Evolution is vast and very important subject that should be taught to every student everywhere. When I think of evolution, I coincide it with history. I say this because with history if you don’t know anything about your past how are you going to know how you got to where you are. This is similar with evolution, because if we look back through time millions and millions of years ago, all of our “history” is written in our genes. I think that not teaching students about evolution is robbing them in sense from fully understanding science. Within every science class I’ve taken in some way or form evolution has been a major concept within our discussions. With biology, evolution is a key to what I study every day in the class room. Without knowing our evolutionary past, we wouldn’t understand how the human body works and how it got to where we are in our evolution as well. In biology, evolution is the change in the characteristics of a species over several generations and relies on the process of natural selection. In other words, evolution and biology go hand in hand
A simple answer is that evolution is the basic context of all biological sciences. Take away this context and all that is left is disparate facts without the thread that ties them all together.
Why should Students Learn Evolution?
The readings and videos this week didn’t really make me think of human biology in another light per say. I say this because I’ve always known the important of evolution and how we as human that are surviving in today’s world. With human variability we have adopted, however I made me see how evolution and biology go hand in hand with one another. For example, evolutionary change explains how we got to where we are today and where we started. The national geographic article and video were very interesting when it comes to the topic of human variability because DNA is passed from generation to generation and has gone through recombination giving us the individuality, we all cherish and try to express freely. However, a large portion of DNA is kept intact and passed down through the generations creating genetic markers. These markers allow for us as scientist to look back through our DNA and see the evolutionary steps that have been made. What I thought was interesting about this is that there has been prediction that in 30 years, everyone will eventually look mixed in a sense. What is intriguing about this is that I wonder what our collective DNA will look like and if with everyone looking relativity similar will we all have the same genetic markers and how that will affect human variability and more important our ability to create a feeling of individualism within our world. In the end I do agree with Alters and Alters and the statement in the prompt, because evolution is the “godfather” of science without it we couldn’t truly look make discoveries and or have the knowledge we do today without it.
Hi,
This is a great post reflecting back on our lectures and class material. I also really enjoyed the quote formatting you included in the post and I would include it in my next post as well. I agree with your position in that evolution is a very important subject that should be taught to every student. I am surprised though, to read that this week’s videos didn’t affect your view of human biology in another light even though you may have learned some in high school or other classes. Your prediction that in 30 years everyone will eventually look mixed is super intriguing and am wondering if that would be the case. I hope to see this go on in the 30 years and maybe talk about it at our MSU reunion.
Hey Janay, I believe that your blog post was very well written. I definitely agree with you when you say that This week’s videos and readings did not make me view evolution and human variability in a different light. For me specifically is mainly because my major and minor is literally the exact concept of what we are currently learning right now. In college, I have taken a couple of science classes such as chemistry, anatomy etc., but mostly anthropology classes. From the classes that I have taken I still find the perspective of how evolution and human variability works the same. anthropologists today analyze human biological variation by examining specific genetic traits to understand how those traits originated and evolved over time and why some genetic traits are more common in certain populations.