The theory of evolution says human beings evolved from one common ancestor while mythology says adam and eve were the first humans, ever since i was in class 12, i was wondering about something very very fundamental, had there been only 2 humans how come we are 6 billion (and counting) today?
Just jot down ur answer for this question in a paper.
My immediate answer for this question was, the first human pair did it, and thus they generated these 6 billion today. This came from the different stories i came across in mythology.
Now switching back to theory of evolution , what can u logically deduct for the 6 billion today ?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution -
defines evolution as the change in the inherited traits of a population of organisms through successive generations, and describes it further as a product of two opposing forces: processes that constantly introduce variation in traits, and processes that make particular variants become more common or rare.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_evolution -
Human evolution says that scientists have proved that the original ancestors of humans were the Chimpanzees.
From the above, all we can understand is every thing revolves around one particular english word, "CHANGE". A six letter word which sounds very simple but is totally ruling each and every moment of our lives.
Observing CHANGE in different stages and situations in all these years of my life, i learned a few characteristics of it and here is my statement about some particular traits of change itself
1)"CHANGE" has always been gradual in its nature, which i can say with a probability of 95% considering every single living element in this earth,
A few examples
Humans - as humans we change from one form to another in life gradually like an increasing slope, we all enjoyed our childhood did start learning things in our teenage, of course there was an intermediate phase between childhood and teenage and then we will gradually grow old with time, there had never been a sudden gain of 100% (direct switch to adulthood from a baby).
A simpler one
The seasons in a year: its again gradual, unlike the places near the equator, there is always a summer which gradually changes to autumn and to winter and to spring and back to the origin.
Much simpler one
the very day which we go through: there is a sun rise, a noon and an evening and at last the night. There was never a sudden conversion from day to night (except on eclipses and some mythological facts).
Characteristic 2
2)This CHANGE is measurable and its with respect to time, which logically brings us to one conclusion. CHANGE existed ever since time existed or they both were born together as twins and one cant survive without the other.
This CHANGE has played a very important role in our evolution and is in fact playing its part at this very moment making me write about it.
Can u now realise the reason why i focussed on CHANGE when the title says origin of civilisation
Put on ur thinking caps and jot down ur ideas about the origin perhaps the clue below about my next part contents might help
In part2
CHANGE and its part in evolution.
Mythology - change and tribes.
What a coincidence!
ReplyDeleteI had given a thought on time and change yesterday and today got to see an article dealing with the same! Go on, I'll be following this one closely ...
Great post! As usual, I have something to add to this theory. Change in nature is indeed gradual. But 'Man', in his greed for power / money, sometimes accelerates that gradual change in abnormal scales. Natural calamities could also bring about change in faster rates, take earthquakes/ meteors wiping out species altogether from the face of the earth. But human beings, with their creative minds (read sarcasm), have created more devious means of accelerating this rate of change. Just 1 atomic bomb on Hiroshima witnessed genetic mutations in offsprings that were unnatural and unsurpassed in the rate of change of evolution of a different form of human life. Perhaps, Man thinks that he can play as God, all in the name of science!(Cloning, genetically-modified crops/animals,etc...)
ReplyDeleteHappy blogging Baba Naresh! Good to see you put your thoughts down in a blog, perhaps one day a book?
Lets look at it thsi way, 2 ppl started it and then branches started to occur. We can see the results in our History. Our ancestors seemed to have settled down where nature and abundant amount of wealth in natural resources and minerals were present. They went about the change in their own gradual slow manner without having too much influence from science though it was there.
ReplyDeleteThen lets go to Europe, the guys who settled there turned out to be more agressive with science influencing them more comparitively. The result we got taken over.
Change is there but with respect to time, it is different with mankind. Hence we have us and also the chimpanzees who are still changing.
We have civiised mankind and also tribals living in forests. Of course there can be defences that these guys are resitant to change but the fact is they take their own time to change or evolve.
Back to first point, at one point we had all resources if we had effected the change ourselves we would not still be a developing country. Our dependence on others to effect the change robbed us of our development.
Change was there, is there and will be there. We have grown to be in a position to ocntrol it. How we use this position determines where we are heading..............
I started this as saying lets look at it as if 2 ppl started it though personally i dont believe it. If that was the case there would not be such variations in people all over the world.
ah. u have started blogging i see . welcome welcome. I guess you are going to write things that you spoke about .
ReplyDeleteKeep it going, very interesting.Looking forward to the part 2
ReplyDeleteNice post. Interesting train of thoughts. As you talked about change did you also notice the balance that change has maintained through out. Human beings are from chimpanzees but there is not a shortage of chimpanzees. The process is so wonderfully continuous like having 4 batches of students every year in a college or 12 batches of students in a school(grade 1 to 12) at any given point. Everyone wait for their turn to evolve. And regarding multiplication from 2 ancestors, I guess there was nothing much to do otherwise in those days. So people just kept reproducing :P.
ReplyDeletegood to learn you are to writing,
ReplyDeleteinteresting topic....but reading down the first part felt you lost focus..was it to look at evolution or change or the origin..
i felt the question of How and why the man kind came in to existence, both from scientific and mythological reasons would have been more interesting as a question to start with...although the evolution theory and origin of life go hand in hand...why how an origin of a single cell living organism happened would have been more interesting..keep writing..
cheers
raj