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A Summary Of The Metaphor Of Natural Selection

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Throughout history, humanity has strived to find the absolute truth. The truth is acquired through the accumulation of knowledge and knowledge is gained through a complex combination of intuition, emotion, language and reason. Knowledge we have today is a product of an extensive purification process, where new knowledge and information replaces the old and disproved ones. This could be compared to the concept of natural selection. The basic system of evolution involves the survival of organisms, which are better adapted to the current environmental conditions. The metaphor of natural selection could be applicable in many aspects of knowledge, as knowledge has to adapt in order to survive the notion of time. By investigating the area of natural …show more content…

Natural sciences are sciences such as biology, physics or chemistry, which deals with matter, energy and their relationships with the natural world.1 Knowledge gathered in natural sciences come from experimental studies, which has a variable being manipulated. In experiment based studies new information is being amassed every day. Knowledge once considered to be the truth is discarded in the blink of an eye. The knowledge, which is useful and consistent with the excepted knowledge of that time is selected and put in to use. For example the theory of spontaneous generation, the theory suggests that living matter could generate from non-living matter. Before the 18th century it was thought that if you left out a block of cheese a mice would generate from that cheese. Scientist used their imagination combined with reason to explain a phenomena with very little resources. The concept of microorganisms was very foreign to them and they didn’t have the appropriate knowledge we have today. However after Louis Pasteur’s experiment with the swan necked flasks, which we recreated in biology class. We wanted to see under which conditions would there be bacteria buildup in boiled broth. We proved that bacteria contamination only occurred if the broth was allowed contact with air. If the flask was covered and no air could come in there would be no bacteria. Meaning that microorganisms are only accumulated when in contact with air, disproving the spontaneous generation theory. We used our sense perception to gain this knowledge. Disproving the theory suggests that one theory is superior, meaning more accurate than the other. So are ideas or theories competing for success? In the case of natural selection, organisms are ‘fighting’ for survival. However, is this the case in the development of knowledge? No, ideas are not competing with each other for survival. Like in natural sciences previous

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