Influence of 19th Century Worldviews on Charles Darwin - Essay Example

? Essay Questions in Biology Table of Contents Question 1) Influence of 19th Century Worldviews on Charles Darwin. (2) How Darwin's Worldview Changed Between 1830 and 1860. (3) How My Worldview Has Been Changed/Affected by the Course 3 Question 2- (1) The Laws of Thermodynamics in My Own Words. (2) Why/How Creation Scientists Say Evolution Violates The Laws of Thermodynamics. (3) On Whether The Thermodynamics Laws Are Actually Violated or Not 5 Question 3- Making Both the Best Evolutionary/Biological and Logical/Rational Argument Relating to the Question: Which came first, the chicken or the egg? 7 Question 5- Common English Understanding of the First and Second Thermodynamics Laws. (2) Arguments For How The Theory of Natural Selection (a) Violates the Thermodynamics Laws and (b) Does Not Violate the Thermodynamic Laws . (3) Explaining How Life Works at the Chemical Level. 9 Question 7- (1) Similarities in the ideas of Lamarck and Darwin Relating to Gradual Evolution (2) Differences in the Ideas of Lamarck and Darwin (3) Reasons for Darwin's Hesitancy in Publishing His “Dangerous Idea”, Evidence Darwin Was Missing 11 Works Cited 13 Question 1- (1) Influence of 19th Century Worldviews on Charles Darwin. (2) How Darwin's Worldview Changed Between 1830 and 1860. (3) How My Worldview Has Been Changed/Affected by the Course There had been considerable intellectual and scientific ferment in the 19th century, around the time of Darwin's work and prior, that had considerable impact on the Charles Darwin and his theory with regard to evolution, natural selection, and the survival of the fittest. Those include changes in the scientific understanding of the age of the earth, which had previously been pegged at a few thousand years, and subsequently revised to be much older based on discovered and analyzed fossil records. This old age meant that Darwin's theory of natural selection over eons, millions of years, could hold water. Another was the worldview espoused by the theories of Malthus with regard to the economics of of population growth. Food supplies determined population growth and kept population numbers in check, or else, in the absence of such food supply restrictions, numbers would rise without pause. It is this insight that Darwin extended into all kinds of living populations, both plant life and animal life and species. He figured that checks in nature are abundant, and include disease, food restrictions, the weather, water, and other key resources that determine who in a population will survive and breed. This is the basics of his natural selection theory (Hayden; The Economist Newspaper Limited; Walmswell). Meanwhile, the changes in Darwin's worldview from 1830 to 1860 mimicked the evolution of his thinking and theory from the time he set out as a naturalist in 1831 to the time of the initial publication of his theory and findings in 1858, when he became convinced of the validity of his theory of natural selection, of the mutability of species and the role that natural selection plays in the way all creatures evolve through time (Hayden; The Economist Newspaper Limited; Walmswell). With regard to my own worldview, I had been exposed indirectly to the ideas of Darwin growing up, and had grown up hearing about terms like survival of the fittest as well as natural selection and the evolution of different species. It has shaped my early understanding of my own evolution as a kind of personal progress. This course, though made me aware that natural selection has more to do with how the different factors/forces around me determine whether me or someone else live a long time and prosper to the point of thriving/raising children. My new understanding includes an appreciation for human diversity, and the way that diversity as a whole allows the human race to adapt and move forward amid changing external circumstances (Hayden; The Economist Newspaper Limited; Walmswell). Question 2- (1) The Laws of Thermodynamics in My Own Words. (2) Why/How Creation Scientists Say Evolution Violates The Laws of Thermodynamics. (3) On Whether The Thermodynamics Laws Are Actually Violated or Not (1) The first thermodynamics law states that in the universe, the total amount of present energy is a constant amount, and that no energy can be destroyed or created, but only channeled or converted from one state or form into another state or form. The second law of thermodynamics, meanwhile tells us that the state of potential energy of a system where there is an exchange of energy is always lower than the potential energy of the system prior to the exchange of energy, which is to say that systems where there is are exchanges of energy increase their level of entropy or disorder over time, as the exchange of energy progresses (Farabee). (2) In essence, the creation scientists say that the theory of evolution is false, because it violates the second law of thermodynamics, in that where evolution is possible, the total entropy of the universe goes down rather than up, contravening the general truth of the second law, which states that in general the entropy of the universe as a system is ever-increasing, because