Quick Quiz
It looks like your students have some questions about Misconceptions regarding evolution. Reflect on what you have just learned and see how well you can respond. Just click on their raised hands!
You could respond:
“There is no question that life did begin and has a history.
Evolution is about the history of life after it began. Not knowing the precise beginning does not mean that the history
didn’t happen.”
You could respond:
“Populations, through natural selection, may change to better
fit their environmental circumstances. Improvement is only in terms of fitness to a particular place and time. Thus, a
lion may be very fit in the plains of Africa but utterly unfit for life in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean or the Swiss
Alps. And some animals have changed very little over a very long period of time, such as sharks.”
You could respond:
“It is true that mutations are random and that they are the
primary source of genetic variation. BUT natural selection is not random. For instance, in an aquatic environment,
selection will be for a streamlined shape; in a very cold environment, selection will be for strategies that cope with the
cold. And variations that survive and reproduce better have more offspring. That is far from random.”
You could respond:
“No. Scientists do not debate whether or not evolution took
place, but they do ‘argue’ about some aspects such as the pace at which evolution occurs. Darwin believed that evolution
proceeded at a slow, deliberate pace, but now scientists recognize that it can proceed at a much more rapid pace at times.
So they have not rejected Darwin or evolution, they are just modifying the details as we learn more.”
You could respond:
“Humans are animals and you act like a human. Porcupines
gnaw on trees and salmon swim upstream. People ride bicycles. It all works out just fine.”
You could respond:
“Only if giant-headed people tend to reproduce more than us regular-headed people.”
You could respond:
“Organisms don’t automatically get what they need out of evolution. If there happen to be any coral that can survive in extra-warm water, they may be favored by natural selection—but if these coral don’t happen to exist, then the coral population is out of luck. Unless the water gets cooler again, the coral population may go extinct.”
You could respond:
“Science and religion deal with different things. Science tries to figure out how things in the natural world work, and its explanations are based on observations of natural processes. Religion, on the other hand, deals with spirituality and the supernatural world. Its explanations often involve supernatural forces. Since science and religion deal with different realms, there doesn't need to be a conflict between them.”
