Witnessing evolution

Now when I say evolution I know what most people think of. Could be those programme’s they show on the discovery channel of the noisy chimpanzee growing into the hunchbacked ape man which finally becomes the erect (no pun intended) heroic Man himself. Those with good memories are gonna remember the good old days in school where they were taught how the algae’s and fungi’s became all the living things we see around. Now the smarter ones with the scientific brains are gonna think of mutation and Darwin. Yes everybody has some idea or the other about evolution. But witnessing evolution? No ways, coz most people believe evolution is done with. It ended with man and everything around us, and there’s nothing to look forward to. And that’s final….Or maybe not. Well maybe, just maybe if we looked around us forgetting the superior “human being ego” we might actually observe some unlikely events that could probably contribute to evolution.

Ok I’m gonna explain this with an example. It’s a true life incident and the hero or the specimen I’m gonna talk about is my own German shepherd, Caesar. Now he’s not a super smart or super sexy dog who’s likely to win a dog show. I mean I’m proud of him but sometimes he can be pretty dumb, like instead being ferocious to strangers he goes on, jumps on them and starts licking them as if they represent his long lost love or something. Now the best part is these people are even dumber and take this to be his attack strategy and start freaking out. So in the end of the day you’ll say the dog does serve his purpose but I only wish he were more organized.

The remarkable event took place on one lazy evening. My parents were going out in the family car and told me to close the gate behind them. I step outside my house to do the same and my dog jumps on me and starts his daily ritual of licking everyone near his reach (I seriously suspect he thinks that his sole purpose in life is this). So I as usual just push him away. But no, he’s not a quitter so he comes again, to get me. I don’t have time for these silly games so I slap him on the face. Twice. Now instead of his typical snapping of teeth or other conventional dog like ways of defending himself he uses his hands (or is it his legs, I mean front forelimb) to beat me back. My parents burst out laughing watching the turn of events while I try to get over the insult. Well no more drama takes place and I manage to put my dog back in his place, his cage.

I’m wondering if it is it possible that my dog was showing signs of evolving into something extraordinary without his own knowledge. I mean wasn’t that how animals started using their limbs which became hands as they evolved into humans. Darwinian theories and Lamarckism claim that adaptation was the basis for most evolutionary changes and evolution came about as a result of acquired adaptations passed on by parents to their offsprings. Just for the record, there were instances were Caesar’s dad (another dog that I owned, not anymore though) used his hands (I mean the same front for limbs) to remove the handle of my gate from its latch. And maybe Caesar’s shunt was his way of adapting to my dominating human behavior.

Now I could be the bossy human and beat him every time he did something like that, till he got the message that he was a dog and not supposed to do those things. But that kinda reminds me of the caste system and I would be standing in the way of natural evolution. Why would I wanna do that? I would like to end by saying “evolution is a continuous and never-ending process that happens everyday” and I’m thankful to Caesar for teaching me that. I sure am proud of you my boy!