Humanities Homework Help

Hello everyone,

I have always thought of evolution as a challenging topic to discuss from earth science to biology courses but I do know that every time evolution was discussed Charles Darwin and his theories of evolution were presented in some form. When I think of the word evolution, immediately “survival of the fittest” comes to mind. The change of species over time. Given the theories of Charles Darwin, I had heard of natural selection before, knowing that organisms adapt to their environment to survive.. However, with the idea of natural selection in mind, and how organisms should adapt to their environment, it becomes a misconception which I sometimes get caught up with that it is not survival in which evolution occurs, reproduction is. In other views and perspectives it can be seen differently which is why that sometimes is slightly different. 

Peer 2

• What did you think about evolution before reading Chapter 1 ?
• I had always just taken evolution as a truth for as long as I can remember. It had always seemed like the logical explanation for how we got here and how we are today. Being an anthropology major I have taken a few classes that would cover the topic of evolution so I was pretty well informed on the topic. There are fossils and bones and many other signs of proof that this is how things happened and at this point the scientific evidence behind it would make it extremely hard to disprove for the people who refuse to believe in it. A poll was done and I believed it said around 30 percent of Americans do not believe in evolution and that animals and humans have always existed in their current form. Its strange to me that they deny this even though the church themselves had said that it exist!
  • Had you heard about natural selection before
• I Have heard about natural selection a few times. It ties right in with the theory of evolution. Its one of those survival of the fittest scenarios where the strongest go on to pass down their traits. It is linked to adaptation and the change in a certain species. Charles Darwin believed in this and believes that the species that had adaptive traits were more likely to have an advantage when it came to survival and reproducing.
  • What information presented was new to you or slightly different?
• One of the things that kind of altered my opinion on evolution was from the TED video. Whenever I had previously thought about evolution I always thought of survival of the fittest and how the strongest and most athletic or quickest and most agile animals would go on to survive and end up passing their genes down the line. After watching the video it made me begin to attribute an animals environment to the success rate of survival. The strongest lion could end up being born in an area that was scarce on resources and his fate would not be as bright as an average lion living in a luscious jungle. It changed me more towards leaning to survival of the luckiest rather than the fittest.