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In 16.3, it mentions the difference between natural selection and artificial selection (natural selection is influenced by the environment and artificial selection is influenced by a breeder/farmer). Would you say the evolution of humans now is more natural selection or artificial selection? Or is it neither? We are able to manipulate temperature we live and sleep in now, and we decide who we mate with, so I just thought it was interesting to think about.

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In 16.3, it mentions the difference between natural selection and artificial selection (natural selection is influenced by the environment and artificial selection is influenced by a breeder/farmer). Would you say the evolution of humans now is more natural selection or artificial selection? Or is it neither? We are able to manipulate temperature we live and sleep in now, and we decide who we mate with, so I just thought it was interesting to think about.

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- Georg Erdmann

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The textbook mentions Thomas Malthus and his belief that humanity will grow too fast and that that will cause overcrowding and starvation. How does that apply to us today over two hundred years later?

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I think it’s interesting how, with natural selection, there isn’t one “right way” for it to occur. A trait that helped an organism survive could later cause it to go extinct if the environment changes, and organisms change in different ways that are each specifically effective for that plant, animal, etc.

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I think it’s cool that farmers knew about selective breeding before Darwin’s time even if they didn’t call it that or know some of the science behind it. In a time where a lot of people believed that species didn’t change, farmers may have been challenging that belief without even knowing it

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I find it really interesting that the principles of struggle for existence, variation & adaptation, and survival of the fittest all apply to humans. Humans are animals, but when I first read over that part I couldn’t help but think of how these three principles related to humans. These especially apply to the early humans, and nomadic populations. Humans migrated up from Africa to other places all over the globe and they adapted to their environments and competed to get food and for land.

I also want to say I’m fascinated by the idea that a panther or cheetah could share a common ancestor with a bird, and that if you trace even farther back you can find a common ancestor for all living things. There was/is so much evolution and adaptation that has happened since that one common ancestor. That is really interesting to me.

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I thought it was really interesting that Lamarck believed that organisms had an urge by nature to be perfect, rather than assuming that their changes over time had to do with survival. This kind of thinking also reminded me of theories proposed about movement and gravity and energy that we studied in physics that stated that objects “just naturally wanted to be still”.

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First, I find it interesting in 16.2 when it says "Lamarck suggested that organisms could change during their lifetimes by selectively using or not using various parts of their bodies. He also suggested that individuals could pass these acquired traits on to their offspring, enabling species to change over time." I find this interesting because there is also the statement in 16.1 about organisms evolving over time. It also says in the book that Darwin was not the only one who had thoughts about characteristics of species changing over time. That is interesting.

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The theory that a species like cheetahs or tigers could have a common ancestor with other species like horses or fish if you went far back enough in time must have been a very controversial idea. It’s hard to imagine that animals so different from one another could branch off from the same family tree!

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I find the relationship between natural and artificial selection very interesting. If natural selection leads to organisms becoming healthier because they benefit off their environment and survive longer to have offspring, and artificial selection consists of humans selecting healthy species with useful variations, then wouldn’t these two eventually catch up to each other? Could human’s desire for healthy specimens end up working faster than nature’s variations, and then end a cycle of organisms by selecting too many of them before they were able to reproduce? What damage would this have on species; would it possible lead to extinction? -Lauren S

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I find it fascinating that even though breeders had been using artificial selection practically for their work, Darwin was the first to name the process and connect it to changes in wild species. It's also cool how many scientific discoveries happened around this time that worked together and supported or built off of each other.

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During chapter 16-2, the book mentions Lamarck and mentions that parents couldn’t always pass their helpful traits (such as long legs for aquatic birds) to their offspring but doesn’t that go against the principle of Artificial evolution and even Natural evolution?

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At the very end of 16.3 the book talks about Darwins "tree thinking theory". I was a little confused when reading about this, is Darwin hypothesizing that all living/extinct species come from common ancestors? Does he think this is true for humans as well as for animals? Also did he have any guesses for what these ancestors could be?

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Lamarck published his ideas about inheritance of acquired characteristics (which we now know to be false) the same year that Darwin was born, meaning that his work would have been still semi-modern during the time that Darwin really began his research. I’m wondering if Lamarck’s now-disproven hypothesis had any negative impact on what Darwin discovered, whether it be that Darwin learned about the hypothesis himself and had to overcome it, or that Darwin received push-back from people who took Lamarck more seriously. (Kind of similar to a Galileo vs. Aristotle scenario).

Also, how would adaption of prey species affect the delicate balance of the food chain? As species develop camouflage or more defensive behaviors (like the crane on page 461), wouldn’t there have had to be a direct correlation between the adaption of the predator in conjunction with the adaption of its prey? Is there a known direct correlation between the two?

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The artificial selection section is very fascinating! During only his lifetime, Darwin was able to breed some very wild and crazy looking pigeons. I find it cool because its so unlikely that any of these Selectively-bred birds would ever exist in the wild, due to what appear to be purely cosmetic features that wouldn’t help their chances of survival in the wild.

-Eli

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Darwin spent twenty years gathering additional evidence so his theories (which were controversial at the time) would be harder to disprove. He only went public with his research because another naturalist, Alfred Wallace, was planning to present on his evolutionary theory which was basically the same as Darwin’s. Do you believe the time Darwin spent gathering additional research was well spent or should he have published his theories sooner?
- Sydney Larson

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I remember learning about Natural Selection in Humanities last year. from what I learned last year and now it has only had examples of animals, but Darwin stays that "all species" goes through this process. Does this apply to us as humans as well, and if so in what ways have we changed physically, mentally, emotionally, etc, based on his researched and theory?

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Even with Lyell’s rock solid (haha rock) evidence that the earth was extremely old, I wonder what the reaction of the Catholic Church/science at the time was. I could see their ideas as a direct challenge to what the current thinking was regarding the age of the earth. This would be perceived, at its core, to be science beginning to disagree with the Bible, which could definitely cause some strife. It would be interesting to if there was any response or defense at all from the church.

-Eli