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Origin of Species written by Sir Charles Darwin was a book that reshaped the thoughts of a generation, giving a completely new story as to how life on earth as we know it came to be. Darwin mainly uses examples of flowers, bees, and pigeons in his writing to support his theory, but he implies that all species, including humans undergo this process.  Pope Benedict XVI has outright stated that the thought of humans changing in a pattern that is completely random, that our species came to be by chance, is the most disturbing thing about this story.  Not that Darwin implies all species come from one common ancestor, but  that becoming human and our continuous evolution is unplanned.  Why is the fact that human evolution random disturbing?

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            Biological Evolution. These two words stand upon a pedestal, gracing society, science, and

Evolution and Evolution of Stories

13 February 2009

 

The Evolution of Natural Selection

Julia Lewis
Professor Dalke
2/13/09

In this course our first directions for reading Darwin’s book, On the Origin of Species, was to treat it as a novel.  Such instruction proved problematic for students, myself include, for a variety of reasons.  One reason is that reading a novel or enjoying any other work of art requires the reader to willingly suspend their disbelief.  In this paper, I would like to explore how the idea of willing suspension of disbelief is challenging to translate into studying a scientific text. 

As a theory of evolution, the origin of instinct by means of natural selection was one of Darwin's most significant theoretical challenges. The narrative of how Darwin articulated this role combines his understanding of the advancements of other scientists with his own observations and research, leading to his development of the concept of group selection. In The Descent of Man (1871) Darwin defined group selection as selection that produces characteristics that help others, including non-relatives, in an individual's group (Ruse 36).

          Although the mystery of human evolution is still being studied today, people have begun to question whether man is still evolving currently and, if so, whether he/she will continue evolving indefinitely. Some have thought that human evolution has slowed down and may even come to a stop at some point in the future. Most scientists, however, believe that humans are still evolving and, indeed, are actually evolving faster now than before. Granted none of us could see evolution taking place, but we have been able to surmise with a degree of certainty that man, over the past several hundred-thousand years, has indeed been evolving from more primitive ancestors.

        Empiricism is a term that has been used in class discussion for the past couple of weeks in order to describe Darwin’s scientific method. It is a term that I was not very familiar with before the start of this class and I would like to explore it. Then after I have a more solid idea of what the term “empiricism” entails, I want to try and apply it to Darwin and his work: On the Origin of Species.