Week 4: “Now, are you gonna adapt to me?”

I found this week’s lesson both interesting and insightful.

Among Christians, there’s a common misconception that the theory of Evolution is completely false and contradicts the Gospel. However, although I do not believe Charles Darwin’s Theory of Evolution, I do believe that every species does evolve to some extent, but solely to survive in the environment they’re in. The famous saying by Charles Darwin very aptly describes this situation: “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent; it is the one that is most adaptable to change." This means that we have to be flexible and have the ability to adapt to changes happening around us to be able to survive; resisting change will not give us our desired results.

George Bernard Shaw, on the other hand, said something that at first glance may seem the complete opposite to Darwin’s opinion. Shaw said: “The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.” Before one analyses this statement, it would seem like stubbornness and inflexibility (rather than flexibility in Darwin’s case) would be able to progress. However, studying it further, I realised that it’s not really stubbornness and inflexibility that would result in progress. In fact, it would do the exact opposite; stubbornness and inflexibility would bring humans nowhere. What it actually is is that only the subjects of change are different – the first being ourselves as individuals, and the latter being our environment. This means one has to create his own world so one can “adapt the world to himself”.

One other thing I found interesting was the Prof’s various Bird approaches when change occurs.

1.       Eagle Approach: When you see change and something happening, you make things happen.

2.       Ostrich Approach: When change occurs, you let things happen (and bury your head in the sand).

3.       Dodo Bird Approach: This person is unaware of change occurring and wonders what happened. (This explains why Dodo birds are extinct. We are unable to survive if we’re oblivious to everything that’s going on around us.)

It is important how we view change in today’s society. Everything is advancing and changing so quickly. If we are oblivious to it, or simply ignore and refuse to change ourselves, we’ll lose out as individuals. So, step out and change yourselves!

Personal Rating: 9/10