I have truly learned so much about evolution in this course. Through out learning new material every week, I had developed a better understanding on how to think about evolution and which and how those factors effect evolution and change. I went into this course knowing the basics on how human evolution is the “evolutionary process that led to the emergence of anatomically modern humans” but did not realize how much and what affected us to get to where we were today. Humans are constantly evolving. We are evolving through how we survive, environmental factors, gene mutation, in social aspects and of course reproduction. Scientists being able to research about the last hundreds of thousands years ago and being able to find fossils to tell us what was going on has been very beneficial for our future which is another thing I learned that crucial for us. These finding have been able to answer the “ why?” Are we the way we are. With the technology and knowledge we have now, we are able keep learning about how we evolved and that leads us to know more about our future.
We are currently evolving in so many ways. The first example I could think of is antibiotic resistance. I previously learned a lot about antibiotic resistance in my virology course and thought about how well it linked with this weeks theme what cultural, biological and environmental changed are occurring. Antibiotic resistance is directly related to evolution. We have over used certain antibiotics over the time to where bacteria is now mutating to be able to survive and then reproduce. This can cause issues because then once these traits are passed on to offsprings, that generation can possibly be resistance to a certain illness.
Another factor that I think we are really evolving is in cultural evolution, especially in the United States. Cultural evolution is the idea of different cultures and sub groups, joining together and having a mixed population. I think a lot of humans now are interested and open to learn, embrace, and be apart of other types of cultures than just their “own”. I think this idea of cultural evolution is going to really keep increasing and I think this is a big factor of physical features as well. Cultural evolution kind of links up with biological evolution as well with how we choose to live and survive really affects our genes later on. This also links with antibiotic resistance with how people believe and what they chose for their health care.
I have learned so much in this course that really interests me with how we as a society live today. We as humans are greatly accelerating and evolving, especially now with technology and certain social and cultural beliefs incorporated in our daily lives.
Hello ,
I definitely agree that I have learned so much more about evolution over the course of this class! I also had not idea that humans were still evolving today. I guess since we focused a lot on the past I did not previously realize this. I liked your mention of antibiotics in this blog. This is definitely a perk of modern medicine evolving because of knowledge. Antibiotic resistance is kind of a scary thing to me, what if cancer cells learn to resist chemo and other methods we have to attempt to cure it?
I also enjoyed where you mentioned cultural evolution. Our culture as Americans has been constantly growing for a very long time. Because there are people from so many different cultures and so many different countries here, it is natural that we would adopt new cultural norms as a country.
I’m glad you used the idea of cultural evolution in yours because I was having a hard time conceptualizing it. The idea that cultures are coming together and adapting to one another is interesting, especially in a time like today where we are currently seeing a lot of violence associated with sub-groups interacting. Cultures learning from each other has been happening so long that the planet would not be the same without it. I read a National Geographic article one time that said that in the future, our cultures, in theory, will be so intermingled that nearly every human in the world will be culturally and racially (as physical features) ambiguous. I’m curious as to how long that could take or if it will happen at all.