Who does really understand evolution? (Wait, is it even true?!) Even if it is, who really has the better idea? What the hell did Darwin really do on the Beagle? Well, I have some answers. In this two-part essay, I will be discussing how to understand evolution as a concept and will be touching upon the babble behind the scenes. This part is a general background to the concept of evolution, dealing with the “story” behind it rather than the concepts themselves. The second part will deal with the theories of evolution and their finer aspects.

Introduction

When I was in school, I found that a lot of the concepts that I thought I understood were actually more complicated. Obviously, I had to wait till the exams to realise this. But then, I figured that if I could understand what went wrong at that time, anyone could, and additionally prepare in such a way that they really understand the concept as a whole, in all its finer aspects. What hampers such precise understanding of facts is assumptions and expectations. Spiritual predispositions and other such forces tend to cloud judgement and, hence, come in the way of logical thought. The other most significant antagonist of scientific thought is (and I don’t mean the kind of thought that religious people lack!) the undoubting faith in whatever is told. The inability to question and be skeptical. Now, this might sound weird. It certainly did feel weird when I realised this. But I believe that by the end of this essay, it will be well established that skepticism is the key element to understanding anything. Please note, I intend no animosity towards spirituality and any comments made in this essay are purely light-hearted.

Setting the stage

Most readers would have come across textbooks that describe evolution with the usual theories and examples. There is Lamarck’s theory, which in most opinions, is outdated and eclipsed by the more robust and logical Darwinian ideas. Then come the modern theories of Morgan and others who using Mendel’s [then] recently rediscovered ideas, further complicated things. Well, brush all those aside! Throw them out of your head! Science is also about starting afresh once things get muddled up!

What are we talking about?

The misconceptions that are associated with evolution are what the mind has to consciously rid itself off. Why these are present in the first place is another topic altogether which I’m afraid I can’t talk about (since it just isn’t my cup of tea, yet!) and involves understanding the functioning of the mind. Suffice it to say that the mind tends to simplify facts and hence colour the explanation that one receives when trying to understand a concept. The end result is an inaccurate understanding of concepts which a good skeptic sees through when examined finely. These misconceptions I will lay bare here and it must be noted that only once these are understood will the concepts I explain make sense.

1. Time frames

The underlying processes of evolution have been observed to act over great expanses of time. The study of fossils (Palaeontology) has had a very important role to play in the development of evolution as a concept. Darwin’s observations of fossils apart by millions of years played a crucial role in his understanding of his own concepts. Fossils are by no means easily found and this highlights the fact that they are formed in very rare cases. This inherently implies the period in between formation of two fossils of any kind is great. In addition to this, their discovery is fraught with complications that for the purposes of this essay needn’t be elaborated. The end result: fossils found are from times so wide apart that any changes seem obvious.

Those of you that have seen the film The Man from Earth, would have an idea as to what (spoiler alert!!) someone who lived for fourteen thousand years would have experienced in a life so long. But the common man would find it challenging to comprehend even those time scales involved. Although I could go on about timescales, I’d rather get to the main idea of the talk earlier so I’ll share a much-clichéd analogy to make this concept clear.

If you represent the Earth’s lifetime by a single year, say from January when it was made to December, the 21st-century would be a quarter of a second in June – a tiny fraction of the year. But even in this concertinaed cosmic perspective, our century is very, very special: the first when humans can change themselves and their home planet….

… let’s suppose some aliens had been watching our pale blue dot in the cosmos from afar, not just for 40 years, but for the entire 4.5 billion-year history of our Earth. What would they have seen? Over nearly all that immense time, Earth’s appearance would have changed very gradually.The only abrupt worldwide change would have been major asteroid impacts or volcanic super-eruptions. Apart from those brief traumas, nothing happens suddenly.

The continental landmasses drifted around. Ice cover waxed and waned. Successions of new species emerged, evolved and became extinct. But in just a tiny sliver of the Earth’s history, the last one-millionth part, a few thousand years, the patterns of vegetation altered much faster than before. This signaled the start of agriculture.Change has accelerated as human populations rose. Then other things happened even more abruptly. Within just 50 years — that’s one hundredth of one millionth of the Earth’s age — the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere started to rise, and ominously fast…

This explanation illustrates the time periods that have shaped the earth. Human presence graced the earth for so short a period that what we see in the world today is exceedingly limited. Those are the timescales that evolution acts over.

2. Generational factors

A very frequently misunderstood aspect of evolution is the strata of organisms evolution affects. This is closely linked to the first miscalculation of time frames as you shall see.

