The theory of evolution - the development of life, the origin of man and his connection to nature

by Dr. B. Dan

Direct link to this page: https://www.hayadan.org.il/evo311004.html

The theory of evolution, attributed to the scientific legacy of Charles Darwin, developed and became one of the pillars of modern science. Evolution is a comprehensive scientific theory, which tries to embrace the world and bring together the life sciences - to answer the most basic questions: How did life originate? How did species of life evolve? When did man appear as a human being on earth and where did he come from? How does nature work and what are the principles of its operation?

These are poignant questions, concerning the basis of life, the "creation of the world", the essence of life and the role of human beings in the complex task of life on earth. Being fundamental questions, it is no wonder that the theory of evolution found many opponents among religious people, who saw evolution as a fundamental challenge to the religious concept of the essence of life, the origin of man and even to the very existence of God. Before we deal with the essential gap between the religious explanation of the universe and the evolutionary explanation - let us get to know, even briefly, the principles of the theory of evolution and its main claims.

The basic point of departure upon which the theory of evolution is based derives from the very name of the Torah: evolution in the sense of the slow and gradual development of a living being, which changes over time and develops from an initial, primordial pattern to a different form or characteristic, based on the original pattern of that creature, but its form And its current features are different than they were in the past. The evolution approach assumes that this principle of "constant developmental change" is a basic natural principle upon which life is built. Moreover, evolution as a scientific-empirical framework (empirical = provable) makes it possible to explain the development of life, the origin of man, the human body and its properties and the structure of the brain, nature and life - all of which the theory can give empirical scientific explanations.

And the chain of life history according to the evolution approach: in the beginning... there was the big bang - that cosmic explosion of energy that created and placed the planets in the universe and within them our earth (see a separate article on this topic on the Freedom website) and after the big bang the main basic conditions for life were created on the surface of the earth and the evolutionary process began. It begins with primordial organic beings in the most basic and primitive forms of life, single-celled, amoebas and algae, algae and microbiological surfaces, primordial firsts, living cells that create beings that meet and unite, develop and split into other beings and change over time. As the years of a generation pass, hundreds of thousands of years, millions of years - so the complexity of life develops in the process of evolution, which dictates changes and developments in the timeline. From those primordial creatures, to reptiles that invade the sea, from fish-like to lizards, from giant dinosaurs to birds, reptiles on land to sea creatures, from primitive creatures that operate according to rigid genetic prescriptions, to more complex animals, from simple mammals to complex social mammals, whole families of ever-changing creatures, and developing.

This is how evolution explains the multitude of species and the enormous variety of creatures in nature. All living beings, all in a dynamic process of life in change - all share in the great evolutionary celebration called - life.

The operative process in which evolution works, the one that takes place in nature, in reality - is the process of natural selection which is the mechanism of change according to which evolution works. Natural selection is the preference of creatures that have suitable features for the environment, over creatures whose features are not suitable or less suitable. The "unsuitable" will not survive and will become extinct over time, while living beings that are suitable for their environment will continue, in their very survival, the evolution process of constant change and development.

All the living creatures we know today have evolved over millions of years of history, from more primitive primitive creatures to their diverse form today. In this sense, the theory of evolution provides an explanation for the origin of living beings and their configuration today, alongside the explanation of the processes of change and development in the timeline. Being a world-wide theory, evolution touches every feature and feature of living beings, the structure of the body, the structure of the nucleus and the cell, the various organs of the body and the structure of the brain and its mode of operation. And just as the theory explains the origin of life and the processes of development, so the theory explains the "descent of man" from the creatures that preceded him. The modern man, the "homo-sapiens" - the thinking man, is the most developed and complex living creature that evolved from the pre-human creatures that preceded him in the process of evolution, and are therefore our ancestors.
"Homo-sapiens" appeared as a human creature about 150,000 years ago and managed to survive and develop, while its ancestors, less suited to their environment, became extinct over time. These ancestors, whose scientific name is: Astrolopipicus (from the subspecies A. "Africans" and A. "Habilis") underwent evolutionary changes and adaptations in the transition from the life of the great apes in the jungle to the upright existence of a pre-human, who went out into the expanses of the African savannah and began to develop mentally and socially. And from this pre-man (called "homo-erectus - the upright man"), the modern "thinking" man developed in terms of his physical, cognitive, social and cultural attributes. All these emerged, developed and crystallized in the continuous and gradual process of evolution.

To illustrate the evolutionary development of a physical feature in the human body - let's examine the thumb, one of the body parts of special importance in the process of human evolution. The evolutionary explanation for the development of the human hand and the thumb in particular, begins with the exit from the forest where, as long as the monkeys lived in motion in the forest, among the trees, it was an advantage for those with a flat hand and a small thumb that did not hinder the hand from grasping and wrapping trunks and branches in order to move through the thicket of the forest. But in the open plains of the Savannah, at the same time as the floor became upright, the hand began to pick, pluck, crack, push, lift, throw and throw - and those with a "three-dimensional" hand, in which the thumb stands and moves in front of the fingers of the hand, enjoyed a significant advantage: they could bring together the The thumb with the first finger and perform a "precise grip" - .

