From natural selection to the sentient symphony of life: a chaotic reading of Wertenbaker’s After Darwin

From natural selection to the sentient symphony of life: a chaotic reading of Wertenbaker’s After Darwin

Darwin’s theory of evolution was shaken to the core by the discovery of the second law of thermodynamics and entropy. While it accentuates that the world has evolved from simple to complex, and it moves from disorder to order, the second law preaches the opposite totally. Such inconsistency remai...

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Main Authors: Khalid Ahmad Yas, Arbaayah Ali Termizi, Rosli Talif, Hardev Kaur
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia 2018
Online Access:http://journalarticle.ukm.my/13587/
http://journalarticle.ukm.my/13587/
http://journalarticle.ukm.my/13587/1/19573-69270-1-PB.pdf
id ukm-13587
recordtype eprints
spelling ukm-135872019-10-26T22:48:12Z http://journalarticle.ukm.my/13587/ From natural selection to the sentient symphony of life: a chaotic reading of Wertenbaker’s After Darwin Khalid Ahmad Yas, Arbaayah Ali Termizi, Rosli Talif, Hardev Kaur, Darwin’s theory of evolution was shaken to the core by the discovery of the second law of thermodynamics and entropy. While it accentuates that the world has evolved from simple to complex, and it moves from disorder to order, the second law preaches the opposite totally. Such inconsistency remains unsolved until the advent of chaos theory, which emphasises that the universe has the capacity to renew itself from within through a process called selforganisation. As a new paradigm shift in science, it pushed scientists to re-read Darwinism from an entirely different perspective. The paper intends to trace the various interpretations of Darwinism in Timberlake Wertenbaker’s After Darwin (1998) through characters’ responses to evolution, utilising chaos theory as a theoretical and methodological framework. The play, which offers a Darwinian-Dawkinsian vision of competition, ends by embracing Margulis and Sagan’s view of cooperation inspired by the new science of chaos. As the only species endowed with an independently functioning brain, Man is able to adapt and turn the table against the brutality of natural selection to establish his own values. Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia 2018-02 Article PeerReviewed application/pdf en http://journalarticle.ukm.my/13587/1/19573-69270-1-PB.pdf Khalid Ahmad Yas, and Arbaayah Ali Termizi, and Rosli Talif, and Hardev Kaur, (2018) From natural selection to the sentient symphony of life: a chaotic reading of Wertenbaker’s After Darwin. GEMA: Online Journal of Language Studies, 18 (1). pp. 161-175. ISSN 1675-8021 http://ejournal.ukm.my/gema/issue/view/1073
repository_type Digital Repository
institution_category Local University
institution Universiti Kebangasaan Malaysia
building UKM Institutional Repository
collection Online Access
language English
description Darwin’s theory of evolution was shaken to the core by the discovery of the second law of thermodynamics and entropy. While it accentuates that the world has evolved from simple to complex, and it moves from disorder to order, the second law preaches the opposite totally. Such inconsistency remains unsolved until the advent of chaos theory, which emphasises that the universe has the capacity to renew itself from within through a process called selforganisation. As a new paradigm shift in science, it pushed scientists to re-read Darwinism from an entirely different perspective. The paper intends to trace the various interpretations of Darwinism in Timberlake Wertenbaker’s After Darwin (1998) through characters’ responses to evolution, utilising chaos theory as a theoretical and methodological framework. The play, which offers a Darwinian-Dawkinsian vision of competition, ends by embracing Margulis and Sagan’s view of cooperation inspired by the new science of chaos. As the only species endowed with an independently functioning brain, Man is able to adapt and turn the table against the brutality of natural selection to establish his own values.
format Article
author Khalid Ahmad Yas,
Arbaayah Ali Termizi,
Rosli Talif,
Hardev Kaur,
spellingShingle Khalid Ahmad Yas,
Arbaayah Ali Termizi,
Rosli Talif,
Hardev Kaur,
From natural selection to the sentient symphony of life: a chaotic reading of Wertenbaker’s After Darwin
author_facet Khalid Ahmad Yas,
Arbaayah Ali Termizi,
Rosli Talif,
Hardev Kaur,
author_sort Khalid Ahmad Yas,
title From natural selection to the sentient symphony of life: a chaotic reading of Wertenbaker’s After Darwin
title_short From natural selection to the sentient symphony of life: a chaotic reading of Wertenbaker’s After Darwin
title_full From natural selection to the sentient symphony of life: a chaotic reading of Wertenbaker’s After Darwin
title_fullStr From natural selection to the sentient symphony of life: a chaotic reading of Wertenbaker’s After Darwin
title_full_unstemmed From natural selection to the sentient symphony of life: a chaotic reading of Wertenbaker’s After Darwin
title_sort from natural selection to the sentient symphony of life: a chaotic reading of wertenbaker’s after darwin
publisher Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia
publishDate 2018
url http://journalarticle.ukm.my/13587/
http://journalarticle.ukm.my/13587/
http://journalarticle.ukm.my/13587/1/19573-69270-1-PB.pdf
first_indexed 2023-09-18T20:05:11Z
last_indexed 2023-09-18T20:05:11Z
_version_ 1777407111202865152

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