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Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection
Negative effects of genetic engineering
Dangers of genetic engineering
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Recommended: Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection
Darwin’s “Theory of Natural Selection” is described as being the process behind evolution. In the theory, an environment is essentially selecting which species will do well within it through different natural events. Individuals within a population differ, and the differences between the species are passed from parents to their offspring. Some individuals are more successful at surviving and reproducing than others, and the successful individuals succeed because of the favorable traits they have inherited. We can look at a giraffe for an example of Darwin’s theory, because a giraffe born with a longer neck has an inherent ability to reach for more food when compared to a giraffe with a shorter neck. This causes the giraffes with longer necks …show more content…
to reproduce at a higher rate than short neck giraffes, which makes giraffes with long necks more common in the population. Giraffes with the longer neck advantage are in better health and are able to pass this trait onto their offspring. Gregory Mendel, known as the “father of genetics,” contributed to the fields of genetics and evolutionary theory by discovering the mechanism of inheritance through his experiments with pea plants. Mendel bred thousands of pea plants that held different attributes and from his experiments he concluded that genes come separately in two’s and are handed down from each parent. He watched how the genes emerged in the offspring and documented if they showed up being either a dominant or recessive trait. Mendel proposed that there was a specific system of how genes are inherited and the result of all of his experiments were “Mendel’s Laws of Heredity,” which included: The Law of Segregation, The Law of Independent Assortment, and The Law of Dominance. What we know about genes today fits with Darwin’s theory because in his book, “The Descent of Man,” Darwin wrote, “In each great region of the world, the living mammals are closely related to the extinct species of the same region. It's therefore probable that Africa was formerly inhabited by extinct apes closely allied to the gorilla and chimpanzee, and as these two species are now man's nearest allies, it's somewhat more probable that our early progenitors lived on the African continent than elsewhere.” In today’s world, when looking at the different patterns of how our genes vary person to person, we are able to create a “family tree” for each individual. We can conclude that what we can comprehend about genes today fit hand in hand with Darwin’s theory because we learned in Spencer Wells Ted Talk that, “everyone on earth falls into a lineage somewhere on these ‘trees,’ and the deepest lineages in our family trees are found within Africa, among Africans.” This ultimately means that Charles Darwin was correct in his proposal that we humans originated in Africa because we have the technology to trace our origins through our genes. Wells adds, “at some point in the past, group of Africans left the African continent to go out and populate the rest of the world. Within the last 200,000 years, we all share an ancestor, a single person who gave rise to all the mitochondrial diversity in the world today.” I believe that the concept of “designer babies” could be very harmful to the continued survival of the human species.
This practice holds the ability to eliminate potential diseases and disabilities that a child could be born with before the child is actually born. This concept seems like an advantageous idea, but parents who chose to “design their baby” are also able to program what physical and personality traits they want their child to have. Evolution could be harmed severely if humans begin populating our earth with these “designer babies.” In lecture, I learned about evolution and how environments essentially select which species will do well within it through different natural events. If these modified humans existed, there would be less diversity in the human population which would make it harder for these humans to adapt to new, changing environments. It is imperative that there is a substantial range of individuals in a species in order for that specific species to continue to be competitive with each other and thrive in their communities. The concept of individuality would no longer exist if genetically engineered humans roamed the earth because everyone would look the same and share the same personalities which would make for a very boring
world.
Once altered, the baby will have no say in how its cells are used, or traits they wish to keep but no longer will have the chance too. Some designer babies are created to help others through transplants. Even though the intention may be decent, it is still taking away the child's chance to have a choice in his body. Certain transplants are painful, such as a bone marrow transplant, and creating the child to be used as a donor could possibly put him through involuntary pain.
What do one think of when they hear the words “Designer Babies”? A couple designing their own baby of course, and it’s become just that. Technology has made it possible for there to be a way for doctors to modify a babies characteristics and its health. Genetically altering human embryos is morally wrong, and can cause a disservice to the parents and the child its effecting.
Only in the past one hundred years have men finally put aside their Biblical and mythical tales about creation, and looked to the facts in order to piece together a logical explanation for the origin of mankind. In turn, men were now able to explain the enigma of their origin without the presence of a supernatural being responsible for their creation. At the head of a slew of men trying to uncover logical reasons for mans derivation was Charles Darwin. Darwin was the most accomplished of these men because he was able to put forth a logical conjecture that was based upon facts and observations. This theory, for a short time, was able to end the feud among educated men because many now put their trust in this new “theory of evolution”. Unfortunately, this revolutionary new theory threatened the religious beliefs about creation and soon a new rivalry emerged between the creationists and evolutionists.
The question of how man evolved has been pondered for some time. Many great philosophers and explorers have made attempts to try to answer this question. Charles Darwin was one of these people. Darwin led a full life of exploration, and during these adventures, he accumulated much information about evolution. He met many explorers that had various ideas of their own about how man evolved. In discussion with these people, he figured out if what they were telling him was fact or fiction. This helped him to formulate his own theory.
