Evolutions impact on the future

This post will be dedicated to what the understanding of the fundamentals of evolution can do to help us, mainly in the scientific community later in the future.  Similar to my “help” post this will focus on how evolution is helping us.

Evolution, and our understanding of it will hopefully someday allow us to cure such viruses as A.I.D.s or cancer.  In these examples, evolution is working to help the virus survive anything we do by exploiting mutations that make the virus immune to our treatments.  If we can figure out more about what it is that causes these mutations that help the virus to reject treatments we will be able to figure out how to get around it and therefore cure some of the epidemics that are existent in the world.

Our expanded understanding of evolution later on can also lead us into advancements in agriculture, and environmental protection.  It is possible that we could find out what makes, for example a tree grow faster, if we took this and used our knowledge of change through evolution to find out how to promote and exploit this favorable mutation in a population of trees we would be able to grow and replenish our forests that are constantly being cut down.  Also if we could do the same thing with food crops, it would make then more readily available to consumers, and possibly help the cut down on hunger issues in third world countries.

Another fundamental relation to evolution that would be a huge help right now is the evolution of our cars.  Technology is progressing the performance of cars faster then thought possible in the days of Henry Ford’s Model T.  In the late 60’s, the corvette stingray was able to produce 435 horsepower at 5,800 rpms, and achieve less then 10 mpg on a good day.  Now Chevy has made that car capable of producing upwards of 550 horsepower at 5,800 rpms, and achieving more then twice the mpg as before.  This example of the evolution of cars gives insight into what we may expect to see in the near future.  We may see cars achieving far greater fuel effeciency then imagined possible, and in less time then we think.

Evolution, and how it helps us works slowly, we have to know that evolution itself doesn’t help us, it is our understanding of it that can help us to improve our lives.  When we understand evolution we start to understand trends, how to manipulate viruses to work for us, and how to make to world a better, or a tolerable place to live on.

Evolution vs. Creationism

This post is designated to the controversy between evolution and creationism. As you probably already know from several of my other blogs, the theory of evolution is the process of change in a species cause by the inheritance of favorable mutated traits in a population. Creationism, is the thought that all life, humanity, the universe and earth were created by some sort of god.

The theory of evolution has been pretty much proven and has overwhelming support in the scientific community compared to creationist views on the subject. The view of the evolution supporters is that the diversity of species in the world was caused by biological evolution, and that every species has a common ancestor who’s population was split due to natural selection and evolution of the species to adapt and help it live. The general creationist view is that all people and plants and animals were put on earth by a god. Extreme creationist views go as far as saying that all the evidence of evolution is false and unscientific in supporting the theory, but most creationist accept that the diversity between most things is due the evolution, but they still support that a god organized humans and other species, as well as the heavens and the earth.

The evidence supporting evolutionist theories are based mostly on the similarities in DNA between different species, study of genetics, and observations of change in populations, such as the work done by Charles Darwin

on the Galapagos islands in the 1800’s. Interesting evidence such as the fact that human and ape DNA is 99% the same, and compared to rat DNA, humans are 95% identical, provides insight into the former relation of species before evolution had time to give large distinctions to species. Darwins expiraments on the Galapagos island also provided astounding support for evolution in studying natural selection in birds. Darwin found noticed that the many species of birds although very similiar, had strong distinctions in their beak shape and structure. He noticed that birds who relied on eating nuts had short sturdy beaks for cracking them, where as birds who drank necture from flowers had long thin beaks to help them drink. Observations are what cause him to theorize about natural selection which is likely the strongest clarification for what evolution does in a population.

On the other hand the only good support for creationism is the argument that god created the very first organisms and then evolution took over to cause the diversity we have today.

Essence of once being jellyfish, and then frogs, then monkeys.

We are all individual from one another, our species as a whole is different from species such as dogs, and mammals are different from animals, and the species on land are different then those that thrive in the sea. We are different then the somewhat human looking green headed aliens from near planets, and we are different from the aliens with octopus arms and fish eyes from outer planets. These differences are what we define ourselves on nowadays, what most of us don’t realize is that the individuality we feed upon was dependent on our similarities, and wouldn’t be so obvious without our former likeness.

The 19th century scientist, Charles Darwin discovered to process of natural selection while in the Galapagos Islands in the 1830’s. His theory was that over time animals that developed favorable genetic mutations would be able to reproduce more easily and spread the mutation. This would eventually lead to the publishing of the theory of evolution, saying that all species are descendants of a common ancestor whose changes were driven by natural selection.

The essence of this similarity smells good, and when we think we realize we base ourselves on values of individuality amongst each other we don’t realize that collectively, as a human race we are similiar and we should cherish this more then our differences.

When we focus on our differences we get things like the slave trade and the holocaust, both of which are commonly referred to as “bad ideas” by most people.  One group that disagrees is the Ku Klux Klan, who everyone knows is a group of losers.  This group is one example of people who focus too much on differences and then do stupid things.  Thanks to groups such as “the Klan” we have figured out that basing ourselves as individuals on being different isn’t good and we should actually base our differences on and individually between races, as was intended by evolution, because after all it would be really lame if we found aliens and they were the same, or if we went to work and there were talking dogs and horses working intelligently alongside us.

The cleaver works of evolution, have granted those who wish to listen and understanding of style and sophistication that can be translated into guidance to how we live, and how we should treat aliens and talking horses.  In the end though evolution is what has led us to be as individual as we our, be it a good thing or not.

