The Descent of Man (I)

Having learned more about Charles Darwin in my online course, I have decided to not rely on others' accounts and to read his book "The descent of man" by myself. Being well-known and popular for his "On the origin of species", Darwin dares to speak loudly about his belief on the descent of man: "It is only our natural prejudice, and that arrogance which made our forefathers declare that they were descended from demi-gods [half-gods], which leads us to demur [oppose] to this conclusion. But the time will before long come, when it will be thought wonderful, that naturalists, who were well acquainted with the comparative structure and development of man, and other mammals, should have believed that each was the work of a separate act of creation.".

In the first chapter, he talks about similarities that exist between human and lower animals (this is the term he mostly use to refer to non-human species) either in body structure, in embryonic development, or in rudimentary parts.

Not only do so many similarities exist between muscle forms and bone structures in human and lower animals, we also react similarly to diseases and viruses, or we have even comparable taste for drinks and foods! Monkeys get a great pleasure of smoking tobacco, as we do! Or, they awfully have hangovers in the morning after a drinking night, and, consequently, they disgust that beverage for a while! However, some look much smarter like North American monkeys, who do not approach brandy for good after their first hangover. Ha?! Should we still call them lower animals?!

Apart from the similarities between our body structure, we have comparable developmental stage of our embryos (unborn infant; less than two months in human womb). There are too many examples in the book, I'd rather make it short with expressing my great surprise that the embryo of man, dog, reptile, bat, ... all look alike at first!

There are also so many rudimentary parts in our bodies that are not useful for us as much as they are for lower animals, but they still exist. One of the obvious parts is breast in males. Really, why are they there?! Or, modern human has canine teeth, while, thankfully, we do not need them any more. Darwin also gives many examples of abnormal humans that possess some features apparently inherited from animals, for example, ears that can be moved in the same way as in a dog.

As we read, in the first chapter Darwin attempts to shew (the old version of "show", used in this 19th-century book) that man might have some non demi-god progenitors (an ancestor; pro + genitor; genitore means a parent in Italian). Now that we are informed about our ape grandparents, we should be convinced that we have some other characteristics as any species has, for example, exhibiting many varieties in our species. Reading our mind, Darwin proceeds the second chapter with this question. He argues that how much our body parts are influenced by our climate, our job, and our parents. Living in cold and high places deforms our lungs; being a sailor or soldier makes a big difference to the size of our legs; and, obviously, it is easy to guess whether my parents are Iranians or British (but not that much easy to get that they are not Italians! ;) ).

Oh, I cannot wait until the night comes, and I continue with my book. I love it, though it is too detailed!