How did the discovery of DNA prove that Darwin’s theory of evolution was correct and how does it change the way we view evolution today and into the future?
Charles Darwin along with Alfred Russel Wallace, thought of a way for life to change by a process Darwin called natural selection. Darwin’s theory related to the tree of life, and he believed that all life on earth was related, but he didn’t know how. Some of the things that Charles Darwin first noticed is that organisms have physical traits and behaviors that helped them to better survive and reproduce in their environment, and these traits that made them more ‘fit’ for there environment would be passed on to their offspring.
Darwin made some of his most important discoveries at the Galapagos islands, where there were an
imals found that weren’t anywhere else. Some of the things that Darwin noticed while he was in the Galapagos islands is that the Galapagos finches had different types of beaks, depending on what island they are on, because there were different food sources in the islands. For example, one island would have nuts as the main food so the finches had shorter, wider beaks to crush the nuts, and on another island the main food would be from flowers so the finches beaks would be longer and thinner so that the finches could get the food from the flowers. Another thing that Darwin noticed is that the shells of the giant tortoises would be different depending on the island that they were on.
However, what Darwin didn’t understand is how these changes happened and how all life was connected. Years later, after Darwin had passed the discovery of DNA came along and started to fill in the missing pieces that Darwin could not figure out. The discovery of DNA, taught us that without mutation, nothing would change, and we can now find the genes that are responsible for evolutionary change. Some of the things that the 
discovery of DNA has shown us is that humans have 23,000 genes, but that is the same number of genes as a chicken and less genes than an ear of corn, showing that it isn’t the number of genes that we have that makes us special, many of our key genes are actually similar to other animals. By comparing the DNA of humans and apes, we learned that a mutation in the human jaw muscle allows the human skull to keep expanding and giving more room for our brain to grow until we are adults.
This changes the way we view evolution today and into the future because this shows that we are not that different from animals, and hopefully in the future we can find out what exactly it is that makes us human.
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