Video: What Is Evolution?

Recently, I have encountered many people who don’t have a grasp on what evolution really entails, what it truly means.  In fact, it is not solely the lack of understanding and background on the matter, but the rather creative and farcical explanations on the subject that I have encountered.  One example was a week ago when  I was at Kuwait University with a filmmaker friend of mine working on a documentary.  We were approaching students asking them about “secularism,” basic questioning to find out what they knew about the term and whether they agreed or disagreed with it.   One guy brought in a very unique form of evolution into the secularism question, and already baffeled by this combination, it was what he said next and the reason why that took the cake.  “Men are better equipped to face reality as opposed to women”.  His backup to this claim is that men physically have wider eyes than women, and the reason for this is so they can better absorb shocks, not physical shocks per se, rather shocks to the capacity of seeing things that may affect us.  Now how creative is that?  I am still reeling from the answer, unsure whether to praise the genius behind it or to drop everything and start from scratch.  I thought to myself if only he had the chance to learn about evolution, maybe he wouldn’t come up with such a crazy idea.  Or if he truly was on to something, had he seeked a biological explanation to his ‘wide-eye theory,’ backing the suggestion on how it has evolved over time to show these differences in men and women, then maybe then I would give this student a second listen.  I stopped asking where secularism came into play in the answer, and the point taken was that the foundations of our thoughts and ideas are laid out differently, and getting a point across or understanding a topic may require deconstructions of thought and applicability of newer ideas and so on.   Anyways, a new take on Evolution out of Kuwait, and with that it reminded me of this video, for all the people who are confused or overwhelmed by it. Enjoy!

Comments

  1. Hardly surprising that people here do not know what the theory of evolution is. Especially considering that the evolution course taught at the zoology program of Kuwait university’s college of science has several pages scribbled/removed. They’re also told it’s only a “theory” and not “fact” by college professors! These are the same people who physically see evolution in their own labs.
    Even my fellow biology students have literally no idea what it means and shun it because some person (not even a biologist) told them it’s incorrect, often citing some 80 year old fallacy or a completely incorrect definition of evolution (really the greatest challenge I faced when conversing with some)
    It’s a really elegant theory to explain the fact of change over time. Cunningly simple in fact. Not only it can explain biological change, it can also explain social behaviour in the context of biology in evolutionary psychology which is a very interesting field indeed. You can look up the error management theory as an example. It certainly boosted the credit of psychology which some perceived as a psudeoscience.

    • I couldn’t agree with you more Bader! If everyone understands evolution they can apply it on their every day life. Everything changes and evolves even ideas. It’s very simple but we tend to complicate things and we think that we (humans) are superior to everything and the world evolves around us and our lives MUST have a meaning. Its so arrogant! anyway don’t get me started 🙂 thank you for your comment!

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