Darwin Revelations: Evolution

Michael Harron

COR 210-05

Cyndi Brandenburg

    This semester I have learned a lot about the theory of evolution and natural selection and I find it very interesting. Living organisms must evolve through out time in order to stay alive. Living organisms are at a constant war with one another to stay a live.            Every living organism must evolve to stay alive. “De Candolle, in an eloquent passage, has declared that all nature is at war, one organism with another, or with external nature.” (Darwin, 82) The way the human body has formed over time is a perfect example of an organism that evolved to stay alive. Viruses and germs are deadly towards the human body. Our body must adapt to defend from sicknesses. It takes time for this to happen however. There have been many incidents where the body has no been exposed too and never had the chance to build up to defend its self from a virus. A perfect example is small pox. Native Americans around the 1500’s never have had any physical contact with foreigners. People from Europe came over to the New World not knowing about how deadly viruses are. Since the Native Americans never have been exposed to this disease, they had no way to defend themselves. Many people died as a result of small pox. Humanity has advanced so much in science that we have come up with ways to build out bodies up against viruses without being exposed to them in our life times. Vaccinations such as the flu shot are a perfect example of how humans used technology to protect themselves. The flu could wipe out humanity, but we have the technology to inject ourselves with a small dose of it, small enough for out bodies to build up immunity against it. Basically we have sped up the process of evolution. Rather than waiting 100 years to build up immunity, we have reduced it to a couple of weeks to build immunity.

            Animals can evolve to the point where they can go from feet to fins. Like in this video, after a lot of research and discoveries, they have come to the conclusion that whales were once land animals. They have found bones from millions of year ago of whales with legs and the skull was more shaped like a wolf’s skull. They do not know the reason for why this is, but they have adapted to become water animals for a reason. “In these work he upholds the doctrine that all species, including man, are descended from other species.” (Darwin 87) Darwin tells us that every organism has descended from an animal completely different. Throughout millions of years, animals have changed so much physically that it is tough to see what species we have descended from. Us as humans have good evidence we descended from the ape because of how similar the body structures are and how intelligent they are.

            Evolution is a huge factor on how organisms survive. I have learned a lot this year about how we have adapted to our environment through evolution. Whether it be skin color or from legs to fins, evolution has had a huge impact on how all living organisms survive today. 

Sources 

Course Readings here

Appleman, Philip. "On the Tendency of Species to Form Varieties, and On the Perpetuation of Varieties and Species by Natural Means of Selection (1858)." Darwin. Third ed. New York London: W. W. Norton. 2-87.

Appleman, Phillip. "An Historical Sketch of the Progress of Opinion on the Origin of Species, previously to the Publication of this Work." Darwin. Third ed. New York London: W W Norton. 87-94.