Scientists, reporting in the journal Nature, have fully mapped the genome of the duck-billed platypus, and discovered it to be something of a genetic linchpin where mammals, reptiles, and birds come together.
How this will contribute directly to medical advances, if at all, remains to be seen. But it contributes indirectly right now by enhancing our understanding of our own origins, and thus ourselves.
That evolution is still debated as a matter of "belief" or "disbelief" is no more justified than debating the roundness of the planet, or the place of our planet in the solar system. I respect that many people have religious faith. But just as the rotation of the earth around the sun is now accepted as established fact, and reconciled with any alternative descriptions in scripture, so, too, must the fact of evolution be reconciled with faith. For it is a fact.
The evidence of evolution is all but written out for us in the language of molecular genetics. That some people choose not to read it, or are illiterate to it, doesn't mean it's not there. The genome of the platypus is just the latest passage added to this tome. When it comes to making the case for evolution, molecular genetics is to fossils what space travel is to a wheelbarrow. The game has changed.
Acceptance of evolution, like heliocentrism, is a matter of accepting or denying facts of science, not a matter of belief or disbelief. And it matters because our origins are responsible for our strengths and vulnerabilties, and thus powerfully inform disease prevention strategies.
Consider the various debates regarding diet for health, or weight loss, or the role for nutrient supplements in fighting disease. Unless we know ourselves in context, we are blundering in the dark.
Context is illuminating. Consider how confidently we choose food for animals in a zoo. What makes them different from us? We acknowledge their natural origins and are confident that it makes sense to feed them something like what they ate in the wild. Very simple, and always right.
We are creatures, too. We, too, have ties to Nature. We are part of the grand plan of evolutionary biology. Even the wacky platypus is a distant cousin. There is, for example, a rich literature on the probable pattern of the human Stone Age diet, and I find it very helpful in filling in gaps left by modern nutrition science, until or unless modern nutrition science closes those gaps.
Anthropologists predicted the proper intake level of Folate, based on what our ancestors ate, long before the Institue of Medicine reached the same figure (400mcg per day), based on studies of Folate and the
prevention of neural tube defects. There are many similar examples (I know because I recently reviewed thousands of articles on such topics while writing my nutrition textbook, Nutrition in Clinical Practice).
We cannot fully understand ourselves unless we understand ourselves in native context. We cannot take optimal care of ourselves, and prevent the diseases to which we are vulnerable, unless we understand
ourselves. And we cannot understand ourselves without acknowledging the fact of evolution.
Weird though it may be, from its bill to its genes, the platypus has something important to say. Please listen.
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