Skepticism About Darwinian Evolution
Only A Theory?
Chapter one in Richard Dawkins “The greatest show on earth” book dives into the intellectuality of certain individuals whom are unable to fully comprehend just how sound and concrete science is. It shows religion is nothing but myth, a fanatical idea that doesn’t hold any scientific truth, this makes individuals of faith angry at the schools because of the absolute truth that gods bible does not belong in the scientific realm the bible is just a symbolic thing for people to hold their values and ethics too because no man or creature should have the power over another.
In this we learn of the common mistake when an individual who is not scientifically inclined may find things a tad complicated due to not containing the vocabulary such as when an individual is speaking what is a fact and what is a theory, theory can be perceived in two different manners either as a system of ideas or a hypothesis that is scientifically known to be a explanation.
These two senses suggest that someone who has yet to hoan their intellectual abilities may not quite truly understand the question.
Any reputable biologist would be able to understand the importance of science in all aspects of life and more so in the world because it can have devastating effects on others there are entire nuke bombs created by countries all across the world that at any given time could have catastrophic effects on every living being on earth, there are people who are even effected now individuals who are falsely charged due to the lack of evidence but now as we are able to check DNA come to find out that people were wrongly convicted? And vise versa?
Dogs, Cows And Cabbages
This chapter the narrator speaks about the connections of life by using a controlled experiment using embryology in tree’s and in doing so found that it was recursive.
It goes into deep depth how everything Is all interconnected just like the branches of the trees there is slight variation between each descendant, and this becomes apparent in all life forms. We all were descendant from one specific species with slight variations.
The selective breeding method you can breed for certain traits and in doing so control selective breeding it is why today we have so many different breeds of dogs that originated from the prized ancestor the wolf. We learn that pure-bred “pedigree” dogs went through a stage of high variation through careful breeding which became common for humans to like these animals with mutations. All of these were an effect of what they call sculpting the gene pool meaning they have full control over selectively breeding whatever variable and or trait they select for.
It is widely known that Darwin wrote an entire book about it called “The variation of animals and plants under domestication”. Genetics play an important role back in the day people believed genetics was like mixing paint to get your desired color but however it is not, genetics don’t blend they shuffle we see here an analogy for genetics would be like shuffling a deck of cards repeatedly. This chapter delves deeper into just what and how genetics work for a personal example take it that it I have three sheep, two sheep with normal amounts of wool and one sheep with a slightly larger amount of wool.
If my goal is to get all my sheep with a tremendous amount of wool I would breed the heavy wool with one hoping in one of its offspring would have that desired trait in wool and from their I could selectively breed that sheep with another sheep with a sufficient amount of wool making the variability I select for is the sheep with the larger amount of wool. We also see the variation in survivable species due to the ability to suckle we learn that natural selection plays a role that the easier it is for the baby to suckle and get the appropriate nutrients to survive has a higher and more probable chance of survival than the dog who may have a mutation that might not as we say give him a good set of cards aka “genetics”.
Like many of the different terminologies we can use we see that that many of our vegetables such as kale, spinach and lettuce are originate from an ancestral cabbage with these slight variations throughout time have developed into different traits selected for size shape taste color and even seasonability. Within the book it is explained that a hairpin animal is the animal that is the raw descendant of the living creatures. Science is a lot of asking why’s, why it is this color? Why does it require these nutrients to survive? Why are humans different colors? Why is the sky blue? All can be explained with evidence.
So much intellectual data it is no wonder that Darwin’s theory of evolution shook the scientific discovery of evolution we had Mayr with his population thinking firmly believing a specific creature is to that creature and that alone Mayr believing that this thinking was the antithesis of essentialism. Darwin quickly shot down his idea calling it an anti-evolutionary view and how each species if connected to every other species by a chain of intermediate’s meaning we are all related to each other genetically down through the ancestral tree somewhere.
The Primrose Path To Macro Evolution
In this chapter we discover the importance of vision and the process of pollination we see that in order for plants to migrate to other areas and to survive other than using wind pollination and the effects the colors of the flower have on the different species that have different levels of sight on the spectrum whether they can see ultraviolet and what flower is what color is appealing to each individual species, therefore selecting for that creature to be the main pollinator.
We also begin to discover the importance of how plants evolved to more easily migrate to different areas we begin to see the true biology of what makes a flower and what things we could possibly select for in the selective breeding process, by breeding the desired trait to appeal to a certain species while also breeding with increased nectar yield. Trade-offs are an important topic within the book, a trade-off means there is always a transaction to be made a “trade” you must give something first before you can receive.
The example within the book displayed the tradeoff of selecting for better teeth In lab rats with less tooth decay. Ultimately the ones with more tooth decay having a much shorter lifespan due to the infections that would ensue. When we select creatures to yield to our benefit often times, we are doing so in the way they would not be able to survive without the constant care of humans due to domestication. I personally have never heard of a wild dairy cow, is because a wild one doesn’t exist this cow has been selectively bred to yield more dairy for manufacturer’s consumption.
The Russian geneticists Dimitri Belyaev conducted an experiment on wild foxes to breed for increase tameness. He conducted an array of different foxes with three of which increasing tameness ultimately the class one cubs who were the tamest were selectively and repeatedly bred to adhere to the more tameness in his study he saw that each generation of breeding would increase the chances for those cubs to also have offspring with the same desired trait.
in this we can see that there is was to domesticate an animal by manipulating natural selection in doing this it changed the characteristics of the creature as well them gaining more dog-like tendencies in behavioral and in physical appearance. Their biological rhythms for breeding times changed this is what again is seen as a tradeoff, in turn, breeding the foxes for tameness you were given a tradeoff of different traits and characteristics that pop up.
This also occurs in natural selection as well unguided by humans natural selection will select for certain species to obtain certain qualities due to many different factors such as food availability and environment and sexual selection when the creature sexually selects for a more specific trait, for example, a bird that likes another bright colored bird sexually selects only the bright-colored bird that is more “pleasing” to the male bird.
In the book we see an example in the selection of fish, as fish with a skin more similar to the environment providing them with some camouflage increases their chances of survival and therefore they would start to sexually select for the darker camouflage fish apposed to a bright colored one because of the predator who would thin out the ratio of bright to camouflage fish.
Science And Slow Time
The process in which time is able to provide an ample amount of information things such as fossils tells us what creatures were alive how deep they were in the geological rocks and plates of the earth and oxidation levels able to determine the age of the fossil. Everything has timescale and history deniers who doubt evolution are an ignoramus and need to be made aware.
