Henry Browne
Jan 21 2007
Origin of species commentary
Reading the excerpt from The Origin of Species all the ideas sounded very commonplace. So much of my understanding of evolution and the way the world works is stated in the reading. It is hard to imagine people not believing these ideas. Darwin talked about the limits of archeology. It showed me how subjective science can be. It seems like a lot of scientific theory has to do with coming up with a story that could fit circumstantial evidence. It seems like society and politics also have a lot to do with what ideas are accepted as plausible. I feel the reason a lot of scientist may have gotten guff for there ideas was the scientific community’s attachment to the church.
In a lot of ways Darwin’s ideas are a lot more astonishing, while still more believable than a lot of religious ideas. Darwin’s theories would implicate that anything alive today, let alone humans are extremely advanced organisms that are the living descendants of the original ancient life source. Millions of varieties of life have perished from the earth but are descendants adapted and prospered. You could even make the claim that evolution is are ascent to perfection. “Analogy would lead me one step further, namely, to the belief that all animals and plants have descended from some one prototype. But analogy may be a deceitful guide. Nevertheless all living things have much in common, in their chemical composition, their germinal vesicles, their cellular structure, and their laws of growth and reproduction”.(Darwin p.13 )
Darwin’s ideas seem to illustrate a different idea of life, that we tend to overlook and oversimplify even today. This being that life is not distinct separate forms, but constantly changing related organism that have dramatic impact on each other, after all humans contain fifty percent of the same genes as a tree. Darwin paints a very big picture and shows us that things aren’t as black and white as our small perspectives would make us think. Darwin makes a very interesting comment that describes nature in a very mechanistic way. “ When we no longer look at an organic being as a savage looks at a ship, as at something wholly beyond his comprehension; when we regard every production of nature as one which has had a history; when we contemplate every complex structure and instinct as the summing up of many contrivances, each useful to the possessor, nearly in the same way as when we look at any great mechanical invention as the summing up of the labor, the experience, the reason, and even the blunders of numerous workmen; when we thus view each organic being, how far more interesting, I speak from experience, will the study of natural history become! “( Darwin p.14)