Evolution and creationism are the two leading theories of the origin of life. Darwin’s theory of evolution explains the evolution of living things through variation, natural selection, and sexual selection, and it also provides a view of the evolution of humanity. However, the theory is still being debated.
The question of where all living things in the world, including humans, came from and how they evolved is one that has puzzled people since time immemorial. There are many theories and hypotheses on the matter, but the jury is still out on which one is correct. However, there are two of the most popular arguments. One is creationism. Religious organizations like Christianity and Islam believe that everything in the world is the creation of God. According to creationism, humans are special beings created by God to protect and guide everything that lives in this world. The second argument is the theory of evolution. Unlike creationism, evolutionary theory holds that all living things evolve over time, and that humans have changed from apes. In this explainer, we’ll take a look at the history of evolutionary theory, how it came to be, its core content, and its implications.
Here’s how Darwin came up with his theory. The theory of evolution can be divided into three main parts. The first is Variation, the second is Natural Selection, and the third is Sexual Selection. Initially, Darwin collected a large amount of data through close observation of different types of animals and plants, including the physical structure, lifestyle and habits of the organisms he studied, and the differences between different organisms. Darwin collected this data to prove that species can change and have changed over time. He also observed and compared the physical structure and behavior of animals of the same species but of different breeds. Darwin’s most widely known study in this regard is his observations of pigeons. Pigeons are a species of bird, but there are several breeds, and each breed has unique body structures and behaviors. For example, the shape and size of their beaks, the color and pattern of their feathers, and whether or not their feet are hairy or not vary from breed to breed, and Darwin named these differences between creatures “variation. These different breeds of pigeons were too different to be considered the same species, but Darwin was able to show the relationships between the breeds in a tree-like family tree, proving that all pigeons eventually evolved from the same species of bird (Columba livia). This concept of variation is the first step in the theory of evolution and is closely related to natural selection.
Darwin’s most famous theory is Natural Selection. Natural selection is literally the theory that nature selects species or breeds that are best adapted to their living environment. According to this theory, evolution occurs because differences between species lead to different survival rates. Species with the traits that best adapt to their environment are the easiest to interbreed with, and their offspring inherit these traits from their parents and continue to survive. Through this process, many different breeds began to arise. Darwin observed that when organisms reproduce, they produce far more offspring than they need to maintain the species. He also realized that all organisms live in environments that have limited conditions for their survival, meaning that food, water, mates, space, and other survival conditions are not infinitely available. Building on this theory, Darwin’s observations of barnacles and his studies of pigeons showed that even organisms of the same species have differences from one another. Darwin used this evidence to argue that when different species live in environments with limited survival conditions, competition is inevitable. Only those species whose physical structures or behaviors are advantageous to survival will continue to survive. These advantageous traits are then passed on to their offspring, increasing the number of organisms with those traits, and eventually forming societies. This is what Darwin called natural selection.
However, Darwin also observed that some species have features that seem unnecessary to compete for survival, such as a peacock’s tail or colorful feathers. These features don’t help them survive, but rather make them more conspicuous, making them easy prey for other animals. Darwin couldn’t explain this phenomenon using the theory of natural selection alone, so he proposed a theory called Sexual Selection. All living things have two basic ways to reproduce. The first is combat or fighting. For example, male elephants fight each other to find a place to breed. The elephant that wins the fight gets the place to breed and can claim the female elephant to breed with. The second way is through display. A classic example is peacocks. Male peacocks have colorful patterns on their tails. The peacock’s tail is a body structure that can hinder its ability to escape from predators, so why does it have this feature? According to sexual selection, female peacocks are attracted to the colorful tails of males. In general, brightly colored and colorful tail feathers are a sign that a male peacock is healthy. This is the theory behind sexual selection, which explains why they have this trait in order to reproduce, despite the risk of losing their lives.
So far, this is the theory of evolution for all living things, and the question of where humans came from is something that Darwin expressed his thoughts on in a separate book, The Descent of Man, published in 1871. When Darwin wrote On the Origin of Species, it was a time of social instability. Those who study Darwin’s work today believe that Darwin definitely had ideas about human evolution at the time, but he left them out of the book because publishing them would have caused a huge uproar. Later, when the situation in England was stabilized, Darwin published his views on human evolution in The Origin of Species, in which he argued that all humans, regardless of race, are the same species, and that we evolved from a single monkey-like creature. Darwin argued that the fact that humans and monkeys share some similarities in body structure, as well as similarities in how fetuses are formed, is evidence that humans evolved from monkeys. However, when Darwin first made this claim, there was a huge backlash, especially from Christian believers, because Darwin’s argument indirectly implied that humans were adapted from other organisms and were not the creation of God. In other words, his theory implied that there was no God who created the world. This led people to draw cartoons of Darwin’s head on a monkey’s body and even hang a monkey from the ceiling of the university where Darwin received his diploma. While Darwin’s theory was a big laughingstock at the time, there were still people who supported it, and the debate about whether it’s true continues to this day.
As you can see, the conflict between religion and science based on evolutionary theory has been around for decades, and the question of where all living things, including humans, came from has never been answered. However, with recent advances in science and technology allowing for more in-depth studies of fossils, scholars are hopeful that we may soon have an answer.
