Western Enlightenment Ideals

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The Western Enlightenment was a time period where Judaeo-Christian ideals were used as an explanation for earth and how all of its inhabitants came to be. The belief was held that, “species are fundamentally ‘unchanged’ since the Creation.” This and other ideas came under fire in 1859, with the publication of Charles Darwin’s, Origins of Species, and the idea of biocentrism. On his voyage on the HMS Beagle, to the Galapagos Islands, Darwin observed thousands of animals, plants and geology. However, two animals whose characteristics didn’t quite fit in with the Western Enlightenment ideals of natural history caught his attention. He observed that the Galapagos Land Turtle’s shell and the Galapagos Finch’s beak varied depending on the environment …show more content…

This drawing intertwined and connected species through various aspects like skeleton structure. Darwin argued that, “Living beings are part of a “family tree,” as opposed to separate and unique creations.” This proposal challenged the idea that “each species created instantaneously by God as separate and unique.” He says that, “all species are related through common ancestry, and they change over time.” This idea of transmutation opened the door to make the connection that species, especially mammals are not that different. Darwin argued that, “limbs that look very different and serve different functions--"the hand to clasp, the bat's wing to fly . . . the porpoise to swim" --are often much alike in skeletal design.” This would set the stage for exposing the previously held notion that all species are separate and unique. He who is not content to look, like a savage, at the phenomena of nature as disconnected, cannot any longer believe that man is the work of a separate act of creation….all the point in the plainest manner to the conclusion that man is a co-descendant with other mammals of a common …show more content…

What did Darwin argue about humans that was new in Western and human knowledge? Discuss the course hypothesis (after Glynn Isaacs) that Darwinian biocentrism – when applied to humans – functions as “part science” and “part myth.” As science, it makes possible what? And as myth, it gives rise to the ethno- and mono-humanism of the genre of being human Biocentric Man and its symbolic code (meme) of Biological superiority/perfection/normalcy versus Biological

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