消失的神性

The production of this video is funded by the Higher Education Sprout Project of the National Taipei University of Business. The second episode is about the humanity of the material world. The intended learning outcome for this unit is the understanding of different human relationships with things. After watching this video, students will understand human relationships with things. Things refer to the external or material world. It represents the tangible things that exist outside of oneself. Essentially, it's about the interaction between the self and the non-human world. Before moving on to our topic, let's take a look at a caricature of Darwin titled A Venerable Orang Utang, A Contribution to Unnatural History in The Hornet, the 22nd of March, 1871. In this large, anonymous lithograph, an unflattering portrayal of Darwin's head is attached to the body of a crouching ape, which in turn has some quasi-human physical features. In the accompanying commentary, the editor of The Hornet pretended to be upset about the drawing. He said that he had told the artist to make a serious picture of the philosopher, Mr. Darwin. However, the artist was naughty and made a funny picture instead. The editor thought the artist got confused and mixed up the face of Mr. Darwin with the face of a monkey. But do you know why? Next, let's watch an animation by Mushin together. A young Charles Darwin walks along the English countryside, curious about nature. He collects beetles, plants, and fossils, filling his notebooks with observations. Darwin's father wants him to be a doctor, but Charles is drawn to the natural world. At Cambridge, Darwin meets professors who encourage his passion for science. An invitation arrives, a journey on HMS Beagle to explore the world. Darwin sets sail in 1831, eager but uncertain about his future. The Beagle crosses vast oceans, visiting South America, islands, and distant coasts. Darwin studies geological formations, noticing how Earth changes slowly over time. He finds giant fossils of extinct animals in Argentina, resembling living creatures. On the Galapagos Islands, Darwin observes finches with different beaks. He notices that each island has unique birds adapted to local food sources. Darwin wonders, could species change over generations to survive? He collects samples of plants, birds, and insects for later study. After five years, the Beagle returns to England, Darwin bringing home treasures of knowledge. Darwin works quietly in his study, sorting collections and writing notes. He reads Thomas Malthus's essay on population and competition for resources. A powerful idea strikes, nature itself selects which individuals survive. Darwin develops the concept of natural selection. He realizes species are not fixed but evolve over time. Years of careful research strengthen his theory, though he hesitates to publish. Alfred Russell Wallace writes to Darwin with a similar idea. Darwin is shocked but relieved to find a colleague thinking alike. Together, their ideas are presented to the Linnean Society in 1858. In 1859, Darwin publishes On the Origin of Species. The book explains evolution through natural selection in clear language. The public reacts with excitement, curiosity, and sometimes anger. Some religious leaders oppose the idea that humans share ancestors with animals. Scientists debate, but evidence from fossils and anatomy grows stronger. Darwin continues to refine his theory, studying pigeons, barnacles, and plants. His health weakens, but his dedication to science never fades. By the time of his death in 1882, Darwin is honored as a great thinker. Today, Darwin's theory of evolution remains the foundation of modern biology, shaping how we understand life itself. We're going to look at how his incredible theory of evolution completely turned our understanding of life itself on its head. You know, it really all boils down to this one huge question. Just look around you. The incredible, staggering diversity of life on this planet. Where did it all come from? How did it get here? This was the exact mystery that Darwin was determined to solve. For centuries before Darwin came along, the answer in the Western world seemed, well, pretty simple. Every single species was believed to have been individually created, perfectly designed for whatever it did, and had stayed exactly the same since the dawn of time. It was a very neat, very orderly, and very static way of looking at the world. But Darwin, he was about to challenge that entire way of thinking. And to really get how he did it, we first have to understand who he was and the world of ideas that he grew up in. See, Darwin was practically born into science. His own grandfather, Erasmus, had already been playing around with early ideas about evolution. Now, Darwin himself first tried medicine, then even studied to be a clergyman. But his real, true passion was nature. He was just soaking up all the cutting-edge ideas of his day. People like geologist Charles Lyell, who was arguing that the Earth was incredibly old and changed slowly over time. And then there was Thomas Malthus, whose work on population would, years later, give Darwin the final piece of his puzzle. And that deep passion for the natural world is what led him to the single most important experience of his life. When he was just 22 years old, Darwin got the chance to be the ship's naturalist on the HMS Beagle. It was a five-year trip around the world that would show him things that just didn't fit with that old, static view of life. Now, his work all across South America was absolutely crucial. He was digging up fossils of these huge, extinct animals that looked suspiciously like smaller versions of animals still alive today. But it was one remote group of islands that would become truly legendary. The Galapagos. So isolated, so new geologically, they were like a perfect, ready-made laboratory for watching evolution happen. And what he saw there completely changed him. He saw finches with beaks that were perfectly tailored for different food sources. Some were thick for crushing seeds. Others were thin for picking out insects. He realized that the mockingbirds on one island were actually a different species from the ones on another island, even though they were clearly related. It all pointed to one radical idea. These animals weren't all created separately. It looked like they had come from a common ancestor on the mainland and then, over time, had changed. They had evolved to fit their new homes. So Darwin returns to England with his mind just buzzing with these revolutionary ideas. But instead