Felicitas Asuncion C.

Elago
2012-32861

Bio 140 V
May 29, 2015

Evolution as a Scientific Truth: A Review On Charles Darwin's Theories and Richard

Dawkin's The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution
The discussion of Evolution in all biological fields is said to be one of the concepts with
the widest scope in modern science. As commonly defined in textbooks, it is the change in
heritable properties of biological populations through consecutive generations over the course of
time (Strickberger, 1996). However, this simple definition does not reflect the years of work and
research dozens of scientists had put in to make this concept stand for what it does today. The
development of this concept dates back to the climax of the Greek civilization. In fact, one of
the earliest speculations were that of the famed Greeks Plato and Aristotle whose philosophies
can be used for tracing the roots of most, if not all, sciences. Several philosophers before have
made speculations henceothers with more acceptable opinions than the rest.
Nevertheless, it was Charles Darwin who popularized the concept of Evolution the most
because of his publication in the 19th century concerning theories and hypotheses on evolution.
His new perspective, albeit controversial especially during his time, consequently heralded
studies on the interacting fields of Genetics, Ecology, Taxonomy, and more. It has even founded
completely new fields such as Biocultural Evolution, Evolutionary Epistemology, and
Neuroculture among others.
Darwin gave clarifications to once shaded issues by offering newfound explanations with
evidences provided by his trip on the Beagle, mainly when he visited the islands of Galapagos.
One of his publications resulting from these expeditions was then released in 1859 and entitled
On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races
in the Struggle for Life. It included fresh observations of adaptations, as well as his take on the
mechanisms that fuel itwithout the hand of God or a supernatural beingand it defined the
height of his academic career. Hence, his discussions on now well-known concepts, namely
Common Descent, Gradualism, Populational Change, and Natural Selection were established,
composing the definitive view accepted today on what Evolution is and how it can occur.
Darwin's fresh observations are constituted by five key inferences, all of which he
elaborated on. First, living species are greatly fertile, producing more offspring than that can
actually develop into adults and reproduce. Second, populations hardly fluctuate in terms of
size. Third, a population's set of resources, mainly food, is limited yet constant. This implies the
existence of competition. Fourth, for species that sexually reproduce, variation will always
exists. In other words, regardless of the degree of relation, no two individuals will grow up to be
completely identical. Lastly, organisms inherit and pass on traits which serve to become the
source of these variations (Mayr, 2001). From these inferences, according to Darwin, evolution,
or the change in species' observable characteristics over generations, happens gradually and
population-wise through descent with modifications and adaptations regarding the conditions of
the environment (natural selection) with which the principle survival of the fittest is applied.

While it was Charles Darwin who led the basic concepts that built the modern theory on
evolution, there was still a myriad of questions left to be answered regarding the subject. One
vital mystery surrounded the question: if all the species undergo adaptations to increase fitness in
the same way, why is there still great diversity among different species surviving in the very
same environment? He answers this by saying that there is no single species with the best or
most fit traits that will have the ability to dominate all others. However, Darwin could not
explain deeper the very source of the variations within populations and amongst different
species. Another mystery then was how populations originated in a certain place. Darwin failed
to provide an acceptable hypothesis on how certain plants and animals arrived in certain regions.
These weaknesses were unfortunately among the arguments used by the conservative groups that
refused to stray away from religious teachings. Decades of debates ensued.
The information gap that could have allowed Darwin to complete his hypotheses on
evolution and convince more of the biblical fanatics was bridged by Mendelian Genetics and
principles of Geology and can now be easily explained by fossils and Biogeography. This is
where the importance of Richard Dawkins' 2009 publication The Greatest Show on Earth: The
Evidence for Evolution propels from. With 13 chapters, Dawkins not only incorporates the new
foundational evidences to encourage a deeper understanding of Darwinian Evolution, his words
also pose the strength to battle ignorance as he provided rich and detailed counterarguments
focused against the claims of the unbelieving conservative groups. He describes his book as the
missing link in his body of evolution-related works. To quote from Dawkins himself, this book
is my personal summary of the evidence that the theory of evolution is actually a fact as
incontrovertible a fact as any in science.
With adequate conviction, Dawkins begins his book by expressing his deep-seated belief
and the thesis statement of his entire book by saying that Evolution is not just a mere theory
anymore for theories are mostly defined as proposed explanations whereas Evolution is a fact
because it really did happen. He may have used contemporary sarcasm to the point of ridicule
but he clearly states that his book is not meant to be anti-religious. After all, he said, he has
already done so in his other texts. In fact, he shares a letter that he co-wrote with some bishops
and clergymen to show that not all people with religious beliefs agree that Earth is only around
10, 000 along with the creationists, but in the course of discussion, one may ask: after several
years of science, why did Darwin's simple hypotheses arrive so late? According to Dawkins,
what pushed back the understanding for evolution was Plato's Essentialism. Indeed,
psychologists studying the development of language tell us that children are natural
essentialists. However, what matters more now is science education, something that is
surprisingly elusive to many people. Statistically speaking, more than 40% of Americans still
deny that humans evolved from anything. The chapters that followed therefore served as the
supporting arguments for the aforementioned thesis statement.
The most basic evidences of the modern synthesis of evolution were first laid outones
that Darwin missed due to the lack in advancement in other biological sciences in his days. First,
he presents the ages of rocks and the fossils found to be embedded on them. Geology in this case
is the core of the fact that Earth has existed not for thousands of years but for thousands of
millions of years. Paleontology, on the other hand, analyzes the fossils to generate valid
inferences of ancient life. Second, he demonstrates the development of the Mendelian genes now

