Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Darwin's Theory of Evolution - a Crisis??


Evolution... a most frequently asked question, whose answer is still beyond the imaginative power of man. Where are we from? Whom did we come from? How did our evolution take place? Are we from monkeys? Then who created the first bacteria of the World? From where did it evolve? lotsa questions, as such.

Theists say "Its all from God.. God created the Universe, the Planet, the Atmosphere, Water, Land, Bacterias, Viruses, Animals, Plants, Human". well, good in that case. Belief is always the answer for an unknown question.

And back to Darwin's theory, Sir Darwin proposed a theory.. famously called as the 'Theory of evolution'. According to him, each and every creature on this planet, is created with a factor so called, "decent with modification". The theory says, Everything is descended from its ancestors. trees, animals, human and everything {We must have been from an amoeba then, not from monkey :p}. Also adds up, when such a transition occur, the beneficial mutations still remain as in the ancestor, but the next advancement of the gene would be radical. Say, Human, as of now, is considered to have taken his evolution from a monkey. The advancement we have is the addition of one more sense, absence of tail etc. Its just a structural advancement we have, considers the Theory of Evolution. This process of advancement, was coined by a term 'natural selection', by Darwin. Say, the theory proposes, there must have been something, which existed before the butterflies, which cannot fly but had the properties of a butterfly. Say the fore-runner is X, the butterfly should have inherited a few properties from X and should have developed the capability of flying. The X should have gradually got extinct and what exists is actually the butterfly.

But the transition can not happen in a leap. It takes lotta time. It takes place slowly and very slowly. Darwin further said, if under any discussion, it is to be proved that any organ/part of a creature existed without successive building of them, from their ancestors, the theory of Evolution would obviously break down. Such an organ, if formed, would come under 'irreducibly complex system'. The Irreducibly Complex System is something which contains many complex parts, where the entire organ fails to function properly, if any one single part of the organ fails. Say, you have a two wheeler. You wont be able to run a two wheeler, which is a complex system without tyres or engine or handlebar. You need these integral parts of the complex system to run the two wheeler good. Now, in the same case discussion, there is no chance that the System of the two wheeler can be evolved part by part. Because, if the evolution is part by part and slow, the system wouldn function well.

To note a point, Darwin himself had made a confession on his theory...
"To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree."

And thus, the Darwin's theory is a crisis ... !