Jon Ayre

Anthropology 1020
Nov 30 2016
Melissa Schaefer, Ph.D
Reflection
When I started the class I knew little to nothing about evolution but
had many misconceptions. I was taught to be extremely skeptical of
Darwinism and it had always been presented to me as fantastical or totally
out of my depth. After taking a geology class last semester and getting some
perspective I was ready to learn how humans fit into that expanded
understanding. Starting with the smallest biological systems within a cell to
the effects of macroevolution taking place over millions of years of human
evolution. I was continually struck by the importance of little things I had
never considered.
At the beginning of this class, I had very limited understanding of evolution,
biology, and anthropology. My understanding was all pop-cultural or from a
creationist standpoint never having a science class at my fundamentalist
LDS school. Indeed, I was like the majority of the population learning about
evolution from the media, video games and movies where it was used as a
fun plot device. I had heard the catchy phrases at the end of Law and Order
episodes and the like saying Survival of the fittest to explain the death of a
paleontologist. Most of these leaning more into Lamarckian evolution,
evolution actively working towards a goal. Within the first few classes, these

ideas were dismissed, however hard to forget. It was hard to stop myself
from thinking of modern humans as the goal of evolution rather than the
result.
I found every piece of the biological basis of life deeply gratifying and
compelling. To this point the idea of the human bodies existence,
maintenance and function felt ethereal and impossible to understand. Once
understanding protein synthesis, mitosis and meiosis as a tangible process I
was, to my own surprise, ecstatic to learn how these processes fit into our
journey as a species. However, with each new theory came a challenge of
comprehension.
Microevolution through genetic drift was challenging until reading
about Ellis-Van Creveld syndrome. EVC had a clear effect on an isolated
population of Pennsylvanian Amish. After being founded by at least one
person carrying the recessive gene and inbreeding resulted in a prevalence
of otherwise unfavorable traits. Traits that in a larger population, without
inbreeding, wouldnt survive as most individuals with EVC dont make it past
infancy and as its recessive requires that both parents have the gene for it to
manifest in the offspring to be affected.
After understanding the principals of microevolution it became easier
to understand some of the interconnected mechanisms of macroevolution.
The Cambrian explosion/extinction being the perfect example. Mass
extinction leaving behind unoccupied ecological niches, adaptive radiation
that fills those niches to the specialization that hones, subdivides these

niches even further. In the case of Darwins finches, multiple different

species were able to occupy the same relatively small niches with less
competition or scarcity of resources thanks to the specialization of their
beaks form and function.
More than the specific details I learned in this class I value the
perspective it gives me of the earth, life and time. I have felt that my ability
to seek out and understand scientific evidence and discussion has been
expanded as well my ability to skeptically evaluate them. I'm excited to
apply these skills in the future to understand and expand my knowledge.