known to be made up of lengths of DNA codes as the proof of evolutionary relatedness, or what
Darwin implied when he termed descent with modification. Lastly, he enumerated the manners
in which the Earth's age can actually be estimatedDendrochronology (the study of tree rings),
Radioactive clocks, and Molecular clocks. Accordingly, the clocks we use daily only tells present
time. Fortunately, these natural clocks can be set or are zero-able to measure elapsed time.
Despite the undeniable validity of these evidences, Dawkins said that the creationist
arguments are only getting more ridiculous. They have even extended their reach to Physics by
concluding that life disagrees with the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Nonetheless, their most
common response to evolution is still no one has ever watched evolution happening before our
eyes, to which Dawkins replies with wit using the growing of grass as an example given that no
one actually sees grass growing before our eyes but do we also doubt it? Of course we don't. His
second example was also practicalcrime sceneswherein he compares evolutionary scientists
with detectives dealing with criminal investigations who don't have to actually see the crime to
come to a sound conclusion about how it happened.
Dawkins addresses the missing link controversy as well by indicating that these links
are in fact already found in the form of the fossil record. Fossils exhibit the transition between
species from its earlier generation to the next, and yet, as Dawkins said, even without these,
evolution can still be determined.
As his final analogy, Dawkins relates evolution to rain and creationists to people inside a
windowless room claiming that it is not raining and yet refusing to go outside and take a look of
reality for themselves. History-deniers he calls them. It is in this sense that he exclaimed: If
the history-deniers who doubt the fact of evolution are ignorant of biology, those who think the
world began less than ten thousand years ago are worse than ignorant, they are deluded to the
point of perversity. They are denying not only the facts of biology but those of physics, geology,
cosmology, archaeology, history and chemistry as well.
While I may be one of the people who agree to Dawkins' criticists when they question his
bounds of professionalism as he has utilized name-calling in several parts of his book, I cannot
help but succumb to evolution as fact given that the countless evidence and arguments clearly
point to it as the side of the truth. I further praise Dawkins as he gives a brilliant conclusion by
discussing on the grandeur in life, the chapter with the calmest voice I daresay. To quote it,
We are surrounded by endless forms, most beautiful and most wonderful, and it is no accident,
but the direct consequences of evolution by non-random natural selection - the only game in
town, the greatest show on Earth.

References
Darwin, C. (1990). On the origin of species by means of natural selection, or the preservation of
favored races in the struggle for life. Champaign, IL: Project Gutenberg.
Dawkins, R. (2009). The greatest show on Earth: The evidence for evolution. New York: Free
Press.
Mayr, E. (2001). What evolution is. New York: Basic Books.
Strickberger, M. W. (1996). Before Darwin. In Evolution (p. 4). Sudbury, MA: Jones and Bartlett
Publishers.