A Chorus Emerges from the Primordial Soup

Since the time that I first encountered the concept of evolution, I have managed the simple image of some reptilian slug oozing its way from of the primordial soup, out onto the sludge that must have been the strand, exposing itself to all varieties of toxi-genated "air", and dragging with it in that instant the genetic markers for all future mammalian life.

My conceptualization, virtually static for three decades now, was fertilized last night by my nine year old son. We walked the dogs at about 9 PM, and discussed the random things that fathers discuss with their nine year old sons. He was interested in the evolutionary branch that gave rise to wolves and dogs, and wondered if dogs evolved from the wolves. I offered that maybe they both evolved from the same third thing. He headed for the swamp.

He refers to the place from which that first creature emerged as "the swamp". We discussed that point at which that first creature shoved its face out of the wet. This creature has served for my thinking as the pivot point, the sole link between the future air breathers and their plant-like forebears, a singleton.

Michael cleanly shattered my simplistic concept by asking: "How do we know that more than one thing didn't crawl out, and evolve into the many different types of animals now on earth?"

If I have encountered a more parsimonious addition to my understanding of evolution, I cannot remember it now.

Thank you, my son.