Yakub Saputra
English 1A
Professor Calebotta
February 11, 2013
Self-Gravity on Evolution
The debate over the origin of the universe and its inhabitants has become very emotional because it affects a person’s sense of self-worth. This debate tends to scale how important the human being is to the rest of the universe. Many branches of thought emerge as the question unravels; despite many compelling arguments, one can find a fundamental issue that prevents the reconciliation of two major ideas. The absurdity of theory that in general argues against evolution leads to an indication, that there is something else, different than a mere desire to know the truth, which has taken role and empowers the discovery of human origin. It is our human nature. Human nature forces human to seek justification that human is the most important creature, hence superior to the rest of the world. It is disturbing, to our human nature, to accept humankind as inferior to other creatures. This is the reason why Darwin’s Theory of Evolution, because some part of society cannot accept the notion that human does not possess a great significance to the rest of the world.
Darwin’s theory of evolution argues that organisms live today have a common ancestor: every organism came from another life form. The question is how can he come up with this idea? “Darwin’s theory was the product of years of patient observation… Darwin’s life was devoted to gathering evidence for just such tests.” (Klinkenberg) Apparently, Darwin used empirical observation to support his hypotheses. His conclusion about how certain organism survives the environment came from the observation to appearances, quality, and behavior the observed organism. On the other hand, Darwinian rival theories such as Creationism and Intelligent Design look over the issue from the religious perspective. The hypotheses is derived from religious literature and the observation that bears almost none empirical value. They argue, that all kind of creatures, including human, are created at the moment of creation by the Intelligent Agent. Carrying no empirical evidence and poor rational thinking leads society to severely doubt those theories. A common response these people would express is: “do you believe that your ancestors are monkey?” This indicates that it is not the truth that they are seeking, but they only seek a mere assurance that they do not have ‘monkey’ grand-grand-parents.
Human nature features a phenomenon that our earth performs: gravity. Like gravity, human thought tends to pull everything surround it toward itself, in order to establish the sense of self-importance and hopefully could possess superiority over other entities. Psychologist Abraham Marslow includes esteem in his hierarchy of needs as one of the four most fundamental needs of human being. He argues that the “satisfaction of the self-esteem need leads to feelings of self-confidence, worth, strength, capability and adequacy of being useful and necessary in the world” (A Theory of Human Motivation 381). Human needs their existence to be acknowledged by others, where its present affects its environment, where its absence is counted as a loss, and where their voice can be heard. This fundamental need is the faculty in human nature that acts like gravity. The need to feel “necessary in the world” has affected those people who oppose the evolution theory.
Before Copernicus and Galileo expounded their observation that the planet earth is round and is not the center of the universe, people were forced to think the opposite, by the overlapping political power of the church. But what kind of observation did the former people and the church lie the theory upon? Considering the argument of self-importance nature, I believe that people and the church saw the planet earth as the representation of the existence of human being. By conceiving the earth as the center of the universe, people and the church achieved their satisfaction in the