the process by which the universe proceeds through its history and through time constitutes what is basically a process that is not reversible. Even if the processes that govern the universe were reversible, entropy ought to be a constant number, which evolution would contradict, because evolution implies a decrease in entropy in all cases (Patterson). (3) The literature states that the physics of determining the truth of the assertion of the creationist scientists is difficult, but the basic premise of the creationists are wrong, because they misunderstand the second law of thermodynamics in the first place. To do thermodynamics correctly would imply first actually measuring the changes in the external and internal entropy of a given system in nature before and after an evolutionary process, where a path between the initial and final states are determined and found to be suitably reversible, and then determine that the sum of the internal and external entropy is lower than zero. That would imply a decrease in total entropy. The basic fault is that the creationists have not and could not do this, because they have got the second law wrong (Patterson). Question 3- Making Both the Best Evolutionary/Biological and Logical/Rational Argument Relating to the Question: Which came first, the chicken or the egg? A rational line of thinking would arguably favor the chicken coming first before the chicken, and this rational line of thinking coupled by an understanding of evolution and natural selection can hold water. This line of thinking can go like this: in natural selection, the chicken/chicken precursor that is able to pass on its traits to its young are in a position to prosper and live through time, evolving into the modern-day chicken. Now what would be the best way to do this? Out in the wild, chickens or precursor-chickens may have, somewhere up in the evolutionary line and somewhere way back in time, may have had different ways of giving birth and rearing their young. There may have been precursor-chickens which gave birth to their young the way present-day mammals did, a small number at a time, and with a great amount of time being spent outside of the womb of the mother, who may not have the resources or the time, or the kinds of shelter, that allowed for maximal protection from predators, the environment, and other extant environmental factors that got in the way of young chickens growing up. Now a few chickens or proto-chickens may have developed an ability to produce egg shells and eggs, and to bestow their reproductive essences and nutrients on the material enveloped by the shells. They could lay the eggs in large numbers and allow the eggs to hatch outside of their bodies, allowing the mothers to forage for food. The large numbers of eggs increased the chances of some of the young chickens to grow into maturity. Nature and natural selection may have favored the growth to maturity and the eventual reproduction of such chickens brought to life via such eggs, perpetuating the kinds of species that eventually led to the present-day egg-laying chickens. On hindsight we know this to be fact, that indeed, from research, chickens came before eggs, a finding borne out by research confirming that egg shells need materials that only chicken ovaries can provide, so affirming the truth, and affirming the possibility that the above combined evolutionary and rational argument may hold water (Hayden; The Economist Newspaper Limited; Walmswell; Reals) Question 5- Common English Understanding of the First and Second Thermodynamics Laws. (2) Arguments For How The Theory of Natural Selection (a) Violates the Thermodynamics Laws and (b) Does Not Violate the Thermodynamic Laws . (3) Explaining How Life Works at the Chemical Level. (1) The first law of thermodynamics basically states that energy in the universe can neither be destroyed nor be created, and that the only thing that can happen is for energy to be transformed or changed from one kind or state to another kind or state. The second law of thermodynamics states that in essence, where processes of energy exchange are not reversible, the total entropy or amount of disorder in a system are expected to increase, and that in those systems where the processes of energy exchange are reversible, the total entropy in a system is always the same, a constant that cannot change. (2a) The pro-creationism arguments are that the theory of evolution violates the second law of thermodynamics, in that evolution implies a decrease in the total entropy in the universe, a process that cannot happen because of the second thermodynamic law. To put it another way, the second law prohibits processes where systems go into a state of higher order (lower entropy) from states of lower order (higher entropy). According to the creationists, the second law mandates that all things must go from lower to higher entropy, from life to disintegration and decay, and never the other way around. (2b) The pro-evolution arguments are that basically, creationists misunderstand the laws profoundly, and that, going by their arguments alone, those are wrong, because entropy can decrease in a way that does not violate the laws at