Natural Selection & Variability

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Darwin in this reading has really expressed his ideas thoroughly and clearly. It’s impressive to see someone not beat around the bush whatsoever, and stick right to the point. Before reading this, I had no idea what this idea of variability was, or that humans had a major impact on it. I  highly value scientists opinions and ideas, so this was an enjoyable read for me.

I sometimes try to put myself in Darwin’s shoes, just to try and understand how society was… “accepting” his ideas on evolution. In the 1800’s, the religious creation idea was widely, commonly accepted. But regardless everyone can agree that human impacts on animals has caused variability. Without humans moving crops, animals, etc. from one location to another, and those animals or crops adapting to their new location, the variety of species of such would be a lot less as it is now. Natural selection some may call it, but is human involvement with nature really that “natural”?

I just don’t see how we can consider humans directly genetically modifying crops and animals as natural. Sure if you consider humans to be just another species in the Animal Kingdom, which we are. But we are so much more developed, both physically AND mentally. If you think about it, we can outsmart any other species, whether its distraction, kill tactics, defense, etc. So the “natural selection” of this genetically, mentally dominant species is considered legitimate to how nature is? I’m not so sure about that, although I do not disagree with Darwin that our selection has shaped nature, I just don’t like the term natural in front of selection.

It goes without saying that this selection process is exclusively involved with domesticated animals, in specific ones that provide use to humans. Whether for meat, furs, travel, etc. we will as humans weed out the small weak ones in exchange for the strong, meaty, colorful, exotic ones, or basically whatever the demand is at that time. We have been able to specifically modify domesticated animals into basically anything we want. Again, the term natural selection shows up in this scenario, but what is so natural of this genetic modification?

111 thoughts on “Natural Selection & Variability”

  1. I think that the word natural is another one of those words that we ought to sit down and think about in this class. If by natural (And this is the definition I prefer) you mean anything that can physically happen in this world (As in the opposite of supernatural, which is somewhat of an oxymoron because that word is often applied to science that we can’t explain and is therefore also natural, if unknown, but I digress) then it ends up being a pretty broad category that can fit everything from farming to genome science. But if you think of natural as something that only happens in the base environment, as in take away the trappings of civilization and technology and plop people in the middle of the woods somewhere, I think that such things as farming and other rudimentary involvement are still, in fact, natural because that is our base behavior, to change things. It is our very natural adaptation. I think, however, that it can be awkward to visualize that behavior as normal because we are really the only species that has this degree of control over our environment. In our human-centric view of the universe, we have very little to compare ourselves to absent an alien civilization. But if, say, there were a species of ape that exhibited agrarian tendencies, would you still think farming is an unnatural involvement?

  2. I think the idea of natural vs. unnatural (or some other category opposite of natural such as artificial) is an interesting, but ultimately arbitrary debate. I don’t think there is a definitive distinction and any that humans create is just an arbitrary construction used to satisfy our need to be different from animals. I think human influence is a part of natural selection because humans and everything they create is a part of the environment. I just can’t see why it wouldn’t be other than because humans are somehow different or above nature. This is just my opinion though.

  3. I agree that a discussion of the social construction of “natural” would be good! Just thinking about the binaries — besides “natural-supernatural” there’s “natural-artificial,” as well as “natural-cultural.” IIn “Keywords,” Raymond Williams says that “Nature is perhaps the most complex word in the language.” (p. 219) I will bring the book to class.

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