Darwin Never Knew

The documentary, “Darwin’s Dangerous Idea” tells the story of Charles Darwin’s conception of his theory of natural selection, and how it explains the evolutionary process and species adaptation. The story begins with a brief overview of his 5-year stint on the HMS Beagle as the ship's naturalist, during her South American voyage. The film shows how Mr. Darwin collected fossils and many species of animals and birds from many different regions especially the Galapagos Islands. It portrays Mr. Darwin’s return to England and his struggle between the mainstream religious beliefs and his personal beliefs of how different species came to be. Additionally, the documentary covers his presentation of fossils and ideas to the scientific community,

“I see no good reasons why the views given in this volume should shock the religious views of anyone.”

Charles Darwin is becoming one of the most famous scientists of this century. He has a theory that we as humans have evolved from a single celled organism to what we are now after billions of years. He has been studying aps for many years and he says they are extremely similar to humans like in their behavior if treated unfairly they will get mad. They can even do some easy tasks like give a rock to a person and they get food. As said in his famous quote “It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.”

The Japanese attack on Darwin on the 19th February 1942, did not happen by chance but from the work of a major contributing factor leading to various consequences and eventually cementing the event as a significant one.

Majority of mice in New Mexico’s Valley of Fire have dark color. The population increase of dark-colored mice in Valley of Fire happened because of natural selection. Mice that do not suit the environment, which are light-colored mice, cannot survive in Valley of Fire because they are easily noticed on dark soil by the predators. On the other hand, dark-colored mice can hide easily on dark soil, which made them survive. Whereas the mice near the desert are mutated, those near the lava are not mutated. Each mouse from different lava found to have a different gene. Whereas the mice near the desert’s color change was from a random mutation, that of the mice near the lavas was not random. Because, each dark-colored mouse from two different lavas

Although Darwin’s (1809-1882) work in evolutionary observation might appear radically different from those focused on other areas, the theories he developed from these observation lead to such groundbreaking publishing’s as The Origin of Species. These intern caused an upset within the then accepted norms of philosophy and religion, had a profound impact on the academia, and further

The Rock Pocket Mouses’ coat color is extremely important because the mice use it as a mean of camouflage if the mice are a different color of fur than its environment, their overall fitness, how well an organism can survive and reproduce in its environment, decreases. Due to a volcanic eruption, most of the environment has turned from a sandy-colored soil to black soil; therefore making it very difficult for the unmutated, pale mice to survive. The dark fur color of the Rock Pocket’s population occurred due to a random mutation, a mistake made in the DNA whether it is good or bad, known as the MC1R gene. Because of this, variation among the mice was created, making some mice dark-colored and others to stay light-colored. Dark-colored mice

The biological perspective also can be called Biopsychological Perspective, is a large scientific perspective that undertake that human behaviour and thought processes have a biological fundamental points. Investigations with biological perspective into biochemistry of behaviour link with genetics and heritability, neurotransmitters and hormones, and the psychophysics of sensation and perception. Parts of biological perspective may include; Physiological psychology, neuroscience, pyschoneuroimunology and psychopharmacology. The biological perspective relies on scientific methods because of this, its scope of information is limited to variable that can be manipulated.

Finally, the genes that determine the coat color are well known from studies of humans and lab mice. In other words, the ecosystem of mice and rocks presented in this study satisfies the three requirements that make it so hard to study this sort of problem.

In order for natural selection to take effect with coat coloration of rock pocket mice that live on New Mexico’s Valley of Fire’s lava flows, conditions were met that are necessary and sufficient for evolutionary change. These conditions relate with variation. With variation, the coats of the mice must be heritable, and have a distinctive mortality (Study Week 4). The variation occurs here with the two different colours of fur; dark and light. These colours came from slightly different genes over time that controls their pigment. This mutation has heritability because the dark mice coat has enough of an advantage for staying alive that their offspring had more offspring and so on; eventually leading to natural selection weeding out the mice

Darwin wanted to further his studies in plant and animal life, and he also became interested in the similarities of plant and animal species to those of the human species. He noticed that humans too also had to develop new characteristics that would help them adapt to their environments. This made him want to look further into where humans came from and also question the idea of creationism. He argued that men are animals because they have to adapt to their surroundings just as animals do. He suggested that the stronger animals have a better survival chance and they produce offspring that carry this trait. A whole new population of species can derive from these offspring and traits that have evolved from older generations and species. This became known as Darwin’s Theory of Evolution.

In the article, "Gene gives mice and chipmunks their pinstripes", it explains how biologists identified a new molecular pathway behind mammalian fur pattern (any various warm- blooded vertebrate animal of the class 'Mammalia', characterized by a coating of hair on their skin.) This demonstrates how genetics may contributes to the evolution and adaptation of chipmunks and mice. In the chipmunk, scientists have discovered a protein called ALX3 (ALX Homeobox 3P), it helps direct the development of bones and cartilage in the face and also paints light stripes down the rodents. Uncovering the molecular equipment may show the evolutionary processes that help animals camouflage themselves and adapt to their environments. In evolution, organisms become progressively better at adapting to

The main claims of evolution are that all species are connected, species change, and that genes of different species are not identical due to mutations. PBS’s film, What Darwin Never Knew, explains that “all species are connected and they change through Darwin’s ‘descent with modification’ theory” (What Darwin Never Knew). The species are connected, yet varying through mutations. “Mutations are a critical ingredient in the recipe for evolution. Without mutation, everything would stay constant, generation after generation. Mutation generates variation, differences between individuals” (What Darwin Never Knew). In different species, most of the DNA is similar, with the exception of one different sequence. The mutations can cause changes between species, causing variation. Overall, it

Charles Darwin’s experiment was not 100% accurate. His definition of mechanism of evolution was quiet accurate but two major factors were missing.

On a different perspective, I would also think that Darwin would argue that there is a difference between faith and religion. Newton had faith, Euler had faith, Pascal had faith, Einstein had faith, George Washington Carver had faith, many neuro-scientists and astrophysicists that are making great discoveries today have faith. Man is a moral and