Darwin's Theory Of Natural Selection

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SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL ISSUES
There were numerous issues associated with Darwin’s Theory of Evolution, both scientifically and socially. Due to a lack of inheritance in Darwin’s theory of natural selection, the theory was seen as logically incomplete. There has been a lot of scepticism around natural selection. A leading historian of biology in 1929, Erik Nordenskiold, stated that ‘that the proposition that natural selection “does not operate in the form imagined by Darwin must certainly be taken as proved”’ (Gillispie, 1960). The reason for all this scepticism is that the fact that there was no direct evidence for natural selection. According to Casey Luskin, there are many problems with biological and chemical evolution which he explains in …show more content…
Among the conventional thinkers of the origin of life theorists, it is believed that ‘life arose via unguided chemical reactions on the early Earth some 3 to 4 billion years ago.’ Most theorists believe that among the many steps involved in the origin of life, the first step involved the production of a primordial soup (‘a water based sea of simple organic molecules out of which life arose’). Although the existence of this ‘soup’ has been viewed as an unquestioned fact for decades, this first step faces numerous scientific complications. One example of the complications of this theory is that there has not been any evidence uncovered that proves that a primordial soup existed. The primordial soup hypothesis was corroborated with the Miller-Urey experiments, which were experiments that ‘intended to simulate lightning striking the gasses in the early Earth’s atmosphere and after running the experiments and letting the chemical products sit for a period of time, Miller discovered that amino acids had been produced.’ Therefore, those experiments were labelled as the demonstration that the ‘building blocks’ of life could have arisen under natural, realistic Earth like conditions. However the atmosphere that was used in the Miller-Urey experiments was considerably …show more content…
For example, Social Darwinism was used to defend the actions of nations that have exterminated the indigenous peoples of the country they had invaded. According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, Social Darwinism is ‘the theory that persons, groups, and races are subject to the same laws of natural selection as Charles Darwin perceived in plants and animals’ (Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2014). In the case of the Tasmanian Aborigines of Australia, their extinction was blamed on Social Darwinism. Also in Adolf Hitler’s case, even though it was never stated explicitly that his ideologies were drawn on Darwin’s theory of evolution, his doctrine of racial superiority fit into Darwinism but to an extreme of madness (Aras, 1999). Darwinism had a huge impact on religion, due to the fact that it completely undermined religious beliefs of certain groups. Darwinism also was a major influence in the encouragement of agnosticism (Aras,
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