Biological Evolution - Final Ideas and Questions

[Erin Nash]

Use the space below to record your final learning about evolution. How has your learning changed? Compare your current understanding of evolution to your original post. What information do you feel you understand better as a result of our class discussions. What do you still not understand? 

Your first step today will be examining your notes - look through the packet to make sure you thoroughly understand the information in the packet.

Next you will want to include your question you had researched for today's class period. What was your question? What did you learn from this question? What resources did you use to answer this?

Think about your learning from our class notes, as well as the videos and audio excerpts you listened to in class. How has your view of evolution changed?

If you are still finding you are not understanding some concepts regarding evolution, this site is very helpful in regard to providing information regarding this scientific theory.

[Ally S]

Hmm..

My thinking on evolution has changed a little bit. It's good to know that the whole "man came from monkeys" isn't taken as seriously as i thought. I always thought that science was trying to make people believe that major changes, such as the neck of the giraffe pictures we saw, were completely possible in a few generations of life. I think that's why I was so against believing in it. But it makes sense. & now I know how mutation fits in hand-in-hand with evolution, as well.

I'm really glad that the point was made about the neck of the giraffe. The picture was based on LaMarck's theory. When the giraffe needed to reach the leaves on the trees, he couldn't make his neck longer; obviously, it needed to grow on its own. The giraffe couldn't control it like the picture suggested. & when a new trait is acquired to help accomplish the task at hand, it's not passed down through to the next generation. It's an acquired trait. The ability to LEARN the new trait may be passed down, but that's as much as it gets. I'm glad that point was made in our discussion.

I hadn't understood completely how mutations fit in with evolution. I wasn't sure about why that was brought up in our discussion. But thinking about it, it makes more sense to me now. Everything else was very easy to understand, & i'm glad my former thinking of evolution is changed, because it makes much more sense. :)

[Sean Grinstead]

Before i thought that evolution happened because of what i kno now is Lamarck's Theory its about use and disuse. I thought that because it just made sense to me that if you dont use it, it will go away.

The question that i had was do females always choose their mate. By looking up "sexual selection in males" on Google, I found that the female doesn't always choose, but in most cases they do. There was several sites that showed how the female selects a mate. I did find one site that can argue that the males choose. It says in the fly Scatophaga stercoraria, the male captures the female, but it also said that the female fly sticks around larger male flies for three reasons: (1) reduced harm in struggles; (2) more rapid copulation and oviposition, with lower risk to the female and her progeny; and (3) greater ability to escape danger during copulation. What I've learned about evolution in this study is that no individual evolves, but the population as a whole evolves. An example of this is shown in the picture:

Most of the bugs that survive are immune to the pesticide but it kills everything else. Since there is nothing to compete the immune bug reproduces and all the offspring are immune bugs. So the population has evolved into bugs that are immune to the pesticide, not any one individual. When I saw this slide it explained the process to me way better. In most cases evolution doesn't happen that rapidly it usually happens over many generations.
I dont understand exactly what mutation has to do with all of this.

[Sean Grinstead]

I found this very interesting video on pipe fish This is interesting because this is one of the few species that males actually get pregnant and have the offspring. So the male chooses which females eggs he wants to develop better. So the male chooses

[Aziz Siddikov]

My thinking about the evolution theory before the project that we did wasn't very full. There was a lot of missing parts, parts i didn't understand before. But now after two projects we did, and after we had discussions about evolution in class, it makes more sense now. I knew about Darwin's theory of evolution, but i was something that i just read from book, something that i didn't had evidence for, so i needed evidence and experiments in order to believe it. And that is what doing two projects gave us.

While we were doing project number one I liked how they gave us two theory, and gave us freedom to choose which one we believe in. And activity after activity it was becoming more and more clear that Darwin's theory is the right one. I understand that individuals can not involve, but populations can. But it takes generation to evolution to happen, and only "fittest" will survive and pass on his traits.

Before doing project and watching the video i thought that theories are usually are made up and not true. I didn't know that theory ties up all the facts together. Explains everything that happened. Facts is like bricks in the wall and theory is glue that holds all bricks together.

As we had discussion in class, I found a lot of evidence of evolution. One of them is Fossil Evidence: remains of extinct species in the rock. Another evidence is Bio-geography: unrelated species look like alike in similar environments. And there is a lot more evidences of evolution: Embyology, Comparative Anatomy...

