Impact of Evolution on Human Thought Evolution . Реферат. Биология.
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Impact of Evolution on Human Thought
Evolution by definition of Webster dictionary is a gradual
development of simple matters into more complex. When most of the people hear
“evolution” it associates with development or history of the earth. History of
the earth compiles of gazillions of steps. The very first step in our history
is a birth of the earth, which took place over 4 billion years ago.
“Powerful
telescopes reveal new stars coalescing from galactic dust, just as our sun did
more than 4.5 billion years ago. The earth itself formed shortly thereafter,
when rock, dust, and gas circling the sun condensed into the planets of our
solar system. Fossils of primitive microorganisms show that life had emerged
on earth by about 3.8 billion years ago (Teaching about evolution and the
Natural of Science, ch. 1).”
Many people throughout the centuries have
been trying to find explanations to the questions like: Why are surrounding us
things the way they are?; why some type of animals resemble another one? It
was hard to answer these questions without proper tools, experience and
background knowledge. Even nowadays, not all questions are answered. Darwin
was the first human who succeeded in responding to these questions. He was the
first one who put discovered facts and knowledge available by his time in one
big picture. In attempts to explain the history Darwin created the most
outstanding achievement of human beings that had enormous impact of our
thinking—evolutionary thinking. Ernest Mayer, in his book “One Long Argument”
says following about impact of Darwin’s work on human thinking.
“It is almost impossible for a
modern person to project back to the early half of the nineteenth century and
reconstruct the thinking of this pre-Darwinian period, so great has been the
impact of Darwinism on our views (E. Mayr, pp. 1)
For our further discussion, one should
explicitly distinguish between evolution and evolutionary theory. Evolution
(history) is a serious of facts that occurred since the birth of the earth,
while evolutionary theory is the best way available nowadays to explain why
evolution happened the way it happened, but not otherwise. Both evolution and
evolutionary theory make series of claims. Some of them are secondary and some
are primary. Primary claims if proved wrong, would change entire theory.
The earth is over 4 billion years old. In
the past when technology was not very developed it was hard to prove age of the
earth. Scientists had been aging by measuring the rate of sedimentation.
Another method of defining age, which was used in 1800s, is noticing what kinds
of fossil rocks have. Currently it is done by chemical analysis of composition
of fossil.
“Some elements such as uranium,
undergo radioactive decay to produce to produce other elements. By measuring
the quantities of radioactive elements and elements into which they decay in
rocks, geologists can determine how much time has elapsed since the rock cooled
from initially molten state (Teaching About Evolution and the Nature of
Science).”
Life
on the earth did not appear right after appearance of the earth. The first
sings of life were dated about 550 million years ago according to the oldest
fossils. This fact does not specifically mean that where was not life forms
before that time. Life forms were very simple and lacked hard parts like bones
or shells and could rarely preserve in the fossils.
“However,
a few pre-Cambrian organisms left traces of their existence. Some ancient
rocks contain stromatolities—the remnants of bacteria that grew in columns like
stacked pancakes (Teaching About Evolution, ch. 3, pp. 2)
Extinction is a major feature of biological
evolution. It is in a tight connection with natural selection. Natural
selection works only by means of surviving of changes, in some sense useful,
and therefore, striking root. In the consequence, fast increase of the numbers
of all organic matters in geometrical progression, every natural habitat already
filed to the limits by its habitants. From this it follows those more adapted
forms will increase in numbers and less adapted, will decrease in numbers and
become rare. Rarity of the form is a predecessor of the extinction. Every
form represented by small numbers of individuals has big chances for a complete
extinction in consequence of significant climatic swings within a year or in
consequence of temporary increase of enemies. Species, most abundant of
individuals, have the biggest chances for appearance at any particular time of
favorable changes. Rare individuals will at any particular time change and
perfect at a slower pace and in consequence of that will be defeated in a life
struggle with changed and improved descendants of more common individuals.
From this it follows that since with a passage of time natural selection
“creates” new species, than other species become more rare, and finally
extinct.
For example, during laying eggs season, sea
turtles hay hundreds of thousands eggs. While hatching and getting to the
ocean most of the generation becomes easy pray of sea birds. Since just
hatched turtles do not have a hard cover that could protect them, many of them
dye in the ocean. By maturity time only about one out of thousand turtles stay
alive. Currently there are billions of living organisms that inhabit the
earth, but they represent only around one percent of all living organisms that
have ever lived on the earth since its birth. Ninety nine percent dyed out. [1]
Another example that
mechanisms of evolutionary change are observable and verifiable is the one
described by Henry Walter Bates.
“In 1862, Henry Walter Bates made brilliant use of the Darwinian mechanism of
natural selection asking why it is that some species of butterfly very closely
mimic species of butterfly, essentially quite different, Bates proved beyond
doubt that the answer lies in adaptive advantage brought about by natural
selection. The mimicked insects are highly distasteful to birds who think that
they belong to distasteful species. Bates showed experimentally that birds
learn to avoid distasteful insects, and that the closer the mimic, the less
change there is that the insect will be eaten.”
