Thread by @DempseyTwo

“For billions of years since the outset of time, every single one of your ancestors survived, every single person on your mom and dad’s side, successfully looked after and passed on you to life.”
- The Streets

Can we talk about the evolution of miracles? A wee 🧵👇🏻

Survival of the fittest. Darwin boiled down to 4 words. So much more goes into evolving. Environment (including temperature, safety, comfort), Size. Time. Relatives. That last one is super important. Sure it means who your people are/were, but I mean things that are relative.

I mean how things relate to each other. For instance we have a pretty decent understanding of what first man may have seen. They would have seen stars in the night sky. We see stars in the night sky. The different thoughts we have about those stars however is due to evolution.

We’ve evolved our thinking. We have the scientific method to explain such things. We can still plant things based on the stars we see like our ancestors did, but we also don’t need to rely upon that knowledge to do so. We no longer deify the stars in that regard.

We know now that performing certain rituals or having a belief in doing so that the star gods will reward our efforts with a miraculous bounty is not how to yield the best crop of tulips. Now, we just need to know to plant them in the Fall for a beautiful Spring.

We know this because the plant stores more nutrients in cold weather which propels a better bloom when the temperature gets just right. But this isn’t a horticultural thread, this is about evolution and miracles.

Remember Darwin and that business of survival? All living things follow this principle. The job of a living thing is to survive. In order for that to occur, sometimes things have to change. They have to adapt. A better suited version to the environment may be necessary.

These adaptations take time. Time is relative. Clocks run differently at different elevations. Had our species not evolved to one that had the ability to understand that fact, our GPS devices wouldn’t work. And because time is a relative thing, scale becomes important.

Everyone has heard that a dog ages 7 years to our human 1, yeah? For each year we age our dog ages seven. Now think about the timescale for a virus. A week could be a million years at that scale. Surely enough time for a living being to adapt and fulfill its mission of survival.

Virus wants to survive. To do so it needs a host. Once in a host, the virus begins to adapt to its environment and over time will become the best most capable version of itself to survive. That is of course *without* intervention. This is where the miracle comes in.

We evolved so far as a species, we recognize we can eradicate a virus that is killing us off. Think about that. We are the apex predator for a reason. We understand a virus requires a host. We know we are that host and we know how to survive better than it does.

We know if we stop the virus from finding more hosts, it will no longer be able to evolve. We know that if we stop the virus from finding more hosts, less hosts will die. Now you might believe this task is so monumentally difficult as to require divine intervention. Nope.

We evolved to realize that virus enters hosts through wet membranes. That’s things like eyes, nose and mouth. If we cover those entrances, the virus has a less likely chance of getting in/out. If it doesn’t get in, it can’t fulfill its objective of survival. But the host can.

If the virus doesn’t get in, it can’t adapt. Again, survival is the name of the game. If a virus kills its host, it won’t live long. The virus knows this. It knows it can only stick around so long or it won’t survive. Over time, it may become less lethal and more contagious.

But we’ve also evolved to understand that we can target the virus specifically! Imagine that! We know how to specifically identify, target and destroy something that is looking to take away our ability to survive. We aren’t just sitting ducks. Vaccines are miracles!

Not so fast George, because as a species, we have also evolved so far as to have gained an understanding that others among us can be manipulated and taken advantage of. That we can make other people believe in the things we do. That we can make others *believe* anything.

If you believe in miracles and you believe that god will protect you, why do you not believe the vaccine is the miracle? Why do you not believe the fact that we know something so simple as wearing a mask can protect our species is the miracle?

We’ve also evolved to understand that we can target people’s beliefs and use them to our advantage. It is easy to target a group of people who, let’s say do not believe in evolution for instance, to get them to be anti mask. To make them think masks are tyrannical tools of govt.

I began this thread with a quote and I shall end on one as well. This is from Neil deGrasse Tyson:

‘The good thing about Science is that it’s true whether or not you believe in it.’

For our species to survive, we must adapt sooner than the virus. We can. Get your vaccine. Wear a mask and for god’s sake listen to The Streets, not Mike Flynn.

https://twitter.com/dempseytwo/status/1469653366171217925