During the PDF reading this week, Alters and Alters bring up the point that “evolution is a unifying theme among many sciences”. This relates back to any science courses that I have taken, while also playing a ginormous part in my major. Evolution needs to be taught to all students of all ages.
Ever since middle school, when we started learning about evolution, it has always caught my attention. It wasn’t until later on in high school though, in anatomy class, that we looked into the evolution of humans more. We looked into humans in the way that bones were formed, and how certain parts of our bodies, such as our gallbladders, that we can nowadays live without, unlike in ancient times. Majoring in Human Biology gives one of the broadest ranges of topics to cover in a major. Covering topics in chemistry, biology, physics, and many more. Mainly in biology do we, as students, look into evolution.
In biology, we look into how cells evolve throughout the span of a lifetime in the human body. In BS 161, we learned more about how the cells develop throughout the body and the processes that occur. Although, in BS 162, we learned about the evolution of species over a period of time and how natural selection and genes play a role in it.
After reading the articles and watching the lecture videos this week, it made me look at my human biology major in a new light. It further justified why we, as a society, need to learn about evolution, and the importance of it. Especially since I want to go into medicine as a future career. As a health professional, you are expected to constantly be providing new information and techniques to cure genetic diseases through the knowledge of genetic variations. When I always thought about evolution, I always thought about how similar we are to chimpanzees and the evolution into humankind. I had never considered, the further aspect of genetic variation among a species, such as humans. For example, we learn about Punnett Squares and about dominant and recessive genes, but I did not realize until this week while watching the lectures, that gene characteristics such as red hair, green eyes, and fair skin could all be linked through independent assortment. Although, it makes complete sense that certain phenotypic traits could be linked together. I also found it interesting to learn that when your chromosomes are being given to you from your parents, that they are completely random. Which again makes complete sense, although it is not something that you would necessarily walk around thinking of daily. That if one chromosome was different, that your genetic makeup and phenotype could be completely different.
Overall, this weeks reading allowed me to further dive deeper into my understanding of evolution and human variation among our society today. It also let me think about how the medical field and the human biology major at Michigan State University tie into the theme of evolution and how it unifies all sciences.
Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk.
I agree with a lot of what you said, as I also felt like evolution was interesting but not really applicable to life. It’s pretty fascinating that these articles and videos were able to show how evolution is present almost everywhere in our lives. I agree that genetic variation is something that is very important in the medical field and having extensive knowledge on genetic variation could be crucial in diagnosing and helping a patient. I feel like evolution should be more of a focus throughout all levels of schooling because of this fact and because it affects many more fields than just the medical field. Hopefully this change happens soon, so that future generations can be more aware about changes throughout time than any other generations.
Hello Megan,
I also have, currently, a Human Biology major. I am on the dental track and this class has for sure made me think about my major in a different way as well. I really like how you talked about what you had learned back in middle school because it truly made me go back and think of what I had learned then too. I truly felt the same way where you said that you found it interesting that when your chromosomes are being given to you that they are completely random. I did not know this until this class and I truly understand why and it’s all coming together more. I think this was a great post and was awesome to see somebody who felt the same exact way as me. Great read.
I’m also a Human Biology major and agree that we learn a lot about evolution especially in BS162. I took an anatomy class in high school too and I found it interesting how the human body has evolved in terms of organs and functions. Like you mentioned, our gallbladder does not serve a vital function so I wonder if in the future it will no longer exist or if certain changes occur in the environment will we need it to function again. I agree that when we think of evolution it’s normally referring to differences in primates and not within a species. I mentioned this in my blog too, rarely do we discuss why different groups of people have evolved in the ways we see today.