onto. At four hundred fifty feet, Bridges called a stop. “We're going to need all our strength to tackle what's ahead,” he shouted. “We haven't slept since we came down to this forsaken place. Let's make camp.”

  Aubrey looked down at the landscape far below. The wind whistled by her and she thought, What does he mean make camp? We're on the side of a cliff!

  As if to answer her question, Bridges called out, “We don't have enough hanging tents for everyone so you’ll all have to share.”

  The men spent some time using the drills to plant anchors and erect the tents suspended from them. The tents were
only a little wider than a person, with strong aluminum braces that kept the floor taught and flat. The walls were vinyl stretched out to form a pyramid over four ropes that hooked to the corners of the floor and met at the center.

  When everything was ready, Aubrey said, “Okay, who do I have to share with?”

  Almost the whole crew immediately volunteered.

  From his perch in his harness, Bridges said, “Hands down, guys. She’s going with Adriaan, in this tent right here.”

  They lay down face to foot, she partially on top of him because of the lack of space. “This is a little bit awkward,” he said as they situated themselves.

  As she placed her face near his toes, she said, “You didn't bring any air freshener, did you?”

  He laughed, “It's not rosebuds and daisies over here, either.”

  There was not an abundance of bedding, just thin insulating sleeping bags and no pillows, so she felt his belt buckle prying into her side. She adjusted her position a little to try to alleviate the pain. Then she said, “Can you take off your belt, please?”

  He said, “Slow down, Suzy. We only just met.”

  She smiled to herself, “Don't get any ideas, Adriaan. It's just that it’s poking me.”

  The whole tent shook as he struggled to free the belt from his pant loops in his sleeping bag. Eventually he was huffing in frustration, causing Aubrey to giggle. “Here, let me help you,” she said, sitting up. She unzipped his sleeping bag. He watched with interest, his arm resting on his chest, as she slipped the belt free. She spotted the tattoo on his forearm again.