Topic 1
Discuss some of the ways that Darwin’s theory of natural selection was transformative to his society. Natural selection is “the process whereby organisms better adapted to their environment tend to survive and produce more offspring.” (What is natural selection, n.d.) In other words the strongest genes are passed to their offspring.
What did Darwin’s contemporaries think about his theory?
Charles Darwin was the first to discover this theory. This theory(evolution) caused a lot of controversy among his contemporaries and his ideas were only gradually accepted. Not everyone accepted the theory as it conflicted with the people’s religious views that God made all the animals and plants on earth. He also didn’t have enough evidence
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Give your opinion.
The Homo sapiens can be distinguished from their primitive ancestors by the mere fact that we are bipedal. This gives us a distinct advantage over animals who walk on all fours. Not only are we higher and can see better but we also have two extra limbs that we can use to manipulate tools.
Our ability to harness our natural environment and convert it into tools enabled us to be more advanced than the other animals surrounding us. The fact that we could recognise material in our environment as possible tools gave us a technological advantage. By manufacturing crude tools at first we could club, stab and chop to enable us to collect food. This also served as a means to protect ourselves therefor enabling us to be the survivor of the fittest hence natural selection. As we honed our manual skills we started making composite tools enabling us to become even more technologically advanced over the animals. This allowed us to manufacture more refined amenities such as clothes, shelter, weapons , jewelry and foot wear, which we don’t find amongst the animal kingdom. Add to that that we can think and plan makes us evolutionary more superior, hence we are humans.
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From this, we can see that our early ancestor mainly ate plants with a plenty of insects for food. In addition, the author mentioned that our hands have evolved for grasping things like flatter nails instead of claws as we do not have to climb up to tress to look for food or catch any insects. Human traits also have forward-facing eyes and larger brains than most of the
Humans Didn’t Outsmart the Neanderthals. We Just Outlasted Them, written by Sarah Kaplan and published by the Washignton Post on November 1st, 2017, analyzes the relationship between the Homo neanderthalensis and Homo sapiens. During the Paleolithic age, which is dated from approximately 2.6 million years ago to 11,700 years ago (Britannica, 2017), the Neanderthals were identified to be “the height of sophistication”, according to author Kaplan Washington Post, 2017). These hominids displayed exceptional evolutionary strides. They produced tools, jewelry, and paintings.
As time passed, they invented and advanced tools to make hunting simpler and to cure more diseases. Even today, simple actions such as going to school are because of the knowledge and skills you need for your future occupation in order to make capitals to support living. In conclusion, verything we’ve invented and carried out was to promote our
While it is clear that with evolution came about more sophisticated and complex behavior due to the increase in brain use and size, when you compare hominid brains to modern human brains, modern human brains, by far, possess the largest and most complex brains, which is self-explanatory given the fact that while hominids were intelligent creatures, modern humans are far more advanced in their intelligence and capabilities. This brain size
The other key development is hominin brain encephalization. As our extreme encephalization occurs after the onset of bipedalism we can assume that bipedalism was a prerequisite. The increased meat diet of the bipedal H. erectus coincides with increased encephalization. There are a number of theories as to why encephalization occurred. For example, using hands for toolmaking and other complex activities in turn selects for increased encephalization.
In chapter 1 of the earth and its people by john the first chapter is about how we as humans came about starting from the Homo sapiens who had a more developed brain than the other type of subspecies humans that came before the Homo sapiens such as the Homo erectus or the Neanderthals who had a less developed brain. Initially the Homo sapiens were first known to come from Africa nearly 400,000 and 100,000 years ago as they evolved from being a Homo habilis and a Homo erectus. After their evolution the Homo sapiens became mostly known for being able to use their minds to do things such as make tools, hunt animals, draw paintings and speak or use some form of language. Which allowed them to form hunter-gatherer societies were the women would gather bulks of berries, nuts and plant which was the most stable source of food income that the groups could rely on.
With humans evolving from primates, there is no logical reason why we see ourselves as a higher being than our pre evolved selves. Primates should have legal representation when it comes to events that are either caused by them, or could affect them. Primates, like humans, have a capacity to suffer, because of this they should live in a world where they do not have to feel unnecessary pain. The science of paleontology is the scientific study of human evolution.
By studying how an ape would get a banana using “smart” methods can only prove a miniscule amount of their intelligence. Costello then says that “human ‘reasoning’” (PDF pg.44) is the only cause of what separates us from animals. In spite of that, I would have to say that this reason would show how humans have progressed more than any other animal. The basis of this proves that we have a better understanding of how things work over other animals.
One thing that humans have that separates them from other animals is their consciousness. That is why in order to be civilized you must be able to share, feel, and embrace emotion. You have to be able to share ideas to communicate with the people around you. Being able to understand people and feel empathy towards them is what makes us civilized. Just like how Enkidu from Gilgamesh, learned how to love and the ways of human life.
The apes are the ones who decided to use the tool to turn against nature and themselves — they are the ones who gave it such purpose. Assuming that such apes are our ancestors, we see that humanity develop their tools, going from using the bone to creating the spaceship and building the HAL 9000s. HAL’s programmed principal objective is to pursue to a conclusion Discovery One’s mission, and it is seeing its human crew as being a hinderance to
Together, Bacon and Darwin make up the dream team of the scientific world. Bacon’s four idols can be related to Darwin’s natural selection by: the idol of the tribe as the opinion of natural selection, the idol of cave relates to the impact natural selection has on man, the third idol, the marketplace, reflects the conversation about natural selection, and the idol is theater is the idea that natural selection suggests to the public. Charles Darwin is a crucial character in the history of scientific thought, his biggest role pertained to natural selection, and from then on the idea of evolution. Ed Grabianowski commented in his summary of natural selection that, “Natural Selection is the engine that drives evolution.” (Grabianowski)
Neandertal bodies were uniquely acclimated to the harsh environment of Eurasia making them the dominating species of the land and they were quite intelligent in their use of tool making, practiced forms of art and culture, engaged in ritualistic behaviour and
It is widely accepted that prehistoric hominids were initially vapid, asocial herbivores, and Wilson makes the argument that the transition to eating meat was critical to man’s development. It led human beings having to hunt animals, which they eventually did in groups upon realizing the need to help one another, and that necessitated the development of social behaviors for the sake of sound cooperation.
Darwin changed the way that scientist looked at evolution during his time, Darwin and his book The Origin of Species are what made evolutionary biology what it is