How did Homo sapiens become Homo sapiens? Was there a miraculous shift in our DNA a millennia ago that caused our ancestors to morph into what we see today? Or was it a series of gradual changes over that same millennia? The two schools of thought on evolution are phyletic gradualism and punctuated equilibrium. Both present compelling arguments and are at odds with the other. I believe Homo sapiens were created by a millennia of small changes occurring gradually, before we get to that however let us further examine the schools of thought.
Phyletic gradualism is the idea that genetic changes occur constantly and very slowly over long periods of time to produce a species. Speciation in this manner was proposed by Charles Darwin (Saylo, Escoton & Saylo, 2011). Darwin proposed that it was the process of natural selection gradually weeding the unfit from the population thus creating a new species. The theory of phyletic gradualism states that evolution occurs all the time and is not concentrated into short bursts of genetic mutation to create a splitting of species.
Punctuated equilibri...
The transition started with apes beginning to stand up straight and on two feet rather and four, then they began to have larger and more complex brains, which then lead to apes learning to communicate through sounds and art, until finally the apes “evolved” into who human are today and began making tools and forming communities like we have today. Many scientists believe that this will continue and eventually we will adapt and become a “new” species; However, I believe over the past 6000 years when civilization began, was the moment we started to pull ourselves out of evolution and cheat “survival of the fittest”. From our creation of large cities to the invention of the machine gun and nuclear warheads, our society is not threatened by anything except ourselves; therefore, we are not evolving to further better our chances of survival. I have found few example of how our species is no longer affected by survival of the fittests. First,
Evolution, also known as descent with modification, is a phrase Darwin used in proposing the evolution of Earth’s many species. Charles Darwin noticed that the descendants of ancestral species were different from the present day forms of species. Darwinism is a theory of biological evolution developed by Charles Darwin who was an English naturalist. He expounded the theory of evolution in his book of the Origin Species in 1859. He expresses that all types of organisms emerge and develop through natural selection, small, acquired traits that expands the individuals of capacity, survival, and reproduction. In this book, Darwin theorized that animals and plants evolve and develop with the aid of the creator through the process of natural selection.
The second part of the theory of evolution is gradualism. Gradualism is the idea that it takes many generations to produce a substantial evolutionary change. An example of this change is birds gaining the ability to fly.
Children often play a game called telephone, where one child whispers a statement into another child's ear, and the statement is passed on to other children; at the end of the game the last child will repeat the statement that was told to him or her. The majority of the time, the statement said would be completely different than the original one. This is an example of evolution through natural selection; where somewhere along the life span of the statement, it was modified, and the modified statement was passed on to form a new statement.
...oling climate and slowly evolved into Homo erectus, and then Homo erectus was affected by sexual selection, the split of their population, and their new necessary diet. They, in turn, slowly evolved into modern Homo sapiens. Natural selection, sexual selection, and genetic drifts all affected these species, and what took them to evolve into us, modern humans.
A British naturalist and geologist by the name of Charles Darwin was the first to formulate a scientific argument for the theory of evolution by means of natural selection.Evolution is said to occur over long stretches of time, not in quick jumps. There are actually two different lines of thought on the matter. Phyletic gradualism holds that speciation takes place constantly and over long periods of time. Punctuated equilibrium, on the other hand, involves quick jumps and starts, with long periods of time between the changes.
Since the beginning of the human race there has been a lingering question as to the origins of man and how all living things acquired their characteristics. The two main theories that arose over time were Creationism and Evolution, both of which provided very distinct answers to this question. Creationism based its answer on the idea of a supernatural power or being that created the entire universe, man and the numerous other organisms that live within it. While, Evolution theorizes that all living things have the potential to change and grow over time into something new and different. So in other words, one theory suggests that humans and all the organisms on Earth are the result of divine design, while the other indicates that they are only the result of environmental adaption and growth. However, as neither theory is without flaw and it is only through close examination that a true understanding of man’s origins can be obtained.