all. Moreover, pro-evolution arguments include that a proper understanding of the laws of thermodynamics would include being able to conclude that evolution is not related to the thermodynamics laws in the way that the creationists make them to be related in the first place. Assuming for a moment that evolution does decrease entropy, so do many other natural processes in the universe, without contravening the thermodynamics laws at all (Patterson) (3) Life at the chemical level is no different from life at the macro or organism level, in that theoretically the same natural laws in operation are the same, and in particular the laws of thermodynamics hold sway. Chemicals form more complex organisms in a process that seems to defy the laws on entropy, or increasing disorder, but that is only apparent, when energy inputs are not taken into consideration. When energy from the sun, for example, is factored in, then one can talk of a net input of energy that can be used as work energy to form greater order out of disorder, in this case greater order out of the chemicals to produce ordered life (“Energy and Order in Biological Systems”; Bailly and Longo). Question 7- (1) Similarities in the ideas of Lamarck and Darwin Relating to Gradual Evolution (2) Differences in the Ideas of Lamarck and Darwin (3) Reasons for Darwin's Hesitancy in Publishing His “Dangerous Idea”, Evidence Darwin Was Missing (1) There are many points of agreement between the ideas of Lamarck and of Darwin, chief among them the idea that evolution happened gradually,and over vast stretches of time, or what we can call evolutionary time, much longer than the then current conceptions of the age of the earth. That the evolution was gradual also had the corollary idea that life as they saw it was the product of an evolutionary process where simpler organisms gave birth to ever more complex forms. There is also a shared belief between the two that there is a great deal of relationship and commonality among all forms of life, extending back to earlier phases of the evolutionary chain. There is also the idea that evolution is an on-going process that extends to the present, and will extend into the future. There is the idea that the changes in all living things are the result of change for better suitability and adaptability to the surrounding environment, especially as with regard to those environmental factors that impact survival and adaptation (New England Complex Systems Institute). (2). Lamarck essentially believed that parents evolved during their lifetime through their own efforts, and that the results of those efforts, if successful, go on to live in their children/progeny. This has been proven to be inaccurate, because Darwin essentially posited the contradictory assertion that only traits are passed on to progeny, and not the work/exertion/strivings of the parents per se. Those traits that are best suited to a particular environment live on in the form of parents who survive long enough to procreate, and their children inherit those traits. That in essence is natural selection, a process that is wholly independent of the strivings of a particular existing being, as was the idea of Lamarck Lamarck further believed in predestination as a ruling principle in life. Darwin believed, on the other hand, that there was no such thing, that traits and the passing on of traits to successfully bred progeny, who must in turn face their environment and live or die accordingly, are the sole determinants of evolution (New England Complex Systems Institute). (3) Darwin's hesitancy with regard to book publication arose partly out of a dislike to go against the mainstream and the establishment of science. Evidence that Darwin was missing, meanwhile, was with regard to the age of the earth, the accepted age of which during his time, at just a few thousand years and later adjusted to less than a hundred million years, was simply too short in terms of evolutionary time to explain the large amount of time that his theory required for evolution to take place (Defur; Hayden). Works Cited Bailly, Francis and Giuseppe Longo. “Biological Organization and Anti-Entropy”. Journal Biological Systems 17 (1). 2009. 3 April 2012. Defur, Peter. “Charles Darwin and the origin of Origin”. Richmond Times-Dispatch. 8 February 2009. 3 April 2012. “Energy and Order in Biological Systems”. Georgia State University. n.d. 3 April 2012. Farabee, MJ. “Laws of Thermodynamics”. Estrella Mountain College. 2001. 3 April 2012. Hayden, Thomas. “What Darwin Didn't Know”. Smithsonian. February 2009. 3 April 2012. New England Complex Systems Institute. “Lamarck vs. Darwin”. NECSI. n.d. 3 April 2012. Patterson, John. “Thermodynamics, Creationism, and Evolution”. Tufts University. n.d. 3 April 2012. Reals, Tucker. “Chicken Came Before the Egg: “Scientific Proof””. CBS News. 14 July 2010. 3 April 2012. The Economist Newspaper Limited. “Unfinished business- Charles Darwin's ideas have spread widely, but his revolution is not complete”. The Economist. 5 February 2006. 3 April 2012. Walmswell, Joe. “Pre-Darwinian Evolutionary Thought”. Charles Darwin & Evolution 1809-2009.- Christ's Church College, Cambridge. 2009. 3 April 2012. Read More