Life Sciences 11- Evolution
Carys Gould
What Darwin Didn’t Know-
When understanding more regarding what Darwin imagined of evolution I
learned about the multiple changes between Darwin’s theory and the modern discoveries made today. A major factor I noticed is how much technology has, evolved! As well as in what way it has impacted events like evolution over time. We have had so many new breakthroughs in the modern day, that Darwin would have never found without the use of the technology we have today.
Though Darwin never knew about DNA, the later discovery of DNA by James Watson and Francis Crick, proved Darwin’s theory of evolution. This is because they show descent from common ancestors through similarities in structure and development through embryos. As very different species had been researched as having the same sequence of gen
es present during early development. Through time the embryos become more different because of changed genes through mutation. This is a course of evolution. Darwin also concluded that specific individuals in a species may have physical traits or behaviors that may make them more suitable to survive and reproduce. Darwin called this natural selection. Along with the organism’s fitness arises from the individual’s adaptations. This also helps organisms through the process of natural selection.
I think it changes the way we view evolution today because of how far we can imagine evolution has gone back into the past and how much it has evolved into today- humans and how they descended is interesting to me, as I have recently learned that we may have descended through common ancestors from fish, etc. With the technology today we were able to build off Darwin’s idea of evolution by looking where he didn’t, which was the cells. With this, DNA is simpler to unravel for coding. During these discoveries that were made inside animals, learning that they all have the same cells and DNA, but they are all vastly different in miniscule ways. For example, in complementary base pairing there are variations in ATCG that code for characteristics in humans and animals. One piece in DNA (gene) is for hair and a different one can be for eye color and all the other specific traits unique to you.
Evolution into the future is hard to think about and honestly scares me as well as changes the way I view evolution because there are so many questions unanswered. Like, will humans evolve more, how will we evolve, what will our adaptions/mutations be and how long will it take? After these Darwin’s finding it followed that his theory was incorrect, but he came up with the beginning ideas of evolution though he did not get the result. There are so many more findings we are making in our current world today that may alter the history of evolution, but we may not discover them until we find the organisms. In general, his theory was incorrect and the collection of DNA in present day is the correct theory of evolution.
Photo Bibliography-
Gallagher, James. “Human Embryos Edited to Stop Disease.” BBC News, BBC, 2 Aug. 2017, https://www.bbc.com/news/health-40802147.
West, John G., et al. “Darwin in the Dock: C.S. Lewis’s Limited Acceptance of Common Descent.” Evolution News, 3 Aug. 2019, https://evolutionnews.org/2013/11/darwin_in_the_d_1/.
“Charles Darwin.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., https://www.britannica.com/biography/Charles-Darwin.