“What Darwin Never Knew” Blog Post

Darwin’s theory was that species changed, that they evolved and we all came from common ancestors millions of years ago.  For the years following people have been trying to prove that his theory is correct, and humans have done just that.  With the discovery on DNA, scientists have been able to study and compare the DNA of human to other animals.  Researchers have been able to find connections that seem impossible, but are true thanks to DNA and evolution.  Some of the biggest finds have been made, such as how, ” an ancient fish evolves to become the ancestor of all four-limbed animals, even us”.

Darwin was a scientist that people awed until he brought up one idea that came to him while he was viewing a captive orangutan, “he saw a lot of human behavior in the way this orangutan behaved”.  He had a theory that humans evolved from monkeys.  The public began to make fun of him creating comics of his head on the body of a chimp.  But it wasn’t until long after his death that researchers found he was right once again.  According to scientist Katie Pollard, “given all the obvious differences between humans and chimps, you might expect our D.N.A. to be really different. But, in fact, it’s more like 99 percent identical”.  That means there’s only a 1% difference that makes us humans and the chimps, chimps.  Nowadays, humans accept the fact that we are descendants from chimps, but back in Darwin’s days, the public didn’t respond well and thought he was crazy for thinking such a thing.

The study of DNA has created the possibilities to answer questions we all have.  Where did we come from?  What makes us humans?  What separates us from other species?  Without the discovery and studies of DNA, we wouldn’t be able to know all this.  The discoveries researchers have made, opened up the door to a world of new possibilities.