Chapter 3 Summary

Chapter 3 summary: The Original Penguin

    This chapter illustrates that  the extinction of great auk in early 19^th cannot be explained by Darwin’s evolutionary theory of natural selection, because the great auk had no rival species that drove them to extinction at that time. Thus, there are only two possibilities: human extensive predation and Curvier’s theory of natural cataclysm.

    The chapter begined with introducing a famous writer Charles Lyell who proposed a theory of geological forces on species’ evolution. “The more Darwin explored the world, the more Lyellian it seemed to him to be.” Darwin’s trip to South American with the finding of Chilean frog and coral reefs verified Lyell’s theory of geological forces of evolution clearly. However, what Lyell disagreed with Darwin later in Darwin’s theory is how different biological traits can be developed within an organism since he insisted on the importance of geological influences.

    Then, the author provided us an example of the demise of the original penguin (the great auk) that defied Darwin’s natural selection theory. There were numerous great auks in Iceland initially. Unfortunately, with more people hunted these birds for food and collections, the last great auk died in June, 1844. Even though in Darwin’s theory, no distinction exist between human and other organisms, human indeed showed their “status” in this case with the extinction of the great auk.