The two articles we had to read for today had some very similar arguments in them, but they both seem to have their own twist on how they address it with different evidence. One common theme I saw in both of them was stress on the fact that evolution does not mean progress towards more superior species. They both provide much evidence leading towards the conclusion that evolution is not progressing life towards the more complex. Additionally both articles seem to discuss the lack of predictability held by evolution, so they discuss the many different events that can be seen in our fossil record to show how unpredictable life has been to prove how difficult it would be for us to predict the future using the natural selection mechanism of evolution. …show more content…
Both the articles discussed how natural selection in not the only way evolution can occur, which is contrary to popular belief. Gould even quotes Charles Darwin saying that “I am convinced that Natural Selection has been the most important, but not the exclusive, means of production.” Throughout these articles Gould provides supporting evidence for other factors of evolution, so as to demonstrate the complexity and randomness of Earth’s evolution. In fact, Gould seems to argue that the other more random factors like mass extinctions and DNA substitution have possibly had a larger effect on shaping the makeup of Earth than natural selection. He provides two main reasons as to why natural selection is not sufficient to explain evolutionary change, one of which is the powerfulness of other causes at many other levels than Darwin observed. Darwin observed organisms and witnesses evolutionary changes in them, but looking on a smaller scale, we can see how strong of a difference random DNA mutation of a single base pair can make. Additionally, looking at a larger scale, Gould discusses how mass extinctions have been able to change the environment of the entire Earth without an reason or rhyme as to why the surviving animals made it. A common example of this mentioned in the article is the extinction of the dinosaurs allowing mammals to flourish. Before the dinosaurs went extinct, they were the dominate large land animals, and there was no way for mammals to grow further and reach into different habitats because those areas were so dominated by dinosaurs. Therefore, the fact that the dinosaurs went extinct allowing