EVOLUTION

Think/Discuss:

1) Evolution is still a controversial theory among scientists which is why it is not taught in most American schools-F

2) Evolution is the process of organisms adapting to better survive in their environment-F

3) Physical traits acquired in one's lifetime can be passed onto future offspring-F

4) Evolution is about the survival of the fittest, best adapted individuals-T

5) Behaviours like self-sacrifice for non-family members cannot be explained by evolutionary theory-F

6) Beneficial mutations make new genes that are better than the ones before and will be passed on the next generation-T

7)​ After billions of years of evolution, modern-day human beings are now perfectly adapted to their current environment-F

 

Watch/Make Notes:

Ted-Ed: Myth and Misconceptions of Evolution

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZt1Gn0R22Q

• Evolution isn't organisms adapting to their environment

• Lamarck's theory of traits acquired during lifetime and those being passed on to their offspring was incorrect

• Individual organisms do not evolve, the actual evolution happens when the organism isn't born yet and its DNA is being built.

• The DNA will have an error resulting in a change in the organism

• Evolutionary fitness depends on how well suited an organism is to the environment not how strong

• Natural selection happens at the genetic level

Ted-Ed: Four Ways to Understand the Earths Age

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkxWmh-tFGs

• Counting the number of isotopes in a sample of rock that undergoes radio-active decay

• Earth is 4.6 billion years ago 

 

 

Reflect/Journal:

 

 

Although it wasn’t discussed in the video, I find the biggest misconception of evolution is the fact that people discredit it because it is a theory. If people realized that a theory is actually perhaps the highest point in science, it would surely turn a lot of heads around and make more people embrace evolution. But from the video, I believe the most interesting misconception is that Evolution is organisms adapting to their environment. I actually believed that misconception but luckily the video fixed that.

 

This chapter wasn’t really that interesting. It highlighted some key points but I felt that it repeated some of the things in chapter 7.1. The interesting concept discussed in this chapter were pseudogenes. Instead of a vestigial feature like an extra toe, and pseudogene is a vestigial part of the DNA which is really cool. Part of this chapter was really difficult to understand and that section was essentially the section that talked about the different letters in DNA. We skipped that section when we were learning about Genetics which made understanding part of 7.6 difficult.