ipl-logo

Darwin Vs Newton Research Paper

831 Words4 Pages

From long time ago, humans have already desired to understand the origin of the universe and explore its operation. There are many brilliant philosophers or scientists help us to understand the universe, for example, Plato, Aristotle and Isaac Newton contribute a lot in the physical world. In my major course which is life sciences, Charles Darwin, who paid much effort on the biological world, is an important scientist. He suggested the evolution of species was conducted by natural selection, which seemed that it disproved Plato’s theory. Actually, there is no conflict between Plato’s theory and Darwin’s and Newton’s theory. Darwin and Newton mainly describe how the universe works, and Plato states how the universe forms.

In 19th century, evolution …show more content…

Newton expresses the principles by mathematical, and himself also indicated that principles not philosophical but mathematical (60). However, this only shows how the physical world works. For example, Newton can prove the force imposing on planets to maintain them in their elliptical orbits ‘decreased in the proportion of the square of the distances reciprocally’ by mathematical way (52). Also, he suggested the principle of inertia, which objects maintain in a rest state or uniform motion in a straight line (56). These two theories give a great effect. If there is no component of inertial motion, the force that continually attracts a planet away from the straight line would lead the planet toward the sun until two bodies collided. Newton has used this argument to prove the existence of God (61). The universe why can operate orderly is because of God. That is what Plato said, there is a divine craftsman (Lindberg 12). Therefore, there is no conflict between Newton’s theory and Plato’s.

In conclusion, Newton and Darwin mainly describe how the universe operates. Newton describes how the physical world works by mathematics and states the existence of God, which is similar to Plato’s theory which is creationism. Darwin describes biological world is operated by natural selection, and Plato’s theory is able to supplement that where the first cell come from. Therefore, Plato’ theory is not against Darwin’s and Newton’s

Open Document