The Big Bang


Mike is a friend of mine. He’s also one of the smartest guys I’ll ever meet. He gets bored at Mensa meetings, because the pace is too slow. For the last couple of decades, he’s been trying to create human life out of a cluster of chemicals in a test-tube.

He tells me he’s close.

I think of Mike every time I think about evolution. How did gases swirl together after the Big Bang and create you and me? If it could happen by chance, why can’t Mike simply recreate it?

Before I go into my thinking, I should pass along a warning. Harry Williams was my high school biology and chemistry teacher. In grade 12, he gave me terrible marks. I wasn’t good in science, but I wasn’t that bad so I approached him and asked him why my marks were so low.

“Peter,” he said to me. “You have many gifts, but science is not one of them. The marks I gave you are probably too low, but I just didn’t want to encourage you to go down this path.”

So I went into fiction instead.

Instead of using the scientific method, I let my mind wander and I came up with how we all began. In the beginning, there was a miracle. The gases swirled, chemicals bounced around and magically a human male was formed. At the same time, more gases mixed together with more chemicals and a wind storm blew them together and a female was formed.

Unfortunately, she was in Thailand and they never met.

Billions more years passed and miracle on miracle the gases swirled again and this time the man and the woman were plopped together on the same beach.

He saw her.

She saw him.

He was shy. They never met.

Billions more years passed. I won’t mention swirling again, but this time, it was like they were made for each other. They had no idea what to do with their body parts, but they experimented.

Just like Mike does with his test tubes.

That’s how you and I were formed. At least, that’s my theory.

I told you I was bad in science.