Before anyone comes for me, I grew up southern baptist – went to a private christian school & was homeschooled for a few years. The extent of my “science” education when it came to evolution & the origin of the universe was “if we came from monkeys why do monkeys still exist?” and “look at this galaxy that’s shaped like a cross, isn’t god amazing!!” I’m an atheist now and would like to have some sort of understanding of how our world came to be, but trying to figure it out as an adult with no real foundation has been incredibly difficult, and none of it’s making sense. I also know I’m asking a lot as all 3 of those subjects are pretty extensive, so if you know any good videos or books I’d love some recommendations!
In: Biology
You should check out channels on YouTube that focus on teaching science to the masses… PBS actually has a few YouTube channels like “Be Smart”. Here’s their video on where life came from.
Another PBS channel to check out is PBS Eons. Here’s their video on evolution
Another channel to check out is Kurzgesagt. Here’s their video on the Big Bang
I’d recommend getting a copy of A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson. Very digestible book, great way to get a overall understanding of how everything (may have) came to be.
We don’t really know. We observe shared mechanisms among species, that seems to shape a lineage. We understand how environmental pressure could apply a selection effect on natural variability, thus yelding new aptitudes. We observed some of that, not super impressive because of the limited time scale, but still, it kinda validate the hypothesis.. but we don’t know for sure, and we don’t claim we know, and here lies the superiority of science versus belief : we don’t pretend we know the truth, but we work hard at seeking it.
I would highly suggest watching as much youtube videos of famous scientists like Neil Degrass Tyson and famous Physicists such as Hawking and Richard Feynman.
Astrophysics is one of my favorite things to learn about in random videos online from famous PhD Physicists and other similar subjects about evolution from famous PhD Chemists/Biologists/etc because no matter how much I know science continues to amaze me.
I highly recommend you watch the show “Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey” with Neil DeGrasse Tyson narrating. Not only will it answer these questions but it will enlighten you as to how light works, magnetic fields, star classifications, the development of humans, and so so much more. It talks about some of the most important parts of our development in not only our evolution, or the earths evolution but also the evolution of the universe and how it’s all connected. You’ll learn about some important scientific discoveries and key moments in our history and who was responsible for them as well. It’s very well done and extremely educational while being easily digestible for even those who aren’t so scientifically savvy. It talks about everything you’ll want to know.
This is both the worst and best ELI5 title of all time because these are all things that even the most-educated of us still don’t fully understand.
You should read Origin of Species by Charles Darwin, who was himself was devoutly Christian. It is not hard to read, and is basically him saying, “i cant help but notice…” as he was going from island to island and seeing different breeds of the same bird, then he explains how:
1. Species compete within themselves for resources, and those with beneficial deviations that aid in gathering resources mean those individuals live linger and have more offspring than ones that have hindering deviations. (he studied birds and their size/beaks/food sources)
2. More offspring eventually means that the ‘beneficial deviation’ becomes the norm and the process continues.
Seek out popular science books written for the layperson by credible authors.
Richard Dawkins’ The Selfish Gene really helped my understanding of evolution. It is not overtly atheistic, which is something that characterises his later work, it is just a book that trys to explain to the layperson how the study of evolution has progressed since Darwin. It was written in the 70s, so it is a little dated, but it really helps to introduce the reader to some important ways of thinking about the processes in play.
Stephen Hawkins’ A Brief History of Time is similarly a book to help the layperson understand modern physics. It won’t tell you why the big bang happened, but it will tell you why we can’t answer that question satisfactorily and, as a result, answers to that specific question seem less important.
Abiogenesis is a topic hinted at in both The Selfish Gene and A Brief History of Time, although neither try to tackle it head on. But reading those two books will help you to understand the big processes at play that have shaped life ever since it appeared. The opinion I was left with was that life is inevitable given enough time and the right conditions and I really hope that this will be demonstrated in my lifetime by a discovery of evidence of life elsewhere.
Above all, these books made me appreciate the scientific method. That has some interesting implications for a deterministic universe and free will. I spent some time reading about consciousness and the mind/body problem and Susan Blackmore has written a few books on this topic which I would recommend, such as The Meme Machine. (The Meme Machine interestingly takes up an idea postulated at the end of The Selfish Gene about cultural evolution. Interestingly the term “meme”, which describes a largely online phenomenon, has a much broader and more interesting context and can trace its roots to the conclusion in The Selfish Gene)
The Gaia Hypothesis by James Lovelock is another book I’d recommend which is of a similar vein. Again it is a bit dated now but has been of massive influence in our current way of looking at topics like climate change.
For something more recent I would recommend Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari, which is a fascinating anthropological view of our species.
All these books I’m recommending are pretty well known and they may come with preconceptions that they are intimidating and only for smart people. They are very much for the layperson though and although some of them are dated now, they introduce topics which are still very resonant now.
I’m a bit envious of your journey of discovery OP. Choose your sources wisely and you will be fascinated by what you find out.
Biological evolution shares some similarities with linguistic evolution.
As groups separate, language changes either when a new word is needed or just randomly (slang).
After decades or centuries you have distinct languages. Some parts remain similar while others don’t.
Even within English it’s evolving. English from 200 years ago would be understood but with sheer focus.
Biological diversity needs to also survive its environment to continue.
Consider it as a computer game. first stage is simple and then become complex as you move on
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