Date of Award

Spring 2020

Document Type

Term Paper

College

School of Unrestricted Education

Primary Advisor

Dr. Grace Veach

Abstract

Protozoa are magnificent creatures. They exhibit all of the functions intrinsic to living organisms: irritability, metabolism, growth and reproduction. Within these functions, there are numerous examples of mutations that occur in order for organisms to adapt to their given environments. Irritability is demonstrated in protozoa by their use of pseudopodia, flagella, or cilia for motility; it has been shown that such locomotors exhibit diversity while maintaining similar protein and chemical structures that appear to be a result of evolutionary processes. Metabolism in protozoa is similar to that of larger animals, but their diet is unique. They primarily feast upon bacteria, which have begun mutating to evade easy ingestion and digestion by protozoa, therefore increasing their survival rate and making it necessary for protozoa to adapt. Reproduction naturally follows growth in protozoa, and these processes are quite unique from larger life forms, leading scientists and evolutionists to hypothesize that the cenancestor that is pivotal in their case was a sexual being. Mutations that take place through sexual or asexual reproduction, when repeated over several generations, can eventually lead to a new species, which is the main doctrine in the theory of evolution. Creationist arguments that attempt to dissuade believers in theistic evolution rely heavily on the account in Genesis 1, but have no empirical evidence from the study of protozoa for their theory. On the other hand, numerous studies related to protozoa have been devoted to the proof of evolution. To summarize all of this, the study of protozoa, in its current state, may lead one to the reasonable conclusion that evolution was the process by which God formed the world.

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