When the final lecture started to discuss the distribution and redistribution of genes, I instantly that about the “designer babies” controversy. In short, for those who are unaware, designer babies are babies that are “created” by the parents hand picking which genes and characteristics that they would like their babies to have. Two minutes before going through this lecture, I was one of the people thinking that humans can’t really evolve too much more than what we already have, but when I remembered that designer babies was a real thing, I started to realize that those babies could be a completely different species in a sense. They would look different, or more “perfect” than humans look now; they may even talk, walk, or just be completely different than we are today because of the way that their genes and other features were selected. With genetic drift coming into play, I think that we might see this happening more so amongst the more wealthy population, or the one percent, because I would assume that a process like this can be very expensive.

As our environment continues to evolve, our characteristics and behaviors continue to evolve as well. More specifically, as global warming continues to brew, we will have to adapt physically and mentally to those environmental changes. We were given key examples of how species have adapted to environmental changes during our lectures and in our blog discussions on Neanderthals, as we learned that those living in colder climates were found to have shorter legs and limbs, while those in warmer climates had longer limbs. We also learned this in Week Three’s lecture, as we learned about variability, body shape, and Allen’s Rule. With that we were given the example of two rabbits in different climates, one in an arctic climate and one in the desert; and the arctic rabbit had shorter ears and a shorter tail, while the desert rabbit had very long ears and a longer tail. Using that knowledge, I would assume that as the Earth continues to get warmer, humans may evolve to be much taller than what we consider a normal height to be. I wonder if skin tones would have a play in this situation if more areas become high U.V. radiation environments instead of just those closer to the equator.

These are just a couple of ways that illustrate how humans are still evolving that stood out to me after having my initials thoughts about designer babies. However, as I was going through the process of writing this blog I realized that we’ve learned about so many topics and concepts throughout this course that I could connect a modern day example to, that could illustrate how we are continuing to move forward in terms of evolution. This has also allowed me to realize and understand that even some of the smallest things such as teeth or even the things the average person doesn’t see all of the type, such as the shape/size of a skull or brain could indicate that evolution is taking place.