In today’s society we have been coming control freak trying to prevent bad things to happen to our children, but in reality misfortunes still occur even if we try to avoid them and people that agree that designer babies are the new generation are unethical and morally wrong. To produce designer babies you are disregarding a natural process that has worked for millions of
Natural selection is simple yet complex process that allows species adapt to its environment. Natural selection guides evolution by “sifting out” favorable traits that increase survival for the species. Natural selection is driven by reproductive success. If a species can reproduce and its offspring survive than any traits in its genotype that assisted in its survival will be passed on from generation to generation and ensure that the species will live on. Around the time the Theory of Evolution was suggested, society was very religious and very pressed on the Theory of Creation, so the publication of Darwin’s The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection caused a lot of controversy. Darwin gave the world strong evidence that natural selection and evolution played a major role in the development of the species that we see today. Of course natural selection is not the only process driving evolution. In order for natural selection to happen, the species has to have genetic variation. Genetic variation happens because of mutations and recombination of genes. Other processes that contribute are gene flow and genetic
Have you ever just sat and thought to yourself how the universe was created also what it took to create the planets and living organisms. I am explaining the definition of “Evolution” as defined by the scientist Charles Darwin. “The process by which organisms change over time as a result of changes in heritable physical or behavioral traits. Changes that allow an organism to better adapt to it’s environment will help it survive and produce offspring.” Theory of Evolution which was first formulated in his book titled “On the Origin of Species” in the year 1859.
Evolutionary Psychology is the theoretical approach to psychology that explains useful mental and psychological traits such as perception, memory, language, and human behavior. Evolutionary psychology started a revolution of new ideas being articulated and being built on top of one another like stairs. It is incredible to think that this is a relatively new science in our history as humans. Evolutionary psychology started with a basic idea of simple organisms and has combined into the study of human nature.
With the studies that Charles Darwin obtained he published his first work, “The Origin of Species.” In this book he explained how for millions of years animals, and plants have evolved to better help their existence. Darwin reasoned that these living things had gradually changed over time to help themselves. The changes that he found seemed to have been during the process of reproduction. The traits which would help them survive became a dominant trait, while the weaker traits became recessive. A good example of what Darwin was trying to explain is shown in giraffes. Long-necked giraffes could reach the food on the trees, while the short-necked giraffes couldn’t. Since long necks helped the giraffes eat, short-necked giraffes died off from hunger. Because of this long-necks became a dominant trait in giraffes. This is what Charles Darwin would later call natural selection.
So first, to describe the role of natural selection in speciation process, a simple definition of what natural selection is must be given. Natural selection is the process where organisms better adapted to their environment tend to survive and are able to reproduce. Natural selection is one of the basic mechanisms of evolution. If you have variation, differential reproduction, and heredity, you will have evolution by natural selection as an outcome. In Darwin’s theory of natural selection, an example is given of giraffes. In this example of the giraffes, Darwin suggests that variation was a result of preexisting genetic differences among the giraffes. While this other biologist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, believed that evolution occurred by the inheritance of acquired characteristics. He believed that the giraffe ancestor lengthened its neck by stretching to reach tree leaves, and then passed the change to the offspring. However, Darwin believed that some giraffes were just born with longer necks due to genetic diff...
It will make diversity and uniqueness weak, everyone will be "perfect" and no one will focus on the uniqueness of human beings. The great things we may achieve will be of less value since more people will be similar and have those same abilities. Children will be less appreciated because they will be more of a product (robot) than a unique gift. Through this practice we will face the dangers of races being eliminated and our world becoming a male dominated place. Genetic modification takes away our right to create and live our own story. If we are all genetically modified our lives will all be similar and less exciting. If creating designer babies will weaken diversity and uniqueness, why should we allow it? The world will be dull and full of clones, is it worth
...ns to both arguments, allowing genetic engineering and the concept of designer babies will bring benefits to the human race (Yin, 2005). However, like any other technological advancement, it should be effectively and closely monitored and controlled to ensure that it not used to put some individuals at an advantage and others at a disadvantage. It should be used solely for the eradication of serious human conditions and diseases.
So, the idea of designing your own baby and it turning into a competition to see whos kid will be the best seems very realistic and unnecessary. Designer babies will divide our society even more than it already is. The rich and upper class will have the finances to go through the designer baby procedure and once it is complete their “perfect” kids will be seen as superior to the rest. On top of that designer babies are very unethical. Modifying an embryo violates religious values and the rights of the embryo. Another problem is how would large numbers of rejected embryos be handled ethically and politically, since you can’t just throw them out in the garbage. Also gene editing is too similar eugenics. Eugenics is the science of trying to improve the human race by increasing the occurrence of attractive heritable traits. Hitler used eugenic principles to justify his cruelties and eugenics has been disapproved and frowned upon ever since. Designer babies are not needed in this day and age and scientists should stop researching the idea. but research about them can help advance gene editing and that is
Natural selection is the gradual process by which biological traits become either more or less common in a population as a function of the effect of inherited traits on the differential reproductive success of organisms interacting with their environment. It is a key mechanism of evolution.
Charles Darwin's theory of evolution centres on the idea that species compete to survive, and favorable characteristics are passed on from one generation to the next. Darwin said that evolution took place by a process of natural selection or survival of the fittest. This meant that the animals and plants best suited to their surroundings survived and were able to pass on their genes to their offspring. The ones that weren't best suited died off and didn't get the chance to reproduce. Animals and plants had to change or evolve due to environmental pressures.