of shouting them from the rooftops, he kept them a secret for almost 20 years. And this long period of quiet, obsessive work is one of the most incredible parts of his story. So what was this dangerous idea? He called it natural selection. The lightbulb moment came when he read Malthus and realized that way more offspring are born than can ever possibly survive. That means there's a constant struggle for existence. And in that struggle, any tiny random variation that gives one individual a slight edge, better camouflage, a sharper beak, makes it more likely to survive and have kids. And over millions of years, those winning traits build up, generation after generation, eventually creating whole new species. Which, of course, brings us to the big question. If he had this powerful, elegant idea all worked out, why on earth did he sit on it for two decades? Well, the answer tells you a lot about the kind of man he was. For one, Darwin was a perfectionist. He knew his idea was going to cause an uproar, and he wanted to build a completely airtight case before he went public. He was also really worried about the social and religious backlash. So he just kept gathering more and more evidence. He even spent eight solid years becoming the world's leading expert on barnacles, partly to prove to everyone, and maybe to himself, that he was a serious, credible biologist before he dropped his bombshell. I mean, just look at this timeline. He figures out the core of his theory way back in 1838. By 1844, he's written a whole essay on it and tells his wife to publish it if he dies. And then nothing. For years. Until 1858, when something happens that forces him to finally act. That something was a letter. It came from a young naturalist out in Southeast Asia named Alfred Russell Wallace. And in that letter, Wallace laid out the exact same theory of natural selection. Darwin was stunned. After two decades of painstaking work, he was about to get scooped. So his friends basically pushed him into action. He scrambled to write up what he called an abstract of his theory. And that abstract became one of the most important and influential books ever published. The impact was just immediate. The entire first printing, 1,250 copies, sold out completely on the very first day. The world was clearly ready for this idea, whether it realized it or not. And I think this quote really captures the heart of his idea. A lot of people saw it as bleak and random, but Darwin saw something profound and beautiful in it. There is grandeur in this view of life. From so simple a beginning, endless forms, most beautiful and most wonderful, have been and are being evolved. But grandeur was not how everyone saw it. The reaction was a complete firestorm. The scientific community was split right down the middle, though the younger generation really got behind it. Religious leaders were all over the map. Some saw a threat, others didn't. And in popular culture, it just exploded. You started seeing all those famous cartoons of Darwin with the body of an ape. The debate was on. But here's the thing. Darwin's idea wasn't just some 19th century controversy. It's the absolute foundation of all modern biology. And his legacy is more alive and more important today than it has ever been. Seriously, it's everywhere. When we talk about antibiotic-resistant bacteria, or how a virus like the flu changes every year, that's evolution in action. When conservationists try to save endangered species, they're using evolutionary principles. And now, with genomics, we can actually read the genetic code and see Darwin's tree of life mapped out with a level of detail that would have absolutely blown his mind. Okay, so let's tackle one of the biggest misconceptions that still floats around today, one that started with those early cartoons. Did humans evolve from monkeys? The short answer is a simple no. It's a common mistake. Think of it this way. You and your cousin both share the same grandparents. But you didn't descend from your cousin. It's the same with humans and modern apes. We share a common ancestor that lived millions of years ago. And since then, our two lineages have been evolving on completely separate paths. We are evolutionary cousins, not direct descendants. And this is a really important point to clear up. Sometimes you'll hear people say evolution is just a theory. But in science, the word theory means something very different than it does in everyday conversation. It isn't just a guess or a hunch. A scientific theory, like the theory of gravity or cell theory, is a massive, well-supported explanation for how nature works, backed up by mountains of evidence. It's one of the highest levels of understanding we have in science. So in the end, what Darwin accomplished was just monumental. He didn't just discover some interesting facts about finches and barnacles. He gave biology its unifying principle. He handed us a single, powerful framework that connects every living thing, from the DNA inside our cells to the entire web of life on this planet. Darwin's most profound lesson, really, is that nothing in life is fixed. It is a story of constant, relentless, unending change. And that leaves us with a pretty big question to think about. If our world is defined by evolution, and our own species is now one of the biggest forces driving change on the planet, what does that mean for the future of life on Earth? Charles Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection is foundational to our understanding of life. It posits that species change over time, with traits that enhance survival and reproduction becoming more common in a population. This has a profound link to humanity. It suggests that humans are not separate from the natural world, but are part of a continuous evolutionary process. Our psychological and social behaviors, like altruism and cooperation, can also be understood as adaptations that have helped our species thrive, connecting our deepest human traits to our biological history. Darwin's theory centers on natural selection, where organisms better adapted to their environment tend to survive and reproduce. Darwin used multiple lines of evidence, including fossils, showing extinct species. Natural selection increases the frequency of beneficial traits that improve survival and reproduction. Darwin's theory suggested humans shared common ancestors with other animals, which conflicted with prevailing beliefs. Many people assume Darwin's theory shook the foundations of Christianity. However, is Darwin's theory really incompatible with the Genesis account of creation?