Rio 2016: Long Distance Running Is a Darwinian Enigma

Fabienne St Louis (seen here in 2011) took part in the women’s triathlon in Rio despite a cancer diagnosis. Image courtesy of MartinPutz, Creative Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0).



Joel Kontinen

Some animal rights activists seem to think that chimpanzees are almost human although DNA comparisons tell a very different story, putting the difference between our genomes at anywhere between 5 – 6 and 30 per cent, with our ”horrendously different” Y-chromosomes.

Perhaps Rio 2016 reminds us that while apes might be good at swinging from trees, they could never run a marathon.

Unlike us, they were never created in God’s image to walk and run upright on two feet.

Unlike apes, we have a chin, and the golden ratio in us speaks of ornate design that cannot be explained away by Darwinian mechanisms.

Such top - down planning is the opposite of what we would expect from the blind Darwinian watchmaker.