Learning About Human Evolution example essay topic

Final Exam, Essay Question # 2 When people take a look at African history in general many topics and ideas come to mind. How the people of Africa lived, how they developed civilizations and cultures, and how their oral traditions came about are just a few examples. When I am trying to learn about different groups of people and different areas of the world I most likely start at the very beginning of their existence. Africa being the origin of man and the home for the majority of developments of early humans suggests that human evolution is an extremely import topic in African history today. Keeping this in mind it is obvious that if any elements from our African Civilizations class should be required taught in U.S. high schools, the origin of man and human evolution should be considered important enough.

Along with the historical controversy it created, Charles Darwin's theory of evolution is relevant to everything on this planet. This lesson is important for students in a number of ways. Requiring this teaching will help the world progress and gain more knowledge about evolution in the future. High school students need to learn this because it helps them to understand themselves more as well as the continent of Africa. By learning this it also gives students a chance to better develop their own ideas and opinions about how humans came to be. How the hominids and primates advanced technologically, adapted, and developed into modern day Homo sapiens are important topics in African history and everyday life.

The theory of evolution, proposed by Charles Darwin in 1859, suggested that humans evolved from chimpanzees and gorillas many millions of years ago. The discovery of the earliest hominid (Australopithecus) by anthropologist Raymond Dart, in 1925, was made in South Africa. From the time of the Australopithecus, archeological evidence has provided quite an amount of information on other branches of early human like creatures. I as well as many others would be skeptical about the thought of humans evolving from apes if there wasn't a decent amount of archaeological proof to support this idea. Students should learn about stone- tool, fossil, and artifact evidence because it will provide them with knowledge of how hominids lived, adapted and evolved over time. It is important to learn what happened from the very beginning and this information provides the basis of the earliest African history.

Characteristics of human evolution included hominids learning to stand and walk, the increasing brain size of them throughout time, and their development of longer fingers. These were vital to their progress, transformation to humans, and were evident during the early ape, Australopithecus as well as the later Homo existence. Even though there have been many archaeological findings that have provided useful information on this subject, there is still a lot that remains unanswered. There still remains a missing link in the change from monkeys to humans". Recent research, however, has provided so many 'links' in the form of fossil evidence that one scholar has remarked:" It would be far more truthful to say that it is the chain that is missing whilst the links exist". ( (Posnanksy in Zaman i, 1974, pg. 53) -Shilling ton 2).

If America wants to make progress in this area, requiring this subject to be taught in high schools would be a very positive step. The more students that are educated about evolution at a young age, the more there will be who seek professions in this field as adults. A new generation of talented and highly qualified scientists in this area would propel the world closer to finding explanations and answers in the future. Even though no one can see or feel it, we as humans are in the process evolving right now. Human evolution is inevitable, and will not stop unless the world comes to an end. Learning about human evolution, in a since, is learning about yourself and how we came to be.

Keeping this in mind, I feel that students should be taught this because it helps them to understand themselves as humans. It is also important because it helps them to develop their own ideas and opinions about how humans came to be. Today, but more so in the past, the theory of evolution has built much controversy. Originally the majority of people believed that god was the sole creator of man. For example, the Bible states", The Lord God formed man out of the clay of the ground and blew into his nostrils the breath of life, and so man became a living being" (New American Bible, Gen. 2.2). Darwin was heavily criticized for challenging the word of the Bible with his theory.

The clashing ideas of Genesis and human evolution have made it difficult for many people, including high school students, to know what to believe. This may be because of the person's religious background or their lack of knowledge in this area. Kids and young adults may sometimes feel obligated to believe an idea because older people like their parents or priests believe that, or they have told them what to believe. Learning true facts that support the African origin of man may not necessarily change the beliefs of strict fundamentalists, but it could certainly help to shape his or her views. In concluding my thoughts above, I think it would be helpful to provide students solid evidence and facts so they could learn and develop an idea of how humans came about". Peopling implies the existence of distinctive peoples and hence highlights the issue of identity.

All humanity shares a common Africa-forged genetic identity, and to see how and why this has happened, we will have to examine the course of primate and hominid evolution" (Newman 3). This statement made by James L. Newman basically sums up the reason why human evolution and the origin of man should be the elements of African history required taught in all U.S. high schools. We are humans and it is important that we know where we came from as well as how we developed into what we are today.