When the earth appeared for the first time it was very different
from its current conditions. The surface of the earth was represented by bare
bedrock. At the time of its birth, the earth represented cold matter, close by
its composition to meteorites. Material it was mad of, contained radioactive
elements. In consequence of the heat excretion while radioactive decomposition
of the core and gravitational compression. However, because of continuous loss
of heat through he surface and lack of radiation heat complete melting of the
earth did not happen. In result of earth’s melting, water and different gases
were brought up to the surface. This water began formation of hydrosphere.
Location of continents and oceans were very different. According to
Wegener’s hypothesize, which he later supported by evidence, earth’s continents
used to be a single land, which was called Pangea. About two hundred million
years ago Africa and South America slowly began their movement toward their
current location. Wegener supported his hypothesize by geological and
biological evidence. At the place where the continents were aligned, were
found fossilized animals and plants dated more than two hundred million years
old. Besides, if Africa and South America had always been separate continents
as they are now, both of them would have had very different flora and fauna,
which are not.
Starting at 1950 up to 1970 evidence begin
exposing to the world that support hypothesis of continent’s slow movement.
Sonar mapping of the ocean floor showed winding, continuous ridges system
around the planet. The ridges appeared where molten matter was coming up from
the earth’s inside.
Not only topography of the earth has
changed, but composition atmosphere has changed as well. Current atmosphere
contains a lot of oxygen, which is result of existence of life. During
photosynthesis, green plants consume water and dioxide and release oxygen in
atmosphere. This is considered to be a secondary claim because even if the
earth would not developed as it considered, it would have no impact on
evolutionary theory.
Origin of human being was an interest of
human more than origin of plant and animals. Attempt to understand and explain
origin of humans is expressed in religions, legends of all kind of trails and
folks. For a long period of time science knowledge were abrupt and incomplete
in order to solve a problem of human origin. Only in 1857 Darwin expressed
hypothesis, and in 1871 in his book “The Origin of man and relation to sex,”
convincelly proved that humans originate from pre-existing humanlike, but were
not created by intelligent designer. Role of social factors, which was pointed
out by Darwin, was detailly described by Fredrik Engels in his book “Role of
labor in the process of turning ape into humans.” (1896)
Human and vertebrates commonness is
strongly supported by similar arrangement of internal organs: skeleton, nerve
system, blood system, respiration, and digestion.
Rudiments and atavisms are very important
evidences of human relatedness to animals. There are about 90 rudiments in
human body: coccyx bone (remaining of the reduced tail); folds in the corner of
the eyes (remaining of the blinking tympanum; thin body hair (remaining of the
hair). All these rudiments are inherited from an animal ancestor. An external
tail, which sometimes people are born with, is related to atavisms. Another
atavism is abandon hair on the face and body.
Common details of the body arrangement are
evidence of close relativeness of human and anthropoids: wrist with flat nails,
shape of eyes and years, the same number of canine and molar teeth, complete
change of baby teeth, and so forth. Physiological commonness is very
important: the same blood groups, diseases (tuberculosis, fly, smallpox,
cholera, AIDS, pneumonia) and parasites (louse). Besides numerous common
features, there is a number of explicit differences evidencing that its current
stage, human is considered to be different species. Only human has ability of
upright walking and related to that peculiarity of structure of the S-shaped
backbone with explicit neck and lumber bend, low extended pelvis, and etc.
Human skull is higher and more rounded without superciliary arch; brain part of
skull is in most part dominated by facial; high forehead, weak jaws with small
canine. Human brain is about two and half times bigger than one of humanlike
apes, and 3-4 times heavier.
Human being evolved from other
pre-existing species. Even in ancient times it has been noticed that humans
have a lot of in common with a other animals just like other animals human had
the same internal organs (heart, lungs, liver etc.). Ancient Greeks had a
scale of living organisms known by their time. Human being was placed at the
end of the scale. Below were higher animals like houses, sheep and so forth,
but it is hard to believe that humans were next step in the biological
evolution of living organisms right after higher animals. Only by the
eighteenth century ape-like being became known to Europe. This discover shed
light on a huge gap between higher animal and humans (Darwinism defended, Ruse,
pp. 230). After that some scientists (for example Huxley) assumed that humans
descended from apes. Later, having examined all differences between apes and
humans, Huxley came to conclusion that humans and apes descended from a common
ancestor. One would probably ask why our common ancestor did split into two
branches, apes and Australopithecus afarensis (which is considered to be an
ancestor of all hominids). There is a scientific explanation, which relates to
climatic changes in Africa. Our ancestor was used to live in the area of heavy
precipitation. With a passage of time climate started turning into dry one and
forestlands began retreating, leaving behind Savannah’s. Some species stayed
in dwindling forests. Others (our ancestors) started advancing toward opened
spaces.
With a change
of place of inhabitation, there were some changes in diet of our ancestor.
Anthropologists suggested that tooth reduction took place because our ancestor
started to use grass seeds and the like as a food source (Darwinism Defended).
