THE REAL PROOFS OF THEORY OF EVOLUTION

THE REAL PROOFS OF THEORY OF EVOLUTION

The country which produces hundreds of CEOs every year and boasts upon a brilliant past of education is slowly going into a drain of jingoism and stupidity. We have come across people from different backgrounds who have not just proudly mumbled their absolutely baseless unscientific ideas and thoughts publicly but has also influenced the whole education system into it. From the removal of chapters in History about Mughal empire to now sudden exclusion of Darwin’s theory of Evolution, the education system has become nothing less than a nightmare lately. We never know maybe someday Newtons laws of motion will be declared invalid and unnecessary in this environment also. So, in this situation I am forced to write on this topic and show real life proofs of the existence of Evolution in this hope that maybe this will change minds of some people.

THE DOMESTICATION- ARE WE BEING DOMESTICATED BY CROP PLANTS TODAY?

Historian and Author Yuval Noah Harari in his book “Sapiens” has argued that since the introduction of Agriculture our human lifestyle has changed. From being hunter gatherers and walking a thousand miles for food in the past to becoming a Tik Tok generation now who prefers making a 30 second cringe fest video to survive we have evolved. A major part of this evolution saw us slowly taking over the world and also on other species and now coming to a part where we are literally the dominant species on Earth (Arthropoda family will disagree with me here). The thing that we cannot disagree though is how with the introduction of agriculture in our lives we “settled” our lives in one spot and also worked on protecting certain species of plants, Wheat being the most common in it. As we started cultivating wheat for food, we realised it’s important to not just nurture our wheat fields but also settle there in the area so we can protect the wheat from other animals. We started to work ourselves as a lifelong bodyguard for the agricultural plants. Soon our settlements turned into communities into villages into major cities and civilization today. In some sense to say we have been domesticated by Wheat.

A Texas blind salamander resting on a rock- Image source- Wikipedia

The black spots can be seen very clearly in this picture which was their eyes generations back. Image source- The Guardian.com

Image source- The Guardian

EVOLUTION OF TEXAS BLIND SALAMANDER

The Texas blind salamander is highly adapted salamander that lives in total darkness. It’s an aquatic animal that lives in several caves in Southern United states where barely any sunlight touches the floor. These caves often having underground water system are filled with aquatic animals that does not require any eyes to see. Texas blind salamander is one of them. It is argued that Once upon a time generations ago A salamander accidentally fell into a cave and with passing time it learned to adapt the absolute darkness of these caves and became growingly dependent on its other senses hence losing the need of eyes soon. When its later offspring appeared the need for eye was gone even more and now the only left of that once eye is two black spots under the skin of the salamander where once the eye was.

This aquatic animal is an amphibian which is a top-class predator in water and feeds completely on invertebrates like shrimps and snails. It has evolved its senses like detecting a slight change in water pressure which allows the salamander to locate its prey without having any eyes. They have red gills near its throat which allows it to breathe in water perfectly.

The interesting fact here is how Darwin’s theory of evolution works. Once these salamanders had eyes because it lived in sunlight where it needed its eyesight to hunt and survive but when they started to live in total darkness slowly and slowly they lost their eyes completely with now just a black spot left in the area under the skin.

Heikegani crabs. Image source- Nerdist.com

Heikegani crab. Image source- Wikipedia.com

THE CURIOUS CASE OF THE HEIKE CRABS

In the Japanese inland sea, a special type of crabs are found which are called Heikegani. These special crabs are not eaten by the people and the fishermen whenever finds one of them trapped in their nets throws it away into the sea out of respect for the Samurai clans of Taira Clan. The interesting feature in these crabs are how closely it resembles the face of a human samurai clan.

THE BATTLE OF DAN NO URA

In the 12th Century the Japan was ruled by a samurai clan called Taira Clan. Their ruler was a child emperor named “Antoku”. There was a fierce rivalry between the Taira clans and their opposition Minamoto Clans (Genji). In the year of 1185 AD a fierce war broke out between both the clans. Massively outnumbered the Taira Clans were defeated and the Child Emperor along with his grandmother Taira no Tokiko jumped into the sea rather than being captured by the opposition forces. Soon Antoku was worshipped as the God of water in Japan and whenever the fishermen found these Heikegani crabs they felt like it resembled the face of Taira clan warriors so out of respect they thew it back to the sea.

BUT WHY WOULD A CRAB HAVE A HUMAN FACE?

The answer here lies with another aspect of evolution which is artificial selection. Possibly hundreds of years back some fisherman was catching crabs and he came across a crab which might have some broken or mutated shell that looked very slightly like a human skull. The fisherman might have thrown it back to the water for whatever reasons, but that one step caused a chain of events that finally led to this. That crab, hundreds of years back being thrown back to water got chance to reproduce and because of which the features in its body got to its offspring and not more developed. Slowly and slowly generations later these features developed like a human face at the back of the crab finally giving it a look like a samurai.