The theory of evolution is quite sophisticated scientific theory that has received a lot of misinterpretation and distortion. However, it can be explained very simply by integrating several important concepts into one definition. Coyne (2009, p. 3) sums up the entire theory in one sentence, “Life on Earth evolved gradually beginning with one primitive species—perhaps a selfreplicating molecule—that lived more than 3.5 billion years ago; it then branched out over time, throwing off many new and diverse species; and the mechanism for most (but not all) of evolutionary change is natural...
In the Pleistocene Era, hominins have been expanded rapidly in terms of survival, such as availability of food resources, migrating and how they defend their territories. Then, this has been lead hominins to develop intelligence and create a wide variety of tools. However, there is no specific evidence or answer to, how did human beings evolve and where did they come from. Environmental conditions or pressures have been played importantly, that contributed to the selection of the genus Homo in Africa, Europe, Asia, Australia, and there is an anatomical evidence over the past one million years, culminating in our modern genome; leads to developing human cognition and explains why modern humans are the only ones who exists today.
The thought of evolution is filled with theories, ideas and beliefs. The definition of evolution is rather simple. According to Jerry A. Coyle, evolution is “the change in the inherited characteristics of biological populations over successive generations (2). Evolution gives rise to diversity when it comes to the hierarchy of life otherwise known as biological organization. Many people find the topic of evolution to be troubling and very confusing. Throughout history churches have preached that evolution is atheistic and a sin if even thought about. Famous scientist, Charles Darwin, is said to really be the first to formulate debated theory of evolution by the means of natural selection. Eventually in the 20th century genetics was compounded with Charles Darwin’s theories of evolution. Even today scientists continue to study different aspects of the theory of evolution.
“The scientific study of how humans developed did not begin until the 1800s in Europe. Until that time, people relied on religious explanations of how humans came into existence. Starting in the 1500s a scientific revolution began to sweep Europe. Thinkers started using scientific methods and experiments to try to better understand the world and the creatures living in it. Eventually these methods were turned to the question of human origins” (The Nature Of Human Origins, 1). Earth made it possible for species to change over time because Ancient Earth provides ability to plenty of time.The Homo Sapien a is very complex creature. The species started off very simple by living in caves and surviving with little food and then later evolved into a species that were able to do many more complex things. The first species was Sahelanthropus tchadensis They were one of the most simple humans in that time period and on. They had very small skulls compared to Homo Sapiens today and their motor skills were just the same. We have evolved and changed for the better both mentally and physically. The Evolution of Homo Sapiens started off simple, such as the Neanderthals, and now we are the most advanced species to ever walk the planet so far.
How life came to be is a mystery that baffled the minds of even the smartest researchers. Although the researchers found no definite answers throughout the centuries, they had created many theories that could explain the origin of modern organisms. Evolution is a prominent theory among others, as supported by ancient ancestry, fossil evidence, and genetics. Evolution is the correct theory because the evidence, which is ancestry, fossil evidence, and genetics, proves evolution to have a solid argument.
Human species or in scientific terms know as, Homo Sapiens has evolved drastically in the last couple of billion years. Human evolution all started from our great ancestors, the chimpanzees. Human evolution started all in the continent of Africa. Due to global changes, evolution changed over time. Thus leading to the evolution of mankind. But man didn't just evolve from chimpanzees. There were a lot of scientific processes and different events that led up to final evolution of mankind. But what does it mean humans evolved from chimpanzees? Why is the human evolution such a small speck in the evolution graph of the evolution of the whole earth? These questions that have been asked frequently by curious people has led scientists to dig deeper into this topic. The answers to how humans evolved has led to some great discoveries.
Without evolution, and the constant ever changing environment, the complexity of living organisms would not be as it is. Evolution is defined as a process that results in heritable changes in a population spread over many generations (8).Scientists believe in the theory of evolution. This belief is based on scientific evidence that corroborates the theory of evolution. In Figure 1 the pictures of the skulls depict the sequence of the evolution of Homo-sapiens. As the figure shows, man has evolved from our common ancestor that is shared by homo-sapiens. The change of diet of homo-sapiens over time has thought to contribute to the change in jaw structure and overall skull shape.