Evolution Reflection and Mindmap

Evolution is a tricky subject because of how prevalent the misconceptions are in mass society. I have always been very interested in evolution and I was never taught to doubt the theory, so my knowledge of it has generally been greater than that of my peers. Despite this though, I find myself getting confused or falling back into patterns of internalizing the widespread misconceptions. So far, the most profound thing I’ve learned is that evolution can happen by multiple methods, natural selection being only one of the three. I had already known about gene flow and genetic drift beforehand, but I never give them as much thought or credit as I do natural selection. It is interesting to learn about how these impact each other and collectively form evolutionary change. It was also new to me to learn that natural selection is the only evolutionary process that creates adaptations to make a population “more fit.” I had never considered it in this way. 

I am very comfortable with taxonomy, as this is something I have been familiarizing myself with for years and have been incorporating into my zoo designs. I think arranging exhibits based on cladograms is an effective way to have visitors “walk through the tree of life,” thus allowing them to internalize species relations much more easily. This would help remedy the disconnect between the zoos efforts to educate the public and the public’s general disregard for the educational aspect of zoos. While phylogeny and evolution on the species level are rather intuitive for me, the evolution on the microbiological level is much more difficult. I have learned many of these concepts, though to varying degrees, in ninth grade biology, in my Bio 1 course, and in my Human Evolution course, as well as in my own research. However, the knowledge does not really seem to stick with me. In all honesty, this is probably because I am simply not as interested. It is also much easier for me to internalize things that I can easily visualize, such as large animals, rather than microscopic processes that I have never seen. I am hoping that in this course, I can not only familiarize myself once again with these concepts, but also cultivate a greater interest in them. I think it is important, as a zoo designer, to understand the microscopic processes as well, especially in regards to how they affect breeding programs and other such conservation efforts. This is where I would most like to grow as this course progresses.