Religion vs Biology....can't we have both?

So last night, I got in a discussion on Facebook with an…acquaintance …perhaps.

                Really what it is- is that I was friends on Facebook with her boyfriend when she added me. This says to me that because I have a vagina, she must add me to make sure that I am not secretly Facebook fucking her boyfriend. It doesn’t matter to her that we are 1,200 miles apart. Over the internet, it doesn’t matter HOW far away you are. Facebook cyber sex is real, and it is a threat.

So as I was skimming my Facebook feed, looking for anything interesting that I could read or perhaps engage in. That’s when her status ran into my feed…

                [Insert Fancy Facebook Name]

                                I just find it SO amazing how so many beautiful people came from only two individuals.

I’d never really talked to this girl, she was just one of those 100 friends on my list, you know- the kind you added for no apparent reason.

It’s like when you scroll down your friends list going, “Where is she from…or this dude?  Who is this?” Then you scroll about ¾ the way down your list and finally find one you remember. The guy who was at your friend’s party and was so plastered he could barely stand. He asked for your number and you politely gave him the number 2. After that he was determined to know you, and using his extensive network of potentially connected friends, found you on Facebook. He added you, and after some intense rejecting and him adding you again, you finally added him. This was only because you had planned to sneakily unfriend him later when he was less likely to notice. But you forgot.

Now you get to see his pictures of all the parties he goes to in your news feed. Yeah, you know the ones. The ones where he is in tiny gold shorts slightly resembling Rocky’s in the Horror Picture Show. Except he doesn’t shave his legs, and his bulge doesn’t look half as nice.

Way to go.

Dumbass.

Anyway, I thought to myself that perhaps I should talk to her. She isn’t dating my friend anymore, so I figured I’d test the water to see if I even wanted to keep her on my friends list. I mean she could potentially be awesome.

Or she could be an ignorant religiously brainwashed generalist.

But you just can never gauge these things you know?

So I decided that I would jokingly post something on her status that I, personally, thought was funny. But then again I am a biologist so this was something that greatly amused me about the whole aspect of an entire population coming forth from two people.

[Insert Awesome Theme Music] DISCLAIMER TIME******

                As you read on, I must press the matter of what I actually think. I believe that everyone is entitled to their own opinion. I am not denying anything, nor claiming anything. I was merely stating facts and she interpreted them the way she did. Don’t make the same mistake. Or I’ll shank you.

So I jokingly posted on her status…

                “You know, speaking from a biological standpoint, it is very unlikely that an extensive population of seven billion could rise from only two individuals. Mutations and problems due to inbreeding brought on by the genetic bottleneck would accelerate the extinction of the species. That or it would create a population ill-suited for the environment which eventually would die off anyway…

[-and then came the most crucial part of my entire statement….]

:P ;)”

Those two smileys alone brought me peace of mind, in the fact that I expected she wouldn’t overlook them and then blow this into something it wasn’t supposed to be.

But you can never gauge these things, you know?

She promptly replied, much quicker than I expected,

                “Well then, Miss Biology, if we didn’t come from two individuals, then why do we share like, 99.9999999999% of our DNA?! HMMM!?”

I was slightly amused by her remark. I read it as like a jokingly reply to my joke.

Too bad I’m really bad at gauging these things. (Have I mentioned that?)

So I thought about it, and I said,

                “Probably the same reason we share about 30-40% of our DNA with mushrooms, and we share 95% of our genome with pigs, and how we’re like 68% genetically identical to moths. If you want make that argument, Adam and Eve must have been pumping out way more than just humans.”

I got a prompt reply, once again.

                “Anyone who believes garbage like that is stupid. It says right in the Bible that God put two humans on the planet to be fruitful. We made it because God wanted us to!”

Right after posting this, I began to think about what was going through her head. This was turning into the religious argument I had intended the smileys to prevent…

FUCK YOU SMILEYS YOU FAILED ME….:P ;)

She posted another reply following her other one.

                “I bet you believe that we evolved from monkeys too huh? That evolution stuff is a lie. Evolution isn’t real, it’s a total crap.”

I realized that she was no longer (or possibly ever) joking around. This bitch was serious, and she denied science. Who does that?

I’ll tell you who.

This bitch.

The fact she automatically accused me of believing that we evolved from monkeys was an insult. The fact that I knew how genetics works automatically means I believe that we evolved from monkeys.

Man I had no idea I believed that. I am such a failure.

I got snarky with her and replied,

                “Exactly! Evolution is just something Darwin made up to explain why we had antibiotics that worked two weeks ago and then suddenly they don’t work anymore.”

 Really it’s because we pissed off the demons that live in our colon. I didn’t want her to know that though, because then she’d be right.

She proceeded to tell me how that was only antibiotic resistance and, in fact, had NOTHING to do with evolution.

I proceeded to explain to her what bacterial resistance stems from. The evolution of the bacteria through generations while being treated with antibiotics, one mutated bacterium could produce a whole colony of resistant bacteria. 

[Some people argue that this microevolution doesn't count. I don't care- she argued that evolution is a lie. Meaning evolution period, this includes micro, macro, species, and toaster evolution]

She replies,

                “That is NOT right. From ONE mutated bacteria huh? Hey, remember how in the Bible, God put two of every animal on the ark? Yeah, that’s because you have to have TWO to reproduce!”

I stopped. This was honestly the stupidest remark I’d ever read in my life.

No I’m not kidding.

I didn’t hear what your mom said at Thanksgiving last year so that doesn’t count.

I had to keep myself from tearing her apart and decided to post something nice….ish,

                “Hey, remember how in the Bible it doesn’t say, ‘…and then God put two bacteria on the Ark.’? Yeah, that’s because they can reproduce ASEXUALLY.”

It took a little while for her to reply to that one, I figured she’d given up since she had made a fool of herself. About ten minutes later the little notification popped up.

“Stop making stupid stuff up because you know you’re wrong. GOD is the only real power and the fact you deny him doesn’t make him any less real.”

Good comeback, totally trumps anything I could have come up with.

She blocked me.

DAMNIT SMILEYS.

 :P ;)