Biology, the study of life and living organisms, is complex and encompasses a multitude of theories and ideas. In AP Biology, the first unit covered was evolution. Chapters 29, 31, 39, 40, 41, 42, and 43 in the textbook, Campbell’s Biology in Focus, not only discusses the four main ideas of biology: evolution, energy, information, and systems, but it also gives examples of each in order to help guide the reader’s understanding of the concepts. The first big idea of AP Biology is: “the process of evolution drives the diversity and unity of life.” Chapter 39 in the textbook encompasses this main idea through discussing natural selection and genetic diversity.
Additionally, the book modified my judgments of inheritance. Many research topics can stem out of these inherited defects with beneficial advantages for survival such as taking a part of the G6PD- deficiency gene to cure malaria. Furthermore, studying defects like hemochromatosis, diabetes, or favism may be crucial to taking a leap (and hopefully, landing) in the scientific and medical community. And we end on this quote from Dr. Sharon Moalem himself which very accurately sums up my comprehension of evolution from this book, “If you’ve come this far on our journey across the evolutionary landscape, you’ve probably gathered a good sense of the interconnectedness of — well, just about everything. Out genetic makeup has been adapting in response to where we live and what the weather’s like.
Although unusual for his time, Darwin’s idea that nature obeys no moral laws gradually grew more and more prominent as further discoveries were made supporting an evolutionary history of the earth. This objective view of nature, Gould notes, resolves any cognitive dissonance created by a religious perspective— if nature is not constrained by human or even divine morals, it is unsurprising that humans are able to find evil in its ways. No longer blinded by faith that everything in nature exists for a godly purpose, Gould claims that an individual who looks at nature objectively can learn from its successes and
As a young boy, while growing up in New York, one of his daily hobbies was analyzing species and sub species characteristics. He developed this habit after discovering Darwin’s writings at an early age. He attended Harvard and attained an undergraduate degree. In Harvard, he objectively studied nature
In Neil Shubin’s book Your Inner Fish the genetic blueprint of human life, and all animal life, is revealed. The book’s main message is that everything, every feature humans or any other animal can have, is part of the same genetic history. The features and mechanisms that make up our bodies have evolved through “descent with modification” over time. Slight changes to cells, bones, and genes have all culminated into new species that while different still carry reminders of their evolutionary past. When most learn of evolution they learn humans and primates evolved from a common ancestor, and they stop there, they do not look any further.
Nature has the ability to lead one to an improved comprehension of life. That is the point that Ralph Waldo Emerson, famous American essayist, wanted to convey to his readers in his long essay, Nature. In the essay, Emerson is saying that each and every person needs to broaden their own unique grasping of the universe that surrounds them. He is expressing this because he believes that people take nature for granted and do not really understand its purpose and impact. The author is stating all of this with a persuasive tone.
The arboreal hypothesis, put forth by Smith and Jones, explains the primates characteristics as adaptations to a life in trees. Their 3d perceiving eyes, intelligence, and grasping hands/feet all working in tandem to make swinging from tree to tree more effective. The loss of a developed sense of smell in favor for these adaptations which were more important for the life in the trees. The visual predation hypothesis asserted that the adaptations occurred to enhance the primates abilities to prey on insects/small creatures, which also happened to live in trees or forest undergrowth.
In philosophy, many works are built upon previous ones to expand on the ideas and formulate new concepts. Influenced by many philosophers and their ideas, Charles Darwin formulated many theories that remain essential to our understanding how life on Earth developed and metamorphosed. Darwin’s main concern was to research and find out how the organisms in the world came about and why they were successful in surviving to date. He believed all life is related and has descended from a common ancestor and over time branched out into different species. The mutations in genetic code that are beneficial to the organism are preserved because they aid survival, and the organism becomes more complex.
An example of natural selection is the change in coloration of some species. For example, Peppered moths which the most common being the dark colored ones over the white one because as where dark moths are able to camouflage in the dark colored lichen-trees from predators white ones can’t and are easily detected by predators.
Old Greek rationalists, for example, Anaximander hypothesized the improvement of life from non-life and the developmental plummet of man from creature. Charles Darwin basically conveyed something new to the old rationality - a conceivable instrument called "characteristic determination. " Natural choice acts to safeguard and aggregate minor beneficial hereditary transformations. Assume an individual from an animal groups built up a utilitarian favorable position (it developed wings and figured out how to fly). Its posterity would acquire that favorable position and pass it on to their posterity.
Social Darwinism is the result of applying Charles Darwin’s theories of evolution to human society, and one of the forefront Social Darwinists was none other than William Graham Sumner. In general, the concept of Social Darwinism has many pros such as “breeding” out weakness and disease, supporting the strong, and encouraging the development of a more advanced society. It also as many disadvantages, however, such as a smaller gene pool, hindering the weak, and controlling who gets to have children. Using the writings of both Darwin and Sumner, these pros and cons will be explored to prove that the negatives of Social Darwinism outweigh the positives. To begin, the first pro of Social Darwinism is the elimination of weakness and disease.
Evolutionism vs. Creationism Comparing and contrasting Evolution vs. Creationism. What are the similarities, and what are the differences? We will dive into these topics looking at both the belief systems in Creationism and what sort of belief goes into Evolutionism. Picking apart the fundamentals of these beliefs we will be able to tell what sets these two apart, and hopefully what makes these two core belief systems similar to one another.
This is thousands of years later and humans are still changing. Darwin’s idea is that humans will continue to evolve. Which fits what the Time Traveller theorized, the humans evolved to look the same and all act childish to make living less
Where did we come from? As per science shows, we evolve from our ancestors an even though there are facts about it, there is really hard to know since we have been the same humans since millions of years ago. We see evolution in bacteria more rapidly than humans and with the course of years, we see changes. The example of the wisdom tooth, it was to believe that it was used years ago to chew on raw meat or masticate raw vegetable, but now this day we don’t use them so most of the current wisdom tooth come out bad, or some don even come and they have to be removed because the mouth is getting smaller. Use it or lose it as they say.
Charles Darwin became famous for his theory of natural selection. This theory suggests that a change in heritability traits takes place in a population over time. This is due to random mutations that occur in the genome of an individual organism, and offspring can inherit these mutations. This was defined as the key to evolution, this is because random mutations arise in the genome of an individual. Until the 19th century, the prevailing view in western societies was that differences between individuals of species were uninteresting departures from their platonic ideals of created kinds.
