richard
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Darwin was right!
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Jan 18 01:38 UTC 2006 |
I had the day off yesterday (mlk day), so I opted to spend the day in
higher pursuits. I went uptown to the American Museum of Natural
History, on Central Park West. The AMNH is an amazing place, one of
the largest and best museums there is anywhere. When I go, I often
like to spend time up on the fourth floor where resides the world's
largest collection of dinosaur fossils. I could spend hours just
staring at the T-Rex and the Stegosaurus and the giant reptile birds.
But not on this day. Today my purpose was to visit the museum's
special exhit on Charles Darwin, the most in-depth presentation of his
life, work and materials ever mounted. The Darwin exhibit is really
something, it chronicles his life and how he came to his theories.
Darwin was actually planning to join the ministry, but fate intervened
and he got the chance to go on a five year around the world journey as
the ship's scientist on the HMS Beagle. His job was in part to collect
specimens of animals/life forms and send them back to England for
cataloging. The ship gets to the Galapagos Islands, and Darwin is
startled to find that the birds he finds on each island are the same
species but each slightly different. The birds on one island, with one
environment and weather conditions, adapted differently than birds on a
different island. In different parts of the world on his long sea
journey, he encountered species that were the same, and yet were
different. He discovered fossils that indicated that new species now
living there had replaced old species. The only logical explanation
was that these species were evolved from the earlier species, had each
adapted over time to their particular needs and circumstances. He
found an earlier species of snake fossils that had tiny legs,
indicating snakes had evolved to the point where they no longer needed
and therefore no longer grew tiny legs. His work indicated snakes had
evolved from a species of lizards. What Darwin realized he was seeing
was a process of change that was constant. Again and again, he found
countless examples of species which had gone extinct, only to be
replaced by newer species.
Darwin's exhaustive study of various plants and animal species around
the world led him to conclude that plants and animals are not fixed and
unchanging. Instead, all species are related through common ancestry,
and they all change over time. Which could only mean that the world
and all its species could not have all been created at one time. He
brought home a bat skeleton, and noted that the bones in the bat's wing
looked very much like the bones in a human hand. When he looked at
chimpanzees and apes, he saw the same thing he saw in his studies of
mostly extinct species. He brought back fossils showing that horses
had adapted from earlier species of similar animals that were no bigger
than dogs. Basically the fossils in every case showed they were
earlier versions of something, showing how nature adapted and refined
those earlier versions, until the latest and most complete model
arrived. Apes were earlier models. Homo sapiens are later models.
Darwin came back from his journey convinced that all living things are
connected, and that human beings are not alien to this world, but are
rather completely part of a natural evolutionary process. The exhibit
displays Darwin's extensive insect and fossil collections, as well as
his original writings, and it even re-creates his study, where he
wrote "Origin of the Species" Darwin's findings were so radical that
he kept them secret for 21 years after his five year sea journey. His
ideas were blasphemous and in the conservative religious England of
that era, he feared for the safety of himself and his family if his
writings got out prematurely. It wasn't until he was much older, and
had taken ill and knew he could not responsibly take his secret to his
grave, that Darwin finally started publishing his work.
The exhibit has testimonials by numerous scientists and others. The
curator of the AMNH explains in a video that the entire museum, and the
other great natural history museums, are set up based on Darwin's idea,
that we are all connected with a common heritage. Other scientists
point out that Darwin's theories have stood the test of time, they have
not been disproved, despite many attempts. Darwin's ideas have not
been proven false, they have over and over again been proven correct.
Sadly, Darwin had to live with the consequences of his ideas. Darwin's
daughter died while still a child, and his wife brought herself to
believe their daughter was in heaven. Darwin could not ever believe
that himself though, as much as he wanted to, because his own theories
showed that the world was not created, the world evolved, and is still
evolving.
Anyway, the Darwin exhibit "Charles Darwin: For 21 years he kept his
theory secret" is at the American Museum of Natural History through May
29th, and it is quite the experience. I recommend that any of you who
can or will get to NYC at any time this spring make a special attempt
to see this.
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rcurl
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response 7 of 62:
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Jan 18 15:28 UTC 2006 |
Can you cite the evidence for that from the evolutionary literature?
People are certainly bigger and stronger, at least in some places, but I
thought that was mostly due to better nutrition. I would not be very
surprised by some demonstration of a little read genomic change in
adaptation, but I can't recall any evidence for it.
But, in any case, yes, we are all *subject to* natural selection. (Being
"victims" is a value judgement - evolutionary theory does not indulge in
value judgements.)
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richard
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response 10 of 62:
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Jan 18 18:21 UTC 2006 |
re #7 I said logic tells us evolution is still ongoing. We see change all
around us, and if we are connected to the world, as cells to a body, and the
world is changing constantly, then logically we must be changing too. The
process takes so many millions of years that we mostly just don't notice.
Our appendixes were once useful body parts in a lower evolutionary stage.
We no longer need our appendixes, however the fact that we still have them
is proof we evolved. We adapted to our environment, we invented clothes, we
don't need body hair much anymore. We therefore adapted to where we no longer
grow as much body hair in our current versions as we did as lower life forms.
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