Natural selection is the major moving
factor of the evolution of the living organisms. Almost at the same time,
several English naturalists arrived at the idea of existence of natural
selection (P. Mathew (1831), A. Blight (1935), A. Wallace (1858), C. Darwin
(1858)), but only Darwin succeeded in exposing of the meaning of this
phenomenon as the major factor of evolution and created the theory of natural
selection. On the contrary, to artificial selection held by humans, natural
selection is conditioned by influence of surrounding environment upon the
organisms. According to Darwin natural selection is survival of the most
accommodated organisms, in consequence of which, on the basis of undefined
inherited changeableness in the series of generations evolution occurs.
In process of natural selection species
more accommodated to surrounding environment survive, those who do are not, go
extinct. Explicit example of that is our ancestors that had advantage of
standing upright to look out and look for possible object of prey. Natural
selection does not specifically have to lead to perfection. It leads only to
surviving of species that can survive. If entire kind of particular animals
can not survive in changed environment, entire kind will dye out.
“Organisms in nature topically
produce more offspring that can survive and reproduce given the constraints of
food, space, and other resources in the environment. These offspring often
differ from one another in ways that are heritable—that is, they can pass on
the differences genetically to their own offspring. If competing offspring
have traits that are advantageous in a given environment, they will survive and
pass on those traits. As differences continue to accumulate over generations,
populations of organisms diverge from their ancestors.”
Process of natural selection consists of
two steps: the first one is reproduction of genetically different species; the
second step is surviving of the most adopted individuals in surrounding
environment. An example can be nest of birds in which some nestlings have a
little bit different coloring than others. If this coloring better matches the
tree these birds in habit, this will give them advantage of better hiding from
predators, which leads to increase in changes of reproduction. Below are
example that Wallace, Alfred Russle uses in his book “Contributions to the
theory of Natural Selection” to demonstrate natural selection.
“The Duke of Argyll, in his “Reigh
of Law,” has pointed out the admirable adaptation of the colors of the woodcock
to its protection. The various browns and yellows and pale ash-color that
occur in fallen leaves are all reproduced in its plumage, so that when
according to its habit it rests upon the ground under trees, it is almost
impossible to detect it. In snipes the colors are modified so as to be equally
in harmony with the prevalent forms and colors of marshy vegetation. Mr.
J.M.Lester, in a paper read before the Rugby School Natural History Society,
observes: --“The wood-dove, when perched amongst the branches of its favorite
fir, is scarcely discernible; whereas, were it among some lighter foliage, the
blue and purple tints in its plumage would far sooner betray it. The robin
redbreast too, although it might be thought that on its breast made it much
easier to be seen, is in reality not at all endangered by it, since it generally
contributes to get among some russet or yellow fading leaves, where the red
matches very well with the autumn tints, and the brown of the rest of the body
with the bare branches.”
Core of natural selection is variation
within the kind. If variation does not exist either entire kind will survive
and stay unchanged or it will go extinct. But what it a source of variation?
The ultimate source of variation is mutations in genes. If new traits gained
through mutation leads to successful survival and reproduction than new traits
will be inherited and spread within the population. Mutation is random, but
natural selection is not.
All living organisms that currently
inhabit the earth share common ancestry. Through the history by means of
natural selection and variation first, simple forms of life were evolving into
different, more complex forms. How to prove it?
“The discovery of the structure of
DNA by Francis Crick and James Watson in 1953 extended the study of evolution
to most fundamental level the sequence of the chemical basis in DNA both
specifies the order of amino acids in proteins and determines which proteins
are source of both change and continuity in evolution. The modification of DNA
through occasional changes or rearrangements in the base sequences underlies
the emergence of new traits, and thus of new species, in evolution. At the
same time, all organisms use the same molecular codes to translate DNA base
sequences into Protein amino acid sequences. This uniformity in genetic code
is power evidence for the interrelatedness of living things.” (Teaching About
Evolution and the Nature of Science, ch. 2, pp. 4)
Another powerful argument that supports
common ancestry is a fact that man is developed from an ovule, about the 125 th
of an inch in diameter, which does not differ from the ovules of other
animals. At a very early period, the embryo can hardly be distinguished from
another member of vertebrate kind.
In order to convince one that evolution
happened the way evolutionary theory describes it evidences must be presented.
Major evidence and argument of evolutionary theory is that all of the
mechanisms of evolutionary theory change are currently observable. Let us take
for example main mechanism of evolutionary change—natural selection. Nowadays
our society is facing serious public health problem. Bacteria that medicine
used to successfully fight with antibiotics is becoming more resistant to one.
This means that week bacteria go extinct and only strong (more resistant to antibiotics)
bacteria survived. (Teaching about evolution, ch. 2, pp. 5) “continued use and
overuse of antibiotics has had the effect of selecting for resistant population
because the antibiotics give these strains and advantage over non-resistant
strains”
1)
“Long Argument,” Ernest
Mayr, Harvard University Press, 1991.
3)
“The Descent of Man and
Selection in Relation to Sex,” Charles Darwin, 1974.
4)
“Wonderful Life,”
Stephen Jay Gould, W.W. Norton & Company, 1989.
5)
“Contributions to the
theory of natural selection,” Wallace, Alfred Russel, AMS Press, 1973.
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