#1 Establishing Evolution

In Michael Ryan’s article “Summary: Theory for Beginners,” the author pushes the readers to have an idea of how knowledge is formed. Almost every point in this article is highly accurate in the numerous ways it goes about explaining the definition of each idea.  Giving daily life anecdotes to show how each individual are impacted in their own life.  While creating a broader picture for the general public to show how we have improved from the past to the present. “Because we no longer grow our own food or hunt our own animals for meat, we humans have evolved the ability to attain survival through civil institutions such as money and commerce that guarantee the same ends but by more symbolic and meditated means.” The examples it used while telling us in detail each theory helped my understanding. This made me engage more in the text, and personally think how this has influenced my life till this day. More importantly, these theories in this article gave me a better idea of how I can change myself to become a more improved individual. “For that post-natural civilization to work, however, we must be able to trust one another to behave in certain ways. Laws ensure that, but so do norms that we learn and that aid us in being self-regulating. And culture teaches norms.”  In addition, Michael Ryan provides background and history information needed to get a better grasp on the subject matter. “Most of what we take for granted as human cultural characteristics, such as our pictorial abilities, are only thousands rather than millions of years old, unlike our species itself. They came into being a few thousand years ago.” In conclusion, the author overall did an excellent job showing the gradual development of life, from a simple to a more complex form.