What Darwin never knew
Michael Wilkinson
Darwin set off on his journey to the Galapagos in 1831, he sailed for 5 long years and it was on that journey where he made some of his greatest discoveries. These amazing discoveries were the building block of the theory of evolution, although it couldn’t be fully proven until now, that we have studies and a source to DNA. An example shown in the documentary was how the pocket desert mice had adapted to change the colour of their fur, depending on which habitat they lived in. (The dark or light rock) When Darwin observed similar events, he didn’t quite know how this occurred. By observing the two DNA strands of the pocket mice, we now know that a different of base paring can drastically change a species. (In this case, it’s fur colour.) The main advancement in studies in evolution and DNA, was that there are “switches” that turn on and off certain genes. This discovery helps us understand that all organisms practically have the same set of genes, but whether it is turned on or not makes us different. This discovery can also be supported in the evidence found in embryos. In the video, it compared about 6 different embryos in the starting stages, and they all looked similar. Although they change over time, their starting structures are very alike. The main conclusion within all the evolutionary research done in the past years, is that small changes in the DNA can have a profound effect. This changes the way we view the future of evolution. Since small changes can drastically change an organism, we know that it is possible to have something so complex as a human, be related to a smaller organism. We also could know that this process is still active, and changing in long periods of time. The essential structure of this theory, thought up by Darwin was a backbone for the launch of what scientists are still discovering today about DNA. If it wasn’t for Darwin the world we live in today could be very, very differen