The most common idea the people have is that evolution occurs in the individual. The “learnings” of one individual are directly transferred to their offspring. This is anything but true. Evolution happens over several generations of individuals. And evolution is more of a consequence of other changes; individuals of a population don’t change as a result of evolution. Their offspring accumulate changes over generations that lead to the evolution of a species.

3. Evolution is not progress

Although there might be evidence of better adaptation to certain environmental factors, there is no progress that occurs as a result of evolution. The whole theory that man is the most advanced being on this planet isn’t entirely true. Evidences of alternative forms of intelligence exist in other life forms, and although these may not be on par with intelligence as defined by a human, they certainly are nearly as good in their own way. I won’t say any more about this because this isn’t the point I’m trying to make in any case.

Evolution is caused by selective survival of individuals better capable of surviving in a very specific environment. This only means that the animal is better capable of surviving in that environment than say others of its original population. It must be noted that this I’ve only given as a comparison. The two would interact only if members of the original population still survive, and if they co-occur or are sympatric (in scientific terms), the added constraint of limited resources (amongst other factors) would result in the extermination of the lesser able (that is members of the original population). The so-called “struggle for life” is only metaphorical; animals don’t necessarily fight each other.

4. When evolution occurred

Evolution has occurred in the past, is occurring now, and will continue to occur in the future. This is commonly confounded by the belief that evolution has occurred and the animals and plants seen today are the final products of all evolution that has ever occurred. This gives evolution a “creational” position, more or less equal to “God”. And that is where science differs from God!

Evolution occurs continually because there some parts of the environment that continually change and to “keep up” with those, certain individuals of populations are selected out. This also affects all species on earth. The same species that we see today may not exist in the future.

5. Evolution as a fact

If you think the theories of evolution are fact, that’s great! Only they’re not. Like all good theories in science, these can only something that can be shown to be true in very specific cases, with some amount of certainty (yes, the theories have not been proven as a fact yet, if you haven’t got that already!). As they say in science, a good theory is one that stands the test of time and experimentation. Fortunately, for you believers out there, evolutionary theory has stood the test of time so far. But remember, that this doesn’t give any reason to doubt the theory. The theories of evolution make clear many of the “unexplainable” happenings of the world. I will not be discussing that aspect since I believe that can be done once you’ve understood the concept of evolution itself.

Darwin’s influences

Before getting to the theory itself, I feel it would be of good use to look at the story of Darwin and evolutionary theory. But let me get one thing clear before I start with even this: the “Darwinian” theory of evolution was not Darwin’s own. He was too dull-witted to think up the whole thing himself. What he effectively did was compile everything at hand and publish it. Even the idea that he should do this was not his own! It might make more sense, hence, to think of this as the people or ideas that made him sure enough to write about it.</p> Darwin was actually quite imperceptive. His was a very mundane life and although he had planned on studying medicine, he switched over to the cloth and learned the scriptures instead and this might have played an important role in shaping his thought. He had access to several books in the library and even read some “prohibited” books (those books which the clergy thought would endanger their popularity by getting people interested in science). One such was the Principles of Geology.

Of course, there are the well-known books that he carried with him on the voyage of the HMS Beagle: John Milton’s Paradise Lost and Charles Lyell’s Principles of Geology. Very simply, the graphic descriptions of living creatures and the fascination for them expressed in Paradise Lost and the Principles of Geology got him thinking about world changing changes that take place over periods of large amounts of time.

Another major influence may have been his grandfather himself. Erasmus Darwin was a physician and also a poet amongst several other things. In his poems (The Loves of the Plants and The Temple of Nature, it is said that there are mentions of evolution in a similar capacity to what Darwin spoke of in his Origin. Darwin’s own teacher, Robert Edmond Grant was said to have purported the same theory and had been considered “heretic” by Darwin and others of that time. Although Grant had recieved fame worldwide for his other work, his theory brought down upon him disdain.

So carrying Milton and Lyell, Darwin finally left on the voyage of the Beagle, at the crisp age of 22, as an unpaid gentleman’s companion (I’m sorry but that sounds a lot worse than what it is intended to!) to the [then] also young Captain Robert FitzRoy. It is suggested that his predecessor on the Beagle had committed suicide as a consequence of “loneliness”. I am told Darwin got to travel with the Beagle only because he had the right shape of the nose. Four years later, they landed on the Galápagos Islands hoping to find of all things Giant Tortoises to eat! What happened next was history. Or rather, what happened became history only after several years because Darwin was dumb.