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2004 National Geographic Article
Article Review:
The cover story of National Geographic science writer, sought attention at global level, when he wrote this article, about Darwin’s theory of evolution, that created uncertainty about Darwin's work. This article provokes an instinct in the readers that was Darwin right? Charles Darwin proposed an idea that life works on the concept of natural selection. By this, he meant that there exist complexity, adaptation, and diversity among the creatures of world. There is a large number of theories that have been proposed by many researchers and scientists, such as the theory of atom, theory of revolution of sun and many others, but specific observations and experimentations have been done by many experts that confirmed about all these theories to be true, leaving no space for us to have doubts about such theories in mind. But in this article, this point has been made clear that science only believes in evidence and anything that lacks for providing sufficient shreds of evidence is rejected by science. Generally, people are living their lives by trusting the theories that have been proposed by scientists like Darwin. In this article, Quammen put forth his opinion about Darwin, he believes that people usually discard Darwin’s theory of evolution, without having any awareness why they do not agree with Darwin's theory, but this article is of great importance as in this article he laid out a few proofs that put reader in a conflict that was Darwin wrong?
Quammen first started by pointing towards the critical features of Darwin's theory, that there is a historical phenomenon suggesting, all species are being derived from mutual descendants, and there is a substantial impact of the central mechanisms on this phenomenon as well. Quammen categorized the pieces of evidence given by Darwin into the following four categories that are biogeography, paleontology, embryology, and morphology. In this article, a general perception was given that there are almost 37 percent Americans who polled in favor of God and Darwin that, all was a mean of creation. One of the significant things that could be found in this article is that author, David Quammen, highlighted a primary concern of many Christians and Jewish, who got offended by the concept of evolution of Darwin. Theory of Darwin has a direct conflict with the Book of Genesis. Not only Christians and Jewish were against Darwin's point of view about evolution, even Muslims were also equally against. One of the famous Muslim authors, who wrote “The Evolution Deceit” Harun Yahya, also opposed the ideology of Darwinism and explained six-day creation story of this world, by giving the reference of Koran. Harun Yahya also claimed that Darwin's theory of evolution is merely a deception that has been imposed on us. Hindus also protested against the theory as per their religious concept there are almost 8,400,000 species of life from the start of the world. Quammen suggested that, it is crucial for modern day life to know about evolution, as it would help us in understanding many concepts and fields of life such as medical science, welfare, and many others.
David Quammen has raised a question, if human were evolved not created as they are today than there must have happened something. It is crucial to know what happened and even necessary is to know how it has happened that caused such a drastic change in humans. If looked back into the past, we are going to find that many thinkers proposed their work on the topic of evolution, but what made Darwin's work so remarkable is, it offered a rational explanation about how the process of evolution must have proceeded. Anagenesis is an evolutionary process, in which it is believed that species got transformed, there was another concept that is known as speciation. According to Darwin sometimes there occurs a change not in the whole specie but just in a particular segment that gradually makes its way other than the original species. In this article, it has been argued that though Darwin gave many ideas about evolution and he is right in many as well, but this does not mean that he is right in all the ideas that he gave. Many of his notions were illusionary and mistaken as well.
One central idea of Darwin’s theory of evolution that made him famous in the world is his idea that all the species of organisms are being developed through the process of natural selection and inherit variation made them more competent and enable them to survive in the harsh environment, and those who were fittest of all survived. But David has raised many concerns about the concept of evolution that was given by Darwin. He said that as claimed by Darwin there was some mutation process that make changes in the early form of the organism and continuous mutation in their genetic material brought them to the form in which many species are present in today's world. But Quammen points out that many viruses keep on changing, by giving the example of HIV, he claimed that some viruses evolve quickly, but some evolve slowly. HIV is one of the fast-replicating viruses that involve a high rate of mutation. Even this thing has always been an issue of great importance for the scientists that every time, they discover some drugs or other sources for curing HIV, it comes with mutation by changing its forms, and every time it adopts a new form. But he also claimed that this fact could not be denied that ideas come and go, but only the fittest survive. In this article, the work of Gingerich has been mentioned who has been satisfying him by answering the question related to evolution and by seeing the fossils for the past thirty years. He also claims that evidence is there, evidences are buried in the rocks of ages.
Discussion:
From this article, one thing that could be seen as most obvious is, Darwin's theory is helping for knowing the process of evolution, but it cannot be blindly trusted as there are many things in his theory that are impossible to accept. There is no doubt that he revealed many secrets and his theory is one of the most influential theories related to evolution proposed ever, but there are some clear are obvious flaws that cannot be neglected as well. One of the main concerns about his theory is, he claimed that all the organisms were evolved from a common origin, which means that human beings were not created in the form as they are present today. In simple words, it could be said that Darwin's theory of evolution was in direct contrast with religious teachings of many essential religions of the world, such as Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism, etc.
So as a whole, it could be concluded that Darwin was not at all right and there is a need to reconsider his theory that claims a single origin to be the ancestor of all species. Study of this article gives an insight to the readers and those who critically evaluate it that was Darwin wrong or right? There come many questions in the mind of the readers about his existence. But from the studies one thing becomes quite clear that the title of the article is perfect as it does not says, Was Darwin right? Instead, it says, Was Darwin wrong? Many flaws could be felt in his theory.
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