Evolution is interesting as a scientific concept: we came from a cell that assembled itself from multiple different elements which in turn developed into something more complex. From my very basic understanding of evolution, we started off as a mono cellular organism in the sea, went through several stages of the evolutionary process in an aquatic environment and then migrated to land going through a variety of monkey like stages before one day deciding it was time to stand on two legs and walk.
Simplistic, yes but that’s more or less my understanding of the concept. Anyhoo, I got to wondering if it were possible that my favourite cake could one day evolve in the same way out of random existing elements to become a fully formed black forest gateau!
First we need us a recipe so I indulged in a little googling, and this is the first one that came up on the bbc website:
6 free-range eggs
250g/9oz caster sugar
100g/3½oz plain flour
60g/2¼oz cocoa powder
150g/5½oz butter, melted and cooled, plus extra for greasing
100g/3½oz morello cherry jam
425g tin pitted black cherries, drained
500ml/18fl oz double cream
2 tbsp icing sugar100g/3½oz
dark chocolate, to decorate
(If anyone wants to give it a go… https://www.bbc.com/food/recipes/black_forest_gateau_39909)
- Eggs: well, there are plenty of chickens on earth now thanks to chickens evolving into a delicious species of bird (sorry vegetarians). So we got eggs, we just need to convince them to jump into a mixing bowl, lets say the chickens laid 6 eggs in a naturally formed rock bowl. Check.
- Caster sugar: hmm tough one, the sugar nature has is not caster, so how is caster sugar made, help google… “Caster sugar is made by pulverizing granulated sugar into finer crystals”… how is granulated sugar made… ” Refined/granulated sugar is made from raw sugar that has undergone a refining process to remove the molasses”…how is raw sugar made… ” At the mills, the sugar cane is first cut up into small pieces, and then crushed to extract its juice.” few! so we have 3 different processes just to obtain the sugar… the probabilities are stacking up against me getting my cake :-(. So lets assume that all these processes have somehow happened organically, the sugar has been wind blown over to our mixing bowl, and we’ll move on or this article is going to last a century! Check.
- Plain flour: this one should be easier, it’s just wheat that’s been beat up a bit to get the white powdery stuff inside the grain right? google? ” White flour is made from the endosperm only, whereas whole-wheat flour combines all three parts of the wheat berry” so we need to separate the endosperm from the rest, the simplest method requires that grains be toasted to remove the chaff from the wheat and then smashed between two stones, so we need us some fire then enough quantity of this smashed up, toasted (and sifted) grain to float over to the same mixing bowl the eggs and sugar are in and combine with them to make a perfect genoise mix. 500 million years later…. Check.
So we have our cake base, it just needs to cook in a naturally assembled oven for the right amount of time before throwing itself on an improvised natural plate ready to topped by our whipped cream, jam, and kirsh soaked cherries…oh forgot to mention, it needs to be sliced into 2… maybe a sabre tooth tiger took a swipe at it with it’s claw… Check.
- Cocoa powder: “Cocoa powder is the dry solid remains of fermented, dried, and roasted cacao beans”. Simples, we got to ferment our cocoa beans (basically leave them for a given time until the pulp surrounding the cocoa bean transforms into alcohol during fermentation) , dry them and roast them, nature can do that easy; The wind dried and the fire that cooked the genoise further up didn’t go out for a billion years so we’re golden. Persuade them to jump into a mixing bowl. Check.
- Butter: Find a cow. The planet has provided plenty of them, get it to milk itself into a naturally made bucket and tell the milk to kindly churn itself into butter. We’ll thank the milk for kindly cooperating with the pace of this article we’ll move on, thanks milk. (Butter jump into the bowl please) Check. Next.
- Cherry jam: Methodology: Cherries fall from tree into a pile on the ground, sugar from the above sugar making process is blown over the cherries, thankfully, cherries grow in a hot climate, the sun heats the pile of cherries and sugar an makes jam, jam is picked up by a bear that, instead of eating it, decides it would look lovely sitting on a genoise base and spreads it over our cake base which now awaits the miracle of a whipped cream coating. Check.
- Black cherries pitted and drained: We’ll give nature the benefit of this one and go with whole cherries with the stones in them (thus giving rise to a generation of toothless neanderthals). Said cherries fell from the tree straight onto the cake. And as the bbc recipe doesn’t soak them in kirsh ( a heresy to any self respecting pastry chef) we’ll omit the kirsh. Check.
- Double cream: Lets say that the same cow that the butter came from was very accommodating and provided us with enough milk for the cream too. A strong wind blew (wind is rapidly becoming the most important element in evolution at this point) and took the top part of the settled milk from the naturally formed bucket and transported it to the bowl with the remaining caster sugar in it ready for a good old fashioned whipping. Somehow a branch from a free falls into the bowl and is pushed and pulled around by the wind so that the cream is whipped into a frenzy and becomes perfectly firm ready to cover the cherry jam on the patiently awaiting cake base (if evolutionary statistics are anything to go by the cake has been there for about 3 billion years by now and has probably started to fossilise).
- The above ingredients have fortunately all landed exactly where they were wanted and the cake looks beautiful, all that’s left is to wait for the evolution of the spoon.
Basically, my enquiry is this: A human cell, is composed of 94 naturally occurring elements in, I presume, precise quantities and which need to be compiled or “mixed” in a given order (some of the elements such as Barium or Mercury in the wrong proportions could maybe kill the cell due to their toxicity). It needs a specific temperature range to survive. And if the “mix” were left too long before it evolved to the next stage, it would fossilise or be destroyed by the elements around it (I could be wrong but again this is a line of enquiry, not a statement).
Given all of this, that apparently our universe has only been around for 16 billion years (i.e. 10 to the power of 18 seconds) why is it possible for a highly complex human cell to evolve randomly from nothing, move through the stages of evolution to become a sentient human being, capable of movement, intelligence, social interaction, understanding complex scientific subjects or artistic sentiment, but on the other hand it is impossible for a black forest gateau which is an inert (as far as I know), comparatively simplistic, delicious desert to evolve?
Could a statistician please tell me what the probabilities there are for 92 different elements of a human cell (we won’t even go into plants, insects and other animals) aligning in a specific order? If that probability is more that 10 to the power of 18 then it would require that each generation of evolution takes less that 1 second. Is that possible? If not, something doesn’t add up!
In the mean time, all this might make sense to a scientist, but could science please explain to me: Where the hell is my cake?