Now for me evolution makes more sense, and I have enough evidence of it :)

[Miranda Lynn Stanton]

When we were asked what we knew about evolution i didn't know what it was. Now i know what it is. Evolution is the change you can see from overtime. It's like the rocks you see from the highway. They used to be under water but now there not. That means a long time ago there used to be water there. It is the changing of species and how they act. When the Grand Canyon was splitting it split apart the animals. They used to act the same if they were related but now they act different. Fossils is an evidence of evolution. It shows you what the animal looked like.

[Laci Shoemaker]

My learning on evolution has changed a lot. At first I didn't quite understand what evolution was, all I knew was that people said we came from monkeys. Since we've been studying evolution my thought process on the subject has changed greatly. I know that there are more sides to where we actually came from than the thought that we came from monkeys. I understand the two theories better (Lamarck & Darwin).

I really liked when we did the online assignment with the birds & the fish. While doing the fish project, racing them & such, it made me understand that theory better. I liked it a lot. It helped me understand that if you put fast food into a tank with slow fish, eventually the slow fish will get hungry so they have to speed up to catch the fast fish to eat or they're going to die. Same thing with putting not enough food in a tank with too many fish, they have to race to their food, so they're going to get faster, making their offsrping faster. I also liked the example about the giraffe. It all makes sense that since they have to reach for their food, their necks get longer after time, so their offspring's necks will end up being long as well.

I didn't have a question from the last post, but I always wondered what was the difference between Lamarck's theory & Darwin's... I didn't know what they were to being with, but sitting through class & taking the notes in the packet made me understand, as well as the online project. Lamarck's theory is when organisms strive to improve themselves & become more advanced. They use "use & disuse." Use is what's used the most, like a certain body part & disuse is what's used the least, if it's not used then it wastes away. The offspring inherit the modified use & disuse. Darwin's theory basically is survival of the fittest, if you can't keep up with what's going on, you're not going to survive. for example, the cavemen didn't make it until current time, it's because humans of our kind have a better survival rate, we're more smart & technologically advanced, so currently we're the fittest.

My view on evolution hasn't really changed much, since I didn't really have one to begin with, it just grew. I don't really know what side I pick, Lamarck's or Darwin's.

[Laci Shoemaker]

I found this video really interesting. It talks about natural selection & it shows a picture with crows basically showing that if they keep picking a green bug then eventually there won't be any green bugs left because they can't reproduce fast enough, so they'll become extinct. It also shows how a population gets cut down into smaller populations & those bugs inside the little populations can't reproduce with those from another making new species when they eventually start to reproduce. I just found it kind of interesting.

[Terra Younger]

"My view on evolution hasn't really changed much, since I didn't really have one to begin with, it just grew. I don't really know what side I pick, Lamarck's or Darwin's." ... I totally agree with the fact that our knowledge just grew. Basically all of us had no clue about evolution in the beginning... We still have much to learn. However, I don't agree with the picking between theories, I think that evolution involves aspects of both Lamarck's and Darwin's hypothesizes. I also believe that there's aspects of evolution that neither one of the two covered.

[Erin Nash]

Just keep in mind that Lamarck's theory of evolution was an early one - and August Weismann's experiments eventually helped to show that this theory was incorrect. Lamarck's ideas can't be correct - think of a simple example - if you color your hair blond throughout your life - will your baby be born with blond hair because of this? Lamarck would have said yes. What do you think? :)

[Coleman Wade Babcock]

Well..... Evolution tends to make a little more sense to me now. Im sure you have heard that i didnt really believe in evolution before, but now after Mr. Nash has helped explain the situation i understand it all now. It makes amazing sense to me and i get it. Intelligent design is what makes sense. Its crazy amazing to me how organisms are pretty much programmed to evolve.

Anyways i have learned that everything about us has evolved to be that way. Everything. Even emotions like love. Even Mating has evolved into a complex thing too. It shows that simple creatures only mate to ensure survival and that more complex creatures have developed complex emotions like love.

Since everything has evolved which brings me to the one question i have about evolution. Has technology caused us to suppress the need for evolution? Since modern medicine has evolved itself has it replaced the need for evolution like it?

Thats what i dont get. Everyhting else though makes really really good sense. I guess you can say my thoughts on evolution have, well, evolved.

Yes i went there

[Coleman Wade Babcock]

since my question was a beast of a research topic i have decided to revise it a little. My real question is are humans evolving today, and if so then what is in store for us next

[Coleman Wade Babcock]

Believe it or not but we still are. I found an article that answers both questions, actually. We as a species have not surpassed the need for natural selection and evolution. This Time article explains how we are still evolving and readily over time women could be shorter, heavier, healthier, and have their first child 5 months sooner. It actually is a really exciting article.