These basic properties, of the position of the thumb in front of the fingers and the ability to rotate the thumb, are what allow the human palm to hold an object, a stick or a stone, to wrap a stem like a hammer, or to weave thread with a needle - properties that are the basis of all sophisticated hand operations - grasping, sewing, weaving, writing. And the more the creature that evolved had a better "precise grip" (meaning a thumb that was more vertical, longer and capable of wider movement), the more the human brain developed and created, for the palm of the hand, more complex tasks based on "precise grip". And at the same time, the brain also developed and created appropriate cognitive (thinking) skills. The more the palm could make more sophisticated uses of "precise grip", the more the brain needed to find ideas and ways to use this ability. And so, as the thumb developed, the brain also developed more and became "smarter" in a dialectical process (mutual feeding) between the thumb and the brain. And in a similar way all human traits developed and the patterns of human life and human culture were created, ways of thinking and ways of coping - all traits that evolution "preferred" over other traits in the process of natural selection. This is how evolution explains the birth form of the human baby (big head, small body), the smooth faces of women compared to the beard that adorns men's faces, the different skin color of people - and in fact every feature and feature of all human beings or of any living creatures.

"Homo Sapiens", humans in the form we know today, spread and expanded their living areas in Africa, the Middle East, India, China and Southern Europe. "Homo-sapiens" continued to go through stages in its evolutionary development: the beginning of the use of primitive tools, joining primitive social groups, entering different climate zones (something that affected the color of a person's skin and the structure of the face). At a certain point, the gradual process of animal domestication begins (in the framework of which evolutionary changes are created in the "domesticated" animals that allow them to adapt to humans and live alongside them). And at the same time, the domestication of plants (the beginning of agriculture), and even before that, the "domestication of fire" and its use for cooking food, creating tools, preserving and processing leather and metals.

And from here the evolution is close to the cultural stage, the civilization stage, which is identified with the great invention of the prehistoric period, in Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq): the pottery jar. This technological invention occurred, probably by chance, from a fire pit dug into the clay soil of Aram-Nahreim. The meeting between the fire, the water and the clay soil, is what led to the "invention" of the first urn, which allowed the "homo-sapiens" to move from a nomadic-gathering life to food storage and the beginning of the modern economy. Starting from this stage, and thanks to the clay jar, people could keep the production surplus (wheat, barley, oil, salt) and barter with these surpluses. This development obviously affected the social, cultural and political frameworks which are also in an evolutionary process of constant development and change.

And here we return to the essential contrast that exists between evolution as a theory that explains life and religion that also claims to provide explanations for the meaning of life, the "creation of the world", the origin of man and the meaning of his life. The conflict between religion and evolution is frontal and irreconcilable. Evolution, directly, does not recognize, and in fact denies, the very existence of God, and in any case denies the idea of ​​the "creation of the world" as an event that took place at the magic headquarters of some great magician - God. After all, in its essence, evolution holds that life develops all the time, and originates from primitive living beings that change over time and gradually develop and take their current form. Evolution denies the existence of God and in fact dictates a different approach to man's origin, to man's destiny, to man's commitment to the ecological environment in which he lives and to the entire relationship between man and nature. As such, evolution advocates compatibility with the environment, friendliness towards nature and a controlled and respectful use of natural resources, and the modesty of man's being in nature - not the "glory of creation" nor "the separation of man from the beast" - but a living biological creature, belonging to nature, shaped in its properties by nature and changed by "The nature according to the degree of its adaptation to nature.

In our current era, the evolutionary approach emphasizes the importance of the survival of living things, plants and animals - some of which disappear in the natural process of evolution, but many become extinct as a direct result of the actions of humans. Of particular concern is the population density in the world (6 billion inhabitants of the earth today are expected to double to 12 billion in 2030), pollution sources
Water and the depletion of resources. These issues are at the forefront of modern science and the researchers preach the most disturbing evolutionary message and lesson: human beings, in their large numbers
And in their actions, they are no longer adapted to the environment in which they live because they harm nature, deplete its resources and create an unbearable burden on their natural environment - and the evolutionary principle claims that only creatures that are suitable for their environment will survive - and those that are not suitable, will become extinct and pass away from the world. And here, too, is the absolute contrast between the religious concept that places Yahva in God ("... He will make peace upon us") and science and the evolutionary approach that addresses the scientific logic of man, the "thinker", and his sense of responsibility towards his actions and towards the nature from which he comes and to which he belongs . In the name of religion, man acts against nature and without regard for it. In the name of religion, the world's population is exploding to the point that the ability of human beings to exist in the world is in doubt. In the end, according to the principle of evolution, humans will disappear from the face of the earth if they do not stop harming the environment that sustains them, and if they do not adapt themselves to their environment - they will not survive!

- Freedom website recommends the following books:
- For youth and young adults - "The Ancient Man", published by "Maariv" - LIFE
- for all ages - "Evolution - from Darwin to the," DNA by Dr. Dan Graor, Broadcasting University Press;
- For all ages - The Hebrew Encyclopedia, Volume 102, pp. 117 to XNUMX
- For those in the know: "The Origin of Species", by Charles Darwin, Mossad Bialik Publishing House, 1960
– In English: Charles Darwin: Time Line

Yadan Darwin - the man of a thousand
The article is presented courtesy of the Freedom website

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