Essays on On The Origin Of Species

Foremost, about the losses that the Westerners caused in countries with which they came into contact, imperialism revolved around perceptions of white supremacy. The possession of white skin became the ticket one needed to guarantee his or her place among the civilized nations while that of any other shade belonged to a lower class. Surprisingly, while signs of the given perceptions were present even when the Portuguese used religion as a cause for exploration and domination of the world in the seventeenth century, it was not until the mid-nineteenth century that the West found conclusive proof. In 1859, Charles ...

Introduction

Charles Robert Darwin was a naturalist born on 12th February 1809 at a place called Shrewsbury in England. However, he died on 19th April 1882 in London. In his lifetime, one of his greatest achievements is about the evolutionary theory of living organisms (Bowler). He was able to achieve this success through the voyage he embarked in 1831. He traveled for five years all over the world with the HMS Beagle. Through his traveling, he was able to study different specimen and thus his evolution theory was developed. This fact caused him to write the book titled as On ...

Introduction

Evolution is the change animals and species undergo over time to adapt to certain environmental changes and eventually produce multiple descendent species. Evolution and natural selection are often taken as complimentary to each other. However, evolution, by definition, is a historical process of change, while natural selection is merely a mechanism that results in this change. Advances in technology and biology has thrown light on several causes and consequences of evolution. Some of the deepest understandings of evolution come from understanding fossils and examining phylogeny and from the study of natural selection. Evidences suggest that when natural selection is strong, the rate ...

Charles Darwin published his masterpiece detailing his theory of evolution by natural selection, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life in 1859. Despite the overwhelming consensus of the scientific community, there are still loud and politically active Creationists that insist that the earth is less than 10,000 years old because the Bible says so. However, the Bible never actually states how old the universe or the earth is. Belief that there is a Creator and in the theory of evolution are compatible for followers of ...

Charles Robert Darwin was an English geologist and naturalist who lived between 1809 and 1882. He was born in a city called Shrewsbury, England in Shropshire County. Darwin was the fifth child in their family that had six children. His father, Robert Darwin, was a wealthy society doctor and also worked as a financier while their mother was known as Susannah Darwin. His grandfathers, Erasmus Darwin, from his father’s side and Josiah Wedgwood from his mother’s side were both prominent abolitionists (EGS 1). The two families were mainly Unitarian, although the Wedgwood’s family slowly started adopting Anglicanism. Darwin’s ...

Darwin established the argument on the origin of species through an analogy inspired by artificial selection or breeding and natural selection. Darwin provides that the nature’s power of selection explains the human selective practices which mount up variation in a certain direction and by so doing lead to the generation and sustenance of new and distinctive races. As such, natural selection functioning through the continuous selective action which Darwin referred to as the ‘struggle for existence’ is responsible for producing and maintaining new and distinctive species (Darwin 210). According to Darwin, nature provides successive variations while man adds increases ...

In an age of scientific advancement, it is easy to take for granted a number of widely-held facts and theories that have been largely substantiated by scientific inquiry. One of these fundamental theories is the theory of evolution-- much of science and medicine is built upon the foundation of evolutionary theory. Without an understanding of evolutionary theory, modern medicine would not have advanced to the point that it has; humanity's ability to produce vaccines and do work on genetic diseases and stem cells would be severely curtailed, if not impaired entirely. Indeed, without Darwin's introduction of evolutionary theory, humanity's understanding ...

On the Origin of Species

Evolution, defined as the change in the characteristics of a population that occurs over the course of generations (Belk & Maier, 2013 p. 222), had been considered by various scientists since the beginning of the 19th century. Several evolution theories were put forward attempting to explain the origins of life and the changes witnessed among different generations of organisms. The widely accepted theory then was the special creation story as described in Genesis, the first book of the Bible. In the 1859, Charles Darwin published a book called “On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of ...

- What is Freud’s concept of human nature? What does he mean by civilization and why does it leave us discontented? Sigmund Freud made great contribution in the quest to understand what human nature is. His psychoanalytic theory professes that behavior is determined by very many irrational forces ranging from motivations which are both conscious or unconscious, instincts and even psychosexual actions before the lapse of the first six years of human life (Freud 15). He goes further to state that sexual desire is the driving force behind any form of energy in human life. Freud ...

Summary

Bilal Haq, a scientist from the National Science Foundation Arlingtion, Virginia encountered foraminifera on his trip to Qingdao in China. Foraminifera are small creatures that grow shells on their bodies. Their shells are varied and very diverse, as if they are created by visionary artists. Haq thought the foraminifera would make beautiful pieces of art and should be put on display. Haq’s fellow colleague from China, Zheng, agreed and put things into action by involving local craft workers. It resulted in a park for foraminifera since the end of 2009 and already a million people have visited (Larkins, 2012).

It is ...