Activated my schemata, Darwinism，the evolutionary theory, is memorized as established by Charles Darwin only. Due to the fact that we were educated to admit human beings, animals, insects, reptiles and fishes are all evolved from their ancestors step by step in our secondary schools, I only remembered the theory was stated by Darwin, and that is why we call it Darwinism.
However, this article leads me to a new era. Darwinism was put forward at least by Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace together, if not completely by Alfred Russel Wallace. The article, The Man Who Wasn't Darwin, describes Wallace’s long tough discovery life in Singapore and many other Asian countries. In the article, there are many sentences and ideas that refer to Wallace’s opinion about adaptation and evolution. The sentence, “When he published a full treatise on natural selection, in 1889, with characteristic humility he titled it Darwinism”, stated in the last part of article convinces me a lot. My prior knowledge is so strong that I have to doubt the authenticity. On the other hand, this article is published in National Geographic magazine which makes me trust it. Before I look into more reference, I won’t make any decisions about which one is correct and which one is untrue. It still comes to my mind and challenges my knowledge, but it is a good challenge which can push me to read more.
Another point is that the conflict between my old and new knowledge reminds one article in my TOEFL test. It was about Darwinism too, but it contrasted with Darwinism, which thought species can evolve even in a short period instead of such long time in Darwinism. The article listed some experiments and phenomena to demonstrate its idea. Although I still believe in Darwinism in the theory level, I admire that it used examples and statistics to challenge the theory which dominated for long time. I mention this because it contained evidence, not only personal opinions.
It is related to our real life. People can express any ideas to convince others, only if they can explain them. Like my final university paper, I had to experiment all the hypothesis to get statistics, and then I have right to write down my own opinion based on my results. It is the way that scientists do. I don’t think these are necessary during our daily expression, nevertheless, I have to say we need enough reasons to support you. I should do as what I think, because I always cannot give strong reason when I try to explain something. The only thing I did was “because I think so”
However, this article leads me to a new era. Darwinism was put forward at least by Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace together, if not completely by Alfred Russel Wallace. The article, The Man Who Wasn't Darwin, describes Wallace’s long tough discovery life in Singapore and many other Asian countries. In the article, there are many sentences and ideas that refer to Wallace’s opinion about adaptation and evolution. The sentence, “When he published a full treatise on natural selection, in 1889, with characteristic humility he titled it Darwinism”, stated in the last part of article convinces me a lot. My prior knowledge is so strong that I have to doubt the authenticity. On the other hand, this article is published in National Geographic magazine which makes me trust it. Before I look into more reference, I won’t make any decisions about which one is correct and which one is untrue. It still comes to my mind and challenges my knowledge, but it is a good challenge which can push me to read more.
Another point is that the conflict between my old and new knowledge reminds one article in my TOEFL test. It was about Darwinism too, but it contrasted with Darwinism, which thought species can evolve even in a short period instead of such long time in Darwinism. The article listed some experiments and phenomena to demonstrate its idea. Although I still believe in Darwinism in the theory level, I admire that it used examples and statistics to challenge the theory which dominated for long time. I mention this because it contained evidence, not only personal opinions.
It is related to our real life. People can express any ideas to convince others, only if they can explain them. Like my final university paper, I had to experiment all the hypothesis to get statistics, and then I have right to write down my own opinion based on my results. It is the way that scientists do. I don’t think these are necessary during our daily expression, nevertheless, I have to say we need enough reasons to support you. I should do as what I think, because I always cannot give strong reason when I try to explain something. The only thing I did was “because I think so”
The Man Who Wasn't Darwin
By David Quammen
National Geographic Contributing Writer
Photograph by Robert Clark