Why this Image is awesome

(above: The Coolest Cat In The World)

This is a picture of a genetically altered cat, I think.It is incredibly awesome though it loses points because i doubt it can actually fly or lay eggs.  Despite how cool it would be to have a flying kitty, or a furred chicken, whichever way you look at it, this is one of the downsides of what our understanding of evolution has led us to do.

Is it ethicially right to do this?

Most people probably say no, If eventually there were flying cats and meowing chickens people would probably become scared and withdraw into their homes leading to the deterioration of the entire world.  If you didn’t already guess, this is a bad thing.

We now understand how evolution and natural selection could cause this naturally, but does that mean we have the right to do it artificially by mutating genetics in the embryos of animals?

A certain group of people, often called rednecks, think that these mutations are a good thing.  They argue that if you could cross something as delicious as beef with corn we would no longer need to kill thousands of cattle every year to fill McDonalds quotas.  This Gains support from PETA which is a renowned group for its efforts and fair animal treatment.  Therefore if PETA is alright with what is happening to the animals it must be ok.

Both sides have substantial claims supporting why genetic mutation of animals should be allowed, but perhaps the best solution would be in a middle ground between the two opponents.

It isn’t beyond the expertise of todays scientists to be able to have control relatively accurately what they would create while inserting DNA into and embryo.  It would be beneficial to enhance characteristics of things, this however brings up the issue of the gap between social classes widening.  Another popular controversy on the topic of biological engineering is whether or not it is alright to design human specimen before birth to have certain characteristics.  Many say it takes away from constitutional rights because the child is decided without what it wants being considered.  People could be brought up without racism, obesity could be eliminated, and everyone could be made a productive part of society.  This could create a utopia, but on the other hand it could create a boring society where bands like Zeppelin couldnt spread their supposedly negative influence and it would probably suck.

The debate at this point us up in the air, and it is unclear as to the future of genetic engineering.

Help

This post will be relevant to how subjects concerning evolution are important and can help people.

The biggest help evolution has provided for people is the ability to live. Without evolution we would all likely not be around to be writing blogs, nor would the computer, or electricity have been invented to allow us too. So indirectly evolution has been responsible partially for earning us whatever grade we get on this blogging section of the class. This is because in the early days of human like creatures evolution was responsible for giving us abilities such as being bipedal. Another commonly know adaption resulting from evolution that helped people to live as long and prosperously as we have is peripheral vision.

Compared to almost anything else you can study, aside from subjects in astronomy, evolution takes a very long time and therefore it is hard to understand without a lot of study how it actually helps people. Evolutions help for humanity doesn’t come from in the present time but rather it helped us a very long time ago. This help the it contributed to also wasn’t a straight forward thing. The process of evolution was responsible for creating the very first organisms from single cells and eventually mutating them to form the complex systems in the human body that let us think as we so complexly do today.

Because evolution was responsible for creating us, therefore it is the reason we do everything we do. This means that evolution can help because it was partially responsible for creating the people who create places such as blood banks, the red cross, and free health insurance for Canadians. These undoubtedly help people, and evolution helped to make them so evolution actually indirectly helped the save peoples lives with blood transfusions, natural disaster relief efforts, or the cast to put on the arm of an unfortunate hockey player.

A strong consequence of evolution, that is present when evolution works in its fastest species is the ability for it to provide bacteria or virsuses the ability to adapt to cures for diseases. Cancer is largely attributed to being aided by evolution because evolution causes the cancer cells to reproduce and adapt do known ways to fight cancer. This is not that bad however though because as David French wrote in his book titled Everything is bad for you! Everything can link to cancer so this makes the fact that evolution helps cancer to be less horrifying then it first sounds. Unless you want to say that water bottles and public transit are evil and give everyone cancer, then you cant blame it on evolution either. Also when evolution helps cancer to succesfully reproduce to thought to be untameable levels it helps the host; someone such as lance armstrong; seem like even more of a hero when he beats cancer and wins the tour de france numerous times.

Although we don’t take much time to consider it, evolution is partially responsible for creating everything we know, including the heated disputes between creationists and learned scientist who support evolution. So evolution is an incredibly awesome thing and helps everyone in some way or another no matter what they think.

Introduction

My blog is about evolution. This blog will explain many very interesting processes in evolution and how it has had a major factor on why we live the way we do.

Evoltuion is a widely controversial subject although it pretty much created us so we should praise it. If it is possible to put religion aside for the a while you can understand why evolution is such an amazing subject. It is the answer to the question of how we became what we are and gives insight into what we may become.

The process of evolution was brought up by a 19th century english naturalist by the name of Charles Darwin.  Darwin’s theory of evolution was that all species are descendants of a common ancestor.  It occured through a process of natural selection, or a simple process where favorable mutations in the dna of an animal would allow it to live easier and reproduce easier passing on this mutation.  Over thousands of years this would change a species entirely based on what that species did to survive, and this process later became know as evolution.Although Darwin’s theory of evolution was rejected by the religious population, it was considered by scientists and now is considered to be a scientific fact.

As more and more is discovered about evolution and what makes it so interesting we get a better understanding of how the natural world works and it gives us a greater appreciation for what has made us and every other living thing on the earth so unique.

This is why i have decided to do my blog about Evolution.

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