Evolution and the Beginning

Zoologists have recorded an amazing 20,000 species of fish. Each of theses species have a two-chambered heart that pumps cold blood throughout its cold body.

There are 6,000 species of reptiles. They also have cold blood, but theirs is a three-chambered heart (except for the crocodile, which has four). The 1,000 or so different amphibians (frogs, toads and newts) have cold blood and a three-chambered heart.

There are over 9,000 different species of birds. From the massive Andean Condor with its wingspan of 12 feet to the tiny hummingbird (whose heart beats 1,400 times a minute), each of those 9,000 different species have a heart and blood. There are four chambers in their heart: the left atrium, the right atrium, the left ventricle, and the right ventricle--just like in a human.

Of course the 15,000 species of mammals have a pumping four-chambered heart, that faithfully pumps blood throughout a series of intricate blood vessels to the rest of the body.

There are also a million named species of insects, and scientists estimate that there could be another million waiting to be discovered and named. All these different insects have an "open circulatory" system. Their blood flows from the blood vessels out the end into the body cavity. It swishes around the body cavity until it gets sucked back by the heart into the other open end of the blood system somewhere else. This is in contrast to mammals where the blood never leaves the blood vessels at any stage.

Here’s an interesting question or two for the thinking evolutionist. Can you explain which came first (the blood or the heart) and why? Did the heart in all these different species of fish, retiles, birds, amphibians and insects evolve before there were blood vessels throughout their bodies? When did the blood evolve? Was it before the vessels evolved or after they evolved?

If it was before, what was it that carried the blood to the heart, if there were no vessels? Did the heart beat before the blood evolved? Why was it beating if there was no blood to pump? If it wasn’t beating, why did it start when it didn’t know anything about blood?

If the blood vessels evolved before there was blood, why did they evolve if there was no such thing as blood? And if the blood evolved before the heart evolved, what was it that kept it circulating around the body?