Week 3

Charles Darwin:

Darwin's theory of Natural Selection basically states that only the strong and fittest survive. The source of strength may be physical or mental, but the dominant survive. If a certain thing is not suited for the task at hand, it will fail and be overpowered by that which has been designed for the specific task. Therefore the one who is dominant will receive the glory that accompanies power and the one who fails will miss out. This causes the weak to dye off and the dominate one to strive for ultimate power and dominance. The resulting population will be entirely made of the species with the dominate trait. This will continue until a mutation occurs that benefits the species, which is called evolution.

This theory can be related to many things but I am choosing to relate it to the evolution of the car. When the car was first built, it was basically an engine, 4 tires, a steering wheel and a bench seat. Due to the evolution of technology, a car is now considered luxury at it's finest in some cases. Due to the process of evolution, it went from being completely basic to having all the bells and whistles along with satellite T.V.

Stephen Gould
In his theory of nonmoral nature, he is stating that the behaviors of animals in nature, has presented theologians with an exacting dilemma: " If god is good and if creation reveals his goodness, why do natures victims suffer?" In his argument he states that animals are ruthless and efficient predators that infect pain on essentially helpless prey. his theory is about predators, dealing with good vs. bad and morality vs. ethics. He explains that animals do not have a sense of good and bad (morals/ethics) because they are just that, animals. They base their way of thinking on instinct. The one thing they know. It is just a way of survival. It is either kill or be killed. An example he uses is the wasp. this certain wasp implants it's larvae in certain insects so they can grow. However, while using these insects as hosts for their growing process, they eat the insects from the inside out, but save their vital organs for last so the insect can survive as long as possible. Gould explains that evolution and the animal kingdom has nothing to do with the moral and ethical code that is set in place by humans. He does not take away the fact that animals have the ability to learn, they just do not have a conscious like humans do. Humans and animals have different values and they are not interconnected. Animals cannot be placed on the same level as humans with cognitive skill and abilities.

When relating this theory to real life, I can relate it to an encounter i had recently in a cashier's line at Target. I was shopping with my mother and we were waiting in the line to check out when a small boy approximately 6-7 years old turned are and was covered in bandages on his face. He also had a patch on his eye. Being curious, my mother started a conversation with this little Boy trying to find out what had happened. We ended up finding out that it was due to a sever dog bit from their family pet. This "domestic" dog was a part of their family for many years. During those years, the family developed a false reality, deeming the dog safe, domesticated and harmless. Obviously this false reality became a true reality after the child was bitten. The child exclaimed that the dog was "bad and didn't listen". If the parents would have remembered that a dog is an animal and survives on instinct, then maybe they could have prevented this from happening. I believe this is what Gould is trying to say, no matter how much effort you put into an animal to teach it trick and to be "well behaved", it is essentially still and animal and strives on instinct.

Brave New World:
The Brave New World excerpts gave a brief introduction to the novel. The basic concept of this novel is that they are using technology to have control over their society. They create these mechanisms to control the overall stability of the world. They also control reproduction with technology. They do this by removing the ovaries and mass-producing humans in incubating bottles as needed. When the humans are being created, they have a Hierarchy in which they must follow. The Hierarchy starts with the Alpha, beta and deceases. The higher on the chain one is, the more creativity and individuality one can express. The lowest species on the chain is basically a machine in a human's body. They perform a process of elector shock, which conditions the babies to act in a certain way and do certain things. They call this conditioning. As adults, they are conditioned to act according to the benefit of the larger community and the higher powers.